Well Rich started this….

I damn well know that you are not all that interested in my adventures in Mexico because many of you have been (you may not remember it, but you were actually there…that was not just a drunken 4-day daydream). But, I have some time to kill, ACELAB Ted has his fingers up his nose, and Audit Team Leader Sue is blabbering something to the effect of ‘I wish the IBM Cafe here in Mexico made Bloody Marys.” So here you go…

Although in Mexico, I am not fortunate enough to go chasing Geisha Girls around with $1 bills (Mexico would translate them as ‘Fish Girls’ anyway and that is entirely unappealing), I have other wonderous sites to look at. For I am in Mexico City, where every cab smells different. Ah yes Mexico, where their national flag and the fact that no one here vists the dentists binds them together in unity. Glorious Mexico, where I can go shopping for souvenirs at an ancient Aztec city, and be offered a $40 peso discount if I give the vendor my hiking boots. But hey, he’ll throw in the malnourished cat for free so I should have contemplated it. Mexico, where the police abandon the war on drugs and the restaurants intensify the war on the stomach. Mexico City, where I am sure if the inhaitants of the city knew what Immodium AD was, would give that company enough money to run all of Mexico. Come splash in “pea soup” green water, come to the city where everything comes with cheese, come to the country where you can bargain at Macys. Ah Mexico City!

In all seriousness, the place is quite cool. There is lots to do and it is generally a lot of fun. What Mexico lacks in cleanliness it makes up for in nightlife. When my toughest decision of the week is tequila with almond or clear tequila, I ain’t got no complaints. I miss home at times, but not Jon’s bastard cat from hell (the only, and I use this term loosely, ‘domesticated,’ cat I know that prefers the taste of human flesh to Meow Mix). Right now, Jon is renting out my $700+/month room at reasonables rates, so jump on it now before he decides to make it the cat’s litterbox. The most interesting challenge each day is trying to speak enough Spanish to get food. Somehow, with every restaurant I go to I end up with: a) A spanish waitress who is the size and has the facial hair equivalent of Barry White; and b) some meat involving chocolate spicy sauce because everything I say (expletives, the word ‘furby,’ and the phrase ‘get those kids out of your headlock…oh you just forgot to shave your armpits…please don’t hurt me’) translates into “ah, he must want the chicken with Mole (spicy chocolate) sauce.” But seriously, all joking aside, they put us up in a very nice hotel, there’s a 55 year old member of the team that wants to do shooters at a bar sometime this week, and I am learning a lot. So it is all very cool.

So now that I have had my taste of Spanish culture, I look forward to my taste of Asian culture. My next assignment brings me to Singapore, land of unnecessary rules like no chewing bubble gum, no spray painting cars, no hanging out with the women who want to “love me long time,” ad nausiem, yadda yadda yadda.

One piece of advice before I go…stay an intern for as long as possible. I work about 55-60 hours a week, while I only get paid for 40 of them. Rich, Shannon and ACELAB Ted might laugh now, but they’ll miss those extra hours once they start full-time. I must resort to purchasing IBM stock to make up the gap. C’est la vie.

Anyway, here’s hoping that Shannon will continue the trend by reporting from Asswater Junction, USA. And I don’t mean Maine because that’s affectionately titled ‘Cousin Country.’

Livin’ La Vida Loca,

-RC–