el crispito

[WARNING: links within this entry point to images containing partial nudity!]

Our friends Joseph and Larry, whom we came to know online through a Yahoo! Group about Guadalajara, and who have been giving us immense and invaluable help getting situated in town, were invited to a birthday party. Upon their telling the birthday boy, Andrés, about us, he told them to bring us along.

In Guadalajara, people live very close together. Even most of the houses are cramped in together so that having a party in them would be very disruptive to the neighbors, especially because it seems that Mexicans like their music so loud that it neutralizes any conversation within a three block radius. To serve the demand of those who are giving parties, an entire industry surrounds event locations and services. While some exist in the city, there are others that are on the outskirts of town (and are quickly being swallowed up by the sprawl of the city as it grows). Andrés' family owns their own place outside of Guadalajara for the sole purpose of throwing parties. It is a large enclosed lawn with the gate on one side and a covered patio with a bar on the other. When they have parties, they hire staff to prepare food and serve drinks.

We arrived after a two-and-a-half hour car ride to cover the 15 miles or so from Joseph and Larry's house (it was a Saturday afternoon and there is only one road out of the city in that direction), we arrived at the party. When we got out of the car, a group of young children came up to Larry and pestered him for money to "watch" the car. He paid them some token change and we walked up to the gates. We were immediately introduced to Andrés, a beautiful man of French and Spanish ancestry, stylishly dressed and very amiable in his greeting. He escorted us to a table and made sure that we knew where the food and drinks were, and oh, what food it was. They had handmade tortillas to be filled with chicken and potatoes, frijoles, guacamole, calabacitas, nopales and mole.

We met a number of people that you are sure to get to know through upcoming entries, but an amazing number of them spoke English, either through study or living in the United States for a period of time. We met "Larry También," the partner of José Luís, with whom we went to see a film (along with Joseph and Larry) last week. He moved to Guadalajara six years ago from San Francisco, and is much happier with the more relaxed environment and the much lower cost of living here. We met Lili, a strikingly gorgeous friend of Andrés, and Roberto and his partner José. Roberto was an exchange student at Columbine High School. He and José were delighted to hear that we hate Bush, as have been most of the Mexicans we've met here. In the Mexico edition of the Miami Herald today, the latest Bush administration fiasco is detailed, in which the president of the most powerful country in the world launched an illegal domestic surveillance program to spy on American citizens without warrants.

It was a very relaxed, yet upper-crust affair. Everyone there was so handsome, charming and intelligent. I felt like Cinderella at the ball. Shawn and I could not help commenting several times on how our male friends would have been ga-ga over all the stunningly beautiful women in attendance. And then they turned down the lights and brought out the strippers. [image 2 | 3 | 4]

Soon we piled back into the car and came back to the city, leaving the others to party on into the night. Joseph and Larry were kind enough to drop us at a wonderful restaurant called Mio Cardio (Avenida Tepeyac 189, Chapalita, 33/35-87-57-90), where we dined on fabulous Mediterranean food and listened to a French woman playing sambas on a saxophone.

All in all, it was a perfect day, the kind we've dreamed of for months.