Mexico-lindo (III)

Mexico, Mexico lindo (II)

We have been in lovely Mexico roughly two weeks. Mexico is one of the culturally hybrid countries that results from the random mixture of a variety of cultures, including a handful number of ethnic groups, imigrants from all over the world, especially descendants of the Spaniards - in broad sense, including the Catalans and Basque- that progressively went down there in search for a new life. Their culture seems to be 60% influenced by the US (with which they have a love-hate relationship) and 40% by Europe, mainly Spain. Although they like Spanish tacky siguers such as Miquel Bosé - even more than in Spain, and they love Spanish gossip, Mexico its pretty innovative in arts and cinema. They have lots to offer, the cuisine, needs sophistication and a couple of worldwide known chefs, but that's it. I can imagine ravioli made form the a parasite that grows in the Maize crops, or excellent mezcal (alcholic beverage) served in an empty cucumber.

Besides its need to progress economically, and their struggle to find the right economic and social model to fight poverty and political instability, the country has its strong indentity (despite the 30 m Mexican flags everywhere). Very few poeple know that Mexico has a set of multinational companies (BIMBO) and knows how to do make money out of tourists without emptying their pockets. They host the richest man in the world, a libanesse mexican who really got it right with business.

Socially and politically, the country lacks a middle class willing to substitute current political elites. This makes the political system a sort of unsuccessful mechansism to portray social demands. Unfortunately, policy is somewhat similar irrespectively of who runs the country, there is clear-cut evidence of "path dependency" and "inertia". PAN seems no different that PRI in most of the relevant fronts.

The country needs to strenghten the public eduction system (not only that for the elites), pay better to middle managers so as to develop a middle class that will set up a socialdemocrat party different form the PRD (whose ideiology seems outdated), and keep being innovative, do not copy the US, and stop drinking coke, it will make the country fat, and will bring serious health problems later on (chronic illnesses).

For Catalans, Mexico is the foreign country in Latinamerica with the stronguest emotional ties, and for us personally, it it clearly is like that. We have had a phantastic time with our friends Dario&Maria, Issa &Kengi as well as Edu . We got to know more things about the country, and really tried all the food we wished including insects, different types of tecquila, beers and nopales along with a set of of traditional dishes. Visited museums, etc. It has been great fun indeed. We will come back for sure!!

Some anecdotes worth mentioning were the following. Below you can see a photograph of a police car breaking the law by overtaking other cars despite the clear countinuous line in pavement. We found lots of wierd trafic signals announcing to "respect trafic signals" (but one wonders, people that do not respect them,would not repect this one either!?), and finally we saw funny adverts in old shops that went like that: "quality and hygine since 1995", so that one wonders : ¿how was the shop before 1995 ?.

Mexico, Mexico lindo (I)

Villalonga and his "advice for life"

A general advice for life publicised by Jose Luís de Villalonga, who passed away yesterday:

"Streghten your vices, be prideful and administer and exhault your defects. It is the key to success. ¿Isn't it true that nobody has never told you this? This is becuase the wish of everybody else is to weaken whoever does something. Yet, you will be told to "be a good person", so that they can live out of your goodness. To be modest, to avoid you overshadowing them. To cultivate your virtues, fearing you will cultivate your vices. For all this, be prideful and, obove all, listen carefullty what an old man says: spread hatred. Hatred, provides the person hated with life".

José Luis de Villalonga (1920-2007).
"Cartas de París a mis paisanos los iberos, 1998"

LSE Health away day 2007~Joan's work colleagues

Not married, no kids yet, but a shared mortgage

After roughly two years of living in Kentish Town we have finally decided that we want to live in the neighbourhood. We have both long term work contracts in London so we've gone ahead. Now we have started the process of buying a flat by putting an offer. The process is quite tuff, in fact we werew told it can take something like 6-8 months to buy. Transaction costs are quite sizeable, 2000£ solicitors plys 10,000 stamp duty. Besides this, there are thousands of little thing we need to have compleated, and each one of these things implies wasted time in inerviews and bureaucracy.

We seem to have the impression that all has gone a little quicker in out case, solicitor Jane L. and a mortgage advisor are prettu efficient. See how it ends, if its ends well we will have a two bedroom flat in Prince of Wales Road, nice top flat with wooden floors and high ceilings. Clearly ourideal place to start seting up a family.

2007 Wimbledon with vile's brother & Visit to Barcelona

Sarita & Nikos Wedding Provença last June

Vile's sister wedding in Ampúries,...sometime mid May

Last Easter in New York

when winter comes,.it was four months time

After having had lots of technical issues with blogger.com we are back

elcosta's sister in London

El metge i el Viagra

Lo saben aquel que dice que es un señor de cierta edad que va al médico i li diu:
"Mire doctor, ¿habría algun remedio para poder hacer el amor todos los dias, pero que no sea el Viagra, que tengo problemas cardiovasculares?"
I el doctor li respon:
" Que edad tiene usted?"
"Ochenta y cinco años"
"Pues mire, no hay nada", li torna a dir el metge.
"Pues yo tengo un amigo de misma edad y que tampoco puede tomar el Viagra y él dice que hace el amor todos los dias"
I el doctor li respon: " Bueno, pues dígalo usted también"
Eugenio, el geni.

New yea's Eve: "a Day to Stay at Home",...this year with friends from London

No sex please, we're married

One can gauge the heat of an issue by the level of discomfort it generates at a dinner party. Asking if there is sex after marriage is about as bad as asking if there is life after death.I mean sexy sex is the stuff of affairs, NOT marriage." His wife, bejewelled, beautifully dressed, intelligent, sat opposite him, unblinking. "Frilly black knickers!" he bellowed, "They're just not going to cut it after you've been ringside for the C-section." In Britain, 50% of couples within the first three years of marriage and in the first year of their child's life divorce. A lack of pleasure kills love."

The spectre of infidelity haunts most couples like the hairline crack in the Golden Bowl. The mistress system is what made middle-class marriage (possibly all marriage) work for centuries across different cultures .But, not wanting to live in a Fellini movie where some strumpet gets to wear all the high heels, I turned my mind to the 21st-century alternative: sex inside marriage, or what Americans call "hot monogamy. Not more gooey closeness but a little more distance. Space between husband and wife, space between mother and child and, most challenging of all, space between a kitchen table covered in bills and a steaming hot boudoir.

There's a powerful tendency," Esther Perel writes in her introduction, "in long-term relationships to favour the predictable over the unpredictable. Yet without an element of uncertainty there is no longing, no anticipation, no frisson."As a New York sex therapist, the question she seems to prod her clients (and readers) with most is "Why not?" "Why not stop breast-feeding?" she asked me over tea. "The hormones pumping through your body are flat-lining your libido." I choked on my baguette. "Why not have a night away from your son, or several nights?".

Perel herself revs along on four hours a night, yet she does have empathy, tinged with impatience, for erotic sloths: "I understand exhaustion and (as a mother) I am the last one to trivialise this. I was tired too, but I also know that two lovers at the beginning of an affair are able to stay up all night. I think desire in marriage is about getting over the hump and knowing it will feel good, that it will be good for us."Perel refutes the now fashionable child-centred model of family life, arguing: "The happiness of the parents dictates the stability of the whole family."

In Perel's pursuit of the erotic she pushes women to explore what they want in bed, in their fantasies and in their lives. But most women I know are so busy treading water that any sex feels like a victory. Eroticism, to me, seems very much like the tattered risotto recipe in the bottom of my handbag. It requires time and special ingredients. I resolve to seize both.Spontaneity is a fabulous idea, but in an ongoing relationship whatever is going to 'just happen' already has. Now they have to make it happen. Committed sex is intentional sex."
This notion of planning, she says, is just what new lovers do: the mood, the motel, the bottle of Moët.

New Christmas, Old questions

Living in between two cities will be more and more often a com on feature. People do not necessarily like all about the city they were grew up. But even if they do, more regulary with the reduction of cross border barriers to education more poeple decide to study overseas and end up staying. Finally work and economic actitivty might well stagnate locally, and only the "leaving option" is left open for those who wish to pursue a carreer. In any case, our point is that people meet their partners abroad and may well decide to stay abroad too. Our case, is however a little different, we met aborad but we are both from the same city , just that it happens that for a variaty of reasons we don't want to live in Barcelona just as yet. Joan misses Catalonia, family and friends and has a job there so he spends at leat a term every year. Marta only visits family three times a year and that's about it really.

One of the times that we tend to be both in Barcelona is in christmas and we are used to the same question: when are you comming back? Interestingly, we have come to a conclusion that we have no real response. We are not anymore as when we fist left, but were we are its not home either. So I guess, a tentaive conclusion is that we are sort of hybrid Catalan, that for a variaty of resons we feel good and free aborad ( better jobs and higher self control). Only bringing to life new human being would turn us into back to convetional.