Independence Day

Firstly, I have been meaning to update since Wednesday. The reason why I haven’t is I’ve been PO’d because our digi-cam broke, and there were pics that I wanted to include in this post. Grrr…

Anyhow, on September 16^th, Mexico celebrates its independence. From whom you ask? More on that later. Because pretty much everything was closed on Wednesday, everyone goes out to party on Tuesday night. As the Mexican boyfriend of a colleague told us: the streets would run with tequila.

We were invited to that colleague's for a party. Our Austrian friend came as well (it's funny to think that I had to come to Mexico to become friends with an Austrian). Because the Mexican's really seem to love the communal-food thing, I volunteered to bring chocolate-chip cookies, and we were tasked to bring cheese (Oaxaca cheese, good for melting, similar to mozzarella). After we got home from after-school clubs, I whipped up the cookies, Andrew ran out to the grocery store down the street for the cheese, and then we were on our way.

There was a mix-up in the directions, which resulted in Andrew and I wandering in suburbia and a parking garage for about half and hour, carrying a ziploc bag of cookies, and a wheel of cheese. We felt like participants on "The Amazing Race." Eventually, out of frustration, we sought out a phone in the Holiday Inn across the street. I won't go into details about how you use a pay phone at the Holiday Inn in Mexico; suffice it to say it doesn't take coins or credit cards (however, mysterious, overpriced phone card will be accepted, with difficulty). We placed our SOS call to my Austrian savior, who came to pick us up.

We arrived at the party, no worse for wear (except for broken cookies). As time passed, more and more Mexicans showed up to this tiny ground-floor apartment. Most of the party was outside. A grill was produced, beef ribs were cooked, and I never figured out what the cheese was for. Attempting to learn some history, I asked a pink-shirted man what went down for Mexico to gain its independence. I expected a quick 3-5 sentences about who, what, when. What I did get was a non-stop lecture about I'm not even sure, because I tuned out after about 5 minutes. The great thing was that every time my attention wandered, Pink-o would get annoyed and fuss until he could continue. Joy.

I finally extracted myself, spoke on the merits of old Metallica versus new Metallica, saw the time, found Andrew (ask him who He-Man is) and left the party.

On the actual day of independence (Wednesday), we went, along with friends, to the gigantic flag monument. It's up on a hill, and there's about 20 or so gigantic Mexican flags flying. The view was great (and so would be the pictures...) and the weather hot.

And that is how your average Mexican 20-something celebrates their country's independence.