What the deal is.

Hello everyone, I hope you're all just dandy.

I'd just like to give a little update to what I've been doing lately, and some of the changes in my life obviously. Maintaining a blog is tough to do, because you have to go out and do things and make things happen in order to have good material, that is to say, that I can't actively update this thang while exploring cool places or meeting new people, you, the readers, have to hear it through me.
Admittedly, this is a hard task and , also admittedly, I haven't been doing it very well! Oh well.

At the beginning of the month, I went to a party for my friend's birthday, Camille from France. I arrived in bus after meeting up with my friend Lucy, and from Angelópolis, a mall, we took a bus the the Pyramid of Cholula, which is ridiculous to be saying like it was a normal thing, but that's the way things are, honestly. Don't worry, guys, I still appreciate and love looking at it.

So, we arrived at the party, and I will never get over how beautiful Mexican streets are. Picture a Wilson Farms or 711 or something like that. It has a big sign, fluoresent lights, trademarks, stuff like that. In México, with the exception of OXXO stores and other ones like it, the convinience stores family-owned, relatively unconnected affairs, with awesome names like Miscelania Juquilita or Abarrotes Cristo.

 Miscelania translates pretty well, but abarrotes doesn't. If you'll look at the definition, it comes from the word "to pack", which I take to mean that they are considered the things that one packs. Abarrotes are gum, pop, chips, cigarrettes, but other more local things like tamarind candy, chicharrón (pork skin), and all my favorite brands of Mexican beer (Click here for a bunch of examples).

So, to get back to my original point, these abarrote stores are magnificently decorated, with hand-painted signs, usually dedicated to some saint, person, or idea. So fun to explore in these little places, in a lot of them, if you move too much, you'll knock some stuff over! Imagine the little old ladies who sell newspapers in NYC, the ones that you can barely see, and you get the idea. So much more personal, and a lot more efficient in terms of space!



I'm a sucker for these family businesses, quite honestly.




I recently chatted with the guy who runs one near my house, a store with pretty much anything you could imagine (except deodorant, apparently), but the size of an American living room.



Another interesting thing about these stores is that seemingly without problem, it's common to see 2 or 3 open and running on the same block.

Sorry that this isn't my picture, but it gives you the idea:

Credit to pbase.com

So, just sharing some thoughts on the things that I hope will always stay interesting and weird! Come to México, it is a beautiful and interesting country, full of the type of things that you always thought would be stereotypical, but end up being perfectly in place when you find them.

Much love to all!