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I actually ate breakfast this time, and there was all kinds of cool weird stuff. Try cooking eggs suspended in a watery brown sauce. They make spheres and pockets and the yolks don't break.
Rehearsal was 10-1:30 again, although about the last half hour was Spierer trying gently to explain to this trumpet player from Oklahoma that he knew the part was wrong, and he was trying to explain how to fix it. "Jimmy, I KNOW," he would say. Poor Jimmy was not the sharpest pencil in the box. But I sure enjoyed the malediction again. Aww.
After rehearsal I heard rumors of people going to Six Flags Mexico. It sounded like an opportunity. Other people were going shopping. Ew. So I ate the rest of her sandwich before we got in the cab, and Cherie and Andrew took me to Six Flags.
Now, Cherie and Andrew have probably been best friends for ages, judging by how they act together. Cherie is the blondest peaches-and-cream girl I've ever seen, but she's a bilingual primary school teacher, and she speaks excellent Spanish. Andrew is actually from Cuba, and looks vaguely like it, but he's nearly as pale. His boyfriend is a chef, so he knows what to get at restaurants. He is also fluent.
So there I am at Six Flags Mexico feeling all kinds of monolingual, but it's okay, because they're both incredibly fun, and I can understand more than I can speak anyway. The entrance looks utterly deserted, and we wonder if it's closed, but after two or three trips back and forth between the gate and the security guards we discover that the ticket booth is in a small concessions stand off to the side. Okay. We go through the mile-long maze of line-bars, buy a ticket, go in, and it still looks utterly deserted. This is a good thing in a theme park.
The first ride we went on was Superman. Even the line was amazing (not that we stayed long to look at the office stage-set, the Metropolitan cityscapes, and the Superman-power info signs, because there was NOBODY IN LINE). There were awesome (what a perfect word to describe the experience) 60mph drops from stunning heights, gut- (but not bone-) wrenching twists and loops and flights upside down. When you were at the highest point, it seemed like you could see all of the city. And the city looks much cooler than Houston; there are hills, and the buildings are painted amazing and tacky and wonderful colors, and the other rides are zooming miles away. It was very, very cool.
It turned out to be the best one. What we did next, in the words of Cherie, turned us every which way but loose. It was a huge badass-looking construction of scaffolding and a metal track. She has trepidations over wooden rides in general, but we convinced her against her better judgment to go on the Medusa. We would have done better to beat each other up with utmost ferocity. I have seriously never been on a bad ride before. There was shaking, jerking, whiplash, beating about the sides of the head and shoulders, spine-wrenching (in a bad way) gravitational changes. Cherie had only two words for the experience when we got out: f--- that. We had to sit quietly for half an hour after the ride and try not to die.
To work our way back up after that equilibrium disaster, we rode the very small but quite pleasant Nestle Quik (don't ask me) ride, which is much in ths style of the Viper at Astroworld. Except shorter. We were all surprised when it was over.
Cherie had seen the gunslinger ride (which was set in the Alps, oddly enough) from the Nestle Quik, and so we went for that. Andrew and I had fun, sitting in what I termed crash helmets for the butt and being twirled furiously from the revolving carousel canopy, but Cherie was terrified that she would hit the admittedly rather proximal trees. So we took another rest after that one and did the ferris wheel.
From the ferris wheel we could see that there were only three real rides left, and we didn't want to do the Dungeon-Drop equivalent anyway, so we headed out to the Hollywood theme area where the other two, Boomerang (um... very Hollywood) and Batman were.
Cherie retained her better judgment and stayed on the ground while Andrew and I went for the Boomerang. There was no line at all, and in fact we had to wait for enough people to arrive and fill enough cars so that they could set the ride off. It's a lot like Greezed Lightnin', but it has several more loops and some sideways curves, and seems much longer on the way backwards. It also hurt. It was fun, though, unlike the Medusa, but I came to realize that this was Mexico, and there are different standards. Ouch.
We stopped at a Dippin Dots stand and sedately ate some tiny balls of ice cream to stave off the headaches we'd got off the Boomerang, and I poked Cherie's hand for her lingering Medusa headache. And then it was off to Batman.
No line, once again, but a reasonable ride, I'd say a distant second to Superman. It's a suspended one, a lot like the Disneyland version for those of you who know it. Cherie and I had a game plan to avoid more head-knocking; we wedged our heads into the corner of the padded vest-ish thing with handles that comes down over you to keep you in the suspended seat. So we got off it in fairly good shape, only to find...
It was time to shop. Cherie and Andrew have amusement-park friends for whom they had to buy souvenirs, so I toddled along after them and sat down at the front of every store to nurse my Boomerang headache while they looked at actually rather reasonably priced (for the US, not for Mexico) Six Flags merchandise. The walk back across the parking lot to the cab seemed like a trek across the Sahara. We were beat. But there was more.
I hadn't been to the Cathedral before. I'd been to the Zocalo (big square in the middle of town), so I'd seen it from the front, but I'd never been inside. Henceforth it will stand as a major element in the design plans for the castle. There are no words. Sigh. We came in right in the middle of a mass, too, so people were shaking censers and the golden light was cascading through the golden stained-glass windows, and the light green marble arches must have been ten stories high. There was a big golden icon-holding false wall right in the middle, with a set of pipes for an organ on either side of it, and tables with rank upon rank of lit candles along the walls. The wooden cages around each room with icons and golden walls and Renaissance-style paintings in them were carved intricately, and the altar and the dais it stood on and the table all the arcane-looking golden church instruments of service looked like it was carved out of one huge block of marble or alabaster. There was scaffolding over the back of the top of the cross (I've forgotten my religious architecture terms) where they were restoring some of what must have been hundreds of paintings in one.
The priest, or pastor, or whoever guy who was singing, needed to stop. Ouch. But the incense went by and the concrete columns towered and the ceiling was delicately green arches, and I would like to take Uncertain Outcome down there to sneak a sanctuary improvisation.
Outside the cathedral were the usual Mexican complement of beggars and vendors and peddlers, so Cherie and Andrew bought some postcards and a bilingual primary-school magazine before I drew their attention to the drumming and feathers and dancing going on across the street in the middle of the square. We went over there and watched the decked-out but still half-naked Aztec dancers stamp and twirl and shake their many bones and feathers and rattles, until they stopped. Turns out, they had a sheet with a bunch of carvings and rocks and jewelry to sell. Cherie and Andrew started haggling right away, and as the dancers undressed literally infront of us, they grinned and haggled back. One asked me, as he removed his skirt, "hables no Espan~ol?" I shook my head ashamedly. "Find thing you like." I looked over the three sheets several times, and there was much there that I would have bought but my resources were limited. I couldn't stand to leave that tiny little obsidian frog there. I told the dancer, now in quite decent, if frayed, khakis and a button-down, "la rana me gusta." "La rana?" "Si. Quanto?" He seemed relieved I could at least understand Spanish numbers. "Veinte y cinco." I handed it to him without hesitation. Looking back, I probably should have argued, but I don't mind paying nearly $2.50 for a frog the size of my thumbnail.
When we'd all picked up a couple prizes, I spotted another set of dancers across the square. These ones weren't as exciting, and they had what looked like a badly-costumed groupie trying to learn their moves. She wasn't very good. We didn't spend long watching them, but went off in search of a bathroom. A huge department store availed itself, one in which Andrew reminded Cherie they'd once looked at a $70 umbrella. We couldn't find the bathroom, and it seemed inadvisable to ask the staff in Spanish, since the established practice of fancy Mexican department stores is not to let natives use their bathrooms, but one can hardly prohibit brainless tourists. It was Cherie who had to go, but she told Andrew to ask. So he did his best shameless American tourist impression, and bewilderedly asked the girl behind the makeup counter "banyo paRa moohairis?" She hurriedly directed him up the escalator.
We noticed as we went up, that the ceiling of this department store had a stained-glass light. It was a fancy department store. So Cherie and I decided it was probably safe to flush the toilet paper. They even gave us scratch-and-sniff perfume cards on the way out.
Boy was I beat when we got in the cab, but we had to make a stop at Walmart (across the street from the Radisson on this huge and strange and confusing pedestrian bridge) for Andrew to buy a camera. And then we walked back. I'm glad he knew the way.
Rehearsal was 10-1:30 again, although about the last half hour was Spierer trying gently to explain to this trumpet player from Oklahoma that he knew the part was wrong, and he was trying to explain how to fix it. "Jimmy, I KNOW," he would say. Poor Jimmy was not the sharpest pencil in the box. But I sure enjoyed the malediction again. Aww.
After rehearsal I heard rumors of people going to Six Flags Mexico. It sounded like an opportunity. Other people were going shopping. Ew. So I ate the rest of her sandwich before we got in the cab, and Cherie and Andrew took me to Six Flags.
Now, Cherie and Andrew have probably been best friends for ages, judging by how they act together. Cherie is the blondest peaches-and-cream girl I've ever seen, but she's a bilingual primary school teacher, and she speaks excellent Spanish. Andrew is actually from Cuba, and looks vaguely like it, but he's nearly as pale. His boyfriend is a chef, so he knows what to get at restaurants. He is also fluent.
So there I am at Six Flags Mexico feeling all kinds of monolingual, but it's okay, because they're both incredibly fun, and I can understand more than I can speak anyway. The entrance looks utterly deserted, and we wonder if it's closed, but after two or three trips back and forth between the gate and the security guards we discover that the ticket booth is in a small concessions stand off to the side. Okay. We go through the mile-long maze of line-bars, buy a ticket, go in, and it still looks utterly deserted. This is a good thing in a theme park.
The first ride we went on was Superman. Even the line was amazing (not that we stayed long to look at the office stage-set, the Metropolitan cityscapes, and the Superman-power info signs, because there was NOBODY IN LINE). There were awesome (what a perfect word to describe the experience) 60mph drops from stunning heights, gut- (but not bone-) wrenching twists and loops and flights upside down. When you were at the highest point, it seemed like you could see all of the city. And the city looks much cooler than Houston; there are hills, and the buildings are painted amazing and tacky and wonderful colors, and the other rides are zooming miles away. It was very, very cool.
It turned out to be the best one. What we did next, in the words of Cherie, turned us every which way but loose. It was a huge badass-looking construction of scaffolding and a metal track. She has trepidations over wooden rides in general, but we convinced her against her better judgment to go on the Medusa. We would have done better to beat each other up with utmost ferocity. I have seriously never been on a bad ride before. There was shaking, jerking, whiplash, beating about the sides of the head and shoulders, spine-wrenching (in a bad way) gravitational changes. Cherie had only two words for the experience when we got out: f--- that. We had to sit quietly for half an hour after the ride and try not to die.
To work our way back up after that equilibrium disaster, we rode the very small but quite pleasant Nestle Quik (don't ask me) ride, which is much in ths style of the Viper at Astroworld. Except shorter. We were all surprised when it was over.
Cherie had seen the gunslinger ride (which was set in the Alps, oddly enough) from the Nestle Quik, and so we went for that. Andrew and I had fun, sitting in what I termed crash helmets for the butt and being twirled furiously from the revolving carousel canopy, but Cherie was terrified that she would hit the admittedly rather proximal trees. So we took another rest after that one and did the ferris wheel.
From the ferris wheel we could see that there were only three real rides left, and we didn't want to do the Dungeon-Drop equivalent anyway, so we headed out to the Hollywood theme area where the other two, Boomerang (um... very Hollywood) and Batman were.
Cherie retained her better judgment and stayed on the ground while Andrew and I went for the Boomerang. There was no line at all, and in fact we had to wait for enough people to arrive and fill enough cars so that they could set the ride off. It's a lot like Greezed Lightnin', but it has several more loops and some sideways curves, and seems much longer on the way backwards. It also hurt. It was fun, though, unlike the Medusa, but I came to realize that this was Mexico, and there are different standards. Ouch.
We stopped at a Dippin Dots stand and sedately ate some tiny balls of ice cream to stave off the headaches we'd got off the Boomerang, and I poked Cherie's hand for her lingering Medusa headache. And then it was off to Batman.
No line, once again, but a reasonable ride, I'd say a distant second to Superman. It's a suspended one, a lot like the Disneyland version for those of you who know it. Cherie and I had a game plan to avoid more head-knocking; we wedged our heads into the corner of the padded vest-ish thing with handles that comes down over you to keep you in the suspended seat. So we got off it in fairly good shape, only to find...
It was time to shop. Cherie and Andrew have amusement-park friends for whom they had to buy souvenirs, so I toddled along after them and sat down at the front of every store to nurse my Boomerang headache while they looked at actually rather reasonably priced (for the US, not for Mexico) Six Flags merchandise. The walk back across the parking lot to the cab seemed like a trek across the Sahara. We were beat. But there was more.
I hadn't been to the Cathedral before. I'd been to the Zocalo (big square in the middle of town), so I'd seen it from the front, but I'd never been inside. Henceforth it will stand as a major element in the design plans for the castle. There are no words. Sigh. We came in right in the middle of a mass, too, so people were shaking censers and the golden light was cascading through the golden stained-glass windows, and the light green marble arches must have been ten stories high. There was a big golden icon-holding false wall right in the middle, with a set of pipes for an organ on either side of it, and tables with rank upon rank of lit candles along the walls. The wooden cages around each room with icons and golden walls and Renaissance-style paintings in them were carved intricately, and the altar and the dais it stood on and the table all the arcane-looking golden church instruments of service looked like it was carved out of one huge block of marble or alabaster. There was scaffolding over the back of the top of the cross (I've forgotten my religious architecture terms) where they were restoring some of what must have been hundreds of paintings in one.
The priest, or pastor, or whoever guy who was singing, needed to stop. Ouch. But the incense went by and the concrete columns towered and the ceiling was delicately green arches, and I would like to take Uncertain Outcome down there to sneak a sanctuary improvisation.
Outside the cathedral were the usual Mexican complement of beggars and vendors and peddlers, so Cherie and Andrew bought some postcards and a bilingual primary-school magazine before I drew their attention to the drumming and feathers and dancing going on across the street in the middle of the square. We went over there and watched the decked-out but still half-naked Aztec dancers stamp and twirl and shake their many bones and feathers and rattles, until they stopped. Turns out, they had a sheet with a bunch of carvings and rocks and jewelry to sell. Cherie and Andrew started haggling right away, and as the dancers undressed literally infront of us, they grinned and haggled back. One asked me, as he removed his skirt, "hables no Espan~ol?" I shook my head ashamedly. "Find thing you like." I looked over the three sheets several times, and there was much there that I would have bought but my resources were limited. I couldn't stand to leave that tiny little obsidian frog there. I told the dancer, now in quite decent, if frayed, khakis and a button-down, "la rana me gusta." "La rana?" "Si. Quanto?" He seemed relieved I could at least understand Spanish numbers. "Veinte y cinco." I handed it to him without hesitation. Looking back, I probably should have argued, but I don't mind paying nearly $2.50 for a frog the size of my thumbnail.
When we'd all picked up a couple prizes, I spotted another set of dancers across the square. These ones weren't as exciting, and they had what looked like a badly-costumed groupie trying to learn their moves. She wasn't very good. We didn't spend long watching them, but went off in search of a bathroom. A huge department store availed itself, one in which Andrew reminded Cherie they'd once looked at a $70 umbrella. We couldn't find the bathroom, and it seemed inadvisable to ask the staff in Spanish, since the established practice of fancy Mexican department stores is not to let natives use their bathrooms, but one can hardly prohibit brainless tourists. It was Cherie who had to go, but she told Andrew to ask. So he did his best shameless American tourist impression, and bewilderedly asked the girl behind the makeup counter "banyo paRa moohairis?" She hurriedly directed him up the escalator.
We noticed as we went up, that the ceiling of this department store had a stained-glass light. It was a fancy department store. So Cherie and I decided it was probably safe to flush the toilet paper. They even gave us scratch-and-sniff perfume cards on the way out.
Boy was I beat when we got in the cab, but we had to make a stop at Walmart (across the street from the Radisson on this huge and strange and confusing pedestrian bridge) for Andrew to buy a camera. And then we walked back. I'm glad he knew the way.