El gallo pintogórico

Here are some photos from El gallo pintogórico, our favorite restaurant in Guanajuato. The name means "Pythagorean Chicken," which was hugely confusing to me until I saw a booklet with the same name at a bookstore. I guess El gallo pintogórico was a famous satirical pamphlet written by a Mexican politician back in the day...actually I still find the whole thing pretty confusing.

In any event, we ate at this place several times because we enjoyed it so much. To get to the restaurant you had to climb I'd say 8 flights of stairs, which was exhausting in the heat, but once you got to the top the views were incredible. It was so amazing to sit by a huge open window and see the entire city laid out in front of you. Though to be honest, my favorite dessert, baked pears covered in chocolate wine sauce, would have been enough in of itself to make me love the place.

Guanajuato, MX

The street by our language school, Escuela Mexicana. It was only a short walk from where we were staying and we all loved our classes. I took Mexican politics and literature and learned so much.


Beautifully colored houses.


One of our first days in Guanajuato was a festival for San Miguel with indigenous dancers parading through town. The sound of their drumming and their feet (many were wearing metal shoes) was deafening, but it was also hard to tell where they were given all the hills and weird geography of Guanajuato. We finally found them late in the afternoon in an alley high up in the hills, by Callejón del beso. Some groups of dancers were amazing, others mediocre. We thought it was really interesting that every group had 2 boogey men, who would push the crowd back from the dancers with whips or threats, often making the children scream. This particular group had white cowboys as their boogeymen.


This is the center of Guanajuato just after a storm. You can see Teatro Juárez and the many, many people constantly out on the street.


A view from Alhóndiga de granaditas. You can see a bit of the Alhóndiga on the right. It was a holdout for loyalists at the start of the Mexican Independence movement. The insurgents, led by "El Pípila," a local miner, burned down its huge doors and killed the loyalists inside. The insurgents --including Miguel Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende--were later killed themselves and their heads were hung from the Alhóndiga as a warning. However, the Mexican Independence succeeded some 10 years later, and the early insurgents were viewed as heroes.

Back

After a long time of not using this thing, I think I'm going to start up again. Last year I didn't have much to report aside from the insanities and complaints of my first year of teaching, which I didn't really feel were web-appropriate. Now, having moved away from the cultural wasteland that is New Jersey, I feel like I have a new lease on life and certainly more energy and desire to share my life with whoever is interested in reading about it.

In June my parents, Max and I went to Guanajuato, Mx for a few weeks. It was exciting to speak real Spanish again, as opposed to classroom Spanish, and it was also really great to be back in Mexico after our amazing trip to Oaxaca several years back. Pictures forthcoming!

Lee Anne and I have just moved to the DC area and are loving it. A few weeks ago we signed a lease on a condo in Alexandria and already our place is looking great and feeling homey. People seem remarkably friendly and there are lots of places see, restaurants and bars to try, and neighborhoods to walk around even in the 95* heat.