Instrucciones para vivir en México by Jorge Ibargüengoitia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Aunque en algunos pasajes se nota que el libro fue escrito hace cuarenta años, su aguda crítica y excelente sentido del humor lo hacen más vigente de lo que debería para un país que ha cambiado tanto (y tan poco) como México. Recomendable.
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Visited Mexico for business and pleasure during November. We stayed in the Condesa neighbourhood in Mexico City and a short time in Acapulco. All the photos here in Flickr, as usual a selection below.
Day of the Dead candy
Day of the Dead altar in Plaza Satélite
Bikers’ pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Pancita
Day of the dead altar in the market square
La estela de luz, a.k.a. la suavicrema
On our way
Day of the Dead altar at the hotel
Parque México in Condesa
Church
Mexico Stock Exchange
Day of the Dead decor
Sushi street stall
Alebrijes, nightmare creatures
Cochinita Pibil en Azul Condesa
Driving to Acapulco
Tough life part one: coconut juice, coconut “fruit” and piña colada
Tough life part two: the Mexican Pacific
Dawn sequence
Dawn sequence
Dawn sequence
Driving back to Mexico City
Guerrero State landscape
Next year I'll wear my wrestling mask in Vappu
Vappu in the market square
Churros in Helsinki
Fun times in Kaivopuisto
Mexico City nostalgia
Latin dancing in Kaivopuisto. Hopefully it'll become a Vappu tradition 
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If you are a parent, you have most probably encountered the huge need babies and toddlers have for routine, structured, predictable days. We share most of the activities together with my wife, but I usually take care of the end-of-day routines. Furthermore, I’ve taken to mark each step by singing a different song.
I use TuneIn for listening to internet radio stations. Since most Mexican stations play the national anthem at midnight local time, I will usually sing it when I’m preparing him to go to daycare at 8 a.m. Finnish time. Think of it as a small scale “honores a la bandera”.
If I’m around when he takes his mid-day nap, I’ll sing him this:
To brush his teeth then we’ll come with this:
When it’s time to go to bed it’s the turn of “La familia Telerín”:
Putting his pajamas will be to the tune of “Juan Pestañas”
And in case that was not enough and he can’t sleep, then stronger measures are needed
Funnily enough, if by any chance I miss or mix any of the songs, he will be very, very annoyed. I just hope he doesn’t grow up thinking life is an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical or a Pedro Infante movie. 
A couple of European colleagues joined me in my last business trip to Mexico and they seemed genuinely surprised by what they saw. It was not as unsafe as they were led to believe, the people were more ethnically varied than they expected, it was not as poor (even though of course they did see a cross-section of Mexican society from wealthy city denizens to farm hands in the hills) and the food was better than they thought.
Also at some point I spent some time with a group of Finnish gentlemen who had a lot of questions about the country, which I did my best to answer in the little time we had together (personal favourite: why do all houses have water tanks in the roof?).
Maybe the place is indeed quite misunderstood as I’ve been saying all these years. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, it’s just not what people abroad without previous experience of the country think.
Posted in in english
Tagged culture, europe, finland, mexico, security, society, travel, united kingdom
A veces me da pena pensar que aunque me sé comunicar más o menos en ocho idiomas, todos son de origen europeo. Quisiera aprender aunque sea un poco de náhuatl o maya yucateco, pero probablemente tendrá que esperar a que me retire.
It’s always a pleasure to visit Spain, even if for work. I’ve always found it funny that for the Finns Spain equals sangría & beaches, whereas for Mexicans Spain is all about our shared culture & history. This time I did have a slot to walk through the city after my meetings, so I used it. I’ve always been treated well in Madrid (even if they immediately know where I’m from due to my accent) and people more than once remarked how Mexico is the closest of the Latin American countries to Spain. It was however funny to feel that, as close to my roots as it is, it is not home this side of the pond.
More pictures, as usual, in the set.
Crossing the Pyrenees
Dusk over Barajas
Walking through Paseo de la Castellana
Monument to Christopher Columbus
Cibeles
Gran Vía
One of the things that always strikes me about Madrid is that since it was founded at more or less the same time as the colonial cities of Mexico it tends to have very similar buildings (unlike, say, Toledo).
Royal Palace.
