big fat fatties

i have a few announcements before today´s blog starts:

my mexican mobile doesn´t work for some reason, just in case anyone had texted me

actually that´s the only announcement i had.

today´s blog is being ghost/guest (?) written by sarah bullock. here are some preliminary facts about sarah bullock:

she used to be a really good ice skater
she is 5 foot 7
she is the first guest writer to feature on my blog
she really hates photos of soft focussed flowers
she got stung by a bee on the palm of her hand once whilst doing a cartwheel, and once at brownie camp got a wasp stuck in her hair, and once had a wasp in her knickers which stung her on the bum 3 times. (nb none of these were recent events)

drum roll.....

where to start? firstly, i would like you to know that i am under strict instructions not to capitalise any letters throughout this blog. regular blog-followers will know this is a pickles trait which i have been forced to uphold as inaugural ghost blogger (this introduction is mainly for siobhan who will immediately notice and no doubt comment on this writing style).

as the first of lucy´s visitors, i would like to share a few observations i have made since seeing lucy again after 5 months:

1. her hair has become slightly lighter with the sun meaning she is looking less, rather than more, like a native mexican.

2. however, she is more mexican than before with her impressive uptake of spanish. this has evidently been detrimental to her english as she rarely can understand english-speaking people.

3. she is not smoking at all...yay!

4. her wonky glasses have been straightened. this has done nothing for the size of her head in case you were wondering.

5. she may not have a great sense of direction but does have a sound sense of adventure and is excellent at appropriately planning.

now, an update on what lucy (and i) have been doing since the last blog. you may be wondering why this entry is entitled big fat fatties. it is not because lucy and i have been living off a diet based predominantly around cheese (although that is true). the phrase big fat fatty was coined by pickles upon sight of the shortest and fattest mexican man in mexico, asleep on a chair in the middle of the pavement in the middle of the day in the middle of mexico city. he was literally a square and so called "big fat fatty". lucy will upload photographic evidence when it is next possible to do so.

after the big fat fatty sighting (made in zone rosa - mexico city´s answer to soho - while trying to find accommodation for our return trip to mexico city next week), we wondered back to centro historico for our last night before leaving for our road trip north. before a dinner of predominantly cheese-based cuisine at the local restaurant, pickles decided to speak to the germans who had previously been snogging so loudly that she needed to leave the room. turns out that any mention of the war would have been entirely fruitless as the couple were in fact swiss. they are travelling for six months and wanted some advice on english schools in oaxaca. lucy spent 20 minutes or so sharing her experiences with the swiss who were really grateful for some advice. when they left to go for dinner, lucy says "they were nice weren´t they?". a turn up for the books indeed.

after some quick packing and some freezing cold coffee, we left centro historico and were north bus station bound. pickles had mentioned the buses in mexico are 1. cheap as chips, and 2. amazing. she was not wrong. our first planned stop on the road trip from mexico city was to queretaro which was one of only 4 destinations on special offer at the bus station. we paid 100 mexican pesos each for a 185km journey on the coach of the year 2008 including almost fully reclinable seats, juno on the tv in spanish and snack-attack-pack of the highest standard.

we arrived in queretaro just under 3 hours later. the helpful big fat fatty (although not as big or fat as the original big fat fatty) taxi driver helped us find our bizarrely situated bed and breakfast. all the roads in queretaro are either east or west, or north or south of the main squares which makes navigation a little difficult. especially for the taxi driver who clearly had no idea how to do his job. eventually we found our b&b which turns out to only be a b as there is no breakfast on the menu. pickles has threatened to send a strongly worded email to the hostelworld.com for false advertising. no one comes between lucy and her first meal of the day.

after wondering around queretaro and deciding not to go on any tours, we went to the most authentic mexican bar we could find - the wicklow irish bar. in our defence, it was one of the only places open (jan 6th is the day of the three kings which is effectively a christmas day equivalent in mexico) and we did drink mexican beer and tequila. it was also a good choice as we met a cool couple (hello shane and kirsten) from michigan. shane was helpfully wearing a t-shirt outlining all the lakes around michigan which help show that the state is much like the shape of the hand. shane and kirsten were then able to use their hands to show us where in michigan they are from. lucy had less trouble explaining where belize is and i found london even easier, but needless to say, less trouble meant less fun. the only downfall of the wicklow irish bar was the five people there suggesting that acapulco is basically shit and that we should probably go somewhere else. we promptly left after hearing this and drowned our sorrows in a sweet mexican restaurant around the corner where there were no english-speaking people to tell us how rubbish we are for going to acapulco.

today (after a crepe breakfast thanks to hostelworld.com oversight) we have been looking more around queretaro (on foot and on a tiny tram) seeing the aquaduct, templos and bars. on the little square in the middle of town, we were having a drink (me = beer and lucy = 3rd coffee of the day) when a nice american (but from mexico originally) man called jorge guzman started talking to us. not only did he chat to pickles about how teaching in queretaro is cool but he also suggested that acapulco is not basically shit. he didn´t exactly rave about it either but we´re considering it as 5-1 so acapulco is clawing it´s way back.

and that spells the end of today´s blog and the end of my career as pequeno picklo ghost writer. fyi (for your interest) and ffr (for future reference) it will be bau (business as usual) as of the next blog (tla - three letter acronymn - usage due to anecdote about jim and his love for them during his previous life as a banker). thanks for reading (even if you´ve only got this far in the hope that lucy will be writing something interesting after i´d finished).