SMA to JR: Come in, JR! JR, do you read me?



Out on the town in SMA

A busy weekend here in Guanajuato! On Saturday our friends in JR came to visit and to explore our city. We went to a restaurant/bar called Mamma Mia (very popular with the local expatriate/retiree community for its pizza) and watched the Spain vs. France soccer game. Spain pulled out the victory, which pleased the crowd assembled to watch the game. We then explored the market, visited a chocolate store, and made our way down to Parque Juarez – represented as a large green polygon on our map that had always intrigued me. We found a basketball league playing their games here in the park, which was fun to watch. The park itself was in a very nice and affluent area of SMA. We parted ways for dinner because we had already planned to eat with Alex and his family (and Kelly’s dinners never disappoint). We ended up going to La Galleria – the fancy bar where the karaoke competition had been – for a while with Kelly, Alex, and their neighbors. We had hoped to see their son and his wife again, but had to leave before they arrived so that we could meet up again with the folks from JR back in el centro. We had a few miscommunications getting back to the group, but we ended up having a lot of fun in el centro, enjoying a live band that is apparently pretty famous throughout Mexico, but they insist on giving free performances in SMA because it is where they got their start. 


This morning arrived too quickly for our liking, but we scrambled to get out of the door and to the bus station… only to realize that the bus to JR had already left (again, due to more miscommunications: I think one loses the ability to communicate clearly in their native language while trying to get a handle on speaking a second language. I really do not believe we are this bad at communicating in general, seeing as doctors have to be able to communicate and we all probably listed various extracurricular activities and leadership positions that supposedly showed our abilities to communicate when we applied to medical school – but I digress. We sucked at communicating this weekend, to say the least). We took the bus to Celaya that made frequent stops, successfully transferred in Celaya at the CostCo (yes, you heard me – the CostCo) to the bus that went out to Juventino Rosas and eventually did met up with the JR group again on their home turf! We got to check out their house, meet Mari, the wonderful lady taking care of our classmates, and walk around town. There was some sort of political campaign rally going on, so the jardin was packed and it was difficult to get a good sense of what it was like, but we ate delicious crepes at Rinconcito’s. We then met Dr. Narvaez and took a tour of his sanatorium. Dr. Narvaez is one of the members of the delegation in JR that has helped host and organize PPS in JR over the past 7 (or is it 8?) years. He was incredibly nice, very welcoming of us SMA-ers, and just an all-around great guy. He told us a few stories about things that have happened in the clinic and some of its history, which was fascinating. He explained that there is always one person in each group of students that comes down that reminds him of a famous “artista” (or actor/actress). Nellie apparently reminds him of Cameron Diaz – which I can see, when Nellie is smiling. He declared that I reminded him of Jodie Foster – which I will take as a compliment and an improvement from the last time I was compared to a celebrity. Some woman at a wedding told me when I was like 10 that I looked like “a young Barbra Streisand.” Oh gee, thanks.

Welcome to Celaya! Home of the CostCo!

To cap off our time in JR, we caught the overtime period and penalty kicks of the England vs. Italy soccer match in the Eurocup. Alex had pointed out to us the day before that it really didn’t matter who won, as both team names began with “I” and ended with “A” (Inglaterra and Italia, in Spanish). We watched the game in a little bar where a large group of men (and some fellows who looked to be around 15 years old) were drinking beers and tequilas while jamming to the jukebox (I kid you not, a Spanish version of my favorite Bee Gees song was played). Once the Italians claimed the win through penalty kicks, we headed back to the bus station and caught our return ride to the CostCo of Celaya. In Celaya we were caught in a rainstorm and had to run through the rain to catch our connecting bus to San Miguel. Once back in San Miguel, the cab driver wayyy overcharged us. We had become wise to the ways in which some cab drivers would charge us more by virtue of our American-ness after a few days in San Miguel, and had begun handing them the correct amount rather than asking for the charge or letting them decide the charge. However, this guy tried to charge us 60 pesos when we knew that it should only cost 30 pesos (40 at the most). Even after we explained that our ride down to the bus station that morning had only been 30, he told us that the reverse direction was 60 (so not true). But alas, unsure of what to do, we begrudgingly paid him his 60 pesos, reminding ourselves that 20 pesos really wasn’t too much of an issue. Still, we did not like being taken advantage of purely because we were Americans and might not know better.

Kelly’s delicious dinner of chilaquiles (fried tortilla strips in this amazing sauce, with beef and beans and topped with cheese) soon erased any bitter tastes from our mouths due to our taxi experience, though!