The Bored and the Judgemental

Welcome to Puerto Vallarta.

A lot of people when they first move here, myself included, make the rookie mistake of thinking that they can use the local bulletin boards to meet new people and make new friends. This is untrue unless you happen to be sheeple. There’s nothing wrong with being sheeple, after all humans are just another herd animal. We are designed to live in packs and our very survival requires it. Sheeple either don’t have opinions or they wisely keep them to themselves. The bulletin boards here are exactly like a digital wild kingdom. A lone gazelle comes along and makes a statement or post that doesn’t mesh with the hive mentality and the pack disembowels them and feeds them to the group, then the jackals feast on the scraps. Meet your new neighbors.

Puerto Vallarta is a small town. A really small town. How small? I’ve lived in cities all over the U.S., plus I’ve lived in towns, bergs, hamlets and flyspecks on the map. (Pop. 85, anyone?) and I have never, ever recognized a single person in the society pages of the newspaper. As I flipped through the latest issue of Puerto Vallarta’s Glossiest Ads, I realized that I either knew or could recognize on sight, 25% of the people showcased on the “People Who are Better than You” pages. Scary.

But as my friend aptly pointed out, “people move to Mexico because they don’t fit in anywhere else.” That certainly applies to me. I don’t like the current American value system. I don’t like corporate culture. I don’t like the way our government is being run. But mostly I don’t like how the system has been manipulated to keep the poor and working class people in their “place” while the gap between the have and have-nots widen. Oh, and I think red light cameras and tickets for rolling through stop signs at empty intersections are bullshit too.

But back to the point. Which was what? Oh yeah, the looneys are running the bin. Oh, and the looneys are mean too. If you read some of the discussions on the boards, you will see people name-calling, back-biting, personally attacking, lying, threatening and more. Presumably these people wouldn’t treat each other like this in person (?) but I wouldn’t really know. Maybe they would. Perhaps they do greet each other in the street with, “hey, you racist, ignorant slut.”

“What’s up, you pathetic, stupid, alcoholic douchebag? It’s people like you who are ruining the world. Why don’t you go die?”

Actually, Vallarta would be a lot more interesting if this were the case. Or at least it would be more honest.

Archie’s Wok and Being Hit by a Garbage Truck

Last night was an exciting night indeed. A friend and I headed down to that “hellhole called Andale’s” for a few drinks and then over to Archie’s Wok for dinner.

Why is Andale’s a hellhole? Well, it has nothing to do with the servers. They are very nice so let’s just clear that up right away. But other than that, I am convinced that because of all of the terrible things I’ve done in my life, I will end up in a place like Andale’s when I die. That is, a place full of drunk, pink tourists wearing PV logoed crap and singing along to Cheeseburger in Paradise and YMCA. It’s like one of the bars in my college town except all of the coeds are in their 50’s. In other words, hell.

But I digress. Since I refuse to go into the Romantic zone unless someone is paying me to do so, my friend offered to drive (which is just like paying me to go there). I can see why all the fuss about Archie’s, particularly with a lack of decent Asian food in Puerto Vallarta. They had three of my favorite dishes on the menu but I decided to go with the summer menu (three courses, $164 pesos mas or menos) from which I selected the gazpacho (adequate but I much preferred the coconut-shrimp soup, YUM), the yellow curry with coconut rice (did not disappoint) and the flan (too much coconut liqueur but very good nonetheless). Fair price, good food, excellent service. What more could you ask for?

Then it was back to Andale’s for more awful music and some free drinks courtesy of a friend sitting at the bar.

On the way home, near the Banamex in Fluvial, my friend’s car (with us inside it) was broadsided by a garbage truck driving on the wrong side of the street. This event was startling (who knew that one window could hold SO much glass?) and resulted in considerable damage to my friend’s car (which thank god, is still drivable and fixable). For this accident, my friend was willing to accept 50% of the blame and it could have been resolved but for one blond witness that will now be referred to as “skanky-ass ho.” So SAH pulls over and tells the garbage men that she saw the whole thing that it was completely our fault for turning in front of the garbage truck that was driving on the wrong side of the street. When I politely asked her for her name and number along with the garbage men’s, they refused and she refused saying “I won’t give it to you. You don’t need it. I am not helping you, I am helping them.”

I wanted to smack the living shit out of her, but instead I took her picture with my cell phone and wrote down all of her vehicle information. Why was she “helping” ie: lying for them? Was it because we were white and they were Mexican? was it because we had California plates? Was it because she had just finished smoking a pipe full of crack and really thought that driving on the wrong side of the road excuses any culpability? Who knows. Coke whores are funny like that.

The important thing is that WE are okay (have all arms and legs, all functioning) and that the car is fixable and that no one is in jail. Again this speaks volumes about the vastly superior legal system in Mexico. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. No police, no insurance companies, no bullshit. The issue was resolved and everyone went on their merry way because without getting all those aforementioned people involved, there is little pay-out for clutching your neck and falling to the ground, months of battling insurance agencies and increased premiums. Although, if a Portland City garbage truck had hit me, you know damn well I would have sued that city for everything they had because I’m a greedy bitch like that and so are you. So, see? It really is a good thing we were in Mexico when it happened.

Homeland Security Needs to Chill Out

“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the US Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.”

Does this scare the crap out of anyone else? Particularly the “without ANY suspicion of wrongdoing” part? Or the “unspecified period of time” part? Or the “and then we will load you onto cattle cars to take you to a special holding camp” part?

I know 9-11 was a BFD. I completely get that, but America’s had ONE successful foreign perpetrated terrorist attack in …ever. A few half hearted attempts, like Mr. Shoe Bomb, but that’s it. Countries in the Middle East and Europe get that many PER WEEK, but somehow this gives our government the right to start getting all fascist on our asses and violating our rights as American citizens. Reason #10 I’m glad that I left the US when I did, because it will only get worse.

There are actual cases where a private citizen has filmed and distributed the film of a neighbor shot through a window in the neighbors home and WON. If you don’t have the expectation of privacy in your own home from your neighbors, do you think the government is going to stay out? You are filmed in public in nearly every major metropolitan city in the US now. Now they can just take your stuff for no reason without any suspicions, but just to be a dick.

That’s some scary shit America.

Gringo Rage Subsides

There were other things I was stewing about yesterday, like the people who zip up past the long line of cars waiting at the light and then stop in their own lane, thus blocking all of the cars behind them while they wait for the arrow to turn in a NON-TURN LANE. I hate that. It’s so RUDE.

Also when you have three lanes and the person on the outer right decides that they want to make a left… ugh.

Anyway, you will be glad to know that it only took a vodka tonic, two screwdrivers and a dip in the pool before I regained perspective and realized that people are obnoxious and suckful everywhere, all the time and I live in paradise, so it’s a small price to pay (being inconvenienced, that is). Plus I’ve got my water pressure back and I can take a shower now. Hooray.

Gringo Rage

It takes a great deal of flexibility and go-with-the-flowishness to live in Mexico. For the most part, you know how things are here and you deal with the inconveniences (all part of the deal for living in paradise). But there are some days, days that I call “gringo rage” days, where you reach the breaking point. This results in a full-blown gringo meltdown, which is usually resolved or “healed” if you will, with some time spent looking at the ocean with a cold, alcoholic drink in your hand. That helps you regain perspective because normally whatever you were so worked up about is nothing in the larger scheme of things.  That said, today was a MAJOR gringo rage day for me.

First of all, all of my neighborhood and most of Pitillal is without water pressure. This is most likely because of a busted water pipe, which in turn is directly related to the fact that people just don’t give a shit about their roads or neighborhoods. The roads really piss me off because regardless of whether or not the government is going to pave them or smooth them out, it’s not that hard to fix a pothole. If everyone just helped maintain their little piece of street, it would be so much nicer to drive on and it would be better for all their cars.

There are literally two 5-10 ft. drops at either end of my street. The only way this affects me is that the vendors now will not come down the street because it is so bad. The only reason I can get home is because I drive a 4-wheel drive. It was meant to be taken off road. Let’s say you were driving home in the rain and didn’t know that there was a pit in the middle of the street, all you could see was water. You could easily lose your car in one of these. But anyway, the erosion from the rains uncovered the water pipes which get broken by passing trucks and so I can’t take a shower or do my dishes for two days because the water is barely a trickle. I had a business meeting this morning and I really wanted to take a shower. This was the beginning of my rage.

I headed out to the highway on the road that goes by the dump. Well, the road is closed for the day because there is a big tractor in middle of the street. The guy tells me to turn around and go another way. This would be fine but the other way is 20 minutes out of my way in the wrong direction. I’m sick and tired of people just closing roads whenever they damn well feel like it, no notice, no signs, no warning. By the time I turned around, there were 20 people behind me. People here feel perfectly justified in closing off their street to have a party in the middle of it, which brings me to my next complaint.

I know this is partly a human issue and partly a cultural issue, but I can’t get over how no one will acknowledge that they are not the singular inhabitant of the universe. Double parking on a busy street because you are too lazy or selfish to find a parking spot and then making all of the traffic snarl up and go around, for example. Driving 11 miles per hour on the highway in the fast lane. Closing busy roads for parties. Breathing down my neck in line at the supermarket. Standing and having a chatfest in the middle of the street, parking lot or grocery store aisle when people are obviously trying to get around you. Stopping all of the traffic behind you so you can have a conversation with someone on the sidewalk for 10 minutes. Just some examples…

but mostly, just fix your fricking streets! What the hell?

Your Dollar Sucks

That’s right, the peso, the PESO is going to be stronger than the dollar now. Are you happy? Are you? Look what you’ve done! The PESO, the same peso that used to be like 3000:1, has dipped below the usual 10:1 mark, to 9.2! You know what’s next? 5, then 2 and then 1:1. Peso=dollar. Really, I hope you are pleased with yourselves, US government.

Shopping for Clothes in Vallarta Blows

Look, that rhymes. Perhaps my next career should be in rap.

Puerto Vallarta is the Mexican Forever 21, the whole city. It is nearly impossible to find normal clothing here. If you are considering living here, you need to realize that you’ll most likely be returning to wherever the hell you came from to buy clothes.

1) Everything is short. Welcome back to the land of cropped shirts and shirts that barely hit your waistband. The people here are not tall and neither are the clothes. Even pants are too short.

2) Everything will melt onto your body during a fire. Rayon, polyester, and other non-breathable blends are everywhere. Good luck finding any cotton that isn’t traditional Mexican clothing (think Mexican restaurant waitress).

3) Everything is too small. There is no baggy in PV. Since everyone wears their clothing three sizes too small, good luck in finding anything that fits unless you are rail thin. Everything is in Jr. sizes.

4) The 80’s are alive and well in PV. Loud prints, horizontal stripes, bright colors, chunky plastic jewelry; the only things missing are leg warmers and t-shirt clips.

5) Everything is expensive. I cannot believe some of the prices, particularly in the department stores. Lans is obscene and Liverpool is standard American prices, maybe a little bit higher. But the stores that want to be the Gap (Tennis?) and the “surf” type stores, those prices are insane too. At least Liverpool has sales. Still, I can shop online and buy scads of clothing for what I’d drop on one or two dresses here.

Mexican Airlines are Stupid

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I can fly to LA for $400 on Alaska and US Air but the same dates and times would cost me $400 MORE on Aeromexico or Mexicana. What’s more is that I have an even harder time believing that I can fly to San Francisco or Seattle for about the same price but it would cost me $600-900 just to fly to Cancun or Cabo from Puerto Vallarta. Are the people at the Mexican airlines insane? Why are there no cheap flights anywhere within Mexico? Who even flies Mexicana at those prices? I can get a flight on one of their planes through Travelocity for a reasonable price but if I look at their website, the prices are laughable.

Farmacia Guadalajara and Rizo’s

Ok, so I didn’t realize that my super amigo was the same as Rizo’s in old town. Mostly because I’ve been there exactly twice and frankly I wasn’t paying much attention to what the GR stood for. The one in old town sells lots of very expensive white people food. The one in Pitillal, not so much but they do have a small selection that was impressive.

I had to re-up my meds yesterday and this time when to a different Farmacia Guadalajara and the prices were back to normal. I think it’s just the one my house that charges full price for prescription drugs. Wack.

Since I adopted my kitten, there’s been this mange type affliction circulating amongst the animals in my house and fortunately it responds to amoxicillian, so I also stocked up on a big bottle of that for $2! I love this country.

Best All You Can Eat Restaurant? Oh Vallarta, how you disappoint me.

Sirloin Stockade was voted best all you can eat restaurant in Puerto Vallarta and everyone who voted for it should be put on a raft and sent out to sea. Sirloin Stockade isn’t even as good as SIZZLER! It might be on par with Hometown Buffet or a very cheap Vegas buffet … maybe at the Four Queens, or some off-strip joint. How this place could have won when BRASIL is in town baffles the mind. Probably because it’s over $10, you cheap bastards.

Brasil, located in old town, is the most kick-ass Brazilian steakhouse in PV. I think it’s $16 for women and $18 for men. You get like 10 incredible side dishes and salads and then the meat comes. Rotating through the restaurant are servers with big skewers. If you want what they have, you let them know and they carve it right onto your plate. They have turkey, chicken, steak, sausage, BBQ, and more and it never ends until you say stop. It’s far more than you could ever eat and it’s not in a freakin’ MALL. The manager is awesome and always comes to check on your table. The last time I was there, he bought our table a round of caipirinhas, which if you don’t know, is an awesome Brazilian mojito/margarita type drink ( and the national drink of Brazil too) made with cachaça, which is like a kick-your-ass into next week rum.

Anyway, I’m glad all you buffet people like eating from your communal trough. More cachaça for me at Brasil.