Jason’s blog thingy

Jason here:
Today was not the best day for me. I woke up hungover, still suffering from the same cold that I caught on the last day of burning man. I got us both coffees up the street and headed to do things, stopping at a cool t-shirt shop to buy gifts. While I was there, I started feeling dizzy, and getting sweats, then when I went to pay for some t-shirts, I discovered my credit card was missing. By the time we’d raced home I was having nasty tummy cramps and feeling way crap (excuse the pun)!
The locals call it Moctezuma’s revenge and the words here for tourist and diarrhea are the same – turista!

We worked out that either someone had stolen it from my wallet but not taken all my cash or I stupidly left it at an ATM yesterday. We went to the bank where the ATM was (a good 30 min walk) and they didn’t have it. So now I have to cancel my card. Fortunately I can transfer my (little remaining) funds to Fi’s account, so I won’t be broke in Mexico.

I decided to stay home all day and try to sleep, while Fi went out. We were meeting Arturo tonight and I wanted to have at least enough strength to turn up.

Fi here,

Poor Jason! Losing things anytime is bad enough, but when you’re in a foreign country it’s always worse. But we decided not to get bummed out and Jason went back to the hotel to rest. He didn’t need to be looked after, just needed some sleep so I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Bosque De Chapultepec, where the anthropological museum is we saw the day before. The permanent exhibition there is truly awesome, starting out with early 20th century on the ground floor (Riveras, Kahlo, Siqueres and many others) with 1960’s to 2000 upstairs. The museum itself (designed in 1964) is round and the layout of the paintings and sculptures has a beautiful flow. Disappointingly the major Kahlo work in the museum was on loan so no Frida for me.

Came back to the after 4pm Jason was resting, but not entirely rested. I putzed around, because many of the museums and galleries are closed at 5pm, wrote post cards, emailed, drank beer and then rested. At 9pm we went around the corner to meet Arturo.

Not sure if I have mentioned just how gorgeous the area we are staying in. Not only is is very old with lots of trees and plazas, but so much of what we want to do is right here. Arturo lives two blocks from us! He suggested we meet at an old school bar/restaurant called Covadonga, which was a large hall filled with people of all ages drinking tequila and playing dominos. Arturo recognized us immediately (purple hair kinda stands out) and it was such a joy to meet him. We started talking immediately about the political situation in Mexico at the moment vis-a-vis the big day in a few days, September 15th, Mexican Independence Day. After a light meal (Arturo helped us order!) Jason headed back to the hotel to continue his rest and I went with Arturo to his lovely apartment for a tequila. His friend Gabriel who is about to start at the St Martins school of design in London came home and we chatted for a while planning out the next few days activities. Such wonderful guys! Came home soon after, but not before Arturo invited us to a party tomorrow night at “Border”. More on that tomorrow!

POSTSCRIPT ON DIARRHEA

So I had this thing for about a week or so, although it was only bad for 4 or 5 days. I did notice that the sweating and dizzyness always came about if I needed to go, but was holding back. A theory occurred to me about the situation that tied in with my computer work. In the world of free and open source software the tenet release early release often is considered very important – it helps developers prevent their software from getting bogged down with bugs! The parallels here are awesome! You have diarrhea > you are full of bugs! Shit backs up inside your gut > you get bogged down and feel like crap!

Having explained myself properly I now present to you…

Jason’s turista axiom: POO EARLY POO OFTEN!

Worked for me.