Busy Day in Juarez

Pigeon-toed bug

Today was a busy day.  I am pretty exhausted.  It started like every Saturday, with my guitar class.  On my way back to my house, I saw this VW bug that looked a little pigeon-toed to me.  The wheels were curved in.  It was so odd looking to me, that I had to take a picture of it.

I got home and cleaned my house a little (I haven't been good at keeping up with that), before my friend came over and we made lunch.  Or rather, I made lunch while he helped.  I guess its only fair since he cooked the last several times . . .  But I was a little unsure what to make because in my experience, generally foreigners don't tend to like the same things that I like.

I ended up making lemon-pepper chicken with broccoli and rice, with biscuits on the side.  This is one of my favorite meals, so I figured it was the best thing I could make with what I had.  And I told my friend (Ulises) that if he didn't like it, I was never going to cook for him again.  Not that I was trying to force him to like it, but because, like I said, it is one of my favorite meals, and if he didn't like that, chances are he wouldn't like anything else I would make.

Heart made of chicken . . .

After lunch, we went to see one of my friends play basketball.  It was interesting.  My friend (Kate) plays for Juarez Heat.  One thing she has told me is that she really wishes they had time to practice.  I guess with schedules and everything, they can't coordinate practices, so they just are together for the games.  It was obvious during the game that the other team practiced more than my friend's team.  But my friend's team still won.  So they are good.  I just wonder how much better they would be if they could get together for practice.

Kate had another game later in the afternoon that we weren't able to go to because we went to a play instead.  The play is called, "Por el Amor de Dos."  It is a comedy that is meant to speak out against violence towards women.  It was really interesting.  I didn't understand ALL of the humor, but I consider it positive that I understood SOME of the humor since the play was in Spanish.

Basketball teams

From there we stopped at my house because I had left my guitar in my car, then went to pick up my friend (the one who plays in the basketball game) to go to dinner and watch the boxing match.  Boxing is apparently very big here, and this match was the biggest and most important of the year.  It was between a Mexican named Marquez and a Philipino (don't remember his name).  Since it was such a huge match, every restaurant that we went to was packed with a long wait list.  We were told that people had started arriving 3 hours earlier to make sure they had a place to sit and watch the match.  It was incredible.  We went to several locations and were about to give up.  But instead we went to Barrigas for the second showing of the match.  We ate dinner, and then I took Kate home.  Ulises stayed in Barrigas because the match he wanted to watch (the one between Marquez and the other guy) was about to begin.  After dropping Kate at her house, I went back.

I really don't understand the draw and appeal of boxing.  Its so violent.  I was practically falling asleep in the restaurant.  Unfortunately, Marquez lost.  I don't understand how they figure out who wins and loses, especially because Marquez had more points then the other guy, but everyone was really disappointed and you may even say that they were upset about that happening.

Ulises posing outside of El Paso del Norte
Cultural Center

The story tellers

The guy dressed as a woman to try and understand his
girlfriend better

Finally together having learned their lessons

For some reason Ulises really likes this hat
of mine, with the scarf and my cell phone, the
picture is complete!