We are in the Mexican city of Xalapa (or Jalapa), Veracruz. This is where jalapeños come from, of course. But it is also one of my favorite Mexican places, right on the edge of the altiplano as it drops to the rainforests of the gulf coast, it is a bit steamier and much wetter than mexico city, but still not like being at sea level.
This morning we went to the state anthropology museum, which is one of the best outside of the main, national one in the DF. Lots of giant heads and interesting masks and statues. I found myself thinking of a story that could develop in relation to confusing the statues with reality, somehow. A hallucinatory experience inside the museum. It was sunny when we got there, and cloudy, sporadically thunderstorming, when we left. We had some chicken at a chain restaurant, and walked toward the centro again. Stopped in a spectacular park, all jungly and in a sort of arroyo, birds and koi swimming in ponds at the bottom and flowers and children running about playing. Quite idyllic and earthy.
It began to rain quite hard, and we sat on some steps of a building under construction, and watched the sky wash some motorcycles on sale on the sidewalk. I took a photo of the license plate of the car in front of me, with a flower fallen from some tree above it on the bumper like a dead creature. Striking and strange picture, I was thinking. I will post when I get a chance to upload pictures.
So now we are back downtown xalapa, and Phil is resting in the hotel while I strolled downhill to this internet cafe. Got an email from my new employer in Korea, confirming receipt of a photograph I emailed him since I had failed to include one with the packet of other documents sent by courier last week with the signed contract. An emergency ad hoc photo taken by someone at the Casa in mexico city, I find it striking/weird that my visa photo for my new Korean job was thus taken of me standing against the wall of the lounge of my first overseas job 21 years ago. I love little synchronicities of that nature.