Favorite cities

During the trip we went to 50 something cities.
Some of them were good, some others were just OK, there’s 3 or 4 where I don’t wanna go anymore in my freaking life… but if a company would offer me a job in any of these five cities I would say «gimme 30 minutes to pack my stuff» and I would move immediately:

5. Poznañ

4. Budapest

3. Ljubljana

2. Sofia

1. Kraków

Yep, no too big cities in the list (actually, all of them are tiny compared to Mexico City :P), only 2 of them are capitals and all of them are in «the right side of the wall».
Problem, «civilized» Europe? 😉

Perspective

I love photography!!
What I like the most is the possibility of «playing» with the perspective.
Sometimes it really matters… 😉

Suicides are welcomed!

There’s a subway station in Mexico City where I feel particularly uncomfortable.
It is Allende subway station, it’s the station before (or after… depending on the direction you go…) the main square.

Why do I feel so uncomfortable?
Maybe you can notice how the platform is reduced to one third of its original size there where the girl in red is. This is probably the smallest platform in the whole subway system in Mexico City.
I’ve never been there at the rush hour, but just thinking about being there when it’s too crowded and everybody is pushing each other scares me.

However, I was thinking that was the biggest invitation for the suicides in the whole world, but when we where in Bucureşti (AKA Bucharest) I discovered how wrong was I:

Looks like here you can be ran over by the train even if you are in the platform…

It’s not enough!

I don’t know how does that work in other countries but I imagine that it’s a little bit the same thing: in Mexico those who speak good English (and sometimes even those who don’t speak it really well) feel that they are the masters of the Universe and they can get any job they want.

Believe me. IT’S NOT ENOUGH!

Just for example, when we were in Plovdiv, in Bulgaria, we entered to a random supermarket and tried to get some hot food.
We had to use mimics because nobody was able to speak English… but suddenly another employee came, and since she noticed we were speaking Spanish she started talking to us in Spanish!
Yes! She knew Spanish and she was nothing than a regular employee in a supermarket… isn’t that sad?

Even worst, when we were in Wien (AKA Vienna) we found this old guy dancing in the main pedestrian street in the downtown in order to get some money.

I don’t know if he was saying the truth… maybe he’s lying as everybody does when they are writing their résumés, but he claims this:

Lucky you! I speak some German and I can translate it for you!
He says «I don’t have and I’m looking for a home and a job. I speak Bulgarian, Russian, Polish, English, German and Italian».

So? Are you still thinking that English is all you need?
Think about it…

Obscenity

Obscenity is everywhere!!!
Probably most of you won’t realize it… but for Spanish speaking people is mooooore than evident… and it’s funny 🙂

Drug problems

There are some areas around the world where cannabis/marihuana/whatever use has been historically tolerated, and probably the most famous among them is Netherlands.

Thousands of people wishing to be legally high go to Amsterdam every year and sadly they spend more time getting high in the «Coffeshops» and the only sightseeing the do happens when the go to the red light district to take a look to the girls in the windows.

Well… it doesn’t seem to be that bad, finally the city gets a lot of incomes because of tourism. Unfortunately nothing is perfect and there is also a lot of people who gets drunk and makes some disturbs and doesn’t allow to the neighbors to have a peaceful night…

…I would like than the problems Mexico has with drugs where as insignificant as the ones they have in the Netherlands 😦

 

The other face of the Communism

I heard stories about how evil the comrades Lenin and Stalin were.
I heard how hard was to buy simple things such as milk or eggs during the Communist times.
I heard it in Hungary. I heard it in Romania. I heard it in Poland. I heard about it everyfuckingwhere… even in Germany… and eventually I got sick of it.

But when we where in Czech Republic it was a little bit different. Quoting Robert L. Ripley, one of our Czech friends told us that believe it or not, in this Capitalist age there’s a lot of people willing to go back to the Communist system.
At the first sight it’s not logic… but during those «hard» times they where forced to have a job (maybe a shitty one, but at least they had a guaranteed monthly incoming), they had a home, they had social security… now they have nothing and sadly getting a job is kind of an impossible dream.

Looks like even the worst things in the life (such as the evil Communism) have a good part.

The Zorro is baking cakes in Poland

In Poland, there’s a chain of «Mexican» restaurants called The Mexican. Their slogan, ‘The client is always wrong’. Food is bad but the (Polish) waitresses are cute and their tiny shirts and skirts just make it better.

In this video, we got the ‘Zorro dessert’. The dessert itself is just a random cheesecake with a bit of chocolate syrup, but the Zorro’s magic appears when it comes to actually serving the cake: The whole restaurant goes dark, the waitress rings a big bell and a waiter playing the Zorro (wearing a black mask and black cape) throws the plate onto your table and screams a couple of things in Polish.

It was funny, as you can probably see.

2.50 euro for the whole show. Tip included.

Here’s the link to the video:

http://www.facebook.com/v/10150305061464214

The misunderstood ones

They are high, they are way ugly, they are in the downtown and people hates them.
There’s always a building matching this description in every big city in the world: the Latinamerican Tower in Mexico City, the Montparnasse Tower in Paris… maybe the only exception to this rule could be New York, where all the buildings are like this but people loves them.

But there’s a one in Bratislava which I particularly like. This is the National Slovak Radio’s building… better known as the «Inverted Pyramid».

Yes, it’s kind of grotesque. It’s a little bit like me: it’s ugly but it has personality 😉
Definitely a master piece of the communist architecture.

Polish maths

Poland is definitely weird…
Probably is the only country in the world where the result of dividing 7 by 2 is 5 🙂