Chivas played last night a Superclásico in the semifinals, beating América 2-0. After a lot of media coverage, the game started rather imprecisely in the first half, but the goals came in the second: penalty scored by Ramoncito Morales and a header by Omar Bravo. San Oswaldo Sánchez, Chivas goalkeeper, saved a dubious penalty.
The return leg will be on Sunday night (Monday very early morning CET). I'll post a video of the goals when available. In the meantime, you can watch the gallery at mediotiempo.com.
Como tal vez hayan visto en las noticias, la situación en el Congreso antes de la toma de protesta del presidente Calderón está calientita. Un amigo que estaba escuchando la radio mexicana me dijo que cuando mencionaron que la transmisión era "en vivo por el Canal del Congreso" se le ocurrió que ya tenemos una versión muy mexicana de Big Brother. Primera vez en su historia que el Canal del Congreso tiene rating.
¿Podremos votar por botar al diputado que peor nos caiga (o que ya nos tenga hasta el gorro)? ¿Con lo que gane el Congreso en el Big Brother DIP resanarán los hoyos en el presupuesto? ¿Quién quedará en la casota de Big Brother en San Lázaro?
Jules & Vincent are talking about Vincent's European experiences.
Vincent: ...But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is?
Jules: What?
Vincent: It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it's just - it's just there it's a little different.
Jules: Examples?
Vincent: Alright, well you can walk into a movie theater in Amsterdam and buy a beer. And I don't mean just like in no paper cup, I'm talking about a glass of beer. And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald's. And you know what they call a, uh, a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?
Jules: They don't call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?
Vincent: Nah, man, they got the metric system, they wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.
Jules: What do they call it?
Vincent: They call it a "Royale with Cheese."
Jules: "Royale with Cheese."
Vincent: That's right.
Jules: What do they call a Big Mac?
Vincent: A Big Mac's a Big Mac, but they call it "Le Big Mac."
Jules: "Le Big Mac." [laughs] What do they call a Whopper?
Vincent: I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King. But, you know what they put on french fries in Holland instead of ketchup?
Jules: What?
Vincent: Mayonnaise.
Jules: God damn!
Vincent: I seen 'em do it, man, they fuckin' drown 'em in that shit.
I did a lightning trip to Amsterdam yesterday, and was really surprised at the slight but definite changes at the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, even though they're both part of what is generally defined as the Low Countries and I had made the same trip before. Below some that I could think about:
Languages: Suddenly people only speak English and Dutch in the train, German and French disappeared (except for the tourists, of course).
Landscape: Much more channels, bridges and water surrounding you.
Infrastructure: The train stations look newer. Funnily enough, they also look somehow dirtier.
Architecture: We went past a few windmills, and there are some definitely distinctive elements of architecture that are not found in Belgium. Brussels is more Frenchified, the Netherlands looks somehow, well, I don't know how to explain it... German/Nordic maybe? We also passed in front of a couple of mosques.
Bycicles: I expected that to be part of the Brussels landscape, but it isn't. In the Netherlands in general but in Amsterdam in particular bikes are everywhere.
I was discussing about that with a friend of mine who has never been in Finland, and had to explain him the basics: yes, Finns tend to have more, say, heavy-duty drinking habits, some people (especially the young) tend to literally drink to get drunk (so beers with high alcoholic content represent more value for money :-0 ), taxes to alcohol are therefore very high although they were dropped a couple of years ago and alcoholic beverages above a certain percentage are only available at the national monopoly.
The good news is that not everybody drinks like that (or maybe they do, but only in their student years ;-) ) and you find quite a few people who drink in a more Continental European kind of way (maybe some wine with food, but nothing of the harder stuff). Now that's more like it.
Funnily enough, I read that Kotka in southeastern Finland wants more Russian immigrants. After the well-known animosities between both nations, and the prejudices Russians face there, it's quite a surprising turn.
I had heard before that Belgium is renowned throughout Europe for being so thoroughly bureaucratic. I didn't want to believe it (after all, Latin countries have exacly the same problem), but, boy, were they right. I won't rant here about the immigration/residence permit procedures, which are excruciating as usual, but even simple stuff like ordering cable TV and getting WLAN at our flat has been an ordeal. The bureaucracy at the school has been the exception that confirms the rule, though, they've been spotless.
My advice: if you move here, make sure you don't need anything urgently.
Borrowed this book from a friend. Very interesting idea: using tools from economics to answer day-to-day questions. The second edition has also some posts from their blog (where I could lose myself for hours).
Another post in the Rock en Español series. Bersuit Vergarabat is a band from Argentina, famous for their fusion of Rock, cumbia, chacarera and other Latin American rythms with very potent protest lyrics Even though they had released LPs since the beginning of the 90's, they became famous in Latin America in 1998 with their song Sr. Cobranza, which was a very good reflection of the anti-governmental mood in youth at the time (this was just before the Argentine crisis). A very interesting band.
Chivas tied with Cruz Azul at their stadium in Mexico City, but went through to the semifinals of the Apertura 2006 tournament thanks to their previous victory of 2-0 at the Jalisco stadium in the first leg. The video highlights below:
Now Chivas will play América in the semifinals on Thursday night (early Friday CET)... the Superclásico is served. In the other semifinal, Pachuca will play Toluca.
