have you all seen the movie ¨nacho libre?¨

because it´s important to know if everyone will know what i´m talking about when i say i went to a lucha libre last night.

see this picture if you don´t: http://www.wrestling-wfs.com/imagenes/newimages/22-oct-05/croni-22-oct-05_24.jpg

basically it´s mexican wrestling. horribly staged, horribly acted, utter chaos, and absolutely hilarious! men are dressed in next to nothing, most wearing luchador masks (http://www.beaucoupkevin.com/images/luchador.jpg), throwing themselves at other men, kicking other men, slapping half-naked men the in the chest, and definitely working the crowd. one sweaty fighter went out into the crowd for kisses after he ¨lost¨ a fight. (winners are obviously predetermined.) there are generally anywhere from 2 to 6 men in the ring at once, sometimes all of them fighting together, sometimes 1 on 1, sometimes 3 or 4 on 1.

the lucha libre was in a huge enclosed arena, filled to the brim with people - we were standing the whole time, on the top balcony. it started at 9pm and entire families came, including their infants or toddlers. there was plenty of cursing and yelling and whistling and chanting going on and i´m pretty sure they used quite a few soccer cheers for the fighters. there was one adorable kid right next to me sitting on his dad´s shoulders and he kept getting really excited and clapping with his hands above his head.

what an experience.

the rainy season in mexico has begun and last night it thunderstormed quite a bit! it´s been getting cloudy every evening and drizzling most days around 7 or 8. this makes getting to dinner a bit difficult. it should be noted that mexican restaurants don´t do ¨servicio a domicilio¨ (delivery) when it´s raining because they don´t want to get wet. our roommates cancelled their plans last night, too, for the very same reason. very interesting...

if we went about life that way in valpo, i´m pretty sure no one would ever get a chance to go outside.

and mexico isn´t mexico without one or two crazy cab driver stories, right? i hadn´t really been given a chance to tell any stories until last night, when our driver missed the exit for the UDLA and decided to back up on the highway for about a half a mile. i was in the seatbelt-less backseat praying that no one would slam into us from behind on the slippery roads for about the 5 whole minutes we were going in reverse in the left-hand lane. then, after he realized it would take something like 15 minutes of backing up to get to a sufficient exit, he went forward again, got off at the nearest exit (the recta), headed toward puebla for about 20 m and then turned around to get to the front entrance of the udla. now, was that so hard??

that´s about it. today we have no classes, tomorrow i have one class, thursday i have 2 exams, friday i have one, and i still need to write a paper for my VU class. then i´m done! this is rather bizarre. i think the taxco trip this weekend has been cancelled since it might be more of a hassle than it´s worth.

i need to start packing.