Cultural Thoughts

I had a good day today walking around the downtown of the city for the second time. For some reason today several people, both men and women, started chatting with me out of the blue. I felt like I had a sign on my forehead or something! But it was great to practice Spanish, and amazingly I understood them and conversed pretty well. I figured I could share a few of my observations about the culture here, as well as some of my thoughts on things:

1. Apparently Monterrey is the industrial city of Mexico, and therefore isn’t huge with tourists. Since I got here (3 weeks ago) I’ve only seen a handful of non-Mexicans.
2. On the train and subway, it’s customary to give up your seat for the following people: pregnant women, women with small children, elderly people, and handicapped people/people with injuries. They have signs inside the trains/subways showing this. While it’s not explicitly stated on the signs, it’s also customary for men to give up their seat to any woman. So I almost always have several men offering me their seats, which is something I’m not used to!
3. It took me awhile to remember that you can’t flush toilet paper and to get into the habit of putting it in the trash can.
4. They swim in their clothes instead of bathing suits.
5. They use SO MANY slang words here, many of which can have multiple meanings. It makes understanding everyday chit-chat so much harder. Some of the slang words/expressions are (Warning: bad language ahead. Pardon my French!): pinche, which can mean asshole, or it can be used to enhance other insult words, such as “pinche idiota”, which means “fucking idiot”; ¿Que onda?, which means “What’s up?”; güey (pronounced “way”), which means buddy or bro; chido, which means very good; chingón, which means very VERY good; chingo, which can mean fuck or shitload; and “que chinga”, which means very tired. So you can see how I can get confused! Since these expressions are used A LOT in Mexico I feel that it’s pretty important that I learn them…Haha. Luckily several of my friends/coworkers have been trying to teach them to me, for which I will be eternally grateful!
6. Lots of things taste different here, including the cereal and Coke, because they use different sugars. For examples, the Cheerios do NOT taste like the Cheerios I’m used to!
7.  If you ask for water in a restaurant, they’ll ask you what kind. I wasn’t sure what they meant by this the first time, but apparently getting plain water is not very common, and normally people get agua frescas, which are typically either agua de limón (lemonade), agua de fresa (strawberry flavored), agua de tamarindo (tamarind flavored), or agua de Jamaica (I think it’s hibiscus flavored?). They’re pretty good but definitely artificially flavored, so I try not to get them all the time.
8. I have discovered that empanadas are my new favorite Mexican dessert/pastries. The ones I’ve had have a filling of caramel (cajeta), pineapple (piña), or calabeza (pumpkin). The caramel or pineapple ones are my favorites.
   
   

   

   My new favorite dessert here:
   empanadas.
9. When I order/get food, especially at street vendors, they almost always ask if I want things added to it (like sauces, condiments, etc.), and half the time I have no idea what they’re asking, so I end up saying yes to everything. I figure if it’s offered it’s probably a cultural thing (like putting chili powder on fruit) so I should at least try it! I haven’t really had any mishaps doing that. Although sometimes I’m not 100% into it, like the chili powder thing, which I still haven’t quite decided if I like or not…

   

   More street vendor food: potato chips
   with some sort of spicy sauce that I
   said "yes" to (and liked!).
10. Speaking of food, the food here is delicious! So many tacos, enchiladas, burgers, fajitas, tostados, etc. I really do enjoy it, but man is it filling! Combine the large portion sizes with the heat and sometimes I feel like I don’t want to eat for days. I must admit I am kind of craving something “fresh”, like salad or sushi or something like that…
    
    

    

    A beautiful painting of a Monterrey street by a
    very nice painter, Hector, who I chatted with for
    a little while in the city today.

    

    A spray-painted painting by a street artist that
    I thought was amazing.