Mohr Guadalajara

I love art and Guadalajara loves art. It appeared everywhere. Art was in the streets. There was an unannounced temporary exhibit in the Museo de la ciudad de Guadalajara.

I am not sure what language is written on the wall, but it's a very creative mural or grafitti. The black area contains a head with the mouth wide open screaming with all teeth showing.

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This is a mural on the inside of one of our favorite coffee shops in our neighborhood in Guadalajara. The image is made of colored thumb tacks. National Geographic first showed the image. I love the idea of implementing art with thumb tacks.

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Plaza Universidad / taking the metro

There was a big celebration last night where they played local music and displayed pictures on the front of the cathedral. Lots of people were milling around in the area shopping, eating and greeting. Occasionally groups of cyclists or skaters would plow thru the crowds.

En route we took the metro. I was very impressed with the quality and quiet of the system. Since we do not know much Spanish we had trouble getting to the correct line on the correct side. We had several people help us over the course of our travels with various aspects. One guy got us thru the gate on his card. I gave him 20 pesos but it cost him 22. He is an employee. He spent a long time helping us understand. Then we were able to get to Plaza Universidad where we could actually buy a transit card and fill it ourselves. We did not need our transit card to exit the metro. The system worked very well and very cheap compared to Uber. 11 pesos per person per trip anywhere on the metro map versus spending $60 one day on Uber here.

On the trip we also had several people help us navigate and pay in the system. Some spoke English and some just helped by doing it for us. So many friendly people.

This is an amazing futbol rendering. The futbol style is merged with the shape of a heart. Symbolism is immersed in Latinx art. Love is the heart and the pattern on the heart represents futbol. The delicate edge of white curvilinear lines on black is captivating.

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Medical care/eye care

People come from the US to Mexico for affordable and quality healthcare. When we were there we saw an ad for eyeglasses for 999 pesos which is about $50 currently. That includes exam and lenses. I am not sure if that is progressive lens or single focus, but it is not a great price. It was not clear if frames were included either. But it is some indicator. As I understand it a lot of medical providers in Mexico speak English. We had investigated moving mom and dad down with us in retirement so that we could afford nursing home care and be nearer to them. We wanted them to have better care and be able to go outdoors. As it was they were confined to a floor of their facility. The Mexican nursing homes I found had courtyards for clients to spend time in. For my parents love nature. ARTGDL2607_0377b

Power outage refugees

We lost power for 16 hours. The area we were staying in lost power. All the stores were without power. We noticed one apartment building or hotel had a huge generator in the garage that was running. Eventually many businesses had generators running. The key to us was that water did not run so we could not flush our toilet. We did not have good communication with our host so we ended up finding a hotel that had power. It turned out to be the same price more or less, but it did not have a fridge. There was an elevator to the metro 10 feet from the front door tho. Air conditioning worked very well. The temps in GDL were very reasonable.