Notre deuxième hôtesse couchsurfing, Lizzÿ et son voisin Claudio nous emmènent au Festival des Morts à Tlaquepaque, une ville adjacente à Guadalajara.
La mort? on lui sourit! (remarquez les drapeaux posés soigneusement sur notre table… habitude du resto d’honorer ses invités étrangers)
We met Eduardo at the party in the first night in Guadalajara. He practice taekwondo and is architect. The idea of this sport is to be like the water, to be very adaptive, very flexible, but calm. In architecture is to mule on the client needs, to understand him very well, and then to create for him. Kary loves her job. She studied psychology, now she is teacher and work with children, some of them have disabilities: it’s the best job in the world, according to her.
Haaaa… parler espagnol de nouveau, pouvoir marcher dans la rue et savourer une douce chaleur… Nous avons choisi au pif d’aller à Guadalajara, car nous voulions éviter de nous frotter de trop près aux cartels près de la frontière. C’est une grande ville, mais le centre que nous découvrons le premier jour est extraordinaire après le choc vécu à Albuquerque et la froideur des espaces publics américains… Des vieilles pierres, des bâtiments du XVIIè et XVIIIè siècles, coloniaux certes, mais plein de charme. Des places toutes les 3, 4 rues nous donnent la sensation d’être revenus dans une ville vivable. Oui, ici c’est plein de vie même quand il pleut et surtout le jour des morts!
Pavel is our CouchSurfing host in Portland. We spent 3 nights with him. He is from Bielorusia and he came in US with a Phd in semiconductors and when he finished it, he got a job at Intel. He lives the American dream: a nice car, a big house with a huge garden for a future dog. On the other hand, he doesn’t have too much time, since he works 7-19 and each three weeks, he is on night call.
Pavel dated an American girl. Once, after about 2 months, when he came to her place, there was on the table a magazine specialized on marriage diamonds. Pavel said that the girls are programmed that ‘if marriage then diamonds’. The same story I had heard from Viorel, that the custom is that the diamond is 30% of the yearly revenue of the groom.
He goes once a year in Bielorusia. He says that if you accept corruption, you can have a good life.
India is from India. She is a work colleague of Pavel. We met her at a Sunday grill. She is very emancipated, she drives a 1200cc chopper, very big and heavy. As the other Indian at the party, she is married with an Indian who is living far by 3 hours flight. The problem is that in US, even as a Phd doctor, working for 6 years, if you don’t have a job, you have to leave the country. So each of them sticks to the job they got after graduation and wait to get the citizenship.
Pavel is sharing his house with Vladimir, from Ukraine. He has tough stories with colleagues and friends who went in the war, and some died.
Despite all these sad stories, we had a very good time with them.
Portland is known for roses, the climate is apparently perfect to grow them.
I spent the first 3 nights at Samuel. I found him on Couchsurfing. His house is open for his guests, and there are all the time, even he has a very small apartment. He bakes every day a meat or vegetable cake, very good. When Emilie came to Vancouver, we let some luggage at his place. In the last planned night we visit him. He cooked Mamaliga with chicken liver and heart!
