travel update from guadalajara
Saludos,
I am in the wonderful city of Guadalajara Mexico. This is the second largest city in Mexico with about 5 or 6 million people. It is a very beautiful city. There are lovely plazas and lots of old colonial style architecture. The weather has been perfect here the last week, about 28 degrees in the day and it cools off to about 20 at night (between 60 and 80 degrees American) It has been one cloudless blue sky after another and I havent been bitten by a mosquito or a jejene or a fly in a week (hooorayyy!) my arms and elbows and knees have all stopped itching from all the bites I received in San Blas and I am feeling great!
I have been staying at Hostel Guadalajara Centro which is a good hostel (albergue) only a couple of minutes walk from the main plaza and where all the free concerts happen at night. There has been a cultural festival going on here and I have been going to a free concert EVERY night since I have been here! Last night was the Jalisco Symphonia Orchestra and they played very well in the plaz fro about 90 minutes. Finished up with "Stranger in Paradise" for which they brought out a 30 member choral group! Que Buena! and all for free.
On other nights I have been listening to Mariachi music and there have been two (at least) free BAllet folklorico shows too. The first was the best! There were all these little childresn I would guess between 8 and 14 years old and they were all dressed up in elaborate indian costumes and elaborate mexican costumes and they danced and played conch horns and it was just a fabulous time!
Every sunday here, they close down the main avenue and let bicyclists, roller skeaters and skateboarders and the like take it over and just cruise up and down the boulevard! The hostel has FREE bicycles for the guest to use so I went out cruising with the people of guadalajara. Perfect weather. all along the route were set up various things to see and do and buy. A natural foods plaza where there were tofu sandwiches and whole wheat cookies and organic treats and wheat grass drinks. Giant chess peices on a giant plastic board for people to play along with giant checkers and giant back gammon. The hare krishnas were out there chanting gods names and being generally ecstatic. I fell in with a nice group of travelers here and have had lots of good company to go to stuff whenever I want compañaros.
Oh yes, I may have forgotten to mention...just down the road from here is a little town called Tequila. Guess what they make there? I paid out the necessary pesos and took a drinking tour with the guide who works in the hostel. It cost 480 pesos ($35.00) but it was worth it (vale la peña). We tried a lot of tequila. The best wasa from Tres Mujeres. We saw how they harvest the agave and how they process it and the whole deal. we got to taste the juice at various stages and tried all the cheapest and all the most expensive tequilas each tequilaria had to offer. We was twisted!!
Tequla is alos the name of a volcano which is right there and aparently they named the town after the volcano and the liquor after the town. Real fire water!
Today I took a local bus to Tlaquepaque and went strolling along the peatonal (walking mall) and looked at nice aresan stuff. This is the home of Rodolfo Padrillo, a famous artist and sculptor. He has a factory outlet on the mall and he has donated a few statues to the town so you can go and look and check them out. You can pick up a bronze of his for 200,000 pesos (about $15,000) if you wish...I decided to pass as a 200kilo statue would be a real buden to a backpacker.
My second or third day here an american named Steve checked in. He is my age and we were at the same chef school (CI A) at the same time. We do not know one another as he graduated in 1980 and I in 1981 but we have been cooking in the hostel kitchen together. He is a nice guy and we have been out bicycling around the town together going to market together and smoking cocktails together too.
I have always loved Mexico and never have had a bad time here. My feelings remain the same. I can not understand why anyone in the USA would have anything bad to say about their neighber to the south, but ...They do. It is of course nothing but racisim and elitism. I will never understand anyone who could judge a man by the color of his skin or his accent or his bank account but there are lots of us who do. Pity that. Just today I received a racist e-mail from an old friend allegedly written by Bill Cosby. Disgusting! I doubt Bill wrote it but the fact that anyone would forward such zeenophobic racist trash is so disapointing. The weird thing is the guy who sent it would never consider himself to be racist or ethnocentric.
I am thinking of going to San Miguel De Allende next and then to Mexico city and then to Oaxaca but we all know how quickly and suddenly my plans changs so...Meanwhile, this kid is just in love with Guadalajara. I recommend any one who enjoys to be in a big city to come here some day and visit.
Well that is all for now. I leave you all with a few quotes to consicer until my next update.
Peace and happiness to all of you
Roberto
"There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the world religions." Hans Küng.
"The pursuit of truth does not permit violence being inflicted on one's opponent." Mahatma Gandhi.
"For every dollar that the developed countries spend on international assistance, they invest $10 in military budgets." d'Escoto, senior advisor to the president of Nicaragua, 2008-SEP.
I am in the wonderful city of Guadalajara Mexico. This is the second largest city in Mexico with about 5 or 6 million people. It is a very beautiful city. There are lovely plazas and lots of old colonial style architecture. The weather has been perfect here the last week, about 28 degrees in the day and it cools off to about 20 at night (between 60 and 80 degrees American) It has been one cloudless blue sky after another and I havent been bitten by a mosquito or a jejene or a fly in a week (hooorayyy!) my arms and elbows and knees have all stopped itching from all the bites I received in San Blas and I am feeling great!
I have been staying at Hostel Guadalajara Centro which is a good hostel (albergue) only a couple of minutes walk from the main plaza and where all the free concerts happen at night. There has been a cultural festival going on here and I have been going to a free concert EVERY night since I have been here! Last night was the Jalisco Symphonia Orchestra and they played very well in the plaz fro about 90 minutes. Finished up with "Stranger in Paradise" for which they brought out a 30 member choral group! Que Buena! and all for free.
On other nights I have been listening to Mariachi music and there have been two (at least) free BAllet folklorico shows too. The first was the best! There were all these little childresn I would guess between 8 and 14 years old and they were all dressed up in elaborate indian costumes and elaborate mexican costumes and they danced and played conch horns and it was just a fabulous time!
Every sunday here, they close down the main avenue and let bicyclists, roller skeaters and skateboarders and the like take it over and just cruise up and down the boulevard! The hostel has FREE bicycles for the guest to use so I went out cruising with the people of guadalajara. Perfect weather. all along the route were set up various things to see and do and buy. A natural foods plaza where there were tofu sandwiches and whole wheat cookies and organic treats and wheat grass drinks. Giant chess peices on a giant plastic board for people to play along with giant checkers and giant back gammon. The hare krishnas were out there chanting gods names and being generally ecstatic. I fell in with a nice group of travelers here and have had lots of good company to go to stuff whenever I want compañaros.
Oh yes, I may have forgotten to mention...just down the road from here is a little town called Tequila. Guess what they make there? I paid out the necessary pesos and took a drinking tour with the guide who works in the hostel. It cost 480 pesos ($35.00) but it was worth it (vale la peña). We tried a lot of tequila. The best wasa from Tres Mujeres. We saw how they harvest the agave and how they process it and the whole deal. we got to taste the juice at various stages and tried all the cheapest and all the most expensive tequilas each tequilaria had to offer. We was twisted!!
Tequla is alos the name of a volcano which is right there and aparently they named the town after the volcano and the liquor after the town. Real fire water!
Today I took a local bus to Tlaquepaque and went strolling along the peatonal (walking mall) and looked at nice aresan stuff. This is the home of Rodolfo Padrillo, a famous artist and sculptor. He has a factory outlet on the mall and he has donated a few statues to the town so you can go and look and check them out. You can pick up a bronze of his for 200,000 pesos (about $15,000) if you wish...I decided to pass as a 200kilo statue would be a real buden to a backpacker.
My second or third day here an american named Steve checked in. He is my age and we were at the same chef school (CI A) at the same time. We do not know one another as he graduated in 1980 and I in 1981 but we have been cooking in the hostel kitchen together. He is a nice guy and we have been out bicycling around the town together going to market together and smoking cocktails together too.
I have always loved Mexico and never have had a bad time here. My feelings remain the same. I can not understand why anyone in the USA would have anything bad to say about their neighber to the south, but ...They do. It is of course nothing but racisim and elitism. I will never understand anyone who could judge a man by the color of his skin or his accent or his bank account but there are lots of us who do. Pity that. Just today I received a racist e-mail from an old friend allegedly written by Bill Cosby. Disgusting! I doubt Bill wrote it but the fact that anyone would forward such zeenophobic racist trash is so disapointing. The weird thing is the guy who sent it would never consider himself to be racist or ethnocentric.
I am thinking of going to San Miguel De Allende next and then to Mexico city and then to Oaxaca but we all know how quickly and suddenly my plans changs so...Meanwhile, this kid is just in love with Guadalajara. I recommend any one who enjoys to be in a big city to come here some day and visit.
Well that is all for now. I leave you all with a few quotes to consicer until my next update.
Peace and happiness to all of you
Roberto
"There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the world religions." Hans Küng.
"The pursuit of truth does not permit violence being inflicted on one's opponent." Mahatma Gandhi.
"For every dollar that the developed countries spend on international assistance, they invest $10 in military budgets." d'Escoto, senior advisor to the president of Nicaragua, 2008-SEP.
posted by Rambling Robert | 2:37 PM
1 Comments:
Gordon Elletson of Cdo , Cagayan de Oro, Philippines claims to have PTSD do to combat experiences but how can that be as he never saw any serrious combat like that which Bradley Hughes fought gallantly in. Now for the truth. Gordon Elletson was molested as a child and has admitted this on public forum. This in all probability is the cause of his PTSD as well as his abuse of drugs, alcohol, women and children. Many studies have shown that victims of child abusers grow often into predators who abuse children. It is like a dog, if you beat dog etc he will become aggressive. Could this sexual abuse in Gordon's past be the cause of why he grew into a abuser? Also after being used sexually by a man he may have doubted his manhood. This may be the cause of Gordy Elletson going around trying to feel like a real man by hitting women and small children.
The bad thing is unlike the dog in paragraph above Gordon " TexKano " Elletson rationalizes his behavior by using his various mental illnesses as a defense so he doesn't have to face fault of his actions. In many ways though the dog has more sense than Gordon Elletson as the dog knows not to shit where it sleeps , sadly Gordy Elletson does not. To see evidence of this one needs to only read his own biography and how he abused his ex-wives by hitting them then moved to the Philippines where he brutally abused Xavier Madlangbayan by hitting him with a cane in the middle of a US embassy outreach function held at Pryce Plaza hotel in CDO , Cagayan de Oro, Philippines.
Gordon is mentally ill though and must stay highly medicated in order to function in society, he has admitted this on a site. But even more evidence is how he called his American wives bitches and stuff because they left his abusive ass. Is he so stupid to not see they did not like to be abused nor should any person be subjected to abuse. He then in Philippines carried on this bullshit attitude and after beating Xavier Madlangbayan went home and bragged about it openly on the Internet. He then called Dr. Severino Madlangbayan , a highly respected member of the Iligan community, a banana eating monkey for getting angry about having his small grandson beaten in a public environment.
Gordon though in his mentally deranged state justifies these inexcusable actions just as he justified putting Bradley Hughes , Jerry Olson and others on his nonsensical wall of same.
It is my belief that Gordon Elletson poses a threat to the community and should either leave on his own or face deportation. In fact his mental illness alone is enough to block his immigration into Philippines as one of stipulations of the RA13 is that person must not suffer from serious mental illness, especially those which cause them to be violent in public.
The real victim in this crime is Xavier Madlangbayan as he suffered emotional trauma due to abuse at the hands of Gordon Elletson. In fact Xaviers mother, Margie Madlangbayan, stated on public forum that Xavier stated several times on the way to court ""mommy,is Gordon going to be there?what if he hits me again? To which she replied "Xavier,he will pay for what he did.He will never put his hands on you again,over my dead body." I find her comment very great as it would be the comment of any parent in the situation as parental instincts cross all cultural lines and all of us who are parents would also fight to the end of the world in protection of our children.
They say it takes a village to raise a child so let us join together and make our voices heard so we can bring this fatass Gordon Elletson to justice and insure that no other Filipino children face abuse at the hands of this violent foreign monster who not only abuses children but is also arrogant (or crazy) enough to brag online about his disgusting actions.
For more info on Gordon Elletson please see link below.
http://sexpatswallofshame.blogspot.
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