Veracruz - Sun. 10/25 '09

This morning six of us met in the school's small living room to go out for breakfast and an informal city tour with Jorge. He's a smart, well-spoken 18-year-old in his first year of universidad, studying civil engineering.

My fellow students are from just about everywhere: Mike, from Houston; Inez, from Kentucky—formerly of Michigan; Jenny, from North Carolina; and Laurie, from Kansas. (I'm still working on remembering the other names and hometowns.)

Walking to the nearest bus stop, we grabbed a blue bus (six pesos -- about 50 cents -- for a ride without air conditioning versus the yellow ones with air for $7.50 Mex.) headed for el centro.
Our destination was El Gran Café de la Parróquia a landmark in the city for 200 years. (The city was founded in 1513 by none other than Hernando Cortes as the first Spanish conquest in Mexico.) The restaurant is famous for the favorite local rendition of coffee, the lechero, consisting of a few tablespoonsful of strong coffee with lots of steaming milk poured in from great silver kettles held about a foot above a glass. I ordered the stronger cafe Americano with inverse proportions of coffee and milk, and the tortilla de la Parroquia, an egg, potato and onion omelett served swimming in a bowl of savory broth.

After breakfast we strolled along the seawall, overlooking the very busy port of Veracruz (Mexico's first, second or third busiest seaport, depending on whom you ask). Across the harbor mammoth container ships and the hefty cranes to load and unload them intimidate every other boat and everything else in view.
Along the promenade of small shops strolled a number of young sailors, dashing in their crisp, snow-white, dress uniforms, some of them even sporting sheathed sabers. One group of young women commandeered a pair of sailors to pose with them for a photo.

On our way to the zocalo—the main city plaza—we walked past the Baluarte Santiago, one of what once were many small fortifications that surrounded the city, connected by walls.

The zocalo, smaller than those I've seen in many other cities, is flanked by the usual government buildings and the cathedral, a crumbling, dismal building caked in black and gray blotches from air pollution and/or mold. Posters indicated that a fundraising effort's underway to clean it up and make the most-needed repairs.

We hopped another blue bus for Boca del Rio, a smaller and somewhat more modern city that sort of blends into Veracruz to the south. There we got off at the small park where the muddy river (name?) actually spills into the Gulf. Kids lined the seawall, not trying very hard to escape the explosions of spray that shot up with each surge of the sea as it butted heads with the river's current.

Back at the school, Jorge—who'd told me of his interest in playing guitar—picked up the guitar on display in the lounge and softly played a couple of very polished classical pieces -- ¡Muy impresionante!

I struck out on my own and went to the aquarium—advertised as the biggest and best in Latin America—just a few blocks from school. It is not spectacular like Boston's, but decent, especially for the few humongous specimens of jewfish—some of them looking to be seven or eight feet long and at least 400 pounds. Another exhibit that caught my fancy was that of some four- to six-inch fish with no eyes— apparently evolved away for lack of use in their total-darkness cave habitat.

Walking back, I met a nice young woman by asking her about her dog (an "eschnauzer"), a sort of cream-colored variety I've never seen before. She knew all about the immersion school and seemed very anxious to practice (what else?) her English!! If I don't hook up with other students for dinner during the week, I may give her a call -- she offered to show me around a bit and take me to a good restaurant. If so, we agreed to talk English/Spanish half & half.

I'm feeling pretty competent in my Spanish so far and already have siezed many opportunities to chat with school staff members and other locals. I look forward to a bit more structure tomorrow and during the week.

When I was ready for dinner, no one was around, so I went out to Che Tango, an Argentine restaurant I'd passed while exploring this afternoon. Though I knew beef would be the place's forte, I'd hoped for a potato and some veggies along with my meat. I had to settle for a medley of fried onions and jalapeños, but my small steak (for some reason called vacío—which means "empty") was superb, as was the wine I ordered to accompany it.