No English

Took a wander today. Got ourselves a good distance away from the tourist bars. Found out it was true that if you walk far enough away from the beaches no one you speak to can understand a fucking word you are saying.

Soon enough it was lunch time. We were hungry and neither Sonja, Jimi or I had eaten or drank anything for a good couple of hours. That is about how long anybody observes Advent in Mexico. 

"I need a fucking beer," was how Jimi put it.

"I need a fucking margarita," was how Sonja put it.

I could not even speak. My throat was drier than Stephen Harper's sense of humour.

We had somehow found ourselves in a light industrial area. This, we figured, was where all the broken down shit in Mexico gets taken to be fixed. People who fix broken shit need to eat so instead of getting our asses out of the neighbourhood we were in we kept walking. There had to be a restaurant somewhere.

We found two right beside each other. One did not have alcohol. We went to the other one. A menu was posted on its front door. It was written in Spanish. No English at all. We recognized the words cerveza and margarita. We went in.

We were greeted by a pretty Mexican gal who showed us to a table. We sat down. The decor of the place was dazzling. Mexicans are big on dazzling shit.

"Everybody in this town but us must be on peyote," Jimi said as he looked around.

A boy came and brought us menus. Jimi ordered us a couple beers and a double margarita. The boy did not know what the fuck we were talking about.

"I think he thinks you just asked him if you could suck his cock," I said as I looked at the foreign looking menu.

"Let me try," Sonja offered. In her broken down Spanish she told the boy we needed two beers and a double strawberry margarita.

The boy said, "Si," and walked off to get our drinks.

He came back with two Cokes, unopened fortunately, and one beer. We were getting somewhere at least. Sonja waved off the Cokes as Jimi and I fought over the beer. She then resorted to pointing at the beer and holding up six fingers.

The boy said, "Si," and went back to the bar.

He came back with six beers. Our language barrier had been overcome.

We pointed at what we thought might be good on the menu as the boy looked over our shoulder. Si. Bueno. Si.

Our food was excellent. We ordered more beer. Before we left I went back to the kitchen, where the boy's mother appeared to be in charge, rubbed my happy tummy and gave her the thumbs up.

She smiled. I love Mexican people.

We are going back there next year.

Every year I tell myself I should take some fucking Spanish lessons. Then I get back to Canada, where no one speaks English either, and I say, "Fuck it. I am speaking English until I die. Everybody else can fuck right off."