Category Archives: Around the world

Texas Renaissance Festival

Texas Renaissance Festival
Texas Renaissance Festival

It is the dream of every free man and woman in the world to re-live that glorious time period that woke humanity up from the Dark Age and propelled it towards modernity: The Renaissance. Or at least that’s what the organizers of the Texas Renaissance Festival in Platersville, Texas would want you to believe.

I attended for the first time ever a couple of weeks ago. First let me get this out of the way: As far as this thing is concerned, there is no effort whatsoever to portray things in a historically manner. Sort of how Taco Bell doesn’t try to accurately portray Mexican food.

Now that we got this out of the way and you are comfortable being surrounded by people dressed up as Romans, Greeks, Middle Age peasants, Star Wars stormtroopers, etc. you can get to the fun part. The festival is much bigger and interesting than I’d have suspected, but granted, my expectations were low. They have built this really large village, with actual permanent buildings. The thing is very large. And they filled it with people dressed in ridiculous costumes who speak with a funny English accent and eat turkey legs with their hands. And that’s all good because I like dressing with ridiculous costumes, I speak with a funny English accent, and I like eating turkey legs.

Read more to see more photographic evidence.

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Blame Canada: Mexicans need tourist visas

south-park-blame-canada

In a surprise move by the Canadian government, it is now required for Mexican and Czech tourists to get a visa before visiting.

However, they decided to make it effectivealmost  immediately (announced on Monday, effective today).

I’m not exactly sure what the Canadians are thinking, but most tourists buy their tickets and make all travel arrangements more than zero days in advance. I’ve never been in Canada in my life myself, but I do have the extremely good luck of being scheduled to travel there next week, along with about 30 members of my family… the vast majority of us Mexican citizens.

From what I hear, the embassy in Mexico City was caught by surprise and there is no way we can get a visa on time. We’ll see how this one plays out.

Canadian Embassy
Canadian Embassy

Bungee

Here’s a video of me bungee jumping last Saturday at the Cola de Caballo waterfalls, in Villa de Santiago, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Highly recommended. Enjoy!

Update 7/8/2009: Answering Eva’s comments on how this compares to skydiving: Skydiving costs 10x more but it’s worth it 10x more. It’s a better, longer, experience. The thing about bungee jumping is that your body changes direction several times so you get a different feeling. But nothing beats the free fall of sky diving, with the strong wind in your face and the unbelievable, wide open view.

Smooth trip to Mexico City

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A detailed timeline of what actually happened was partially drafted but I’ve realized that I will never finish, so here’s the summary:

Flew to Mexico City for Lucy and Jose Finkelstein’s wedding last month. Due to work it had to be a quick one night trip. There were a few… unforseen circumstances; which include a towed car (with passports in them), very little sleep, a missed flight, hanging out in IAH in standby, Shlomit and I arriving at different airports (MEX and TOL) plus a few other things. At the end it all worked out. Photos at The MKX® Photo Central.

Glam Girls

Fanboys Jacobo, Marcos, and Moi with superstar Yael Sandler from the hit TV show "Glam Girls".
Fanboys Jacobo, Marcos, and Moi with superstar Yael Sandler from the hit TV show "Glam Girls".

Shameless plug: In case you missed the world premiere of Glam Girls on TeleHit last Thursday, you can go to the official website and watch the full first episode. That’s right: no need to panic anymore.

On the photo, my brothers and I posing with Glam Girls villain Fernanda de la Vega (Yael Sandler). Mark my word: She’s going to make other Glam Girls cry… she’s sooo evil.