Arts, but no craft

Yesterday we went on a day-long group excursion. First we went to the Governor's Palace, where we saw Jose Orozco's breathtaking mural. When I get back to the States I'll upload my pictures of it, but in the meantime this one from the web will have to do. It may not look all that impressive, but at 75-100 feet in height, this section shows no more than a third of the entire mural, which stretched from the floor up across the ceiling and two walls. Off the screen on the right was a caricatured scene which so accurately portrayed the political climate two years before World War II that it seemed to predict the war itself.

Next we went to a town called Tlaquepaque, which our tour guide claimed to be the preeminent crafts center in all of Latin America. Hyperbole, I'm sure, but the marketplace did offer artistic works of all shapes, sizes, colors, and cultural origins. Thanks in part to the peso's forgiving exchange rate, I came away with treasures from the mundane to the dazzling. They included:

• a wooden pig sporting a radiant hide of tiny, colored beads in complementary shades of blue, green, orange, white, and more. It's covered with a perplexing number of Jewish stars -- one for each eye and one beaming rainbow rays across its back. The little boys tending the table where I bought it seemed more indigenous than Jewish....
• a large clay jar molded as a cowboy sitting with his head hunched between his knees. All you can see of his head is his sombrero, which is the lid of the jar. Sounds expensive right? Forty pesos! That's $3.50!
• now for the mundane -- a small, homemade, shoulderstrap bag with Winnie the Pooh on it. It appears to be made of a brownish suede, and I now use it as a convenient camera carrying case. Oh god... alliteration overload.

Later that evening the group bus dropped us off back at the school. From there I got on bus 51A, the one I thought I was supposed to take back home. But as the bus chugged joltingly along, I felt like I didn't recognize many of the landmarks along the way. So I got off the bus and began to walk. Calling my host mom for help and asking random strangers for directions, I arrived back at home at least an hour later after realizing I had been on the right bus after all. My epic journey had been tiring and personally embarrassing, but ultimately edifying, as I now have a slightly better sense of the area's geography.

Later that night I went to a nearby club with American friends Alison and Ray. From the outside the club looks anything but modest; its super-modern style and suave architectural curves cry out ''classy.'' And its all-English name ''Mood: the Next Heaven'' rolls out a proverbial welcome mat for devotees to American pop culture. The ecstatic beat of club chic imported from the north prodded our spirits as we waited outside in the warm night. After a minute I walked up to the line attendant and asked if we could go in. Another employee promptly walked over, noticed our accents, and asked where we were from. ''America!'' Alison proclaimed. The second man smiled knowingly, scribbled on a bit of paper, ripped it off the pad and handed it to me. ''You can enter for free,'' he said, ''enjoy your night.''

Four beers later I'm getting antsy. I want to test the female waters and I want to test my Spanish skills. I see two Mexican chicas sitting at a nearby table. The empty sofa cube next to them silently begs my ass to plop down on it. After twenty minutes of building up my courage (or ''building up fear'') as Ray retorted, I went and sat down with them.

I could converse only with the girl next to me, as the music's near-deafening decibel level banished the second one from our sphere of communication. I spoke and understood pretty decently, though my amateurish Spanish prevented me from saying all that I wanted to. After a few minutes I got up and went back to my group of friends, feeling somewhat accomplished. Soon after, I returned to the girl and asked her for one dance. She ever-so-sweetly rejected my request.

Vowing not to end my night on such a sour note, I danced halfheartedly with my friends in a middle school-style circle, scanning the crowd for another lady-target. Soon I observed a relatively attractive female my age dancing with a female companion -- a common ritual that, when performed in America, signifies an invitation for males to approach. When I asked her to dance, she blushed and turned to giggle at her friend -- also usually a good sign for the male participant. But 'twas not to be. After dancing awkwardly with her side to me for a minute she ran off with her friend. Angered, perplexed and defeated, I too returned to my friends. It was time to go home.