citizen mx

Michael Jackson in Mexico

2009-06-28T21:39:00.002-06:00

Michael visited Mexico back in 93, and performed 5 shows at the Azteca Stadium. Everybody was talking about that, even myself went to his hotel, as other fans, hoping to see him by the window. It didn't happen.

Lucero, a Mexican singer who was at the top of her career in those years, included a MJ's medley during one of her performances in Mexico City, and was broadcasted nationwide.

Feel her voice...

2009-06-14T13:00:00.003-06:00

She is Maria Alejandres, a young mexican opera singer, winner of Placido Domingo's Operalia Competition in 2008. Maria is now taking off to the Opera World Scene. After you heard her, it's just impossible to stay away.

This video is from Operalia, singing Dieu, quel frisson court dans mes veines… Amour, ranime mon courage from the opera Roméo et Juliette de Gounod.

gtltornt24
by gtltornt

I'm blogging in Mexico City

2009-05-01T13:17:00.003-06:00

In Mexico City we're living under Swine Flu shadow. Most people is staying at their homes. Many have run out of the city. I dream about "I am legend" and inspired, imagine myself all alone in the city. Too bad I know nothing about vaccines, so I won't be next Robert Neville.

For you to remember this dialogue:
My name is Robert Neville. I am a survivor living in New York City. I am broadcasting on all AM frequencies. I will be at the South Street Seaport everyday at midday, when the sun is highest in the sky. If you are out there—if anyone is out there—I can provide food, I can provide shelter, I can provide security. If there's anybody out there—anybody—please, you are not alone.

That's a good flight start!

2009-04-23T18:40:00.002-06:00

I wish I had this guy in one flight! He's just great rapping!

Results according to your ideology

2009-04-21T10:06:00.002-06:00

Do you feel easily offended when a search engine gives you results againts your values or moral?

Well, Yahoo! Ideological Search may be an answer, as it let you control what kind of results you get. Let say, you're a homophobic and search information about "gay marriage"... be sure the results won't be the kind of "gay rights" and more like "God hates gays"... happy?

Try it here.

Lost in translation...

2009-04-19T13:00:00.002-06:00

Should she be working at he UN? lol!

The face of Hope

2009-04-19T12:45:00.006-06:00

She may not be Broadway's Fantine but in a world where most of the peoples feels like life has killed the dream they dreamed... Susan Boyle is the new face of Hope. Like that, with a big H.

Jimmy Fallon represents this feeling in the most accurate way...

View video on YouTube

(Sorry but NBC doesn't let me embed the video, so follow the link)

America gets political

2008-10-02T08:21:00.001-06:00

In about 5 weeks elections will come. Time to vote. Will you?

Hollywood's actors are inviting, in this creative way, to register first, and then go vote. Because we all should care.

Don't you love Salma? I do

2008-09-30T20:26:00.000-06:00

It's all brand new... Google Chrome

2008-09-02T22:01:00.002-06:00

Google's always innovating. There're no many companies that understand the internet as Google, and they use their knowledge and creativity to bring us new and excitings applications, as they did today.

The morning was quite busy around the blogosphere, people were just talking about Google Chrome, and when they finally launched it, many of us went crazy and downloaded it as fast as possible.

Discover a new product is always exciting and demanding... so as many people I spent this afternoon discovering Chrome.

And this is a first post from all brand new Google Chrome!

Hillary Clinton at the DNC

2008-08-27T10:19:00.002-06:00

Hillary spoke up and loud last night at the DNC... a long time waited speech which result much more of what we were waiting from her... and for some of us, kind of nostalgy not to have Hillary as vice president.

I've talk to some friends here in Mexico City, and let me say most people feels Obama must be your President.

Best moments of Beijing 2008

2008-08-27T09:52:00.002-06:00

Now, just for remember the great closing ceremony held in Beijing, German site stern.de have another good gallery...

Best pics of the Olympic Games in Beijing

2008-08-27T09:14:00.004-06:00

The german site Stern offers a 150 picture gallery, with the best shots taken during the Olympics in Beijing... some pics are just great!

Eat Mexican in Beijing!

2008-08-23T14:37:00.001-06:00

It's true, it's hard to find a good Mexican restaurant in Beijing. I never been in this one, so if you are, tell us what you think...

Slogans and logos of the Olympics Games

2008-08-11T17:16:00.002-06:00

During the years, slogans have become a main part of the olympic marketing. Below you'll find a slideshow that travels from Seoul 88 to Beijing 2008, its logos and slogans.

Which one is your favorite? Leave your comments!

9/11

2008-02-29T18:59:00.003-07:00

Before last october, I was in NY in 2000. So, as most people in the world, I witnessed 9/11 tragedy through tv. I was on my way to college, so when I get there, I found out about the second plane.

Last year, while attending the World Peace Forum in NYC, I visited ground zero after a morning journey on the ferry. And this is what I found, plus the towers in my memory, which hace no video, just that, memories.

Intercultural Education – Pathways to Peace

2007-10-27T09:27:00.000-06:00

Participants: Roberto Ruffino (AFS Italy); Carol Bellamy (World Learning); Margee Ensign (University of the Pacific); Helene-Marie Gosselin (UNESCO); Vivien Stewart (Asia Society).

So Margee shares a funny but deep story. Do we know our world? Our nation? This is the story: Margee was in a plane, and the women besides her started a conversation, with that women-typical presentation "I like your purse". So Margee answered "Thank you". And then the women goes on, what brand is it? -she said-. It's from Rwanda. I don't know that brand -the women said.

This is it. Maybe Miss South Carolina should be an exemple on this. And then Sandra Bullock saying "... and world peace".

World Peace Forum in NYC

2007-10-27T08:36:00.000-06:00

I just get here two days ago. Finally today the World Peace Forum at Columbia University, organised by AFS, has started.

Peace? Well known word, so badly understood. People is starting to talk about this word today. Just a word? a state of mind? a political position? a international convention?

Well, what you think about it? I'll keep posting through this journey.

Tube's buskers

2007-10-03T09:39:00.000-06:00

In Mexico City is usual to see people singing in the subway or in the buses. Most of them only sings with a guitar and after finish each song they ask for money. They're students or new comers' people, who don't have a job or just need help for their studies. Their stories are like the result of the city's cruelty and violence, all of them tragic. They all have this speech that says: "as you may realise I'm not a great singer, but I'm trying..."

In London, the mayor promoted the initiative "Carling Live Underground Music" with the objective to avoid those "illegal" singers. So the organised auditions, selected those talented musicians and provide'em a small place in the tube. Each one is accompanied with an instrument, an amplifier and a microphone.

Most of the cities can be hostiles and cruel. The people that lives there, we're in a hurry, always with a few minutes to get around. We learn not to look the watch too much. Some people listen music with headsets, read books, or just pretend to sleep. The true is we don't observe what happens around us. London is not the exception.

But it is not my city, I don't live here, I'm a visitor. I found one of those guys playing the flute in Picadilly Station. I keep walking, I barely saw the guy. I get the tube again and I arrived to Baker St Station, I must change to Jubilee. In a long corridor, which is really more like a tube, I saw a girl singing with her guitar. Quite young, maybe 25yo. She's singing Shania Twain's "you're still the one".

I was about keeping walking, like everybody else was doing; like I'd do if I were in Mexico. But I stopped and stayed, about 6ft from the spot she was. I seated and I observed her, I listened to her song. She looked at me like she was happy, like being grateful. I accepted to be her only audience. How ironic! I really was still the one to give her some attention. When the song was ended I gave a shy applause that got lost within the people, those who never stop walking, like a Disneyland's parade. So then, I left too.

Yes. Cities are cruel and hostiles. But there's always somebody willing to listen, and so, we make it, and live our cities.

Oranienburger Tor

2007-09-27T10:03:00.001-06:00

Behind an old building in eastern Berlin, with its so East side architecture, the time seems timeless, nothing new from outside. There's something like an empty and big parking lot, and the building seems to be abandonned. The kind of place that you imagine is inhabited by homeless, junkies or whatever else.

It is Saturday night and my friend is taking me there. From the street corner you realise the place is not at all empty, neither is a parking lot. People get in and out throught a 32ft door. The place is dressed with lights, live music, young people and a lot, really a lot of beer. Small carps serve as a place to sit and bar service. The walls are painted with graffitti art, pieces of wood, rims of tractors and remainders are the true furniture and no one of them is here by coincidence.

"There is a Mexican bar, Zapata, with the image of General Zapata in a 10ft wall. My friend needed to go to the toilet, but there was a 3€ charge! Some feet away from the bar's main entrance was the exit door. Breaking the rules he get in that way, and he saved 3€"

Sir, excuse me, the toilet?

2007-09-25T09:08:00.000-06:00

The Belgium I know is not that of Brugges, the Manneken Piss, Brussels or Antwerpen. It is the French Belgium in the province of Namur: A 30km radio surrounding the city, Namur.

As elsewhere in Europe, Belgium's constructions still smell like centuries. The narrow stairs, the small steps, the wood that squeaks when stepping on it, the strong walls, the heatings in the walls, the red color that's predominates.

Suddenly, in one of the many houses I stayed at, I asked:
- Excuse me, the toilet?
- Go to the kitchen and right there, in front of the stove is the toilet.
- Thanks.

A toilet in the kitchen? in front of the stove? and what if...? there's somebody cooking?

I met the afternoon with a friend to get a drink. Now she's married, has two children and just they bought an old house at a very good price in the outskirts of Liege. It has been hard, because like so many young couples here, they have had to do the remodelings. Then she tells me that the first difficult part was to construct a toilet. A toilet? -I asked her- but if a toilet is so part of a house as the kitchen or a room. Well, not completly, in the house they bought use to live an old woman, and so during her generation they used to bath in the kitchen. At that time the toilet where outside of the house.

But with the modern times also new parameters of hygiene were stablished. But the money is always a problem, and people had to construct the toilet, wc, near the kitchen, because the needed to spend less in installing complex pipes all around the house.

Then you star to understand these things, those that seems strange. And you don't feel shame get to the bath between onions, cereal and milk.

Berlin's bottle fishing!

2007-09-14T14:50:00.000-06:00

How many times you've bought some drink in a plastic bottle and then just throw it away? Many times right? Well, an empty bottle is supposed to be trash. Although in Berlin not completely, a plastic or glass bottle is money.

In Berlin, every time you buy any bottleled drink you are paying a 25cents deposit, no matter the bottle's size. But you don't need to throw your money, because when return back the bottle to the store, they must give you back the same amount of deposit in cash.

Many tourists don't know this, so they throw the bottles in any trash can. But Berliners know it; they're widely prepare for Bottle Fishing, from poor people and even students. To find a place for bottle fishing is the difficult part... the airport? Tiergarten? touristic areas? Almost all of them are practically taken.

You don't need to fish, just open your eyes, not only because your money, but the help that this little action means for the whole planet.

Welcome to Berlin

2007-09-09T00:18:00.000-06:00

It's true, in Berlin the things work with strict order. The respect to pedestrians, the crossing of the streets and avenues, the places for smoking, brief, everything's in order; the scent of chaos is just not even close to here. Berlin is not like a city, well, not to the kind of city I come from.

So, Pablo and me were waiting for the bus, it was raining kind of hard, we were protected in the bus-stop cabin. In Berlin you can count the minutes for a bus to arrive, they always arrives at the exact minute. But I didn't count that the post where the schedules of the buses are posted were about six meters away from us, not a significant distance... when it's not raining as hard as that moment.

The bus was coming, I didn't try too much moving from my safe place below the bus-stop cabin, thinking that, as would happen in Mexico, the driver would be empathetic to us and he would park as close as possible and so don't let us get wet.

But I forgot that I was in Berlin, where everything is too ordered. So, the driver stopped just in front of the post, where he's supposed to stop, six meters away from us. We ran, we got wet and we laugh all laud!

Newlyweds in Belgium

2007-08-13T17:14:00.000-06:00

Vincent and Caroline are a couple that decided three years ago to live together. First they rented an apparment, then decided to buy a house.

Nowadays Caroline is waiting their first baby, they don't want to say the name yet, it's going to be a surprise. She follows the cares that must have a woman with 6 months of pregnancy, although between bricks, land and tools of construction.

They are in the late 20's, their jobs are ok for middle-class. They dedicate their free time to the construction and remodeling of their home. Vincent explains me from the cellar the all they been throught to put the pipe of the climate, the electricity, the water.

In the ground floor they've adapted a small space as a kitchen, because there's still walls to throw. In the attic he tells me how they had to do, with the help of their parents, to fix the chimney, to throw the oldest part and to remake it new.

7km away of Namur there's Vedrin, the suburb where they bought the house. The house they bought is kind of old, and because of that they had a good deal on it. With the cost of the workers in Europe, and even the materials for the remodeling, the newlyweds don't have much choice than do it by themselves, and to dedicate the first 3 or 5 years of their life as a couple to one common project: to create a home, from the physical meaning of the term.

Something about Belgians today

2007-08-08T06:49:00.000-06:00

At the end of 2001 Euro (€) became Europe's common currency. It'e been 5 years already from that day.

My last visit to Belgium was right before the Euro existed, my memory had all prices in Belgian francs. So I can see how the price of a beers and many other things have raised, this thinking has been shared by many Belgians.

And in my attempt to have new referrals of prices here I asked for the price of the houses in the suburbs of Namur, perhaps the most bourgeois city in Wallonia. The answer was "800.000" what my mind it became more than a million dollars. So the I was scared, because as expensive this area could be, this is far away from Beverly Hills or Bell Air residences. Then I asked once again, and they told me the same thing; adding the word "franc"; then I understood that they were talked about the old Belgian francs, the currency that I knew and learned to handle when I lived here.

And during my days in here, when I ask people about price of a Jaguar, a house, a 100m² apparment in Downtown's Namur, or anything like that they always have responded in Belgian Francs. Perhaps people around here already knows whatever is in Euros the things of the supermaket, for the household chores and stuff; but when it is about bigger investments, 5 years have not been enought to make those conversions.