beer

As an intern, sometimes you get fun jobs, and sometimes you're a sophisticated algorithm on a repeat loop.

For the last day and a half, I've been sitting at my work station, opening a cad file, binding the xrefs, saving the file to a new folder, and exporting two sheets at PDFs.

If this was photoshop, even I could "record" these actions to be carried out automatically.

It makes for long days.

What also makes long days is my body's reaction to the food K and I had at the breakfast place in our local market. Not fun, although K is much worse off.

Today Roberto, another long term employee, left to pursue projects on his own. He was a nice guy, really quiet, very introverted, but he shared his music library with me when I asked him. Vania's last day is friday, so she's promised to bring in Cochinita Pibil for lunch for everyone.

Taking a break from my factory job, I looked up my birthday from past years, which made me both nostalgic and especially miss Saori. It was only eight years ago, a lifetime, that I was having a less-than stellar birthday turning 21 at a houseparty in Tempe under seige by police. I didn't write about that part since I was still largely self-censoring at that point. I entered legal drinking age cold sober. Every birthday since then has been wonderful, and I am incredibly lucky for my family and friends.

Today, I got paid, and with some of my money, I went to one of the few places in Mexico City which stocks international beers. So I went to the place in Condesa which is the self-styled "Best Beer Selection in the World".  The selection was slightly better than the average St. Louis gas station, slightly worse than my local grocery store there, but beggers can't be choosers, and frankly, I was escatic to have more options than a dark lager or a light lager.

In all seriousness, the state of beer in Mexico is such that there's only two classifications here- cerveza claro (light lager) or cerveza negro (dark lager). Sheeeit, if you were set down  in the most isolated corner of Oklahoma, New Mexico, or Texas, even the most decrepid gas station next to the sign that says "next rest stop: 800 miles", someplace so remote and forgotten they still charge 30 cents a gallon for gas and the buzzards are reduced to eating rusting cars, even there, you can find lagers AND pilsners.

They didnt have much in the way of American beer, which was surprising. Some Rouge Ales (ok...), some organic beers (fine, whatever), and Miller Lite (a beer so weak, it can't even spell 'light').

They did have a passable selection of European beers (Delerium Tremens, Chimay, HB), and a good selection of Mexican craft brews. So far, I have not been impressed with the Scottish Smokey Ale, but it's the one I bought with lowest expectations.

The staff were helpful- one guy offered to help me with recommendations. I resisted the urge to say "I'm from Saint Louis, bitch," and simply assured him I was fine.

Ended up picking up five beers of decidedly non-lager types. Tab came up to about 350 pesos, which is about an average of $5 USD per bottle.