Ash Wednesday (圣灰星期三, 灰の水曜日, 재 수요일)

 Today is Easter Sunday, a very Holy day in Christianity where even I know that Jesus was resurrected on this day as depicted in the Bible. Having not been raised in a Christian household, I only knew it as the day my parents took me to the park for the Easter egg "hunt" which was more like just random plastic easter eggs scattered around the grass in full view of small kids to pick up, there's no "hunt" about it. I should have figured there was something more symbolic about those eggs and the Easter bunny and more story behind it, but I never paused to figure it out. Along with Easter Sunday comes Good Friday, the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Cavalry, and before that there's Maundy Thursday (washing of saints' feet and the date of the Last Supper), then something called Holy Wednesday or Spy Wednesday which I just learned is NOT Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday happens way before Easter, 6 weeks before, setting off the period of Lent, whereas Spy Wednesday is the date where Judas sold Jesus to the "Sanhedrin" for 30 pieces of silver. All of that make sense? There's also Shrove Tuesday which is end of pre-lent and followed by Ash Wednesday. So many days of the week to keep track of! 

My body feels like it's going through a Spy Wednesday phase where it's not doing what I want it to do anymore, and maybe it sold me for 30 pieces of silver to the twin evils of Father Time and natural deteoriation. In addition to the herniated disc issue I've been having, I've realized that my bladder has started to constrict, and frequently I need to pee really bad and have a hard time controlling it. The urge to pee comes really quickly all of a sudden now, which may be due to me setting all day and having ready access to a restroom so getting used to being able to pee whenever I want, but I've had some close calls already this year when being outside, barely rushing to a public bathroom at the last minute but already in panic mode looking around for somewhere in the wild to pee out of sight of any prying eyes. This has never happened since I was two, one of my most graphic memories was walking home from school by myself but not being to hold it and unfortunately wetting my pants. I gotta believe more 3-year-old or 4-year-old kids have that experience, but not 36-year-olds. 

The other Spy Wednesday thing my body is doing is not allowing myself to fall asleep, or falling asleep and waking back up after a few hours feeling really hungry. This happened every night in the last week; I wonder if it's a sign of diabetes, or lack of melatonin, or bad eating cycle, or a tapeworm. It's one of the worst things, not being able to sleep; probably why humans used it back in the day as a torture device, keeping prisoners awake and never allowing them to go to sleep. 

Easter Weekend 2024 will for me be remembered as the Illini Easter Massacre, where on Saturday the Illini played defending champion UConn in the Elite Eight at the TD Garden in Boston. I broke one of my own rules: never go to a game that everyone else wants to go to because you'll end up overpaying. And then also, I try not to go to the games that my team roots for, because usually every time I go the home team loses. This time technically it wasn't a home game for the Illini, it was definitely more of a home game for UConn fans. Whatever the case, I just couldn't resist the allure of the Illini being back in the Elite Eight for the first time in 19 years, the team that I grew up watching and listening to on the radio even more attending college there, and being able to go to a high-stakes game like that with some rooting interest in the game felt like one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. It did turn out to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, hanging out with fellow Illini alum and students at a Boston bar, yelling I-L-L in the streets of Boston, engaging (less hostiley than I thought) with UConn fans, and attending the game after having one or two or three brewskis (beers) and getting hyped up for a battle. The first half was competitive, but after a 23-23 tie UConn went on a 30-0 run. Yes you read that right a 30-0 run. I felt like Jesus on Good Friday being hung on the cross, laid out for all to witness and sacrificed to the No. 1 team in the nation UConn. Hello Disappointment, my old friend. Still, if life is just a series of moments and new experiences, I can't fault myself for doing this thing and feeling what it's like, spending way too much and expending way too much energy just to go to a 2-hour game in another part of the world to relive my college years with college friends, despite being more than 15 years out of college. I felt like a kid again. I also roamed the streets of Boston following the Freedom Trail at night, not highly recommended on a Saturday night, also especially since my bladder at one point felt like it was going to burst and I had to run into a train station to use the public bathroom. Yikes. Could have been an even worse weekend than it was. 

Herniated disc (椎间盘突出, 椎間板ヘルニア, 허리 디스크)

 There are 2 things that are causing me physical pain in recent days: a situation with my back that I thought was a knot but that I'm now self-diagnosing as a "herniated disc" or "bulging disc" where I'm fine standing up or laying down in bed, but when sitting in specific chairs, I feel a tingling on the right side of my spine, followed by faint pain; not excruiating and probably me just being a baby, but it's consistent discomfort that after while makes me get up and have to move around to get the knot out. I believe it's caused by the bad posture I've adopted over the years, as well as being sedentary all the time in a sitting position while working, watching TV, as opposed to back in the day having to commute to work, go from my car to the office, get up at the office to go pick up lunch at a restaurant, etc. I never had good posture when I was a child and my parents never emphasized it; not blaming them since they had plenty on their plate, and also into my teens I started developing acne and didn't want to look anyone in the face, thus always turning away and keeping my head down. And I'm just lazy and a sloucher. Definitely when I go back in my time machine to correct the mistakes of yesteryear, I'll make a reminder to stop slouching. It'll be like No. 63 way down the list, but it'll be mentioned. My body in general also is showing the tiniest bit of wear and tear aka getting old, as when I run I sometimes feel the slightest knee pain or heel pain, somehing I never felt in my 20's. Signs of mortality, and I can see why no athlete really lasts into their late 30s or even 40s except the unicorns like Tom Brady and Lebron James. 

MJ has graciously helped to try to knead my back and massage out the knot, but either we haven't go deep enough into the tissue, or it's just not fixable by laypeople. My parents recommended a physical therapist, triggering fears I've always had of going to the dentist, going to the dermatologist, going any sort of doctor. I'd just rather not unless I absolutely had to, but then again there's been some unexpected successes: didn't really think I needed laser eye surgery, got it anyway in late 2009, haven't looked back (literally) since, it's been great and I enjoy not wearing glasses all the time. Maybe a physical therapist will make my back feel like I'm 18 years old again? Unlikely but might be worth a shot if the back gets worse, or if good posture and naturally sorting it out doesn't fix the problem. 

The other thing causing me physical pain is the amount of tax I have to pay this tax season. Yes, it's physical pain, I'm not saying my back pain was created by the stress of doing those tax returns and finding out how much I have to pay Mr. Tax Man.... but it's definitely not helping. We're talking like 5-digit sums of money, not just to the Federal Uncle Sam but also to the state! I may have complained about this last year too (money is a particularly sensitive topic for me) but those tax brackets sure have a high cliff, going from 10%-12% immediately up to 22%-24% as you make more, and then ANOTHER big jump to 32%. It does make sense to tax people who have more income more percentage, but I think I have the same issue as with tipping going up from 15% back in my day to 20%, 22%, etc. I would have paid more than the lowest earners even if I paid the same rate, since I'm earning more, it's not like I make $100 and only get taxed $10  while those who make $50 also pay $10, that would be really unfair and regressive. Not to get into the math too much, but likely I will still try to make as much money as I can, but there's definitely a little bit of eyeing the tax brackets and saying, "let's just stay under the cap that bumps up the percentage from 12% to 22%, almost doubling. Let's just stay under there. There is a little bit of deterrence to not work as much there. Man 32% income bracket for some of the top brackets, AND THEN the states get to take a hack at it? Tough to make a living out there, and to echo MJ's complaint, still not getting health insurance with those tax dollars. 

Precision ( 精确, 精度, 정도)

 I recently watched a violin tutorial lesson on Youtube by Ray Chen, the famous violinist from Australia who has the face of an Asian Adonis but also the virtuoso violin technique of Nicolo Paganini, which is to say, he's better at everything than me. Even his teaching style seemed crisp and engaging, explaining concepts with well-rehearsed analogies, tips, eloquence. As someone who once dabbled in violin and know at least a little of what is required to play the instrument well (despite not possessing those abilities), it's like watching someone with alien power just do it so much better than you, and realizing you were just not destined to do what Ray Chen is able to do. (And that's OK, not all of us are built like that). Oh, and I realized that my old violin teacher might be out of a job if everyone can just go online and watch Ray Chen provide more engaging lessons with his cherubic smiling face and grin. 

Violin is one of those disciplines that requires precision, or accuracy in everything you do, from the way you hold the violin at a certain angle, to where you place the fingers of you left hand to ensure the correct pitch of the note (just a slight tilt one way of your finger can throw the note off balance), to how much pressure you exert with your right hand on the bow to where you play with the bow, to get the timing right on the beat always, never rushing or dragging, for the whole piece that you are playing. Oh and don't forget about vibratto! Whereas baseball is a lot of moving pieces but it all just needs to come together in that one moment of throwing the ball or swinging the bat, violin is just hundreds and thousands of actions coming together for many many seconds for however long the piece is, and when done accurately, is more of a piece of art because you know how much someone put into it to make it sound so good throughout. It takes precision, and I've never liked precision in most things. I've always been described as a little rough about my work, to which I don't disagree; I tend to do just well enough to get the job done, like just having a car to get from place to place, not caring about the fanciess or the finer points of the car. This philosophy has served me well, in say, not being picky about the quality about my food or sleeping arrangements, but it DOES NOT serve me well in places where high quality is necessary and apparent for all to see (or in violin's case, all listening to hear) where every mistake rings out like a pimple on one's face, making others wince. 

One of my closest friends in high school was always better than me at violin; he reminds me a lot of Ray Chen, down to the Adonis-like good looks and attention to detail, being careful about what to wear, his actions in everything he did. He liked building bridges and delving into mechanical engineering in his free time; I liked joining as many clubs as I could to broaden my experiences. I imagine he practiced violin to get better at the art from and perfect his craft; I did it to satisfy my parents, get it over with so I could watch TV and move on to the next thing. I was just not into the precision as much as other violinsts were, and that true violinists needed to be. I can see that in other violinists, how much care and pride they take in their music. It's really admirable; I wish I had that. 

Lack of precision also is a double-edged sword in other facets of my life: chess, a game I really care about and want to do better at, also requires a certain level of precision, which has eluded me. The best chess players have to play the best move every move, for however many moves it takes to win the game. You can make 5, 10, 20 moves all with precision and the best move you could have made, but if the 21st move is not precise, that can lead to disaster. I feel like that's life for me: other than basic mental math, of which I can give very precise answers, I'm always just a little off, or can't sustain the level of precision needed: in trivia I'll mix up someone's name like pronouncing proboscis monkey as probiscus, not knowing the full story that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's full title is "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," answered question of "who wrote the biography of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk?" as "Walter Jacobson," not Walter Isaacson, etc. Just always a little off; it's plagued me my whole life. Guess not everyone can be Ray Chen, otherwise he wouldn't be Ray Chen anymore. 

One-Hit Wonder ( 一击奇迹, 一発屋, 원 히트 원더)

 One-Hit wonders are like cherry blossoms. I recently started watching a Netflix show called "Girls5eva," a show about 40-year-old former bandmates who made a big hit in their 20s as part of a band called Girls5eva but then were never heard of again, each going their own way and fading into non-celebrities. Sadly, their stories (and the genius of the show) resonate with us because at one point sometime in our 20's, we likely reached our peak of youth, enjoying the benefits of good health, attractivenss, sports prowess, ability to eat unhealthy foods without consequences, fertility, hope, and the luxury of having time on our side. That was us in our 20s, but that beautiful combination of having everything good in life intersect fades away quickly, and we're left always craving that feeling again for the rest of our lives. That's the story of Girls5eva.... well, for the first few episodes anyway. It gets better for the 40-year-old versions as the story goes along, but that's for plot purposes. In real life I think if most people had to pick an age to relive over and over again it'd be sometime from 21-26, that magical window. 

There are a ton of one-hit wonders that I often recognize the beat but never can identify the artist; likely it's because the band or singer just had that one hit and didn't become famous enough for long enough time to be known. Rolling Stones magazine has plenty that they list, but "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba comes to mind: played at weddings, parties, sports games, all kind of public venues with instant recognition, no one can ever name a second song by Chumbawumba. Also, "Take On Me" by A-Ha: MJ and I once went walking on a path down a river and a nearby boat just played "Take On Me" on repeat as they drifted by. It was.... annoying, but also tuned me into the enormous popularity of the song. In many ways, "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen is the One-Hit Wonder of my 20s and when I really followed songs: whereas most other pop stars of my youth went on to have at least some follow-up acts (Britney, Justin, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Hilary Duff, etc.) Carly Rae later did a song with Owl City, but she's now forever known in history for "Call Me Maybe," which may not be a bad thing as the song makes me remember the summer of 2012, the Olympics, hearing it on the radio (along with Moves like Jagger by Maroon 5) and just a carefree, forget-your-troubles upbeat kind of song, even though some say the song is about a callgirl. Don't mind those rumors! 

Cherry blossoms are like that youth, except we get it every year around mid-to-late March, and only in certain parts of the country, and only for a few days of "peak bloom." They literally call it a peak, and the National Parks Service even has an alert specifically designed for telling people when it's peak bloom to get out there and see the cherry blossoms. And then within a week, the mania is over, the cherries fall, and they're never heard of again for the whole season, only until the next year when nostalgia hits and people remember all the cool memories of the pink colors usually with a awesome sky-filled backdrop with a body of water involved, with those betals blooming, almost like popcorn expanding and blooming out in front of you. It's really pretty awesome. Cherry blossoms are the model I wish we had for youth: one week (or two) out of every year, it'd be awesome to get our 23-year-old selves, to feel just like we did back then, with the same eagerness, thrill-seeking, the feeling of being on top of the world and having the whole world in front of us, even while knowing that it can't last and it will eventually fade away; at least we can re-live that feeling. Alas, we have the cold, cruel world we live in where we can never go back. Once it's gone, it's gone forever- goodbye, cherry blossoms. 

Cherry Picker (樱桃采摘机, 高所作業車, 체리 피커)

 It's pretty amazing the world we live in where we can live completely different lives from other people, never intersecting, never touching at all, except for some chance occurrences that make you aware that those other people exist. That's what happened tonight when MJ and I went to a performance by an LGBTQ church group.... renditions of popular songs from Hairspray, Hadestown, Frozen, and even Bob Dylan. A lot of people packed into a church on Saturday night during Spring Break weekend..... I often wonder how other spend their mid-March weekends and get FOMO, but FOMO no mo! A great time for all. I often wonder how my life would have changed if I was gifted in singing... I have a good stage presence, I crave attention from other people, I like to hum in the shower..... life would havve been so much more artful! 

I now value having an inquisitive mind because I realize how much of life was passing by back in my 20's when I was ONLY focused on Dodgeball, Dating, and learning Japanese.... I left everything else pass me by, including common knowledge that adults in America pick up, like hundreds of common food items like herbs, spices, American cuisine, foreign cuisine, utensils, mixing bowls, exotic fruits, names of sugary baked goods, etc. I didn't know (and barely know now) what a souffle is because I just never wanted to try one, and didn't care to learn about it otherwise. I had a vague sense of this around 2015 when I found myself sorely lacking in knowledge when talking to my friends, but could usually get away with it by relating the conversation back to something I knew, make a joke, and move on to the next topic, but the lack of common knowledge would eventually catch up with me like a debt that kept accumulating interest, and only now am I paying back those debts and revealing the depth of the deficit (if only the U.S. federal government had as much interest in plugging the budget deficit instead of continuing to spend money it doesn't have). 

Recently I learned what a "cherry picker" is. I had heard this term used on the basketball court for a player who didn't play defense on one side of the court and instead snuck to the other end under the opponents' basket and scored an easy bucket when their team got the ball. Easy explanation: he was doing the convenient thing and not earning it, he just wanted the credit. I (and probably anyone who reads this) understands this concept perfectly well: co-workers who only want the easy assignments and pass up on the hard work, only to swoop in when it's time to dole out the credit and quick to grab the figurative cherry in this case, the sweet-tasting rewards from doing that work, when someone else had really done the work. Heck, I've been a cherry-picker in that sense too, and gotten away with it. The difference is I feel guilty about it and try not to do it again, and want to be fair about it. There are people who have a thick face (Chinese proverb) or (related American proverb) are thick-skinned enough they don't care about other people's feelings, they just pick the cherries, or perhaps they're worried others will pick the cherries if they don't, thus they do it prophylactically. Whatever the case, it's really frustrating when working with Mr. or Ms. Cherrypicker, especially when I'm in a team of 20 other people and there are multiple (up to 7 or 8!) cherrypickers, in a profession full of cherrypicker/ambulance chaser types who want the easy score, the quick return. It's actually very much the problem with society today: we are all more cherry pickers now than ever before because we realize how easy life can be, seeing other people take shortcuts and make it makes us less likely to put nose to grindstone and plant the cherry tree, lay the foundation, till the fields day in and day out, etc. (at least that's how I imagine cherries are grown). 

Oh and also, cherry pickers are a real item in life, aka "aerial work platform" that looks like a lift or crane or mechanical arm, that lifts people up so they can pick fruit. I never knew that. I also never knew about the spade-like gardening tool called a trowel, that police wagons used to be called "Black Marias" (also the name of Edison's NJ film studio, but ALSO the name of the Queen of Spades in the card game hearts that's the crucial card in the game, etc.), didn't know that the Spanish version of French dessert madeleines is called "magdalena," didn't know a "technocracy" was rule by scientists or engineers (we may very well have a society like that in the future, although the way we're trending with Trump and influencers seems like the opposite, an "idiocracy) didn't know there was a troposphere, stratsophere, mesosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere in our Earth's atmosphere, in that order, didn't know that there were garlic-looking things called shallots in our food vocabulary. I'm kind of embarrassed to profess to be a native English speaker and not know these things, much less have many advanced degrees and earn a living partly from my language ability. Also further proof that even at 36 (soon to be 37! Oh my!) we never stop learning, and should always strive to do better. And not settle for being cherry pickers. 

Oppenheimer (奥本海默, オッペンハイマー, 오펜하이머)

An underrated part of March rolling around is hearing about what people watched over the winter when there was nothing to do except sit at home and watch TV: at the recent wedding MJ and I went to we learned all about the recent season of "Love is Blind" and the fact there are versions of the reality TV show in Sweden, Brazil, and Japan.... it's an international sensation! I actually wish there was a "Love is Blind" version of online dating back when I was using.... I'm a very personable guy who is good in conversation and the "getting to know people" part of life, but definitely not the scrolling through pictures looking for the best-looking potential mates part of the equation; online dating was the opposite, and in many ways people were blind to the real people behind those online profiles. Sad. 

The Oscars capped off the winter viewing season (I realized one reason they have the show around this time is because people just capped off their movie and TV watching for the year and finally got around to watching those obscure movies that were critically acclaimed but not big blockbuster hits like "Zone of Interest," "Anatomy of a Fall," "Poor Things," etc. Every year there are tons of movies that I learn about at the Oscars when they get multiple nominations. I did learn that Tastee from Orange is the New Black grew up and starred in a movie adaption of The Color Purple (a staple of literature trivia). But the 2 main attractions at the Oscars were the obvious big hits of 2023, Barbie and Oppenheimer, together known as "Barbenheimer." Ah the good old days of summer 2023, gone like a flash but remembered for those 2 movies, neither of which I watched until they came out on streaming or on an airplane. I imagine I lost out on some of the experience of Imax or 3D when I watched Oppenheimer on the back of seat 13D on Delta flight 789 on our way to the wedding in Mexico, but I still enjoyed the movie immensely, not just for the historical significance of it but the cinematic experience.... everything about a Christopher Nolan movie feels dramatic, like there's a looming threat and drums are pounding all the time, except when he stopped the music for pure silence when the atomic bomb went off. That's pretty scary, but the further away we get from 1945 the more important it is to realize how long ago we already had weapons that could destroy the Earth within minutes (probably seconds now). At least the guy responsible for it back then, Oppenheimer, felt the moral weight of designing something like that and tried to restrain the power of the bomb.... who knows what future generation mad scientist will do. There usually is a big breakout winner at the Oscars for one movie (in 2020 it happened to be Parasite, a big win for Korea and Asian movies) and last night was Oppenheimer.... well deserved, but I couldn't help but wonder if the last portion of the movie with the (spoiler alert) betrayal of people declaring Oppenheimer to be a security threat to be misplaced; it suddenly felt more like a "internal investigations" movie like All the Presidents' Men instead of pondering the gravity of the atomic bomb; it gave way to very human quabbling about rivalry and power, when the whole point of the bomb was that it was an existential threat beyond human comprehension. 

Barbie didn't get many wins, but it definitely got its fair share of attention and tribute with Ryan Gosling's performance in "I'm Just Ken." But the best part of the movie that will stay with me and the song that won Billie Eilish a Grammy for Song of the Year was the most spine-tingling and tear-inducing part: Barbie making it to the real world and pondering real world problems in "What Was I Made For?" Not just girls and fans of Barbie but EVERYONE has felt lost in the world at some point and what am I doing here? It's what elevated Barbie from just a walking advertisement movie to a thoughtful movie to me, just for those 7 minutes. Then at the end it all went back to pink and Dua Lipa songs, but for those 7 minutes the song and the questions of life and existence were present. If there was a movie moment of the year, that was it. 

Steerage (统舱)

 "Steerage" is an old-timey word that means the lowest level of luxury on a ship, usually the bottom of it that's furthest away from above deck and being able to maneuver around. It was likely the worst part of a ship to be on, as Jack Dawson experience on the hit 1997 movie Titanic. It's also a great word for Jeopardy because of how obscure it is; it's a commonly understood concept and a word that makes sense and people have heard of, but not many can just outright name given clues. So perfect for trivia. 

The modern day version of steerage is the economy section of an airplane, or for me more often, "basic economy." Where the general populace goes to travel and look longingly at the first class seats with more room, more service, more amenities, and more priority getting on and off the plane (first on to get priority of bin space, first off to get off the plane first). It's basically airlines' way of separating their best paying customers frmo the worst. MJ is really into this distinction; she often spends more time picking out flights and picking out seats than the whole trip would actually seat, meticulously checking to see if she got upgraded on Delta and trying to find a flight using Delta even if she has to make a layover, or pay extra. All those little inconveniences mean nothing as long as she can get into those coveted 10 or 16 seats on a plane that are quote-unquote "the best." 

MJ and I got to sit in first class one one of our flights to Mexico, and it was......nice. The flight attendant came to us even before the other passengers had taken their seats to ask us what we wanted, there weren't other passengers tripping over each other to get through the aisles, it just felt like a unique experience. The best part of it really was that I felt....wanted, or respected at least. That's definitely worth something in this world; MJ probably places a little more weight on it than I do because she doesn't want anybody to LOOK DOWN upon her, but I've been looked down upon most of my life (first by bullies in elementary school, then by jocks in high school, more socially-acceptable ways of being looked down up on college like just ignoring me in groups, and finally in adult life just the judgmental eyes). I'm OK with it now. But it sometimes does warm the heart, or gives me a self-esteem boost, to be greeted warmly, to feel better. It's not that hard! In San Miguel de Allende, more of a tourist destination, I definitely felt this as the hotel service staff treated us very warmly, from the welcome drinks we received from the door man to the upper floor restaurant where we were served chilaquiles and fruit and Mexican breakfast while getting a gorgeous rooftop view of the entire city.... I felt like I was a first class citizen in Mexico. The wedding was also really nice, each table of guests had their own 2 waiters to serve mezcal, tequila, or any other drink that we needed on demand. And this wasn't the normal 6-10PM reception, this was 5PM reception begin with drinks and appetizers, up until 12:30AM and the party was still raging! What a night of celebration and food, and even a el pastore tacos served at like 11PM. Quite the upper-class service. It's just too bad I don't get that type of service everywhere I go, and not just because I have money that I am compensating this type of service. 

Sometimes I really wish the world operated on a better system than money, that we're divided into first class and basic ecomony by anything other than money or something close to it like fame or good looks. I wish I could wear a sign that says, "I'm nice to people when they're nice to me, I pay all my taxes, I give to charity at the end of the year, and I donate blood/plasma almost every month. Please treat me well!" Unfortunately the world does not revolve around hugs and good feelings and social points, it revolves around money and benefit, what can someone else do for me. And often that something else is defined by money. And if you don't have it? Welcome to steerage/basic economy! 

Peso (比索, ペソ, 페소)

 It's a shame that currency is going digital, because I've always appreciated physical money, or cash: the different designs of the $1 bill, $5 bill, even the quarters series featuring all 50 states garnered some interest. It's not just U.S. currency, neither: in my travels I've found getting foreign currency is an experience in its own: when trading in U.S. dollars for Japanese yen or Chinese yuan or euros, I feel like I'm getting ripped off by the exchange rate and paying unnecessarily for exchanging currency, but at least I get something new that represents the culture of the country or region I'm visiting: like a country's food, music, language, train system, architecture, art museums, airports, and famous landmarks, currency sets a country apart and is part of the appeal of visiting, at least to me. 

This weekend MJ and I had the pleasure of attending a destination wedding in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a touristy type of town 4 hours away from Mexico City in the state of Guanajuato, and a UNESCO World Heritage site ( I personally think that designation is a little overrated based on some of the world heritage sites I've visited that turned out to be underwhelming, like the Great Smokey Mountains, Independence Hall, etc.) but I could understand why San Miguel was chosen: it's a small village in the mountains that feels like Europe, with vast arrays of colors and cobblestone steps that remind me of the olden days, and a great church in the middle of the town that reminded me of Florence, Italy. It really did remind M.J. and I of our Italian trip: the weather, for one, but also the scenes walking around the city and some of the hilltop views during sunrise and sunset. 

But alas, I wanted to talk about the peso: a weird exchange rate to the U.S. dollar: 17 pesos to a dollar, pretty hard to calculate. Apparently the rate used to be as high as 23 pesos to a dollar during the pandemic, and it's dropped since then and the people seem to know that: they anticipate it dropping further thus they preferred pesos over dollars (personally i think it's a good chance to buy low on dollars, but hey what do I know). Paying for meals and cab rides in pesos, I'm struck by how tenuous our faith is in money: we're relying on the central government to back the dollar, or the peso, or whatever currency a country uses, just on the implicit promise that the government won't fail tomorrow and there be a run on the banks making money useless. It's just a piece of paper, but with a little mutual understanding and magic it can buy so much, make all one's dreams come true, and keep you from staying hungry. 

Mexican currency also had some history on them: The highest bill we got was the 500 peso bill, featuring Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (I watched the 2002 film "Frida" by Julie Taymor starring Selma Hayek on the plane ride back- good movie, learned about the tragedy of Fridays short life) but also the 1000 peso bill has Miguel Hidalgo, the father of Mexican independence who was a priest, and the 20 peso bill stars Benito Juarez, the president who defeated the French making Cinco de Mayo famous. As one fellow wedding guest remarked though, going to San Miguel wasn't cheap: even though it's Mexico, things in San Miguel cost about as much as it did in a normal American city, if not more; call it the luxury tax of being an American tourist. The people of San Miguel didn't want our American dollars necessarily, but they didn't hesitate to accept our converted Mexican pesos. Memorable trip, but I think I'm more of a Europe and Asia travel guy than Mexico- maybe one day we'll go to South America to try to visit every country. Look out Peru sols and Brazilian reals! We're coming for you!