In a city of 1 million, how many people, on a Tuesday night, want to see Steve Martin in the "The Pink Panther 2" (the Spanish dub version)? Apparently only me.
Impressively unfunny, but it was my only option in Spanish. Everything else, including "La duda" (Doubt) and "El curioso caso de Benjamin Button," was in English with Spanish subtitles.
They only dub the real shit.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
One way street, police car
I got a Mexican traffic ticket last night. So that you won't be surprised if this ever happens to you, I'll explain.
There are a lot of one way streets here, and I just moved here, and the signs are small, and it was nighttime, and the streets are poorly lit, and I'm an idiot. So I was driving the wrong way on the one way street for about 2 seconds when a police officer pulled me over.
The arresting officer was very nice, but firm. He asked me if I knew what a one way street was and gave me a ticket.
Now here is the point of this. I guess a lot of people already know this but I was surprised nonetheless. The Mexican system for traffic tickets is much different from ours. Instead of involving the court system, comedy traffic school and a minimum of $296 dollars per violation, the Mexicans just charge you a couple of bucks and call it even. But you have to go to the police station to pay right away.
Since I didn’t know where the police station was (I’ve lived here only four days) the officer told me to follow him. He drove with his overhead lights on for most of the way to make this easy on me. When we got there he was concerned that I wouldn’t know my way back and gave me directions. He also assured me the ticket would only cost only 10 or 11 dollars. In fact it was $9.79.
All in all this was a much more pleasant experience than my recent, but not yet resolved run in with the CHP on my way to Mammoth mountain. That happened two months ago because apparently I was speeding. They sent me a list of confusing instructions that I tried to follow, but failed to follow, so they sent me a letter saying I owed $296 and then they would send me instructions about traffic school which I need to complete by March 30. I haven't paid yet because I've changed addresses and I think they're going to send the traffic school information to the wrong place if I don't change my address at the post office, which I haven't done, so Kern County is probably going to issue a warrant for my arrest.
There are a lot of one way streets here, and I just moved here, and the signs are small, and it was nighttime, and the streets are poorly lit, and I'm an idiot. So I was driving the wrong way on the one way street for about 2 seconds when a police officer pulled me over.
The arresting officer was very nice, but firm. He asked me if I knew what a one way street was and gave me a ticket.
Now here is the point of this. I guess a lot of people already know this but I was surprised nonetheless. The Mexican system for traffic tickets is much different from ours. Instead of involving the court system, comedy traffic school and a minimum of $296 dollars per violation, the Mexicans just charge you a couple of bucks and call it even. But you have to go to the police station to pay right away.
Since I didn’t know where the police station was (I’ve lived here only four days) the officer told me to follow him. He drove with his overhead lights on for most of the way to make this easy on me. When we got there he was concerned that I wouldn’t know my way back and gave me directions. He also assured me the ticket would only cost only 10 or 11 dollars. In fact it was $9.79.
All in all this was a much more pleasant experience than my recent, but not yet resolved run in with the CHP on my way to Mammoth mountain. That happened two months ago because apparently I was speeding. They sent me a list of confusing instructions that I tried to follow, but failed to follow, so they sent me a letter saying I owed $296 and then they would send me instructions about traffic school which I need to complete by March 30. I haven't paid yet because I've changed addresses and I think they're going to send the traffic school information to the wrong place if I don't change my address at the post office, which I haven't done, so Kern County is probably going to issue a warrant for my arrest.
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