Unlike Toronto, Guadalajara does Entertainment District right

A free concert featuring singing, dancing and 3 projector screens broadcasting Pan Am sports, is held at the end of Avenida Chapuletepc.

Like Toronto, Guadalajara has an Entertainment District — except theirs isn't covered in barf.

Instead, the lovely 7 or so blocks of bars, discos, cafes, and shops along the Avenida Chapultepec are a pedestrian-only zone. The hope is that the area, about a five minute drive from the main media centre, will serve as a sort of a cultural home base during these Pan American Games; a neighbourhood where people and media can interact with athletes. A place where you can come with friends to watch the events on television. So far, the athletes have been sticking to the village, but the Avenida Chapultepec has been packed and buzzing since the Games began last week.

Tonight is the 45th anniversary party of my campus paper, The Eyeopener. So fellow Eye alum Sean Fitz-Gerald, a National Post sports reporter, and I headed to this uber hip locally-loved street to celebrate in absentia.

The zone is heavily guarded by "policia." Revellers must pass through a security check, backpack search and metal detectors before entering the pedestrian zone. Once inside, the majority of people seem to be locals, although a healthy number are English speaking ex-pats.

A tented strip down the middle serves as a quasi-(over priced)-market for staple local souvenirs: ceramics, bead work, tiki-style chairs, etc. Other tourism-geared booths highlight local attractions. Flanking the road are half a dozen American-friendly bars, many with Rock and Roll themes and English in the menus.

Along the strip are viewing areas equipped with small cinema-size projector screens, which are broadcasting the events. Life-size cutouts of famed Mexican sports heroes are set up throughout the area in case anyone wants to take a funny photo. Which is important because the athletes aren't actually hanging out here, (see above.)

What's interesting about this area, compared to Toronto clubland, is that yes, while there are stiletto-wearing girls dancing on balconies, the area is pretty family friendly. Parents bring their kids. No one is stumbling down the street shouting obscenities (although honestly, I don't speak Spanish, it's possible they are in a very cheerful tone). This is actually an Entertainment District.

At the end of the strip, near a beautiful European-style statue sculpture thing, is an ongoing concert featuring local talent. The three times I've been so far, hundreds and hundreds of people have shown up to watch. I met a guy the other night who swore his friend's friend was playing sometime soon. It's that kind of Games. Everyone knows someone who is involved, or kinda involved, or used to be involved.

I have no doubt Toronto will put on a fantastic show. But I wonder if our sometimes cynical city will pull off this kind of excitement. And please, let's pick somewhere for our cultural hub that's far away from the Entertainment District.

Sweet Quinceañera 15

The Mexican custom I learned today: Parents here throw their daughters huge elaborate parties for the girl's 15th birthday. 

I was wandering around the city centre today, chatting with locals about the Games when I spotted what looked like the most hideous wedding dress in a shop window. It was a hulking ballgown, with layers upon layers of black, white and red polka dot fabric. I've seen some insane wedding dresses in my travels, including a ruffled satin red mess in St. Petersburg, Russia, but this reached a new level of tacky.

"How could someone wear that on their wedding day??" I asked my translator, Tom.

"Actually, they're for teenage girls. When a girl turns 15 here they have a big party. Sort of a coming out as a woman thing. It's a really big deal," he explained.

What?! Somehow that changed everything. I tried to remember being 14.  My Disney princess obsession days would have only passed a few years prior. Yeah, absolutely I would have wanted to rock a ballgown on my birthday.

Tom's a guy and from London, England so he didn't know much more about the subject. So I took a break from Pan Am reporting and walked into one of these shops, which are all over this historic district. One of the sales associates, Norma Sanchez explained that the custom is called Quinceañera — Latin America's version of the American Sweet 16 party.

The Quinceañera has traditionally marked the girl's transition into sexual maturity. Families spend months planning elaborate parties where the young woman gets to be a princess for a day. There is typically a dinner and Catholic mass beforehand. At this shop, which would likely appeal to the lower and middle class families, dresses go for about $5500 pesos or about $440 Canadian. The average living wage here is around $500 Canadian a month I'm told.

"Girls from the United States come to Guadalajara to buy these dresses," said Sanchez.

Most of them are Mexican girls celebrating Quinceañera north of the border, but others aren't Latin and just want a show-stopping graduation dresses.

For research purposes I of course tried one on. They're very heavy and difficult to walk in. But wow did I feel like Cinderella. 

Mom and Dad: That bowling party you threw me sucked.

 

The two Mexicos. One has Starbucks.

This won't exactly come as a news flash, but it's really cheap to travel in Mexico.

At a fancy restaurant down the street from my hotel you can get a steak, appetizer and a drink for about $35. It got me thinking. Maybe everything is discounted. Maybe for $100 a pop I could get my whole family iPads for Christmas! They could deal with the Spanish instruction manuals.

I started Googling around. Last week I tweeted how this Pan American Games has an official nightclub. Turns out, they also seem to have an official mall. The Galerías Guadalajara is a relatively new development in a rich part of town. The Games' Scotiabank Aquatics Centre was built just a short drive away. In fact, frequent shuttles run between the two. (On a quick serious note, this mall and aquatics centre have been a source of anger for some locals, who say it is a prime example of how the government invested in wealthy areas and ignored the poor areas. You'll read more on that from me later on.)

I headed up to the Galerías today. The three-story complex was full of athletes and coaching staff. Here's what I found: almost everything in Mexico is cheaper than in Canada. But the more high-end the merchandise, the more comparable the pricing to American/Canadians standards. In fact, for the very expensive brands, items are MORE expensive here. I guess the logic is: if you're from Guadalajara and you're shopping in Coach, you've got money to burn. The class divide here isn't so much a divide as two separate countries living alongside one another.

Watch the steeply rising scale:

In this city, a bottle of water at the corner store is about $1.15, compared to $1.75 at home. 

A 15 minute taxi ride is about $4.50 (with tip) versus $15 in Toronto.

An IMAX movie ticket is $5. Back home you're going to drop about $15.

A Grande Latte at Starbucks in Mexico costs $2.90, compared to $4.25ish at home.

Converse sneakers in the Galerías ran about $42. On Queen St. W they're around $60.

A Madison style Coach handbag costs $480 here. In the US (Canada will be more expensive remember) the purse only costs $400.

An iPad 2 in Guadalajara costs $550. In Canada, an iPad starts around $520.

I spoke with an elderly woman today who lives in a home with no roof who lives on about $300 Canadian each month. I think sometimes when we hear figures like that, we assume those people must live in a place where the cost of living is next to nothing. Surely $300 to them is more like $2000 to us. But that elderly woman lived around the corner from some of the American-style shops quoted above. To those who raised concerns about the geography of investment, 76-year-old Aurora would likely agree with you.

Locals: Kim Kardashian is the secret to learning English

A line of soccer fans as far as the camera can see forms in a flash when word gets out there's free soccer tickets to be had.

I was walking into the Expo Guadalajara Arena around 1 p.m. today — which is the main media centre and also the site for ticket sales and boxing — and I saw what looked like a scuffle breaking out at the front of a very long line. I assumed someone at the front was giving out tickets and he was about to be mugged by this angry sports-loving mob. 

People about 50 back started yelling towards the front. Then the entire line, maybe 150 people long started chanting and pumping their arms in the air. And just when I thought it was about to come to fist a cuffs, everyone started laughing. 

Turns out organizers had in fact released a batch of free soccer tickets for a Mexico match. Out of giddy excitement people were being silly. They'd chant: "Give us tickets! We want tickets!" or "Get in line! Get in line!" to people who tried to cut in. 

Not everyone ended up with tickets, but people seemed to have a good time regardless. 

Another random funny story from Guad today:

Have you ever been talking to someone and everything they say is insanely hilarious, but they don't know it? It's awkward because you want to laugh along at their very funny jokes, except they don't realize that they're doing stand up comedy so you have to stare at them and bite your lip and try hard to remember everything they're saying so you can laugh at it later.

That was my afternoon. I met this very nice Pan Ams volunteer — Ivan Rodriguez — on the bus to the team rhythmic gymnastics event and he was telling me how he learned English.

"Television. The subtitles on English TV shows make it very easy. Especially if try to watch Kim Kardashian. Or the Hills. It's very slow and not complicated. They speak in very simple language with no big words... Keeping Up With the Kardashians is teaching me English."

 

The 7 things I've learned about Guadalajara/Mexico so far

The people here are artisans. This chess set I bought is made entirely of old machine parts. 

1)    Being a vegetarian would be impossible. Even the coffee comes with a side of beef. 

2)    Coca-Cola is as much a part of this culture as tacos. The soft-drink, its memorabilia, and the brand are everywhere. (It probably didn’t hurt that this country’s former president, Vicente Fox, had been the president of Coca-Cola Mexico.)

3)    In no scenario do pedestrians have the right of way.

4)    The craftsman here can make gold out of garbage. See the above chess set made of old machine parts that I purchased in Tlaquepaque, a little town on the edge of the city.

5)    Everyone actually really loves mariachi music. It’s not just a tolerated tourist-pleasing tradition being performed at restaurants.

6)    The coffee we drink in Canada has actually tasted like motor oil all along.

7)    In Toronto, neon-painted bikes chained up outside are part of city-wide public art project. Here, they are used to mark the spot where a cyclist was killed. Seems to me a Tapatío (the term used to describe people from Guadalajara) visiting Toronto would think our city is a very dangerous place for cyclists. 

 

Pan Am Opening Ceremonies at Omnilife Stadium

 

The audio is the final minute countdown before the ceremonies began. That's about 45,000 people jammed into the Omnilife Stadium.

The opening ceremonies last night at Omnilife Stadium was totally spectacular. The above audio slideshow I put together doesn't capture the excitement, but you can get a taste. They had me at the choreographed horse routine, but then the sombrero-wearing mariachi singers, folk dancers, fireworks display, aerial performance, and audience-led flashlight number pushed it over the top.

I, along with most of the media, left for the stadium about four hours before the show. Traffic in this city is notoriously bad. The stadium, which really looks like a flying saucer, is located on the outskirts of town near the athlete's village. The bus zipped along the Pan-Am only lanes and we made it in about 30 minutes. Toronto will be using these types of lanes in 2015. Thousands of locals were already at the stadium by the time we arrived.

Getting home after the show was a bit nerve-racking with that many people moving all at once. I managed to sneak onto the first media bus leaving the stadium, thankfully. At that point, the line-up for the public buses already stretched more than a kilometre. The show finished around 10:15 p.m. I bet people were still trying to get back to town at 1 a.m.

Meanwhile, Amanda Sin won Canada's first medal, a bronze, in mountain bike today. 

“I feel really excited to win a medal here at the Pan Am Games,” she said after. “It’s really exciting to win the first medal of the Games, so I’m happy to do that for our country.”

Guad Pan Am Games are Taco Free and BYOM(aple syrup)

Dr. Andrew Marshall, the Chief Medical Officer with the Canadian Pan American Team says athletes have been told to stick to food in the village — which incidentally is kind of bland considering this is Mexico. 

Earlier this week, the World Anti-Doping Agency dropped its case against five Mexican soccer players who this summer tested positive for a steroid called clenbuterol. Instead, the agency issued a warning to athletes: "exercise extreme caution" eating meat in Mexico. 

WADA has "received compelling evidence from a FIFA study at the U17 World Cup in Mexico that indicates a serious health problem in Mexico with regards to meat contaminated with clenbuterol. This is a public health issue that is now being addressed urgently by the Mexican Government."

That means no tacos folks.

Dr. Andrew Marshall, the Chief Medical Officer with the Canadian Pan American Team says athletes have been told to stick to the food in the village, which is safe.

"In fact it's funny because you come to Mexico expecting spicy and it's very bland and sort of just watered down a bit."

Included in daily spread is a selection of fruits, pasta with various kinds of sauce, tomato, meat, "some sort of white sauce" which is believed to be alfredo, rice, beans, tacos and various kinds of meat. For breakfast, there's cereal, eggs, yogurt, breakfast burritos and pancakes. 

And what about the syrup?

"There's 'syrup' but I'm not sure it's maple and it's certainly not Canadian maple syrup," said Marshall. "But it's okay. We brought our own."

In official news: no health issues with Team Canada to report so far.

 

Pan American Games in Guadalajara. Toronto - you're next

This model version of Guadalajara in the main media centre is pretty cool, but I posted this photo because in the background you can see construction workers fanning wet paint. At this point, they have about 30 hours until the opening ceremonies. 

I’d been reading for months that this Pan American Games was going to be a complete disaster. The kind of Titanic failure that would go down as cautionary tale legend for future Pan Am organizing committees.

For example: Less than a month ago, the main athletic stadium — already drastically smaller than originally planned — was only 85 per cent done. Venues hosting handball, karate, rowing, rugby and canoeing weren’t finished either. Sports federation approvals were still pending.

But this afternoon I arrived here in Guadalajara — a city you might have heard of before in a conversation about tequilla or mariachi music, both of which originated here — and things don't seem so bad. 

There are signs they're cutting it pretty close. At the main press centre, for instance, construction crews are frantically waving large sheets of something at freshly-painted walls, presumably trying to dry them faster. Official-looking people are jogging between rooms, cellphone glued to their ear. And on the streets, city workers are painting over grungy-looking guardrails. But the big stuff is done. The track got federation approval earlier this week. And mostly importantly on every corner, locals seem excited about what’s happening here.

Kids are walking around carrying plush toys of the Pokemon-looking mascots. I don't speak Spanish, but everywhere I go I see smiling people saying PanAmericanos. At dinner time today, about 80 people were standing in line to buy event tickets in the drizzling rain (although at least it wasn't Hurricane Jova). That line was just as long 3 hours before when I stopped by to pick up my press accreditation. 

In four years, Toronto is hosting the next Games. (Which is why a person who covers city hall is down here.)

All in, the Toronto Games will cost 10 times more than Guadalajara's. To some, that $2.5 billion could be better spent. To others, it's an investment in sports infrastructure about four decades too late.

A large contingent of Canadians from every level of government are here observing. Among the lessons they hope to bring back: how did this gridlocked city handle traffic, managing athletes' needs and getting locals excited.

The big question I hope to answer is: was it worth it?