05 July 2014

El juego hermoso

Sábado 05 Julio 2014   Why it is called “the beautiful game” always was a mystery. No longer. Futbol (you might know it as soccer) mania cannot be escaped in whatever corner of the world you might find yourself, outside of the USA. It's the most popular sport played across the planet. Over the last half of June and the first couple of weeks of July, the elimination tournament known as the FIFA World Cup (Copa Mundial) is played out, this year in Brasil. More people watch these broadcasts than any other event. We are now veterans of this here in Fortin, as we were first here thinking about finding a retirement home, four years ago during a similar time. Still can remember the flat screens TV's playing to load and attentive aficionados at every possible open-to-the-street venue we passed.

It's a beautiful game because it can be played on almost any flat field, little team & personal equipment is required, the ball is always highly visible, anybody can score, scoring is rare enough that each point made is memorable, the rules are very simple, collaborative skill and intelligence is needed to score, a team doesn't have to win to leave the field satisfied (hard-fought ties are sometimes the most talked about games), and except for rare overtimes, the game never consumes more than two hours. It doesn't hurt that, at a national level, a lot of very smart, very fit and arguably very attractive players fill out the teams.

Contrast this with the paint-dryingly boring games that populate the NoB networks: baseball, basketball, golf and “American” football (and that, a real misnomer).

Why is the USA the only country where soccer has been almost a second place sport? Perhaps because there the crowds can't chant with any conviction “We're Number One!” Perhaps because the media can't get behind a sport where there are rare time-outs and the halftime cannot be longer than 15 minutes, therefore not allowing enough time for lots of commercials? Perhaps because the American public has been now well trained to demand spectator sports broadcasts long enough and slow enough to allow for frequent and extended beer and snack breaks?

The scoop is that this tournament has actually amped up US public interest in the game, so things perhaps are looking up. Both the Mexico and US teams made it to the octavo eliminations, succumbing to Holland and Belgium, respectively. It was great while it lasted. That last four minutes of the Mexico-Netherlands game was so disheartening—“we was robbed!” Please tune in and enjoy the rest of the tourney—personally, we're hoping that tiny Costa Rica triumphs.


There was a field-of-vision eye exam scheduled in Veracruz city, so we decided to go down a day early to see if we could catch some of the port's festivities surrounding the presence of the Tall Ships, which were due to sail out the same Monday as the eye exam. We found accommodations at the Hotel Posada del Carmen, one block from the pier. Our room, on the sixth floor, gave us a view of four of the ships, and later the Sunday parade that came down the Boulevard Avila Camacho that evening. This was the last port of call for the Velas Sudamerica 2014 Regatta that left from Rio de Janeiro in early February. The extremely long, slow-moving lines formed up for people to board and visit the ships this last day convinced us our time was better spent on land. We've been on large sailing ships before.

We walked around the downtown area, visiting a few of the sights including the city museo and the Baluarte de Santiago, a fortified cannon battery that used to sit on the coast here to protect this city. It is now inland about four blocks from the water, and city maps showed how, over the years, the city configuration of today was built up on reclaimed land around the present day port basin. We arrived just before closing for the famous naval museum, so we'll visit there another day.

The next morning we visited the mooring area for the other three veleros altos, including Mexico's Cuauhtemoc training vessel.  Ships were also there (in homage to the 100th anniversary of the brave who died in defense of the port from the invading US yanquis) from other countries: Brasil (Cisne Branco), Colombia (Gloria), Venezuela (Simon Bolivar), Chile (Esmeralda), Argentina (Libertad) and the Peru (Villavicencio).

The Mexican vessel was moored just in front of the Pemex tower at the foot of the malecon. Off to the northeast, across the basin, one can see the cranes above the working port facilities. The city buildings in this downtown area were all spruced up, sporting fresh paint, for the centennial observances held here earlier in the year. Unfortunately, the eye exam took place over in the other end of the city, so we had to leave before the zarpa (setting sail) of any of the ships. On the way home we stopped a couple of times at mini-fruit stands to check on buying a box a mangos, but the peak of the season seems to have passed, and they didn't look good enough to chance it. We got back home in time to see Mexico beat Croatia in game #34 of the FIFA Cup. We reflected on how our friends back home in Anacortes, a town with a large expat Croatian population, were probably rooting for the other side this day.

We have been jumping thru hoops for more than a month now, dealing with the fallout from BanamexUSA's abrupt action to close our accounts in Los Angeles. No great problem making wire transfers to other US institutions (at least while we still own a bit of property there, with an address of record), and redirecting social security payments was a snap. But, we have been fighting with BmxUSA for over two weeks trying to wire funds to a recently opened Banamex account here in Fortín, still not accomplished.

Interestingly, opening the Banamex peso account was no problem, but part of the process was completion of a W-9 form, in English, and an agreement (again in English) stating: "The undersigned hereby authorizes [Banamex] to report, on (an) annual basis, the account holder information and any interest earned to the US Internal Revenue Service and to withhold any US tax on such interest, if withholding is required, at the current applicable rate." We are attempting to maintain Mexican joint bank accounts well below the US$10,000 amount to avoid annual FBAR reporting, and to be able to maintain FDIC and SIPC protections on our assets NoB. This may be impossible depending on how other US financial institutions react.

It is incomprehensible to us how rejecting investments from persons outside the US (ie, stopping money flow into the US), coupled with requiring that US citizens living abroad remove their funds from the US (ie, making money flow out of the US), can make any kind of economic sense to the US economy in the long run. Seems that paranoia in the US congress (source of these xenophobic new laws), on both sides of the aisle, is moving that once-great country nearer to a fiscal meltdown. I guess we will have to do some investigation with a goal of discovering some Mexican financial instruments that we feel good about--where it seems like where we will ultimately have to place our assets.

On the home front, seems like every several days there is a new orchid, bromeliad or heliconia to amaze us, as plants we purchased along the way open their blooms for the first time. Our vanilla orchid continues to grow taller, and its now above the tree planted to support it, surging up along the tall bamboo pole erected on the south wall of the front garden. Summer rains have lessened the need to get out the hose to irrigate by hand, and we have had more time for reading and jigsaw puzzling.