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 100
th 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.
