May the force be with me.

Ah, la geekez…

Una Soda de Acero en Monterrey

La semana pasada me pidieron en mi trabajo que escribiera algo acerca de mi reciente viaje a Monterrey para el períodico del departamento. Como ultimamente he abandonado mucho este espacio, decidí fusilarme mi propio escrito para compartirlo con ustedes mis cuatro lectores.
Está en inglés, pero yo se que le entienden.

Last Friday I went to what was one of the best rock concerts I’ve ever been.
Thirty two thousand music lovers met at the Estadio Universitario in Monterrey, Mexico to see legendary Argentine Rock en Español band Soda Stereo play after a 10 year absence as part of their reunion tour Me Verás Volver. And I was there, only a few meters away from the stage.
See, this was a double reunion celebration for me. After seven years of not seeing each other, I was able to give a big hug to two of my dearest friends, Nora and Adriana. And Nora managed to be there with me in the concert sharing the excitement. It couldn’t get better than that.
Nearly three hours, two comebacks, 29 songs of pure rock nostalgia. It was awesome.
The tour continued to Guadalajara and Mexico City and is scheduled to be in Los Angeles, CA on November 21st and in Miami, FL on December 4th and 5th.

As incredible as this concert was, it was not the only thing that Monterrey had to offer its visitors this past weekend.
Monterrey was the place chosen to host the 2007 International Forum of Culture, a global event that occurs every four years and that seeks to reunite citizens from all over the world to promote thinking and problem solving methods in order to deal with issues of global importance such as peace, education, knowledge, and ecological conservation amongst other topics.
During the Forum, which started on September 20th, more than 1000 events will be celebrated including conferences, concerts, and a large number of cultural exhibits and expositions, most of them free of charge.
The headquarters of the Forum are at the Parque Fundidora, a beautiful space that narrates for itself one of the most interesting stories of the city: its steel production. At the Parque Fundidora there are industrial towers, furnaces, and immense columns of brick that today, now restored serve as a structure for various cultural and recreational activities.
There were a lot of interesting things to see and do on the Forum, but due to space I will only mention three of my favorite exhibitions during this visit.

Isis and the Feathered Serpent . This exhibition presents for the first time, the similarities of two great deities, Isis in Egypt and Quetzalcoatl in Mesoamerica.

Steelworks Museum / Furnace No. 3. (my personal favorite) An interactive museum housed in one of the landmarks of Mexican industrial history, the Alto Horno 3 (High Furnace No. 3) which was once the backbone of the Fundidora Steelwork Company. This brand-new high tech experience recreates the ancient art of steel production, a long-aged Monterrey tradition.

2501 Migrants. With the installation of human figures of natural size, manufactured in clay, Oaxacan artist Alejandro Santiago approaches the subject of cultural diversity, representing the phemomenon of migration of the people of Southeast Mexico, and the displacement of their cultural heritage to the big metropolis.

If you want to learn more about the forum, you can visit their webisite at monterreyforum2007.org

If you want to learn more about Soda Stereo you can visit their website at
sodastereo.com