Matador Network's Blog, page 2109
May 29, 2015
Vermonters bucket list
Lappypants. #stilltiredfromtheweekend #vtbrewersfest #allagash #bff4life
A photo posted by Erica And Luna (@lunalaughs) on Jul 22, 2014 at 6:10am PDT
Vermonters know good beer, and there is no better showcase of Vermont beer than at the Brewers Festival in Burlington each July. This event sells out very quickly, so be prepared to repeatedly hit refresh on your browser until you can purchase your ticket.
2. Eat your way through the Vermont Cheese Trail
Wisconsin has nothing on us. Let the deliciousness of cheese guide you through the state of Vermont. Follow this map to stop and taste over 150 varieties from 40 different cheese makers:
3. Go on the Ben and Jerry’s factory tour
Hitting up the #BenandJerrysTour – finally!!
A photo posted by Laura Ingalls (@forgetskinny) on Sep 10, 2014 at 2:23pm PDT
Every Vermonter knows that Ben and Jerry’s is iconic to Vermont, and one cannot avoid the tourist centered factory where it all goes down. Walk through the flavor graveyard, learn how it all got started, and of course, eat free ice cream.
4. Take in a race at the Thunder Road Speedbowl in Barre
A photo posted by Betsy Laurin (@betsylaurin) on Jul 4, 2013 at 9:17pm PDT
Drink some beers, yell at moving objects, and pull your shirt up to expose your gut at a Thunder Road car race. Full debauchery, Vermont-style.
5. Actually make maple syrup
A photo posted by Melanie Oberholzer (@meloberholzer) on Apr 6, 2015 at 2:03pm PDT
Vermont leads the nation in maple syrup production, and if you don’t have your own maple taps in your backyard, there are plenty of places to learn how to make maple syrup. In the spring just about every sugaring house has some sort of maple event, check out: Vermont Maple Festival in St. Albans.
6. Climb Mt. Mansfield
A Long Trail IPA at the highest point of the Long Trail. #mtmansfieldsummit
A photo posted by @rich_jon on Apr 11, 2014 at 11:37am PDT
Sitting just over 4,000 feet above sea level, Mt. Mansfield may not be Everest, but is the highest peak we have in Vermont.
7. Go leaf peeping
#leafpeeking #vermontleaves #vermontsfinest #fall
A photo posted by Amy R (@amyinafarawayplace) on Oct 19, 2014 at 3:39pm PDT
The foliage arrives each October hard and fast and doesn’t stick around for very long – so go act like a tourist and gawk at the leaves. No one is judging.
8. Head to the Discover Jazz Festival
A photo posted by Flynn Center (@flynncenter) on Jun 9, 2014 at 7:52am PDT
Each June, the summer season kicks off in Burlington with the Discover Jazz Festival. For ten days, jazz flows through the air all over town. Listen to the crooning of both famous international musicians and local favorites.
9. Visit the Champlain Valley Fair
A photo posted by Shawna
May 28, 2015
20 reasons why you should never visit Mexico City
1. Living with a giant guarding the horizon? No, thank you! What if he wakes up?
Between Storm and smoke by Cristobal Garciaferro Rubio on 500px
2. What’s the deal with the view from Torre Latinoamericana? Haven’t you seen enough pictures like this on Instagram?
Palace of fine arts, Mexico City by Rafal Kubiak on 500px
3. And don’t even consider travelling with kids. They’ll be bored to death with so many parks, candies, and colors!
4. Orchestras inside the subway? Opera shows in a market? Seriously, what’s the deal with their cultural agenda!
5. Taking a tour through the ancient Xochimilco canals in a multicolored trajinera? They don’t even have one with my name on it!
Trajineras Xochimilco by Jorge Robles on 500px
6. Getting lost inside a university that is considered a world heritage site by UNESCO? School was never really my thing…
Biblioteca Central by HeBa on 500px
7. Ok, they have a castle inside a forest in the middle of the biggest city in Latin America… So what?
Castillo de Chapultepec by Juan Reyes on 500px
8. Taking a walk through some of the iconic parks and plazas around the city? Too many pigeons and happiness if you ask me…
© Marco Cruz by Marco Cruz on 500px
9. Ok, there are many museums… but surely they just have little unimportant exhibitions.
10. It must be difficult to live a happy life in a city completely devoid of color!
Monumento a la Independencia y Paseo de la Reforma by Erik Gómez Tochimani on 500px
11. Going to a palace just to deliver your mail? I’ll stick with the mailbox…
Palacio Postal – México by Mario Rodriguez on 500px
12. Being harassed by mysterious creatures that will do everything for some peanuts? Sounds like the plot of some b horror movie!
Hola by Osvaldo Sánchez Sánchez on 500px
13. It must be incredibly difficult to find something decent to eat!
14. Finding gigantic alebrijes in the middle of the streets? That’s just creepy…
Alebrijes by jose jasso on 500px
15. These guys and their music are just everywhere!
16. And what is this supposed to be?
Caballlito Refrorma noche by Jorge Contreras C. on 500px
17. How can they go shopping with so many piñatas hanging above their heads? These things would never happen on Wal Mart.
18. Visiting one of the most important and impressive libraries of Latin America? Why should you? Reading is so overrated!
Vasconcelos by Eduardo Marquez on 500px
19. And what about this pagan dance in a church’s atrium? Sacrilege!
Concheros danzing by Ruben Arrieta on 500px
20. You must now be convinced there’s nothing to see here!
Victoria by Victor Aparicio on 500px
14 little things you will miss when you leave LA
Photo: FEver Dragon
1. Celebrity sightings
We try to be jaded. We tell everybody we truly don’t care about spotting celebrities out in the wild. But let’s be real. When you see Randy Jackson shopping for shoes in the Beverly Center, you do a little fist pump in your soul.
2. The lack of judgment towards boozy brunch
It’s my Sunday, and if I want to spend it getting trashed on bottomless mimosas before noon, that’s my business. And apparently everybody else’s too, considering how packed Misfits is already.
3. Clearing the nadir of the Merge to see a traffic-less 405
I’ve never been on Wheel of Fortune, but I have to imagine it’s the same feeling you get watching your spin just barely clear the “Lose a Turn” tile. Or in this case, “lose the next two hours” tile.
4. The occasional view of the mountains behind downtown
If there’s no such thing as sadness, how can you appreciate joy? And if you don’t experience layers of constant, depressingly yellow smog almost every day as you drive north on the 110, can you ever truly appreciate a clear vista?
5. The never-ending battle against bikes
When behind the wheel, pedestrians are the enemy. And vise versa. But when a bike goes flying past a red light, and you lock eyes with that guy crossing the street, and you both shake your heads in disbelief… that’s a primal sense of camaraderie the Boy Scouts only wish they could create.
6. Earthquakes
Yeah, you’ll talk to your foreign friends about them as if they’re some disaster you survive by the skin of your teeth each time one rocks your world. But really, they tend to just rock you out of your sleep. And then you get to excitedly text every single one of your friends, “did you feel that?”
7. The pressure to get fit
It’s nine o’clock. You’ve been in bed watching Netflix since 5:30pm. And then come the status updates about sunset jogs and $10 smoothies from SunLife Organics, and you realize you may have lost control of your life. When you leave LA, where do you find accountability?
8. Cougar watch
Country folk are desensitized to wildlife, and true city folk like New Yorkers are completely oblivious to anything besides pigeons and rats. But to Angelenos, the cougar living in the Hills is like Bigfoot. You either don’t believe it exists, or you claim to have seen it with your own eyes.
9. Sunsets
For some reason, Los Angeles has better sunsets than anywhere in the country. Instagram in the evening may as well be a dedicated app. Maybe it’s the smog in the atmosphere. It’s probably the smog.
10. The fact that no one cared you were from LA
Ok, fine. Maybe that’s a lie. There’s a definite beaming pride you feel when you tell somebody not from LA you’re from LA, and their eyes widen in admiration. You become instantly cooler. Yes, this makes me sound like a bit of an asshole. That’s why I was living in Los Angeles.
11. The week-long winter
By mid-December, you start to get sick of the perfect, warm weather. Everybody else gets these amazing white Christmases, and you’re stuck having a barbecue on the roof with your best friends. Then you get a week where the temperature drops to 55 and it spits rain for a day or two, and suddenly you’re over it.
This story was produced through the travel journalism programs at MatadorU. Learn More
12. Live music
You never realize just how much Los Angeles offers you until you’re stuck in a small town in New Zealand and find yourself getting excited that some dude who once played with CCR is jamming in a bar for a night.
13. The delightfully weird posters on light posts and bulletin boards
Let’s be honest, I was never going to go to that guy’s backyard yoga class. I never did see that couple’s missing mini-poodle shaved like a lion who answered to ‘Claude’. But the fact that they were out there? I respected that.
14. The traffic
Ha! That’ll be the fuckin’ day. 
What your state can't spell
THIS WEEK IS THE SCRIPPS NATIONAL Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C., and in the competition’s honor, Vocativ teamed up with Google Trends to see what the most Googled spellings of words were in each state. Delaware (“Paronychia”) either has the most sophisticated spellers, or has some sort of foot fungus epidemic going on, and Utah has the most hilariously provincial word: “Awnry.” 
Photo: Vocativ
Today is World Hunger Day
Photo: Anlex Basilio
TODAY IS WORLD HUNGER DAY, and for most of us in the developed world, that doesn’t mean all that much. Starvation is not a widespread issue in the United States, after all, and it can seem bizarre to us that this isn’t true for all of the world. But as it stands, 800 million people in the world (about 11% of the entire world population and more than double the population of the United States) are undernourished. The problem is still huge.
Which people are undernourished?
The vast majority of the world’s undernourished — about 97% — live in the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly a quarter of people are undernourished, and worldwide, 60% of the undernourished people are women. 146 million children are estimated to be underweight as a result of undernourishment, and you’re far more likely to be undernourished if you live in a rural area.
The World Food Programme on where hungry people are. A larger version available here.
What can we do?
It turns out, this is a totally solvable problem. For one thing, empowering women in their families results in expenditures going more towards children and their nutrition. So in part, just working for women’s rights helps the problem.
We also actually produce enough food on this planet to feed everyone — but there are issues with getting that food to everyone and we waste nearly a third of all of our food. But the cost is relatively small: $50 can feed a child for a year in some parts of the world.
So how is it fixed? It’s actually not an issue that can be solved from the top down. As the Hunger Project UK points out in this great video, the issue is best approached at the local level.
The cool thing? While this is still a huge problem, it’s not at all hopeless. Extreme poverty has been cut in half in the last 25 years, and thousands fewer children are dying of malnutrition than there were a few decades ago. We’re within sight of eliminating one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. 
May 25, 2015
9 habits my kid got in Costa Rica
Photo: Phalinn Ooi
1. Rehabilitating sick and wounded kinkajous, sloths and titi monkeys.
Most kids don’t get to soothe orphaned baby titi monkeys or forgo the walls of a classroom for tropical reforestation outings — those are just a few of the weekly activities for the kids of KSTR. Kids Saving the Rainforest is a sanctuary for both kids and animals and is a foolproof resume builder for budding primatologists and earth enthusiasts. It’s a great place for kids ranging in age from 5 to 17 to make new friends and create valuable bonds. Kids are dropped off to trusted wildlife managers for educational rescue projects and parents get adult beach time.
Founded in Manuel Antonio, KSTR is bridging the gap between the dark side of rainforest sprawl and the health of the native wildlife. The small core crew takes in electrocuted, fallen, abused, or abandoned animals to heal them and get them ready for re-release. After a day of helping cuddly creatures, my kid always came back with new levels of maturity and was ready to share a full report.
2. Going through flip flops and beach shorts like they’re disposable.
In Costa Rica you may find yourself adding ancillary beachwear as an itemized line on your monthly budget. It’s the easiest, no-nonsense way to avoid the aggravation of the constant loss of your child’s beach costumes. The riddle of the missing flip flops has never been completely resolved, but I have suspicions it’s a mix of the notorious beach piracy organized by troops of titi monkeys, street dogs snatching up new toys, fast-rising tides sweeping away lazily cared for items and plain old forgetfulness. Best advice: don’t re-purchase your items in tourist areas. The nearer the vicinity of the coast, the higher the price. You’ll quickly grow tired of navigating the overpriced items and will find a much better deal in Quepos central. Stock up on generic sandalias (flip flops) and swimsuits with the knowledge that some will no doubt find a home in the hidden booty stash of the Titis. Regardless of this small scale stress, an epic beach day will put your mind at ease. Pura vida, mae.
3. Wearing the house gecko as earrings.
These velvety brown suction-toed creatures show up pretty much everywhere in Costa Rica, from your food storage, to mostly decomposed inside your electronics, to splashing about in your twilight cocktail. They make for humorous evenings with kids scurrying around tile floors ambushing them in corners. My son spent so much time chasing them he became the neighborhood gecko whisperer. His claim to fame: lightning speed moves to snatch them up followed by lulling them into a hypnotized state where they stayed, dazed, with their mouth agape. He then placed an earlobe directly in front of their slick black eyes. Their instinct — to clench down and hang on for dear life. It was a fun party trick to tap the shoulder of a tipsy dinner guest to show off these cold blooded ear ornaments hanging by nothing more than their mouth.
4. Avoiding the ocean after being caught in the pull of a rip tide.
Lifeguards in Costa Rica are pretty rare. Beach towns have been scolded for the lack of funding to keep lifeguards, so the occasional group is compiled of volunteers. It’s satisfying to know more are becoming professionally organized, well trained, and supported by public donations.
Though there have been many episodes of stellar beach rescues, people can be quickly lost in the brisk pull of a rip. Some stretches of the coast claim an average of 20 lives a year, and everyone has a personal story from a friend of a friend whose morning jog ended with a drowned swimmer brought in by the tide. My son didn’t trek into the ocean more than three quarters of a leg deep, without a surfboard at least, after feeling one of these insidious undercurrents grip at his thighs. Recognizing it quickly, he hastily struggled back to the beach with a new respect for ocean dangers.
5. Overeating arroz con pollo (chicken rice) or arroz con anything until sick.
While rice was never my kid’s favorite stateside (with the exception of sticky rice around an overpriced sushi roll), he now routinely gorges himself on volcano-sized platters of flavorful rice mixed with, well – anything, despite reminders from a vigilant mom that his cramped gut may not be too happy with him later. In Costa Rica he was a rice devotee and ate it whether mixed with chicken, tuna, beef, beans, potato chips or flavored with cilantro, achiote paste, or peppers. Add a generous pour of Salsa Lizano — Costa Rica’s sweet brown sauce — to a heaping dollop of rice and you have the perfect storm.
6. Discovering rainforest wildlife instead of characters on Playstation.
With Costa Rica being a playland to over 500,000 wildlife species from the unique to the remarkable, kids can spend their day with monkeys, lizards, snakes, bats, sloths, and insects. With miles of separation from our home country, it helped to get integrated with instructive and colorful books like Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica to utilize as field guides. It was a big improvement from a Playstation fantasy world of Halo, Minecraft or Sims games. My son can rattle off scientific names of red eyed tree frogs and scarlet macaws with ease. You can experience wildlife in almost every corner of Costa Rica’s small country, but some recommended hot spots are the picturesque Drake Bay, cloud forests of Arenal and the turtle nests of Tortuguero National Park.
7. Actually appreciating malls and movie theaters.
Costa Ricans love their mega malls and the latest American movie releases just as much as most expatriates. You can find opulent malls in the Central Valley cities of San Jose, Turrialba and Escazu without much effort.
This story was produced through the travel journalism programs at MatadorU. Learn More
But after living in a beachside community hours from the closest likeness of modern benefits and fancy electronics, you will have a new gratitude for conveniences most take for granted. With a motto of ‘happy kid, happy mom’, there were requisite day trips to the capital for movies, shopping and gluttonous fast-foodery. Splurge on a theater with upgraded leather recliners, sushi menus, and adult beverage service -it makes watching the newest Pixar release that much better. Go to the ones listed subtitulada not doblada to retain the original voices of your favorite actors.
8. Speaking Spanish to such perfection he’s mistaken for a Tico.
It’s not uncommon to find yourself in the company of several nationalities at once while living in Costa Rica. Most Ticos and the expatriate community speak English, but they also speak an average of three other languages. So far that puts me negative two and a half. While I resolved to gain my Spanish vocabulary at work and from local taxistas, my son took private lessons that allowed him to wrap his tongue around the language much faster. Within months he was translating conversations and correcting my Spanglish. He was often mistaken for a Tico because he was so good at imitating the distinctive national accent — it didn’t hurt he already had some latino blood and a dark golden tan after months in the equatorial sun.
9. Fierce independence and confidence that lasts a lifetime.
It’s all about the attitude when living abroad and it’s precisely those happy and colorful expat kids (mine included) that grow up to be well adjusted, savvy and articulate adults. Moving abroad was hands down one of the most challenging and rewarding transitions for our family that heightened my son’s confidence and gave him an independence he may not have gained at home. With your support and the right tools — mainly openness and communication — your kid can forego the woes of culture shock.
Of course there will be the intermittent ego-bruising during acclimatization, but at the end of the day the strange aromas and hot and humid streets were no match for the confidence and fearlessness he embraced. Bonus: bragging rights about badass adventures in exotic lands make for interesting stories that last a lifetime. 
You're in Park Slope when...
Photo: James Theophane
1. You think nothing of spending $200 on a 1970s polyester mini dress at the flea market outside PS 321 on 7th Avenue.
2. Your Saturday late morning run around Prospect Park includes an obstacle course of doublewide baby strollers, erratically walking toddlers holding ice cream cones, little pint-size dervishes on scooters followed by distracted moms on iPhones who carry either a $1400 Prada baby bag or the $1200 Burberry diaper bag.
3. The beggar outside the Key Food on 7th Avenue who asks for money is impeccably dressed and sits on a stool, not the ground. And his sign is printed, not hand written.
4. You have to stand in a line that goes out the door just to enter Park Slope Food Coop on Union Street.
5. You find that you just paid almost $10 for a half gallon of organic milk at the Union Market that suspiciously doesn’t go bad for weeks.
6. You find that, aside from the occasional man in an untucked button front shirt carrying a briefcase, you’re almost always the only one walking home from the train after 11:00 pm on a school night.
7. You actually pay someone to come and hang out with your cat for an hour while you’re traveling abroad.
8. A studio apartment with a mini refrigerator goes for $1,700 a month. And someone rents it.
9. A new coffee and dessert shop opens every few weeks and people flock to them as though they have never seen one of these stores before in their life.
10. You go to the GreenMarket at Grand Army Plaza to buy organic vegetables and milk in glass bottles because it makes you feel you are getting ‘back to the land’.
11. You see Steve Buscemi on the street in his baseball cap and casually say ‘hello’.
12. You run into people who don’t think it’s completely asinine that a seven-bedroom limestone-and-brick townhouse on Montgomery Place just sold for $10,775,000.
13. You buy $80 t-shirts at Habit or Bird.
14. The buyers, who look to be about 12, at the Beacon’s Closet reject most of your gently used clothing to sell in their store.
15. You own a car but there’s a waiting list for all the neighborhood parking garages so you have to park it on the street. You then never drive your car anywhere because you don’t want to lose your parking spot.
16. You are annoyed with the influx of cars trolling for a place to park whenever there is an event at Barclay’s Center, the house that Jay-Z built.
17. You can’t ever give up your basic rent-controlled apartment, because you could never afford anything else in the neighborhood now — and yet despite the fact that babies seem to greatly outnumber adults and you can’t find a decently-priced loaf of plain old enriched bread to save your life, you can’t imagine not living anywhere but this neighborhood. 
Signs you were raised in SLC
Photo: Sharon Mattheson-McCutcheon
1. You’ve experienced real snow storms.
You remember the good ole days of snow banks the size of your house. But with Utah’s 2015 winter being hailed as the warmest in 120 years, the once record-breaking, mass devastation snowstorms are no more. History has shown us highway pile-up’s and 1-15 delays backed up from SLC Tokyo drift-style winter driving. We may not have had it as hard as the Brigham Young plains crossing, but with those types of delays you might as well have dialed The Food Truck League to drop by with some backsliders and to-go bbq. And to you, delays from snow just meant some killer powder that needed visiting before it was tracked out.
2. No matter what country you are in, you are asked if you are a Mormon.
Yes, even on the other side of the world, with barely a shared language, you manage to be asked if you are a Mormon anytime Utah comes up. Of course, being a Utahn you are the quintessential expert of all things Mormon: Do they really wear magic underwear? Do they really have 10 wives? What is a real life Mormon like? Newsflash: Mormons as just like everyone else, just more conservative, and just because I’m from here does not mean I studied at the Family Genealogy Library or took Mormon 101 in school. Step away from the internet stories people, it’s not all true, and there is a whole non- Mormon world in Utah. Ask about that.
3. You are a Jello shot connoisseur.
Because you’ve been making Jello your entire life for every occasion (it’s a Utah thing), you are now the designated Jellonator. You are a pro at whipping up devastatingly strong, tri -colored, special blend superhero-shaped shots guaranteed to put someone way past the Utah driving limit of 0.08%. And on occasion there may still be fruit included. These skills could grab you a weekend gig at Club Jam as a GoGo Dancer/Jello shot slinger. Take that to your Auntie’s barbeque.
This story was produced through the travel journalism programs at MatadorU. Learn More
4. You’ve probably recycled a boyfriend/girlfriend.
The dating pool can become ridiculously incestuous here, and the metropolitan areas are very condensed, so the chances of you crossing paths with an ex are pretty high. The game-like quality of dump and switch has become addictive for people and the short attention span of serial daters makes pickings slim. You may find yourself dating (or marrying) someone who has dated your best friend or revisiting those once off-limit exes who you swore off.
Good news: Utahns like to share. Worst case scenario: Your date life provides great content for your next short story. Luckily this is changing with the rise in national and foreign transplants being seduced by Utah’s “Silicon Slopes”, epic national parks, and top-level cuisine. Whoo-haa, open the dating gates and the David Archuleta pop songs.
5. You survived the mass onslaught of crowds during the 2002 Olympics.
We hooked the 2002 Winter Olympics which brought weeks of visitors, 2,000 stellar athletes and a one-time ticket to non-stop Utah liquor law-bending underground parties. It gave outsiders a look at the Zion Curtain — a cumbersome and inconvenient “wall” required to hide hard liquor from the public’s view — and a peep into demystifying the strange and foreign land of Mormonism. You probably made a few extra bucks and saw some ice skating events, but were still more than happy to get dive bars like Cheers to You back to yourself — along with the ability to actually drive downtown again.
6. You kayaked and sandbagged city streets turned to rivers in the 80’s floods.
Utah has had its share of ill-humored weather, including the 1983 floods that changed downtown city streets like State & 9th into level two rapids with plenty of impromptu kayakers and opportunistic fisherman. Millions of sandbag walls were built by volunteers clad in Levi cutoffs and Adidas tennis shorts to hold back melting snow pack and torrential rains. Hot, young reporters like Shelley Osterloh and Randall Carlisle covered new tourist attractions, including the Spanish Fork mudslides and artists pop up’s capturing renditions of street rivers. It’s possible your Dad even snatched up a giant rainbow trout for din-din on a street near you.
7. You’ve primed yourself for the hipster takeover.
We have our share of slick, stach’ed and groovy bearded Gen Y’ers roaming the streets. Small armies of counterculture locals can be spotted in their lumber jack and vintage queen chic styles at local hotspots like Zest, snogging on fresh squeezed vegan cocktails and kombucha shots or sipping curated spirits at Bar X. If you’re not into the hipster trappings, you may want to avoid dive bars, bike lanes, vegan eateries, 9th & 9th, and overpriced wine bars near areas with a great bike score, since they’ll most likely judge you for driving there having rode in on a fixie. Prep your anti-hipster kit with mainstream music, all things conformist, and supermarket fruits and veggies for a start. We may not be the most hipster state in the U.S., but we are on our way to a Movember takeover.
8. You forget how to drive in snow. Every single year.
With annual consistency a familiar scene hits the snowy streets of Utah — and it looks like an amusement park bumper car ride. People, if you grew up here, is it really possible to forget how to drive in the snow every year? Apparently it is.
It doesn’t matter if it’s fluffy snow, sleety snow, freezy snow, lumpy snow, or cruddy snow, no one seems to have a clue what to do in it once they get into a vehicle. We may have the best snow on Earth, but we cannot boast first-rate snow-savvy drivers.
9. Your Tinder handle is @MormonLoveGod.
Only in Utah… 
You've been in ecuador too long
Photo: Raphaël Labbé
1. You add “canguil” to the ceviche.
What you considered a sacrilege when arriving to Ecuador is now an ideal combination: the crunchiness of the popcorn with the soaked texture of the ceviche get along perfectly well.
2. You know the difference between guineo, maduro and verde.
In a banana republic, saying “banana” is as generic as the word “metal” for cupper or silver. Simplified language is no longer useful. What you called “plátano” is “guineo”, the “verde” (“green”) is the one used for patacones and the “maduro” is a ripe version of verde!
3. You refer to everyone as man… even females.
If it breathes and seems human, then you call it “man”, using that English word. ¿How do you difference genders? Easy, “el man” and “la man”. You can even use the diminutive version: “el mancito” or “la mancita”.
4. You understand that “right now” does not mean “right now”.
– When will you send me the form?
– Ya mismo.
When people tell you “ya mismo” (right now), it doesn’t mean now and it doesn’t mean “later”. It is that illusory space in time between now and later… something like “some time soon”.
5. You eat everything with rice.
In Ecuador I finally discovered the importance of a good rice pot. The menu goes from rice with meat, rice with beans, rice with chicken, rice with shrimps, rice with sausages, rice with cheese, rice with maduro… Even rice with pasta! You might be lacking a bunch of foods at home, but it’s never going to be rice.
6. You curse and honk while driving… to what moves and what doesn’t move.
There are many reasons, like cars switching lanes without using their lights or suicidal pedestrians. It’s impossible to stay away from joining the collective orchestra.
7. You don’t ask for favors, you say “No seas malito”.
“No seas malito” (Don’t be mean), I was told just after arriving to Ecuador. I took it personally. Then I understood it’s just a formula for politeness around here. For instance, I would say “no sea malito, and share this article on Facebook”.
8. You are (almost) not afraid of iguanas anymore.
You see them on public parks, house roofs, and crossing the streets. So you have no choice but to get over your fear of lizards.
9. You have chosen your colors.
There are Emelec y Liga’s fans, which are some of the bigger teams in the cities of Guayaquil and Quito. But in my experience, few things unify the coast and the sierra like Barcelona does. Between that and the imposing Monumental stadium full of people, I sympathize with the ídolo.
10. If it is your Santo, you fear the cake and the belt.
Your Santo is your birthday. When your friends cheer ¡Qué viva el santo!, what follows is them forcing you to “bite the cake”, which means smashing your face into it. And if you are in the Sierra, be careful: some people keep the tradition of hitting your butt with a belt for each year you’ve been alive.
11. You have experienced the chiva at the fullest.
Those colorful vehicles might be used for rural transportation and touristic rides, but you know the real purpose of their existence. They easily turn into four wheels discotheques, with lights, music, and dancing floors. Who doesn’t want to get on board and enjoy the farrón!
12. You prefer one region over the other, but you don’t admit it out loud.
Within the politically correct discourse, “regionalism is bad: we need to encourage unity and celebrate diversity”. But… the truth is, deep down, you identify yourself either with the coast or the sierra. Sometimes you even consider them to be two different countries and not two regions of the same nation.
13. You ran away to Montañita.
When you feel like you need to clear your head, you escape to Montañita for the weekend. The weather, the beach, and the variety of food (hmmm… corns and empanadas right from the street vendor), the vibe and, on top of everything, the farra make this town a unique place. A must for tourists, locals, and expats.
14. You know too well what it is like to be with chuchaqui.
If you drink a six pack of Pilsener and you finish off with some cheap national spirits, not even your mother or a Finalin will save you from the damned hangover (chuchaqui maldito).
15. You are familiar with the “Mashi” and national politics.
It’s impossible not to take a side regarding his leadership style and some of the last controversial issues, from the Yasuní to the salvaguardias. 
17 signs you're from Mexico [vid]
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Adapted from the original Matador Network article, ‘23 signs you were born and raised in Mexico’.
Filmmaker: Cristóbal Ascencio Ramos
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Filmed in: Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Hierve el Agua, Tolantongo, Chacahua, Zacatecas, Coahuila
Recorded with Canon 600D lenses: 50mm Canon, 14mm Rokinon
Music: “Quasi Motion” by Kevin MacLeod
Special thanks to the Ramos family and Alicia. 
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