Cal-Mex-
That was funny, and I thank you for posting the words.
You heard some better than I did. Seeing the words in print made more sense.
Isn't Santa Clara also a breed of cattle? Is that why the cow's head is on the shop?
The girl is a Spaniard, and your shop is in Mexico, an ocean away! But perhaps she and her lover visited there on vacation? I do see a resemblance in the building to some in the video.
I see the shop or the ice cream brand has been in business since 1924. When did you acquire it? Is the ice cream Mexican-made? How does it compare to better US brands, like Blue Bell, made here in Texas?
I hope it fares better than Chinese-made Hagen-Das. (sp?) I read a real horror story about it. Some was being made in private homes, with very poor sanitation.
I haven't eaten that brand since. I thought it was from Denmark or made in the US under license.
I do know that Mexicans make some very good beer, trained by Germans.
Again, my deep thanks for posting the words and the translation. It was even better than I'd thought. And I've played that danged song over a dozen times since yesterday! I think I'm going to have to try to buy the CD.
Your store looks really good, BTW. Once they achieve underground wiring, it'll look even better.
Oh: one of the big issues that I have in learning Spanish is the lack of modifying or accompanying words. E.g., here she has the "foto frente de Santa Clara", not
en frente of her.
Santa Clara started in 1924 selling milk. They imported a pile (I think 1,000 at the time) of cows from Canada which gave more milk per milking than the cows that existed in Mexico at the time. Also, the milk had a different taste. I believe they also replanted the grasses in the area they lived (Pachuca, Hidalgo) so that the milk had "the taste" of milk up North. Anyway, they have like 3,000 cows now. The milk still tastes just like "back home" (I am Canadian). Santa Clara makes milk for Borden for areas in Mexico that the Santa Clara brand is not sold. They also make Hagen Daas Ice Cream for areas in Mexico our brand is not sold. There are only 145 Santa Clara Ice Cream Stores in Mexico, mostly in the central area. It is a gourmet Ice Cream. It would compare favourably with the BEST Ice Cream available in the U.S. or Canada. It is not cheap, either. I have NEVER in the near 20 years I have had the store heard someone tell me that "so-and-so's" is better, but I have been told that "you're is as good as so-and-so's". So that's good. I knew zip about Ice Cream when I fell into the place.
The cow's head on the sign in the company logo. It's the type of cow they imported, Holstein I think. I realize I should know this little fact since the cows did come from Canada originally (at considerable cost, at the time) but I cannot say it's something I lay awake nights worrying about...so the actual facts have slipped away from me. Santa Clara added Ice Cream to their product list in 1982 or so, and started to "franchise" out stores. I took mine over (it already existed) by assuming it's debts in 1992/93. Owning an Ice Cream store will not make you rich, by the way, but most of the people you have to deal with every day are standing in front of you because they want to be there, so you don't usually have to deal with a lot of real fools either. It's a tradeoff.
Unless there have been severe changes in the Hagen Daas marketing strategy, I would say that probably you heard unfounded rumours. Hagen Daas quality, like Santa Clara quality, is supposedly top mark. I do not run around sampling Hagen Daas Ice Cream so I am not an authority on it, but I know that the original owner of Hagen Daas and the original owner of Santa Clara went to school together in Switzerland and that when they both independently went into the milk and Ice Cream business, they "shared" recipes and agreed to never make exactly the same mix. To this day, as I have stated, Santa Clara actually makes Hagen Daas Ice Cream in it's factory for areas of Mexico that our own brand is not sold.
Mexican beer is okay. But then, I don't have to go out of my way to have one, so it's maybe a little less "in" to me than someone from Toronto who has to pay a premium to drink it.
Spanish is a European language that, although derived from Latin (as is English) has a different sentence pattern than we use. Stuff is reversed in the sentence and it can be challenging to learn while one still thinks in English. Probably the best way to learn is by simple "immersion". I often have trouble translating to friends who speak only English because sometimes it is easy to loose the "gist" of the meaning by translating directly. If one translates the "perfect" meaning, often someone who only recognizes the individual words will accuse you of changing what was said to something else because they heard "one individual word" that they did not understand has a different significance when used in a certain way. I try to avoid translating because I am 1) lazy, and 2) cannot usually be bothered and 3) unless it's going to kill the person if I don't translate, why do they need to know anyway? It'll come out in the wash. (Lazy, again, remember?)
You'd think I'd actually have photos of the store, but I really don't. I mean, I'm there most days anyway, why take a picture of it? This is an older photo back when we were doing some renovations that I took though. It is a nice store. I just wish the economy was better...but I guess we all wish for that.
The State Governor in the store with some of the girls. Little Lupe there to the Governor's right has been in the store all 21 years of it's existence. Two of my girls have been there all 21 years and another has been there about 2 months longer than me. That's why you see them nagging me all the time. I always tell people that I own the store but the girls are the bosses. The Governor became a friend because my wife works for him. He has made various problems "go away" when it comes to dealing with local officials. Thus, I am getting soft as I no longer have to resort to using my Eastwood squint. The little girl to the Governor's left is named Ximena, but we call her "Paris Hilton" because from the right angle, she looks like a tanned, brunette Paris Hilton. AND, she's sort of ditzy too, so she fits the role.
One of the old '40's or '50's era Santa Clara Milk trucks. I shot this photo using a Cel-phone the last time I went down to the plant to give them a piece of my mind over something. The plant takes up a huge area of central Pachuca (which used to be 5 hours away from here but now it's only 3 with the new highway). All the street signs in Pachuca -- not a small town -- are made in the "Santa Clara" cow emblem. Hmmm, do you think the company has some influence in that city?
It's not a bad gig. I'll never get rich doing it, but summer is perpetual.
