Friday, July 14, 2006
Several tidbits:
Wednesday: roommates & I went out with Marilu (the guide/friend of my roommates and I) for coffee and lots of instruction in Mexican/US slang.
Thursday afternoon: went with friend in search of photography exhibit in the city square. Failed to find it but ended up at another weird art thing, listened to the communists/Lopez Obrador (the losing presidential candidate who wants all the votes recounted) supporters in the square. Felt very chic and urban.
Thursday night: went out with Marilu, some of her friends and the roommates. Went to club. Dancing, people singing along to band in Spanish. One of Marilu's friends asked us if we were "springbreakers" and then told us about all his adventures in Cancun. Guess what: not all Americans in Mexico are "springbreakers".
Saturday afternoon: went out in search of a certain coffeeshop/bookstore. Got horribly lost, por supuesto. Witnessed a mugging.
Rather: as I was walking a guy ran past me super fast and my first thought was "I bet he stole something" and then my second & third thoughts were full of self-recrimination for jumping to conclusions. Then half a block later I found a wallet with its contents scattered all over the ground, and a day-planner covered with mud. A street vendor wandered over too and helped me collect the various credit cards (only $2 cash left - the guy must have dumped it and left). I asked the street vendor to use my cellphone to call some of the numbers in the day-planner, but none worked, so I just took the wallet to the coffeeshop with me and stared at it for a while. Read some Aztec mourning poems, felt sad (this was for class.) (reading, not feeling sad.) When I got home I asked Adrian (my host dad) to call for me. He got in touch with the guy's secretary, and he came by later to pick it up. (Didn't get to meet him though.) He is grateful and supposedly was going to drop off a "surprise" for me but didn't.
This weekend for one reason or another I took eight different taxis. I am awesome! Taxis here are cheap and supposedly horribly unsafe. They are also a great opportunity to practice Spanish. Summaries of two conversations, vague translations in brackets []:
Taxi driver 1 (listening to us speak English) (slow, halting): How are you today?
Me: Fine, thank you!
TD1: [I worked in Idaho for a while, on a work visa.]
Me: [Ah! How nice!]
[pleasantries]
TD1: [You know, the United States is not like here.]
Me: [It's another world]
TD1: [Yes, it is like another world. For example, you have to follow the rules - the police are very strict.]
Me: [Not like here] (general Laughter) [They are very...] "corrupt" [also]!
TD1: [Yes, ha ha, very corrupt! Yes, in the United States, the police make you follow the rules. It is very different.]
Me: [Wait, where are we?]
Roommate 1: I think... I think we missed our street.
Me: Shoot. [I think... the street... the street is not here.]
TD1: [What?]
Me: [We passed the street. Jose Moran.]
TD1: [Oh, we will turn around.]
Various comical encounters with one-way streets, culminating in our taxi driver driving an entire city block in reverse, totally failing to observe the spirit of the (one-way-street) law.
TD1: [You see, things are very different in Mexico!]
Me: [Yes, you definitely cannot do that in the United States.]
TD1: [Ha ha, yes!]
We are dropped off several blocks from our home. We tip him but not much. We walk.
OK this post is getting long. Here is the mega-summarized version of convo number 2:
TD2: [asks where we are from, upon hearing Chicago digresses into long story about his Catholic boyhood education, in which one of the nuns knew someone who was from Chicago]
Me: [polite inquiries as to current situation, leading to]: [Do you like taxi driving?]
TD2: [It's ok, but it is very tiring, and dangerous. Mexico City is very dangerous you know!]
Me: [Cleverly retell story of mugging nearly witnessed]
TD2: [Tells his own tale of robbery.] [The city is full of thieves!] We pass poster of Lopez Obrador. [Like that one!]
Me: [Ha, ha, did you just say you think Lopez Obrador is a thief?]
TD2: [Yes, they are all the same, I think, all politicians all over the world.]
Me: [In the United States it is the same!] [Brief discussion of US politics encompassing Jeb Bush and Barack Obama]
Summarizing is convenient because I can omit how totally retarded I sound when I speak Spanish, and how many times I break my flow by saying "like" in English.
Truthfully that all sounds very exciting but I am feeling incredibly lame right now, sitting at home waiting for my roommates to return from playing pool, because I did not go because I am extremely lame to the max. Also, my roommates and everyone whom I like in the program are going to Acapulco this weekend and I again am not going for reasons that change from day to day. I keep telling myself that I need a break from being with other Americans, but maybe I am just being superuber lame. My plans for the weekend include: climbing a mountain, going to mass at the cathedral. Maybe I will paint a picture or learn to cross-stitch in preparation for my sojourn at the convalesence home.
Wednesday: roommates & I went out with Marilu (the guide/friend of my roommates and I) for coffee and lots of instruction in Mexican/US slang.
Thursday afternoon: went with friend in search of photography exhibit in the city square. Failed to find it but ended up at another weird art thing, listened to the communists/Lopez Obrador (the losing presidential candidate who wants all the votes recounted) supporters in the square. Felt very chic and urban.
Thursday night: went out with Marilu, some of her friends and the roommates. Went to club. Dancing, people singing along to band in Spanish. One of Marilu's friends asked us if we were "springbreakers" and then told us about all his adventures in Cancun. Guess what: not all Americans in Mexico are "springbreakers".
Saturday afternoon: went out in search of a certain coffeeshop/bookstore. Got horribly lost, por supuesto. Witnessed a mugging.
Rather: as I was walking a guy ran past me super fast and my first thought was "I bet he stole something" and then my second & third thoughts were full of self-recrimination for jumping to conclusions. Then half a block later I found a wallet with its contents scattered all over the ground, and a day-planner covered with mud. A street vendor wandered over too and helped me collect the various credit cards (only $2 cash left - the guy must have dumped it and left). I asked the street vendor to use my cellphone to call some of the numbers in the day-planner, but none worked, so I just took the wallet to the coffeeshop with me and stared at it for a while. Read some Aztec mourning poems, felt sad (this was for class.) (reading, not feeling sad.) When I got home I asked Adrian (my host dad) to call for me. He got in touch with the guy's secretary, and he came by later to pick it up. (Didn't get to meet him though.) He is grateful and supposedly was going to drop off a "surprise" for me but didn't.
This weekend for one reason or another I took eight different taxis. I am awesome! Taxis here are cheap and supposedly horribly unsafe. They are also a great opportunity to practice Spanish. Summaries of two conversations, vague translations in brackets []:
Taxi driver 1 (listening to us speak English) (slow, halting): How are you today?
Me: Fine, thank you!
TD1: [I worked in Idaho for a while, on a work visa.]
Me: [Ah! How nice!]
[pleasantries]
TD1: [You know, the United States is not like here.]
Me: [It's another world]
TD1: [Yes, it is like another world. For example, you have to follow the rules - the police are very strict.]
Me: [Not like here] (general Laughter) [They are very...] "corrupt" [also]!
TD1: [Yes, ha ha, very corrupt! Yes, in the United States, the police make you follow the rules. It is very different.]
Me: [Wait, where are we?]
Roommate 1: I think... I think we missed our street.
Me: Shoot. [I think... the street... the street is not here.]
TD1: [What?]
Me: [We passed the street. Jose Moran.]
TD1: [Oh, we will turn around.]
Various comical encounters with one-way streets, culminating in our taxi driver driving an entire city block in reverse, totally failing to observe the spirit of the (one-way-street) law.
TD1: [You see, things are very different in Mexico!]
Me: [Yes, you definitely cannot do that in the United States.]
TD1: [Ha ha, yes!]
We are dropped off several blocks from our home. We tip him but not much. We walk.
OK this post is getting long. Here is the mega-summarized version of convo number 2:
TD2: [asks where we are from, upon hearing Chicago digresses into long story about his Catholic boyhood education, in which one of the nuns knew someone who was from Chicago]
Me: [polite inquiries as to current situation, leading to]: [Do you like taxi driving?]
TD2: [It's ok, but it is very tiring, and dangerous. Mexico City is very dangerous you know!]
Me: [Cleverly retell story of mugging nearly witnessed]
TD2: [Tells his own tale of robbery.] [The city is full of thieves!] We pass poster of Lopez Obrador. [Like that one!]
Me: [Ha, ha, did you just say you think Lopez Obrador is a thief?]
TD2: [Yes, they are all the same, I think, all politicians all over the world.]
Me: [In the United States it is the same!] [Brief discussion of US politics encompassing Jeb Bush and Barack Obama]
Summarizing is convenient because I can omit how totally retarded I sound when I speak Spanish, and how many times I break my flow by saying "like" in English.
Truthfully that all sounds very exciting but I am feeling incredibly lame right now, sitting at home waiting for my roommates to return from playing pool, because I did not go because I am extremely lame to the max. Also, my roommates and everyone whom I like in the program are going to Acapulco this weekend and I again am not going for reasons that change from day to day. I keep telling myself that I need a break from being with other Americans, but maybe I am just being superuber lame. My plans for the weekend include: climbing a mountain, going to mass at the cathedral. Maybe I will paint a picture or learn to cross-stitch in preparation for my sojourn at the convalesence home.
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