- I find it quite shocking that a city so close to the equator and sea level can be so cold. It was grey and overcast and misty yesterday and today, and apparently is exactly like this from May or June all the way to late November. The suicide rate must be quite high.
- It is a surprisingly easy city to get around in. Taxis are everywhere and as we learn to negotiate with them they are getting cheaper. But it is also easy to walk and there seem to be an abundance of buses.
- The people here have been very nice and very helpful, often without being asked. I couldn’t help but contrast this with Mexico, where no one ever goes out of their way to offer any help whatsoever. Here people have been always kind and volunteer much information and service.
- While we haven’t yet seen the historic center (sticking today as we have to San Isidro, Miraflores and Barranco), I have to say that most of the architecture of Lima seems fairly charmless. There are some cute buildings near to where we are staying however, and even the ugly stuff has an overall a scale that is not unpleasant. Overall, the streets are clean with nice sidewalks and planting all around, which makes strolling them quite pleasant despite the lack of beautiful building.
- I can’t believe how easy it was to get a Yellow Fever vaccination here.
Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca - This place is a must in Oaxaca. The architecture of the restored convent is beautiful and the collection is fascinating.
Big damn breakfast - They seem to eat a lot for breakfast here. Yesterday’s in particular was big and meaty and heavy.
Chocolate - Oaxaca is known for their chocolate and Rocco and I bought some vanilla, cinnamon and almond flavored varietes by the market today.
Atole - This drink is found all over Mexico, but I had the most amazing pecan flavored one at breakfast this morning by the Zocalo.
Mitla -There is still left some pretty amazing carving in the ruins of Zapotec temples that the Spanish prompty destroyed and used the pieces to built a church on the site.
Hierve el Agua - It took about an hour on a rocky road to get to this place of sulfur springs falling over the rocks. Eh. I could live without it.
Los Danzantes - This restaurant was beautifully designed and had fantastic food. The only thing that made it less than perfect was that there seemed to be no actual Mexican people dining there.
Satori, notes — Stephen on 15 January 2008 @ 10:12 AM — 0 comments
Today I am waiting for a bed to be delivered. I have been looking into all the mundane things that one looks into when one moves to a new place, except that in a different culture, these things don’t seem mundane at all to me. Yesterday I took a walk around the neighborhood, got a haircut, bought a SIM chip for my phone, checked out a local gym and had a meal with my roommate. Here are a few of the things I have noticed:
- Mexican mobile phone rates are ridiculous. In fact, they are the highest I have seen anywhere in the world. This seems mostly due to the fact of a near monopoly by Carlos Slim. There is also a highly confusing system of dialing between mobiles and land lines, and for dialing in and out of the country. It is also the case that sometimes the receiving party on a mobile will pay part of the cost of the call. Whew.
- I was noticing that there is a ton of beautification work going on in my neighborhood with respect to parks and walkways. When I asked Julio about it, he told me that the current mayor of Mexico City lives in this neighborhood. Aha.
- My ability to express myself in Spanish and to understand others fluctuates a lot during the course of any one day. Some people are a lot easier to understand than others. Pues, poco a poco.
As I will be back in the land of my birth and upbringing for the next few weeks, I will try to note what strikes me as different or unusual here. It will be as if I am a tourist (albeit one with 17 years of experience here). Here are a couple of things I have noticed in the last couple of days:
- It seems that everywhere I go, things are sold in JUMBO size. I went to get shampoo and toothpaste the other day and the only size was gigantic. People in the midwest enjoy value as represented by quantity. They are also clearly not as transient as I and so probably don’t worry about having to lug a gallon size jug of Head and Shoulders around from place to place.
- Seeing as this is November and we are miles and miles away from any warm, growing climate, fresh fruit is sparsely available and expensive. The other morning I ordered the “fresh fruit” with breakfast and was confronted with this:
I guess by “fresh” they meant “freshly opened can”. blech.
