Montezuma and me

If you've ever doubted that it's nearly impossible to avoid turista, take my word. My host family is very clean and careful, and the group eats lunch only in two approved restaurants. The only "street food" I've had has been bought from trusted sources by Olga, my hostess. Nevertheless . . .

But I'm recovering with the aid of te de yerba buena (spearmint tea -- tasty!), boiled rice, plain toast and oral rehydration salts -- a fancy term for a liter of purified water with 4 tablespoons of sugar and a half-tablespoon of salt mixed in. Yeah, it tastes as great as it sounds, but it's effective.

Sunday night, I felt good enough to go back to the casino -- Olga and Humberto's favorite recreation. We went with their good friends Miguel Angel and his wife, Letty, a very friendly couple. I broke exactly even (unlike winning $130 and $340 -- that's pesos, folks, not dollars!) on previous trips. Olga and Humberto each won a bit, but Letty and Miguel Angel were the big winners -- 1,500 pesos apiece at bingo.

This week, only Sharon and I are left in the class: Hapa, from Vancouver Island, B.C., left Friday. She had spent most of her time on Level 2, but moved up for her last week to cover the pluperfect subjunctive. (Yeah, a term only a grammar nerd could love.).

I struggle with the pluperfect subjunctive, but it always reminds me of a joke. (Nieta, if you're reading this, don't bother asking Mommy to explain.):

A Bostonian who loves seafood and hasn't been back home for 20 years flies into Logan Airport and grabs a taxi. "Take me someplace I can get scrod!" he orders the driver. The cabbie looks him over and says, "Mac, I bet I get told that 20 times a day, but you're the first person ever to put it in the pluperfect subjunctive."

Recently I've been riding the combis -- short buses (no jokes, please!) to school because they are lower and easier to get into than the regular buses. As a bonus, the fares are cheaper -- 4.5 pesos, not 5, a savings of roughly 4 cents at a 12:1 exchange rate. Not a big deal to me, but I'm sure it matters to some of my fellow passengers.  

Una gringa vieja gets some strange looks on the combi, but nobody is hostile. Sometimes I strike up a conversation with a young mom about her niños. Usually, I take a taxi "home" in the afternoon.
The way the streets are named here -- odd numbers on one side of the dividing point and even on the others -- still confuses me, but I like how well the street names are identified. Tile plaques are set into buildings on almost every corner; buildings or the high walls of their patios almost always come right up to the edge of the sidewalk.

Uh-oh -- es la hora de mi clase. Adios por ahora.


Besos y abrazos

Elena