Sabado y el mercado

I love when Spanish mocks me with its simplicity.  In my pad, there is a can opener in the kitchen drawer, but what it really does is just sort of dent the cans on one side and and not slide along or open them at all.  I asked Alan if he had another one or knew where I could get one.  The dear apparently came by with one yesterday while I was P90X-ing and since I have no idea what the doorbell sounds like, AND I was on the third floor with Tony whatshisface shouting at me and wanting me to make punching noises, I missed him.
He sent me an email letting me know he had left it with a neighbor.  So today, I make my plan.  Of course neither I nor Alan know the word for can opener.  I could've looked it up sure, but I didn't think about it until I was walking up the hill from the market.  Plus, it's more fun this way or something.  I tell myself I should probably say, "Hola. . . ayer Snr. Alan se llavo una cosa para abrir las latas. . ." (Hi. . . yesterday Mr. Alan brought a thing for opening cans. . . ") and let things unfold.  I was close enough (even if I may have said "una cosa para abriendo las latas" - which may also be correct; I can't be sure).  Lucky day, she knew what I was talking about and grabbed the thing for me.  I then asked, "que es la palabra para eso?" (what is the word for this?) to which she replied "abrelatas."  Of course it is.  The thing to abrir las latas (open the cans) is an abrelatas (can opener).
:/

Squash blossoms at el mercado; I may not miss squash blossom season after all!

I also had one of those "special tourist prices" events down at el mercado.  Figuring I should stick with what I know, I sidestepped all of the nearer stalls with people asking me ?Que puedo llegar? (what can I get you?) and the endless other variations of people asking what I want or what am I looking for, and I head for the stall Concepcion brought me to on my first day in town.  Boys and girls, for $25 pesos (less than $2 US) I got:
dos cebollas (two onions)
dos jitomates (two red tomatoes - did you know that only the green ones are tomates and the red ones are jitomates?)
dos manzanas verdes (two green apples)
un mango (a mango)
I wanted un aguacate (an avocado) as well, but his weren't ripe, so I headed to another stand to pick one up.  This lone aguacate cost me DIEZ PESOS.  Half of what I spent on all that other stuff!  * sigh *
At least I know where to go for fair pricing, with or without Concepcion to lend me street cred.  Plus, the aguacates were just a tiny bit out of my reach; he could've just said okay and dropped it in the bag since I wouldn't have laid a hand on it until I got home, but he didn't.  He told me they weren't that ripe.  Awesome.

I then proceeded to sort of poke around the rest of the area around the market (it's called Mercado Ignacio Ramirez).  There were people everywhere so I figured something interesting must be going on.  Boy howdy, blocks and blocks and blocks of artisan handicrafts.  Talavera, joyería de plata, bolsas, telas, máscaras, juguetes, Día de los Muertos estatuillas, bandejas de plata, hamacas, muebles, los luces de las estrellas yo quiero. . . (okay, I totally had to look up a few of those words, but not all of them.  Anyway: Talavera, silver jewelry, bags, fabrics, masks, toys, Dia de los Muertos figurines, silver trays, hammocks, furniture, the star lights I want. . . ) - the point is, if they can make it in Mexico, you can buy it here.  And the prices - no huge surprise - are far less than at the nice shops off El Jardin.  Por ejemplo - los luces de las estrellas yo quiero - en un mercado cerca del jardin, que son $320.  Aqui, que son $100!

(For example, the star lights I want - at a market near El Jardin, they are $320.  Here, they are $100!)  That's right; I can get the dang things for like $8 US.  The figurines are less than $10 US here, but the quality isn't as good.  Still, it makes me pause when I considered paying almost $180 US for that Frida Kahlo one I want.

In any case, if you're here, we are SO going there, just so you know.

Stairs up to the rooftop terrace at Hotel Meson, where Cafe Iberico is located

Last night I went out with Dina, the girl from San Jose that I met at school.  We had a great time and hit up a couple of spots.  Embarrassingly, we were home by 11.  This is embarrassing since when I asked one of my (much older) maestras what she was doing for the evening, she told me that she and some of her friends were going rumba dancing and would maybe drink some tequila (mischievous look) and would be out until THREE OR FOUR.  I am seriously missing the whole experience it seems.
And lucky for me, I appear to have made the right choice in lodging.  Dina opted for the homestay program recommended by our school and she is not the happiest of campers.  It's about $30 per night (which is close to what I'm paying, but I get to read books and go online and have cereal whenever I want and don't have to eat "weird corn mold" tacos; although sadly, I probably would never even try a weird corn mold taco unless I was with a Mexican person that recommended it to me, and since I still have yet to find any Mexicans living in my house sharing their culture with me, I am out of luck), and includes two meals a day (mine does not); but she said she feels like she has inadvertently offended them several times.  Whether it's to close her window when she wants to take a shower and get ready (and they're in the patio outside her window talking), or if she isn't crazy about the food she's served or even, God forbid, GETS FULL, they give her this hurt routine where then she's all concerned that she's made some cultural blunder.  Since this family does this regularly, one might expect that they have gotten a teeny tiny bit used to the cultural differences that exist and might be more tolerant.

Awesome carved jaguar head fireplace and jungle leaf cabinets in the spa room at El Meson Hotel.

In any case; I've had a mostly home body day today.  I am going to cook up some carne asada, make some guacamole (even though I forgot to pick up ajo - garlic), eat it with the freshly made corn tortillas I picked up, and sit on the terrazza and relax- but first; P90X.  Wish me luck. . .

End of Day Three . . .

I got brave last night and went to a bar called El Pegaso I believe - though if my subconscious memory serves, there are about 5 other bars/restaurants with the same name in town.  It was a nice roof top bar looking down on the edge of El Jardin.  They were preparing for some big - thing. . . fiesta or something.  They've been working on a stage all week, and today there was actually stuff on it and chairs being set up and tons of people milling about.  I thought - man, I have definitely been going back to my pad waaaay too early if this is how it gets in the evening.  I remembered it was Friday, and then when I saw all this stuff going down I realized this may not be your average Friday night crowd.  Still - it was the most excited and invigorated I've felt since arriving, which was good.

There was only one other group at the bar; four Americans.  After a while I mustered up enough courage to crash the party and ask for suggestions on things to do and see.  Turns out I had just stumbled into a small pod of a group of almost 100 creative writing students from the University of New Orleans.  Well whaddaya know.  I ended up drinking and having great conversation with them for several hours, and then, THEN I finally felt that "I'm on an adventure!" buzz.  All it takes is a little camaraderie and I'm on my way!  Yes, I know, meeting a group of young American writers isn't exactly language immersion, but I'm doing that all day, and I think exciting conversation with people I actually ended up having a lot in common with (sci-fi, Sam Raimi, skateboarding and snowboarding, Seattle, New Orleans, drag shows, drinks, love of travel. . . ) certainly won't kill me.  Of course I'm catching them at the tail end of their stay - they've already been here a month or so, and most are leaving in the next week.  At least it gives me a few things to do (readings, poetry slams, drag shows, karaoke) until I've been in class for a little bit and am feeling a bit braver to interact in Espanol.  And now we can all breathe a big, collective sigh of relief that Jen isn't locking herself in her casita every night catching up on True Blood (I'm all caught up now anyway).
At about 9pm they were getting ready to head to the next bar.  I hadn't eaten yet, so I thought I'd run home, eat some leftovers (so economical) and then come back out to meet them.  El Jardin was PACKED.  Live music - marching bands, mariachi; stilt walkers, papier mache characters. . .

It was pretty freaking awesome actually.  The buzz was invigorating and I was feeling on top of the world and like I was finally ready to get out there and have fun and do that whole convincing myself I'm not shy shtick.  And then I got home and ate. . .and completely ran out of steam.  I got a raging headache - maybe from the wine, maybe from the altitude, maybe from waiting too long to eat, I'm not sure.  Point is, I did NOT go back out and meet up with the group.  Lame!!  But I'm on my way out of the house now to explore and I don't know what.  Tonight I will certainly stalk some of the bars they were talking about last night to see if I can run into either this same group, or some of the other people in their program.