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. . .

Day two. . . part two. . . .

I've started uploading my photos for your viewing pleasure, and because I always have your best interests in mind, I'm not embedding them all into the blog since it would take ages for the pages to load.  Instead, check out my flickr photostream down there on the left.  The photo above is a house in my neighborhood to give you an idea of what it looks like.  I should've taken a photo of MY house, but didn't think of it until later, then I forgot, and now it's dark.  Manana, te lo prometo.

My stroll around town was fairly uneventful.  I hardly got rained on at all, which was nice since I didn't see any umbrellas actually. . . I walked and walked and walked looking for this one particular pharmacy that we drove past yesterday, only to realize it's only a few blocks from the house and had cut across to that street a block too late and missed it.  Oh well; I got some good exercise!  I'll give them cobblestone sidewalks (which are super narrow by the way, maybe 2 feet wide - I completely bashed myself on a window sill earlier), but the streets are insane.  Walking on them in flats with very little padding is not recommended.

The markets here are so odd to me, but that's one of my favorite parts of visiting other countries.  I loved in Europe how different shops specialized in different things - one for bread, another for meat, another for produce.  It's kind of like that here, except one is a shoe store/hair salon; another might only sell one or two things and just lots of them (diapers, baby formula, hand lotion and hair dye); another looks like someone's living room with people sitting around on couches watching tv, but then there is a big rotisserie full of chickens in the middle of the room; and tons and tons of huge home decor shops, crammed to overflowing with all sorts of awesome things I want to take home with me.  I kind of can't figure out how you would ever know where to go for anything.  It also seems like some of the shops might close mid-day, all siesta like.  I walked past several that I wanted to go into, but they were locked up, even though their hours said they'd be open.

The town square, El Jardin, is actually quite small; only a block with La Parroquia at one end.  I'm meeting Allan there tomorrow to drop off my rent check.  There were all sorts of people just hanging out; I can't tell if they're local, or tourists, or what, but isn't it a work day?  There was a little table for their version of the SPCA with a couple of dogs and a cage full of snuggling kittens, and a few other folks with leaflets and fliers, and of course vendors - men trying to sell woven bags, women in more traditional Indian style dresses selling little dolls, the carts with their churros and bags of fruit with wasps happily munching away on your purchase before you get around to it, which ew.  I also think ew about the women that are making chalupas or something on the street with their little hot frying pan bowl things, and their bag of meat just sitting out, waiting to go in your belly.  Of course I'm totally going to try one at some point.  I mean, I had ice in my Coca Cola Light today - so why not, right?  Speaking of which; I ate at Cafe San Francisco (oh, the irony) and had their enchiladas especiales - chicken with potatoes, carrots, queso and crema. 

There are plenty of young people in town, all Mexican though, so that makes me feel better.  Hopefully I can make some friends that want to practice their English as much as I'd like to practice my Spanish and I won't be kicking it with my elders the whole time I'm here.  It seems like there a lot of sort of almost hipstery, cool kids that ride around town on ATVs (which you can also rent by the way).  I think I'll have to follow Alan's suggestion of getting out into some nightlife instead of hiding here in the house, which I have opted to do again tonight so I can cook.  I figure Friday night is a better night to check out the bars and stuff anyway.  I hear there are a few "discotheques" as (Alan called them - discotecas, I'm sure) in town, that some of the wealthier kids from neighboring towns come to.  Why this is important I'm not sure, but he seemed to think I should go.  I saw lots of cool looking restaurants too, with nice bars, so I'm thinking I'll start there.  I just don't know if it's socially acceptable to be a girl/woman out alone, sitting at a bar, trying to start up conversations.

The weather hasn't been quite what I expected.  I thought it would be warmer during the day, but it's really only warm warm for a few hours.  The mornings are cool, things heat up a bit, the rain starts to spit at you around 3, it gets a bit muggy, it rains for sure closer to 4 or 5, and then it's cooler.  It's lovely out, don't get me wrong; in the low-mid 70s; I just expected a bit more heat and a bit less cloud cover.  Warmer than San Francisco, but don't come down with a closet full of sundresses, like someone else may have, is what I'm saying.

I'm pretty excited about the cooking school I found today; there is a class tomorrow and it's 600 pesos (about $47).  It's 11-1 and includes the food, obvi.  I'm guessing Concepcion would teach me for free - maybe next Thursday I can ask her; we did talk a bit about cooking today and I think she'd be game.  She is really super super nice, and I feel lucky to have such good people here to help me get settled.  This cooking school looks like the Mexican Sur La Table - created for the benefit of the American tourists that are staying in the neighboring hotels (I have three spas within spitting distance from my pad, and I actually saw valets or something hovering in the doorway of another hotel), and well, that sounds like me, so I guess I'll fit right in.  It's called Sazon, el arte de la mesa (the art of the table), and I bet that can pretty much paint a picture in your mind about what it looks like.  There are dishes there that you know I'm dying over; good thing I saw a FedEx store so I can shop away and ship things home; Patrick can attest to the fact that my luggage is already quite full.

I'm only swooning over a few other items; the star lights, which I always always always covet, every time I come to Mexico, and what do you know, they have them here in mercury glass (which I also have a thing for), and I think they're less than $20, so yay!  I am also drooling over (get ready for it) a Dia de los Muertos type statue of Frida Kahlo with parrots and monkeys, and yes, fine, roll your eyes.  I just always love those macabre little guys, and the one of Frida (or of the flamenco dancers -they'll also do) just caught my attention.  I'm not sure how much they are, but they all say "No tocas por favor" which makes me think they're caro.  I'll get bold and ask about the Frida one tomorrow; I was just all shopped out today by the time I saw her in the window.

 

this is not a photo of the ones I'm drooling over, just something I found online for reference in case you don't know what I'm talking about