Massive Mercado

This weekend made two weeks for me here. It feels so long and so short all at the same time.

Highlights of the weekend included taking the bus to the Mercado Libertad and a bbq with my friends.

The market here is absolutely crazy. It's in the Centro histórico and called either mercado libertad or San Juan de Diós. It's a mostly indoor market. It's three stories tall and has just about anything you can imagine from horse saddles, to videogames, to birds, and tons of clothing. The aisles are very small, about four feet wide with merchandise spilling into then. There's a near constant sensation of claustrophobia. It's also incredible hot and stuffy inside, no room for fans. 

The shopping experience was completely different than anything I've experienced. Given the tight quarters about every five feet you have someone "a sus ordenes señorita." They are there wanting to help you with anything they possibly can. A couple times a vender didn't have what I was looking for, but was happy to point me in the direction or accompany to someone else's booth that did have it. I really liked this sense of community the vendors had with each other. It was really encouraging compared to American competitiveness that suggests if the store doesn't have what you want they will order it for you and overnight ship it directly to your house just to prevent you from going anywhere else. 

Anyways, I purposely didn't bring much money with me because I know my tendency to impulse buy lots of things I don't need. But, I'll be going back soon and bringing some cash as well.

The next event worth mentioning was a bbq with my friends on Sunday. I have to say a big thank you to them for adopting me here and including me so much! I think I'd be going pretty crazy without them and they've certainly made a big impact on helping me improve my Spanish. 

Diego picked me up and we went to see some art at a park. It was just nice and calm. There were also about 100 puppies around this relatively small park which was pretty fun to see. Then we met with Izhel, Tanya, and Tonio at the grocery to get stuff for dinner. We went to Tonio's house, listened to music, cooked good food, ate a lot, drank a little, played some word games all together and then called it a night. I had a really good time and am hoping we'll all go to the luchas libre Tuesday.

Upcoming events

I thought Mexican was supposed to be laid back....

First Rotary meeting tonight, Monday.

Tuesday, school, talk to yann, meet up with kristen quickly, volunteer at orphage, lucha libre? (these are like the wwf masked fights like in nacho libre. I can't think of a great American way to describe them, but the Irish would say they are good craic.

Wednesday, school and hopefully making it to the big park here.

This weekend we're trying to get a group to go to La Manzanilla together on the coast. Sonja's family has a place there and I'd love to spend this weekend on the beach. Keep your fingers crossed it works out.