I finally feel a some sense of contentment today. Sometimes I don't understand where it goes, but we all seem to lose grip on that string once in a while.

We had to move out of the house for about 2 weeks because we were having the floors redone. It's not the type of thing I would typically like to spend money on, but I hate getting splinters in my feet as much as I hate wearing shoes. I would, however, choose either of those fates over having to put my stuff away. I hate unpacking more than anything in the world. Obviously I'm exaggerating, because we all hate animal cruelty more than unpacking but it's a marginal difference at best.

On Sunday, June 15th, Chris and I shoved almost everything we own into our kitchen and basement. Hung over a shit too. We had been at a wedding the night before and danced the night away.  Monday morning we had planned to head down to Tennessee with the dogs and do some hiking. Maybe find a lake to jump in. I waited until 8:45 that morning before calling the contractor who was doing the floors to see what time he had planned on arriving. Tuesday was the answer he gave. Which seemed a bit tardy because he was supposed to be here on Monday. My first thought was, "Oh my god, I went through all that hung over moving for no reason!" We were both too upset and too claustraphobic to remain in the house, so we drove to Gatlinburg, TN. Actually, we drove to Lake Cumberland first but they don't have any beaches there so we left.

We pulled into Gatlinburg on the hungry side but with ample time to get settled in a hotel and run out for dinner. I believe it was at dinner that we found out Smoky Mountain National Park does not allow dogs on the trails. Well, fuck. Another misstep I suppose. We certainly couldn't have left two dogs in the car while we went off hiking into the Tennessee summer, even though dogs ARE allowed in cars in the park.

It probably shouldn't bother me, but it does

I'm in my "hotel" room writing, puttering, drinking Cuban rum and I overhear a 65-70 year old woman trying to talk the front desk woman into letting her look at my room in case it's bigger than the one she is in. The woman is trying to explain to her that someone is already occupying that room (me) and that the size of the room irrelevent given that she can't have it anyway. The woman counters with, "Well, which room is the quietest? We want to have the biggest, quietest room.

Mother fucker, you came to stay in the center of a city in Mexico.  I'm going out on a limb assuming they're on vacation. I don't like to do this because I always try to remember that I don't have many facts in this situation, but to an outsider, such as myself, it appears as though you're in a beautiful hotel, in Mexico, that costs about $35 a night and you're demanding bigger, quiter rooms. I guess I just wonder if your life at home is orchestrated so that nothing will inconvenience you. I realize this sounds judgemental, but I'm doing it for a couple of minutes and then I'll go walk around and look at pottery again or something.

I have three favorite things about today. 

1. I laughed at a sign on someone's driveway. This is a two part favorite. 

a) I was delighted to see a funny sign. b) I was really delighted that I was able to read it.

2. I totally freaked out a 19 year old from North Dakota.

On my way home from a walkabout, I saw a kid from my cooking class sitting in the park, reading comics. I thought I would stop and chat with him. He's young, not overly self confident and from North Dakota, so I assumed he could use a "hey, what's up". While we were talking, I noticed a young man rooting through the garbage for food. I forget what North Dakota and I were talking about, but I interupted him to say, "I'll be right back. I noticed that guy was eating out of the garbage and I have some blackberries in my purse I'm going to give him." The look on this kid's face was amazing. It spoke so many things at once. He seemed horrified, embarrassed, nervous and totally unsure about life in about two seconds. I have no idea what expressions he made on the third and forth seconds because I had already run off to give my mushy blackberries and a packet of airplane pretzels to a blind man eating his dinner from the park refuse receptacle.

For a moment, I hesitated to give him my blackberries. I bought them from this young girl on my street that I buy fruit from every morning and it was now 8pm. They had suffered a bit of a beating in my purse over the course of the day. Then it occurred on me that someone eating trash probably doesn't care too much about the state of my berries. 

I trotted back to North Dakota and informed him that the man was also blind. Or so it seemed. North Dakota, bless his heart, took it in stride and launched into a synopsis of why Oaxaca has more blind people as compared to other cities. (His dad is a doctor)

3. I was able to score some salsa for my dinner from a street vendor who was closing up shop. For like 5 pesos. And totally in Spanish. Proof that I am improving in tiny increments. 

Done esta la biblioteca?

I very much like my school and all my previous instructors, but I can't hold this back anymore. Who gives a fuck where the library is? Everyone in this class has a hard enough time ordering a sandwhich, we aren't going to seek out a fucking library card let alone a book written in a language we don't know. Jesus. Can we start with "I like my coffee black", I'm about to shit my pants" or "Where did you get those earrings"? Anything that humans actually say. Where is the library? When is the last time anyone asked you where the damn librabry is?

My first full day in Oaxaca was a long one. I woke up in a panic thinking I'd missed my alarm only to discover that it hadn't gone off yet. Perfect for a little yoga and a leisurely breakfast. I spent several hours at the institute explaining that my spanish is terrible only to be met with more tests and lots of waiting. The waiting was not so bad. I met a girl from Yakutsk, a family from North Dakota and a girl from Bavaria who had just spent the past 5 months traveling through Austrailia. There was a couple from Minneapolis who was remarkably annoying and I avoided them at all costs. Turns out the girl from Yakutsk spoke midwestern English, due to a year long stay in Chicago and had just left her position at the Sochi Olympics to study Spanish in Oaxaca. Sort of. The Olympics were over and they did offer her a job with the Paralympics. So I guess she left a job with the Paralympics to study Spanish. Anyway, when I first met her, she told me she was from Russia. Attempts to determine a more accurate location in Russia led to her telling me that she was from northeastern Russia. I dropped it. That's a big god damn country. Until I saw on her intake form that she was from Yakutsk. You're from Yakustk! Famed for being the coldest city in the world. She was astonished to know that I knew of Yakutsk and I was astonished to know that I had met someone from Yakutsk. I mostly refrained, but I really did have so many questions for her. I won't bore you with them. 

After orientation, Bavarian Sarah and I went to check out the mercado. She needed shampoo and I needed sun screen. They didn't have sun screen so I walked out with Cuban rum, soda water, a bag full of mystery fruits and an emergency pop top can of refried black beans. 

Bavarian Sarah was overwhelmed with it all and needed to take a siesta. I went back to my posado where I ran into Sharon, my as yet unknown neighbor, although I was known to her. She was on her way to meet Chrysanne for lunch and asked if I would like to tag along. I can't say I was overly enthusiastic about this but I had no other plans, no other accquaintences and no real command of the language so I tagged along like a little puppy. Chrysanne raved about the chili rellenos, which I will say here, were the worst chili rellenos I've ever eaten. I did not tell her this. She's rather emphatic and a bit bossy and I had quickly realized it is simply better (for me) not to make statments she disagrees with. I have as much interest in arguing about the quality of a fried pepper than I do in dropping a hammer on my foot. I think they would both result in a dull aching that one must patiently wait out.

After lunch, Chrysanne and I walked around Oaxaca for hours. It was International Women's Day and the zocalo was packed with musicians, tourists, artisans, street vendors and protesters. This is pretty typical in Oaxaca I've come to find out. The other day, there was some sort of celebration or concert in El Llanno with a couple hundred adolescents in attendance. It was 8:00 in the morning. On a weekday. 

Anyway, the centro was crazy with people, as usual. We stopped a couple of times for drinks and then to a mescal tasting. (I'm fairly certain I've never had mescal before but I don't wish to rule it out since I've done any number of things I've no recollection of.) One of the bartenders (I imagine there is a better name for them than this since they only serve information with a side of mescal) was a local friend of Chrysanne's named Andrea. Local by way of a childhood in Chicago, but local nonetheless. It fun. Fun with an asterisks, but fun. Two more American girls showed up as well as several Mexcians. My social skills with Mexicans, especially on day two, were pretty poor. They would speak to me and I would panic, stare blankly and feel foolish until they quickly dismissed me and moved onto speaking with less catatonic people. 

After dropping something like $400 pesos at the mescal bar, we decided it would be a good idea to go to her other friend's delicatessen to grab a snack and a mojito. I don't think either of us was particularly hungry although it seemed like a good idea to send in a couple of tapas down to hang out with all the mescal. Chrysanne can be rather charismatic and/or pushy as previously mentioned and she decided to forge a deal between the restaurant owner and myself to trade my styling skills for food and drinks. Which, honestly, is not a bad idea. All these years of working in advertising and commerce and it had never occured to me that I have a potentially barterable skill. Thanks Chrysanne, I'm going to use that from now on. 

On Friday, I flew from Louisville to Atlanta to Mexico City and then poorly navigated Mexican customs. English is between scarce and nonexistent where Mexican City customs agents are concerned. But they do have a healthy fascination with my tattoos. Three or four separate agents grabbed my arm, pointed to my tattoos and said something to which I had no idea the meaning but assume to be something like, "Hey, crazy American girl, you have strange tattoos on your arm." I would shrug, smile and say, "Yes, I know. They make no sense to me either. Do I need to take off my zapatos?" Their reaction, appropriately was always a look that said, " Why would you respond to a question about tattoos with a bunch of jibber jabber and the word 'shoes'?" Eso esta` bien. I hate talking about my tattoos anyway. 

The airport in Mexico City does not announce what gate you will be flying out of until 40 minutes prior to departure. My flight wasn't scheduled to take off for over two hours but I wasn't sure what part of the terminal to wait in. I was also slightly concerned because the man sitting next to me on the plane had rambled on and on about how silly I was for not knowing how I would get from one terminal to the other. Same fucking way everyone else does is what I had assumed. He chuckled and told me the Mexico City airport was bigger than Atlanta's but not as busy and a little more dilapidated. He essentially sold me a liter of snake oil. I think. I still can't confirm how many terminals are in that airport but I only saw one. Which brings me back to that terminal. The man, or alleged bald faced liar, had me fairly unsure of where to go and since la informacio`n cannot tell you where to go until 40 minutes prior, I wound up sitting in one spot for 20 minutes, packing up, walking to another area, sitting there for 20 minutes and so on and so forth until it was finally time for my gate to be posted. I walked over to the monitors with the feelings of relief and anticipation only to find out my flight was delayed. After another 45 minutes of duck duck goose at the Mexican airport, I found out I would be leaving from gate 75. Gate 75 was the only gate in the entire terminal I was hoping to avoid because gate 75 is not really a gate. It's a series of several lines with letters above them. You have to queue up for your flight in the right letter group and then wait for them to open the little velvet rope thing so that you can make your way down to the lower level and wait at a bus stop. There are up to five different groups of travelers waiting for flights at this little bus depot and there isn't really enough room for everyone. I find it impossible to understand airport announcements in any language so I decided to go wherever the man in the black jacket with appelettes went. I rememebered seeing him in the alphabet queue. Appalettes was indeed headed for Oaxaca as I suspected although, this point, I don't think I would have cared if I ended up in the right city or not. 

When I got to Oaxaca, I took a group taxi to my posada. I could not wait to check in. I wanted to stop having places to be or go for the indeterminate future.  The posada had a beautiful exterior courtyard surrounded by an impressive and ornate iron gate. Which was shut. With no buzzer. It was dark and I was starting to feel like a damn fool. I walked around the neighborhood to orient myself and suss out where I would camp if I ended up sleeping on the street. (this is something I do a lot and I have no idea why.) I continued charting the neighborhood until it occurred to me that I had the posada's phone number in my email. I called the number a couple times, but all I could get was a recording in Spanish that promptly hung up on me. I found the number to the website where I had read about the posada, called them and they were able to get ahold of the front desk. This worked. Sort of. A man let me in and we found my reservation on the log book. I tried to give him the pesos I owed but he would neither take my money nor give me a key. We had a confusing and frustrating conversation for about 20 minutes. More so for him than me I think. We had the same conversation in Spanish about 12 times. "Hello, my name is Sarah. Yes, I have a reservation. Yes, it's right there. Apartment 7 until Saturday." We were always on the same page until I tried to exchange pesos for the key. Then he would launch into a several paragraphs riddled with exasperated sighs. Eventually, this half drunk woman from Vermont came in and talked him into giving me the key and, of all things, the wifi password. She also instructed me to put my things in my room and come down to her's because, "You really should go out right now. I'm sure you're probably tired, but you have to go out. I'm not going with you, but you have to go out."

I had about 60/40 intentions of doing so as I was walking up the stairs. Curiousity got the best of me. That and lack luster accomodations. I'm not complaining, especially for the price, but let's just say it's not the kind of room you want to be awake in. One of the lights makes this annoying humming sound and it's sort of stagnant and hot. It's about as much fun as sitting in a stock pond covered in algae listening to the underwater whirring noises of a small engine boat. I mean that in as flattering a way as possible. I love to swim. Just not alone and in uncharted waters if a better option may be available.

 The half drunk woman turned out to be Chrysann, a grandmother from Vermont. The self proclaimed "Token Grandmother of Oaxaca" although I think "Oaxaca's Most Enthusiastic Tour Guide" suits her better. I don't think I could have met anyone better on my first night. First thing she asked was if I had a map. I lied and said yes so as not to appear dull, but admittedly a map had never occured to me. She made me take her map (thank god) and gave me a tour book. She also gave me explicit instructions to walk here and there and "make sure you get to the zocolo." I took her map, her wisdom and her instructions and headed out into the night. I can't say that Oaxaca is better for it, but I'll say with confidence that I am.

Fucking Casey.

If I get pink eye on my trip because of him, I'm going to be pissed. I woke up in a hotel in St. John, Nova Scotia this morning with slightly off right eyeball. I''m hoping it's just because I forgot to take my contacts out last night, but I did work with Casey on Saturday, who I found out on Sunday had pink eye.

Oh well, maybe it's an  excellent chance to check out the Canadian healthcare system. Aside from that the trip is going really well. Yesterday was a long day of traveling. Flight to Baltimore, flight to Portland, drive to Canada. As our flight was landing in Portland, ME the toddler from Tampa in the seat behind me yelled, "Slow DOWN plane!" It even made the silent business man next to me chuckle. 

We got into St. John around sunset. It was Monday night, so there wasn't much going on. Every restaurant and bar is somewhere else. Literally. The Mexican restaurant has a sign that says, "Welcome to Cancun". We had lobster poutine and bourbon at a New Orleans themed restaurant. We almost went into Brit's pub, but it looked empty, as did the Irish bar. We ended the night with two drinks at a Margaritaville themed restaurant that was hosting a beer pong tournament.