Holly Larson-bad ass navigator

I had a sucessful and fun day. For those of you who don´t know, I am possibly the worst navigator on the planet. Whenever I´m at my parents and drive somewhere, a phone call of ¨I´m lost¨ is never far away. Bearing this in mind, it is a huge accomplishment that I had a wonderful day going around the city today....without getting lost!

I have school from 10 until 2 each day. For some reason, I thought school started at 8:00, and was quite wrong. I walked to the first bus stop, about two blocks away, and got on. It was still a bit dark, but the streets were busy with people setting up their various wares to sell; clothes, meat, sweet bread, baby-blankets and clothes, furniture, fruit, whatever. You name it, you can probably find in on the street (except for english books). I switch from the bus to the metrobus, which is a tall, two unit long bus that has its own lane in the sea of traffic. You get on the bus at station in the middle of the street. There are cops there, making sure you don´t cause any trouble, and you wait for the next bus to arrive for a few minutes. These buses are packed as tight as sardine cans; sometimes you can squeeze in, sometimes there is literally not room for another body. I recognized where my school was and got off at the right stop, thank goodness. The school has a guard at the door. I told him, in my super spanish, that I was here for school. He told me that it started at 10, and I insisted that it didn´t. He let me in, and I waited in the empty class room until people started to arrive at 9:30. Super. In my class there are three students from korea, one from japan, two from germany and one from england, and me. The teacher started class 20 minutes late, very mexican, and jumped into grammer without much of an introduction. I am fine being in a beginners class right now because all of the grammer is pretty rusty. I may try to switch to a more advanced class in a week or two, when I feel more warmed up.

After class yesterday, I had lunch with some of my new friends at a mexican restaurant a while from the school...we were on the hunt for a specific restaurant but never actually found it. I had black bean soup, which the host insisted had no meat in it, but actually did have pieces of something in it (flavoring? I don´t know). I picked those out and topped the soup with cheese and cream and washed it down with half melon juice, half lemonade, per host recommendation. All for $3.50 plus tip. I went home to finish a John Grisham book and do my homework.

Today, I arrived at the correct time, dispite bailing out on my first bus too early and having to walk for a while to the metro bus and had another grammer filled lesson. I walked towards the Mexico equivalent of central park, and stopped in a restaurant that turned out to be argentinian, aka, lots of meat. I ended up finding a delicious salmon salad and was happy to be eating a few vegetables. I gave up on finding the park because there was thunder and headed back to the school for a clean bathroom and directions.

At the school, I explained that I was looking for a specific bookstore I had found in my guidebook and could she please help me find it? Between her little english, my little spanish and the help of one of her friends more familiar with the area of the bookstore, she found directions. I had to take the metrobus to the metro, change metros and then walk a few blocks. Mission impossible? Maybe! I carefully wrote the directions into my little notebook and went over where I was going, twice, on my poster-sized map (very convenient for use in busy streets), as well as how to get from the bookstore to my house. I took the metrobus, and with the helpful nudge of a nicy lady, found the metro stop and the right metro, in the right direction. I was humming mission impossible theme music to myself to keep up my courage.

When I emerged from the metro station, I realized I was at the Zocalo (duh, zocalo stop). The Zocalo is a HUGE HUGE HUGE city square surrounded with beautiful castle-like buildings and the biggest mexican flag I had ever seen. I wandered across the square, taking a few pictures and then got down to business. ¿Donde esta la calle bolivar? I asked a pair of non-threatening ladies. They motioned, vaguely in the direction I was already headed and I was off (dun dun, dun dun, dun dun; the mission impossible music continues). The streets around the square have the most beautiful architecture I had seen yet and my eyes were taking it all in. There were lots of jewelry stores, as well as food, ice-cream and clothings stores. There were very few street ventors; only those selling newspapers and magazines. I new from my careful directions that the street should be only 3 or 4 blocks from the square, and sure enough, I found it! I made a guess which way to turn and voila! I had found the bookstore! I am a navigating champion! I quickly found the paperbacks and selected running with scissors. The books are about twice as much as in the US, but I didn´t care; that $25 book was my prize!

I walked across the street to a cute little coffee shop and ordered a decaf vanilla latte (I´m trying to get used to not having coffee three times per day...rough business) and settled in for a great three chapters. I didn´t want to devour it too quickly, so I stopped when the coffee was cold and left.

As I was wandering back across the square, I noticed that a crowd had begun to gather. My quide book had discussed an interesting flag lowering ceremony every night at 6 pm, but I had no idea what time it was and saw no harmless ladies to ask. I waited in case this was the real deal and was quickly rewarded. A silent group of about 60 or 70 soldiers is full uniform marched out of one of the castles and split when the got to the square. One by one, they stopped about 15 feet apart , creating a giant square with the flag in the center. Then, other soldiers shooed the rest of the bystanders out of the square (¨we´re trying to lower a giant flag, people, move out!¨). Next came two groups of musicians and three groups of sullen soldiers with guns. They marched around the square and gathered near the flag pole. After more marching and heel tapping, a group of the soldiers began to lower the flag, which is no simple task because it is easily 30 feet tall and 60 feet wide. Huge. There was a line of men waiting to catch the flag- they did a formal heel click something and then made a dash for their section of the flag. They rolled the flag into a giant tube and formally walked off (I was wondering how they were going to fold it). I didn´t stay, but apparently they raise the flag again, sans parade, half an hour later.

Very satisfied with myself, I headed home, and didn´t get lost, again. Wow.

Black bean soup for dinner with cheese and tomatoes. I´m off to do my homework!