“my ego’s like my stomach; it keeps shitting what i feed it.”

I’m listening to… “The Recluse” by Cursive. Song for the motherfucking DAY. The video kinda blows, but see below… I’ve had Cursive’s music for a long ass time and I’ve always liked bits and pieces but today is the first time a song of theirs has really resonated with me musically. ^__~

(This is NOT the official video. Seems that I cannot find a good one, and people have made a lot of their own renditions of the videos… so there ye have it.)

Volunteered at the Greenwood Senior Center this evening with Joe (who I also keep running into at the library). Turns out he’s pretty much exactly my age… one year older… or maybe the same age, actually, since he did Running Start. Speaking Spanish — while I still suck — seems much more natural now than it did before. I hope that classes will help me get back into it (whenever the fuck they start), and that they’ll be somewhat useful, at the very least. Stupid non-English-speaking Spanish adults are just so cute, though. All non-English-speaking older adults, really. They just make me smile, so much! They’re so cute. I like helping people who can’t figure out how to double-click a mouse… it’s just… fun… .. .!

After that, went to buy some meat (and came to the realization that today was only like, the second day I’ve ever bought meat that wasn’t a frozen bag of chicken) and headed over to Hojo‘s, where he was holding a hot pot shindig. I needed to go over to pick up tickets for the Helio Sequence show tomorrow anyhow, and luckily, I knew more people than I thought. But man, people our age sure aren’t very mature. HAHA.

We ended up watching, freaking, some movie with Stephen Seagal called “Executive Decision”, and there’s this Asian guy in that movie who is also on “Law And Order” right now. His name is B.D. Wong. Alina was asked by someone what the B.D. stood for, and she didn’t know, so she concluded it stood for “Big Dick Wong.” So, the rest of the night, people were making up synonyms for “Big Dick Wong,” including but not limited to, “Big Dong Wong,” “Bombastic Dill Wong,” “Balls Deep Wong,” etc. LOL. Sometimes the name was expounded upon by putting it into a phrase, such as, “Big Dong Wong Goes To Hong Kong,” as the name of a film or something. I wish I even remembered a quarter of the ridiculous references, cause there musta been like… at least 50. Towards the end, it became not just penis jokes, but anything related to the letters B.D., such as “Blanket Drape.” Haha. Not all of it was funny but some of it became very hilarious.

I left a bit before everyone else, and on the way back, I stopped by QFC to buy some milk. Stopped for like a half hour to talk to a Real Change vendor named Jonathan, who was very unhappy about the evening. I guess he had been trying to sell Real Change copies outside of the Safeway on 15th and John in Capitol Hill around 7:00pm, and the manager had come out and told him he couldn’t sell stuff there. I reckon that bothered him, cause here he was, still out selling newspapers at 11:00pm and all he wanted to do was sleep. While I was chatting, this friendly biking guy came by and was really stoked to buy this week’s issue of Real Change (which, by the way, my name is now in, sucka!) and it was kinda cute and supportive and nice he was, being really friendly and offering cigarettes and what not. Go him. After he left, Jonathan was talking about stuff like how he had gotten into a fight with his girlfriend after the Safeway manager incident, and then went to the liquor store, which made his girlfriend even more mad… and how he had to go to court next Monday because of drug possession charges. I asked him what kind of drugs, and he said, “The good stuff,” and then asked me why I wanted to know. I said because I wondered what kind of drug possession would get you only one to eight months in jail, which is what he’d quoted (probably not the right word, but whatever!). He asked me some questions about myself, and I said I was unemployed but volunteering for Real Change, yadda yadda, and that I did stuff with computers. He said he had a cousin that did stuff with computers and was a real hot shot that made 6 digits a year, but then he got laid off… and that he hasn’t talked to this cousin for four or five years even though they used to play videogames together.

This guy Jonathan’s whole thing… as he had said it… is that he has made some mistakes in life, and while someone who was, in his words, “normal,” would get a slap on the wrist for drug possession, he’d have to go back to jail and then come back out with nothing and start all over again. He said something along the lines of, “There’s only so many times a person can start all over again,” and it was really quite sad. But he looked off kinda far off in the distance and said that this couldn’t continue on, though, and that he needed to change… and that he was trying to find a job at Goodwill because they help homeless people secure housing and will let people work even if they have some problems. Didn’t quite know what to say to him other than, you can do it… and then things will be better. And hopefully they are… but who knows. He was pretty resigned to the fact that he will probably spend at least a month in jail and then start all over again. It’s tough livings… but he acknowledged that “I made my own bed, and now I have to lie in it,” as far as drug possession charges go.

I know that people who read this will be like, oh yes, another homeless person who is homeless because he’s a druggie and a deadbeat… and while I cannot possibly deny the druggie bit… how many of us do drugs and never get caught? But it’s not even about that… I feel what’s important is how good of a person you are. When he was talking about the Safeway manager not allowing him to sell Real Change outside of Safeway at 7:00pm, he was really bummed about it, and said, “It’s not like I’m asking for that much.” I tried to cheer him up by saying that it was only the opinion of one man, and he said that he didn’t want to get “into it” with the Safeway manager because he didn’t feel like it, and… here’s the part that made me kind of impressed… he didn’t want the folks over at Real Change to get into trouble or have trouble because of him. Maybe there are ulterior motives now that I write it, but it seemed genuine. I guess what I’m saying is… I don’t think we should be so quick to write a person off as worthless just because he or she might have a drug problem or can’t deal with shit or be responsible… what’s important is having one’s morals about. I think, anyhow. I mean… if you can go through the pits of the shit and still maintain the integrity of your character, then you’ve got something good going on.

///
(I haven’t felt compelled to write in a literary fashion for quite some time, but I felt compelled this evening.)

He caught my attention as I was entering the QFC. He called after me, “If you have any spare change when you’re done…” and I nodded — a slow nod implying a promise.

I kept some change out for him.

When I came back out, I handed it to him and proceeded to scope out his possessions on the ground. There wasn’t much — just a plastic bag overflowing slightly with clothing, a plastic see-through cup, and a cardboard sign that said, “OUT OF LUCK / NEED A BUCK,” in thick blue-black marker. Quickly rendered, no doubt, but with an artistic stroke of the hand.

With the change I’d given him still in his hands, he begun to talk very animatedly about his day and how the past four hours had been misery for him. In his excitement, he flung the change into the lawn and the sidewalk as he spoke.

His name was Jonathan, and he had a Michelle Pfeiffer kind of blonde, pale beauty. He could have made a beautiful woman. His loose-fitting maroon sweatshirt made obvious the drooping, aging mounds of his chest, but despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, he was vivacious and full of energy. Years of hardship had managed to weather his body, but not his face. His face remained youthful, and his piercing blue eyes, full of life, were the crux of it all.

For the most part, talking to Jonathan was completely ordinary. It was only when he would speak about himself that he became a little distant — that he would look off in the distance, focusing on nothing in particular, lost in his own convoluted thoughts. All of those thoughts were those of a man who, at that moment, felt completely downtrodden and defeated by life and wanted nothing more than to escape an endless cycle of losing. Whether it be losing to the system, to circumstances beyond his control, or to his own actions, it was all the same. It all ended up in the same place, with him possessing nothing and starting off again at square one.

\\\

His name was Jonathan. He had a Michelle Pfeiffer kind of pale blonde beauty, and he would have made a beautiful woman. Though it was nearly midnight, his blue eyes were piercing with their liveliness. His loose-fitting maroon sweatshirt made obvious the drooping mounds of his chest — a feature which is often found in aging men. But despite the fact that it was nearly midnight, he was vivacious and full of energy. His age was elusive. Years of hardship had managed to weather his body, but not his face. His face remained youthful, and his blue eyes, full of life, were the crux of it all.

back in the bay area.

Three and a half weeks later, the trip to Peru is over. Now I am at my parent’s house in Livermore, in the Bay Area of California. Things would probably be weirder if I wasn’t so damn tired. Already planning my next vacation, maybe? I’d like to go to a Spanish-speaking country and REALLY work on my Spanish. Leaning towards Mexico and Mexico City because it’s close and cheap. I’d also like to go to Burning Man, though. All things cost money. Snagnamit. TBD. ~__~

escribo español como un idiota.

Estoy pagando para una media hora de internet. Cuesta 1.50 soles aka 50 cents USD. Estamos en Aguas Calientes ahora. Es un pueblo muy pequeño cerca de Machu Picchu. Porque esto es, es muy, muy, MUY caro aquí y precios son como precios en los Estados Unidos… en partes, son mas caros del mismos cosas en los Estados Unidos! Es increíble! Es muy difícil a utilizar esto keyboard porque tiene muchas caracters y no se como debo usarlos. Pero, puedo usar esto… ñ… y estos… áóíú… y estos son bastante buenos.

Mi español es muy, muy teríble, pero me gusta lo usando aqui. Estoy aprendiendo — o recuerdiendo — mas rapido, pero uso muchas palabras que no son palabras… este noche usé la palabra ¨comfortable¨, que no existe en español. La palabra es ¨cómodo¨. Oops.

Anoche solamente dormí una hora porque muchas personas del hostal en Cusco fuimos a la discoteca. Discotecas en Cusco son muy, muy, muy, MUY horibles, y la música es de los ´90s y ´80s. Es teríble. Fue un poquito divertido ayer porque es solamente un noche, pero para personas que le gustan musica, es una broma. Una broma grande. No hay musica reál en Cusco… o no hay muchas… solamente hay musicas para turístos (y todos personas saben que turístos no saben nada… pienso que esto me incluye tambien).

Mañana voy a escribir más, sobre mi computadora, si tengo internet. Pero estoy usando mi cuaderno y escribiendo todos de mis recuerdos. Luego voy a… type them.

Tengo fótos pero no tengo una cord para la computadora!!

No puedo hacer SMILEY FACES con esto keyboard. AAAH!!

sitting at an expensive restaurant in miraflores, stealing internet from mcdonald’s.

Oh yes.

The most expensive restaurant we’ve been to yet, charging practically United States prices for crap! Boo urns! Sometimes even more, actually.

I just bought a juice of melon (which I had hoped would be honeydew juice, but it was in fact cantaloupe juice) and now we’re stealing internet off of McDonald’s next door because McDonald’s has free Wi-Fi. Hail fooking yeah!!!

We left Trujillo last night in what was a tearful goodbye. Not really, but it was sad to leave the cute kids and the newly made friends. At least there were some good memories and now I know someone living in Paris, Madrid, and Santiago… amongst others. And also another nearby human who lives in Portland who hopefully I will be able to see upon return!

The bus ride was better than usual, as we were sitting in the first two rows of the bus, on the bus’ second floor. AKA lots of window and lots of good views! It took me forever to fall asleep, though, but when I finally fell asleep for like three or something hours, I must say I was thoroughly amazed to wake up to sunlight in Lima. They also played “Bruce Almighty” on the bus, which was dope. It was awesome to begin with, in English, but in Spanish it was pretty much just as amazing, if not moreso in some parts. What a fantastic fucking movie. And I don’t even like comedies like ever.

Anyway. So now we’re stealing internet off of McDonald’s, somewhat killing time, and waiting to go to the zoo, which opens at 9:00am.

We got a taxi from the bus station, and while we were on our way to Miraflores — the tourist hub of Lima, really — I asked him, “Sabe un buen lugar para desayunando?” (“Do you know a good place for breakfasting?”)

Soon, we found ourselves at the door of a hostel, and we were like, “WTF?”

And the hostel guy, who spoke some English, explained to the taxi driver that we were looking for a breakfast place, not a “descansar” — aka “resting” — place.

And then the taxi guy goes off about how I said descansar, not desayunar, and I’m like, no, I know for sure I said desayunar, but it’s not something I’m about to argue with the taxi driver about

Then as we were leaving, the hostel guy was like, “Estan confundidas, las chicas,” meaning, “They’re confused, the girls,” and I’m like, “No, no confundidas.”

ASS.

Anyway. Zoo coming up, and then Cusco in t-minus… 5 hours or something.

trujillo, peru, day nine.

I’m listening to… Stars’ “Midnight Coward”, Tilly And The Wall’s “Cacaphony”, Rogue Wave’s “Chicago x 12″, Jenny Lewis’ “Barking At The Moon”.

Okay, going to try and update my journal for once!! I haven’t had time to update it a great amount, unfortunately.

Got up at like 10:15am this morning despite going to bed at like 3:00am the previous night (well, I guess that’s not bad) because everyone in the house is really loud and there’s always sun shining in through the window, and hell, with such a bustling house, it’s just really, really difficult to sleep most of the time. ~__~

Anyway, got up, sat around, and did some Redefine work. Was going to go eat lunch with Lizette and Veronica but decided to stay in and finish some more Redefine stuff. Stayed up til pretty late last night editing some articles just because I haven’t updated the site in so long. Got a buncha stuff done, and have to put up a Sunn O))) article tomorrow… or the day after… so that’ll be good. As long as I get it done before going to Cusco, really.

Anyway. Headed over to the SKIP office with Elliot around 2:00pm and was really hungry because all I really ate for breakfast was some jam and some crackers, haha. Totally forgot about that whole eating thing because I was so much in the zone with editing and writing articles. Oops? Giving directions to get to the SKIP office when it is Elliot and I is always kind of hilarious, because we don’t really know what say. I learned what to say today, actually, but this is my last opportunity anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Well, actually, it may come in handy on Thursday when it is possibly Elliot and I again.

ANYWAY. We get to the SKIP office and Elliot like, talks to Francesca, who is supposed to go to class with him (and Jasmine is as well), but then disappears before she can follow him, which is SUPER BIZARRE and kind of super rude. So Fran and Jasmine (the new girl) head home and Jean-Claire and I hang around reading. But first, we look for easy-to-read English-Spanish books that we can teach the first graders with, because it’s SUPER hard to teach first graders English. They just don’t get it. The difference from first to second grade is absolutely humongous.

So we finish picking out books, and I see this one AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING illustrated children’s book which I’ll have to write about on Redefine later, because the graphics were just AWESOME. After that, we sit down on these prison benches, and Jean-Claire does research on the 7 week South America trip she’s going to take while I’m reading “The Old Man & The Sea” in Spanish… the book in one hand and a dictionary in another hand. Actually, it’s an easier read than I thought it would be. So it is a welcome challenge. As of tonight, I am about… 1/8th into the book. Not too shabby. But I’m not sure that I’ll be able to finish it by the time I leave Thursday evening, which is actually kind of sad. ~__~

We finally go to class around 4:00pm, while stopping to get myself some crackers on the way. Only one child shows up, just like last week. The first graders are fickle for who knows what reason. We (and by we, I mean Jean-Claire) teach her colors for half a minute using this poster that she made, but the first graders are shy and this girl is not particularly responsive, and her mom is waiting around the whole time trying to see if other kids will show up (because if not, the class will get canceled). No additional kids do show up, so the class gets canceled. How sad. That little girl and her sister are SUPER DUPER cute. And very well-behaved. I probably just like her sister because her sister really liked me, though.

So we go home after like 20 minutes and get to the house fairly early. Lots of reading gets done and lots of chilling. Then once Mihae wakes up and exchanges money, I ask her if she wants to go eat, and she suggests Chifa, so we go to eat Chifa. Jasmine and Elliot come along (and aren’t particularly excited, I think, because a meal at this place is slightly more expensive than a meal at other places… like twice as expensive, meaning, like, 10 soles instead of 5 soles per person, which is like, $3.33 USD instead of $1.66 USD), and the experience is ridiculous and fun.

We get there, and Eber, Ever, is sitting down at one of the tables and greets us with besos. We sit down, chat with him for half an awkward sec about what we should order, and then order three things, rice, and water to split amongst the three of us. He brings out some lemonade for us for free, which I’m not sure why even though we were saying WATER!!!! I don’t know if he gave it to us for free because he felt bad for messing up and bringing us lemonade, or if he was trying to be nice by bringing us lemonade. Hah. He served us, and then left.

At one point, he ran out of the restaurant, and then ran back in…

And before he left, the music that was being played was modern traditional kumbia.

When he came back, the volume started blasting (he MUST have turned it up) and freaking CELINE DION came on!! WITH THE FREAKING TITANIC SONG!! And we learned from last time that Titanic is Ever’s favorite movie!! I’m pretty convinced he actually ran out and bought the CD, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. It was just so damn coincidental!

Okay, so we start giggling at the fact that freaking Titanic soundtrack just came on, and the subsequent songs are equally corny, if not moreso, including Ryan Adams’ “Everything I Do.” Not sure WHY this music came on. WTF. But it was super enjoyable, although not necessarily in a good way. A Chinese restaurant blasting ’90s American power ballads? I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING EVER!!!

Jasmine sees him peeking over at our table a few times and thinks that he wants to stop and chat with us but is intimidated by the presence of Jasmine and Elliot. Haha. ~__~

So at one point, Ever has his keys and is heading towards the main door of the restaurant when I call him over and ask him where Lili, the owner is. He says she’s in Cajamarca visiting her husband. And then some more small talk. And then he leaves, kind of awkwardly. He doesn’t go back towards the door, although that’s where he was going in the first place. Interesting.

As soon as he leaves, Jasmine says, “Watch, he’s going to turn down the music and come back.”

Two seconds later, the music gets turned down.

We laugh hysterically.

Eber doesn’t come back, but still, it’s hilarious. The music is ridiculous!!! Mihae manages to know freaking every song, though, because evidently, she used to be SUPER DUPER into ’90s power ballads. WOO!!

After we paid really super awkwardly, I asked Eber, “Quieres salir manana?” because we had said the previous week that we would go out on Tuesday. He said that he had to work, and that we should hang out next time, but I told him we were leaving on Thursday, so he said he was free tomorrow from 4:00pm to 6:30pm. I don’t get off volunteering until 5:30pm, though, so we decided that we’d meet at the restaurant right after.

On the way back, Jasmine and Mihae were having quite the girly freaking giggles, as Jasmine was now a convert who thinks Eber is a hottie pie. Jasmine is also 18, so she is actually around his age and it would actually work. Haha. Awesomeness. Jasmine thought it was soooo funny that we just “asked him out” but it’s not like a date really! We had said we would hang out before! We’re buddies now!! It’s not like he’s a random dude we’re picking up!

Anyways, once we came back, Mihae strummed some songs on the guitar, and then a bunch of us watched some horrible, horrible DVDs of Jean-Claire’s and Lizette’s, such as “Chinitos De Los Andes” (The Chinese From The Andes) which are like Peruvian music videos. Amazingly terrible stuff.

adventures of fun in a “chifa” restaurant in peru.

(Left to right: Lili, the Chinese restaurant owner – Ever, the Chinese restaurant waiter – me – Mihae)

A “chifa” is a “Chinese restaurant” in Peru, and all of them are called that.

Mihae and I went to a chifa tonight at like, 8:00pm, and didn’t make it back til about midnight tonight hahahahaha after the restaurant closed.

What were we doing?

Well, for starters, when we first entered, the lady at the restaurant and her two workers were, I guess, muttering stuff to one another about how I was Chinese but they were unsure of what ethnicity Mihae was. The owner lady is Cantonese but speaks Mandarin, as they all do, and was very excited to converse with me about all sorts of crap. Then they had a waiter there who was super good-looking, and I told the owner that, but I told her that in a way that was kind of like, the way a mom would say someone’s son is good-looking.

Of course, she called him over and told him that we thought he was good-looking, so he became really bashful and shy, haha. And then he would serve us food with his head down and not looking at us, even though he was our primary waiter. Actually, initially, the lady told him that she would serve our table, but then it looked like he wanted to, or something, so she was like, “Okay, okay, you can do it.” It was pretty amusing watching them communicate because she cannot speak Spanish and he cannot speak Chinese and neither of them can speak any other shared language, so it’s a lot of charades, basically.

The food was actually pretty good. We had been told by a couple people at the house that that particular restaurant was “expensive” — relatively speaking — but the best-tasting. It was pretty decent. I mean, the main dish was nothing like anything I’ve ever eaten in terms of Chinese food, but the wonton soup had a lot of chicken and was pretty “normal”, and the main dish tasted good even despite the fact that it tasted like nothing I’ve eaten. Haha.

After we were done eating, he came over and asked me what my name was, and I told him my name, and then asked for his, and it was Ever (or, in Spanish, ee-ber). I told him to write down his name cause I couldn’t quite understand it, and then he told Mihae and I to write down our names in English and in Chinese. We did so.

Later, we got to the question of: “How old are you, Ever?”

He wrote down on a notepad.

17!!!!!!!!!!!!

We laughed to death.

And then he asked us our ages, and we told him our ages — 25 and 24. It was quite comical.

Later, when he told me that I didn’t look like I was 25, he immediately said, “Comes muchas verduras (Do you eat many vegetables?)?” to which I said yes, and he said that Chinese people ate a lot of vegetables, as though that were THE reason for their looking young. Haha. Amusing.

He asked me for my phone number, and I said I didn’t have a number here, but he wanted my number in the States anyway, so I gave it to him, HAHA. Then got his phone number. We’re going to hit him up to play some pool later. Or billiards, they call it here.

I’ll finish this up later, but let’s just say that he stopped working briefly thereafter and we talked to him and the owner (switching turns, really) for about three hours, with me speaking to Ever in my limited, broken-ass Spanish (there was lots of drawing) and me speaking to the owner lady who had broken ass Spanish and not perfect Mandarin. And then there was translating between Mihae and Ever with my broken ass Spanish and translating between Mihae and the owner lady with my broken ass Chinese. So it was good times, all around, needless to say. Good times, although really painful at times, too, since I was the primary translator in this fooking mess. ~__~

At one point, there was also the cook talking to us, who we had run into a few days prior to that when we tried to go eat there. When we’d gone there a few days ago, it was like 11:30am and we were trying to eat there… and I tried talking to the cook guy in Spanish, and he didn’t understand, and then English, and he didn’t understand, and then Chinese, but by then I was shouting after him and he had stopped listening and was just waving, “Wait, hold on!” and trying to grab someone else, even though I was speaking Chinese to him. Haha. But he recognized us today, and thought it was weird that we were staying in Trujillo for so long since there’s shit to do here.

So, in my conversation with the lady, Lili, I learned:
* She has another restaurant which is larger and in a different city, and her (only) son (since she’s from China) works there.
* Her only son has two children and that the children always speak Spanish, although they speak to her in Chinese when they want her to buy them something.
* Their restaurant business is suffering as a result of the poor economy, and that many Peruvians are losing their jobs, too… and that she doesn’t take a taxi home because of the loss of money.
* A neighboring Chinese lady who also owned a restaurant (which all the people in the house said was absolutely DISGUSTING) came over and poked her head in, wondering why the restaurant we were at had decent business and the restaurant they owned didn’t have a single person.
* They purchase their supplies for their restaurant all the way in Lima, eight hours away, because there are no Chinese restaurant suppliers closer than that.

In my conversation with Ever, I learned:
* He isn’t interested in anything in Peru, not even Machu Picchu or the mountains or anything, and he’s only interested in the discotecas (or night clubs).
* He says the reason he’s not interested in Peruvian stuff is because, to him, a beer in Peru is a beer in Peru, but a beer in another country might taste the same or similar, but it’s a different beer in a different country, so it’s automatically more interesting.
* Chileans killed a lot of Peruvians over a dispute about the Peruvian flag… twenty-five years ago, he said. And that the Chileans wanted to use the Peruvian flag’s colors and the Peruvians didn’t want it, and so they fought. I don’t think he meant 25 years ago. Maybe 1925. But either way, I can’t find any information about that anyway, so I don’t know for sure that I heard right, even though it was pretty clearly stated by him, with drawings, even, of Peru’s flag. Haha. We’ve been told there’s a lot of disputes between Chile and Peru, but yeah… he compared the warring of Chile and Peru to the warring between Japan and China or the United States and Iran. Interesting.
* He thinks Chinese women are beautiful. HAHA. He totally smooth-talked a few times which was hilarious.
* He likes to play basketball, volleyball, and soccer.
* He finished high school at 15 and is basically just waiting until he has the money to apply to take a test that will get him into college. He’s going to take the test next year, I think, and then study Administration & Finance.

MORE LATER.

pc room at the cruz del sur bus terminal in lima.

Just writing a quick note while I’m sitting at the bus terminal of Cruz Del Sur. We are catching a flight to Trujillo this evening from Lima. Leaving at 10:30pm and arriving at 6:00am the next day. The bus is semi-cama, meaning semi-bed, meaning it reclines but doesn’t fold down all the way. One way bus ride is about $20 USD.

The PC room I’m at right now is literally a really tiny room, with eight other computers and people typing away on the computers. We will be leaving in half an hour. The cost of the PC room is $2.50 Peruvian soles for a half hour, which can be divided by 3 to achieve the dollar amount for.

Today was a pretty amazing day. People in Lima drive like SHIT and the congestion is horrible. Super interesting, though.

I left my camera on the window sill of our newfound friend (a friend of Mihae’s roommate), Diego, and Diego won’t be at his house the evening. Oh, AND the window is OPEN!!!!! LA VENTANA ESTA ABIERTA!!! Hopefully my camera doesn’t blow away or get stolen, but that still means I will be completely without it in the two weeks that I am in Trujillo, leaving me only with my giant dSLR Nikon D40, leaving me with inconvenient photographic experiences and not any immediate gratification photos that require little to no work. FUCK.

This is written in a matter-of-fact way because I am in a matter-of-fact mood! SUCKA!

mexico city, mexico.

The night before I left for this trip, I flew from Seattle to San Francisco and was picked up at the airport by my brother and his girlfriend. Not the best idea. Really should have just stayed at the airport, because all I did was get picked up at the airport at 9:30pm, sit around their house doing work online, and get picked up by Mihae and her mom at 4:30am. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t shower. I did eat a bean and cheese burrito and steal some Oreos, and I guess those were pretty cool things, but for the most part, I should have just stayed at the SFO airport

We got to the airport REALLY early and waited around, and I didn’t think we could check our bags all the way to Lima, but we actually could, so that was really exciting. It was really exciting because we had a day-long stopover in Mexico City and carrying around luggage would have been fucking ridiculous.

The flight to Mexico City was totally a blur of sleepy haze, but check out this freaking view upon landing.

We started “seeing” the city sooo far away from landing. I want to say like 45 minutes before landing, the city was already showing itself. And it’s soooo dense, as you will see from these photos. Maybe these photos don’t convey anything to you, but man. IT’S SO DENSE. Not dense like Japan, which rivals Mexico City in population but utilizes skyscrapers, but dense like Mexico City, where shit is sprawled all over the motherfooking place but just packed in really close together but rarely in high-rise form.

So, the new terminal of the Mexico City International Airport — the International terminal, I believe — is fucking super nice. Super modern, super clean, super well-designed. Even the area where they stamp your passport is extremely well-done and not at all intimidating; instead of the workers being behind these tall, square glass panels, they stand in these little circular pods, making it extremely less intimidating. We got asked a few questions mostly because we didn’t have an address that we were going to, since we were heading onto Peru. Ultimately, though, I think they were just amused by us. Oh yeah, and when you leave customs, you have to press this button. If you press it and get a green sign, you can move on without incident. If you press it and get a red sign, apparently every item you own gets taken out and put on display, and if you have more than two laptops or two cameras, security will take the items away from you, because those are the rules.

Anyway, we got a taxi at the airport, which was kind of honestly a confusing process because they have regular cabs and secured cabs, which are slightly more expensive but more trustworthy. We got dropped off at the building above, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, or Palace of Fine Arts. Actually made a mistake on going to this particular area; we should have gone to the great Mayan pyramids. ~__~ Next time, I guess T__T Big mistake on my part. I should say, though, that Mexico / Mexico City has truly a fuckload of American chain stores, such as Starbucks, obviously, but less obviously, Dunkin Donuts, Carl’s Junior, Burger King, and so on and so on.

Anyway, we got to the downtown area and walked around for a while in the SUPER sweltering heat. Then we got really hungry and ducked into a restaurant which was actually a Spanish-styled restaurant… not a Mexican-styled one! ~__~ Mihae got a tortilla de patata and I ordered some random dish that ended up having garbanzo beans, stewed onions, and lots and lots of meat which I basically ignored (including a couple of super disgusting-looking sausages).

This guy was passed out for eternity there. Like seriously, an eternity. Our ENTIRE meal, he was passed out on the table. I don’t THINK he moved. He may have moved a little bit, but I don’t think so. After eating, we just walked around aimlessly, honestly. There were a lot of street vendors we passed by, and I made a note to buy stuff from them later, but unfortunately never did. DAMMIT. Must return to Mexico City.

Mexico City has some amazing, amazing buildings.

… And the safest… playground… thing… ever.

This is the Zocalo of Mexico City, or its main square. I decided to choose this place to visit, but honestly, it was pretty pointless. There weren’t many tourists, which was cool, because it’s not a super touristy spot, but there also wasn’t really much going on. Not that it wasn’t enjoyable… because it was… but still.

Mexican flag in the square ^__^ I tried taking this photo 800x, because it was really difficult to take, because I didn’t want to look through the lens because it was so sunny and kept shining into my eyeball

What Tenochtitlan means, for the curious? So, there was a Tenochtitlan museum here, and there were leftovers of a huge Mayan pyramid, I think, but there was really nothing much left, so we didn’t bother to go. We walked around and found a SHITLOAD of religious propaganda shops, selling full-sized Marys, including a Hispanic one, and a giant life-sized plastic Christ on a cross. Fooking amazing religious iconography abounded… I really should have picked up some. Hopefully, it’s not too late.

There were also many, many self-help bookstores. This particular one also happened to be Christian, and offered a ton of Christian books

In our wanderings, we stopped into this really cool cafe / restaurant / bar / art gallery / film cinema / venue. It was bizarre and definitely tried to be all things at once, but it didn’t cost anything to get into, to our surprise, and was pretty neat. There was also free internet for us to use, which was super bizarre, but luckily we used it to e-mail a friend of Mihae’s roommate, this guy named Diego, who lived in Lima. We were hoping Diego could meet up with us in Lima, and this free internet here helped 100%. Anyway. I definitely wish we could spend more time in Mexico City, because the city seems quite amazing, to be quite honest.

Sculpture… guy.

Totally my type of thing.

So, we walked around and would sit down at various benches in various parks or in various convenience stores… at one point, when we were walking around aimlessly, Mihae noticed a bunch of mariachi dudes and said that we should cross the street. Best decision ever. (There were also a lot of strip clubs around this area )

This park had SOME kind of mariachi shit going on, because mariachi dudes were absolutely EVERYWHERE! This group of dudes was serenading some chick who was there with her boyfriend, and the chick was all bout it bout it, apparently giving out requests and most definitely singing along. We sat down in that square for a long while, trying to soak it all in and just relaxing.

Muy facconable.

Love the colors of these Latin American countries. Love. It.

It wouldn’t be Mexico without cute, grimy doggies lying in the streets.

One of the restaurants in the square. They all desperately were trying to get us to eat at their restaurants, but we turned them all down because we weren’t particularly hungry just yet. Unfortunate, really. There was a lot of asking us if we were Japanese, which, I think, Mihae was initially very offended by, but soon came to realize that it’s not in an offensive way, but that it is just a very obvious statement meaning no harm. I personally was used to it from Spain, where I was by myself and still felt not at all threatened by it all. I have definitely noticed though that elderly people in these Latin American countries are just so so so cute about telling us to be careful and to watch out… it’s cute.

Sunset in the square with the mariachi bands.

Massive Mexico prides. ^__^

We walked around some more and decided to head back to the airport around 8:00pm. Much to my extreme surprise, my phone fucking works abroad, if I want to pay for the roaming for it. But it’s cool to know that if I want to use it, I have the option.

Anyway, we walked to the Sheraton to catch a taxi from its doors because otherwise there is a chance that the taxis are not so safe. The Sheraton taxi that picked us up was more like a lady in a giant sooped-up truck, but since the Sheraton said it was okay, we assumed it was okay, even though it’s ultimately kinda weird. The lady was nice, though, and spoke very good English. We talked about how people jaywalked and how they were lawless.

At the airport, we finally noticed these GIANT ASS plant pots. They are super cool! I should also say that “super cool” is this term that this German CouchSurfer I hung out with the previous week used a fuckload, and that it sounded very funny.

The airline we took on the way in!

We were lame that evening and ate at Chili’s because we got to the airport muuuuch earlier than we needed to. The internet had told us three hours before for international flights, and I thought it might be possible since Mexico City is, after all, a very large city, but that was wayyyy too early, and it was a totally pointless thing to do. So, we ate at Chili’s, and even ate some of our leftovers from lunch (yes, we brought it into Chili’s because we’re classy), and then I did some writing and fell in and out of sleep while writing (because I was lying down on the airport benches). The notes got less and less intelligible as time went on, which was really quite funny.

After we were on the plane, Mihae and I were two rows off from one another because we’d booked our plane tickets at different times and therefore couldn’t get on the same flight. I asked the guy next to Mihae if I could switch seats with him, and he literally said he couldn’t because he was “comodo (comfortable)” where he was. Ass

what the fuck? my chinese sucks.

Lordy, lordy.

I’ve grown up speaking Mandarin Chinese my whole life, and it’s been half decent at that. I’ve been brushing up on my Spanish via these online lessons that are offered through LiveMocha.com, and much, much to my utter DISMAY, I have come to realize that the cardinal directions which I had associated with certain words in Chinese are TOTALLY wrong, and the only cardinal direction I know correctly is SOUTH. I always thought “dong (東)” is North, when in fact it is East, and “bay (北)” is South, when in fact it is North. Wow, I suck at life.

So, to reiterate:

東 (dong1) = East
南 (nan2) = South
西 (xi1) = West
北 (bei3) = North

HOLY SHITSICLES. I SUCK.

***

Today, a bird crapped on my window. It was like, the consistency of jello and egg whites, with sparsely placed, canned tuna-colored chunks. Mmm. The jello-y film was probably the WORST part of the thing, at least until I started driving. Then, because it was so watery, it blew all around my window, and on my door, and my whole drive home, I was desperately hoping that it would start raining so that the SHIT (PUN INTENDED) would disappear off my window, but NO. IT DID NOT. It left these really thin, slightly translucent streaks, along with the tuna chunks ~__~

I’m hoping this evening’s light snowfall has cleaned it off. Hoping, hoping, hoping.