So this weekend has been pretty full! Friday I went back to my first host house to get the paper I needed to pick up the box of things I left at home from the post office. Graciela took this time to sit me down, once again blame me for her broken toilet and more or less call me a liar. It was fun! She then spent 10 minutes telling me a story about a German lady at a hotel. It was supposed to prove that she is a good person and not a liar and she sees no reason why I was unhappy and unable to take responsibility for the toilet. Like I said, fun.
The post office was fun, too. I make my way there after the lecture from Graciela and it is PACKED! Everything here is a “Take a number” and wait. So I pull my number, 61, and look up to see they are on 85. So I had to wait for them to make it up to 100 and then back around to 61!! It did not take nearly as long as I thought it would but it was still a good while. I then get up there to be told that without my actual passport I could not get the box. I had a copy and another student ID and someone (ahem, Graciela) told me that would be fine. So I had to leave and come back.
When I went back later, with my passport, I again pulled a number in the 60′s. But this time they were on 19, so the wait was not as long. I finally get up there and hand over my papers. The man looks at me, laughs to himself (still not sure why), and hands me back a smaller paper and sends me into another waiting room! This one is more open with more seats luckily. But then I sit and wait while someone who needs to learn to enunciate mumbled numbers over a blurry loud speaker. Once your number got called you went through to a back room where they hand you your package. It was all very weird and I was just relieved to be done with it!
That night my friends and I went to a fiesta at a hostel, where someone I met the week before came up to me and said, “Hey Maria! How are you?” I just smiled and said, “Great, how are you?” No need to correct anyone anymore. I now officially respond to Devon, Elizabeth and Maria. I have started using that name occasionally too. When I get that “What the heck did you just say your name was?” look, or when someone seems to be a bit of a creeper, my name is Maria!!!
The next day was raining and gross. So we headed to the movies. We got our tickets and were eating lunch in the food court when another friend joined us and sat with his backpack in his lap. I thought nothing of this until I heard someone whisper, “….dog…..backpack.” Sure enough I glance under the table to see a little fox terrier sticking his head out of this grown man’s backpack.
He is a grown man, a doctor, who thinks bringing your dog to the movie theater in your backpack is permissible and normal. He will never be my doctor! But it was a cute dog and the looks on the mall patrons’ faces after the movie with the dog’s head sticking out of the backpack were pretty priceless!
Sunday was a wonderful lazy day full of sun, pool and naps! Just what I needed after 2 very crazy weeks! Though it did feel weird to be in a swim suit in the pool in January! LOVE IT!
