Some random thoughts

There is a wonderful sort of shaded pedestrian street between 2 large university buildings here in downtown Merida. In this ¨street¨there is a cafe with numerous outdoor tables and students discussing the meaning of life with great animation. There are several tables with chess boards set up and males of all ages playing and observing. They move their pieces with such incredible speed! And, there are a handful of painters doing their thing and selling their results. About half of the paintings are indeciperable to me. The other half are probably nothing more than kitsch. But I have to confess I find them very attractive. Idyllic scenes of a little farm house with the majestic Andes mountains rising up behind. These little paintings seem to be available in many latin american countries. They sell them in Mexico, in Guatemala, and in Costa Rica. I think its the latin american version of Kincade, except of course the painters here are barely eking out a living.
There are some GREAT bakeries in Merida with great smells coming out of them. The locals believe that the best bakeries are run by Portuguese. Yesterday I splurged and bought something that thasted absolutely delicious for a 4 p.m. kaffee und kuchen snack. Yummy! Yummy!
Among the items on dispolay were schweineohren. The venezolanos call them palm trees (palmeras). That certainly sounds more attractive that way.
One thing venzolanos have in common with probably every other country in the world is they wear these t shirts with combinations of English words that are interesting, if not even challenging, for example, ¨Back Baby¨or ¨Play teams¨. Obviously, im not in on the secret code that makes these saying comprehensible.
The young girls of Merida are head turningly beautiful. They do however all look excactly the same...long straight black hair, black eyes, incredibly narrow waist. They all wear low cut halter tops and tight fitting jeans that barely make it above the line of propriety. In short, it makes for a very scenic walk every day back and forth to school!
Last week, I made the mistake of eating in a chinese restaurant. The lead item on the menu was chop suey. That should have been a clue. The rice had lots of ham strips in it. Venezolanos can´t seem to get enough of ham. The standing joke is that if venezolanos ran out of ham and cheese sandwiches, they´d die of hunger. A very hot item in the deli case here is Underwood deviled ham.
There´s also a German restaurant in town. I´m told it´s as bad as the chinese one. I´m told there is ONE sushi bar in town run by an Italian family (!), but the locals steer clear of all fish products. We are a full day´s drive away from the ocean and the locals fee you will get sick easily eating fish that has gone bad. The guide book says something about trout being available locally but I haven´t seen it on any of the menus posted outside restaurants.
Yesterday, I had to go to the bank again to withdraw money with my ATM card. For foreigners, the outside ATM machines won´t work. There are huge lines at all the banks for reasons I don´t know. Its not unusual to see 10 to 30 people standing in line down the sidewalk for the outside ATM machine. As a non Venezuelan, I have to go into the bank. I stood in line one hour to get my money. I had to produce my passport, have my photo taken, and sign paperwork, etc., just to use my ATM card. To add insult to injury, the official exchange rate is pegged artifically low, about 35 % lower than what the currency will bring on the black market. This is just what Russia and the east european countries used to do during the cold war. Regrettably, VZ is just not tourist friendly. Period. But they don´t have to be. They have oil. It makes life quite difficult here for businesses like the language school and travel agencies, etc., who cater to tourists.
One of my teachers asked me today, for some reason, what time I go to bed. I told him 10 p.m. His response was ¨So early!!¨Well, I have to get up at 6 a.m. every morning in order to eat breakfast, and hike to school by 8 a.m. But I understand his comment about 10 p.m. being early.
On my street there are several 10 story high apt. houses. About 9 p.m. every night, the street begins to come alive with people. A large number of them are students. There is a great deal of loud music, drinking, spontaneous singing and dancing. Those portable hot dog stands crop up like crazy selling every conceivable food item. In addition, for the last 2 weeks I´ve been here, there are extremely loud fireworks every night. I asked why and the response was...but of course, its christmas! This is now the 26th of january and they´re still setting off fireworks every night in honor of christmas! I´m told the celebrating ends officially on Feb. 9th. As good fortune would have it, that´s when the Feria del Sol starts here, a local week long fiesta, leading up to Carneval directly thereafter. Welcome to VZ, where the party never stops!!
The noise outside my bedroom window is mind bogglingly loud until about 2 a.m. every night. I´m on the second floor of a 10 story building and my bedroom looks out onto the street. The window is louvered and is permanently in the open position to beat the heat. The noise of loud music, talking, laughing, singing, dancing people is amplified by loud fireworks which set off car alarms. A number of cars are equipped with awesome power units and speaker systems. My bedroom louvered windows rattle in their metal frames and the bed springs vibrate in synch with the booming bass. It´s quite an experience. I´ve noticed also that most drivers here use their car horns about once every two blocks, probably to ensure that they are still in good working condition.
I´ve talked to other foreign students at the language school, and the impression I get is that the situation is similar all over town. There are indeed some ritzy upper class neighborhoods with large houses behind security gates, etc. But even there the general background noise is still pretty overwhelming.
At about 5 a.m., the taxis and car pool drivers start pulling up under my window. They notify the additional passenger, who must live somewhere in the building, of their arrival by leaning on the car horn. Amazingly, I have actually grown somewhat immune to all of this. In addition, I´ve come to greatly appreciate my 30 minute siestas after lunch.
As a matter of fact, it´s time to go home for my nap. Hasta luego!