Querétaro: Day 11

This morning I woke up and began moving my piles of stuff for what will be hopefully the last time till at least december.

Since moving out of the hotel about 5 days ago I have been living downstairs in the house that I decided would become my semi permanent residence. Carrying all my stuff up the staircase of death took at least 5 trips, maybe more and now my stuff is 1/3 put away up here. Somewhere around 1 or 2pm I wandered down to the nearest plaza and spent some hours eating a "crepe" and reading at a coffee shop. A much better way to spend time than organizing. I'm only practical when I really need to be.

Tender is the night was a great book and I sent a thank you note to Joey T for it. We swapped books in Amalfi back in June and I just now got to finishing it. I gave him a short thing by Hemingway that takes place in Venice. I loved the last 20-30 pages of Across the River and into the trees but the Colonel's relationship with a 19 year old venetian girl was just not something I could read in comfort.

I'll be honest that her age biased me towards the book.

I used the coffee shop before walking home and ran into a woman from Washington that I've ran into at least 6 times since I arrived in Querétaro. She invited me to go out for drinks with her, her husband Hans and some friends of theirs but I declined. I felt too disheveled for that sort of thing. If I meet her again I'll be better groomed and more up for that sort of thing.

I'm writing a bit funny because of the way the characters in Tender is the night talked to one another.

Yesterday I woke up late and came home too exhausted for a shower, intending to take one first thing this morning... but of course the water was not working. That combined with my lack of clean clothes is not giving my very high self esteem.

Actually, I have plenty of clean clothes but not ones I actually enjoy wearing. All my jeans are dirty and tomorrow I'm going to have to wear shorts to school although I hate wearing shorts. I brought them in the off chance I would go to a beach while in Mexico... So tomorrow I am going to go over to the Hotel I stayed at before school and ask the woman if she can recommend a Lavanderia. I need more jeans... clearly.

I talked to Nathaniel for about 1/2 hour today and he asked me if I was drunk when I wrote my last e-mail... no. I haven't been drunk since I've been in Mexico. I wasn't drunk during my going away outing either. It's been a while.

Maybe I was too sentimental in my e-mail? I usually don't think I express sentimentality well in the first place. I feel I either come off awkward with it if it comes out at all... maybe I'll add drunk to the list. But, I really miss him and am already plotting the places to take him if he gets to visit.

Oh Manfriend... (deleted paragraph because I realize blogging certain things would probably annoy him in the way they annoyed Billy while we travelled.)

Saturday I went with 4 other kids from my program to a town called Guanajuato and took some okay pictures. I need to start thinking up a photo story... When my Spanish gets better I need to get ballsy and chat up the little person near the market that's always asking for money. His life could probably make a great photo story. But, talking my way into it would require a tact and fluency I doubt I have obtained in english.