Departamento!

Bienvenidos, a nuestro departamento nuevo! We're very, very happy to have moved in - for two nights now! - to our lovely new apartment. After seeing quite a few throughout the city, this one was hands down the winner. And it is so nice to have our own space again, to lounge, to be slovenly on occasion, and to cook. So nice to cook.

We're about four blocks west of the main tourist/cultural square (the Zocalo), which has a beautiful shady plaza surrounded by restaurants, a very old cathedral, the main federal government building, and a few big food/craft markets to the south. There's a small market just

down the block that sells fruit, vegetables, flowers, cheese and meat, among other things and the enormous city market is about 7 blocks southwest. The escaleras del fortin are almost immediately north about 6 blocks, so we have easy access to running in the park too.

Otherwise, it's pretty standard - kitchen, big bedroom with a sitting area, living room, and a neat little cloister-like second bedroom. The building abuts what used to be a convent, so the wall in the second bedroom is about ten feet thick and looks a little bit like part of a castle. Lots of molded-glass skylights and thick walls, so it seems to stay pretty cool even when the days get hot.

This last picture is looking out at the garden from our patio. We have a couple chairs, a mini-hammock, and a table and despite the rain and the fountain, the mosquitos are rare. Yesterday during the rainstorm, the building cat came and sat on my lap to watch it all come down.

We're continuing to explore the city and work on our Spanish. I had a bewildering exchange at the hardware store today and eventually the employee gave up on me and just asked where I was from, but I still ended up with the epoxy I wanted (buying in some stores here can be surprisingly complicated - it was the same with our cell-phone). And now that guy thinks everybody from Boston is stupid. Anyway, it balanced out with some friendly words from the bookstore cashier, a fruitful trip to the market this morning, and an enjoyable conversation with a couple of painters on Calle Abasolo who somehow also guessed that I wasn't from around here. The painters had guessed Orlando for some reason, maybe my flip-flops (?) but were suitably impressed with Massachusetts.

Yesterday we explored an enormous museum of Mexican and Oaxacan history that is attached to a breathtaking botanical gardens and, of course, a huge cathedral. Tonight, maybe some music, and tomorrow a full day of volunteering, a movie with Jorge and co., and more.

Que vaya bien.