Random facts

Things I have ingested for the first time since arriving here in Oaxaca: at least 3 types of atole (con chocolate, con panela, y con leche); the most overcooked pasta ever to be overcooked; Oaxaqueno sushi; mole coloradito (tal vez mi preferida ahora).

Things I have not ingested since arriving here: chapulines (dried grasshoppers, available either plain, con chile y limon, o con chocolate); 7 different kinds of mezcal, including one with scorpions in the bottle, and one which is bottled around a rose that grows inside the bottle.

Items that cost more here than in New York: Cup O Noodles; dental floss; a pedicure; music CDs.

Speaking of prices: There has been roughly a 1000% increase in low-end hotel prices since I was here 11 years ago. This increase is only in pesos; in dollars, the increase is typically more like 300-400% (I don't fully understand the math of this, but it seems to be accurate). A couple of nights ago, I stumbled upon the hotel that I stayed in when I was last here. At the time, it was a rambling place called the Hotel Pombo, with strangely enormous rooms for about $10 (US) a night. It has been reinvented as the Hotel Something Very English Sounding That I Can't Recall, with rooms now going for $100-$150 a night. I realized where I was when I saw the building across the street, which I recognized from a photo I still have that I took from our window back then. It was a rather transporting moment, as there is little I have seen here that has felt very familiar from that time. I'm not sure if that's because the city has changed so, or if I have inherited my mother's relentlessly unreliable memory.

The university students here are in the process of electing (yes, electing) the leaders of the various schools within the University. They seem to be putting an awful lot of energy into marching and demonstrating for the candidates they like. It seems that the political turmoil here last year has ignited a spirit of activism. It is not entirely clear to me what difference it makes who is elected president of the law school, the medical school, the school of education. These students are all quite young. It seems that here folks train for professions during the same time that we in the States are undergrads -- there are an awful lot of 21 year old lawyers walking around. But one of them manages the telephone and internet caseta down the street from my house, so I am not entirely clear what it means that she is a lawyer. I was introduced to the nephew of someone I know, all of 20 years old; he was wearing a torn AC/DC tee-shirt, and jeans baggy enough to fit in in Bed-Stuy, and I was to call him licenciado. (Sidebar: AC/DC tee-shirts are a weirdly popular choice, though I don't think I've heard any AC/DC music, not that I would know exactly. Much more commonly heard emanating from the shops around el centro is Total Eclipse of the Heart, equally popular in Spanish and English).