Stars indicate the top three most missed things and activities.

Public Buses:  In Oaxaca de Juarez (“Oaxaca City”) during rush hour each bus will have a guy who stands in the front doorway at the bottom of the stairs, hanging our over the street, and shouts the bus’s destination to try and wrangle passengers.

Internet Cafes: 20-30 minutes for 4 pesos = about 26 cents USD. Wow.

Del Jardin:  I ate in a “sit-down” restaurant by myself for the first time. It was as weird as I thought it would be.

Streets:  Every single street in downtown Oaxaca is one-way with parking on one side because the streets are all so skinny. The U.S. (*coughBallard*) could really take a hint. There are also no prohibited left turns so the one-ways aren’t a gigantic pain to navitage (*coughdowntownSeattle*).

Dogs:  Mexico is truly the Ireland of the western hemisphere as evidenced by their dogs. They are plentiful, well-behaved sweet creatures, and always leash-less.

Chapulines:  I ate grasshoppers. They’re toasted on a comal then flavored with lime and garlic, very crunchy and salty to my taste. Supposedly anyone who eats them is guaranteed to return to Oaxaca.

Sprain:  At the cooking class I raja-ed so many flipping poblanos my thumb started tingling again from swelling. It’s fine again now.

Cooking Class:  This was a fantastic experience and such a great deal. Transportation, an awesome lunch, tasting tour of the market, cooking class, an awesome 5 course meal, fresh juice and beer all day, recipes to take home, chocolate and a chocolate water whipper contraption as gifts. Quite the day!

School Uniforms:  It seems that all public schools in Mexico require standard-issue uniforms, only varying in school colors. The difference between uniforms in Veracruz and Oaxaca is only in the girl’s outfits, in the skirt. In Veracruz the skirt hits just above the knee. In Oaxaca it hits below the knee, eliminating any sexy school girl potential.

Guera:  I get called this a lot by people out on the street and for a long while I couldn’t determine how I felt about receiving this ambiguous nickname. Sometimes it’s used as a term of endearment, sometimes it’s derogatory or even vulgar, and usually it’s simply descriptive. I’ve finally decided. . .that I like it. I would rather be a guera than a gringa, for sure.

Doughnuts:  To buy a doughnut in Mexico you need a metal or plastic platter and a pair of tongs. You walk around the bakery heaping stuff you want onto your platter, then take it to the cashier to check out and get everything bagged. Yesterday I got a delicious round variety with chocolate frosting on top, that was then sliced in half, sandwich style, and spread with sweet cream.

Topes:  Oaxaqueno shocks must be in terrible disrepair because there are so many speed bumps everywhere. Downtown is more reasonable, but out in the sticks, especially the small villages, they have speed bumps every 3 blocks. This is especially ridiculous because the roads aren’t in good enough shape to drive quickly on them anyways.

Tonight was. . .I have no idea. There appears to be stuff everywhere. Out on our street and on the main boulevard which we are just off, there are loads of street carts, a lady walking around with a giant boa constrictor tossed over her shoulders, people having impromptu parties on the bleachers, and music, music, everywhere.

I went downtown because I heard there was a concert on the malecon (seaside promenade). The bus had to take a detour, the route of which I was uncertain, so I got off early and walked down Avenida Independencia, the same street where the kid’s parade was. The street was cut off to car traffic and was swarming with folks. It seems like the food carts coordinate what they’re all going to be offering each night because tonight was all hot dogs and pancakes, mostly pancakes, which is especially odd because before tonight I hadn’t seen any.

As I neared the zocalo, the crowd became denser and denser until nobody could move. Something big was going on at the zocalo and everyone was crowded in to watch on the many giant projector screens set up around the square, since the square itself was jam-packed. I felt a little like I was in hell, but I got out alright and approached the square from the other side. It was less terrible, but I did’t see the point in staying, so I wandered towards the malecon.

Along the way I came upon a. . .drummer band? There were at least 12 drummers and a couple of some-kind-of-shaky-thing players and also a couple had whistles in their mouth. The music they made would best be described as “tribal marching band.” I stood and listened for about 15 minutes, and during that time they worked on only one song. There were a few times where it seemed like they were going to stop by dropping down to only 1 or 2 drummers but then others would join in again. It was pretty cool stuff.

I continued on my way to the malecon where it turned out there wasn’t a show going on until later. 10 p.m. isn’t late enough I guess. Instead of musicians, the promenade was lined with vendors displaying their wares and weird street performers, like a space Merlin and silver robot cowboy (unfortunately I neglected to bring my camera). I bought my first souvenir from one of the street vendors, notably one who had their stuff laid out on the blanket-covered ground and didn’t launch into a sales pitch. When I asked how much the item I liked was their maybe-6-year-old kid jumped in and performed the whole transaction, although his mom gave me a bag. Pretty cute.

I returned to my meandering exploration of broohaha back towards downtown but to the south, in the general direction of where I could catch a bus home. I heard music so I went towards it. In the same park-venue two weeks ago I saw a fun salsa band but tonight there was what I guess was Mexican metal? All I know is they had electric guitars, lots of yelling and grinding and long hair, and there were notable groups of leather-clad biker dudes in the audience.

That wasn’t so much my scene so I headed towards the Plazuala, a semi-enclosed plaza where there’s usually live music and dancing. When I got there, sure enough people were going bonkers salsa-style, but there was yet another band down the street whose music could be heard. The other band was also playing some kind of Latin/Carribean something (I could tell there was clave and that’s about it), but just off-beat enough to hurt my head.

I’d say the party is well under way.

Now if only I liked parties!

The bus system here is very odd, and I think most of it has a causal relationship with this little tidbit: the bus drivers are not salaried or paid by the hour. For each passenger they pick up they earn 1 peso of the fare.

So. . .

• you can pay with whatever small bills or coins you have and they’ll give you change while they drive
• you can catch a bus from pretty much anywhere–just stick out your arm
• you can get off the bus pretty much anywhere–just ask him to stop
• you may end up going in circles (literally) in high pedestrian traffic areas so the driver can pick up more passengers along the same route
• when there’s traffic you will get to see parts of the city you wouldn’t otherwise because the driver will take all kinds of crazy detours to get out of the jam, often unsuccessfully
• you are likely to routinely think “oh my god we are all going to die” due to the speed, swerving, and attempts to pass vehicles the driver deems slow

Today on the bus I swear our driver was racing with the bus driver next to us. We had two lanes going one way and the road narrowed to one and each wanted to get in front. I looked out the (open) window while this was happening and I swear at a couple points the adjacent bus was only 4 inches away from us, while going like 50 mph in a rickety old school bus. Definitely an “OMGWAAGTD” moment.

***Bonus bus fact! The vehicles themselves are either old tour buses with plush seating or school bus style, all have various kinds of manual transmissions, some with giant weird contraptions. But the yellow ones, oh HO the yellow ones, they are air conditioned and cost 1.50 pesos more. I have only ridden in one once because apparently I’ve already adopted the local mentality that my comfort is not worth 10 cents.