Silent Night

I am in Puebla and no longer hearing voices.

I got a little behind on blogging somehow. Tuesday evening I went out to have the one last thing on my checklist - quesadillas con flor de calabaza (squash blossoms). I had seen them on the menu at this place that served tlayudas (Oaxacan "pizza"). So I went there and ordered them, but they were out of flor de calabaza :(

I went ahead and ordered regular quesadillas and asked for a michelada. A michelada is a beer with lime juice and I think it might also come with salt and maybe even chili. I told the waiter I didn't want salt - 'no sal por favor'. He said, oh then you want a suero. I said, oh, suero is with no salt? He said yes, I said, okay a suero with no salt.

He brought me a glass filled partially with lime juice and the rim of the glass encrusted with salt. This was one of those times when I thought I was communicating perfectly in Spanish "no sal" 3 times, and I think the problem was on the hearing end. I said, "oh, I didn't want salt" and started to brush it off before he poured the beer in. He offered to get me another glass, but I got enough of the salt off that it was okay. Geez.

The quesadillas were not that good.

I enjoyed the evening walking up and down the pedestrian street where a market had been set up for Christmas. I sampled a few other things such as esquitle (or something like that), which is corn off the cob, cooked in some broth and then served with mayonaise, chili and cheese. It was quite interesting. I'd had it before without the mayo and cheese and liked it. The authentic version was a bit rich, but good.

Yesterday morning I woke up and checked the bus schedule online. I saw that they had added a bus at noon and thought that would be a good time for me to leave Oaxaca. It was complicated because some of the buses seemed to take longer and I was looking for the most direct, so it was either 9 a.m., noon, or 1:30 (it seemed). I tried booking online but couldn't because I didn't have a lada, whatever that was. The girl in the tourist office told me I could just go on the day of and get my ticket, but I didn't want to risk it, even though there were buses almost every hour, so I set off to find the bus station.

I walked and walked and walked, with local buses spewing black smoke as they passed by me (I really need to learn how to take local buses), eventually I got there, got my ticket and headed back to my hotel to check out.

On the way, I passed a stall where I had seen flor de calabaza. I stopped to see if they had quesadillas and they did, so I got two to go. They were much better than the ones I had had the night before. The flor de calabaza didn't really seem to add much to the quesadilla, but it was good. I felt satisfied that I'd done everything I had set out to do in Oaxaca.

I packed up my stuff and checked out. The guy in the office was a bit surprised. I just told him I wanted to spend some time in Puebla. Turned out he had lived in Mill Valley until 1995 (I don't know how long). Too bad he wasn't nicer when I checked in - we could have talked more. He seemed overworked, but I am not sure why.

I took a taxi to the bus station, and we boarded at noon after going through security (including someone filming each one of us with a small digital video camera).

The trip was pretty uneventful, but smooth sailing (a good thing). They showed two movies and I thought I would hate them, but actually liked both. The first was called The Namesake and was a film about Indian immigrants starring Kal Penn who is the guy from the Harold and Kumar stoner movies (which I love). It was very good and I understood most of it up until the end where I got lost (it was dubbed). But no violence, which was a very good thing. Then they showed Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories. I think Adam Sandler is adorable, and even though I slept through part of it, it was a nice distraction to help the 5 hours of bus ride seem like it wasn't that long. All in all, it was better than flying.

I had a bit of confusion getting a taxi at the Puebla bus station, but finally succeeded and made it to my hotel. By then I was starving as I'd just had a few quesadillas and some fruit for breakfast. I dropped my bags off and went to Fonda Santa Clara, one of the best restaurants I know that is just a half a block away. I got chicken soup and an order of beef with three different sauces - mole, pipian and something else. It was very satisfying.

It's good to be back in Puebla. It feels different from Oaxaca and it also feels very familiar since I was here just three years ago. I am looking forward to walking around and refamiliarizing myself with the place.

But best of all, last night I was able to lie in my huge comfortable bed, watch some TV (Dr. Phil and Desperate Housewives) and sleep with no earplugs! For some reason I had a hard time falling asleep, but eventually I did and I slept well with no morning voices waking me up!