Not just another manic Monday, 10 April 2006

Left: back to school (the excellent Guadalajara Language Centre)

Right: Teri out the front of the block of flats.


I wake up to the sounds of the "Zeta gas" truck. Sounds like the call to prayer in a Muslim country. Katie, my fellow student, says when you hear the gas truck, you drop what you're doing, and run like mad into the street. Running out in your pyjamas, or whatever, is not a concern: if you don't have gas, you can't cook, and you have no hot water. So basically you're stuffed.

Can't remember what Teri cooked me for breaky, usually eggs and refried beans, plus jam and cold toast that you buy like a loaf. Weird, but tasty.

It's my first day at school! Teri takes me there to show the way. Monday's is street market day on Calle Hornos, and they're setting up. Some drunk guy is escaping slowly from a furious bus driver who has gripped his jacket. The drunk twists out of his jacket, like he's done it before, but stumbles and crashes into the second hand tool table which spills on the street. Teri grabs me to keep walking, and stop gawking, so I won't be late.

School is a neat, clean, tiled little area, with classrooms upstairs. Today is the alphabet, which is a bit dull, but the second half is conversation with Laura, who is a cack. At the halfway break, I duck up to the bank to convert about $800US, which I still have stuffed in my shoe. It's madness, but I forget this quickly after I hand over my pile of Mexican currency to the school director Greg.