WALKING? I DON'T KNOW

What a day!  I'm starting to rethink this whole "walking" thing.  Around here everyone is obsessed with walking.  They boast about how far they walked, how long, how often.  Mind you - the streets are covered with cobblestones, all of them, everywhere.  It's a miracle there aren't more sprained ankles and broken feet.  Add to that the uphill streets and you have a recipe for disaster.  At least, as far as I'm concerned.  

This afternoon I agreed to walk to town with David.  I should've known better. I should've trusted my instincts.  But I wanted to humor him.  The landlady came over in the morning to introduce herself and talked about this walk and that walk, showed us on the map how to get downtown, blah blah blah.  It takes 20 minutes, 30 at the most.  So I said ok.

Just walking from our door to the main street a couple of blocks away is a struggle for me: uphill all the way.  And so we went.  On the main street David offered to take the bus but I declined.  So we started on our way.  And I walked, slowly, over slippery, uneven cobblestones, first uphill, then downhill.  You would think that downhill is easier.  You'd be wrong.  Because you have to break not to go rolling down like a potato, it's more difficult for me, especially because my right foot has little traction, little power.  And we walked, and walked.  And walked.  After about one hour my legs were weak and my breathing forced.  I sat down a few times to rest but had to keep going to get somewhere because the area we were walking in was pretty boring, empty of everything except houses.  Every so often a car would roll by or a motorcycle and we'd have to step aside, against the wall, or risk get run over.  And we walked some more.  "We're almost there," David would say, "five more minutes."  Another hour and we arrived near civilization but nowhere near the Biblioteca where I wanted to go.  At that point I had been whining, complaining, and cursing, so when a taxi appeared David flagged him down and made me take it.  He insisted on walking all the way.

At the library I sat at the Cafe to have lunch and rest my shaking legs.  It was now 2:30 pm.  It took me a while to recover but I did, ate my guacamole, read a bit, and then David appeared.  He walked all the way.  At 4 pm I went to the lecture on "The History of the Dining Table."  Very interesting and informative.  The lecturer is from Chicago and she gives these talks everywhere. Her website looks very inviting.  She talked about dining and food from Ancient Greece to the French Revolution.  Friday she'll give us the second installment.  I talked to her after the talk and hope to talk some more again because I'd like to do something similar.  Also, I'm very interested in food anthropology and the history of eating, etc.

Our friend Marty Rosenberg opened his gallery of posters here so we went to see him.  The official opening will be February 22.  I plan to go.  After this we walked to a cafe to play Qwirkle and have some coffee.  I won by two points.  Dinner was at Hecho en Mexico - a good place to eat but the room was noisy and towards the end of the evening David became angry with a table that was talking and laughing loudly.  He yelled at them and they were not happy.  I was startled.

I have to say that I'm getting accustomed to the house and the town slowly.  There are some things that I'm not enjoying like the coldness in the mornings when I get up.  Houses here don't have central heating.  But I've learned to put on a sweater and pants instead of parading around in my nightgown and robe.  I wish I had brought warm slippers.  I'm also not fond of the location of the house because it's not near the center.  The surroundings however are beautiful and peaceful.  We would prefer to walk out and find ourselves in the midst of shops but "it is what it is."