It's not a ball!

Next to me at my desk lie a satchel and an umbrella, neither of which are mine. These are remnants of last night's house-warming party, left by guests as they scurried down the street to the opening of a new bar/art gallery. By then I was massively tired and knew I wouldn't possibly be able to keep up.

At about 4:30 I went to the market with a couple friends to buy goods for our feast. I kept my eye out for a woman at the market who hates me. A few days ago I threw one of her tomatoes into the air and caught it and she snapped at me. No es una pelota! she screamed. Her friend just laughed but I couldn't get a grin out of her.

Our original plan was to have about 10 people over and fix a copious amount of Italian food. Unfortunately, there was no eggplant for the eggplant parmesan so we had to figure something out on the fly. We bought avocados, onions, tomatoes, a giant mango, strawberries, a pineapple, some limes, bread, beer, parsley we mistook for cilantro, oregano, plantains, ketchup, chips and chili powder. What transpired was a bountiful feast. Friends brought drinks and we gorged ourselves on guacamole and chips, tomato bruschetta with bread, fruit salad and fried plantains with ketchup (a personal favorite).

We watched basketball (explaining the rules and such to those silly Brits who can't understand why the world needs another sport than Football) and made merry. After that we took our drinks up to the terrace, looked out over the river and the city and enjoyed ourselves. It was quite a time.

This city is mostly shut down on Sundays. There are a few stores open every now and then, maybe a bakery, a cafe or a little shop, but for the most part people go to church and then head to the parks where there is live music and much to do. Today I went with Rory, a nice Londoner, to the river where we walked in the grass and talked about the IRA. After a spell we found an awesome kinda sunny spot to relax and I parked myself against a rock and pulled out Salinger to read while he more or less snoozed between bouts of Nick Hornsy. Not a bad way to spend a spectacular Sunday afternoon.

It's great not having a cellphone here. All the social activities happen in the moment or are planned ahead. There's plenty of dropping by and no calling. However, most everyone here is getting a cellphone so it may only be a matter of time until I buy a $3 card for my phone. We'll see.