Well, now that I wrote and posted about my first Oaxaca apartment, and then about the one I have just moved to, it is once again time to do some more time hopping and talk about where I spent almost two months during my time in Guanajuato and how that experience, and the fickled finger of fate (Ah! such nostalgia in those words!) led to my being in Oaxaca a few months earlier than I had planned on.
I should add, after reading this once through before publishing it, that this post seems more about Rulla adjusting than about the room, so bear with me. At the time, making sure Rulla was OK, was high on my list of priorities.
Anyway, to get on with the story, during my Guanajuato stay, I lived in two places. First I was at the AirBnB on the callejon Perros Muertos, which I have written about earlier within a couple of my early blog posts, but after that I moved to a room at the school where I was studying Spanish, and I will be writing about my days there very soon.
I was not necessarily keen on the idea of spending much time in a single room, especially having a cat and all, but it seemed a good option, as it would give me time to to better search for a furnished apartment in town OR for the apartments being built behind the school to reach completion. That said, I saw no reason not to jump in. Best of all, I wouldn't need to get up so early to attend classes.
The room itself was on the first floor of the school. It was big, sort of two sections plus a bathroom, with access to the school's kitchen, which I could use any time of the day or night, though during class time, I would have to go outside and walk across the patio and enter the kitchen via the back door, but that was no problem at all.
I think Rulla was a bit confused by the great space and not having at least one other room to walk into (I don't think bathrooms count for cats). She seemed to enjoy rolling on the rough coffee table (she thought of it, I think, as a giant back scratcher), but she did not like the bed, which as a twin was too small her for her to share with me. As you know, cats require a lot of reclining space, and so she wanted nothing to do with the bed until I got out of it.
The room was located by the front door of the school, which was itself separated from the callejon by a wall and a nice patio space. There was a classroom directly across the hallway, and all the other classes were upstairs. This meant that during the day there was a lot of foot traffic outside the door, which made Rulla nervous. Adding to her nervousness was the fact that when the temperatures got warmer, some teachers conducted some of their classes outside on the patio right by the main window, during which time Rulla would sort of hide in the corner by the bed.
Of course, there were students and teachers who were very interested in Rulla, and they would sometimes come to visit her. One of my teachers, Annie, was a big Rulla fan, though by that time Rulla was already getting a bit freaked out by all the people around, even though she is generally a fairly friendly cat and Annie definitely a cat person. I think there were just too many changes for Rulla to deal with in such a short time.
There were a few problems with the room. After all, no place is perfect. Because it was on the first floor it was easy for outdoor cockroaches - big Escalade-sized ones to crawl in under the front door of the school and then under my door and into the room. There were also, oddly, crickets which would enter in the same way. Rulla somehow seemed quite freaked out by the crickets, whereas I was more freaked by the roaches. Fortunately, since the path of entry of these critters was clear, it proved easy to stop them by putting a towel under the door, though to be honest, not having an extra towel, I instead used two of my older shirts that were too snug to wear. (As a side note, I might add that those shirts, three months later, now fit - all this walking pays off).
Speaking of walking, the nature of the callejones in Guanajuato means that you walk up a lot of narrow, uneven steps and down sometimes very narrow alleys to get home. Fortunately, my place was not that high up and not that far from the main street, but the steps were steep and uneven, at least on one of the two approaches, and when it rained.....those steps became cascades (as shown below on the other approach, which was the passable one in the rain), and getting home with dry shoes was but a charming pipe dream.
Another problem area was noise. One thing about the neighborhood was that there was a serious love of music going on. In addition to the music that would waft up from the park on market days, there was also someone (or maybe a few people) living in the callejon who was in a band, and thus you would here some rather loud and intense practices late at night, when, I can only assume, band practices are most beneficial. I at first thought that the sound was intense where I was because the callejones were acting as a sort of loudspeaker, channeling the sound to all the lucky houses in within the alleys, but then one day I met a couple of Korean nurses at the nearby taco stand. They were staying at a small, but fairly swank looking, inn down on the street by the park, so I was surprised that they too mentioned how it sounded as if a rock band had been practicing the previous evening. I guess it was just LOUD! Nevertheless, all the roaring bass and full-gain and distortion of the electric guitars didn't interrupt my sleep, though it did chance the ambiance of my evenings. The only thing that did keep me awake at times was when the drummer who lived a couple houses down decided to do his unaccompanied drum practices. Those sessions were tiresome and annoying, no way around it.
Not to spend forever whining, but yet another problem with the room other problem with the room was that it didn't have enough curtains. The curtain provided only covered about 1/2 the window. I could shift it left or right to provide privacy in whatever direction I felt needed it. In reality, the only time you could see inside was during the evening when the lights were on, but then no one was around at that time, so it wasn't really a problem, and if it had been, Could have easily just bought an extra curtain for a modest price and put it up, but. . . well, I didn't. So, as far as problems go, the curtain wasn't a big one, but it was a part of my memories there so I figured I might as well mention it so that, if nothing else, I don't forget these details in the future.
Well, as for the good, there was plenty. The price was right at only $125 a month, and, as I mentioned, the fact that I could get up late and not miss class was a real treat, since I am not much of a morning person. If there was a school party in the evening, which there was actually one of, getting to it and back home was very easy. In addition, there were at times other students staying in the room upstairs. In fact, for four of my nearly eight weeks, I had a neighbor upstairs from Chicago, Erica, who I would once in a while have a taco or elote with down on the street below, so that made adventuring a bit more fun, though she walked really really fast. After she left, most of the students who came were only there for a week or less, and since no one would tell me that a new person was moving it, I would sometimes get a bit freaked out when I'd hear someone fumbling around with the front door key at night, thinking that I was the only one living there at the time.
The other great thing about the room was the location, or at least its proximity to very useful or great things. I was only 3 minutes walk to a pet supply store where I could buy Rulla's food and kitty litter, about a ten minute walk to the lavanderia and the bus stop for buses into town. Through the big and rather polluted tunnel, I could walk 15 minutes to the big Soriana store (think of a high class Walmart), where i could get my Diet Dr. Pepper, Fish sauce and anything else I wanted, and then bus back through the same tunnel. And then there were at least 3 bakeries (plus the corner bread stand) within 10 minutes of me. Just a 3 minute plop down the stairs and I was at the mercado (here they sold some mighty fine Michoacan style carnitas), and all around the mercado were plenty of food stands where I could feed myself cheaply any time of day or night (Well, OK, anytime between 7:30AM and 8:45PM). I mentioned most of those stands in another post about street food in GTO.
So my stay in the room was a mixed bag, but a primarily good one. But the stay was always supposed to be temporary until, as I mentioned, I found another place. The problem was that I was not finding another place. Reasonably priced furnished spots were not popping up, and the apartments that had been built behind the school were still not ready, and I was just not yet ready to commit to Guanajuato by renting an unfurnished place and buying furniture. That all said, I was a bit confused as to what to do. And then, as providence would have it, I got a message from a friend I met at the AirBnB I had stayed at in Oaxaca a year earlier, saying that she remembered that I had wanted to check out Oaxaca again for a longer while, and there was an AirBnB owner who was looking to rent out a place for a couple of months at a lower than normal price until the the Day of the Dead season. I took it as a sign, and from that point it was all roads point to Oaxaca (albeit via a couple of weeks in CDMX).
As it turned out, Oaxaca has proven a mixed bag - an interesting city, that is a bit too hot, rents that are a tad (+alpha) overpriced, and food that is highly overrated. But I was able to see some new sights, get a bit of freedom from worry time, and, very nicely, was lucky enough to make a special friend, a fact that helped me decide to stick around a few months longer than I probably normally would have. That all said, the room in Guanajuato turned out to be a very good thing in ways I would not have expected. I look back at it with a strange sense of fondness as it was a fun, weird, and, if this makes sense, almost amorphous time in my life that somehow seemed to have a purpose that was ultimately very different. Hey, but I don't want to sound new age sappy, so I will end this post at this point.
Good night.
I should add, after reading this once through before publishing it, that this post seems more about Rulla adjusting than about the room, so bear with me. At the time, making sure Rulla was OK, was high on my list of priorities.
Anyway, to get on with the story, during my Guanajuato stay, I lived in two places. First I was at the AirBnB on the callejon Perros Muertos, which I have written about earlier within a couple of my early blog posts, but after that I moved to a room at the school where I was studying Spanish, and I will be writing about my days there very soon.
I was not necessarily keen on the idea of spending much time in a single room, especially having a cat and all, but it seemed a good option, as it would give me time to to better search for a furnished apartment in town OR for the apartments being built behind the school to reach completion. That said, I saw no reason not to jump in. Best of all, I wouldn't need to get up so early to attend classes.
The room itself was on the first floor of the school. It was big, sort of two sections plus a bathroom, with access to the school's kitchen, which I could use any time of the day or night, though during class time, I would have to go outside and walk across the patio and enter the kitchen via the back door, but that was no problem at all.
I think Rulla was a bit confused by the great space and not having at least one other room to walk into (I don't think bathrooms count for cats). She seemed to enjoy rolling on the rough coffee table (she thought of it, I think, as a giant back scratcher), but she did not like the bed, which as a twin was too small her for her to share with me. As you know, cats require a lot of reclining space, and so she wanted nothing to do with the bed until I got out of it.
The room was located by the front door of the school, which was itself separated from the callejon by a wall and a nice patio space. There was a classroom directly across the hallway, and all the other classes were upstairs. This meant that during the day there was a lot of foot traffic outside the door, which made Rulla nervous. Adding to her nervousness was the fact that when the temperatures got warmer, some teachers conducted some of their classes outside on the patio right by the main window, during which time Rulla would sort of hide in the corner by the bed.
Of course, there were students and teachers who were very interested in Rulla, and they would sometimes come to visit her. One of my teachers, Annie, was a big Rulla fan, though by that time Rulla was already getting a bit freaked out by all the people around, even though she is generally a fairly friendly cat and Annie definitely a cat person. I think there were just too many changes for Rulla to deal with in such a short time.
There were a few problems with the room. After all, no place is perfect. Because it was on the first floor it was easy for outdoor cockroaches - big Escalade-sized ones to crawl in under the front door of the school and then under my door and into the room. There were also, oddly, crickets which would enter in the same way. Rulla somehow seemed quite freaked out by the crickets, whereas I was more freaked by the roaches. Fortunately, since the path of entry of these critters was clear, it proved easy to stop them by putting a towel under the door, though to be honest, not having an extra towel, I instead used two of my older shirts that were too snug to wear. (As a side note, I might add that those shirts, three months later, now fit - all this walking pays off).
Speaking of walking, the nature of the callejones in Guanajuato means that you walk up a lot of narrow, uneven steps and down sometimes very narrow alleys to get home. Fortunately, my place was not that high up and not that far from the main street, but the steps were steep and uneven, at least on one of the two approaches, and when it rained.....those steps became cascades (as shown below on the other approach, which was the passable one in the rain), and getting home with dry shoes was but a charming pipe dream.
Another problem area was noise. One thing about the neighborhood was that there was a serious love of music going on. In addition to the music that would waft up from the park on market days, there was also someone (or maybe a few people) living in the callejon who was in a band, and thus you would here some rather loud and intense practices late at night, when, I can only assume, band practices are most beneficial. I at first thought that the sound was intense where I was because the callejones were acting as a sort of loudspeaker, channeling the sound to all the lucky houses in within the alleys, but then one day I met a couple of Korean nurses at the nearby taco stand. They were staying at a small, but fairly swank looking, inn down on the street by the park, so I was surprised that they too mentioned how it sounded as if a rock band had been practicing the previous evening. I guess it was just LOUD! Nevertheless, all the roaring bass and full-gain and distortion of the electric guitars didn't interrupt my sleep, though it did chance the ambiance of my evenings. The only thing that did keep me awake at times was when the drummer who lived a couple houses down decided to do his unaccompanied drum practices. Those sessions were tiresome and annoying, no way around it.
Not to spend forever whining, but yet another problem with the room other problem with the room was that it didn't have enough curtains. The curtain provided only covered about 1/2 the window. I could shift it left or right to provide privacy in whatever direction I felt needed it. In reality, the only time you could see inside was during the evening when the lights were on, but then no one was around at that time, so it wasn't really a problem, and if it had been, Could have easily just bought an extra curtain for a modest price and put it up, but. . . well, I didn't. So, as far as problems go, the curtain wasn't a big one, but it was a part of my memories there so I figured I might as well mention it so that, if nothing else, I don't forget these details in the future.
Well, as for the good, there was plenty. The price was right at only $125 a month, and, as I mentioned, the fact that I could get up late and not miss class was a real treat, since I am not much of a morning person. If there was a school party in the evening, which there was actually one of, getting to it and back home was very easy. In addition, there were at times other students staying in the room upstairs. In fact, for four of my nearly eight weeks, I had a neighbor upstairs from Chicago, Erica, who I would once in a while have a taco or elote with down on the street below, so that made adventuring a bit more fun, though she walked really really fast. After she left, most of the students who came were only there for a week or less, and since no one would tell me that a new person was moving it, I would sometimes get a bit freaked out when I'd hear someone fumbling around with the front door key at night, thinking that I was the only one living there at the time.
The other great thing about the room was the location, or at least its proximity to very useful or great things. I was only 3 minutes walk to a pet supply store where I could buy Rulla's food and kitty litter, about a ten minute walk to the lavanderia and the bus stop for buses into town. Through the big and rather polluted tunnel, I could walk 15 minutes to the big Soriana store (think of a high class Walmart), where i could get my Diet Dr. Pepper, Fish sauce and anything else I wanted, and then bus back through the same tunnel. And then there were at least 3 bakeries (plus the corner bread stand) within 10 minutes of me. Just a 3 minute plop down the stairs and I was at the mercado (here they sold some mighty fine Michoacan style carnitas), and all around the mercado were plenty of food stands where I could feed myself cheaply any time of day or night (Well, OK, anytime between 7:30AM and 8:45PM). I mentioned most of those stands in another post about street food in GTO.
So my stay in the room was a mixed bag, but a primarily good one. But the stay was always supposed to be temporary until, as I mentioned, I found another place. The problem was that I was not finding another place. Reasonably priced furnished spots were not popping up, and the apartments that had been built behind the school were still not ready, and I was just not yet ready to commit to Guanajuato by renting an unfurnished place and buying furniture. That all said, I was a bit confused as to what to do. And then, as providence would have it, I got a message from a friend I met at the AirBnB I had stayed at in Oaxaca a year earlier, saying that she remembered that I had wanted to check out Oaxaca again for a longer while, and there was an AirBnB owner who was looking to rent out a place for a couple of months at a lower than normal price until the the Day of the Dead season. I took it as a sign, and from that point it was all roads point to Oaxaca (albeit via a couple of weeks in CDMX).
As it turned out, Oaxaca has proven a mixed bag - an interesting city, that is a bit too hot, rents that are a tad (+alpha) overpriced, and food that is highly overrated. But I was able to see some new sights, get a bit of freedom from worry time, and, very nicely, was lucky enough to make a special friend, a fact that helped me decide to stick around a few months longer than I probably normally would have. That all said, the room in Guanajuato turned out to be a very good thing in ways I would not have expected. I look back at it with a strange sense of fondness as it was a fun, weird, and, if this makes sense, almost amorphous time in my life that somehow seemed to have a purpose that was ultimately very different. Hey, but I don't want to sound new age sappy, so I will end this post at this point.
Good night.
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