Next day I think

Second day in Oaxaca and Steve and Beth, Martha's friends, a geologist and librarian and I go to the mountains outside of Oaxaca for breakfast. A beautiful drive to 9000 feet above sea level. It is a bit cooler but not as cool as it usually is. In fact it is warm. I brought my sweater but never thought of wearing it. I had huevos a la Mexicana and afterwards we drove back to the city. Martha and went downtown and shopped and shopped around the zocalo. We ended up at the Bar Jardin and met Fany, Martha's neighbor who is in law school. The zocalo was crowded with people and vendors and musicians. Four muscians were playing Andean style music two tables over and we could hardly hear ourselves talk. I had a couple of beers and a mezcal and soon became tired. We go home. Crash. Sleep. Deep sleep and in the morning I wake up and listen to the sounds of burro's braying, roosters crowing and dogs barking. The air is clear and blue and the light is to die for.

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December 26

The day started perfectly. Up at 6 am. I thought I had set the clock to 5:30 but as luck would have it that day I got an extra 30 minutes sleep.
I made cooffe, cleaned out the soon to be rotten vegetable matter from my fridge and placed it in Renfroe Elementary school's trash can. For all the juvenile noise that comes from that place it has its perks. Jon picked me up minutes before he was scheduled to come which is a minor miracle in itself and the day could be called perfect on that basis alone.
At the airport my gate was changed from E (the furthest) to T (the closest). "T" was a mere few steps from the security area and my gate was the nearest. Unbelievable, no? Next item the plane boards exactly on time and I have an aisle seat. Now something happened that has never happened on a flight to Mexico. No one is assigned to sit next to me! I have room galore. It is seating manna from airline heaven.
The only "hitch" in the day -- our wings are frosted and we have to go to de-icing. This delays us 45 minutes but it was fun watching the de-icing. (see the pic)
We take off, land in Mexico City. My flight to Oaxaca was on Mexican airline and I had to take the air bus to the old terminal. I was told to wait in gate B which was just a large holding area. You sit there and wait for them to announce your actual gate. It just didn't seem right but it worked out. I take off on time on a small jet and land just 10 minutes late in Oaxaca. Martha is there wearing silver sparkle glasses and it was great to see her. More later.

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