Blending in
After taking a "nap" that lasted nearly 5 hours, I decided to take a stroll through the area surrounding my hostel and see if I could get something to eat. Since it was dark and I was alone I thought that trying to blend in might be wise so I ditched the camera, water-bottle, map and umbrella. I think I managed to pull it off quite well because a couple of locals actually asked me for directions! My dark skin gives me a very working-class look here and without the obvious trappings of a tourist to give me away, nobody pays me a second glance. Of course, the charade falls apart the moment I open my mouth because, although nearly everybody here does speak English, they speak it differently than I do. In fact, it seems as though there are actually three or four different dialects of English spoken within the same city, depending on the ethnicity of the speaker. Still, it beats trying to grapple with Spanish.
You picked a great week to leave San Francisco, if ever there was one. It's been raining a lot over here and will be even more for the next several days.
heather
Make sure you partake in street food for us. so you can bring back some lessons for the street food vendors here. :)
people I saw on their way to work in offices wear dress shoes. People
working at curbside restaurants tend to wear sandals though. Not a lot
of people here wear shorts and almost nobody wears hats.
Yeah, I heard about the coming week of rain in SF as I was leaving.
Definitely good timing for me there!
The Bolivian airport security at LPB thought I was Brazilian - a Brazilian spy or smuggler, in fact - but it's only in Malaysia that I get mistaken for a local constantly.
I thought that I'd be able to pass as a local in Turkey but nobody was fooled for a second.
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