el crispito

Having that large an amount of money in-hand really scared us. We went to the landlord's house, which is right down the street from us, with our gringo friend, Larry. He really helped out by translating and being a respectable acquaintance that lives in the neighborhood. As if it were not enough that we got the apartment, the landlord also had a copy of a past electric bill, so we don't have to wait two months to get one. Without it, we cannot open a bank account, get cable, get Internet access and many other things one needs to truly settle in down here. It's the golden ticket that legitimizes your Mexican life.

After we got the keys we stopped by the place, and Joseph, el otro gringo de la pareja, came over to measure the dimensions of the place. They then took us to a couple of stores to check out ranges, refrigerators and mattresses. After getting a good idea of what is available and how much it will cost us, we returned to their place, where they were kind enough to let us do our laundry, and after looking at some of Larry's older paintings over cocktails, we had a wonderful home-cooked meal. We rounded out the evening by walking to a nearby open-air restaurant for desert and coffee before heading back to our hotel in el centro historico for the night.

It was such a lovely day, and it was so wonderful not only to secure our place, but also then to get to celebrate with good friends. It was the kind of day we hoped we'd have, back when we were hearing on television how our being married will destroy the family but the war in Iraq will bring peace and security. It was so nice to sit on the patio and drink wine with our neighbors, all of us being welcome citizens in our new land. It was great for all of us to be home.