Krispy Kreme goodness

The last Krispy Kreme donut I had was last summer when my wife carried one home in her suitcase in a small metal box. MMmmm!Krispy Kreme in the Mexico City airport

I have not sworn off of them. The reason I have not had one is that there just aren’t any Krispy Kreme (or Dunkin’ Donuts*) in these parts.

On my way through the Mexico City airport last week I learned that there was now a KK there. But you had to leave the secure area and go back down into the main entrance. I decided to wait until I was on my way back home to venture down there. I had a longer layover and it was better timing for taking some home to the family.

Having spent way too many hours in the airport, I knew right where the KK should be. I was so giddy when I saw it yesterday morning that I had to pause and snap the photo. I bought a couple puff balls of bliss and a cup of coffee. Before I left the airport I was carrying 2 dozen donuts in a plastic bag.

What was left over after breakfast this morning got shared with some friends over coffee. Just three more left and they will be gone tomorrow morning. MMmmm!

*(I do not, in any way, want to compare KK and DD in quality of product. I only mention this to point out that there are no major US donut chains here in Merida.)

4000 and climbing

Two weeks ago I posted about hitting the 3000 mark for the number of downloads of Missionary Talks. Today we crossed 4000!

This has been helped by at least 2 things. The mission team I was with last week was made up of 20+ college age young people. They got home on Monday and started downloading the show I think. Then I had recorded a One Minute How To several weeks ago. I suspect that George’s podcast is quite popular. My episode went out on Monday as well. I have not heard it yet. I hope to get to it early next week.

Those two events caused me to average more than 100 downloads a day for the last 6 days. Normally I will see about 30 a day. This is great. I hope to keep these new listeners. That will require me getting on the ball and getting another show out. I just did not have the time that I had hoped I would to edit the recordings I have made.

I should be back on track in a few days.

Funny language faux pas

I was talking with a group of non-native Spanish speakers and we were sharing stories of embarrassing language mistakes.

One fellow was with a friend while doing construction work on their church building. He meant to say that they needed some tree branches (ramas) to help them prop up something. What he said instead was “Necesitamos unas rameras para ayudarnos” (We need some prostitutes to help us).

Another was a story shared about a friend of mine who was not there to defend himself, but I am sure the story is pretty accurate based on other things he has said.

The water pump (bomba) did not work at the house he was renting. He went to the land lady’s house to tell her the bomba did not work. But he could not remember the word. He knew it sounded like an English word so he told her “Su pompa no funcciona.” “Pompa” is the word for the sitting down part of the body. The land lady just smiled and patted herself on the rear end and said, “No se funcciona muy bien” (No, it works just fine).

Running in Tampico

I have run in the city of Tampico before. This week I remembered something that I thought was humorous before, and it still is.

Each taxi that comes by they have to honk their horn to see if I want a ride. I guess I could understand that if I were standing on the street or walking. But, running?

One of the intersections I ran through this morning on my 3 mile run was interesting. The sewers were full from the heavy rains the night before. There were geysers coming out of the man-hole covers. During the night last night there was one man-hole cover right outside of my window that kept getting pushed up by the water and then falling back down and making that neat clanging and rolling around sound. At least, it is a neat sound in the middle of the day when you are not trying to sleep.

One other interesting thing about here is that the streets are concrete and not asphalt. That is not really fun to run on.

My luggage came home

Vacationing in Guadalajara. That is where the luggage was hiding out. I did not ask it to see if it went to check out the folkloric dancing or to see the cathedral. Guadalajara toysWherever it went, and why I will probably never know, but it decided to come join me in Tampico today. And, best of all, it was sober. That is always a plus when you are trying to keep your clothes on. You don’t want them to be drunk.

I am having some good meetings and accomplishing a lot here in Tampico. The majority of the group will leave Thursday morning, but my plane does not go back to Merida until Friday. I actually get a long layover in Mexico City. I know that is not what most people would want, but I am looking forward to going out and looking for shoes. I am hoping to find a shoe store near the airport. I should have about 3 hours to run around looking for shoes.