Embarrassment leads to a new friend.

La Cleaning Lady had to come today to bring back our vacuum cleaner.  I had to learn the words “cortocircuito” and “volviera” (fuse box) the other day – we had a slight explosion when James tried to plug the cleaner in – the wire had come out at the plug and caused a short circuit!  

While she was here, she mentioned that the lady who lives downstairs (I had realized to my discomfiture the other day that we do, in fact, live on the top floor of a building.  It sounds bizarre that it took that long, but the buildings here are very odd and hard to figure out) has requested that we not wear shoes in the house.

Hmm.  That means that she heard James’s screaming fit yesterday.  Yikes!  I blushed just thinking about it in the privacy of my own house.  This is HORRIBLE!  What should we do?

Well, Florence made (yes, again) chocolate chip cookies.  We all went downstairs and figured out which door was the right one to be our downstairs neighbor.    Our hearts in our mouths, we rang the bell.  Would she bite?  Was she really ticked off with those stupid americani?

A little old lady opened the door, a fat little pug snuffling at her ankles.  She was delightful, wasn’t worried about it at all, commented that these houses (yes, they’re made of concrete) are like little shoeboxes, etc.  But she did ask who was “furioso” yesterday (gulp).  I explained that things had been a bit rough, but everything was good now.

 

She mentioned that she’s not well, and spends much of the day resting.  So we offered to walk her dog.  James is delighted at the opportunity to have a little furry creature to walk around town!  James and I had a nice long exploration later on in the evening, and introduced ourselves to a few more people in town.

Our new friend’s name is Vinca, and her dog’s (actually, her daughter’s dog’s) name is Leopoldo.  I have a few pics from our walk together.

James next to a well, with Leopoldo

Love,

Alexandra