Laundry Adventure

I woke up very slowly this morning, pulling out of my dream and entering the real world simultaneously and at a glacial pace. When I was most of the way out of the dream I realized I was arguing with someone in Spanish. I don’t know what the argument was about or who it was with or even if what I was saying made any sense, but it was Spanish. I dreamed in Spanish!

Around 4 yesterday I decided it was time to get my laundry done. Here, there are Laundromats but the workers operate the machines and for a little extra cash they will do it all and fold your clothes afterward. I expected to just drop off my clothes and pick them up the next day. So, after a packed up all my dirty clothes into one of my suitcases and asked my host brother (Mani) where the Laundromat was, I was off to get my clothes cleaned. When I got there the woman told me there weren’t any machines available (which I thought was a weird thing to say), told me to wait, and went back to busily folding laundry and transferring clothes from one machine to the other. So I sat there for like ten minutes listening to a skinny guy and a Japanese student around my age converse in rapid Spanish outside the Laundromat and being thoroughly ignored by the woman. Finally I got up and asked her if she was going to be able to do my laundry today and she got an amused smile on her face and told me to come back at six.

At 6:20 Duke ran out of the gate in front of me and down the sidewalk. It took me a while to realize he was walking me to the Laundromat because he kept racing ahead of me and stopping to pee on things. When I got to the Laundromat the woman was still there folding clothes and she told me “Cinco minutos más, hija” so I went and sat down. I sat there for a good 20 minutes with Duke by my side, getting more and more annoyed because I was supposed to see Avatar at 7, and still being completely ignored. I finally got up and asked her if she was going to have time to do my laundry today or if I should come back tomorrow. At first she told me to come back tomorrow, but then she asked me which service I wanted and seemed surprised when I said I wanted the full service. What else would I want?? She gave me a slip of paper and told me to come back at 9 for my laundry but it was already 6:50 and I needed to get to Avatar so I didn’t bother to tell her that I wasn’t going to be able to make it.

Alice, Jonny, and I rushed to the theater but got there about five minutes into the movie. The theater was packed so the only three seats together were in the first four rows of the theater and I was not going to sit there. We split up and I sat in the back and thoroughly enjoyed it for a second time. After the movie Alice said she had to move to the back too because she felt like she was going to throw up in the front. Jonny stayed in the front and went the whole movie without his 3D glasses on, what a waste. It was cool to talk to Alice about the movie after wards because she’s an anthropology grad student at the University of North Carolina. Apparently, the movie has created quite a stir in the anthropology community. Look up Human Terrain Systems (HTS) and you’ll see some similarities.

I’ve got another day of nothing to do. Maybe there will be a second installment of my Laundry Adventures when I go to get my clothes later today. I don’t even know if they will be open since it’s Sunday. Here’s hoping I do something today!