Traveling Oddities and Fun

This will be an ongoing post.  I hope it amuses you as much as it does me. 

31May23

• My Spanish/Castilian is horribly bad.  But funny.  Today I told a pharmacist I needed something to deal with the "bloody and dried monkeys in my nose."  I meant boogers. 
  
  Mono = Monkey; Moco = Booger. 
  
  Yes, I did know both words a priori...honestly! 
  
  Thankfully, the monkeys have been dealt with.  And the nose specific monkeycide salve with aloe works.  Those were some nasty and crusty monkeys.  I'm glad to be rid of them.
  
  I realized this 12 hours after the fact.  No wonder they looked confused.
  
  [Added 01Jun23.  Today at breakfast I tried to recount the episode to the manager as we ate breakfast. 
  
  I literally said "Yesterday, I 'am telling' the (using the wrong gendered article) pharmacist (horribly mispronounced) ..." 
  
  Tenses are a gaping hole...everything is in the present.  Even that gets bungled frequently.]
  
  
• Re the monkeys that fly from my butt, please read: https://www.vagabondjim.com/2023/05/my-policy-on-errors-omissions-and.html
  
  
• I also meant to tell the cabbie I fought with my ex-wife before our divorce but not after.  I think he assumed I beat her from his reaction.  Gotta find better words for "fighting" than "boxing."  I have never struck a woman.  Or a man for that matter.
  
  
• Traveling in a place where the official currency is the US Dollar is strange:
• I keep trying to figure out the exchange rates in my head.  Dollars to dollars is one to one!
• The value of some things is really absurd:
• $6.50 for 360ml of Listerine seems high
• $5.00 for a 30 minute cab ride seems amazing
• $0.35 for a bus ride is amazing (I believe public goods should be priced at their marginal cost, I bet this is close.)
• <$5.00 for a filling meal is wonderful.  So is $3.50 for a magnificent crepe (banana, strawberries, blackberry sauce, and 'crema'), or a really good roast pork sandwich (dinner.)