Happy birthday to me! (If your computer is set up properly (like mine) you should now be hearing a friend of mine sing happy birthday to me. In Hebrew.)

Another visit to Espresso Americano for my morning fix. And to see if the scenery is still as good as it was yesterday. Nope. Ned's there already. Eating a pastry of some sort - something I had intended to on buying on my way over. We discuss the state of the world in general and coffee in particular. We reach no conclusions. It bothers me that the lady in charge here insists on charging me L7 for a double espresso while everyone else charges L5.5. But then that sort of thing happens back in Houston at the Coffee Oasis. I always order the same thing and have been charged a wide variety of prices. In neither case do I have any idea regarding the correct price. I'm sure cheaper is probably correct.

I mention JTC to Ned. He wants an introduction. Off we go to the doughnut place. Sometimes referred to as "la officina". No JTC. While we're kinda hanging out in front of the place we notice a group of young ladies in the middle of the pedestrian mall. It seems to be an opinion poll of some sort. They kinda remind me of the ladies in our enclosed malls with their clipboards - except that these are much younger and much more attractive.

Off we go to the "Patio".

Along the way we pass by a school with an outdoor basketball court. It seems that everyone had seen American TV. No one would/could take a simple lay-up. Everyone wanted to double or triple fake while in the air and then finger-roll it in behind the back. There were a couple of girls playing along with the guys. The girls were wearing dresses and one of them didn't seem to have her heart in it but the other one was as competitive as the guys. We waited for a while to see if anyone would ever score. We finally moved on - as far as we know the score was 0-0.

We continue past the Texaco. The promotion is either on hold or over. There're no sweeties there right now. Ned asks me if I'm lost. I tell him "No - right up this hill is the road where we turn left. (Actually he's a little late - I had been lost earlier but had found myself!)

"El Patio": This is the place in Tegus where I first encountered the "Fondue type things".

El Patio:" The best carne asada in Honduras." And damn fine fonditos as well!

Now it's on their menu and it's called a "fondito". In the top center of the menu there are a lot of words dealing with "Virus" and "bacteria". I assume that they're saying stuff like "Don't worry about this stuff here - we wash our hands."

I order a bean fondito, a cheese and chorizo fondito, a something else platter and a beer. Ned gets a cheese/shrimp fondito and a shish-ka-bob with a Coke. The fondito things with cheese are a real adventure to eat. We try every technique we can to break the strings of cheese. No luck with anything except using two hands to break it manually. I became suspicious that they only serve this stuff to gringos (in order to amuse themselves by watching us eat) or that there's some secret technique to eating this stuff (like boiled crawfish). I can't believe that they actually eat this stuff themselves (Even though it is delicious - there's got to be a secret here) Perhaps it's like Texas - Yankees come down here and don't any better than to order Lone Star beer. They really think people drink the stuff!

Anyway, I start looking around the place to see what the real Hondurans are eating. Well, there's several citizen-looking people eating the cheese-fondito stuff. I try to watch out of the corner of my eyes to see what secret technique they're using. Perhaps they ask for scissors to cut the stuff. Well - there isn't a secret. Or perhaps they saw me watching and didn't want to divulge it. Anyway, they seem to be having the same problems as we do. It's a mess.

Back to the shopping center where Book Village is located. My faith is restored: it's 2:04 PM and they're closed. The sign on the door says it's open - actually, it's something in Spanish that means "open" - but it's closed. There's 4 people waiting outside.

I explain to Ned about the history of Book Village and my experience with it and its office hours. We move on downstairs to Espresso Americano. He gets a cappuccino and I go around the corner for a double dip ice cream cone. We sit under a pavilion on the sidewalk and watch the traffic pass by. Life is rough in these third world countries.

Now I'm thirsty. There's a sign inside the ice-cream place next to a water fountain. It says something. I'm sure that they wouldn't have a sign next to the water fountain if the water wasn't OK to drink. (How about that logic?) I take a couple of swallows. The water's too warm. If I'm going to get sick then I'd prefer to get sick on cold water. Unfortunately, it's too late.

We decide to stop by Shakespeare Books. I'm sure I can find it again since I was there yesterday and it's on the road back to the hotel.

Hey, what's this? The sweeties are back at the Texaco. The promotional activity is back

The free softdrink stand really attracted a lot of attention.

in full swing (so to speak). The soft drink that they're passing out is kinda like Fresca. I think it's based on grapefruit. Everyone is friendly and sociable but neither of them (or us) speaks enough English/Spanish to get into trouble. Maybe next time. Maybe tomorrow?

On across the bridge and back toward Hotel Granada. The Shakespeare Book place is supposed to be about 80 meters west of Hotel Granada. Well, which hotel? There's actually two in this area. The Hotel Grenada and the hotel Grenada Annex. There are three streets that it might be on. I decide to head south - if I can find the place where I ate yesterday I can backtrack from there. Ahhhh - here it is.

We go in. The door is opened by (I assume) the owners daughter. She's about 3 or 4 and seems to speak little English. She signals that her father is sleeping upstairs and runs off to wake him. Since she's already run off upstairs we can't make a graceful exit. We hang around waiting for him to get up. We speculate on the chances for success.

John, (the owner) comes down. He said he had a choice of going into Comayeguela and ordering chairs and tables for the bar or taking a nap. He took a nap.

We talk about Latin America for a while - they've both been to many of the countries. There's much discussion about what has happened to Costa Rico in general and why.

Like everything else, different people have different about different countries. I start telling about the guy I met the other day who really hates Honduras. "Oh yeah" says John, "You mean John the Cambodian. He's crazy. Stay away from him." I start laughing. Ned also appreciated the speed with which John had made the connection.

Apparently John intends on starting some sort of tourist service and language school in addition to his bar, restaurant and bookstore. He already runs kind of a tour/bus service to the rain forests outside of Tegus. He offered me a job teaching English and tending bar. After his long and eloquent description of the women here in Honduras I am certainly tempted. For the moment I'll just file it away under "Options".

We head back to the hotel through the pedestrian mall. The girls are still out there taking a survey of some sort. Ned walks over to try his Spanish and to find out what they're up to. It appears that he needs help. I guess I'd better rush over and rescue my lifelong buddy.

As it turns out, they work for some bank/credit card company. They're taking applications for a Honduran Visa Card. Ned decides to apply. He needs a reference. I'm there. What are friends for? They need my home phone number. I give them the first one that comes to mind. I hope Greg (a friend of mine in Houston) doesn't mind.

Ned decided he wants to meet JTC so off we go looking for him. He's not in "la officina". He's not in the parque centeral. Tiger isn't around either. We get a couple of soft drinks at the Wendy's on the square.

For some reason we decide to see if we can find the Manuel Bonilla theater. This is the main arts theater in town. Ballet, symphony, opera etc. There's supposed to be a piano recital there Feb. 26th. We head off past the centeral post office. It's rumored to be down this way. Yep - here it is. It's kind of a medium-sized more-or-less square building. Made of some kind of pinkish stone. It's surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Needs a little sprucing up but I could envision a very grand interior. (I can also envision a pretty poor interior.)

We wander around along the river. The National Gymnasium is down here. Also a garbage dump. We follow a line of cars down what looks like a dead end street. We walk along the river. It's really a pretty river but I don't think I'd like to go swimming. There's a few shacks on the other side and on up the hill on the other side.

We follow the cars around a corner and away from the river. It's a long line. There's not a horn blowing. It's strange - almost unnatural. What's this? There's another one. And another one. There are "No Horn Blowing" signs all over the place. I'm certain these weren't here last time. I wonder if this is an indication of a new enlightened attitude toward noise pollution. Well, how about that, we've been walking around a hospital.

Some little girl about 2 years old comes running over. She wants my soft drink. It's empty except for the ice so, without thinking, I give it to her. I hope she doesn't get my sore throat. That would be a little ironic. The natives getting ill from germs imported by visitors from afar. Sounds like a story from Americas past.

Back to the hotel to drop off our cameras. Then to Espresso Americano for more espresso. They say that they're out of cappuccino. Ned has to drink espresso along with me. It's getting a little dark now. We stand around in the parque drinking. At this time of the day he people in the park are a cross-section. Business people, students, a few beggars. The vendors start to arrive and set up their stands.

There seems to be a few more beggars than during the day. They seem to be on about the same schedule as the vendors. Perhaps they belong to the same union. Anyway, they're pretty well behaved.

Suddenly from out of the west. There's this strange creature close-by. Wearing long dangly earrings, a strange haircut of the unkempt variety, baggy cut-offs and of indeterminate sex. Walks over to Ned, looks at his shoes and asks if Ned wants to trade shoes. Well, we're not sure what he/she said. After being assured that a shoe exchange was out of question this particular creature sort of fades/slithers away. Talk about a walk on the wild side.

Shortly after the "shoes" episode a young kid walks over. He's probably around 7 or 8 years old. As best we could tell, he wanted our empty coffee cups. (We didn't comply) Then he wanted a dollar. For some reason he began to arouse my interest. The beggars are usually very young (with or without mother), the very old, or the infirm. Kids this age are usually selling things - not begging. Next he took out a clear plastic bag with a white liquid inside. He places it over his nose and mouth and starts to inhale and exhale into the bag.

I'm concerned from several standpoints. Now we certainly can't give him any money since we know what he'll probably do with it. What's going to happen to the kid - from what I've read, sniffing glue causes irreversible brain damage. What's he going to do when he gets finished with the glue? Do glue sniffers get violent?

The kid carefully his bag and puts it back in his pocket. Now he starts to ask for money in a much more animated fashion. Waving his hands up and down in front of his face like a combination of the ASL (American Sign Language) for "fire" and "Rain". He finally moves off into the darkness.

Ned and I decide that if it's getting this weird now it may be a good idea for us to vacate and go back to the hotel. He wants to return to the casino at the Honduran Maya. I'm not interested. He tries to tempt me by telling me that the big spender from our first visit was there last night. Still betting like .... I'm still not interested but tell Ned to try to find out what the guy does for a living. Maybe he needs help. I'm sure I could learn. Given that the guy has so much more money than brains I figure he's a lawyer, doctor, officer, or government contractor.

Ned starts looking for a cab and I return to our hotel.