Thanks to Gilles, a Breton artisan selling leather products in San Miguel de Allende (SMA) whom I met at the SMA bus station, I learned I could take a public bus to the center of Guanajuato City instead of a taxi. When I got off the bus at Guanajuato, I asked a young woman who… Read More
A French Speaking Respite in Guanajuato City
I was suffering from a food allergy my second and last day in Guanajuato when I chose a Japanese deli as my destination to get miso soup and white rice for lunch. Shortly after arriving, a woman arrived who looked like a foreigner. I forget whether she asked me a question about the menu or… Read More
Jacequeline at San Miguel’s Biblioteca Publica
I asked an American looking woman in the courtyard of the Biblioteca Pública of San Miguel de Allende if free Wifi were available there. She responded, “Yes,” and I detected an accent so I asked her where she was from. She told me she was from Quebec on the border of Ontario. In fact, she… Read More
Woman Uber Driver in San Miguel de Allende
Mark and I arrived in San Miguel de Allende (SMA), Mexico on January 21, 2020 to visit his sister, Beth and to have a brief respite from Chicago’s winter. Beth lives in a beautiful two-story home in an isolated construction zone on a hill in a neighborhood or “colonia” called San Miguel Tres Cruces with… Read More
Retirement Dreams
I had just had cataract surgery and was waiting in the reception area for my husband, Mark, to pick me up. Even with a big patch on my left eye, I recognized a man from one of my aqua aerobics classes and said hello. I doubt that we had ever spoken to each other in… Read More
Discussing Racism at a WVU Art Gallery Talk
Three of us went to a University of West Virginia art gallery in Morgantown for a gallery talk by an English professor. The exhibit was of William Kentridge’s linocuts on Britannica World Language Dictionary pages. He is a South African artist I had never heard of and the focus was on two large paintings of… Read More
Serendipity in the Steam Room
There were only two of us women in the steam room at the Evanston Athletic Center. The other woman mentioned that she had just returned from a trip to California and I sensed she wanted to talk about it. I asked her if she had previously been to California. She said that 26 years ago… Read More
On Boston’s Freedom Trail with Michal from Israel
I appeared to be one of two individuals who joined the Free Walking Tour of the Freedom Trail in Boston on a cold rainy day in April 2019. It felt natural that the other “single,” a woman named Michal from Israel, and I would begin talking to one another. She had a PhD in computer… Read More
Dariusz, Our Driver
After our seven-week Asian trip, Mark and I arrived at the O’Hare International Terminal in Chicago on January 30, 2019—the day of the polar vortex of -20 degrees Farenheit and -40 wind chill. Before calling Uber for a ride home, I put on every piece of clothing in my 40 liter Osprey backpack with socks… Read More
In Bangkok—Who Knew There Was a Teach for China?
Mark and I were staying at my old friend Peter’s condo in Bangkok, Thailand and we were delighted to meet his partner, Wendy, for the first time. Wendy is a Teach for China alumna and so I learned that Teach for China was founded in 2008 by Andrea Pasinetti, an Italian American and Princeton dropout… Read More