Mumble Vans...

I Skyped with more friends today which was so wonderful :) Since I'm on a small vacation, I lined up a whole bunch of Skype dates with people back-to-back. It's been so good hearing stories from back home and catching up with people. Isn't technology wonderful? :)

There are these vans, that I have nicknamed "mumble vans," that roll up and down the street every day. There's a speaker on top of the van, and the driver speaks into a microphone, and the sound projects all the way down the street. These "mumble vans" sell an assortment of things, from food to clothing to linens. They got their nickname because I can hear them coming from a mile away. It's faint at first, gets louder as he passes by, and then fades away again as he drives down the road. It sounds like a man just mumbling into a microphone as he is listing off everything he's selling. I've never actually seen anyone purchase anything from these people. They roll up and down my neighborhood, and Tommy told me he's seen some in his neighborhood, too. Very interesting...

I used up the last of my milk today, so I just ran to the market on the corner to buy more. I didn't feel like going this late at night, but the market is open until around midnight, but they don't open again until about 10am. (I'll need milk for my cereal in the morning, so I convinced myself to go.) At markets and grocery stores here, you aren't offered any bags at the checkout counter. On rare occasions, I've seen people ask for bags, but the majority of people bring their own reusable bags to the store. I just recently purchased a big pink Hello Kitty bag with a shoulder strap and a zipper to keep all my groceries from falling out. It has definitely come in handy for my larger shopping trips. Well, I went to the market for milk, went through the checkout line, and paid, and asked the lady for a bag. I had my purse with me, and was going to carry the milk in there, but wanted a plastic bag to wrap around the containers so they wouldn't spill or get messy. The lady was all out of bags, so I had to walk home with two containers of milk. Just as I was leaving the market, I lost my grip on one of the milks and I dropped it, right outside the store. It busted open and milk went everywhere. The man who was working at the fruit stand right outside immediately ran into the store, grabbed another milk, and just handed it to me. I kept apologizing over and over, but he just sent me on my way, without asking me to pay for the milk, and just cleaned up my mess. I don't know if that normally happens if you drop something at a store here, or if it was just because I'm a foreigner. Either way, I really appreciated it. They obviously know that mistakes can happen, and it was just nice to be taken care of so well at a store.