Tour-ation through the city-ation!

As I watched the crocodiles munching the huge pieces of raw meat chucked at them by the restaurant owners, it dawned on me that this was a once in a lifetime experience.  A kid stood there with us, offering various anecdotes about the crocodiles.  "That's nice," I thought.  "He's really friendly."  He continued to stand there with us...until my friend gave him money, and he scampered off.  Not so friendly, I guess.  Just enterprising.   

Nothing says happy Mother's Day like a personalized video tour, Lonely Planet style.  Thus, that's how I spent my Saturday evening.  Besides, how else was I supposed to help my mom celebrate her birthday birthday and Mother's Day?  Some of my awesome friends from church filmed it, and people said random things in Spanish, English, and Chinese.  I'm not at all involved in the editing process, which admittedly, scares me just a little.  ;)  Como sea, I suppose...  Pase lo que pase.  Story of my life.  In any case, I'm confident that it'll be pretty fly, and it will probably be the most unique present my mom receives for a couple of years. 

Church friends...

I just revealed my excessive whiteness as I tried to use the slang term "fly", in case you didn't notice. :P

We went to the Play Place in McDonald's as part of the tour.  Naturally, I kicked off my shoes and proceeded to climb inside the jungle gym.  Advantage of being a foreigner = whenever I do something weird, it's obviously because I'm not from here and I don't know any better.  At least, that's what I told myself as all the parents watched the 24-year-old lunatic white girl climb the tubes with their 6 and 7-year-olds.  

As we passed through the marketplace, I loudly explained the various products and produce to the camera in English.  Some guy yelled out something random in English with a heavy accent, which I completely ignored.  People were turning and staring at us the whole time, and I felt like I might as well have been wearing a burka.  I'm pretty sure that people would have stared just as much.

Later on, we went by the park along the river.  My crazy friend saw some Greek guys and decided to go talk to them.  A few minutes later, I glanced over and caught a snippet of their conversation.  My Spanish-speaking friend was gesturing broadly and yelling, "Vacation, vacation!" with a heavy accent as the poor Greek guys tried to respond in English.  When I wandered over and spoke to them in perfect English, the look of relief on their faces was priceless.  Thus, I translated from English to Spanish and from Spanish to English for 2 Greek sailors and my Mexican friend.  If that's not cross-cultural, then I don't know what is.

I enjoyed being a tourist yesterday while accompanied by friends, but today, the stares as I wandered downtown looking for jeans irked me.  Being a tourist with friends is like being an honored guest; being a tourist by yourself is just lonely.  Unwanted attention is a hazard of being a foreigner, I suppose, but I don't much like it.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm carrying around a big sign that says, "WHITE. SPEAKS ENGLISH."  Some random kid came up to me this week on the street and asked, "Das clases de ingles, verdad?"  ("You teach English classes, right?")  How on earth did he know?!  

Overall, I feel comfortable here.  Most of the time, I feel like this is where I belong.  Yet there are still those times when I could really use an invisibility cloak...