We have been back in Oaxaca for a week, and have immediately fallen back in love with the energy, the architecture, the mountains, and the people in the city. It feels like coming back home, even though we lived here for less than three months. That said, we have noticed some changes in our time away. Granted, we are here during a different time of year and living in a different neighborhood, but there are still some differences:
* There seem to be many fewer "punchbuggies" on the road than I remember from before. This may just be coincidence, but given that our son exclaims every time he sees one, I feel like it is a pretty good statistical sample.
* Conversely, there seem to be many more bicycles than we remember. There are bike lanes and bike racks in places there were not before, and the other night there was a major bicycle parade through town. There is even a "Coffee and Bicycles" shop that we saw.
* There appear to be at least two different Indian restaurants in town. Now, I can't imagine wasting one of our precious meals on Indian food during a two week vacation when I could be eating at Itanoni or stuffing more tamales into my face, but if we were living here for months again (and I hope we do) then I can certainly imagine finding some Tikka Masala an appealing break from quesadillas, and at the very least I would be curious what the Oaxacan translation of Indian food would be like. (On a similar note, there are literally a half dozen chinese restaurants within a few blocks of our apartment. Unlike the Indian restaurants, they may have been here before, but we have fount it striking how many there are so close to each other)
* I never thought Oaxaca was lacking in hip coffeeshops before -- in fact, one of the blog posts I never got around to writing in 2013 was going to be entitled "A mathematicians guide to the best coffeeshops in which to work in Oaxaca" -- but there appear to be many more now. (See the aforementioned "Coffee and Bicycles" shop) I noticed at least three new ones in our old neighborhood near Conzatti park. I haven't had much use to try any, but they are there.
* In the three months we lived here before, we saw rain on exactly two days, and one of those was when we went up into the Sierra Norte rainforests. This trip it has rained pretty much every day, often very hard although only for an hour or so each day. Granted, this difference was utterly predictable as we are here in the rainy season instead of the dry season, but it has made things very different. That said, the temperatures have been close to perfect and it has been amazing weather for 23 hours a day.
Then there are all the ways the city is different due to the Guelaguetza events, but that will be for another post...
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