Santa (bonus post)

Though its already fast becoming a blur, I will quick tell you about the secret santa, since you 2 wanted to know... it was a high pressure deal of $5 and a trip to an artisan market, which was small... julie said lets meet back in an hour and that didn´t seem nearly so long as it should- and some guy latched himself onto me and tried to get money by taking me to all the shops-- as if! and then some old woman kept petting my back and begging for money... at the end point she said something i think spiteful about Americans and I gave her the stink eye. But I digress. There was a large inflatable Santa in our hotel lobbey. And we were to wrap the gifts in newspaper or whatever we could find, colorful plastic bags from the snack shops... mine was in a newspaper poorly tied with a palm frond but I think it was a drunken effort and definitely from a guy... funny. I think everyone liked their gifts... tshirts, trinkets, belts, and a wallet, a sarang... and coffee. A pretty good conglamoration. I kept telling everyone who mine was and asking for help, not that I was mining for who had me. I probably will offer the gift I got to the masses. It´s a cute souvenir wallet but someone might use it more, or I will- it makes no matter. As Christmas didn´t seem to exist here for me without friends and family it didn´t really make a difference¿ Or rather there was no expectation... but just some good intentioned fun. And it was nice. And my group is really quite full of lovely people.