Photo Roundup -- March 5, 2013

More odd and sundry photos for your enjoyment:

I was telling someone what it costs me to have my dirty laundry picked up, taken to the shop, washed, dried, folded, and delivered back to me on the same day.  She agreed it was something fun to put in a post.  Here's the laundry I just got yesterday.  There was a set of sheets, a full-sized blanket, bath towels, and a couple of small piles of clothes.  Total cost--$7.30.  I have to tell you, that dose not make me unhappy in the least!  I figure I would have paid between $5 and $10 for the machines in my apartment building back in Minneapolis just to wash and dry them, not to mention the soap.  Then there's just the general luxury of having someone else do it.  What a treat.

I love the way people here--adults as well as children--walk around holding hands or whatever.  It's sweet.

We see lots of tour buses here.  It's always fun to watch them turn from one very narrow street to another, sometimes even narrower street.  This one made it past the building without having to back up to keep from hitting it, but just barely.

This one has a very funny story behind it.  You may have seen this fellow in one of the pictures in the post about the band from Morochos coming to play down here.  Well, this guy was there and asked me to take his picture--I did.  Then he wanted one with a friend--no problem.  Then there was a third friend and we did one more group shot.  Finally, he suggested a friend of mine take a picture of the two of us together.  We got next to one another and he leaned in planted his lips on my cheek and stayed posed just like that until my friend took not one but two pictures.  That's the straightforward part.  Here's the funny part--right after we had taken the photo, he asked for $1.  Uh, no.  I think he thought that he was doing me a favor by posing for the pictures, even though he was the one who asked for them.  I laughed and told him no and that was pretty much the end of it.  I couldn't help it--all I could think about was a scene from Terminator where the kid takes a picture of Linda whoever and asks for $5 for it.  It goes back to that culture thing.

Whenever I go past a house with a door like this or something similar, it always makes me wonder what's behind it.  I wonder what it costs to rent something like this when all I pay for my little house is $170 a month.

These little girls thought it would be fun to have their pictures taken after they saw me photographing so many other people and things.  As soon as I put it to my eye, they got all somber on me.  They're so cute, though, I had to include them.