Downtown

Downtown Charlestown is a happening place! The streets are small and cramped, always filled with cars and people. A lot of the streets are one way streets, rarely marked, so it's always a guessing game when you turn down one. The buildings downtown are old and kind of creepy looking, and only a few of the main roads have names or street signs, so it's not always easy to find where you're trying to go. People park wherever they want, whenever they want, for however long they want, so if you happen to get blocked in... you just get comfortable and wait till you can get out. :) Downtown is GREAT for people watching though... there are crazies everywhere! Here are a couple pictures to give you an idea of what Charlestown looks like:

While I very much enjoy people watching, driving  downtown is not good for my blood pressure, so whenever I have to run errands down there I try to get them done as fast as possible and get out of there. The other day I decided to brave the craziness and try to explore a little, but it didn't last long.

For some reason, the last week or so, we've had more mosquitos than normal... lots of them! A girl in Adam's class told him about a cool mosquito zapper she bought at a chinese store downtown. So when I had to go downtown to use the ATM anyway, I decided I'd try to find this chinese store, get a zapper, solve our mosquito problem, and be my husband's hero... or something. :)

First of all, I love asking for directions around here. I asked a couple different people on the street by the bank if they knew where I could buy a mosquito killer and described what I was looking for. Each one I asked, spouted off some answer in their island jibberish (they swear they're speaking English, and I swear that's not English coming out of their mouth!) and pointed down the street, the whole time looking at me like I'm an idiot for not knowing the answer to my own question. And then the look on their face gets even better when you ask them to repeat what they just said, hoping to catch it the second time. All of them told me to go down the main road to the chinese restaurant and the store was upstairs. Easy enough, so I headed off to find it. I was pretty sure I knew exactly where they were talking about because I'd seen that chinese restaurant several times.

After I found a parking spot on one of the side roads, I crossed the street to the chinese restaurant and very confidently walked inside expecting to find exactly what I was looking for. Instead, the eight very large island men sitting in the restaurant and the tiny chinese man behind the counter all turned and stared at me at the same time, and no one said anything. Maybe I should have been nervous, but it's a normal happening around here, and it just makes me feel like I am right back at home in Mexico... I grew up being stared at. :) The next 30 seconds were just very awkward... it was obvious there was no store in or above that restaurant anywhere, so now what? Should I just buy some chinese food and keep pretending like I knew exactly what I was doing? No, it smelled scary, and I didn't really want to hang out longer than I needed to. So I just asked them all if anyone knew where I could buy a mosquito killer, and I got nine different answers and didn't understand one of them. I smiled and thanked them all and turned around walked out, crossed the street back to my car, gave up, and laughed at myself the whole way home.

I'm still determined to explore more of downtown Charlestown, find the chinese store, and the mosquito zapper, and lots of other treasures I'm sure... another day. :)