Oakland

Oakland’s the kind of town where a brotha will walk into a laundromat and dangle a gold chain and ask if you want it; where a Vietnamese lad will ask for quarters for his laundry but then use it to play the fighting arcade game while you're still there. And after you tell him no, since you remember how he duped you out of a dollar in quarters months ago, he will ask if the clothes and opened bag of fiery Doritos on the counter beside you is yours. When you say it isn’t, he will take the Doritos and walk out of the laundromat which happens to be your second office, where you like to revise your memoir on your laptop.

What I Miss About Arequipa

-the ridiculously affordable and yummy-rifically-filling menu del dia
-my family
-riding in a packed combi
-seeing arequipenas in short dresses and heels
-anticuchos, salchipapas, estofado, and bistec montado
-Gloria's drinkable yogurt
-hearing my family's pronunciation of yogurt (which sounds more like "joogoort")
-listening to estacion 91.7 which plays old school Spanish ballads all day long
-revising my memoir while my Uncle Lupo played old school ballads on the radio or from cassette mixes
-seeing arequipenas in short dresses and heels
-the TGI Fridays at Real Plaza
-hearing the garbage trucks play classical music
-going out to lunch with my Uncle Lupo
-speaking, hearing, and reading every day
-my family