Death by Coca Cola

I knew my addiction to soda was getting a bit out of hand; what I did not consider, however, was the potential for soda to lead to an untimely demise.

Laura and I started our day with leisurely showers, much needed after a long transcontinental flight.  The schedule read: lunch on your own, meet back at the hotel at 1:00 for walking tour of the city.  Once we left the hotel, we walked a few blocks, found a suitable cafe and ordered lunch.  Let me just say that the information I received about everyone understanding and speaking English - not entirely correct.  So, we used a combination of broken Spanish, pointing and English and ended up with exactly what we ordered.  I checked my phone for the time and it read 1:35.  Eek! Late for the tour.  Laura checked her phone: 12:35.  I thought it strange that my phone wouldn't have adjusted to the local time, but went ahead and manually changed it back an hour.  Once back in the hotel, we quickly discovered that no one was gathering for the tour because my phone had, in fact, been right.  We missed the tour.

No worries.  We each took a free map and set out to find our university building and to try to catch up with the tour group.  Laura and I played a game where we pretended to call Katy with increasingly more frightening scenarios that we haplessly got ourselves into: "Katy? This is Amy and Laura again.  Um, we just woke up in a bathtub of ice without one of our kidneys.  Call when you get this."  After much walking and more dogs wearing soccer jerseys than you might imagine, I had to buy a Coke.  My feet were hurting, I was hot.  Coke!  I didn't read the price, so I probably got gypped, but ah, sweet nectar.

Laura and I went to the final destination of the walking tour - Plaza de San Martin, a clock tower in a green oasis in the middle of a large intersection.  The group never showed.  But the homeless woman did.  She came over to us saying "Coke".  We said, "No." She said "2.50 for hamburger" after asking where we were from, we said "No." She became more insistent about my Coke. "No, no" Next thing I know, she grabbed my can, crumpling it in the process and stood over us.  We got up and walked away and I saw homeless woman drinking my soda in the park.

Laura and I didn't say much on the way back to the hotel.  I didn't cry, but I do wonder if I should have handled this differently.  She could've hurt me.