July 23, 2021: Day Thirty-two

Well, let's talk for a minute about this house we're in.

AirBNB Exterior Valladolid Calzado de los Frailes

The construction is remarkably similar to the house in Mérida.  Actualy, all the construction here is remarkably similar to Mérida.  The electricity was obviously added considerably after the original construction, with all the wires and switches running on the outside of the walls.  There is only one bedroom with air conditioning.  I think they could add air conditioning to one of the other bedrooms, but not to the third one. (I suspect that anyone living here would use the third bedroom as a living space, rather than a bedroom due to the lack of a door.  Speaking of the doors, they're huge, maybe 14 feet high with ceilings that start in the street (front) of the house at maybe 28 feet and dip slightly as they head back. The ceiling in the kitchen (furthest from the street) is probably 20 feet.  

There is a walled (10' high or so) patio, which appears to have been made with the intention of serving as additional living space. It's much larger than the one in Mérida and leads to a grassed back yard which is also walled.

The house sits RIGHT on the sidewalk, which is about 2 feet wide.  Due to the lack of air conditioning, you've got to keep the windows and doors open which means you can hear everyone walking by.  All the interior and exterior walls are about 2½ feet thick and made of stone of some sort.  The doorways are mostly arches.  The floors are all what they call "pasta" tile, decorative.  Like the house in Mérida, there are random steps here and there.  One into the kitchen, one into the middle living room, one in the bathroom.  One into each of two of the bedrooms.  All different heights.  Just walking around will keep you on your toes.

Kitchen

Different from Mérida, this house is much bigger.  There are four public rooms, all of them very large (one currently being used as a bedroom) and two bedrooms. 1½ bathrooms, with one of them being gigantic, the shower itself being larger than probably two modern US half-bathrooms.

Based on its location and its appearance, I would think that at some point, this house was the home of someone socially important and presumably wealthy.  The woodwork is beautiful and looks expensive.  It's about a seven minute walk to the main square and about another seven minutes in the opposite direction to one of the primary public parks.  There are restaurants and shops lining the street - all of them very nice - none of them with the same junky kinda swagger of Mérida shops.

Just as the house is different, the town is different.  Mérida is (depending on who you talk to) between 800,000 and 1,3000,000 people.  Valladolid tops out the most aggressive estimates at 60,000.  In Mérida's defence, we only hung around in two (Centro and Pasejo Monteo) areas of town.  We hardly scratched the surface.  We never made it to the north part with all its Costco's and malls and car dealerships, so we can't attest to the whole city.  I think that's how most people would live in a city the size of Mérida's:  in one section of it, not in the whole thing.  I imagine living in Mérida, people would sound like people from New York, who - when asked - don't tell you they're from New York, they tell you from which neighborhood they're from.  Conversely, I think "Valladolid" is probably enough information.

And so ends, day thirty-two.