10.00pm, Wednesday July 8th, hotel room ....getting exhausting

I really must finish recording the story of my last full day in Caracas. After leaving Louis the Ecuadorian on the heights of Avila, S and I drank beer, bought boutique chocolate and then head back into town to meet F. The three of us went to a very sophisticated hotel bar, decked out with hammocks and couches, big squares of creamy canvas sheets covering the ceiling, with low lighting and a greenish sea tinge. There were two levels of rooftop bar overlooking the city and it was this view for which S brought me there. The menu at the bar was very expensive (and it was my treat), so we ordered a pizza to share amongst us. It turned out to be delicious – covered with arugula, goat's cheese and olives. S had a glass of wine.

We parted ways with F after chilling ourselves looking out over Caracas. I bought a bottle of red to take to M's apartment, stuffed with other couchsurfers and many boxes. M was moving back to her parents’ house. I talked a bit to a lovely couchsurfer but he left and then I felt bored and quiet as all the gals joked around, putting moving boxes penned with faces on their heads and dancing and laughing. I didn't really get the joke.

As the evening wore on – remember, I had only a couple of hours of broken sleep on the bus the night before - M spilled a glass of wine on S's pants and we had to wait for the pants to go through a wash and dry cycle before we could head off clubbing in search of reggaton music. I was fading.

MS called me on S's cell phone that evening. It was a bit public, the other couchsurfers twigging that something had happened between us (M has met MS and the other girls had heard about him, I think). I was a little embarrased but stoked, of course, and I went into the bedroom to talk to him. I had trouble understanding him what with cell phone and accent, but I think he babbled on about staying at his friend's place and talking with his family. He said he had called to make sure I arrived in Caracas okay. He texted afterwards. And now I get one email in 10 days. It is a difficult adjustment.

Today SW and I went back to Bloomingdale's to revisit the Ralph Lauren turtleneck. We went to see Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini in 'God of Carnage' on Broadway. We both enjoyed the play, though SW more than me. I found it funny and always enjoy narratives about how awful marriage is, but ultimately it was mainstream and offered nothing new. The acting was strong but not remarkable and Gay Harden, who won an Oscar, was, for me, a bit too forced. I felt like she was onstage, acting. The others were more natural and I liked Hope Davis best. What I liked about the play was that no one changed. The play had an emotional trajectory but it was one of slowly revealed depths of defensiveness, hostility and dislike that each character had held repressed, not one of resolution, not even revelation, only release. Also, the Gay Harden/Gandolfini couple should have been Jewish (only a Jewish mother and son would have the phone conversations that took place on stage) and Gandolfini is as Italian as they come. The ethnic dynamic may not have been written as between a Jewish and WASP couple (though Yasmina Reza, the playwright, is Jewish), but that is certainly how it seemed and it would have been better made explicitly so.