7.00pm, Friday July 10, bus to New York City ...liberty

I have now seen Philadelphia (I suppose I must have been there with school when I was a child, but I don’t remember...). At least I've seen the historic district: the Liberty Bell, much smaller than I'd imagined, Independence Hall, Ben Franklin's printing press, the cemetery where he is buried, a cream-coloured Anglican church with a beatiful organ. We arrived into Chinatown, but there was no time to see where Philadelphians actually live.

Back to Saturday night in Caracas... S and I finally left to go dancing around 2am. By that time I was ready to go home, I was so tired. But out we did go, into the wilds of safe and wealthy Caracas to find a regaton bar. We danced across from the bar, hugging a couple of chairs, with our $35 bolivar gin and tonics (!!). There was a small square dance floor in the front of the club, from which a girl who was with a few guys kept poking her head out to talk to S. After this happened a few times, S told me that the girl wanted S to dance with her group and did I mind. Of course not, I said. But the girl and one of her male companions got S onto one end of a sandwich, grinding away. It was very strange. S and I left pretty quickly after that, speculating on what that was all about.

Meanwhile, back in New York.... On Tuesday night, SW and I went to a Mets game. We had excellent seats three tiers above homebase. The Mets lost to the Dodgers 8 to 0. They kept getting out very quickly and only had four hits the entire game. They were only slightly better in the field than they were at bat. A lovely old usher explained to us that the Mets’s four best players were out with injuries and minor leaguers were replacing them. However, the next night the Mets beat the Dodgers, as SW and I noticed on the television playing in the hotel bar while we were sipping cocktails.

MS still hasn't emailed me back. It has been a week since I emailed him. I read an email from J today asking when I would decide to give up on MS and just remember our time together as a great experience. I'm getting there, but I’m not ready to let go yet and not sure what to do or how long to wait before I do it. Two weeks? In any case, reading the email from J tinged my day with sadness.