Sounds of the City

I realized yesterday, as I heard the garbage man come by, that some of the sounds here that I now take for granted, probably would mean nothing to someone not from around here.  Here are some:

- The garbage man/truck comes by on an irregular schedule.  The truck does not come down our street, but the garbage man makes his presence known by ringing a bell up and down the street.  We have three tries to get him, once, when he passes down our alley with a foot-cart for the garbage, and the other two times when he passes down the street in front or back of us.  There is quite excitement, and the quick running of feet, the finding of keys, and the unlocking of the door (from the inside) as we try to catch up with him before they move on to the next street.

- The gas man.  There is no central heating or air-conditioning in our house, but we heat our water by turning on and off the gas powered hot-water that is attached to a roof-top gas tank that has to be replaced when it becomes empty.  The gas guys come by daily and announce their presence by yelling "GAS!" or, what we think is, "Llego" ("I arrive." At first I thought that he was yelling "Jacob" and I couldn't figure out if he had lost his kid or dog, or what he was trying to sell.  One roommate thinks he is yelling "Llego" and the other thinks he is yelling "gas".  After hearing the explanations, I have to go with the "llego").  All we have to do is get the guy's attention, and he will go to the truck and lug the big heavy full tank to our house and up two flights of relatively tight spiral stairs to the roof, connect the hose, and lug away the old tank down the stairs and back to the truck.  You have to admire them.

- A long steam-powered whistle - The guy selling comote, baked/steamed sweet potatoes on a portable steamer going through the streets.

- Ratchets and other unidentified noises from the tire repair place on the other side of the wall from us (see the picture of the tire guys on the "old blog" post.)

- Cat-calls and whistles.  Sure, we have these in the States, but here you can hook your car up to do cat-calls as well.