Day 5. I started talking to people today. I know, I know. I promised not to talk to strangers. But come on, how long did you really think that was going to last?

Meet my new friend, Ross:

@ The Shed

Ross, meet everyone.

Ross lived in New Mexico for over 30 years. A native from Chicago, he now owns a jewelry shop in Santa Fe and regularly dines at The Shed, a fabulous, local and authentic New Mexican restaurant located one block from his shop. We happened to sit next to each other in the Shed’s bar area during lunch.   

In his lifetime, Ross explored and painted in Africa for seven months, went on a 5,000-mile road trip with his wife (who was once a journalist), and get this – he loves New York City. Can you see where he and I connected?

Perhaps, with his permission, I will share with all of you a few of his amazing photos and paintings from his trip to Africa.

Now, meet my new Native American friends from Santa Fe.

Handmade Native American Sculptures

This one saw me taking pictures of the marketplace and was the only one who smiled and threw my camera the peace symbol:

The vendor to the far right was a funny one

This vendor hand-makes earrings for a living. He actually has a patent for his designs (see below). I purchased two sets of these earrings — one for me and one for my sister. What makes them unique is that they have no back to them. It’s just one long spiraly, silver metal coil with different colored beads placed in the middle. You take the tip of the coil and push it through the hole, and just keep pulling the wire from the other side and voila! you have an adorable, un-losable earring.

Native American Coil Earrings

Check out the U.S. Patent! Ooh lala

The earring vendor and I chatted for a while. He asked where I was from, and I replied by giving him my usual, long-winded answer of: “Well, I grew up around New York City but recently lived in Los Angeles and am now moving to Northern Virginia.” This response tends to lead to more questions, and more conversation. Half the time, it just leads to the question, “No, where are you FROM? Like, what country?”

Ohh, the ignorance. The best is, “Wow. What ARE you?” I got that a lot in Massachusetts. Err, I’m human? hahahah. This cracks me up still.

ANYWAY, so my no talking to strangers rule lasted for a good two, three days I’d say (this excludes Vegas). Now don’t worry, I’m using my good judgment before chatting up my usual storm with random people. But talking to people just makes the trip much more interesting and worthwhile. It also makes this blog more fun to read, now doesn’t it?

Santa Fe (which means “Holy Faith” or “The City Different” in Spanish) is a super friendly place, which is why I felt more comfortable talking to strangers there than anywhere else. Santa Fe also ranks 2nd place in my favorite stops in this road trip thus far (Sedona’s the obvious #1).

Every person needs to visit Santa Fe. I mean it. Picture a town where Native Americans still follow their traditional lifestyles, where men and women walk around wearing big cowboy hats and knee-high boots, and where people still live in clay huts and adobe-style homes. You won’t even feel like you’re in America anymore — you’ll feel like you just time-traveled to hundreds of years ago before the Pigrams took over.

New Mexican Adobe Home

The food is also very different from what I expected. I expected your usual Mexican dish — but just 10x better like food usually is when you have it authentically made. But New Mexican food has a different taste and a new kick to it than “regular” or Americanized Mexican food has. It was almost like trying a new ethnicity of food altogether.

My Authentic New Mexican Lunch at The Shed