University Towns and Lunch

I love living in a university town, in addition to teaching here. While I was heading to lunch I passed a group of people here for some conference, and a gentleman with a delightful English accent was talking, followed by a young lady speaking to a friend in Mandarin, I think. As I crossed the street, I was passed by a gentleman dressed for an adventure a la Indiana Jones (probably an anthropologist, a geologist, or a geographer), then I overheard a young lady (Swedish, Norwegian or Icelandic judging from her speech) talking on the phone in her native tongue, before I ducked into Pepe's for a wonderful Yucatan style Mexican lunch, where really fine Mexican music was playing.

As I ate, I heard the end of a conversation of a group of young men having a serious discussion about how come Superman was problematic as a hero, because of his vigilantism. In very few other types of communities in the world is that type of mix, in a three block walk possible. It makes for an interesting life.