The distance from my house to northwest San Antonio is great enough to have persuaded me to come the day before the MCAT and overnight in a hotel, rather than get up early early out of my own bed before driving over. That sounded good. I then decided to make it sound even better by turning this enterprise into a vacation. So the afternoon before the big test I was down for a helicopter lesson just north of San Antonio and the evening after it I was down for airline rides to San Diego and "Cabo." But foul weather supervened on both ends, the elevator to my hotel room was as high as I got off the ground, and after the MCAT I simply drove back home.

My refrigerator was empty, my mail was still being held, my cat was still being boarded, and I still had annual leave claimed. So I studied the possibilities and alighted on Honduras. It was the only Central American country I had not yet visited, and without even exhausting my frequent-flyer miles I could go there for $71. Weather improved, and so I drove to Houston – after getting up out of my own bed at 3:15 AM – and caught the flight.

In or for Honduras, I had no plans. There are almost no railroads to ride anywhere in the country. Maybe, this being Central America, there'd be an earthquake. I did dip again The Old Patagonian Express, which skipped Honduras but did doubt the wisdom of building American-style high-rise hotels in such a region. "How long would these monstrosities last?" asked Paul Theroux of the ones he saw in Guatemala City. Mine in Tegucigalpa was likely built just a few years ago but I think it'll be OK. As was the one in San José, the one I was in during a 2012 tremor. Either the older ones did all crumble since the book's 1979 publication, or all American-style hotels are actually built pretty well.

I relaxed. I just walked around Tegucigalpa, ostensibly to find transportation to just about anywhere, but it was enough to tour the capital. Which is fairly tidy and not too noisy, and whose setting in low mountains is nice. I walked a lot and got very sore feet; what more can I ask? Well, a bus station, but Tegucigalpa seems not to have one, not in the sense of a building that could be called a terminal. I think the thing to do is engage cabbies to drive you places. But these guys are horn-honking hustlers, under the circumstances a sensible lifestyle choice, but one I myself chose not to encourage. For a certain number of lempiras, not dollars, I want to be taken a certain place, and once there left to my own devices until I decide it's time to go back. And that's all: further options should not be dangled or urged. While it is possible to lecture Third-Worlders on the theme of Just-do-what-I-want, it is not relaxing.

Perhaps I was too relaxed: I learned nothing. I already knew that Mexican TV is a perfect fit for much of Latin America: the characters are all richly-dressed-to-overdressed, perhaps reflecting the altitude and chill of Mexico City, in any case looking sharp and sophisticated in a distinctly south-of-the-border way. In point of fact, Central American capitals are not quite "up there" with Mexico City or for that matter Quito or Bogotá, although they look high – Tegucigalpa is at the altitude of Lubbock, plus beer sales are less restricted than they are in Lubbock, a pretty good combination, all things considered. The town has possibilities, though what those might be exactly I cannot say. It does not really help to watch a TV show where an elderly woman is bedridden and fearful but her hair and makeup are perfect and a young man looking all the more sinister for his 80s suit and 80s haircut whispers to his female confederate, ¿Que vamos a hacer con esta mujer?

(My Spanish listening comprehension is next to nil but I couldn't miss that one. I did however miss most of the Spanish-language commentary on the NFL conference championship games. It has never been my practice to pay any attention to U.S. sports while overseas but this time I made an exception! I was however puzzled and distressed at how little I apprehended, even as I was seeing all the action. Re a receiver who caught a deep ball and with no further impediment scored a touchdown – for which the Spanish is actually touchdown – I did perceive the truth of No hay nadie atrás de él. But otherwise, I wasn't even sure that the Spanish for down was down.)

So, a pretty silly trip, I will freely admit. For the very first time anywhere in Spanish America or for that matter Spain itself I saw the letter Ñ on license plates. Looked weird, although unlike ch, ll, and rr, it retains its rank as a discrete letter of the alphabet. What also looked weird was a cat wearing a collar. At some point deep in his train trip Theroux mentioned he had nowhere seen a cat, although in Buenos Aires he did find one in Jorge Luis Borges's apartment. I concur that cats are extremely rare in Latin America. I had no idea cat collars even existed anywhere there.

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The title of this piece refers to an MCAT study stratagem of mine, which was to make sure I understood physical and chemical processes by thoroughly grasping their units of measurement. Which I did, until test time. At test time, my thoughts would not have been much organized by recalling that a tesla is a kilogram per coulomb-second. As this test happened not to quiz its takers on this particular identity, I will not be violating the MCAT's injunction against publicly discussing question content. But I sure can discuss my MCAT answers, and I fear the ones I gave about surface tension – whose units are newton/meter – reflected a fatal confusion of this and viscosity – whose units are pascal-second.

Hey, could happen to anybody! What apparently no longer happens to anybody trained in biochemistry after I was is to fail to know the 1-letter abbreviations for amino acids. I did far more guessing on the biology part of the test than I'd expected to. On the other hand, I did at least as much guessing on the sociology part of the test as I'd expected to. Again shying from actual MCAT question-wording, I will venture this: if a sociology question is multiple-choice and one of the choices is "patriarchy," my theory is that that choice must be the correct one. It's just gotta be.

(1/22/20)