Hola! Hope this finds you all well on this lovely Tuesday evening (well, it is lovely here, at least).
I am sitting in the internet cafe, and there´s a live recording of "It Must´ve Been Love¨playing. So funny. The American music they choose to listen to here. They´re about 20 years behind. Although, I did notice in the music store today that Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, and James Blunt were all on their best-seller list. So they must be somewhat plugged in.
Actually, the level of plugged-in-ness down here (plugged-in-ness to American culture, that is) is something I think about a lot. We take so many things for granted, as Americans. So many things that we can´t even think of because that´s how terribly we take them for granted! Having a culture of cinema and music in your own language, for example. You walk into a music/video store in Argentina, and the vast majority of media they´re selling is originally in English, sung by Americans, acted by Americans (obviously there are exceptions - they´re not ALL Americans).
I remember my first week here, in Buenos Aires, seeing the Simpsons on TV, hearing crap American music everywhere, seeing posters for American movies, and thinking, "How boring. Can´t they get some stuff of their own?"
It also occurred to me how strange that must be for the Argentinian. For the teenagers who are finding themselves in the sounds and voices of American musicians. Wouldn´t it be odd, growing up, living your life, and constantly being assaulted by media that wasn´t in your native language?
I brought this very subject up to my friend Juan Manuel, who is actually studying cinema, and he said it´s a subject frequently discussed in his classes. The lack of identity in Argentinian movies, music, etc. I am not saying that Argentinians don´t have their own culture or that they are trying to be like us - not at all. Just simply that the entertainment industry, in particular, does not have a very strong voice here. It get drowned out by that fat American lady.
Anyway, next time you turn on the TV and watch that re-run of Friends or Sex in the City or whatever, just think about it. What if everything on were originally produced in Chinese? How would your outlook on the world be different?
Could I please sound more like a high school English teacher? Aack. 250 words on that topic, please. Typed. Double-spaced.
All´s well here. I had a very quiet weekend. We had an asado (a bbq) on Saturday night to say farewell to Denise, another student who has been living with us (she´s from Suiza), and it was great fun. I looked out my window an hour or two before dinner and found Manuel chopping wood. That´s what I said. Chopping wood. For the grille. If you´ve looked at the most recent picures, you can sort of see what the grille looks like - more or less like the ones we use - but he used a wood-burning fire to cook the meat instead of a coal-burning one. And I could taste the difference! It was amazing. Yum.
We ate out in the backyard as the sun was going down. So nice. I just love this family. And of course, Ana Maria had created this unbelievable torta, cake, for dessert.
I spent a great deal of the weekend on the computer, debating my next move, and I did manage to make some plans. I now have a bus ticket to El Chalten, which is the jumping off point for Torres del Paine. I also have reserved 4 nights in a hostel there, but that is where the plans end. I decided that I wanted to have a few more days in Bariloche after I get this cast off to run around here and do some of the things I haven´t been able to do, so I am not leaving until the 7th, which is next Friday.
So hopefully, next week will be spent doing lots of hiking and camping and whatnot. I will let you know.
And, the sun´s coming out tomorrow, my friends! I am heading back to the ole hospital for the removal of my cast. I am terrified of that blade they are going to use, but I guess if I lose my arm, I will already have learned to brush my teeth with my left hand.
Just kidding...
Happy last week in February! You can make it!! Love you all.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Bariloche
folks, i´ve updated the pictures again - http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy. will write more later this evening. class, ahora. love love.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Coral Fingernails and Buck Teeth
Lo siento, lo siento. The internet here has been down for two days, so the writing has been suspended. Additionally, there´s not too much to report at the moment. Life is pretty tranquila here.
I finished up 2B yesterday with a 96 on my test. I had to take the test separately from the rest of the class so I could have a helper to write for me. Taking a test that way is quite difficult, I have to say. There was lots of short answer stuff on the test - "What are your plans for this year? What do you think about life on other planets? Do you think beauty pagents help or hurt the image of women? Define, in your own words, marriage. Pollution. Abortion. Etc." Entonces, it was very dificil to formulate these things out loud and not be able to revise. Plus, though I know the profesor helping me also thought the questions were silly and stupid, I still felt un poco embarrassed to have to talk about life on other planets and pollution in my decent, but still very basic, Spanish. "Contaminacion es cuando un lugar es muy sucio y hay basura en las calles y la gente no puede beber la agua." Que?
I realize that I haven´t talked about my progress with the language learning lately. (Language learning lately!) The learning is going well, for the most part. The past two weeks I have had Samanta for my teacher, and I would give her a so-so rating. Although I know my Spanish has improved under her direction, I don´t feel like I have made as much progress as in previous weeks. She speaks very quickly (which is getting easier to deal with, thank goodness), and she rarely writes anything on the board, which rubs me in a not so nice way. I am, I have learned, a very visual learner. I need to see things spelled out in front of me, need to write them at least once myself, for them to stick. Entonces, whenever Samanta introduced a new word, I would say, "que?" Then she´d repeat the word, and I´d say "que?" again. Then she´d repeat it again, and I´d say "como letras? (how do you spell it?)" And then, instead of just writing the stupid word on the board, she´d spell it out loud, which is really hard because the letters are pronounced differently. Then she´d say, "Entendes? You understand?" And I´d say, "esta bien".
(My friend Elian says "esta bien" is my favorite phrase in class - I say it every time I don´t understand something but want Samanta to stop talking to me. Esta bien. It´s fine. Forget it. Never mind. I love being passive aggressive.)
Samanta is a 25 year old gal, with a massive load of brown hair that hangs down to her butt and a mouth full of buck teeth. She has long pointy fingernails that she painted coral this week, and wears lime green espadrilles every day. I am only trying to paint a picture for you.
There were six of us this class, four girls, and two, admittedly, very attractive guys from Suiza. To me, and to the rest of the girls in class, the handsome-ness of these guys faded the second they opened their mouths, but Samanta was obsessed. Totally smitten. And it was awfully obnoxious to have to watch her embarrassing flirtations with them. Every time one of them would say anything, she´d open up that big mouth and just laugh, laugh, laugh. Like a horse. Oh, I am being mean now. But that´s what it´s like, and I need to give you an accurate description of things so you can imagine them...accurately.
Anyway, watching someone do this makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed, on top of distracting me from my studies. That uncontrollable laughter. We have all been there, I think. So embarrassing! I just had to cover my eyes with my working hand. Por favor!
Okay, I have gotten off track now. I was supposed to be discussing my Spanish progress.
I am progressing. And I am spending most of my time with a group of folks from Suiza, so we frequently have to speak in Spanish to avoid the Swiss-German that I don´t know, and the English that a few of them don´t know. This is the best practice, to me. Just talking. If you say "Fui" (I went) enough, it sticks, and the next time you want to tell someone where you went, you don´t have to take the time to search for the correct conjugation and whatnot. It just comes out.
I find myself constantly trying to translate the thoughts in my head, as I am walking down the street, or as I am typing. Makes for a very busy mind!
I am taking one more week of classes, and though I am ready for a break from them, I am also terrified of losing anything I have learned. And now that I have officially mastered (or almost mastered) the basics, I just want to know more and more. Gimme, gimme.
Language is a really interesting concept. I think about it a lot here, obviously. How did all of these different languages start? How is it possible that over time, they just evolved, from basic utterances to these incredibly complex systems? And how is it possible that languages are so different from each other? I think I actually learned the answers to these questions in some random class at IU, but I have lost that information somewhere along the way. I will have to google it.
Life outside of the language learning is mostly good. The cast is annoying me. I am using all (ALL) of my inner strength to keep the negativity out, but sometimes, it creeps in. It doesn´t really creep, actually. It slams. It´s sudden. I feel fine, and then SLAM! A huge wave of frustration. Aside from not being able to, you know, write, or cut my own meat, or apply deoderant (how on earth do you spell that word?) to my left armpit, I just feel really off at all times. Off balance. I can´t do anything with my hair, so it just hangs until I can get someone to make a pony for me. The shower is a chore, so I skip it sometimes. I just feel like a bedraggled mess at all times. Just not myself. Okay, that´s all the complaining I am allowing myself today.
I really like the people here. In general, I find the students and the staff at this school much more appealing than the students and staff at the school in BsAs. Maybe it´s just the kind of person that chooses to go to the mountains versus the person that chooses the city. I don´t know. At any rate, I have great friends here.
Mi amigos Elian and Phillipe had a fiesta at their casa anoche to say farewell to a couple of other amigos who are departing this weekend. Elian is my newest best friend here. I absolutely adore her. She is from Suiza, and she´s traveling with her novio Phillippe. Anyway, the party was lots of fun, but I am feeling extra off today. That vino is still in my system, I think. Maybe that´s why this entry has been so craaaazy.
Okay. Ahora, necisito a hacer algunas planes por mi futuro. Where will I go on Saturday? Will I decide to head south to Patagonia or will I decide that Patagonia is not something I should take on solo? Will I head back to BsAs to catch up with folks for a few days, and then start slolwy making my way around Argentina (Iguazu, Rosario, Cordoba, Mendoza, and then onto Santiago)? I need to figure this out. I change my mind every day. Yesterday I had decided to head to Patagonia, and then I woke up this morning and thought, No, better not. I think that´s the hangover talking...
Hope everyone´s weekends are off to a good start. Especially my Suzers, who said she just couldn´t get her weekend going without a new post. This one´s for you, chica!
I finished up 2B yesterday with a 96 on my test. I had to take the test separately from the rest of the class so I could have a helper to write for me. Taking a test that way is quite difficult, I have to say. There was lots of short answer stuff on the test - "What are your plans for this year? What do you think about life on other planets? Do you think beauty pagents help or hurt the image of women? Define, in your own words, marriage. Pollution. Abortion. Etc." Entonces, it was very dificil to formulate these things out loud and not be able to revise. Plus, though I know the profesor helping me also thought the questions were silly and stupid, I still felt un poco embarrassed to have to talk about life on other planets and pollution in my decent, but still very basic, Spanish. "Contaminacion es cuando un lugar es muy sucio y hay basura en las calles y la gente no puede beber la agua." Que?
I realize that I haven´t talked about my progress with the language learning lately. (Language learning lately!) The learning is going well, for the most part. The past two weeks I have had Samanta for my teacher, and I would give her a so-so rating. Although I know my Spanish has improved under her direction, I don´t feel like I have made as much progress as in previous weeks. She speaks very quickly (which is getting easier to deal with, thank goodness), and she rarely writes anything on the board, which rubs me in a not so nice way. I am, I have learned, a very visual learner. I need to see things spelled out in front of me, need to write them at least once myself, for them to stick. Entonces, whenever Samanta introduced a new word, I would say, "que?" Then she´d repeat the word, and I´d say "que?" again. Then she´d repeat it again, and I´d say "como letras? (how do you spell it?)" And then, instead of just writing the stupid word on the board, she´d spell it out loud, which is really hard because the letters are pronounced differently. Then she´d say, "Entendes? You understand?" And I´d say, "esta bien".
(My friend Elian says "esta bien" is my favorite phrase in class - I say it every time I don´t understand something but want Samanta to stop talking to me. Esta bien. It´s fine. Forget it. Never mind. I love being passive aggressive.)
Samanta is a 25 year old gal, with a massive load of brown hair that hangs down to her butt and a mouth full of buck teeth. She has long pointy fingernails that she painted coral this week, and wears lime green espadrilles every day. I am only trying to paint a picture for you.
There were six of us this class, four girls, and two, admittedly, very attractive guys from Suiza. To me, and to the rest of the girls in class, the handsome-ness of these guys faded the second they opened their mouths, but Samanta was obsessed. Totally smitten. And it was awfully obnoxious to have to watch her embarrassing flirtations with them. Every time one of them would say anything, she´d open up that big mouth and just laugh, laugh, laugh. Like a horse. Oh, I am being mean now. But that´s what it´s like, and I need to give you an accurate description of things so you can imagine them...accurately.
Anyway, watching someone do this makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed, on top of distracting me from my studies. That uncontrollable laughter. We have all been there, I think. So embarrassing! I just had to cover my eyes with my working hand. Por favor!
Okay, I have gotten off track now. I was supposed to be discussing my Spanish progress.
I am progressing. And I am spending most of my time with a group of folks from Suiza, so we frequently have to speak in Spanish to avoid the Swiss-German that I don´t know, and the English that a few of them don´t know. This is the best practice, to me. Just talking. If you say "Fui" (I went) enough, it sticks, and the next time you want to tell someone where you went, you don´t have to take the time to search for the correct conjugation and whatnot. It just comes out.
I find myself constantly trying to translate the thoughts in my head, as I am walking down the street, or as I am typing. Makes for a very busy mind!
I am taking one more week of classes, and though I am ready for a break from them, I am also terrified of losing anything I have learned. And now that I have officially mastered (or almost mastered) the basics, I just want to know more and more. Gimme, gimme.
Language is a really interesting concept. I think about it a lot here, obviously. How did all of these different languages start? How is it possible that over time, they just evolved, from basic utterances to these incredibly complex systems? And how is it possible that languages are so different from each other? I think I actually learned the answers to these questions in some random class at IU, but I have lost that information somewhere along the way. I will have to google it.
Life outside of the language learning is mostly good. The cast is annoying me. I am using all (ALL) of my inner strength to keep the negativity out, but sometimes, it creeps in. It doesn´t really creep, actually. It slams. It´s sudden. I feel fine, and then SLAM! A huge wave of frustration. Aside from not being able to, you know, write, or cut my own meat, or apply deoderant (how on earth do you spell that word?) to my left armpit, I just feel really off at all times. Off balance. I can´t do anything with my hair, so it just hangs until I can get someone to make a pony for me. The shower is a chore, so I skip it sometimes. I just feel like a bedraggled mess at all times. Just not myself. Okay, that´s all the complaining I am allowing myself today.
I really like the people here. In general, I find the students and the staff at this school much more appealing than the students and staff at the school in BsAs. Maybe it´s just the kind of person that chooses to go to the mountains versus the person that chooses the city. I don´t know. At any rate, I have great friends here.
Mi amigos Elian and Phillipe had a fiesta at their casa anoche to say farewell to a couple of other amigos who are departing this weekend. Elian is my newest best friend here. I absolutely adore her. She is from Suiza, and she´s traveling with her novio Phillippe. Anyway, the party was lots of fun, but I am feeling extra off today. That vino is still in my system, I think. Maybe that´s why this entry has been so craaaazy.
Okay. Ahora, necisito a hacer algunas planes por mi futuro. Where will I go on Saturday? Will I decide to head south to Patagonia or will I decide that Patagonia is not something I should take on solo? Will I head back to BsAs to catch up with folks for a few days, and then start slolwy making my way around Argentina (Iguazu, Rosario, Cordoba, Mendoza, and then onto Santiago)? I need to figure this out. I change my mind every day. Yesterday I had decided to head to Patagonia, and then I woke up this morning and thought, No, better not. I think that´s the hangover talking...
Hope everyone´s weekends are off to a good start. Especially my Suzers, who said she just couldn´t get her weekend going without a new post. This one´s for you, chica!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Ana Maria
Marie, I am so glad you finally got around to reading this thing. Welcome, dear. I hear you´ve been sucked back into the dark side...por favor!?
I would like to dedicate this post to the woman who left a gigantic piece of chocolate raspberry cake on my breakfast plate this morning - mi nuevo madre, Ana Maria. I didn´t think Rosa could be replaced or outdone, but cake on the breakfast plate will endear me to you forever.
I feel like I am living with the Cleavers!
Ana Maria is the quintessential housewife. Her entire life is dedicated to her home and her church and her husband and her children. And I like it. There is something so wholesome about this woman - goodness just oozes out of her. I sit down to dinner and before I can think, she´s bounced out of her seat and is hovering over me, cutting my meat for me, muttering nonsensical words and songs under her breath.
Every afternoon when I return home from school, my bed has been made for me, and it´s actually not for lack of me doing it myself. I have pulled the covers up and smoothed and tidied, but every day, she comes in behind me and tucks everything in tightly, opens the curtains, straightens my things. To me, it´s totally unnecessary. To her, it´s her job.
The preparation of the cena, the dinner, is a production every night. Dinner is usually not served until 9 or 9:30, but by 7, you will find Ana Maria in that kitchen, swinging around in her sundress and flip-flops, humming to herself, talking to herself, giggling, chopping.
Home-made empanadas, lamb, noodles with roquefort sauce, roast chicken, salads with avocado and tomato, cakes with fresh cream.
Rosa prepared food. Ana Maria COOKS.
Often, Manuel, the husband, the father, gets involved, too. He´ll labor over the onions while Ana Maria knits and watches TV; he´ll wander in every few minutes to check on the chicken; he´ll sit down and help Ana Maria seal up the empanadas (I have my own method, he says, with a grin).
And then Ari, the daughter, appears to help out. Prepare the salad, set the table, fill the pitchers with juice and water.
Dinner time is a climactic moment. It´s as if the whole day has been spent just for this time of being together and enjoying food and company. The hour before dinner, in particular, is full of clinging clanging footsteps songs smells tastes - I get positively anxious observing it. The day´s not done til the dessert´s been served and the dishes have been washed. Then, we can start all over again. It´s a nice daily rhythm. I lived like this growing up and didn´t realize how much I missed it.
We sit. And we savor. And we chat (those of us who are in the mood to speak Espanish, that is).
Manuel is always the center of dinner conversation. He is every bit the ying to his wife´s yang. There´s something a bit militaristic about him, but I think it´s only in the way he looks - very clean cut and serious. He´s clearly very intelligent (he´s some sort of engineer - don´t ask me), and it comes across in the telling of his stories - not a detail to be left out! And he does love to tell stories. He´s the talker.
He loves his stories more than anyone else, of course, which kills me. He gets this little smirky grin on his face when he´s about to say something funny, and then looks around at us to make sure we´re all laughing - did you get it??
Every now and then, when dessert time rolls around, Ana Maria goes to the counter, throws some things into a big bowl, comes back to the dinner table with the bowl and her hand-mixer, sits, smiles, and starts whipping up that fresh cream. Just a minute! she sings. It´s precious. I want to be her.
When dinner´s over, everyone lingers while dishes are done, tea is made, and then slowly everyone retires to the living room or their bedroom.
Manuel has recently somehow downloaded the new epidsodes of Lost from the internet (because they are currently airing last season now), so the past two nights have been spent in front of the TV with the fam, Ana Maria absentmindedly gurgling questions to her husband, her husband laying it all out for her. The asker and the explainer.
I´m so slowed down here. The life is simple. If you spend three hours preparing and eating your dinner, well then, that´s how you spent three hours of your day. Not wasted, spent. This is what I asked for when I made all those decisions a few months back. Simplicity. Slow me down. Put on the brakes (interesting that I say that right after talking about how bad it is to ride the brakes...hmmm...).
Today, for example, I had class til 1 PM, went to a leisurely lunch, took a siesta, then retired to the park for several hours of hanging out with friends, half-heartedly studying, laying in the grass, having a beer.
I know I can´t do this forever, but ahora, es mi vida.
Onto dinner now. With friends tonight. Not with the Cleavers. And, oh yes, I managed to turn down that cake this morning. Where do I get such self control??
I would like to dedicate this post to the woman who left a gigantic piece of chocolate raspberry cake on my breakfast plate this morning - mi nuevo madre, Ana Maria. I didn´t think Rosa could be replaced or outdone, but cake on the breakfast plate will endear me to you forever.
I feel like I am living with the Cleavers!
Ana Maria is the quintessential housewife. Her entire life is dedicated to her home and her church and her husband and her children. And I like it. There is something so wholesome about this woman - goodness just oozes out of her. I sit down to dinner and before I can think, she´s bounced out of her seat and is hovering over me, cutting my meat for me, muttering nonsensical words and songs under her breath.
Every afternoon when I return home from school, my bed has been made for me, and it´s actually not for lack of me doing it myself. I have pulled the covers up and smoothed and tidied, but every day, she comes in behind me and tucks everything in tightly, opens the curtains, straightens my things. To me, it´s totally unnecessary. To her, it´s her job.
The preparation of the cena, the dinner, is a production every night. Dinner is usually not served until 9 or 9:30, but by 7, you will find Ana Maria in that kitchen, swinging around in her sundress and flip-flops, humming to herself, talking to herself, giggling, chopping.
Home-made empanadas, lamb, noodles with roquefort sauce, roast chicken, salads with avocado and tomato, cakes with fresh cream.
Rosa prepared food. Ana Maria COOKS.
Often, Manuel, the husband, the father, gets involved, too. He´ll labor over the onions while Ana Maria knits and watches TV; he´ll wander in every few minutes to check on the chicken; he´ll sit down and help Ana Maria seal up the empanadas (I have my own method, he says, with a grin).
And then Ari, the daughter, appears to help out. Prepare the salad, set the table, fill the pitchers with juice and water.
Dinner time is a climactic moment. It´s as if the whole day has been spent just for this time of being together and enjoying food and company. The hour before dinner, in particular, is full of clinging clanging footsteps songs smells tastes - I get positively anxious observing it. The day´s not done til the dessert´s been served and the dishes have been washed. Then, we can start all over again. It´s a nice daily rhythm. I lived like this growing up and didn´t realize how much I missed it.
We sit. And we savor. And we chat (those of us who are in the mood to speak Espanish, that is).
Manuel is always the center of dinner conversation. He is every bit the ying to his wife´s yang. There´s something a bit militaristic about him, but I think it´s only in the way he looks - very clean cut and serious. He´s clearly very intelligent (he´s some sort of engineer - don´t ask me), and it comes across in the telling of his stories - not a detail to be left out! And he does love to tell stories. He´s the talker.
He loves his stories more than anyone else, of course, which kills me. He gets this little smirky grin on his face when he´s about to say something funny, and then looks around at us to make sure we´re all laughing - did you get it??
Every now and then, when dessert time rolls around, Ana Maria goes to the counter, throws some things into a big bowl, comes back to the dinner table with the bowl and her hand-mixer, sits, smiles, and starts whipping up that fresh cream. Just a minute! she sings. It´s precious. I want to be her.
When dinner´s over, everyone lingers while dishes are done, tea is made, and then slowly everyone retires to the living room or their bedroom.
Manuel has recently somehow downloaded the new epidsodes of Lost from the internet (because they are currently airing last season now), so the past two nights have been spent in front of the TV with the fam, Ana Maria absentmindedly gurgling questions to her husband, her husband laying it all out for her. The asker and the explainer.
I´m so slowed down here. The life is simple. If you spend three hours preparing and eating your dinner, well then, that´s how you spent three hours of your day. Not wasted, spent. This is what I asked for when I made all those decisions a few months back. Simplicity. Slow me down. Put on the brakes (interesting that I say that right after talking about how bad it is to ride the brakes...hmmm...).
Today, for example, I had class til 1 PM, went to a leisurely lunch, took a siesta, then retired to the park for several hours of hanging out with friends, half-heartedly studying, laying in the grass, having a beer.
I know I can´t do this forever, but ahora, es mi vida.
Onto dinner now. With friends tonight. Not with the Cleavers. And, oh yes, I managed to turn down that cake this morning. Where do I get such self control??
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Hunt and Peck
Okay, I am going to give this typing business another shot. If I hold my right arm above the keyboard, I can sort of use the fingers on my right hand. We will see how long I can hold it up - this cast is heavy!
It´s Saturday afternoon, a beautiful day, and my friends have gone off on a two day hike up to a refugio and back, and I am stranded here. We decided that it probably was not the best idea for me and my cement arm to attempt it. I had a brief meltdown yesterday, when I realized I am going to be excluded from almost all activities for the next two weeks, but I felt much better once I got a little frustration out of my system. And, as I told my pops yesterday, God forbid I be stranded in a beautiful resort town with nothing to do for two weeks. If I can find a problem with that, I will never be able to make myself happy doing anything!
So I went out this morning and bought a new book ($20 US for a paperback - a price I am willing to pay), and if all I do this weekend is sit by the lake and read, it will be a weekend well spent.
But how did I get here?
Well, my week was off to a great start. Monday after classes, we had a brief city tour, followed by beers and peanuts at a local brewery. Bariloche is a town of about 100,000 residents, and it has grown quickly! The town has really only been here for about 100 years. It´s situated between the very dry "step" area to the east, and the wet mountains of Chile to the west, so this makes for some interesting weather phenomena, apparently. I am told that it snowed here about a month ago (very odd because it´s the middle of summer here), and that the weather can change drastically overnight. And indeed, the extremes in a day here are amazing. The first few days, it felt like it was about 85 degrees in the middle of the day, but about 50 after the sun went down. And, the sun doesn´t go down here til 10:30 pm!! How amazing is that? For nine months of the year, Bariloche is one hour behind Buenos Aires, but for three months in the summer (now), they set the clock forward an hour to save electricity. It is a bit disorienting to eat dinner at 9:30 pm, while the sun is still out, and then have time to go for a walk after dinner before sunset. A bit disorienting, but I like it!
Tuesday, we hiked up Cerro Campanario - only about a 30 minute climb, but straight up, and I was wearing my Chacos because we had been told we were just going to ride up the ski lift to the top. But, of course, when the option to walk presented itself, I took it. The paths to the top were covered with slippy slidy dirt, so by the time we got to the top, my feet were brown brown brown. The view from the top was incredible - hopefully that was obvious from the pictures. You can see seven lakes from up there, as well as the mountains bordering Chile, and all of Bariloche. Just beautiful.
(As a side-note, I have been thinking about the word beautiful, and how it´s the only word to really describe things here, but it doesn´t feel strong enough because it´s so overused. All words for beauty feel trite and obnoxious. Breathtaking seems dramatic. Gorgeous seems silly. Simply beautiful. The most perfect kind of beauty - totally natural.)
The way back down the mountain was a mess for me. I might as well have laid down on my stomach and rolled down because that´s about what I looked like when I reached the bottom. I had a little tumble when I started running down the hill and couldn´t put on the breaks with my little Chacos. A little scrape on my left ankle, but otherwise, just a bit dirty. That was not to be the last time I would walk the hill up to my house covered with dirt and getting funny looks from passers-by. Oh, no.
Wednesday afternoon was mountain biking, and I was really excited. We were going to ride part of Circuito Chico, a 60 km loop through some of the most beautiful areas around Bariloche. I´d never been mountain biking before, and I think my most recent previous experience on a bike was on a beach cruiser in Sanibel about three years ago. So I am not sure why I was so confident that I could go mountain biking (in the mountains) without having an accident.
We were on the bikes for about four hours, and the first 3.5 hours were amazing. It was a perfect day - blue skies, green trees, lakes, mountains, breezes. We hadn´t been given any kind of lesson on how the bikes worked - I suppose the folks at the rental place assumed we weren´t inexperienced ninnies - so it took me about an hour to sort out the gears and whatnot.
With the exception of an after dinner walk every now and then, I have not done any intentional exercise since I left the States. It was, therefore, exhilarating to get on that bike and to feel my muscles working again. The first few hills were challenging, to say the least, but it´s the kind of challenging I like - physical and mental. I love getting my head into a little meditation place during exercise - when things start to physically get hard, I focus on my breathing and count, in two, out two, in two, out two. Eyes glaze over, mind empties, and before you know it, you´ve pushed yourself through, forgotten about the "I can´t". That, for me, is the reward of exercise. The mental challenge - telling myself I can - is always greater than the physical.
And so it was on this little bicycle. I´d come around a corner, and see a long stretch of road ahead, a steep climb, and I´d think to myself, you´ve got to be kidding me... But then, my mind would click over to challenge mode - "I will not let this hill get the best of me!" - and I´d just push push push, breathe breathe breathe.
The downhills were a different sort of challenge. The others in the group (there were 7 of us, I think), would go flying on ahead, and I´d sort of cruise on down, taking my sweet time, riding my brakes, clinging to any bit of control I had over that bike. I was formulating this little metaphor in my head while I was riding - something about riding the brakes. I was thinking that on the bike, as in life, it´s so terrifying to let go of the brakes and just let yourself go, let yourself be carried on down the road. It feels much better mentally to have that hand on the break, slowing yourself, proceeding with caution, but you are losing out on quite a ride that way.
After an hour or two, I loosened my grip, and let myself fly. It´s an incredible feeling to reach the top of a hill that you were certain you couldn´t climb, and then just let yourself go, let yourself savor that downhill reward.
I loved every minute of it. I sang songs to myself, thought to myself, and always, always marveled at the beauty of my surroundings.
In the last 20-30 minutes of the trip, we took some sort of short cut down a long dirt road - I think we were trying to avoid a heavily trafficked road. The road was relatively flat, maybe a slight downward slant, but I was the last in our line of bikers, and I could not see anything on the ground below me because of the clouds of dirt the wheels had stirred up. I was thinking about the dirt, thinking about these brown clouds, wondering if this was considered dirt bike riding, when all of a sudden, I was on the ground. I really don´t know what happened. One second on, the next off.
I fell off on the right side of my bike, and my right arm went down first, absorbing my whole body weight. Elisabeth was maybe 50 feet ahead of me, and she heard me yelp as I went down, so she came back to check on me, and then went ahead to get Matias, the "activities coordinator". I felt okay - no blood, nothing dramatic. More just shocked and startled than anything. But that arm was not feeling quite right. Matias and Elisabeth and Eric arrived, we took a few deep breaths, Matias insisted on some photos, and then I was back on the bike.
The arm was feeling worse and worse as I pedaled onto the rental shop. The pressure I was having to put on it to steady myself on the bike was becoming more and more painful, but I did make it (though not without fighting a lot of tears).
We had a thirty minute bus ride back to Bariloche, and by the time we got off, I was certain I needed to get the arm checked out. So translator Matias walked me up to Bariloche´s private hospital, and within just a few minutes, I was in front of a doctor, and shuffled off to the x-ray room.
It was certainly a few (or many) steps down from a hospital in the States, but it was a hospital, and the nurses were smiling patiently and speaking soothingly, though I couldn´t understand what they were saying. Matias had to wash my arm off because I guess that´s somehow not the responsibility of the hospital staff, so that was pretty amusing - he´s this 26 year old laughing hyena of a person who clearly has this job because he´s mr. social, mr. party man. I was in and out in 45 minutes, and it only set me back about $80 US (maybe that´s why they didn´t wash my arm for me).
Matias then walked me up the hill to my house and presented me to my appropriately concerned padres, who were just finishing up dinner. So dramatic, so silly, so pathetic.
Everything is going to be fine. This cast seems like a bit of overkill to me, but what do I know? My arm does feel much better in the cast, though. And I am learning to brush my teeth with my left hand, wash just my left hand, take off my clothes, put on my clothes, and all of those good things. I felt a bit lost that first night, because all I wanted to do was take a shower, but I didn´t have my mommy or a best friend to help me and laugh at me. Ana Maria, mi "madre" here, offered to help me, but you know, it´s just not the same, and there´s that pride thing, too. So I settled for a bath, and showed up at school the next morning still feeling revolting, but at least I showed up, right?
What an adventure.
I have decided to stick with the group classes for next week, even though the writing is, well, impossible. My friend and classmate, Elian, from Switzerland, has been so sweet and helpful, and she´s going to make copies of her notes for me every day. What a dear.
The doctor said I need to come back on the 29th to get the cast off and have some "rehabilitation" (that seems a bit dramatic, yes?), which has sort of thrown things off since I was loosely planning to hit the road next weekend. So...one day at a time. We will see. The parentals are no longer coming, so I am free to do what I like.
Okay, yowsers. I have written this in two sittings, and this little arm of mine is getting very irritated with me. It´s asking for ice cream, and who am I to say no? Off we go!
More later...mañana perhaps.
It´s Saturday afternoon, a beautiful day, and my friends have gone off on a two day hike up to a refugio and back, and I am stranded here. We decided that it probably was not the best idea for me and my cement arm to attempt it. I had a brief meltdown yesterday, when I realized I am going to be excluded from almost all activities for the next two weeks, but I felt much better once I got a little frustration out of my system. And, as I told my pops yesterday, God forbid I be stranded in a beautiful resort town with nothing to do for two weeks. If I can find a problem with that, I will never be able to make myself happy doing anything!
So I went out this morning and bought a new book ($20 US for a paperback - a price I am willing to pay), and if all I do this weekend is sit by the lake and read, it will be a weekend well spent.
But how did I get here?
Well, my week was off to a great start. Monday after classes, we had a brief city tour, followed by beers and peanuts at a local brewery. Bariloche is a town of about 100,000 residents, and it has grown quickly! The town has really only been here for about 100 years. It´s situated between the very dry "step" area to the east, and the wet mountains of Chile to the west, so this makes for some interesting weather phenomena, apparently. I am told that it snowed here about a month ago (very odd because it´s the middle of summer here), and that the weather can change drastically overnight. And indeed, the extremes in a day here are amazing. The first few days, it felt like it was about 85 degrees in the middle of the day, but about 50 after the sun went down. And, the sun doesn´t go down here til 10:30 pm!! How amazing is that? For nine months of the year, Bariloche is one hour behind Buenos Aires, but for three months in the summer (now), they set the clock forward an hour to save electricity. It is a bit disorienting to eat dinner at 9:30 pm, while the sun is still out, and then have time to go for a walk after dinner before sunset. A bit disorienting, but I like it!
Tuesday, we hiked up Cerro Campanario - only about a 30 minute climb, but straight up, and I was wearing my Chacos because we had been told we were just going to ride up the ski lift to the top. But, of course, when the option to walk presented itself, I took it. The paths to the top were covered with slippy slidy dirt, so by the time we got to the top, my feet were brown brown brown. The view from the top was incredible - hopefully that was obvious from the pictures. You can see seven lakes from up there, as well as the mountains bordering Chile, and all of Bariloche. Just beautiful.
(As a side-note, I have been thinking about the word beautiful, and how it´s the only word to really describe things here, but it doesn´t feel strong enough because it´s so overused. All words for beauty feel trite and obnoxious. Breathtaking seems dramatic. Gorgeous seems silly. Simply beautiful. The most perfect kind of beauty - totally natural.)
The way back down the mountain was a mess for me. I might as well have laid down on my stomach and rolled down because that´s about what I looked like when I reached the bottom. I had a little tumble when I started running down the hill and couldn´t put on the breaks with my little Chacos. A little scrape on my left ankle, but otherwise, just a bit dirty. That was not to be the last time I would walk the hill up to my house covered with dirt and getting funny looks from passers-by. Oh, no.
Wednesday afternoon was mountain biking, and I was really excited. We were going to ride part of Circuito Chico, a 60 km loop through some of the most beautiful areas around Bariloche. I´d never been mountain biking before, and I think my most recent previous experience on a bike was on a beach cruiser in Sanibel about three years ago. So I am not sure why I was so confident that I could go mountain biking (in the mountains) without having an accident.
We were on the bikes for about four hours, and the first 3.5 hours were amazing. It was a perfect day - blue skies, green trees, lakes, mountains, breezes. We hadn´t been given any kind of lesson on how the bikes worked - I suppose the folks at the rental place assumed we weren´t inexperienced ninnies - so it took me about an hour to sort out the gears and whatnot.
With the exception of an after dinner walk every now and then, I have not done any intentional exercise since I left the States. It was, therefore, exhilarating to get on that bike and to feel my muscles working again. The first few hills were challenging, to say the least, but it´s the kind of challenging I like - physical and mental. I love getting my head into a little meditation place during exercise - when things start to physically get hard, I focus on my breathing and count, in two, out two, in two, out two. Eyes glaze over, mind empties, and before you know it, you´ve pushed yourself through, forgotten about the "I can´t". That, for me, is the reward of exercise. The mental challenge - telling myself I can - is always greater than the physical.
And so it was on this little bicycle. I´d come around a corner, and see a long stretch of road ahead, a steep climb, and I´d think to myself, you´ve got to be kidding me... But then, my mind would click over to challenge mode - "I will not let this hill get the best of me!" - and I´d just push push push, breathe breathe breathe.
The downhills were a different sort of challenge. The others in the group (there were 7 of us, I think), would go flying on ahead, and I´d sort of cruise on down, taking my sweet time, riding my brakes, clinging to any bit of control I had over that bike. I was formulating this little metaphor in my head while I was riding - something about riding the brakes. I was thinking that on the bike, as in life, it´s so terrifying to let go of the brakes and just let yourself go, let yourself be carried on down the road. It feels much better mentally to have that hand on the break, slowing yourself, proceeding with caution, but you are losing out on quite a ride that way.
After an hour or two, I loosened my grip, and let myself fly. It´s an incredible feeling to reach the top of a hill that you were certain you couldn´t climb, and then just let yourself go, let yourself savor that downhill reward.
I loved every minute of it. I sang songs to myself, thought to myself, and always, always marveled at the beauty of my surroundings.
In the last 20-30 minutes of the trip, we took some sort of short cut down a long dirt road - I think we were trying to avoid a heavily trafficked road. The road was relatively flat, maybe a slight downward slant, but I was the last in our line of bikers, and I could not see anything on the ground below me because of the clouds of dirt the wheels had stirred up. I was thinking about the dirt, thinking about these brown clouds, wondering if this was considered dirt bike riding, when all of a sudden, I was on the ground. I really don´t know what happened. One second on, the next off.
I fell off on the right side of my bike, and my right arm went down first, absorbing my whole body weight. Elisabeth was maybe 50 feet ahead of me, and she heard me yelp as I went down, so she came back to check on me, and then went ahead to get Matias, the "activities coordinator". I felt okay - no blood, nothing dramatic. More just shocked and startled than anything. But that arm was not feeling quite right. Matias and Elisabeth and Eric arrived, we took a few deep breaths, Matias insisted on some photos, and then I was back on the bike.
The arm was feeling worse and worse as I pedaled onto the rental shop. The pressure I was having to put on it to steady myself on the bike was becoming more and more painful, but I did make it (though not without fighting a lot of tears).
We had a thirty minute bus ride back to Bariloche, and by the time we got off, I was certain I needed to get the arm checked out. So translator Matias walked me up to Bariloche´s private hospital, and within just a few minutes, I was in front of a doctor, and shuffled off to the x-ray room.
It was certainly a few (or many) steps down from a hospital in the States, but it was a hospital, and the nurses were smiling patiently and speaking soothingly, though I couldn´t understand what they were saying. Matias had to wash my arm off because I guess that´s somehow not the responsibility of the hospital staff, so that was pretty amusing - he´s this 26 year old laughing hyena of a person who clearly has this job because he´s mr. social, mr. party man. I was in and out in 45 minutes, and it only set me back about $80 US (maybe that´s why they didn´t wash my arm for me).
Matias then walked me up the hill to my house and presented me to my appropriately concerned padres, who were just finishing up dinner. So dramatic, so silly, so pathetic.
Everything is going to be fine. This cast seems like a bit of overkill to me, but what do I know? My arm does feel much better in the cast, though. And I am learning to brush my teeth with my left hand, wash just my left hand, take off my clothes, put on my clothes, and all of those good things. I felt a bit lost that first night, because all I wanted to do was take a shower, but I didn´t have my mommy or a best friend to help me and laugh at me. Ana Maria, mi "madre" here, offered to help me, but you know, it´s just not the same, and there´s that pride thing, too. So I settled for a bath, and showed up at school the next morning still feeling revolting, but at least I showed up, right?
What an adventure.
I have decided to stick with the group classes for next week, even though the writing is, well, impossible. My friend and classmate, Elian, from Switzerland, has been so sweet and helpful, and she´s going to make copies of her notes for me every day. What a dear.
The doctor said I need to come back on the 29th to get the cast off and have some "rehabilitation" (that seems a bit dramatic, yes?), which has sort of thrown things off since I was loosely planning to hit the road next weekend. So...one day at a time. We will see. The parentals are no longer coming, so I am free to do what I like.
Okay, yowsers. I have written this in two sittings, and this little arm of mine is getting very irritated with me. It´s asking for ice cream, and who am I to say no? Off we go!
More later...mañana perhaps.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
thrills and spills
well, amigos, it´s been an eventful, clumsy few days here in the mountains. i was going to try to write about it, but if you will check out my most recent pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/ellen.bucy), you will see why typing is a bit laborious today. happy vday to me;)
not to worry. i am not so easily taken down! but si, i have fractured my arm. the dr says only 2 weeks in this charming cast - so not sure how this is or is not going to change my plans (ie, whether i will attempt the next week of classes without my writing arm). will take it easy this weekend and figure out next steps, but the blog may suffer. i feel like the guy in the diving bell and the butterfly - if only i had someone to type for me. i may work on the telling of this story over the next few days - because it´s a good one and i don´t want to forget - but it may take awhile. i put some captions on the photos and that´s about all me and my left hand can muster today.
i will go ahead and say that i went down having a grand ole time. well worth a trip to the hospital.
anyway, hope you all in one piece. much love on this luvin day. chau!
not to worry. i am not so easily taken down! but si, i have fractured my arm. the dr says only 2 weeks in this charming cast - so not sure how this is or is not going to change my plans (ie, whether i will attempt the next week of classes without my writing arm). will take it easy this weekend and figure out next steps, but the blog may suffer. i feel like the guy in the diving bell and the butterfly - if only i had someone to type for me. i may work on the telling of this story over the next few days - because it´s a good one and i don´t want to forget - but it may take awhile. i put some captions on the photos and that´s about all me and my left hand can muster today.
i will go ahead and say that i went down having a grand ole time. well worth a trip to the hospital.
anyway, hope you all in one piece. much love on this luvin day. chau!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Viajando y Llegando
(From Saturday, 2/9/08)
I´ve been on the road for a little over four hours now. It´s been four hours of endless flat. Farms of corn and cows, splashes of of marshes and shallow lakes, trees, skies like paintings with perfect puffs of whites and greys. A huge patch of sunflowers just passed by - incredible black faces staring out at me.
It´s familiar and strange. It´s the farmlands of Indiana or Ohio or Kansa or Iowa with the brightnes turned up. The greens are lusher, and the trees! I can´t figure out what it is about the trees here. They´re pines in the desert. There are random patches of them, like they´ve been planted for the purpose of creating a barrier or a shelter, and they´re so varied - all different texture and colors. It´s so beautiful.
This bus is amazing - definitely the way to travel here. I have a deluxe, super-cushy seat, a foot rest that extends all the way, so I can fully stretch out my legs, and I can lean the back of my chair all the way down. It´s like flying first class, just much better scenery. There´s a steward who hands out snacks and meals and beverages. Vino mas tarde, tambien! I´m very glad I chose to travel this way instead of flying. So relaxing - like train-riding - and so much to see. We are supposed to arrive in Bariloche around 10 AM tomorrow morning, and I´m scared I´m going to miss something amazing if I fall asleep!
There are these little "stations" we stop at every hour or so to pick up a new passenger. Basically dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. And, as it was at the bus station in Buenos Aires, it´s always a family affair. A whole carload of folks comes to see off their loved one, all standing outside and waving as we pull off down the road. It´s so old-fashioned. I love it. The deluxe bus is clearly a luxury - and a big deal.
The economic standing of this country reveals itself in little things like that. In more obvious ways, too. This afternoon, a homeless teenager stole the tip I was leaving for my waiter right off the table, right in front of me. Several of these boys had been prowling around this cafe in the bus station. I guess there are no rules against begging in BsAs because it was not the first time in the last month that beggars had approached my table, in the middle of a meal, to ask for money or food. Today, while I was waiting on my food, I watched as one of these boys asked another customer for his leftover fries. When the customer said, sure, fine, the boy just reached his big dirty hand out and grabbed them up right off of the plate.
I had a stack of six 25 cent coins sitting on my table, and when I stood up to heave-ho my enormous backpack onto my back, the kid approached the table, calmly picked up the coins, and just walked off. As he reached down to take them, I said, "No!" I couldn´t even think, I was so dumbfounded by what was happening. He sort of smirked at me, said, "Yes!" and hurried off to snicker about it with his friends. The cafe was crowded; there were tons of witnesses, but I felt totally helpless. Of course, worse, I took several steps away from the table, walking off after the guy, and then realized I had left my smaller backpack on the table. Thank God it was still there - the beggars here work in pairs; one distracts while the other steals.
Several customers told the waiters what had happened. I just stood there, speechless and beginning to burn with anger. One of the waiters headed off after them, but I doubt he accomplished anything. It´s an insignificant amount of money - 50 cents US - so I just walked away. But the way the whole episode made me feel was awful - an ugly mix of embarrassment and fury and disgust and confusion. I´m sure that kid needed that 50 cents more than me or my waiter, but it was the arrogance with which he took it that enraged me. I felt revolted by him and his poverty and his desparation, and I felt revolted with myself for being so revolted by him.
Of course, this wasn´t a dangerous situation by any means, but it was definitely a good lesson. I´m really careful with my things, but I also expect a certain amount of decency from other people. It´s stupid that I can´t trust that if I leave a tip on the table, it won´t be snatched up by a passer-by. Not stupid. I guess I´ve just been spoiled by a world where nobody´s that kind of desperate (or at least the government´s doing a good job of keeping them away). Naivety stikes again.
Anyway, before I really embark on my travels, I am going to try to lighten my load a bit. If your backpack´s so heavy you make yourself vulnerable every time you put it on, that´s a problemo!
I was just surprised to look down at my watch and see that it´s 8:15 PM. It looks and feels like it´s about 3 PM. These long days are good for my health, I´ve decided. I should be sunflower! These fields of sunflowers are breathtaking - looks like a nice place to spend some time.
***
(Sunday, 2/10/08)
I woke up around 2:30 AM this morning and peered out the window to find a sky full of stars. I´ve never seen anything like it. Never seen so many stars. It was incredible. Several times recently, I´ve seen Orion in the night sky over Buenos Aires, but he was always pretty lonely up there. Last night, I could see Orion (because his stars are brighter than others), but he was almost hard to make out because his space was invaded by thousands of little stars. The entire sky was covered. More stars than sky. Gorgeous. How do I explain what it feels like to be laying in a very comfy little bed and to wake to such an incredible sight? How can I explain getting lulled back to sleep by such a sky?
I woke again around 8:30 AM to find the landscape totally changed. The flat farmland had been replaced by rolling yellow hills, the land totally barren of trees. There were tufts of shrubbery - broccoli-like bunches of dry greens sprouting up from the rocky earth and the long, yellow grasses.
***
(Today, the present)
I didn´t finish that because we shortly thereafter arrived in Bariloche. It was facinating, though, to watch the landscape change - to watch those dry, yellowed hills grow into mountains full of pines and deep blue lakes. All in about an hour! I was told yesterday that that yellow area (that´s all I can say about it - yellow), is called "The Step," anywhere in the world. The transition area before the mountains. Anyone know anything about that? Dad-0?
We arrived right on schedule, and I was just bubbling over with excitement as we pulled into Bariloche. It´s unbelievably beautiful here. And cool! I stepped off the bus with a bit of a shiver! By afternoon, it had warmed up significantly, but the mornings and evenings hacen mucho frio!
It´s a smallish resort town - about 100,000 residents, I believe. Tourism is their main industry - skiing in the winter, and everything you can think of in the summer. Hiking, biking, camping, paragliding, etc. Eeeeee! It reminds me vaguley of any town like this in the States - Jackson, WY, Boone, NC. Many of the houses are built in that Alpine style, like the houses in Hound Ears (what is that place called, Jordy? Hounds Run? Hound Ears?) in Boone. Little wedges of houses, built so the snow just slides right down the sides.
I knew my friends Nicole and Kate were just finishing up here, and I managed to find their hostel when I left the bus station, so I got to spend a couple hours with them, catching up, sharing stories of the past two weeks, eating lunch, eating chocolate. (Bariloche, for whatever reason, is famous for it´s chocolate - there are about four chocolate shops on every block. Just what I need after daily helado in BsAs!) Anyway, very good to see them again - they left early this morning for El Chalten and the parks down thataways. Torres del Paine, I believe. Perhaps I will see them mas tarde, no se.
Around 6 PM, I walked myself over to my new house. And yes, this time, it´s a real house -with a back yard and everything. I´m enchanted by this family and their life here. (I keep wanting to write in Spanish, and I´m really trying to restrain myself, by the way.) The parents are in their 50s, and they have a total of five children, three of whom are in their mid-late 20s and have moved away. The others are a 17 year old boy and a 13 year old girl. There´s a real K-9, a german shepherd, who tried to eat my arm yesterday (but I said, ha! Esta bien!), and tres gatos! One´s a little Siamese meowser, who looks a bit like a kitty I once knew named Sue, and the other is an unremarkable little kitty, and the other is a gigantic grey beast. A puma, I think! Reeer! I cannot remember the names of any of these animals - they´re all Spanish. Apparently the german shephard only understands German. (Yuk, yuk, yuk.)
The house is a home. I love it. Everything´s wooden and it´s full of clutter and pictures and history. Very lived in. My kind of place. They leave the windows open during the day, and the kitties wander in and out, and the dog stands up on his hind legs and peers into the windows, so left out! Last night, when I was in bed, trying to fall asleep, I kept getting rudely startled by the dog, who was trying to open my bedroom windows from outside!
It´s a real family kind of family, too. Home-made, sit-down dinners around the table every night, with educational TV afterward. Eerily like my own upbringing. (NOVA´s on tonight, sweetie! Oh boy!) Anyway, it´s perfect.
And...the school is directly across the street. I had my first round of classes this morning, and I´ve been put into 2B, even thought I just finished 1B and should be in 2A. But because the school is significantly smaller (maybe 30 students to BsAs´200), they have merged some of the classes, so 2A and 2B are together. I´m not feeling terribly lost, fortunately. I think 2A and B are mostly for improving listening and talking, so it´s a lot of conversation and not so much new stuff.
There were 12 newbies today - 4 from the US (including me), one from Germany, 6 from Switzerland, and 1 from Austria - so that´s good. And mi amigo, Eric, from BsAs is here, so that´s muy bien, tambien.
The activities the school organizes are almost entirely outdoors, and I´m going to do as much as I can! I think now, I am going to wander down to the center of the town (just a 5 minute walk, maybe - this place is very small) and try to get some info on day hikes. Perhaps I will even do one today!
Allllllll of this is to say, I am happy. I think this is going to be a great couple of weeks.
I´ve been on the road for a little over four hours now. It´s been four hours of endless flat. Farms of corn and cows, splashes of of marshes and shallow lakes, trees, skies like paintings with perfect puffs of whites and greys. A huge patch of sunflowers just passed by - incredible black faces staring out at me.
It´s familiar and strange. It´s the farmlands of Indiana or Ohio or Kansa or Iowa with the brightnes turned up. The greens are lusher, and the trees! I can´t figure out what it is about the trees here. They´re pines in the desert. There are random patches of them, like they´ve been planted for the purpose of creating a barrier or a shelter, and they´re so varied - all different texture and colors. It´s so beautiful.
This bus is amazing - definitely the way to travel here. I have a deluxe, super-cushy seat, a foot rest that extends all the way, so I can fully stretch out my legs, and I can lean the back of my chair all the way down. It´s like flying first class, just much better scenery. There´s a steward who hands out snacks and meals and beverages. Vino mas tarde, tambien! I´m very glad I chose to travel this way instead of flying. So relaxing - like train-riding - and so much to see. We are supposed to arrive in Bariloche around 10 AM tomorrow morning, and I´m scared I´m going to miss something amazing if I fall asleep!
There are these little "stations" we stop at every hour or so to pick up a new passenger. Basically dirt roads in the middle of nowhere. And, as it was at the bus station in Buenos Aires, it´s always a family affair. A whole carload of folks comes to see off their loved one, all standing outside and waving as we pull off down the road. It´s so old-fashioned. I love it. The deluxe bus is clearly a luxury - and a big deal.
The economic standing of this country reveals itself in little things like that. In more obvious ways, too. This afternoon, a homeless teenager stole the tip I was leaving for my waiter right off the table, right in front of me. Several of these boys had been prowling around this cafe in the bus station. I guess there are no rules against begging in BsAs because it was not the first time in the last month that beggars had approached my table, in the middle of a meal, to ask for money or food. Today, while I was waiting on my food, I watched as one of these boys asked another customer for his leftover fries. When the customer said, sure, fine, the boy just reached his big dirty hand out and grabbed them up right off of the plate.
I had a stack of six 25 cent coins sitting on my table, and when I stood up to heave-ho my enormous backpack onto my back, the kid approached the table, calmly picked up the coins, and just walked off. As he reached down to take them, I said, "No!" I couldn´t even think, I was so dumbfounded by what was happening. He sort of smirked at me, said, "Yes!" and hurried off to snicker about it with his friends. The cafe was crowded; there were tons of witnesses, but I felt totally helpless. Of course, worse, I took several steps away from the table, walking off after the guy, and then realized I had left my smaller backpack on the table. Thank God it was still there - the beggars here work in pairs; one distracts while the other steals.
Several customers told the waiters what had happened. I just stood there, speechless and beginning to burn with anger. One of the waiters headed off after them, but I doubt he accomplished anything. It´s an insignificant amount of money - 50 cents US - so I just walked away. But the way the whole episode made me feel was awful - an ugly mix of embarrassment and fury and disgust and confusion. I´m sure that kid needed that 50 cents more than me or my waiter, but it was the arrogance with which he took it that enraged me. I felt revolted by him and his poverty and his desparation, and I felt revolted with myself for being so revolted by him.
Of course, this wasn´t a dangerous situation by any means, but it was definitely a good lesson. I´m really careful with my things, but I also expect a certain amount of decency from other people. It´s stupid that I can´t trust that if I leave a tip on the table, it won´t be snatched up by a passer-by. Not stupid. I guess I´ve just been spoiled by a world where nobody´s that kind of desperate (or at least the government´s doing a good job of keeping them away). Naivety stikes again.
Anyway, before I really embark on my travels, I am going to try to lighten my load a bit. If your backpack´s so heavy you make yourself vulnerable every time you put it on, that´s a problemo!
I was just surprised to look down at my watch and see that it´s 8:15 PM. It looks and feels like it´s about 3 PM. These long days are good for my health, I´ve decided. I should be sunflower! These fields of sunflowers are breathtaking - looks like a nice place to spend some time.
***
(Sunday, 2/10/08)
I woke up around 2:30 AM this morning and peered out the window to find a sky full of stars. I´ve never seen anything like it. Never seen so many stars. It was incredible. Several times recently, I´ve seen Orion in the night sky over Buenos Aires, but he was always pretty lonely up there. Last night, I could see Orion (because his stars are brighter than others), but he was almost hard to make out because his space was invaded by thousands of little stars. The entire sky was covered. More stars than sky. Gorgeous. How do I explain what it feels like to be laying in a very comfy little bed and to wake to such an incredible sight? How can I explain getting lulled back to sleep by such a sky?
I woke again around 8:30 AM to find the landscape totally changed. The flat farmland had been replaced by rolling yellow hills, the land totally barren of trees. There were tufts of shrubbery - broccoli-like bunches of dry greens sprouting up from the rocky earth and the long, yellow grasses.
***
(Today, the present)
I didn´t finish that because we shortly thereafter arrived in Bariloche. It was facinating, though, to watch the landscape change - to watch those dry, yellowed hills grow into mountains full of pines and deep blue lakes. All in about an hour! I was told yesterday that that yellow area (that´s all I can say about it - yellow), is called "The Step," anywhere in the world. The transition area before the mountains. Anyone know anything about that? Dad-0?
We arrived right on schedule, and I was just bubbling over with excitement as we pulled into Bariloche. It´s unbelievably beautiful here. And cool! I stepped off the bus with a bit of a shiver! By afternoon, it had warmed up significantly, but the mornings and evenings hacen mucho frio!
It´s a smallish resort town - about 100,000 residents, I believe. Tourism is their main industry - skiing in the winter, and everything you can think of in the summer. Hiking, biking, camping, paragliding, etc. Eeeeee! It reminds me vaguley of any town like this in the States - Jackson, WY, Boone, NC. Many of the houses are built in that Alpine style, like the houses in Hound Ears (what is that place called, Jordy? Hounds Run? Hound Ears?) in Boone. Little wedges of houses, built so the snow just slides right down the sides.
I knew my friends Nicole and Kate were just finishing up here, and I managed to find their hostel when I left the bus station, so I got to spend a couple hours with them, catching up, sharing stories of the past two weeks, eating lunch, eating chocolate. (Bariloche, for whatever reason, is famous for it´s chocolate - there are about four chocolate shops on every block. Just what I need after daily helado in BsAs!) Anyway, very good to see them again - they left early this morning for El Chalten and the parks down thataways. Torres del Paine, I believe. Perhaps I will see them mas tarde, no se.
Around 6 PM, I walked myself over to my new house. And yes, this time, it´s a real house -with a back yard and everything. I´m enchanted by this family and their life here. (I keep wanting to write in Spanish, and I´m really trying to restrain myself, by the way.) The parents are in their 50s, and they have a total of five children, three of whom are in their mid-late 20s and have moved away. The others are a 17 year old boy and a 13 year old girl. There´s a real K-9, a german shepherd, who tried to eat my arm yesterday (but I said, ha! Esta bien!), and tres gatos! One´s a little Siamese meowser, who looks a bit like a kitty I once knew named Sue, and the other is an unremarkable little kitty, and the other is a gigantic grey beast. A puma, I think! Reeer! I cannot remember the names of any of these animals - they´re all Spanish. Apparently the german shephard only understands German. (Yuk, yuk, yuk.)
The house is a home. I love it. Everything´s wooden and it´s full of clutter and pictures and history. Very lived in. My kind of place. They leave the windows open during the day, and the kitties wander in and out, and the dog stands up on his hind legs and peers into the windows, so left out! Last night, when I was in bed, trying to fall asleep, I kept getting rudely startled by the dog, who was trying to open my bedroom windows from outside!
It´s a real family kind of family, too. Home-made, sit-down dinners around the table every night, with educational TV afterward. Eerily like my own upbringing. (NOVA´s on tonight, sweetie! Oh boy!) Anyway, it´s perfect.
And...the school is directly across the street. I had my first round of classes this morning, and I´ve been put into 2B, even thought I just finished 1B and should be in 2A. But because the school is significantly smaller (maybe 30 students to BsAs´200), they have merged some of the classes, so 2A and 2B are together. I´m not feeling terribly lost, fortunately. I think 2A and B are mostly for improving listening and talking, so it´s a lot of conversation and not so much new stuff.
There were 12 newbies today - 4 from the US (including me), one from Germany, 6 from Switzerland, and 1 from Austria - so that´s good. And mi amigo, Eric, from BsAs is here, so that´s muy bien, tambien.
The activities the school organizes are almost entirely outdoors, and I´m going to do as much as I can! I think now, I am going to wander down to the center of the town (just a 5 minute walk, maybe - this place is very small) and try to get some info on day hikes. Perhaps I will even do one today!
Allllllll of this is to say, I am happy. I think this is going to be a great couple of weeks.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Bragging and Bariloche
Hola! It´s Saturday morning, and I am almost finished packing for Bariloche!
The last week here has been amazing, I must say. Four weeks is a tricky amount of time to be somewhere because it´s time to go just as you´re getting settled and really beginning to dig into things.
But I am leaving on a high note! I had my test yesterday (to assess my knowledge of the second level), and I got a 100! Best in the class, teacher´s pet, and all that. Needless to say, it was a good decision to move out of Hermaaaaan´s class; my new teacher, Victoria, was excellente. Very patient and a very slow speaker.
After class yesterday, there was a small "graduation" celebration up on the roof terrace of the school. They have these every Friday (because people are leaving every Friday), and when you get your "diploma" you are expected to say something in Spanish. I am proud to say that I very coherently said that I had learned a lot and was very thankful for my profesors. I can speak!
I DO think my Spanish is getting much better. On a break during class yesterday, one of my classmates asked me why I was so good at Spanish, and I told her, I´m not so sure you´re right about that. But then all my other classmates chimed in, "No, you are really good...for four weeks? Never having had any Spanish before?" So I´m not sure why this is. I think it´s incredibly helpful that many of the words aren´t really new to me. Even if I don´t know a word, I can make a good guess. Just take the English word I know and add a -amente or -ico onto the end of it. Sometimes I am right - other times I just invent new Spanish words.
Maybe those mortifying six years of Latin did come in handy after all. Roots, roots!
I can very safely say that in four weeks here, I have easily learned more Spanish than I learned French during my FOUR semesters at Indiana. That´s crazy! But it´s true. I am officially anti learning a language in college. It´s the most pointless venture ever. The only way to do it is the way I´m doing it - you have to be forced to speak it every day or it´s just random vocabulary words and memorization. The language needs to be meaningful and useful to you in order for you to USE it.
I had a little farewell dinner with my first profesor, Juan Manuel, on Thursday night. The rule of the evening was that I had to speak in Spanish the whole time and he in English (because he wanted to practice, too). His English is much better than my Spanish - he can string meaningful sentences together pretty quickly and easily while I feel like I am painfully slow. (I have a smart computer up there - it´s just a little slow!) I´d say it was a successful evening because we managed to talk about real stuff and not just, "Mi nombre es Ellen. Soy de Los Estados Unidos. Tengo 26 años." But it is an interesting process to have to use the limited vocabulary you have to say what you want to say. I find that my speech in English is very complicated - I use all the verb tenses you could possibly use and add in unnecessary words to make my speech sound pretty or intelligent. But here, I search for the most basic formula to express myself. It´s such a delightful simplification.
During the course of the evening, Juan made an interesting observation. He said that he is getting to know a very unique version of me - one that none of my friends at home will ever know - because this me is forced to think before speaking and to speak slowly and carefully. He gets to watch the wheels turning up there, as I search for the correct verb conjugation. To me, I think my friends back home are just being spared a very stupid version of me, but to him, he´s watching a work in progress. He´s getting to witness this big change in me. And that´s pretty neat.
I had a big, fun last night with some old and new amigos. I stayed out way too late, but it was easily worth it for the conversations had. It was an amazing feeling (amazing!) to be sitting outside on a Friday night, in a big plaza full of people and noise, and to stop and look around and take in this new life of mine. Six weeks ago, I was still immersed in routine and familiarity, hardly aware of what was ahead of me. I spent last night with an entire set of people I did not know existed six weeks ago.
We are in control of our lives, I think. We can make these things happen for ourselves. We can make change and introduce new lives to ours, but we have to choose to do it. It´s fantastic.
In just over three hours, I will be taking off to Bariloche via bus! It´s a 22 hour bus ride, but these buses are supposed to be really nice and have fully reclining seats. I am really looking forward to the ride - to relaxing and looking out the window and taking in some new scenery.
Tomorrow afternoon, I will be moving in with a new family. And it´s a whole family with a mom and a dad and two adolescent sons. Eek! Will report on that asap.
So now it´s time to finish packing, say goodbyes to Rosa (who, by the way, has taken to calling me "The Princess" - I could get used to that!) and head on down the road. I am a bit sad because new people have been introduced recently that I wanted to know and I am still wanting to know the old people better, but it´s nice to be certain that there are new folks ahead.
Hope everyone´s having a good weekend. Below are a few random noticings I collected over the past few weeks that need to be said before I go.
Okay, this may sound bad, but...There are these signs at a bunch of the bus stops here that have a picture of a person without an arm or a leg. The caption reads, "Una persona sin derechos, no es una persona." My first two weeks here, I was horribly confused by this. The one word I didn´t know in the caption was "derechos," and by using the context clues, I thought it must mean limbs. A person without limbs is not a person? How could they be saying this?? Finally, I figured out that derechos are rights, not limbs... And now I giggle every time I walk by one of those signs.
You are generally not supposed to flush anything, including toilet paper, down the toilet. There are these lovely reminder signs everywhere, but until you actually try to remember not to throw the paper in the toilet, you will not believe how hard it is. Every time I sit down, I say to myself, I will not flush the toilet paper, I will throw it in the trash can. And then without even thinking, I am standing up, turning around to flush the toilet, and looking down at that silly toilet paper, that i´ve just thrown into the toilet. It happens to me EVERY time. This is a hard habit to break.
There are no laws requiring people to clean up after their dogs here, so there is dog poop EVERYWHERE. You really, really have to pay attention when walking down the sidewalk.
The last week here has been amazing, I must say. Four weeks is a tricky amount of time to be somewhere because it´s time to go just as you´re getting settled and really beginning to dig into things.
But I am leaving on a high note! I had my test yesterday (to assess my knowledge of the second level), and I got a 100! Best in the class, teacher´s pet, and all that. Needless to say, it was a good decision to move out of Hermaaaaan´s class; my new teacher, Victoria, was excellente. Very patient and a very slow speaker.
After class yesterday, there was a small "graduation" celebration up on the roof terrace of the school. They have these every Friday (because people are leaving every Friday), and when you get your "diploma" you are expected to say something in Spanish. I am proud to say that I very coherently said that I had learned a lot and was very thankful for my profesors. I can speak!
I DO think my Spanish is getting much better. On a break during class yesterday, one of my classmates asked me why I was so good at Spanish, and I told her, I´m not so sure you´re right about that. But then all my other classmates chimed in, "No, you are really good...for four weeks? Never having had any Spanish before?" So I´m not sure why this is. I think it´s incredibly helpful that many of the words aren´t really new to me. Even if I don´t know a word, I can make a good guess. Just take the English word I know and add a -amente or -ico onto the end of it. Sometimes I am right - other times I just invent new Spanish words.
Maybe those mortifying six years of Latin did come in handy after all. Roots, roots!
I can very safely say that in four weeks here, I have easily learned more Spanish than I learned French during my FOUR semesters at Indiana. That´s crazy! But it´s true. I am officially anti learning a language in college. It´s the most pointless venture ever. The only way to do it is the way I´m doing it - you have to be forced to speak it every day or it´s just random vocabulary words and memorization. The language needs to be meaningful and useful to you in order for you to USE it.
I had a little farewell dinner with my first profesor, Juan Manuel, on Thursday night. The rule of the evening was that I had to speak in Spanish the whole time and he in English (because he wanted to practice, too). His English is much better than my Spanish - he can string meaningful sentences together pretty quickly and easily while I feel like I am painfully slow. (I have a smart computer up there - it´s just a little slow!) I´d say it was a successful evening because we managed to talk about real stuff and not just, "Mi nombre es Ellen. Soy de Los Estados Unidos. Tengo 26 años." But it is an interesting process to have to use the limited vocabulary you have to say what you want to say. I find that my speech in English is very complicated - I use all the verb tenses you could possibly use and add in unnecessary words to make my speech sound pretty or intelligent. But here, I search for the most basic formula to express myself. It´s such a delightful simplification.
During the course of the evening, Juan made an interesting observation. He said that he is getting to know a very unique version of me - one that none of my friends at home will ever know - because this me is forced to think before speaking and to speak slowly and carefully. He gets to watch the wheels turning up there, as I search for the correct verb conjugation. To me, I think my friends back home are just being spared a very stupid version of me, but to him, he´s watching a work in progress. He´s getting to witness this big change in me. And that´s pretty neat.
I had a big, fun last night with some old and new amigos. I stayed out way too late, but it was easily worth it for the conversations had. It was an amazing feeling (amazing!) to be sitting outside on a Friday night, in a big plaza full of people and noise, and to stop and look around and take in this new life of mine. Six weeks ago, I was still immersed in routine and familiarity, hardly aware of what was ahead of me. I spent last night with an entire set of people I did not know existed six weeks ago.
We are in control of our lives, I think. We can make these things happen for ourselves. We can make change and introduce new lives to ours, but we have to choose to do it. It´s fantastic.
In just over three hours, I will be taking off to Bariloche via bus! It´s a 22 hour bus ride, but these buses are supposed to be really nice and have fully reclining seats. I am really looking forward to the ride - to relaxing and looking out the window and taking in some new scenery.
Tomorrow afternoon, I will be moving in with a new family. And it´s a whole family with a mom and a dad and two adolescent sons. Eek! Will report on that asap.
So now it´s time to finish packing, say goodbyes to Rosa (who, by the way, has taken to calling me "The Princess" - I could get used to that!) and head on down the road. I am a bit sad because new people have been introduced recently that I wanted to know and I am still wanting to know the old people better, but it´s nice to be certain that there are new folks ahead.
Hope everyone´s having a good weekend. Below are a few random noticings I collected over the past few weeks that need to be said before I go.
Okay, this may sound bad, but...There are these signs at a bunch of the bus stops here that have a picture of a person without an arm or a leg. The caption reads, "Una persona sin derechos, no es una persona." My first two weeks here, I was horribly confused by this. The one word I didn´t know in the caption was "derechos," and by using the context clues, I thought it must mean limbs. A person without limbs is not a person? How could they be saying this?? Finally, I figured out that derechos are rights, not limbs... And now I giggle every time I walk by one of those signs.
You are generally not supposed to flush anything, including toilet paper, down the toilet. There are these lovely reminder signs everywhere, but until you actually try to remember not to throw the paper in the toilet, you will not believe how hard it is. Every time I sit down, I say to myself, I will not flush the toilet paper, I will throw it in the trash can. And then without even thinking, I am standing up, turning around to flush the toilet, and looking down at that silly toilet paper, that i´ve just thrown into the toilet. It happens to me EVERY time. This is a hard habit to break.
There are no laws requiring people to clean up after their dogs here, so there is dog poop EVERYWHERE. You really, really have to pay attention when walking down the sidewalk.
Apparently, all over the world, there´s a different description for the sound a rooster makes. My teacher was trying to explain to us the Spanish word for rooster, and she said it´s an animal that says, "Kee Kiri Kee". And we all just looked at her like, huh? We figured it out eventually. I said, in the US, we say, "Cockle Doodle Doo", and then the Swedish people said what it was in their country, and the Canaidian woman said what it was Canada. Who knew?
Okay, that is it, and that is all. Chau!
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
High Notes, Low Notes
I did the coolest thing last night. Every Monday night at the Konex Cultural Center in the Once neighborhood, there´s a drum show, and I kept hearing good things about it, so I decided that it was a necessity for my last week here.
And now I know where all the Argentinian hippies hang out!
The show started at 8, and there was a line wrapping down the street and around the corner to get in. I waited for maybe ten minutes, paid my 10 pesos for entry, and then followed the masses into this large enclosed outdoor area, bordered on all sides by buildings. There was a large orange stairway cutting up the center of things, and sitting on the lowest landing were 15 drummers!
Every now and then, since I have been here, I have these eek moments, where I get so excited I shriek to myself (or out loud), and I had a few of these last night. It was my kind of dance party (none of this Green Rock nonsense). Everyone there was dancing - it was impossible not to, even for those of us who need about 20 drinks in order to feel comfortable dancing.
I made my way through the masses of sweaty young people to get an enormous 10 peso cerveza, and then found myself a spot to watch the show. It was awesome. I don´t know anything about drums or drum circles, but it was fascinating to watch. There was a "conductor" of sorts, standing in front of the drummers, but I have no idea how he was signaling them or how they were following his signals. They must have several patterns of beats memorized, and then the conductor sort of leads them through a series of these patterns. Seemed it was definitely improv-ed to a point.
For one "song" a "poet" came out to (sing? shout?) with the drums. I couldn´t really understand what he was saying (that damned Español), but I imagine it was about, you know, sex, politics, something along those lines. I think maybe politics. Freedom. Hippies. I don´t know. I guess it was sort of like jam poetry? (I shouldn´t even try to talk about this because I have no idea what jam poetry is.) During another number, a trumpet player came out. Amazing.
I can´t describe it. I don´t have the words. Those amazing writers who write music reviews for the New Yorker and The Voice and The Times, they have the words. I don´t have them.
But I can say that the place was ALIVE. I felt more alive than I´ve felt in a while. It was hot, hot, the sun was going down, the pot smoke was lingering everywhere I turned, and everyone was just having a good time. Not a wild and crazy good time, just a genuinely good time.
The drums would get going on a certain beat, lulling everyone into a relaxed state, heads bobbing up and down, hips and shoulders obeying the rhythms, and then with hardly any transition, there was a subtle shift, and the beats would break out into an impromptu jam, (I feel unbelievably silly using the word jam. But that´s what it was.) and the audience responded. The whole mood would change - people jumping up and down and shouting and laughing and dancing. It was so much fun! And, what always makes music good, the musicians looked like they were having a blast. They must live for Monday nights.
The show lasted about two hours, by which time I was dripping with sweat, but it was great, uninhibited fun. I´m so glad I went.
When I got back to the house, I was in a terrific mood. Loving my life. I called my parents for the weekly check-in, though, and my mood was quickly brought down a few notches.
"We´ve had sort of an eventful weekend," my dad said. I don´t really like those words. Or I didn´t like them the way he said them. Makes me nervous. Makes everything awful that possibly could have happened, every person that I love, rush through my head at once, makes my stomach sick. And everything is fine, first of all. But on Saturday morning my grandmother started having trouble breathing, and when they took her to the hospital it appeared she had had heart failure. The short story is that she´s going to be on a respirator for basically the rest of her life (which, if you know her, you know she is hating that), but she is going to be fine.
It´s maddening to be so far away when something like this happens, and you don´t even get the information until days after because you can´t be reached. It makes me feel selfish for being here and not being there. For "needing" an adventure, when the people I care about need me. For not getting that stupid post-card in the mail when you wrote it two weeks ago. For procrastinating.
Anyway, I´m quite close to my grandmother Maggie, and I´m feeling a bit disrupted by all of this. Disrupted - that´s a terrible word. Disturbed? Confused? Sad. She´s 91, though, and that´s what happens. The body wears out on us eventually.
This is reality. Living in Argentina, on the other hand, I´m not so sure. It´s some version of reality, I guess. Mine, for the moment.
And now I know where all the Argentinian hippies hang out!
The show started at 8, and there was a line wrapping down the street and around the corner to get in. I waited for maybe ten minutes, paid my 10 pesos for entry, and then followed the masses into this large enclosed outdoor area, bordered on all sides by buildings. There was a large orange stairway cutting up the center of things, and sitting on the lowest landing were 15 drummers!
Every now and then, since I have been here, I have these eek moments, where I get so excited I shriek to myself (or out loud), and I had a few of these last night. It was my kind of dance party (none of this Green Rock nonsense). Everyone there was dancing - it was impossible not to, even for those of us who need about 20 drinks in order to feel comfortable dancing.
I made my way through the masses of sweaty young people to get an enormous 10 peso cerveza, and then found myself a spot to watch the show. It was awesome. I don´t know anything about drums or drum circles, but it was fascinating to watch. There was a "conductor" of sorts, standing in front of the drummers, but I have no idea how he was signaling them or how they were following his signals. They must have several patterns of beats memorized, and then the conductor sort of leads them through a series of these patterns. Seemed it was definitely improv-ed to a point.
For one "song" a "poet" came out to (sing? shout?) with the drums. I couldn´t really understand what he was saying (that damned Español), but I imagine it was about, you know, sex, politics, something along those lines. I think maybe politics. Freedom. Hippies. I don´t know. I guess it was sort of like jam poetry? (I shouldn´t even try to talk about this because I have no idea what jam poetry is.) During another number, a trumpet player came out. Amazing.
I can´t describe it. I don´t have the words. Those amazing writers who write music reviews for the New Yorker and The Voice and The Times, they have the words. I don´t have them.
But I can say that the place was ALIVE. I felt more alive than I´ve felt in a while. It was hot, hot, the sun was going down, the pot smoke was lingering everywhere I turned, and everyone was just having a good time. Not a wild and crazy good time, just a genuinely good time.
The drums would get going on a certain beat, lulling everyone into a relaxed state, heads bobbing up and down, hips and shoulders obeying the rhythms, and then with hardly any transition, there was a subtle shift, and the beats would break out into an impromptu jam, (I feel unbelievably silly using the word jam. But that´s what it was.) and the audience responded. The whole mood would change - people jumping up and down and shouting and laughing and dancing. It was so much fun! And, what always makes music good, the musicians looked like they were having a blast. They must live for Monday nights.
The show lasted about two hours, by which time I was dripping with sweat, but it was great, uninhibited fun. I´m so glad I went.
When I got back to the house, I was in a terrific mood. Loving my life. I called my parents for the weekly check-in, though, and my mood was quickly brought down a few notches.
"We´ve had sort of an eventful weekend," my dad said. I don´t really like those words. Or I didn´t like them the way he said them. Makes me nervous. Makes everything awful that possibly could have happened, every person that I love, rush through my head at once, makes my stomach sick. And everything is fine, first of all. But on Saturday morning my grandmother started having trouble breathing, and when they took her to the hospital it appeared she had had heart failure. The short story is that she´s going to be on a respirator for basically the rest of her life (which, if you know her, you know she is hating that), but she is going to be fine.
It´s maddening to be so far away when something like this happens, and you don´t even get the information until days after because you can´t be reached. It makes me feel selfish for being here and not being there. For "needing" an adventure, when the people I care about need me. For not getting that stupid post-card in the mail when you wrote it two weeks ago. For procrastinating.
Anyway, I´m quite close to my grandmother Maggie, and I´m feeling a bit disrupted by all of this. Disrupted - that´s a terrible word. Disturbed? Confused? Sad. She´s 91, though, and that´s what happens. The body wears out on us eventually.
This is reality. Living in Argentina, on the other hand, I´m not so sure. It´s some version of reality, I guess. Mine, for the moment.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Improvisado Arte
(From earlier today.)
I love this day. I am sitting at an outdoor table on Av. San Juan, drinking a cerveza, eating olives, and waiting for my lunch to arrive.
I love these times of solo dining. I eat peacefully, without worry of what to say. Sounds antisocial, I guess. I like people, but people take a lot out of me. I prefer watching, observing to talking, conversing.
There´s no fast food here. If you want to eat, you are forced to sit down for at least twenty minutes and be at the whim of a restaurant. There´s no running into a deli for a wrap with turkey lettuce tomato mustard to take back and eat at your desk. There´s really not even any to-go coffee (and this is painful for me). It´s nice, to slow down for a few minutes, to take the time to feed myself and relax. It´s sad that back home, we can´t give more time to self-nourishment, even this most basic kind. I think it´s a necessity.
I´ve spent the past few hours wandering around the San Telmo Sunday markets. There are blocks and blocks of vendor booths, selling jewelry, souvenirs, books, art, leather, and many items in the "junk" category. It´s the same stuff, booth after booth, but I think I could - and will - browse all day.
It´s a gorgeous day here - maybe high 70s and sunny - and there´s something about being in the center of the action on a beautiful day that I really enjoy. Overhearing conversations (even if I can´t understand them), watching the tourists be tourists and the vendors be vendors, just absorbing it all.
I wandered out of the crowded market into a small art gallery (because I dream of being an art collector someday and having a house full of special pieces - something from Argentina, perhaps?). Some of the paintings were what I´d call impressionistic and others were more modern - all were simple splashes of color, some just more distinctly resembling real life/objects than others. One piece immediately pulled me in - I can´t explain what it was about this one, but it had a soothing power. The blend of colors just felt right. I don´t know. This is what I love about art. I find it fascinating that someone can spew colors out of their brain and have them make sense to me. I stared at the painting for a long minute or two and then glanced down at the small white card next to it and read the name of the piece, "Improvisado". Coincidence? I think I have to have it, but transporting art may be complicated, so we´ll see.
There are many musicians out on the streets today. I´ve seen several huge antique pianos - very much like the behemoth rescued from Texas that lives in the childhood playroom of my parents´house. Perhaps encouragement to fix that thing up?? It was really cool to see these pianos actually played. They make a sound that´s unlike a new piano. Not nearly as crisp - much darker. You can just hear the age of the thing. Like how a 50 year old opera singer sounds much richer than a 25 year old one. Or how a man who´s been a smoker half his life sounds compared to his non-smoker counterpart.
Anyway, for a long while, I sat and watched this guy play one of these pianos, along with a small ensemble. There were three accordions, the piano, a bass, a cello, and three violins, and they were playing classic tango music. I must tell you that I am beginning to really like this tango music. Rosa plays it in the house all the time, and it´s just sort of sad and nostalgic and beautiful. Makes me feel the same way the music in that French movie I just saw...can´t think of the name...the Edith Piaf story? Anyway, it´s beautiful. And classic. And totally unique to this place.
Of all the street performers and musicians, though, the absolute best was the drum lady. She´s at least 70 - probably a bit older - and had a home-made drumset, made of I do not know what. The main drums sounded a bit like plastic - they looked a bit to me like the tops of cooking spray cans - and the cymbals, the *ching* of the ba dum bum *ching*, looked like they had been stolen from a disassembled tambourine. They were that small. She had little tap tappers on the bottoms of her shoes (my guess is tacs, being an expert at the impromptu tap dance in high school), and she just really went for it. She was getting the beats from whatever music was feeding into her ears from her headphones (the audience couldn´t hear that, of course), and best, I believe she was scatting. It was fantastic. Made me really giggle.
****
It´s been a good, restful weekend. Friday night, I had a pretty low key evening with some new friends - drinks and dinner, and last night, I stayed in with Rosa. Lots of good talks. She is full of advice for me. You know how someone that´s much older orders their advice at you, whereas someone that´s your own age suggests advice? She definitely orders. You do this, you do that. And I feel like I have to do it! But she sort of refreshed my perspective on my trip - not that it really needed refreshing, but I guess after being here for three weeks, the novelty of it has worn off a bit, and it´s like, yeah, I´m in South America...okay. So she renewed my sense of how unique this experience is and how lucky I am to be where I am.
I´m going to meet some folks to watch the Super Bowl tonight. I had to call Rosa a few hours ago to let her know I wasn´t coming home for dinner (house rule is that I must call by 5 PM), and I had to leave a message on her answering machine because I guess she was out. Usually she answers, so in my fumbling and mumbling, I at least can get some confirmation from her that she understands what I have said. But the answering machine is something else altogether. Terrible. I started laughing when I hung up the phone, thinking of what she must think when she listens to that message. I basically said, "I no go to the dinner in your house tonight. I´m sorry. I hope is not late." I was trying to say that I hoped I wasn´t calling too late (because it was a few minutes after five), but then in the middle of the sentence, I realized I didn´t know the word for "too". She´ll get the gist, I´m sure.
Mis amigos, I am missing you all. Three weeks here today, and while I´m not homesick, I do feel sort of sick for something. I wrote a friend this sentiment earlier today (two references, you lucky SOB!) and didn´t really think I´d put it in here, but omitting things like this from the blog makes the blog feel pointless. It´s part of the experience. It´s the downs that go with every up.
I think if I didn´t have this blog to talk to all the time, none of this would quite be real. I´m not lying when I say I like to eat by myself or do things by myself. I´m enjoying my alone time in a way I sometimes think I shouldn´t. But it is weird to experience something and not have someone to turn to and say, "Hey, that was neat. What did you think about it?" So I pour it all in here, to cement it, to make it mine. So funny how important it is to have people to tell your stories to, isn´t it? Oh, mama, that´s the little historian in me!
But now it IS social time, game time! Necesito ir a la bar ahora para mirar el "Super Bowl". Chau, my dears! (That IS how they spell it here - isn´t that weird?)
I love this day. I am sitting at an outdoor table on Av. San Juan, drinking a cerveza, eating olives, and waiting for my lunch to arrive.
I love these times of solo dining. I eat peacefully, without worry of what to say. Sounds antisocial, I guess. I like people, but people take a lot out of me. I prefer watching, observing to talking, conversing.
There´s no fast food here. If you want to eat, you are forced to sit down for at least twenty minutes and be at the whim of a restaurant. There´s no running into a deli for a wrap with turkey lettuce tomato mustard to take back and eat at your desk. There´s really not even any to-go coffee (and this is painful for me). It´s nice, to slow down for a few minutes, to take the time to feed myself and relax. It´s sad that back home, we can´t give more time to self-nourishment, even this most basic kind. I think it´s a necessity.
I´ve spent the past few hours wandering around the San Telmo Sunday markets. There are blocks and blocks of vendor booths, selling jewelry, souvenirs, books, art, leather, and many items in the "junk" category. It´s the same stuff, booth after booth, but I think I could - and will - browse all day.
It´s a gorgeous day here - maybe high 70s and sunny - and there´s something about being in the center of the action on a beautiful day that I really enjoy. Overhearing conversations (even if I can´t understand them), watching the tourists be tourists and the vendors be vendors, just absorbing it all.
I wandered out of the crowded market into a small art gallery (because I dream of being an art collector someday and having a house full of special pieces - something from Argentina, perhaps?). Some of the paintings were what I´d call impressionistic and others were more modern - all were simple splashes of color, some just more distinctly resembling real life/objects than others. One piece immediately pulled me in - I can´t explain what it was about this one, but it had a soothing power. The blend of colors just felt right. I don´t know. This is what I love about art. I find it fascinating that someone can spew colors out of their brain and have them make sense to me. I stared at the painting for a long minute or two and then glanced down at the small white card next to it and read the name of the piece, "Improvisado". Coincidence? I think I have to have it, but transporting art may be complicated, so we´ll see.
There are many musicians out on the streets today. I´ve seen several huge antique pianos - very much like the behemoth rescued from Texas that lives in the childhood playroom of my parents´house. Perhaps encouragement to fix that thing up?? It was really cool to see these pianos actually played. They make a sound that´s unlike a new piano. Not nearly as crisp - much darker. You can just hear the age of the thing. Like how a 50 year old opera singer sounds much richer than a 25 year old one. Or how a man who´s been a smoker half his life sounds compared to his non-smoker counterpart.
Anyway, for a long while, I sat and watched this guy play one of these pianos, along with a small ensemble. There were three accordions, the piano, a bass, a cello, and three violins, and they were playing classic tango music. I must tell you that I am beginning to really like this tango music. Rosa plays it in the house all the time, and it´s just sort of sad and nostalgic and beautiful. Makes me feel the same way the music in that French movie I just saw...can´t think of the name...the Edith Piaf story? Anyway, it´s beautiful. And classic. And totally unique to this place.
Of all the street performers and musicians, though, the absolute best was the drum lady. She´s at least 70 - probably a bit older - and had a home-made drumset, made of I do not know what. The main drums sounded a bit like plastic - they looked a bit to me like the tops of cooking spray cans - and the cymbals, the *ching* of the ba dum bum *ching*, looked like they had been stolen from a disassembled tambourine. They were that small. She had little tap tappers on the bottoms of her shoes (my guess is tacs, being an expert at the impromptu tap dance in high school), and she just really went for it. She was getting the beats from whatever music was feeding into her ears from her headphones (the audience couldn´t hear that, of course), and best, I believe she was scatting. It was fantastic. Made me really giggle.
****
It´s been a good, restful weekend. Friday night, I had a pretty low key evening with some new friends - drinks and dinner, and last night, I stayed in with Rosa. Lots of good talks. She is full of advice for me. You know how someone that´s much older orders their advice at you, whereas someone that´s your own age suggests advice? She definitely orders. You do this, you do that. And I feel like I have to do it! But she sort of refreshed my perspective on my trip - not that it really needed refreshing, but I guess after being here for three weeks, the novelty of it has worn off a bit, and it´s like, yeah, I´m in South America...okay. So she renewed my sense of how unique this experience is and how lucky I am to be where I am.
I´m going to meet some folks to watch the Super Bowl tonight. I had to call Rosa a few hours ago to let her know I wasn´t coming home for dinner (house rule is that I must call by 5 PM), and I had to leave a message on her answering machine because I guess she was out. Usually she answers, so in my fumbling and mumbling, I at least can get some confirmation from her that she understands what I have said. But the answering machine is something else altogether. Terrible. I started laughing when I hung up the phone, thinking of what she must think when she listens to that message. I basically said, "I no go to the dinner in your house tonight. I´m sorry. I hope is not late." I was trying to say that I hoped I wasn´t calling too late (because it was a few minutes after five), but then in the middle of the sentence, I realized I didn´t know the word for "too". She´ll get the gist, I´m sure.
Mis amigos, I am missing you all. Three weeks here today, and while I´m not homesick, I do feel sort of sick for something. I wrote a friend this sentiment earlier today (two references, you lucky SOB!) and didn´t really think I´d put it in here, but omitting things like this from the blog makes the blog feel pointless. It´s part of the experience. It´s the downs that go with every up.
I think if I didn´t have this blog to talk to all the time, none of this would quite be real. I´m not lying when I say I like to eat by myself or do things by myself. I´m enjoying my alone time in a way I sometimes think I shouldn´t. But it is weird to experience something and not have someone to turn to and say, "Hey, that was neat. What did you think about it?" So I pour it all in here, to cement it, to make it mine. So funny how important it is to have people to tell your stories to, isn´t it? Oh, mama, that´s the little historian in me!
But now it IS social time, game time! Necesito ir a la bar ahora para mirar el "Super Bowl". Chau, my dears! (That IS how they spell it here - isn´t that weird?)
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Birding Y Jose-ing
In my haste to bash Hermannn, I neglected to write about a few highlights - actually some of the best moments yet - from the previous week, so I´m going to do that now.
Friday morning before the trip to the futbol game, Nicole and I went to the Ecological Reserve here. Since I´ve been living in Hoboken, NJ, for the past several months and not in Manhattan proper, I´ve forgotten how stressful living in a big city can be. Not stressful like work is stressful or Spanish is stressful - just stressful to the senses. There´s never a quiet moment in a city. This particular city feels more stressful than New York, and I´m not sure if it´s because it´s foreign to me or if it actually is more stressful, but nevertheless, it is sensory overload! The buses seem to be especially loud and smelly here, farting out large clouds of gray smoke every time they pass, and even in your casa, you can hear those silly motorcycles rrrripping up the streets.
All of this is to say that as we were making our way over to the Reserve that Friday morning, Nicole and I were both doing a small bit of griping about things. Ugh! Just shut up, city! Just give me a moment of peace, just one!
And then we walked into the Reserve.
The Ecological Reserve is located on the eastern-most edge of the city, so when you get to the eastern-most edge of the Reserve, you hit the Rio de la Plata, which feeds out to the Atlantic. It´s a relatively small piece of land - maybe the size of the Radnor Lake area in Nashville, maybe a bit smaller - but it is an amazing haven from the racket of the city. You walk into it from the streets of the city, and suddenly, all the noise just stops! Silence! Ahhhhhh. The land is very marshy, but there are walking paths around the exterior of the Reserve and a few that cut down the middle of it, too. The Reserve is home to a good bit of wildlife - plants and trees and many, many birds. I was lucky enough to visit the Reserve with Nicole, who happens to be an aspiring birder. I´ve never met someone who aspired to be a birder before (unless you count mi padre), and I´m a bit of a dummy about birds, so being with her made the place come alive a bit for me.
She said she felt like a kid in a candy store with all the birds. Being the sweets addict that I am, I would never compare looking at birds to being in a candy store, but her excitement about the whole thing was a bit contagious, I must say. She had her binoculars, and she´d spot something and then be like, "That is the COOLEST bird I´ve ever seen!" with the kind of enthusiasm that I reserve for a VERY few things. Then she´d make me look, and she´d get out her pad of paper and write down a description of the bird, so that she could look it up in her book later and identify it.
I spent the majority of the time there, walking a few steps ahead of her, and just breathing in and out. The flowers here are beautiful right now, and it was such a relief to just enjoy for a moment. I find it very difficult to just enjoy in a city - things are too distracting.
When we finally hit the edge of the Reserve, there was the Rio, and again, my friends, dirty, dirty, dirty. I have some great pictures of the "beach" by the Rio - bricks and lost shoes and garbage, rubbish, filth. With the exception of my time in Haiti, I´ve never seen such utter carelessness about a place. It´s very sad. It did make me very thankful for some of the sterilization efforts in America (or in the United States, I should say - people here get very annoyed with you when you call the US, "America". "This is America, too" they say. Oops. Good point.)
It was a great morning. One of my favorites since I´ve been here, I think.
The following Sunday evening, I was lucky enough to go to a Jose Gonzalez show at a little music venue here - La Trastienda. The place was comparable in size to Bowery Ballroom in New York, but they had small tables (with seats!) in the central part of the room that you could reserve, so I actually got to sit down for the entire show, which I find preferable to standing - especially for mellow music like Jose´s.
Mis amigos Camilla and Roger (from Holland), Blake (from Canada), Liam (from Colorado), and Emily (from London) all went with me, so we had a little table to ourselves, had a few beers, and just relaxed. It was an amazing show. If you ever get a chance to see him in concert, you should definitely take it. He´s incredibly talented. A real musician.
After the show, we walked over to one of the main plazas in the San Telmo neighborhood to have a few more cervezas. It was about 12:30 PM on a Sunday evening, and this plaza was alive! Cafes circling the plaza all had tables out for outdoor seating, and there was an impromptu dance floor in the middle of the plaza, where couples were tango-ing or trying to tango or just swaying and loving. The air was cool and the winds were mild, and it was altogether a perfect setting, so we sat, listened to the tango music, watched the people, and talked. These moments are the rewards of putting up with the stress of the city. Also one of my favorites since I´ve been here.
A week from today, I´m heading to Bariloche, Argentina (http://www.bariloche.com/fotos.asp for some pics), for two or three weeks more of studying. I cannot wait. After that, the loose plan is to head back to Buenos Aires to meet mis padres (if they would pulease make a plan?) for a week or so, and THEN, then, my friends, I am off. I´m hoping to formulate more of a plan in the next few weeks (perhaps while relaxing by a lake in Bariloche - eeek, I can´t wait), but ideally, I want to head south first, from Buenos Aires, see a bit of Patagonia, then head back up north, through the Andes, Chile, hopefully take a side trip out to Easter Island (I´ll hate myself if I don´t - I´ve been dying to see this place for about 6 years), then head up to Peru. Depending on time and money, I´ve gotten myself very interested in continuing north from there, to see Guatamala and Mexico and places in between, perhaps. I don´t know. The world is my oyster. I am a free woman, as Rosa says.
At times, the idea of traveling solo makes me a little nauseous; at others, it feels exhilarating. It´s scary in the way that jumping off a high cliff into water below is. Even if you´ve watched people do it and survive it and love it (and then do it again), it´s difficult to not let the scariness of it prevent you from experiencing the thrill of actually doing it.
But I´m doing it. Now that I´ve put it in writing, I must!
Hope everyone´s having a great weekend. Much love.
Friday morning before the trip to the futbol game, Nicole and I went to the Ecological Reserve here. Since I´ve been living in Hoboken, NJ, for the past several months and not in Manhattan proper, I´ve forgotten how stressful living in a big city can be. Not stressful like work is stressful or Spanish is stressful - just stressful to the senses. There´s never a quiet moment in a city. This particular city feels more stressful than New York, and I´m not sure if it´s because it´s foreign to me or if it actually is more stressful, but nevertheless, it is sensory overload! The buses seem to be especially loud and smelly here, farting out large clouds of gray smoke every time they pass, and even in your casa, you can hear those silly motorcycles rrrripping up the streets.
All of this is to say that as we were making our way over to the Reserve that Friday morning, Nicole and I were both doing a small bit of griping about things. Ugh! Just shut up, city! Just give me a moment of peace, just one!
And then we walked into the Reserve.
The Ecological Reserve is located on the eastern-most edge of the city, so when you get to the eastern-most edge of the Reserve, you hit the Rio de la Plata, which feeds out to the Atlantic. It´s a relatively small piece of land - maybe the size of the Radnor Lake area in Nashville, maybe a bit smaller - but it is an amazing haven from the racket of the city. You walk into it from the streets of the city, and suddenly, all the noise just stops! Silence! Ahhhhhh. The land is very marshy, but there are walking paths around the exterior of the Reserve and a few that cut down the middle of it, too. The Reserve is home to a good bit of wildlife - plants and trees and many, many birds. I was lucky enough to visit the Reserve with Nicole, who happens to be an aspiring birder. I´ve never met someone who aspired to be a birder before (unless you count mi padre), and I´m a bit of a dummy about birds, so being with her made the place come alive a bit for me.
She said she felt like a kid in a candy store with all the birds. Being the sweets addict that I am, I would never compare looking at birds to being in a candy store, but her excitement about the whole thing was a bit contagious, I must say. She had her binoculars, and she´d spot something and then be like, "That is the COOLEST bird I´ve ever seen!" with the kind of enthusiasm that I reserve for a VERY few things. Then she´d make me look, and she´d get out her pad of paper and write down a description of the bird, so that she could look it up in her book later and identify it.
I spent the majority of the time there, walking a few steps ahead of her, and just breathing in and out. The flowers here are beautiful right now, and it was such a relief to just enjoy for a moment. I find it very difficult to just enjoy in a city - things are too distracting.
When we finally hit the edge of the Reserve, there was the Rio, and again, my friends, dirty, dirty, dirty. I have some great pictures of the "beach" by the Rio - bricks and lost shoes and garbage, rubbish, filth. With the exception of my time in Haiti, I´ve never seen such utter carelessness about a place. It´s very sad. It did make me very thankful for some of the sterilization efforts in America (or in the United States, I should say - people here get very annoyed with you when you call the US, "America". "This is America, too" they say. Oops. Good point.)
It was a great morning. One of my favorites since I´ve been here, I think.
The following Sunday evening, I was lucky enough to go to a Jose Gonzalez show at a little music venue here - La Trastienda. The place was comparable in size to Bowery Ballroom in New York, but they had small tables (with seats!) in the central part of the room that you could reserve, so I actually got to sit down for the entire show, which I find preferable to standing - especially for mellow music like Jose´s.
Mis amigos Camilla and Roger (from Holland), Blake (from Canada), Liam (from Colorado), and Emily (from London) all went with me, so we had a little table to ourselves, had a few beers, and just relaxed. It was an amazing show. If you ever get a chance to see him in concert, you should definitely take it. He´s incredibly talented. A real musician.
After the show, we walked over to one of the main plazas in the San Telmo neighborhood to have a few more cervezas. It was about 12:30 PM on a Sunday evening, and this plaza was alive! Cafes circling the plaza all had tables out for outdoor seating, and there was an impromptu dance floor in the middle of the plaza, where couples were tango-ing or trying to tango or just swaying and loving. The air was cool and the winds were mild, and it was altogether a perfect setting, so we sat, listened to the tango music, watched the people, and talked. These moments are the rewards of putting up with the stress of the city. Also one of my favorites since I´ve been here.
A week from today, I´m heading to Bariloche, Argentina (http://www.bariloche.com/fotos.asp for some pics), for two or three weeks more of studying. I cannot wait. After that, the loose plan is to head back to Buenos Aires to meet mis padres (if they would pulease make a plan?) for a week or so, and THEN, then, my friends, I am off. I´m hoping to formulate more of a plan in the next few weeks (perhaps while relaxing by a lake in Bariloche - eeek, I can´t wait), but ideally, I want to head south first, from Buenos Aires, see a bit of Patagonia, then head back up north, through the Andes, Chile, hopefully take a side trip out to Easter Island (I´ll hate myself if I don´t - I´ve been dying to see this place for about 6 years), then head up to Peru. Depending on time and money, I´ve gotten myself very interested in continuing north from there, to see Guatamala and Mexico and places in between, perhaps. I don´t know. The world is my oyster. I am a free woman, as Rosa says.
At times, the idea of traveling solo makes me a little nauseous; at others, it feels exhilarating. It´s scary in the way that jumping off a high cliff into water below is. Even if you´ve watched people do it and survive it and love it (and then do it again), it´s difficult to not let the scariness of it prevent you from experiencing the thrill of actually doing it.
But I´m doing it. Now that I´ve put it in writing, I must!
Hope everyone´s having a great weekend. Much love.
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