hey guess what, i don't want to go home.

Why? A little thing called reverse culture shock.
These are the levels of reentry that I apparently must cope with.

1.) Family
You may be expected to fit back into your family but find it difficult to communicate effectively because your family has not shared your experiences overseas. Your family may have difficulty adjusting to your new-found independence and changed values.

2.) Friends
You and your friends may no longer be as close as you once were. You need to be sensitive about discussing your experience with them. You may also miss the friends you made overseas.

3.) School
You may see your campus in a new light. You may also miss the feeling of being part of a close-knit group of students.

4.) Country
Your home culture may no longer be entirely to your liking and you may have the sense that you no longer fit in. In the future you will probably continue to evaluate ideas and events in the context of the broader cultural perspective you have acquired.

5.) Self
You have become accustomed to ha high level of activity and anticipation that your home and campus cannot possibly match. You may feel restless or a bit depressed for a while after you return.
My flight leaves tomorrow night at 11:30.

Today I went to 6 museums I hadn't visited before. All of my gift shopping is done. Sad sad sad. Chile trip post to come later.

just for fun

I wanted to highlight the provinces that I've visited. I think I've covered more ground than I have in the USA.

to the end of the world and beyond

DONE. FINISHED. TERMINADO. Yesterday, after weeks of researching, translating, and waiting for my host mom to correct my horrific translating mistakes (i.e. "what are you trying to say here?") I turned in my final 16 page paper (monografia) for my UBA class. I wrote about tango and Argentine identity in cinema and compared American and Argentine movies. One of the points I made, for example, is that in one of my personal favorite movies, Evita, tango and a slew of other dances are shown but the truth is that Eva Peron was a horrible dancer and never danced the tango. hmm.

Wrapping up bird class was the horrible weekend three weekends ago that would never end. Friday we had to present projects on birds, Saturday we had to watch birds, identify birds, and get tested on birds, then Sunday we had to watch birds some more. But it's over. I think I passed.

For my Spanish class we had to write a 6 page paper about Argentine rock. I wrote mine the day before about rock and democracy in 1982 since before the military regime censored a lot of lyrics, bands etc. It's interesting I guess, but I bored my class to death presenting it.

If you're wondering what I did for Thanksgiving (obviously there is no Thanksgiving in Argentina), Mario the COPA director had everyone over at his house to eat and it was delicious...turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie, everything! Thanksgiving wasn't really the same of course without family, but it fared ok.

Soooo this past week I went to the end of the world. Seriously. I will provide a map.


This trip was something I really wanted to do and unfortunately or maybe fortunately, given the time I have left here, I traveled sola. I made a triangle (parallelogram?) with 3 stops by plane. Since I have a student visa I was able to get a really good deal on airfare (i.e. pay what the Argentinians pay). Because keep in mind, these places are FAR. My first stop is 60 hours by bus from BsAs.

Stop #1: Ushuaia - the southernmost city in the world

My plane left at 5:30 a.m. Which meant I had to be at the airport even earlier. Which led to my decision of...sleep? Nah. So I pulled an all nighter. I slept like a rock on the 4 hour plane ride (didn't even wake up for the drinks) and drank lots of coffee during the day. I made it through. In the morning I did some touristy things in the city. It has a really interesting history, in that it used to be a penal colony (penal in that the government sent prisoners there in the early 1900s since it was uninhabited and so that they would be able to declare it Argentine territory instead of Chilean, then Peron got rid of the jail in the 1950s). The old prison is now a huge museum with little exhibits in every room. Ushuaia is pretty much the closest thing to Antarctica, so there was a lot of boring exhibits that my dad would have liked about the Argentine navy and expeditions to Antarctica.

In the afternoon I did a 6 hour boat ride through the Beagle Channel, which runs between Argentina and Chile. It's surrounded by the Andes mountains on each side. We stopped at little islands to see wildlife. First sea lions and some birds, then penguins!! Magellanic penguins.

The next day I had half the day to kill before my flight so I went to Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) National Park. One cool thing about the national parks I visited (3 total) is that because I have a student i.d. from an Argentine university it looks like I am a resident, so I got to receive the resident student price which was about 30 pesos less in each park. To get into the park I decided I would take the disgustingly touristy "Train at the End of the World" which is old fashioned and runs on railroads that the prisoners built. Then in the park there were some pretty lakes and a cool sign that says you are basically super far away from Alaska.

If you think about it, Ushuaia could possibly be the beginning of the world. I'm not sure who was the first to designate which way was north and which way was south, probably European navigators, but if you flipped a map upside down Ushuaia would indeed be far far north. Overall the town of Ushuaia was my favorite on the trip.

Stop #2: El Calafate

El Calafate is the portal that 150,000 tourists visit each year to go see the famous glaciers. For this reason the downtown is horrible. Tourist agencies. Souvenir shops. Restaurants. That's about it. The next day I did an all-day excursion into the Glacier National Park to of course see the glaciers. Being on a boat for 11 hours isn't as bad as it sounds. We navigated through Lago (lake) Argentino. The water in the park is AMAZING. It is a beautiful shade of turquoise that somehow is turned the color it is from the glaciers. Unfortunately we couldn't get to the biggest glacier in the park, Upsala, because there were too many icebergs in front of it. I did end up seeing it from the plane though! But the icebergs were humongous. Sailing by them by boat felt like being on the Titanic. We saw some big pieces of ice fall off which was exciting, they make a really loud popping noise. One thing I didn't realize was how blue ice is. Again I forget why this is, something to do with the sun reflecting the ice etc. But they were really beautiful. We passed to big glaciers before we got to the most famous one, called Perito Moreno.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perito_Moreno_Glacier

Seeing the glacier was kind of like seeing a celebrity. You've heard lots about it, you're excited to see it in person. But then when you really see it, it's not all that you expected it to be. This is not to say that it wasn't worth it to see the glaciers. It absolutely was. And yes they're huge and beautiful, but it's a big piece of ice.

After the boat tour I came back to my hostel to find that I had a room all to myself WITH private bathroom, which was wonderful. The next day I had the option to trek on the glacier itself for $130 among other things, but instead I decided to visit the town on the northern side of the park three hours away called El Chalten. I took a bus early in the morning to get there and did a 3 hour hike to get to a little lookout point. It was really beautiful with snowy mountains and a river with that same turqouise water. El Chalten  is a huge tourist site for camping and trekking. I passed a lot of hikers with trekking poles (which means they're really intense), Merrell logo shirts, zip off pants, etc. The day I went was hot! Even though it is summer here I thought it couldn't get that hot with the glaciers being down the road, but I think the temperature made it past Buenos Aires' that day.

Stop #3: Puerto Madryn

The last stop on my trip was mainly to do one thing: whale watch. The day I flew in, which was actually through a little city called Trelew, I decided to do something a little different first. I took a taxi to a town called Gaimon, which is all welsh-influenced and a lot of the people there still speak Welsh. There I went to a casa de te, teahouse, which Lady Di (the princess of Wales after all) visited in 1995. They still have all of the dishes and tea cozy she used displayed in a little case. The property was beautiful with an outdoor garden and fountain. The tea was good but way too much food for one person. It ended up being my entire lunch the next day. They had bread and scones and little samplings of cakes. Unfortunately the way things worked out I still had my suitcase with me at this point which was a pain to carry around. But then after two bus rides I made my way into Puerto Madryn to spend the night.

On my last day of the trip I did an all-day tour of Peninsula Valdes, about an hour away from Puerto Madyrn. The first stop was whale watching. December 15th is about the end of the season that whales breed and give birth near the peninsula so our boat had to go a little further out than usual to see the whales. I have to say this was the coolest part of the whole trip. I used to really like whales as a kid but seeing them in action in person is something completely different. The type of whale we saw was the southern right whale. We saw mamas and babies but now that I'm looking at my pictures I can't tell which is which. The whales have gross crustaceans on their heads and seagulls actually jab at them to eat their blubber. So we saw them get a little annoyed. But at one point one of the whales looked right at the boat which was cool. They got pretty close. I don't know if the captain of the boat says it on every excursion but he said we had luck with the proximity and jumping etc. that we saw. No one knows why whales jump. All I know is that it is actually extremely scary. I thought I was going to die because they were so close and the boat was so topsy-turvy with the waves that they made. But so cool. Really amazing to see them and worth the trip out of the way to the peninsula.

The rest of the day around the island wasn't as good as the whales but still fun to see. We went to the beach where there were some sea lions being extremely lazy and napping which wasn't that great to look at, then we saw some more Magellanic penguins.

The great thing about traveling in the airports where I went to is that security/timeliness does not exist. Most of the airports only had 2 or 3 gates and boarded maybe 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave. They didn't even check my passport/id to verify that I was myself when I checked in. I had luck with Aerolineas (since they have issues with strikes, etc) and all my flights were on time and served meals. Can't say the U.S. does that for domestic flights. Another random note is that I hardly met/heard/saw any Americans traveling through Patagonia. Maybe it's a little early for travel season but everyone was European. The men all looked like my dad but with super trendy eyeglasses. There were also a lot of Chinese tour groups there. They all smoke.

So now I am home, only to leave again tomorrow night for my last trip to Mendoza and into Chile.

The exchange rate when I got here: 3.01
The exchange rate Citibank gave me today: 3.46
perhaps one bright side about the bad economy at home?

more uruguay

If you've been keeping up with the blog, you might know I have a grudge against Uruguay. Yes, the entire country. Alas, last weekend I returned. Picture entry!

Punta del Este - the yuppy beach of Argentina in Uruguay

Awesome random hand sculpture on the beach - by Mario Irarrazabal

The COPA director, Mario's "house" - really a B&B. Colonia. Pictures of lunch. http://www.lacasadeloslimoneros.com/

Downtown Colonia

quien gana? quien gana?

The two best things that could be awaiting me for when I come home are now official.

1. UNC Men's Basketball. Pre-season ranking: #1.

2. This super historic election. Blue all-around. Props to NC - senate, governor (first woman!).

Even though I missed out on the excitement in the U.S. (rushing Franklin Street? awesome!) this was a unique experience. I attempted to go to a bar, The Alamo, which was going to show American CNN, but it was overcrowded with Americans and wasn't playing sound. So my friend Erica and I went back to my apartment and watched CNN in espanol in the kitchen. The downside to this was having to hear the speeches muted and translated live into Spanish, but I think the coverage was just as good.

Obama was on all the front pages of the newspapers today, with headlines saying "Historic: U.S. votes for a black president" and "Obama changes history." The media has been following the election pretty well in my opinion, and the sentiment is undoubtadly pro-Obama (which goes for anywhere in the world).

As for my feelings, I am very proud to have been part of such a historic election and I am just looking forward to the new direction we will go. I think like many of my friends we are suddenly feeling a huge surge pride for our country, which we have never really known in our lifetime. It's still kind of a shock that this has happened but it makes me excited to go home in time for the inauguration.

Recap of the last few weeks:
Bariloche trip

I could go into a lot more detail than I'm going to but I think the pictures will say it best.

Our only big COPA-sponsored trip is to Bariloche - Patagonia!. They took half the group (60 students) by plane. There are two big airlines in Argentina. When we got to the airport, which was fairly early in the morning, one of them was on strike because a passenger had slapped an employee. Luckily we were taking the other airline.

Everything on the trip was planned out for us, which at first I didn't like the idea of but then realized it was the best thing they could have done, because Bariloche is very spread out. The first day we got driven everywhere - downtown San Carlos de Bariloche, which is very Swiss influenced, and then we were in a bus a lot of the time to visit lookout points.

Day 3 was the most intense hike I've ever done. More intense than Malawi. Everyone had to sign a waiver before the trip and it mentioned something about a hike, but I wasn't expecting anything like what we had to do. Six hours in total. And through snowy mountain caps too, extermely steep and slippery. On the way down I lost track of the number of times I fell on my butt. But now I can say I've climbed the Andes!

Throughout the entirety of this trip I was trying to decide which was more beautiful - Bariloche or Iguazu. I can't answer the question. They are both comparable in beauty but also so different. Patagonia was breathtaking. I should say this is the only place I've ever been where I would drink straight from the water.

And I can't leave out that I wore my Patagonia fleece in Patagonia. Exciting.

Last Saturday I went to my first concert, or rather music fest, here - Personal Fest. The headliners were R.E.M., Kaiser Chiefs, and Bloc Party - American and English bands. All in all it was fun and I was especially curious to see if the bands would try to speak in Spanish. Bloc Party had many failed attempts in saying "muchas gracias". The Kaiser Chiefs lead singer had a crumbled up piece of paper with Spanish on it so he could say "en espanol, somos los Kaiser Chiefs!" No duh. And R.E.M. didn't really do anything except for muchas gracias, and then went on a whole schpiel about Obama and how they hate our government etc. I don't think many people understood.


I haven't done a good job of keeping up with Buenos Aires social commentary on this blog. A few weeks ago I needed a haircut. And I was petrified to do it. For a few reasons. Men's hairstyles here are a flashback to the early 90s. Mullets. Rattails. One example, or possible influence, is the Michael Jordan of Argentina, retired soccer player Maradona. This picture was taken the other day.


Women on the other hand, have long beautiful flowing hair. Still, the whole communication barrier at the hair salon was scary. But I got through it. And I don't have a mullet.

it's primavera and the living's easy

It is springtime in Buenos Aires! Every day the weather gets a little more beautiful. People love to take advantage of the sun and the parks have started to get really crowded. So it’s been awhile since I updated, and I have since been on 3 trips.

Trip #1: Bird class. Rechristened as bird camp. Our class left for the weekend to go to Villa Paranacito in Entre Rios, the next province up. We stayed at a resort/camping ground right on the riverfront. My favorite part of the experience was that since the class is international, every nationality was assigned a meal. The Americans made breakfast, then we had English bird cake/banana bread and Mexican and Swedish dinners. We also had a delicious Argentina asado (barbecue) for lunch. On the way up we stopped to go grocery shopping and literally filled a cart to the brim with packaged meats.

Delish. There was a little fiasco involved on my part since I had to leave a bit early to be in Buenos Aires on Sunday to pick my mom (!) up from the airport. For more details about bird camp, please refer to a fellow bird camper’s blog. It is a very good blog in general, if you have time you should read up.

So then my mom was here! We rented an apartment close to where I’m living now. The things I was most excited about before she came were seeing her have culture shock, seeing her attempt to speak Spanish, and seeing what she thought about the food. It was fun to be a tour guide and interpreter for 10 days.

Trip #2: In the middle of my mom’s stay, we flew up to the corner of the country to visit Iguazu Falls. If you aren’t familiar with Iguazu you should be. Niagara schmagara. It’s really an amazing place on earth. From the airport we took a cab to the hotel. Our driver was very friendly, and halfway through the ride asked if we wanted to go to Brazil for the day to see the Brazilian side of the falls (which are right on the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay).

“No we can’t, we don’t have visas.”
“It’s ok, I can take you.”
“No, but we’re Americans.”
“It’s ok, I can take you.”

In case you ever want to go to Brazil, the process is excruciatingly difficult for Americans mainly because we make it excruciatingly difficult for Brazilians to visit us. It costs $100 and involves a visit at a Brazilian embassy to get a visa to enter the country (proof of return, temporary release of passport, etc.).

My mom and I had talked about possibly going to the Brazilian side, but the visa thing was too complicated. We had read online that if you did cross the border without one and got caught on the way back you could get detained. So at this moment I was expecting my mom to decline the offer. But nope, she agreed!

So our driver Basilio took us to Brazil! Our passports got stamped on the way out of Argentina, then we came to the Brazilian border stop. It was kind of empty but someone was standing at the gate and asked Basilio to roll down his window, asked where we were from etc. Basilio knows everyone there is to know in the Iguazu area. He told the guy that we were Argentines who just wanted to see the falls.

So then the guy asked to roll down the window in the back. Luckily I was sitting on the side closest to him. Keep in mind that Basilio gave me no pointers of what to say at this point and I almost cracked.

“Where are you from?”
“We are from Buenos Aires” (attempting my most authentic Spanish accent)
“Where are you from?”
“Buenos Aires.”
“Are you from England?”
“No.”

“Are you from Australia?”

“No.”

Another instance of cheating border patrol (see entry about Uruguay).

And we were through! We took some pictures at the border, then stopped at a bird park where we saw tucans, macaws, and just really really colorful animals.

Then we went to the national park on the Brazil side. It was raining the whole day but it was still amazing to see. I learned one Brazilian word. Obrigado, thank you.

Cute little Basilio told us he had a surprise at the end of the day. He took us to the spot where the three borders meet along the river.

Days 2 and 3 we spent in Argentina exploring the national park there. One of my favorite things in the park were the butterflies. I have never seen so many in one place before. One day from breakfast I think I had some dulce de leche on my hand and butterflies would land on me and stay for a good thirty minutes.

We had better weather on the Argentine side too and there were lots and lots of rainbows.

So if I had to compare the two sides, here is what I would say. The Brazil side had a better view of everything and it was fun because you could get really close to the falls and get wet. The Argentina side takes you to all levels of the falls from more angles.

So the rest of her time here we went to a few mercados, the cemetery, and overall explored. It just so happened that at the same time our cousins were in town too. We went on a cheesy but thorough 3 hour bus tour of the city. The week was also filled with lots of tango! I got a sexy Moulin-rougey pair of official tango shoes. We went to a dinner/tango show and afterwards to a milonga where we saw the cutest old folks passionately showing their tango moves on the dance floor. I also had my first lesson! I can do the basic eight steps. It’s a lot of fun but the hardest part is keeping it cool in the shoes. They hurt.

The last day my mom was here was filled with getting food and presents to take home. She brought home some jars of dulce de leche and put one in her carry on. Apparently dulce de leche resembles a gel? Security took it away. If you ask me the airport officials just wanted to score a snack.

Trip #3: Cordoba. Last weekend I went to visit Tara in her Argentine homeland. The whole time I was there the weather was yuck. If it had been better we were planning to go to a beach called Playa de los Hippies, but instead we took a day trip to a town called. Alta Gracia. It was a town founded by Jesuits so there were some pretty churches along a river, but it was also where Che grew up.

We went to his house-turned-museum where we saw the famous motorcycle and some other things from his childhood.

the mate of che

look who was here! our friends chavez and castro!

Pretty interesting. Cordoba is pretty different from Buenos Aires even though it is the second largest city in the country. It has a lot of charm.

Also since I last wrote, I have taken up a volunteer job at idealist.org. If you haven’t heard of the website it’s a great resource for volunteering or finding work with non-profits. My job is to basically contact organizations in North Carolina who are not on the site and get them to create accounts. It not the most interesting job, but I guess it’s a really really indirect way of service. Also the people in the office are really nice and always have food around, which is a perk.

October 5th I calculated was the halfway point of my trip. And classes are over in a month and a week. Mixed feelings here. I am very comfortable with the culture and living here. But I feel like all I do is say I miss people and places. It will be the opposite when I go home too.

Random ramblings:

• My UBA class has been cancelled three times due to strikes.

• I have recently acquired a gift certificate for free afternoon tea at the Four Seasons.

• I completed my absentee ballot and sent it home with my mom.

• Awhile back another girl living with my family and I made dinner for my family - creamy bowtie pasta with bacon, a recreation of my favorite, the quinoa salad, from Natural Deli, and brownies.

• I tried kidneys. Yuck.

• I am a member of my local Blockbuster, located on my block.

• Next weekend COPA is taking us to Bariloche. !!!

I leave you with this image, a friend I made in Montevideo.

travel bugs

These past two weekends have been full of sporadic traveling. I have discovered the world of buses in Argentina and beyond. I suppose since flying is over budget for the majority of people here the next best option is to bus it. I was expecting something in the realm of Greyhound, but it is very different. This, for example, is a typical travel bus, followed by the enormous and airport-like bus terminal:

There are a million bus companies to choose from that go to all corners of the country and to Brazil, Chile and even as far as Peru. They also offer amenities such as a "cama" or "semi-cama," seats that recline180 or 160 degrees. This came in handy during my 18 hour bus ride to Salta two weekends ago.

Salta

Day 1: Salta
Salta is the name of a city but also of the province its located in in the north of Argentina. I left Thursday evening to arrive in Salta Friday afternoon. I was meeting my friend Tara, who I originally met at World Camp in Malawi. She is studying in Cordoba for the semester, thus we have since conquered 3 continents together including the U.S. Salta is the 8th largest city in the country but nothing in comparison to the size of Buenos Aires. We walked around the city the first day, which basically had a couple of nice churches and a cute town center like most cities in South America; otherwise fairly boring. Tara and I went in search of places to rent a car, only to find that automatic transmission cars were nonexistent.

Later that night we went to a peña, a type of restaurant with traditional food and with musicians who play folkloria, or traditional music. The restaurant was really crowded but a group of 4 singers invited us to join them for dinner. It turned out to be very charming and of course their music was beautiful to listen to. They also gave us coca leaves to chew...possible bad decision? Most likely no since it was just the leaf. They pointed to a t-shirt hung up on the wall with a picture of a leaf that said "La hoja de coca no es una droga!" "Coca leaf is not a drug!"



Day 2: Purmamarca/Salinas Grandes

One of the main sights we wanted to see were the giant salt flats to the northwest of Salta. To get there we got to the bus station at 7 in the morning to take a 4 hour ride to a little town called Pumamarca. The ride was kind of brutal since it was a curvy road at high altitude. But the view was amazing. The environment around Salta was very dry and reminded me of what Texas would look like, with lots of cacti and huge canyons.

wild cacti

wild llama

the long and winding road

We got to Pumamarca which was a very small, quaint, but touristy town. The only way to get to the Salinas from there was to pay someone local to drive. So that's what we did...it took another hour and a half of driving up a mountain to get there. The highest point we hit was 4,170 meters (2.6 miles). And excitingly enough I saw my first wild llamas! Little did I know I would be eating llama meat in an empanda later that night for dinner...

The salt flat was really cool. It was huge. A little dirtier than I expected, and also with a lot of space reserved for salt harvesting. We took some fun pictures.

salt mining

tara and me

Day 3: Cafayate
We kind of went to Cafayate on a limb, not knowing much about it. But it turned out to be the best day of the whole trip. Cafayate is well known for its vineyards and oftentimes overlooked by Mendoza. The town was adorable. We ate lunch outside since it was a nice day and decided to rent bicycles. Crazily enough Tara invited the guy working at the tour agency to come along with us for free. We biked up a small hill to get a better view of the mountains. Very scenic. Then we biked to the one vineyard that was open Sunday to find that a tour of old Argentines had just arrived. We skipped out on the tour of the winery to take pictures but of course returned for the wine tasting. Considering we had no official plans in Salta and no idea what was around it, the trip turned out wonderfully.

downtown Cafayate

the ultimate tourist picture: llama, cactus, vineyard, welcome sign

views from the bus (canyons and cloudforest)

Day 4: Back to Salta
Since there wasn't time to do much on the last day since I had to catch my bus home, in the morning I took a cable car up a mountain to see a panoramic view of Salta. Very beautiful. All in all this trip made me excited to explore the enormous country of Argentina because it has so much natural beauty to offer.There are still some places close to Salta we didn't have time to visit, like a famous canyon that is a UNESCO site and a tourisy train that rides into the clouds...I surprisingly would like to go back.

Montevideo

My main motivation for visiting: passport stamp. Before going, I knew two things. One that Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and is easy to visit from BsAs. Also that Montevideo was supposed to be boring. Nothing to do.

To get there, my friend Lauren and I bought a ferry ticket through a company called Buquebus which was a totally new concept for me. It is like an airport without all the crap - since they have to handle migration and customs they are kind of serious but not enough to matter. So anyway, we took a 1 hour ferry ride to Colonia Uruguay and then hopped on a bus at the same station for 2 1/2 hours to Montevideo.

Disaster #1: For some reason, when the bus got to Montevideo it wasn't exactly at a "Buquebus" station. We weren't sure where/what it was. Somewhere really dark and without taxis. Luckily we had been talking to a lady from BsAs on the bus who was visiting Montevideo. Her friend was wherever we were to pick her up, and she offered us a ride to our hostel. Very nice gesture, very bad idea to agree. At the moment we had no Uruguayan pesos to take a cab. Luckily we got to the hostel in one piece, but again potential disaster and decisions that went against all common-sense.

By the time we got to the hostel it was past midnight, so Lauren and I decided to call it an early night and get up early to explore. So the next morning we grabbed a map and ventured to the coastline to walk around. There's a part of the city called "Ciudad Vieja", old city, so we went there but really there was to nothing to see. So we decided to head back to the central part of town and find a place to eat lunch.

Disaster #2: Lauren and I are cautious about our things. We were following all the rules. Walking together (as opposed to being alone), out in broad daylight, EVEN talking in Spanish. Seriously. The problem was, this weekend happened to be some kind of vacation or holiday for the students, not really sure, and the city was completely deserted. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see Lauren playing tug-of-war with her purse with a little kid probably no more than 12 years old. A strap on her bag broke and the boy starts running. This all happened so quickly...the first thing I thought was that basically Lauren's life was in that bag: passport, visa (which we had spent 8 hours getting the day before), cell phone, camera, yellow fever card, ticket home, etc. So my first impulse was to start running after the kid. I ran for about 4 blocks with Lauren behind me and just started yelling. Up ahead I saw people and cars started pulling over, and all of a sudden the boy just dropped her purse in the middle of road. On purpose, who knows.

Then a turn of events went rather well. A guy who looked about our age, maybe a little older, picked up the bag and handed it to us. Lauren checked and luckily had everything in there that was important. What luck eh? Anyway this guy, whose name was Juan Francisco and very charming, was on the way to visit his grandma because he had just gotten back from a trip to Europe and he invited us to come up since we were a little shaky. Another encounter with a stranger, but we agreed. His grandma was the sweetest little lady and gave us coke with a little bit of whisky to calm our nerves and a very fancy lunch. We were there for probably 3 hours talking.

Then we ventured back to the central part of the city and in the direction of the hostel. The problem was, there was really nothing to do. Earlier in the day we had discovered the Uruguay was basically a continuation of Argentina, in that practically everything is the same. This meant that people don't eat dinner until 10. We had about 3 hours to kill. We came across a historical theater that was one of the many boring points of interest on our map. It was filled with people but we decided to ask if we could go inside to look around. The funny thing was I was wearing jeans and chuck taylors. Too bad a left my fur coat at home :), the attire of many of the well dressed old ladies here. Turns out, it was the opening night of Madame Butterfly. I have never seen an opera in my life and do not know much about opera, but I had heard of Madame Buttefly. So we said, hey why not? Our tickets were $10.

Here we were, in Uruguay, watching a story about an American who travels to Japan, that was converted to an opera in Italian, that was being translated into Spanish with subtitles projected above the stage, which I was then retranslating into my head in English. Crazy but worth it.

So that was Montevideo in a nutshell. Keep in mind that Montevideo it is the safest big city in South America, and Uruguay is the richest country in South America. Hmm.

Disaster #3: Oh and I can't forget, there was a teeny slip of paper attached to our ticket that we got stamped on the way into Uruguay that we were supposed to have to get out. But no one told us this. Uruguay migration is pretty easy to persuade.

One note: Uruguayans love their mate.

Every third person was carrying a huge thermos under their armpit with their mate gourd in the same hand. This I don't understand. The two things are so impractical for on-the-go. Mate is a such a big deal there that THIS was on the bus:

Mr. Client:

For your security on the omnibus

DRINKING MATE IS PROHIBITED

The straw is able to produce wounds in the mouth

Hot water can burn you or another passenger

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