Éste es el día

One of the ways that Uruguayans show hospitality and love is through the asado – essentially, a barbecue, although it has a lot of other cultural connotations. Last night, we had an asado with some people from the church on the roof of our building (which is way cool, by the way). It was a great moment of sharing food – basically just meat, lots of meat – and time together. We stood up on the roof in the gorgeous overcast late afternoon, chatting and taking pictures and generally enjoying the breeze while the men worked their magic with flames in the big brick barbecue-stove-thing, and pretty soon the most amazing-smelling smoke was drifting over everybody.

We went inside to eat at this one really long table, with salad and bread and drinks already laid out, and then the Uruguayan guys (Diego, Matthias, Martin, y Emmanuel) served us the main courses. There were ribs, slabs of beef, sausage and chicken stuffed with peppers and green olives. We all had a great time chowing down, sharing what we couldn’t fit in our full stomachs, and then eating even more when they brought out the dulce de leche ice cream.

South Americans don’t just eat and run, so we sat around and fellowshipped for a long time before we started filtering up to the roof again for our time of evening worship. The night breeze had a little bit of a chill to it because thunderstorms are rolling in right now, so a few of us huddled up for warmth and just sort of spontaneously burst into worship songs, under the stars and the fast-moving orange clouds.

Over the next few songs, more and more people joined us, and our circle spread until everyone was sitting in a ring, singing our hearts out. We alternated between English and Spanish songs, which was interesting because at first, we didn’t know their songs and they didn’t know ours, but somewhere along the way, we started recognizing the melodies of their songs, and then we would sing the same song in English. It was such an interesting contrast: the Uruguayans were almost all men, so their songs sounded really strong and sort of raw, while the Americans sang in all our Church-of-Christ harmonies, and as we’re mostly girls, it was all kind of airy-sounding and lilting. The whole night was just gorgeous.

And today – candombe lessons! As part of our Latin American Studies class, this woman (an absolutely hilarious woman, with that magnetic sort of personality that just makes you smile) who is a traditional candombe instructor came to talk about the history of the music, dance and costumes, and then she taught us to dance! It was crazy, and there’s plenty of video of all of us looking like total goofs and sweating like pigs because that dance was hot! lol. I only wish that she’d brought the drums with her (Candombe music is played by three or more people, each with either a little, medium-sized or large drum) so that we could have played with those. No doubt they’re expensive, though.

Also for part of that same class, a group of us was assigned to walk blocks and blocks around our neighborhood, looking for churches and familiarizing ourselves with their worship times so that we could attend a service and write about the experience. I was partnered with Lawson Soward, who is a pretty funny dude, as well as one of the best at speaking and understanding Spanish. As we walked, in order to maintain the appearance that we had some clue where we were and what we were doing, he would carry on conversations in Spanish. Unfortunately, since we don’t both know all that much conversational Spanish, the topics got pretty random. At one point, as we were passing groups of people on the streets, he started saying (In Spanish), “I don’t want to be castrated, but my mother says I must be castrated.” Needless to say, I got a pretty good ab workout from laughing so hard on the way back to the Casa.

Brazil kicked some Uruguayan booty

My first Latin America and the Arts class was very interesting. It’s a lot more like the kind of classes I’m used to in the States, more critical thinking and less memorization (curse you, Spanish classes!), and I like it a lot. The teacher is putting works of art and works of literature side by side and drawing comparisons, putting them in their historical contexts, and making us think about how they compare and contrast. It’s cool – she talks about short stories like they’re paintings: What colors would this be painted in? What would be the focal point of this, if it were a drawing? That kind of thing. It’s really cool for the visual people like me haha.

In the afternoon, we went on a bus tour of Montevideo, which was pretty cool. Plus, I finally took some pictures, which you can go check out on Facebook. It filled two albums! Aren’t you proud of me?

The first place we went was a cemetery for VERY wealthy families. All the best sculptors in Montevideo were commissioned to make these absolutely gargantuan grave markers, and they’re so gorgeous. The whole place was filled with trees (and cats, strangely), and it went back all the way to the sea, so there’s all this white stone set against this gorgeous blue background. It was just a beautiful place.

We also went to the “monte” in Montevideo, a hill that stands a few hundred meters above sea level (although when everything else is exactly at sea level, that means you can see pretty far) where the Spanish built a fort and lookout tower so that they could protect the natural harbor below. It wasn’t that fun of a place, but everyone took approximately 4 billion pictures, so it’s well-documented. The fort is now a museum, but since I’m not a big fan of military history, I didn’t go in, and neither did most of the rest of us.

The last place we went was the Japanese garden behind this huge, gorgeous mansion that used to be a private home and is now an art museum. We couldn’t go into the gardens that afternoon, but someone said that at some point in the semester we’ll go into the museum, and then we’ll get access to the gorgeous gardens, with all the greenery and waterfalls and little paper-walled houses.

For dinner, una hamberguesa from a stand on the street. It was pretty good, although kind of plain. They don’t put a lot of seasoning on the meat because theoretically, you’re supposed to dump all kinds of toppings on it (like ham n’cheese, chicken, peppers, some sort of weird corn stuff, etc.). When one of the guys in our group got his hamburger, he just pointed at a lot of different toppings, not knowing what they were, and ended up with a pretty horrendous-tasting burger. lol

Last night was our opportunity to see a real, South American fútbol game, a championship match between the Uruguayan club Nacional and a Brazilian club. Now, I was told that the fans were pretty crazy, but I was picturing, like, American football fans kind of crazy. These guys are way beyond that. A few days ago, after the huge rivalry match between Nacional and its rival club (whose name I can pronounce but could never dream of spelling), a Nacional fan saw someone waiting at a bus stop with the rival club’s jersey on and shot him in the chest. They take this stuff pretty seriously.

Because these games can get rowdy, the Walkers insist that we go with native Uruguayans, who can better understand the mood of the crowd and can see bad things coming long before we can. A couple of hours before the game, the kids from the youth group came over and hung out with us in the courtyard at the Casa, teaching each other our respective languages, dancing (the Americans pulled out the Cha Cha Slide, while the Uruguayans showed us some sort of urban break dancing-ish thing), and trying to learn each other’s names.

When we left, the Uruguayans warned us to stay close together, and not to speak too loudly in English and make ourselves targets. The game did not start until 10:45 p.m., but we left at about 9:30 to leave time for the walk, so we ended up seeing the end of the 3rd place match of the tournament (which Uruguay lost to Brazil).

The guys from the youth group were such gentlemen, looking out for our group. One of them took the lead and one brought up the rear with Wimon and Rosalinda, while the rest positioned themselves along the sides of our group to fence us in. All was fine and good until we were crossing streets close to the stadium, and then there was this huge eruption of sound from our left. An entire street, for several blocks, was packed completely full of chanting Nacional fans on their way to the game, like a huge parade but with everyone shoulder to shoulder and jostling each other like it was a mosh pit, throwing their hands in the air and singing Nacional songs. Their path would intersect ours before we got to the door, and they were pretty riotous.

One of the girls in our group stopped to ask one of our Uruguayan guys, “Esta bien?” which means, Is this okay?, but he pushed her forward and said, “No, no esta bien. Walk faster!”

We ended up having to forge our way againt the current of Nacional fans to get past the lines going to buy tickets (we already had ours). We did not sit anywhere near the crazy, rowdy fans once we were actually in the stadium, though, which was kind of nice, but also meant that it was a pretty boring game. It wasn’t even close – Brazil beat the pants off Nacional.

I was starving, so I bought some churros from one of the guys wandering around selling food. I’d never had them before; they weren’t all that good. Probably won’t have those again.

Since we knew that Nacional was going to lose, we tried to leave a little bit early and beat the disgruntled Nacional fans out of the stadium, but the game ended just as we were getting to the top of the stairs, so everyone flooded out kind of at once. There were police lined up outside, ready to jump into action if anything got ugly. Our Uruguayan guides were really kind of stressing out about keeping us all packed into a small group. It was about 1 in the morning, which is a pretty dangerous time to be out on the streets in any big city, not to mention a city in South America.

There was one scary moment when three of our guides suddenly took off at full speed, sprinting around the corner ahead of us and up the street away from us. No one knew why they started running, including the Uruguayan kids they had left behind. As it turns out, though, Oscar, the Uruguayan adult that came with us, had left to go home, having seen us pretty much all the way back to the Casa, but the boys had seen a group of nefarious-looking guys take off up the street in the same direction, so they took off to intercept them in case they were planning to jump Oscar and his son. They came back to lead us home once they saw that Oscar was okay. They were very vigilant.

Then they kissed us all goodnight and said, “Ciao!” and walked off like, “Meh, all in a day’s work.” 🙂

La universidad católica

You know it’s going to be a good day when you wake up to the smell of pancakes. This morning, the Casa was filled with the sweet scent of flapjacks, and we ate ’em American-style, with butter and syrup (or, if you’re less conventional, peanut butter and bananas). There were also eggs, cereal, grapes, watermelon, apples, bananas, and canteloupe…maybe more. All I know is that it was a dang good meal.

I have no classes on Tuesday morning, but we did have our biweekly chapel/house meeting, where we got our travel and special event schedule for the next four months (exciting!), talked about going to a fútbol game together tomorrow night, sang and prayed. Tango and candombe lessons are coming up on the schedule, and I can’t wait! ¡Me encanta bailar!

I’m running a little low on clothes at the moment, which means not only should I learn to conserve my few outfits better, but that it’s about time to do laundry. I’m thrilled that it’s so not labor-intensive. All I have to do is walk down the street to GyG (pronounced Hay ee Hay) and drop them off, and tomorrow I’ll pick them up in bags, laundered, folded and smelling like heaven. 😀 The cost is something like 70 pesos, which is roughly $3.50. Totally worth it. What I wouldn’t give to have a GyG back at home!

Today was the first day of classes at la Universidad Católica del Uruguay, the catholic university in Montevideo. Since all the Uruguayan students are on summer break at the moment, the place was totally empty, but it was gorgeous. It’s like a school out of a movie. Anyone seen The Covenant? That is kind of what this school looks like. Since native Uruguayans don’t need to be taught Intermediate Spanish (duh) our class consists solely of the intermediate speakers from the Casa. Poor Grady, our advanced student, is all alone with Profesora Blanco next door, in Latin American Thought.

I think we all agree that Intermediate Spanish at the university is more difficult than Advanced Spanish Conversation back at the Casa – not because advanced convo isn’t hard, but this class is much pickier about grammar and expanding our vocabulary, and the teacher doesn’t exaggerate sounds to help us follow. The guy we had today is not going to be our regular teacher (he was just there today, since our other teacher was not back from holiday yet), but he was hilarious. His parents were British, but he was born and raised in Uruguay, so when he speaks Spanish, he sounds thoroughly like a southern cone Spanish speaker, and when he speaks English, he sounds thoroughly British.

He came in speaking only Spanish for the first few minutes, but none of us understood him. Here’s the thing you have to know about Spanish in the southern cone (Uruguay, Argentina). They don’t pronounce anything the way we’ve been taught to pronounce it in our Tex-Mex schools. Rather than “y” sounds when there’s a y or ll, they say “jsh,” and often they don’t pronounce “s” sounds when they’re in the middle of words or sentences. The result can leave someone trained in Mexican or Spain Spanish (or, as our teacher today said, “proper” Spanish) very lost. Imagine our surprise, though, when he slipped out of Spanish and straight into a British accent!

Oh, side note. It totally made my day when I heard this British guy say, “it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.” I don’t know why, there’s just something special about the way an Englishman says cup o’tea. 😛

At the moment, I am the only one who is not in class. Most people are in Christianity and Culture, but I took that in Junior Scholars a long time ago. Those that aren’t in CnC are in a beginning Spanish lab; to give the beginners as much practice as possible, they not only have class 3-4 times a week, they also have daily labs four times a week where they just practice the words and phrases they’ve learned in conversation. Since I’m not in elementary Spanish, I don’t have to be in a lab either. So…basically the house is pretty boring at the moment.

Some of us went to the beach after everyone got out of class and hung out. We went to Pocitos, which is the closer, busier, dirtier beach (they dump their sewage in the ocean not too far from where we were swimming. ew). It was fun, though. We played frisbee in the water and tried not to get any in our mouths. We played with a couple of Uruguayans, too; a guy about our age and a little nine year old girl. It was the guy who told me (with many gesticulations and spitting sounds) that I should not get any of the water in my mouth. He also wanted to know if we were from New York, which is probably the only U.S. city he knew. I told him no, we were from Texas, and he laughed and said a long string of things in Spanish. Not really sure what that means.

Also, apparently, I am yellow. The nine-year-old girl walked up to me first and said, repeatedly, “¿Por qué eres amarillo?” which means, Why are you yellow? When I told her I didn’t know, she asked what country had yellow people, and I told her los Estados Unidos. She seemed very confused. Then, later, these two older women walked by me in the water and one of them exclaimed, “¡Qué amarillo!”

More adventures to come from your yellow friend, Sara.

El primer día de clases

Today was the first day of classes. My class schedule is super easy: I am sitting in on Advanced Spanish Conversation on Monday and Thursday mornings (all of the intermediate students are required to audit advanced convo, because there was only one guy signed up for the class and it’s difficult for one guy to carry on a Spanish conversation), I have Latin American Studies on Monday afternoons, Intermediate Spanish on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the Catholic University and Latin America and the Arts on Wednesday morning. No classes on Fridays (rejoice!).

I love advanced convo, even though it’s going to be so hard. Our teacher is this adorable woman who has taught Spanish to a lot of people, including U.S. embassy personnel here in Montevideo. She’s legit. Even though this was only the first day of class, she pushed us right in, speaking only in Spanish for an hour and a half, talking a mile a minute and asking individual people questions. We were expected to keep up a conversation with her, and when we made mistakes or didn’t understand a word or phrase that she said, she would write it on the board and explain the correct word and the instances where it would be used.

It’s the most interesting way I’ve ever learned Spanish. It’s so practical. It’s not memorizing a list of vocabulary words for a written quiz, it’s learning to communicate with people in this language that we have to use on a daily basis here in Uruguay to get by. And the teacher is just hilarious. She exaggerates her sounds in Spanish to make them easier to understand and makes wild hand motions to illustrate what she’s talking about, so we can all follow her (or at least try). The thing about the class is that you can never zone out for a minute or two, because by the time you’ve refocused, the conversation will have turned in a new direction, and she might already be asking you a question for which you’re not going to have an answer!

Latin American Studies is going to be an interesting class just because we’re learning about the history and culture of South America and, specifically, Uruguay. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to come back from here and know nothing but Spanish for your trouble? There are three books to read, a journal to keep, field trips, essays to write and class discussions to participate in. It’s my kind of class 🙂

I don’t know what the Catholic university is going to be like, but at least I finally got my I.D. pictures taken so that I can register tomorrow! A lot of us had trouble finding a place that offered foto carnets, the type of photos that are used for identification here. We finally found them between advanced convo and lunch today, at this tiny, tiny place that had a little snack bar and about six computers where you could surf the internet for a fee. The guy took our pictures with a digital camera and then arranged them in Word and printed them out on a little inkjet printer. I’m pretty sure I could have done that, and saved us all 54 pesos. But lo que sea.

I have one more class, Latin American Missions, but that’s been turned into a short course because the guy who’s going to teach it is from…Brazil? Argentina?…and he can’t come until much later in the semester, and then only for a Thurs.-Mon., I think. So we’ll be pretty busy that weekend, I guess lol.

A bunch of people went to check out the YMCA and then ran to the beach (although they might not have run the whole way; it’s a long way to the beach from here), but you have to have I.D. pictures to sign up for the Y, and I only got three this morning rather than six because the guy ran out of photo paper, so I want to make sure I have enough to get signed up for classes and still have them for the papers for entering and exiting Brazil. Plus, it costs something like 1400 pesos a month to go to the Y, and there are much cheaper gyms that offer more stuff I’d like to go, if I could just convince someone to go with me. I don’t care too much for rock climbing, which is what everyone wants to do and is only offered at the Y.

Now that I’m going to be doing schoolwork, these posts may slow down, but you guys should still check back every now and then and see if I’ve had more crazy adventures!

La Iglesia de Cristo

Today we got up for a ten o’clock church service at El Chana Church of Christ next door. A couple of us got there early, so we were greeted with many, many kisses and a lot of snippets of conversation that we didn’t understand. No one really told us whether we were actually supposed to kiss the people’s cheeks, or whether we were just supposed to brush cheeks and make the noise, or whether there were different instances where each was appropriate. It was pretty funny.  The people were so unbelievably welcoming, but the language barrier made conversing difficult.

The church service was 100% in Spanish, which meant I understood approximately 3% of it, and some of that percent was me looking up the verses they were reading in my bilingual Bible and reading them in English. The service started at 10:00 and didn’t end until nearly noon, with something close to an hour-and-a-half of preaching :-O. A lot of the students fell asleep (hey, being sleep-deprived and sunburned, walking everywhere you go all over the city, and not understanding one word of what is going on can really make your eyelids heavy) but I managed to stay awake. It was a little difficult, since both of the people beside me were out cold.

After the service ended, they brought pizza from la pizzeria down the block that a group of us went to the other night, and we all dug in. Interestingly, no one brought plates or silverware, and even the napkins were optional. There was no sitting down around the table. They just brought in these huge platters of rectangular pizza (the restaurant sells it by the meter) and everyone grabbed a piece and started chowing down on it while they milled about and talked (or attempted to talk) with the other members of the church.

I had a great conversation with this really funny guy who had excellent English. He introduced himself to Carolyn, one of my roommates, as “Nicolas Cage,” and she played along, saying how she’d always wanted to meet him, and could she have his autograph? He chatted with us about how some English words were unnecessarily difficult to say, and when we said that Spanish words are hard to say, too, we had a contest, each of us trying to find difficult words in our own language for the other person to try to say. He had a lot of trouble with “supercallifragilisticexpialodocious” and we really struggled with the two sets of rolled Rs in “ferrocarril,” which means train. I think the guy’s name actually is Nicolas, but I’m not sure. Almost everything he says is a joke!

I also talked to Ruben, this adorable older man (everyone here looks a lot younger than they actually are; because of the fruit perhaps? lol) about his life. He was funny, although he spoke really breathy Spanish in a very low voice, so even common words and phrases were hard to understand.

We haven’t gotten to talk much to the youth group (all five or so of them), but I think I want to go back to El Chana every Sunday rather than looking for a less traditional church or one that has English services, so maybe I’ll get to know them better as the semester progresses.

Oh, just a note, if anyone is wanting to write a letter or send something (shameless plug), the address is:

Casa ACU
Sara Morris
Colonia 2073
Montevideo 11000
URUGUAY

Oh, I forgot about the Sunday open-air market! How could I forget? It was massive. I wrote about the Feria before, which was pretty big, but this is a massive, massive event. Streets are closed off for blocks and blocks to be filled with stalls, usually in four lines on the street, two facing out to the sidewalks and two facing in toward the middle of the street, so you can walk any of those way to shop.

Everything is sold there. Everything. You want belts? They’re there. You want Fruit Loops? They’re there. You want an owl? It’s there (And it’s adorable. I wanted it). You want puppies, sunglasses, belly dancing outfits or bootleg movies? You can definitely find them.

I bought sunglasses, because I didn’t bring any and it is exceptionally sunny here. I also bought this way awesome necklace made out of twisted, knotted cord tied in this really intricate net around a stone from punta del este. The guy that was selling them makes all of them, as well as way more intricate and gorgeous necklaces that I couldn’t really afford, bracelets and anklets. He talked to us in a strange mix of English and Spanish, chatting about how he makes the jewelry, where the stones, bone and wood were from, and our stay in Montevideo. He also checked out the sunglasses I had just bought and asked me how much I paid for them, and told me they were good quality for the price lol.

Carolyn bought an anklet (she thought it was a bracelet, but when he asked if she wanted to try it on, he bent down and tied it around her ankle), and he tied it tight, cut off the extra string and then burned it so it wouldn’t fray, so she may be keeping it on for a while. My necklace also doesn’t come off easily. It’s tied a little too small to fit easily over my head, so I had to really fight it on. I probably won’t take mine off any time soon, either.

Buenas noches!

¡A la playa!

Today we had to get all our own meals, because Raquel doesn’t cook for us on the weekends. I scrounged for breakfast in the kitchen, just bread and water (although it was really good bread, leftover from one of Raquel’s meals) and then we took taxis to the Feria, a huge open-air market with stalls as far as you can see with everything you can imagine. There were so many things I wanted to buy there, but I’m waiting to buy stuff from the markets until tourist season is over, when the prices go down.

Funny thing about the taxi ride over; one of the other Sarahs on the trip (there are three of us) was sitting up front with the driver, trying to talk to him and doing a pretty terrible job, and he was just laughing at all of us, constantly saying, “No entiende nada, no entiende nada,” which means “You understand nothing.” Also, he was a really terrifying driver without actually driving fast, which is pretty impressive. He kept trying to pass cars in spaces that were way too small for the taxi, and at one point he did actually sideswipe another car with this horrible grating sound, but neither he nor the other car even acknowledged it. Despite all this, we did make it to the Feria in one piece.

They told us we could stay at the Feria as long or as briefly as we wanted, so as soon as the group I was with (there were three girls and three guys, which is terrible because we left the majority of the girls without any boys to travel with them haha) had walked from one end of the place to the other and spotted the ocean, we set off in the direction of la Rambla.

We walked a good ways until we found a stop for the D1, which is a nicer, more expensive bus that goes along the Rambla and doesn’t make as many stops or get as crowded. We got off at a beach that looked emptier than the others (although it’s Saturday in the height of summer, so everyone was at the beach) and laid out our towels. One of the girls wanted to sunbathe, so she stayed with the stuff on the beach while the rest of us ran for the water. Now I can tell people that I’ve swum in the Atlantic ocean in January, and sound like a hoss ;).

It was ridiculous how often we reapplied sunscreen, and yet still almost all of us ended up sunburned. I know I certainly did. A couple lucky punks just ended up with really nice tans (seriously? who tans after one afternoon in the sun?) but the rest of us look like candy canes.

We swam and played frisbee in the perfect-temperature water until lunchtime, and then we wandered up the Rambla for a while to find a restaurant. We found this nice tourist cafe called, ironically, Nativa, and had a good (although not incredibly cheap) lunch and we bought drinks at una minimercado in a gas station before heading back out to la playa. For a while we were so tired and stuffed that we just wanted to nap on the beach (this is probably where the sunburn came from), but eventually a few of us went back out and swam for a while. We tried to swim out to this island that was not too terribly far from the beach, and we made it more than halfway out before this guy in a boat came to tell us we couldn’t go there. The Walkers said it probably belonged to someone. When we got back to the Casa, we told everyone we swam there and found an island full of cannibals, but for some reason no one believed us.

The adventure really started when we tried to catch a bus back to the Casa. We were a couple of hours ahead of schedule, so we didn’t think we had any sort of rush. One of the guys figured that the D1 bus we took out to the beach would probably loop around on its route and go back at least closer to the Casa than we were, so we could walk back if we wanted or catch another bus, and in the meantime we would get a nice scenic tour of Montevideo. We got on the next D1 that stopped and paid our dues, then sat back for the ride.

The D1 did not turn around. Person after person got off the bus until it was only us six Americans on board, and then the same guy who suggested we get on the bus decided to talk to the driver about when we could expect to get to the street we needed. The driver looked totally shocked, and in a series of very fast monologues and with much gesticulations, he explained that he was not going back out on his route, he was taking the bus back to the station and then going home. He put us out at the next corner with a bus stop and pointed at a stop across the street, saying that another bus would be by in 20 minutes that could take us home. We thanked him and went to wait at the bus stop.

At this point, we were already lost. We weren’t sure where we were, but looking over the list of stops at the little shelter of the bus stop told us that there would be a bus that could take us back into town. As a matter of fact, there were two. That was, in fact, the problem that was our undoing. We didn’t know whether the driver had meant that another D1 could take us home or that the 105, which also stopped there and had a route that went toward town, could take us back in 20 minutes. We checked the times for both, decided that the D1 was preferable (and should be stopping by first) and waited.

The D1 did not arrive, but the 105 did, and after a moment’s deliberation, we boarded it. It did say, after all, that its route went to the Plaza Independencia, which we could navigate back to the Casa from, although it was a long walk.

The 105 was also a bad choice. Rather than taking us back into the city, it took us far, far away. We had already been at the edge of Montevideo, but now we were so far north we would never have a chance of walking back before the sun went down (and we were supposed to be back at the Casa at 6, several hours before sunset). Once again, we asked the driver why the bus was not following its posted route to the Plaza He was not as nice as the first driver, and said only that this specific bus did not go to the Plaza ever. “Nunca?” one of the girls in my group asked. “Nunca,” he replied firmly, and an old woman seated behind him repeated it for emphasis.

He pulled over and we got out again, farther away from the Casa than we had been since we’d landed in South America, since we had gone out even past the airport. He told us, as he shut the door, that the bus with the same number but going the opposite direction could take us to diez y ocho, a street name we knew, so we crossed the street to another 105 bus stop just as the bus itself was pulling up to the curb.

This bus was packed. We got on fairly early along the route, so we all had seats, but at each stop we made, another 15 or 20 people got on, until there was hardly room to breathe. I felt bad that the six of us were taking up seats, so Sarah sat on my lap and we let this older woman sit down in her seat, for which she seemed pretty grateful. We could have stood and let two people take our seats, except there was no room for us to stand up, just a wall of people holding onto the bars in the middle.

The ride was a long one. It’s frustrating not to know Spanish, because although you can tell that the people just next to you are clearly making fun of you and laughing heartily to themselves, you have no idea what they’re saying.

One little boy, maybe nine or ten, was friendly. He asked Sarah and me, in French, if we spoke French, and we assured him that we did not. (When I told this story to people at the Casa, they said I looked French, but I’m not really sure what that means) Then he asked, “English?” and we said yes. He asked us a few other questions in Spanish that were simple enough that I could answer him in the same language. “¿Qué país?” was an easy one, and he nodded in understanding when I told him were from los Estados Unidos.

We had a nice chat, talking mainly about fútbol. Oh, there’s been an absolutely huge soccer game tonight between the two big rival soccer clubs in Uruguay. The Walkers decided not to let us go because apparently this game, more than all the others, can be really violent. People die in the brawls in the stands because it’s such a big rivalry. All day today, people were walking around wearing the jersey of their preferred team, or sporting their flag tied around their necks like a cape.

Anyway, our group did finally find our way home. At the first sign of anything we recognized, we hopped off the bus and walked the rest of the way, trusting our own feet more than the fickle direction changes of the bus drivers. We had by far the best story of the afternoon.

La ciudad vieja

After lunch today, we went to la ciudad vieja, a unique adventure. We separated into groups and hopped on buses to get la Plaza Independencia, the center of which is a huge statue of Uruguay’s greatest hero, Jose Gervasio Artigas. The statue marks his mausoleum, which is a pretty impressive place, all concrete and black marble. You can go down there and see the descriptions of all the important dates in his life in huge concrete letters on the wall, and his ashes are in the middle of the room under a spotlight, guarded by two men who are just as statuesque and glassy-eyed as the guys in front of Buckingham Palace. Apparently, the changing of the guard at noon is a really cool thing to see, but we didn’t get there until two, so we missed it.

Right near the plaza is this absolutely gorgeous cathedral. It looks like a pretty plain building on the outside, but when you walk in, the place looks like the European cathedrals you see in your art history books, except there are larger-than-life statues of Uruguayan archbishops doing daily activities. In one of them, the bishop is lying on his deathbed, and gathered around him is a combination of family and angels.

They gave us a really detailed list of things to do on the way there and once we were in the old city, but we pretty much forgot about it about a quarter of the way down, so we ditched the “guided tour” and just explored the place on our own.

Wherever you can imagine people sitting with a enough space around them for wares, there’s someone selling something, and whatever you can imagine being sold, they are selling it somewhere. In fact, in one place, they were selling rare coins as pendants, and they had a little cup full of American quarters. I laughed.

Walking around the city with the afternoon sun beating down on us was WAY hot, and we were all sweating buckets, and then someone spotted the ocean through the tangle of buildings and streets to our left, and we took off for it, figuring that we could at least get our hot, aching feet wet. Unfortunately, what we ended up at was not a beach but la rambla, a sidewalk that follows the coast around the city and is up a lot higher than the beach so you can look out over it, but not get down to the water. We found some stairs down, but the water came right up to it, so we didn’t want to wade out with nowhere dry to stand.

That wasn’t stopping some people, though, because there were plenty of folks down in the water, swimming, sunbathing on rocks, and generally living it up in clothes that didn’t cover enough of them. We saw one group of boys kicking around a soccer ball, and one of the girls in our group commented that they were really ripped (none of them were wearing shirts). I’ve got to tell you, these boys looked like they were about twelve to me (and to everyone else in the group, I think), but this girl thought they were H-O-T. It was funny.

They told us that we would get a lot of pickup lines yelled at us when we were walking around, but so far no one’s called anything out at our group, for which I’m grateful. People who have gone to Study Abroad before said they memorize the lines in English, and they’re really funny, but if you laugh, they think you’re flirting back; I’d probably have to fight not to laugh. I think the reason people are ignoring us is because there’s been a guy with every one of our groups so far. Maybe I’ll keep it that way.

And having boys in the group is not just good for keeping away creepers. For one thing, boys get cheaper prices. When we rode in taxis, I was in one with a guy named Ben, and he talked to the cabbie. We were charged 45 pesos for the trip. A group of all girls went in another cab, and they were charged 60 pesos for the same trip. Also, guys are more respected. If they even make eye contact with a vendor or waiter, the person comes over to ask what they need; girls have to nearly yell.

Anyway, we walked along the beachfront for a while, enjoying the lovely breeze, before we went back into la ciudad vieja in search of something to drink. We found a little shop that sold sodas norteamericanas for cheaper than you can get them in the States, but when I bought my Sprite and took a drink of it, I was majorly surprised. It tasted like maybe Sprite was the base, but then it had a lot more lime and something sweeter, like mango or something. It was good, but too sweet and not all that cold, so it didn’t help much with my thirst.

We also found Toms shoes knockoffs for about 3 dollars, but they were really poor quality, just one layer of fabric sewed to a bottom that felt like cardboard.

After coming back for a short break, a group of us went out to dinner at la pizzeria a couple of blocks down, which is weird. They offer “pizza” and “muzzarella”. Pizza is like a square version of american hand-tossed pizza, except it has no cheese. Muzzarella has cheese. I was sitting with Sam Hurley and his girlfriend Ashley, clustered around a Spanish-English dictionary, but we still couldn’t figure out most of the toppings, so we just picked three of them and decided we’d share the pizzas between us and decide what we liked. What we ended up with was one ham, one red bell peppers, and something called palmanitos, which we still don’t recognize as anything we know, but was pretty good.

An interesting note about Uruguayan culture: they love their mate (MAH-tay). It’s this weird tea-like drink that they have special cups and straws for. It’s very bitter unless you add sugar. It looks really strange when you drink it, because you just fill the cup with this grass-like stuff, then pour hot water in and stick in your straw. Rather than having a hole on each end like most straws, these have a hole at the top where you put your mouth and then a lot of much smaller holes around the sides at the bottom, which act as a filter so you only get liquid and not herbs.

People drink this stuff everywhere. They carry the cups around with them and sip wherever you go. It’s a comfort drink for Uruguayans. And it’s so special, it apparently can’t be categorized. We saw a sign today that said “No food, no drink, and no mate” which I thought was pretty funny. Anyway, it’s not bad, but it’s an acquired taste. I probably won’t pick it up as a habit, but they have little mate cafes here that are fun hangouts.

Oh, and for dessert, we checked out La Cigale, which is a place for helado (ice cream, for the Spanish-uninitiated). I got limon ice cream, which was fabulous and a lot sourer than I was expecting.

And now, I am going to watch the Office. Someone used a legal-ish website to get yesterday’s episode, and they’re going to hook their computer up to the main TV. !Hasta manana!

Everything you’ve ever heard is true.

So, today we had the safety and rules talk, which lasted a couple hours and still didn’t touch all the “what if” situations the Walkers are prepared for. But there were several absolutes that they HAD to prepare us for.

First, they let us know that although we live in a pretty nice neighborhood in Montevideo, we have to be security conscious. There is an external metal door and then an interior wooden door to enter Casa ACU, and we lock both at all times, never unlocking one without the other one being locked when we’re entering and exiting. This is not a crazy paranoid American thing to do either. Most Uruguayans have double locked doors, a lingering leftover bit of culture from earlier times when military dictators seized the country and people would just sort of…disappear at nights sometimes.

Second, there are several places that we do NOT go at night, even in big groups. This is not because we’re American either; middle- and upper-class Uruguayans have repeatedly told the Walkers that these places are not safe for anyone, and the Walkers have stories of their own. We do not go to the beach at night because a large group of Study Abroad students and a professor were hanging out there one evening a couple years ago and were held up at knifepoint and robbed. The muggers left, and the group was trying to assemble what they had left to arrange transportation home, when the robbers came back and took everything else they had. It was a long walk back to the Casa. Parks are just about the same as beaches, so those are not nighttime hangouts either. We also have been warned not to go to la ciudad viejo, the old city.

This warning about the old city is an interesting one. Last night, Rosalinda was walking with a group of students back to the Casa from el Mercado de Abundancia, and she couldn’t remember which direction the house was in. She asked an old woman which direction la ciudad viejo was in because she knew the Casa was the opposite direction. A man nearby overheard her ask, and hurried over looking very concerned. Here’s the thing you have to know: Uruguayans are very private people. They do not strike up conversations on the street with strangers, ever. In fact, even eye contact can sometimes be considered rude. But this man broke this social taboo because he was so worried that this woman would lead this group of young Americans (and we are undoubtedly American, here. It’s hard to hide it) to the old city at night. He told her it was not safe, and she should never, ever go there after dark.

Another warning – which I thought was pretty weird, when they first said it – was to beware of children. Kids in Uruguay face next to no penalties for crimes, no matter how serious; the policy for the police is generally just catch and release. Additionally, no matter how many times a child is arrested, when he turns 18, he starts with a completely clean slate. However, there are serious repercussions for harming a child in any way. As a result, a lot of older family members will train children to pickpocket/rob people because no harm can come to them, and if the person tries to stop the kid (e.g. the kid grabs their purse, they hit them or knock them away) it’s the person being robbed who will get in big trouble. Soo…avoid kids, if possible, was the general message.

And after all of these warnings, they announced that, hooray, we’re going to the old city today. Haha. I’ll write about it later, if it’s interesting (and I’m sure it will be).

Oh, a note about the food here, for those of you that thought I was going to waste away to nothing – I am definitely not. In fact, if I come back weighing 300 pounds, you can blame Raquel and Mariela. They are brilliant, and I’ve left every meal so stuffed I can barely stand it. Of course, it helps that I have at least one piece of fruit every time I get the chance. I don’t think you guys can really understand how unbelievably good this stuff is. 😀

The Day that Lasted a Million Years

The drive to DFW was uneventful, boring. People slept, read, chatted, wasted the batteries on their iPods (Didn’t they realize they would need it ten thousand times more on the plane ride of torture and doom? But I’m not there yet).

We arrived in Dallas way, way too early, so we spent a good long time exploring the entirety of the airport, racing on the moving walkways, shopping for things we would never buy in expensive airport specialty stores, playing card games, practicing our Spanish and serenading each other with one of the three guitars that came with us on the trip.

The flight to Miami wasn’t terrible – I hadn’t accounted for the time change, so it was shorter than I expected – but my ears WOULD NOT pop as the plane descended, instead building and building with pressure until I was not only in excruciating pain, but I could barely hear anything.

When we landed in Miami, we had less than half an hour until our next flight took off without us. We ran. Of course, there’s massive construction in Miami International (according to the flight attendant, there’s ALWAYS construction in Miami International), so in order to get to our terminal from the one at which we landed, we had to do a full circle around the airport, almost back to where we started. We were SO late, if the airport hadn’t been so dead empty, they probably would have left without us. Anyway, we finally all boarded, filing into our places. I switched with one guy so that he could sit next to his girlfriend, who had been throwing up continuously since we took off from DFW.

After my fabulous dinner (yeah, right) was eaten and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II had ended, I desperately tried to sleep, but to no avail. I watched the people around me loll around in their Dramamine-induced slumbers while I could not even keep my own eyes closed. My knees and hips were aching and my legs would start bouncing around if I left them in one place for more than a few seconds. It was miserable. Probably the worst night I’ve ever had in my life.

To make matters worse, there was continuous turbulence while people slept, and I got sicker and sicker to my stomach. My ears still ached from the pressure. My eyes were probably glowing red, I was so tired.

At long, long last, the sun rose, they served us breakfast, and we started to descend. Let me just tell you, I don’t know how my head didn’t explode, with the amount of pressure that was in my ears. In fact, I still haven’t gotten them to stop aching, and it’s nearly eleven p.m. Montevideo time now. Ugh.

Aaaaaanyway, that’s all the bad stuff. I officially hate to travel. Getting through immigration and customs was pretty easy – although trying to find my bags in the circus setup of Carrasco airport was a chore – and then, at last! We see the Walkers, standing behind crowds of people holding signs for their loved ones, waiting for us with smiles and the standard Montevideo greeting, a kiss.

We loaded our things on the bus and took a roundabout route to Casa ACU so that we could see a lot of the neighborhoods leading into the city. We stopped at this gorgeous seaside stone park with a fountain and this huge sculpture honoring Uruguay’s soldiers, and took our group pictures. The weather is up in the toasty (and humid) high 80s during the day, although it cools down beautifully at night.

Once we were at the Casa, Raquel and Mariella, the women who cook for us, had already made a huge lunch of empanadas and every kind of fruit you can imagine. The fruit here is incredible. Absolutely the best fruit I have ever, ever tasted. Everything is sweeter and juicier because it’s picked ripe and comes fresh into the Casa’s kitchen. !Que marvelosa!

Then we put on our walking shoes and headed out into the city for a “scavenger hunt”. It was the most serious scavenger hunt I’ve ever participated in. The search, on foot, covered blocks and blocks, dodging traffic and the strange looks from locals. We had to find cambios and ATMs to get and exchange money, locate grocery stores, bakeries, laundromats, pharmacies, school supplies’ stores, and the local bus station/mall, Tres Cruces. We were constantly required to converse in our limited Spanish. It was majorly stressful.

Unfortunately, I bought new walking shoes for this trip, and although I didn’t notice while I was walking, they were slicing up the backs of my heels. I’m going to have to wash them somehow, because they were totally soaked with blood. It’s sick.

Dinner was at the Mercado de Abundancia, where they have an artisan market on the lower floor and a delicious restaurant on the upper. Because the place was pretty far from the Casa, we took taxis in groups of four – which meant we had to figure out how to tell the cabbies where we were going. I’ve never been in a cab before, but if they are ALL as frightening to ride in as the ones here are, I wonder that there aren’t more deaths. Our cab chased a guy off the road when he crossed during the “No Cruces” signal, and the guy and his friend came running back at the cab, yelling angrily and waving the stuff in their hands like they were going to beat the car down.

This city is CRAZY. There is no space between buildings; the only breaks in building fronts comes at the streets, where pedestrians do NOT have the right of way, no matter what the signs and signals say.

Anyway, there’s so much more to say, but I definitely need to get some sleep now. I’ve been awake for nearly 40 hours; it’s time for bed. I’ll update as soon as there’s more of significance to say.

Love you all!

Flight Itinerary

American Airlines – AA 546
Wednesday, Jan. 14: DFW to Miami Intl.
Departing 6:50 p.m. – arriving 10:25 p.m.

American Airlines – AA 989
Wednesday, Jan. 14: Miami Intl. to Carrasco (Montevideo)
Departing 11:10 p.m. – arriving 11:20 a.m. Jan. 15

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American Airlines – AA 900
Wednesday, May 6: Carrasco (Montevideo) – Pistarini (Buenos Aires)
Departing 4:50 p.m. – arriving 5:40 p.m.

American Airlines – AA 996
Wednesday, May 6: Pistarini (Buenos Aires) – DFW
Departing 9:30 p.m. – arriving 6:05 a.m. May 7