a week after i turned 35 at carnaval, i came home from a 3-month romp in south america. salvador de bahia, brazil straight to edison-suburbia, new jersey. the same town i grew up in since i was four. the same town i left when i was 18. the same town i came back to briefly when i was 24. and the same town that i pretty much avoid when i come home for the holidays. the whole 'running into old high school friends who are toting around their offspring' at menlo park mall all but gives me hives in odd places. instead, i choose to avoid such awkward encounters by hiding out in said house that i grew up in, leaving only to head out to the city or sprint to the mailbox for my netflix dvd. the irony is not lost on me that i have been pretty much wandering the earth for 2 years alone, and here i am, right back to where my life started. 35 and back home with the parentals. if this doesn't make you face yourself, i'm not sure what does.
of course, not everything is the same. i look around now and my parents have gutted the house so much and so many times that it actually looks nothing like the house that i grew up in, except for the basic foundation and structure. (you know, how joan rivers doesn't really look like joan rivers anymore because she's had so much stuff done to her face, but you can still kinda tell it's her if you squint? yeah well, that's like my parents' house for me.) the floors are black granite (ala cheesy korean karaoke bar), the walls a burnt orange sienna (a shade just above a starbuck's cafe), and glass-block room divider/shelf things (chinese mall extravaganza, i think.) it's weird, im not gonna lie. and if i ever meet those "people who aren't really people" contractors (my mother's words, not mine) i might hit them over the head with a hammer. i'm just sayin. but, for now, it's home again.
home because, as of 2 months ago, my sister and my 3-yr-old niece also moved back in. yup, we are all back under the same roof. hello, full house. my sister took the room she grew up in, and i am in my old room. which, again, looks nothing like our old rooms, but still, talk about weird... the voices of the house linger in the walls. the random memories of growing up and playing in the halls of this house whisper in my ears. the bedroom closet where many of my dreams were born, all hover in the molecules of this house. it's comforting, if also a bit unsettling, too. unsettling because it feels like i am living with the ghosts of who i 'used to be.' facing myself everyday from the ages of 4 until 18, and 24. and although i wish i could say that i am eons and mountains different than my former adolescent self, i am finding that i am still very much... dare i say it... the same. it's just like the house, isn't it? i may look renovated and updated, shorter hair and sun damaged skin, but the foundation and basic structure, thoughts and desires are still very much the same. well, that's just terrifying, isn't it? i mean, have i not changed? have i not learned from all my life experiences? have i just been this creature of habit running the same wheel all this time, just in different landscapes?
the other day, my sister went into the hallway closet to get a towel, only to remember that my parents tore it down to expand the bathroom to fit a jacuzzi. it's been a good 10 years since that closet was ripped out, and yet, from pure physical habit, my sister automatically went to that exact spot. whenever i chat on the phone past 10pm, i feel this persistent urge to go hide in my closet so as not to get caught. i am a grown woman and yet, these thoughts are ingrained in me. so it got me thinking... or maybe spiraling.... is this it? are we all just doomed to be the same old creatures of habit? will i leave this earth the same exact person that i was when i was born?!?!
(insert anxious driven scream here)
so, in an effort to curb my anxiety about all this, i decided to investigate it a wee bit further. i realize that there are things that will always be similar and that familiarity can be a good thing because it makes you feel safe. makes you feel steady. grounded. and in grounding, allows me to wander. so i will wander now, not into the world 'out there', but into the world i grew up in and have returned to. places i have known all my life, but may offer up new lessons and adventures.... edison-suburbia-new jersey, nyc, my family, and... myself.
then and now.
...and i thought a himalayan trek was daunting. eesh.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
chinese school dropout...
i sat in my little wooden chair with my wrinkled notebook in my lap, under the table, frantically trying to finish my chinese homework as the teacher began choosing the student who would go around collecting them. teacher's pets. disgusting. ok, i'm a hypocrite. in 'regular' school (this is chinese school) i played the part of the teacher's pet. i was the smallest in the class, as per usual, and i was the only chinese girl in the class. so i used it to my advantage, letting the teacher believe that i was the disciplined, sweet little asian girl that all little asian girls should be. hey, it's not my fault she bought into the stereotype. besides, it worked. and, i even got a free snack out of it. lemon cookies that crumbled and melted all over my teeth leaving a sugary film over them.
but, every saturday at chinese school, my guise was up. i was the delinquent in the corner scrambling to finish my chinese writing homework. scribbling the characters down as fast as possible. the problem was, in chinese calligraphy, things need to be precise. each detailed dash, slash, and cross is to be exact to create one uniform character that measures the same in height, width, and length each and every time you write it. it's an art form. and i was basically jackson pollock-ing it. a dirty mess of scrambled lines, crooked dashes, and lost dots scattered about, and not one character contained in the one inch by one inch box provided.
i was busted.
violent red slashes marked entire pages of my homework. like a bloody gash across the face of a gladiator. it seemed to scream across the table as soon as i opened it. calling all the other students' eyes to it like an awful traffic accident. their over-achieving eyes widened in terror. i slammed my flimsy notebook shut, the red rushing to my cheeks. if only they knew i was the teacher's pet during the week, they would not dare judge me.
a week later, i am sitting in the back part of our bronco, a.k.a 'the trunk', hunched over with my erratic pencil re-doing the same homework that got murdered the previous week. i look up at the approaching new york skyline, and pray that the holland tunnel is backed up something awful. some stillness would really do the trick right now. no luck, the tunnel is in the clear and my blotched calligraphy is starting to look like 49 miniature Rorschach inkblot tests. 49 distinct blots to say, "you are psychotic if you think you will ever pass second grade chinese school." the blots were right. i stayed back in second grade chinese school, and eventually dropped out long before i ever reached the halls outside of primary chinese school. you could say i was a chinese school dropout.
back then, chinatown was different. it had the smell and grime of greasy chinese food all over the streets. i strolled past the school last week and it looks different. cleaner. i thought for sure it would look grimier, and, wow, was that church always there? the hallways were always dark in the school and the bars on the windows made it seem more like a dungeon than a place to further my chinese education. a stroll pass the noodle shops and everything seems to look wiped down. the windows that used to have meat drippings splashed across it are now filled with zagat rating cards and laminated food critic reviews. the cooks who used to have blood and guts caked onto their aprons, are now in button down shirts. i peak inside the restaurant and there are more tourists than locals. chinatown has reinvented itself as the more astute version of the old. it's more tourist-user-friendly, with a museum (the MOCA- Museum of Chinese in America), tons of souvenir shops, and garbage cans on every corner for visitors from all over the world. every silk scarf, red lantern, and tofu shop precisely placed to paint the perfect picture inside that little chinatown box.
i'm not sure why, but i felt ripped off. this unwarranted nostalgia for the dirty tip-toe-around-fish-guts-in-the-gutter chinatown. i had no right to these feelings. i only came out here on saturdays (until my poor calligraphy showing forced me out) and chinese new year (to light firecrackers and run for my life as the dancing lions paraded down the crackling streets), it's not like i grew up here. i didn't have any memories of daily activities in these crooked streets. it's not my home. it's not my upbringing. yet, that feeling of loss was still there.
because what little i did have, was a sense of part of my history here. the part where i looked around and saw the other side of life beyond the suburban nj neighborhoods of colonial homes and split-level houses in different colors with sprawling green yards and abandoned bicycles in the driveway. the part where we got to slurp down oily shrimp and pork dumplings at dim sum. the part where i bought chinese comic books. the part where full-sized chickens hung from the restuarant windows. the part where everyone spoke cantonese. coming to chinatown was entering a different world. a world that was contained inside a split level in suburbia. a bumpy hour-long ride in the bronco trunk, and new york offered up it's dirt to me. gave me the permission to scribble and scrape my way around the culture that ran deep in my parents but only sprinkled on me occasionally. it was chaotic. it was smelly. it was dirty. but it was great.
so maybe i did suck at chinese school, but i still like chinatown as messy as my calligraphy... and i'll keep looking for it. next stop, flushing, queens... the 'real chinatown' in new york now.
but, every saturday at chinese school, my guise was up. i was the delinquent in the corner scrambling to finish my chinese writing homework. scribbling the characters down as fast as possible. the problem was, in chinese calligraphy, things need to be precise. each detailed dash, slash, and cross is to be exact to create one uniform character that measures the same in height, width, and length each and every time you write it. it's an art form. and i was basically jackson pollock-ing it. a dirty mess of scrambled lines, crooked dashes, and lost dots scattered about, and not one character contained in the one inch by one inch box provided.
i was busted.
violent red slashes marked entire pages of my homework. like a bloody gash across the face of a gladiator. it seemed to scream across the table as soon as i opened it. calling all the other students' eyes to it like an awful traffic accident. their over-achieving eyes widened in terror. i slammed my flimsy notebook shut, the red rushing to my cheeks. if only they knew i was the teacher's pet during the week, they would not dare judge me.
a week later, i am sitting in the back part of our bronco, a.k.a 'the trunk', hunched over with my erratic pencil re-doing the same homework that got murdered the previous week. i look up at the approaching new york skyline, and pray that the holland tunnel is backed up something awful. some stillness would really do the trick right now. no luck, the tunnel is in the clear and my blotched calligraphy is starting to look like 49 miniature Rorschach inkblot tests. 49 distinct blots to say, "you are psychotic if you think you will ever pass second grade chinese school." the blots were right. i stayed back in second grade chinese school, and eventually dropped out long before i ever reached the halls outside of primary chinese school. you could say i was a chinese school dropout.
back then, chinatown was different. it had the smell and grime of greasy chinese food all over the streets. i strolled past the school last week and it looks different. cleaner. i thought for sure it would look grimier, and, wow, was that church always there? the hallways were always dark in the school and the bars on the windows made it seem more like a dungeon than a place to further my chinese education. a stroll pass the noodle shops and everything seems to look wiped down. the windows that used to have meat drippings splashed across it are now filled with zagat rating cards and laminated food critic reviews. the cooks who used to have blood and guts caked onto their aprons, are now in button down shirts. i peak inside the restaurant and there are more tourists than locals. chinatown has reinvented itself as the more astute version of the old. it's more tourist-user-friendly, with a museum (the MOCA- Museum of Chinese in America), tons of souvenir shops, and garbage cans on every corner for visitors from all over the world. every silk scarf, red lantern, and tofu shop precisely placed to paint the perfect picture inside that little chinatown box.
i'm not sure why, but i felt ripped off. this unwarranted nostalgia for the dirty tip-toe-around-fish-guts-in-the-gutter chinatown. i had no right to these feelings. i only came out here on saturdays (until my poor calligraphy showing forced me out) and chinese new year (to light firecrackers and run for my life as the dancing lions paraded down the crackling streets), it's not like i grew up here. i didn't have any memories of daily activities in these crooked streets. it's not my home. it's not my upbringing. yet, that feeling of loss was still there.
because what little i did have, was a sense of part of my history here. the part where i looked around and saw the other side of life beyond the suburban nj neighborhoods of colonial homes and split-level houses in different colors with sprawling green yards and abandoned bicycles in the driveway. the part where we got to slurp down oily shrimp and pork dumplings at dim sum. the part where i bought chinese comic books. the part where full-sized chickens hung from the restuarant windows. the part where everyone spoke cantonese. coming to chinatown was entering a different world. a world that was contained inside a split level in suburbia. a bumpy hour-long ride in the bronco trunk, and new york offered up it's dirt to me. gave me the permission to scribble and scrape my way around the culture that ran deep in my parents but only sprinkled on me occasionally. it was chaotic. it was smelly. it was dirty. but it was great.
so maybe i did suck at chinese school, but i still like chinatown as messy as my calligraphy... and i'll keep looking for it. next stop, flushing, queens... the 'real chinatown' in new york now.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
sometimes i like to get mushy...
i'm back. for really reals BACK... on US soil... in the good 'ol garden state of new jersey. to be completely honest, i've been back for about a month now... letting the past few months sink in and live inside me without looking at it too deeply. just letting it swirl around and find a space inside my heart.
how was this trip different than india? has been the number one question. there is no comparison. each, in its own right, has been uniquely special. yet, as i turn the corner of 'backpacker travel mind' to 'back to home in NJ' mind... i leave you with a letter i started to write for my brother after our trek up to manchu piccu... it pretty much sums up this trip and why i love traveling. it's really mushy... consider yourself warned.
puper-
duuuuuuuuuuuude, we did it! you did it!! you roughed it dude, and you survived!! WHUUUUUUT!! i'm so proud of you. so very proud of you on so many levels. i'm already getting mush-bomb on you, but deal with it. we just had an amazing experience together. i'm allowed to be a mush. it was a spiritual one. a life-long, never forget the moment one. and to see that experience swimming in your eyes is pretty incredible. as much as you surprising me in india last year was a moment i will never forget, the moment of arriving at manchu piccu with you was a feeling i will never stop feeling...
after days of trekking, not being able to breathe, following your little bird, having 'club lam' tent party, baby wipes bath time, running in the mud & rain DOWNHILL... for 2 HOURS -- lord of the flies style!--, getting cliff woozies, and sharing meals under a tent, tucked into these enormous snow-capped mountains under the brilliant stars... i feel like i know you better now than ever before. you know my favorite photo game is to play... where's puper? in my old high school pictures. as my friends and i would hang out in the basement playing terrible versions of beatles songs, your little shaved head would always pop up randomly in the background, like a little puppet trying to find it's place in the world.
this week, i saw you taking your place in the world... and it was pretty spectacular. to watch as you took care of other people, the time and patience you put into helping others was by far the most fantastic gift i could receive. just to witness it. i mean, what are you?? like a real person now?? when did that happen? i suppose it's one of those things i will never really let go of... that you are my little brother (even though people think you're older-HAHA) and we always do random, crazy stuff together. but this time, this trip, opened up my eyes to the person you have become and continue to grow into... and i gotta say... you kinda rock, dude.
on those hard hikes up, when we could chat, we chatted about random stuff, about life, the rest of your PHD, life ahead... and never once did you approach it from a fearful, nervous place... you were open to whatever life was going to give you. ready to move on, to take life by the horns, and to enjoy it all. this is, by far, my favorite thing about you. your ability enjoy life. to see the bigger picture. to approach life with such an amazingly calm outlook and to do it with such a caring, giving heart. i remember when ge and i used to tease you all the time about the little girls around the neighborhood who would literally love to whine your name... KEEEENNNNNNYYYYYYY. in that flirtatious, annoying way. KEEEENNNNNYYYYYY. it was the way they liked to call you because i suppose they had a crush on you and whining your name would help get your attention?!? huh? i don't know, but it continues to this day. valerini told me your students do it and i think i may have heard it a couple of times on the trail... keeeeeennnnnyyyyyyy. maybe it was just nargus being funny, but the sentiment is still there. people like to be around you. it makes them happy.
and i gotta say, doing this tough trail with you, that historically, is a spiritual one for the inca's was one long trail of happiness for me. it reminded me of how much we have to work to get to where we are... with hiccups on the trail and moody weather patterns to shake things up... but along the way, if you have a smiling face to encourage and cheer you on, life is that much sweeter. we watched in awe as the porters would run passed us with the entire kitchen on their backs or tents or bags and we would thank them for their hard work... and they would smile their sincere, open smile back at us... with a kitchen tied to their backs... in the rain! then we would look at each other, shake our heads in disbelief... of their ability to work hard. to believe in their work. to embrace it. to enjoy it.
then it hit me.
i saw all these same wonderful traits that i admired about the porters reflected back at me from your face. and it made me proud of you. so very proud. because you see, when i travel, i might go alone, but i can never do it alone. it takes the help of so many others to get me from one place to the next that it amazes even me that i have somehow managed to arrive in one piece. and so, in seeing and knowing that you help people in such an open, giving way... it makes walking into the unknown world that much easier for me. because people like you exist. and they do.
so, for the rest of our lives, when i look at the manchu piccu pictures and get all crazy choked up, you'll know why. this was the trip that i got to celebrate you on... the one thing i took from all the history oscar told us about manchu piccu was that the city was built on the top of the mountain because the inca's wanted to be closer to god. the closer they were to the sky, the closer they were to the heavens, and hence, to god. i look at our pictures, i remember all the poignant, funny, crappy, and profound moments we had trekking, and i think... this trail brought me closer to you. my baby brother. and i smile.
******
so with that giant mushball letter, i end my south america travel blog... thanks to everyone who read it, commented on it, wrote me back, enjoyed it.... i can't stress enough how much traveling makes me so grateful for the people in my life. thank you. un beso grande para todo**
more info to come soon on where my adventures lead me next.... in the meantime, i'm going to continue posting my east coast adventures here... so stay tuned.
you know you wanna....
how was this trip different than india? has been the number one question. there is no comparison. each, in its own right, has been uniquely special. yet, as i turn the corner of 'backpacker travel mind' to 'back to home in NJ' mind... i leave you with a letter i started to write for my brother after our trek up to manchu piccu... it pretty much sums up this trip and why i love traveling. it's really mushy... consider yourself warned.
puper-
duuuuuuuuuuuude, we did it! you did it!! you roughed it dude, and you survived!! WHUUUUUUT!! i'm so proud of you. so very proud of you on so many levels. i'm already getting mush-bomb on you, but deal with it. we just had an amazing experience together. i'm allowed to be a mush. it was a spiritual one. a life-long, never forget the moment one. and to see that experience swimming in your eyes is pretty incredible. as much as you surprising me in india last year was a moment i will never forget, the moment of arriving at manchu piccu with you was a feeling i will never stop feeling...
after days of trekking, not being able to breathe, following your little bird, having 'club lam' tent party, baby wipes bath time, running in the mud & rain DOWNHILL... for 2 HOURS -- lord of the flies style!--, getting cliff woozies, and sharing meals under a tent, tucked into these enormous snow-capped mountains under the brilliant stars... i feel like i know you better now than ever before. you know my favorite photo game is to play... where's puper? in my old high school pictures. as my friends and i would hang out in the basement playing terrible versions of beatles songs, your little shaved head would always pop up randomly in the background, like a little puppet trying to find it's place in the world.
this week, i saw you taking your place in the world... and it was pretty spectacular. to watch as you took care of other people, the time and patience you put into helping others was by far the most fantastic gift i could receive. just to witness it. i mean, what are you?? like a real person now?? when did that happen? i suppose it's one of those things i will never really let go of... that you are my little brother (even though people think you're older-HAHA) and we always do random, crazy stuff together. but this time, this trip, opened up my eyes to the person you have become and continue to grow into... and i gotta say... you kinda rock, dude.
on those hard hikes up, when we could chat, we chatted about random stuff, about life, the rest of your PHD, life ahead... and never once did you approach it from a fearful, nervous place... you were open to whatever life was going to give you. ready to move on, to take life by the horns, and to enjoy it all. this is, by far, my favorite thing about you. your ability enjoy life. to see the bigger picture. to approach life with such an amazingly calm outlook and to do it with such a caring, giving heart. i remember when ge and i used to tease you all the time about the little girls around the neighborhood who would literally love to whine your name... KEEEENNNNNNYYYYYYY. in that flirtatious, annoying way. KEEEENNNNNYYYYYY. it was the way they liked to call you because i suppose they had a crush on you and whining your name would help get your attention?!? huh? i don't know, but it continues to this day. valerini told me your students do it and i think i may have heard it a couple of times on the trail... keeeeeennnnnyyyyyyy. maybe it was just nargus being funny, but the sentiment is still there. people like to be around you. it makes them happy.
and i gotta say, doing this tough trail with you, that historically, is a spiritual one for the inca's was one long trail of happiness for me. it reminded me of how much we have to work to get to where we are... with hiccups on the trail and moody weather patterns to shake things up... but along the way, if you have a smiling face to encourage and cheer you on, life is that much sweeter. we watched in awe as the porters would run passed us with the entire kitchen on their backs or tents or bags and we would thank them for their hard work... and they would smile their sincere, open smile back at us... with a kitchen tied to their backs... in the rain! then we would look at each other, shake our heads in disbelief... of their ability to work hard. to believe in their work. to embrace it. to enjoy it.
then it hit me.
i saw all these same wonderful traits that i admired about the porters reflected back at me from your face. and it made me proud of you. so very proud. because you see, when i travel, i might go alone, but i can never do it alone. it takes the help of so many others to get me from one place to the next that it amazes even me that i have somehow managed to arrive in one piece. and so, in seeing and knowing that you help people in such an open, giving way... it makes walking into the unknown world that much easier for me. because people like you exist. and they do.
so, for the rest of our lives, when i look at the manchu piccu pictures and get all crazy choked up, you'll know why. this was the trip that i got to celebrate you on... the one thing i took from all the history oscar told us about manchu piccu was that the city was built on the top of the mountain because the inca's wanted to be closer to god. the closer they were to the sky, the closer they were to the heavens, and hence, to god. i look at our pictures, i remember all the poignant, funny, crappy, and profound moments we had trekking, and i think... this trail brought me closer to you. my baby brother. and i smile.
******
so with that giant mushball letter, i end my south america travel blog... thanks to everyone who read it, commented on it, wrote me back, enjoyed it.... i can't stress enough how much traveling makes me so grateful for the people in my life. thank you. un beso grande para todo**
more info to come soon on where my adventures lead me next.... in the meantime, i'm going to continue posting my east coast adventures here... so stay tuned.
you know you wanna....
Monday, March 9, 2009
poor kid?
i got robbed. by a kid. who looked me square in the eye, leaned in, smiled his syrupy thick smile while he...
ripped my necklace right off my neck. RIGHT. OFF. MY. NECK.
it's strange because the clearest memory i have is the sound of my necklace snapping. the thick silver chain cracking and echoing in my ears. like a shout in the grand canyon. CRACK...RACK... ACK..CK...K....
the kid turned around and started walking, not running, away... arrogant little bugger. for a moment everything just froze. a slight burning sensation began to heat up on the back of my neck where the chain broke. it must have fueled my adrenaline because before i know it, i've chased him down, got his shirt wrapped around my right hand and i'm shouting, "YOU LITTLE SHIT!!" (very mature of me... i know.) but he's Brazilian and has no clue what i'm yelling. i'm just shouting like a mad woman. he struggles to get out of my grip. his shirt tears. we stumble. he begins to wrestle out of what's left of his shirt. i lose my footing, and WHAM! we hit the floor with a thump. his torn shirt still death gripped in my hand.
the second sound i remember is of my necklace falling through the metal grates we were on top of. specifically, the charms scattering and scraping. again... the echo. he must have dropped it when we fell. i release my death grip.
he's wriggled his way out of his torn shirt by now and is scurrying to get up. in the chaos of it all, he has also lost both of his flip-flops. he runs off, barefoot and shirtless. he was twelve. maybe. somehow i've got one of his sandals in my hand and i watch as he takes off into the carnaval parade. for a split second, and ONLY a split second, i think about throwing the sandal at his head. don't worry... i don't throw the sandal at his head... luckily, my senses kick in and i see that he is just a kid. small, skinny and probably a bit shocked, if not scared. i drop the sandal and five minutes later, i break down into a jitter of tears.
"poor kid." my parents say when i recount the story to them. they are both shaking their heads. huh? poor kid?!? can i get a little "poor me?" ummm... just a little bit?!?
i think it was gandhi who said that he once had his pair of shoes stolen on the train but the man dropped one when he jumped off the train. gandhi then threw the other shoe onto the train tracks. when asked why, he said that the person who stole it obviously needs them more than him, so he may as well give him the pair...
but then again, i've seen slumdog millionaire and i certainly don't want to encourage this kid into a life of ripping people off...
yeah, i'm still workin' this one out. either way, i think my parents are right... 'poor kid' that he has to steal for any reason at all. that just plain sucks.
ps- a quick shout out to my wonderful, sweet friend lizzle. she bought me this necklace before i left for india and then got me another one when i left for south america. it's protected me for both trips. and now, it's somewhere under the streets of salvador... protecting others...
ripped my necklace right off my neck. RIGHT. OFF. MY. NECK.
it's strange because the clearest memory i have is the sound of my necklace snapping. the thick silver chain cracking and echoing in my ears. like a shout in the grand canyon. CRACK...RACK... ACK..CK...K....
the kid turned around and started walking, not running, away... arrogant little bugger. for a moment everything just froze. a slight burning sensation began to heat up on the back of my neck where the chain broke. it must have fueled my adrenaline because before i know it, i've chased him down, got his shirt wrapped around my right hand and i'm shouting, "YOU LITTLE SHIT!!" (very mature of me... i know.) but he's Brazilian and has no clue what i'm yelling. i'm just shouting like a mad woman. he struggles to get out of my grip. his shirt tears. we stumble. he begins to wrestle out of what's left of his shirt. i lose my footing, and WHAM! we hit the floor with a thump. his torn shirt still death gripped in my hand.
the second sound i remember is of my necklace falling through the metal grates we were on top of. specifically, the charms scattering and scraping. again... the echo. he must have dropped it when we fell. i release my death grip.
he's wriggled his way out of his torn shirt by now and is scurrying to get up. in the chaos of it all, he has also lost both of his flip-flops. he runs off, barefoot and shirtless. he was twelve. maybe. somehow i've got one of his sandals in my hand and i watch as he takes off into the carnaval parade. for a split second, and ONLY a split second, i think about throwing the sandal at his head. don't worry... i don't throw the sandal at his head... luckily, my senses kick in and i see that he is just a kid. small, skinny and probably a bit shocked, if not scared. i drop the sandal and five minutes later, i break down into a jitter of tears.
"poor kid." my parents say when i recount the story to them. they are both shaking their heads. huh? poor kid?!? can i get a little "poor me?" ummm... just a little bit?!?
i think it was gandhi who said that he once had his pair of shoes stolen on the train but the man dropped one when he jumped off the train. gandhi then threw the other shoe onto the train tracks. when asked why, he said that the person who stole it obviously needs them more than him, so he may as well give him the pair...
but then again, i've seen slumdog millionaire and i certainly don't want to encourage this kid into a life of ripping people off...
yeah, i'm still workin' this one out. either way, i think my parents are right... 'poor kid' that he has to steal for any reason at all. that just plain sucks.
ps- a quick shout out to my wonderful, sweet friend lizzle. she bought me this necklace before i left for india and then got me another one when i left for south america. it's protected me for both trips. and now, it's somewhere under the streets of salvador... protecting others...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
should i stay or should i go...
(written enroute to brasil... a couple of weeks ago)
it took 3 cramped, crowded & coughing buses, 48 hours along pothole-pocked dusty roads, 3 brasilia check points with military men in reflective glasses rummaging through all my dirty laundry, 1 italian-boliviano (marcello!), 1 peruvian minister (miguel!), and 1 argentine hippie family to get me across the border and into brasil safely... but here i am.... and already i LOVE it!
we crossed the border yesterday at 4pm, almost 48 hours after we started our journey in la paz. i had no idea how dodgy the bus was going to be. (sorry mommo and bubbi!) but since the border crossing (in the middle of the mosquito-infested jungle) here is mostly for the locals (and people who don´t have passports or proper papers (hippie argentine family), you can imagine the array of...err... 'colorful' people that occupied the bus... drug dealers, drunks, and prostitutes! OH MY! two rows behind me were these young, drunk guys that were transporting god-knows-what to god-knows-who from bolivia to brasil and back again. in the row in front of me, two girls with all sorts of body parts squeezing out of their infant-sized outfits, and to the left of me, an indigenous woman with her young daughter cradling an even younger baby in her arms...
normally, i don´t get too nervous when i find myself in these seemingly precarious situations anymore. i breathe and surrender to the situation and take it moment by moment. it is what you make it. i glance over to the left and the mother of the child with the baby places a pail in the aisle between us. the boys in the back are starting to crank out obnoxious laughter like crazed hyenas. i try not to look and focus on the stains on the back of the seat in front of me. i burn a hole through the seat, but still i find my eyes wandering to the left as the boys' raucous shouting starts to build. and then, i like a horror freak show, i see the woman, put her dress over the pail, squat down, and pee.
ummm, what.
yes, folks, she is peeing into a pail in the middle of the aisle on this filthy cramped bus with a bunch of drugged-up, drunk teenagers screaming behind her. now how am i suppose to surrender to THIS situation? and then, as if the freak show couldn't get any worse... she takes the pail, opens her window and pours it out the side of the bus. really?! is that really necessary? considering we're stuck here for the next 48 hours, i guess it actually IS necessary. my bad. note to self: NO DRINKING WATER, NO FOOD, NO WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE PEE IN PAILS. close your eyes. feign sleep. the bus chokes to a start and i begin to feel the pangs of terror electrocute my system. do i get off? what do i do?!? find a potential buddy. i look around and immediately realize that there is not ONE person that in the awful chance that there is an emergency i would feel comfortable asking for help. not. one. single. person.
the bus starts to pull out of the terminal and i am playing 'should i stay or should i go' in my head. i quickly do the pros and cons in my head. PRO- get to brasil by tomorrow if i stay on the bus... CON- don't make it off the bus alive. tough call. and then, just as i'm nearing my decision to leave, the bus screeches to a hault. it's a sign, it's got to be a sign... get off the bus, NOW! the drunken hyenas grow wild hissing at the bus driver to get on the road. mayhem seems to be brimming. i grab at my bag and get up to leave. just as i stand up, in walks... marcello.
the universe always provides.
marcello. my italian-boliviano angel had arrived. and wouldn't you know it, he had the seat right next to mine. he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and said kindly, "permiso?" as he made himself comfortable next to me. he smiled his shy 45-year-old, doctor's assistant smile and i smiled my i can't believe it, thank you so much for being real and smile back. and for the next concussion-inducing-BUMPY 35 hours of jungle roads, marcello watched over me, worried about me, fed me, communicated for me, walked me across the border, protected me, and handed me off to a minister before he felt okay to leave me. he looked me square in the eye before he literally handed me over to minister miguel and said, ´SUERTE! CUIDADO! CUIDADO!!´ then he hugged me tight, gave me a kiss-kiss on both cheeks and walked away into the sunset... gracias marcello!!
not to worry... i am completely safe in the hands of minister miguel now. he won´t let me out of his sight. poor guy. i just want to whisper to him, "don't worry. the universe always provides."
yes, yes it does.
it took 3 cramped, crowded & coughing buses, 48 hours along pothole-pocked dusty roads, 3 brasilia check points with military men in reflective glasses rummaging through all my dirty laundry, 1 italian-boliviano (marcello!), 1 peruvian minister (miguel!), and 1 argentine hippie family to get me across the border and into brasil safely... but here i am.... and already i LOVE it!
we crossed the border yesterday at 4pm, almost 48 hours after we started our journey in la paz. i had no idea how dodgy the bus was going to be. (sorry mommo and bubbi!) but since the border crossing (in the middle of the mosquito-infested jungle) here is mostly for the locals (and people who don´t have passports or proper papers (hippie argentine family), you can imagine the array of...err... 'colorful' people that occupied the bus... drug dealers, drunks, and prostitutes! OH MY! two rows behind me were these young, drunk guys that were transporting god-knows-what to god-knows-who from bolivia to brasil and back again. in the row in front of me, two girls with all sorts of body parts squeezing out of their infant-sized outfits, and to the left of me, an indigenous woman with her young daughter cradling an even younger baby in her arms...
normally, i don´t get too nervous when i find myself in these seemingly precarious situations anymore. i breathe and surrender to the situation and take it moment by moment. it is what you make it. i glance over to the left and the mother of the child with the baby places a pail in the aisle between us. the boys in the back are starting to crank out obnoxious laughter like crazed hyenas. i try not to look and focus on the stains on the back of the seat in front of me. i burn a hole through the seat, but still i find my eyes wandering to the left as the boys' raucous shouting starts to build. and then, i like a horror freak show, i see the woman, put her dress over the pail, squat down, and pee.
ummm, what.
yes, folks, she is peeing into a pail in the middle of the aisle on this filthy cramped bus with a bunch of drugged-up, drunk teenagers screaming behind her. now how am i suppose to surrender to THIS situation? and then, as if the freak show couldn't get any worse... she takes the pail, opens her window and pours it out the side of the bus. really?! is that really necessary? considering we're stuck here for the next 48 hours, i guess it actually IS necessary. my bad. note to self: NO DRINKING WATER, NO FOOD, NO WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE PEE IN PAILS. close your eyes. feign sleep. the bus chokes to a start and i begin to feel the pangs of terror electrocute my system. do i get off? what do i do?!? find a potential buddy. i look around and immediately realize that there is not ONE person that in the awful chance that there is an emergency i would feel comfortable asking for help. not. one. single. person.
the bus starts to pull out of the terminal and i am playing 'should i stay or should i go' in my head. i quickly do the pros and cons in my head. PRO- get to brasil by tomorrow if i stay on the bus... CON- don't make it off the bus alive. tough call. and then, just as i'm nearing my decision to leave, the bus screeches to a hault. it's a sign, it's got to be a sign... get off the bus, NOW! the drunken hyenas grow wild hissing at the bus driver to get on the road. mayhem seems to be brimming. i grab at my bag and get up to leave. just as i stand up, in walks... marcello.
the universe always provides.
marcello. my italian-boliviano angel had arrived. and wouldn't you know it, he had the seat right next to mine. he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and said kindly, "permiso?" as he made himself comfortable next to me. he smiled his shy 45-year-old, doctor's assistant smile and i smiled my i can't believe it, thank you so much for being real and smile back. and for the next concussion-inducing-BUMPY 35 hours of jungle roads, marcello watched over me, worried about me, fed me, communicated for me, walked me across the border, protected me, and handed me off to a minister before he felt okay to leave me. he looked me square in the eye before he literally handed me over to minister miguel and said, ´SUERTE! CUIDADO! CUIDADO!!´ then he hugged me tight, gave me a kiss-kiss on both cheeks and walked away into the sunset... gracias marcello!!
not to worry... i am completely safe in the hands of minister miguel now. he won´t let me out of his sight. poor guy. i just want to whisper to him, "don't worry. the universe always provides."
yes, yes it does.
pop like popcorn for carnaval!
the boom boom bass of the samba rattles the street with mini earthquakes...
people shake. shake. shake.
their booties.
their titties.
their popcorn souls.
and then.
they shake some more.
pop!
pop!
pop!
balloons the size of planets sail between the buildings,
beating to their own heartbeat.
glowing like comets...
celestial cinema.
confetti, newspaper, and silly string waterfalls...
splash the parade like a giant decadent cupcake.
and in the middle of the street...
a little ecstatic 'scarlett-siu-jie popcorn',
shakin´ and poppin' it like she means it,
stares up at the drizzling speckled sky...
blows a kiss of birthday bliss...
to her "old peach" bff...
(... AND, thank you everyone for sending me their birthday looooove & wishes too... i am doing my best to spread it all over salvador!)
***beijos muito grande from carnaval! POP. POP. POP!
people shake. shake. shake.
their booties.
their titties.
their popcorn souls.
and then.
they shake some more.
pop!
pop!
pop!
balloons the size of planets sail between the buildings,
beating to their own heartbeat.
glowing like comets...
celestial cinema.
confetti, newspaper, and silly string waterfalls...
splash the parade like a giant decadent cupcake.
and in the middle of the street...
a little ecstatic 'scarlett-siu-jie popcorn',
shakin´ and poppin' it like she means it,
stares up at the drizzling speckled sky...
blows a kiss of birthday bliss...
to her "old peach" bff...
(... AND, thank you everyone for sending me their birthday looooove & wishes too... i am doing my best to spread it all over salvador!)
***beijos muito grande from carnaval! POP. POP. POP!
8 days a week...
right now, i´m sitting in an internet cafe in santa cruz, bolivia with 7 hours ahead of me, waiting for my next bus to the border of bolivia and brasil that will take no less than 16-18hrs. it´s hot. the kid playing video games next to me is humming like a racecar. i think he just crashed. it´s humid. i´m sweating. i must smell like a peach....
last night, i grabbed the bus from la paz, bolivia. it took 16hrs to swivel down from the high altitude to this more tropical side of the country. at hour 12, the bus became so hot, humid, and wet (it´s pouring outside...and so, subsequently, its also pouring all over my entire right side, of course it ís, why wouldn´t it be??), that i considered letting the indigenous woman sleeping in the aisle have my seat. (i´m such a generous person... wait until the seat is a proper puddle THEN offer it up. better late than never??) i peered over luisa, the teacher who just got separated from her husband of 10 years because she wants to switch jobs but her husband thinks she´s cheating on him´(???), so they had to separate b/c he was getting increasingly more loco - (all told to me in spanish) snoring softly next to me, and lightly tapped the woman wearing her customary top hat (which acording to luisa, helps to keep the grey hairs away) but she only rolled over slightly and ignored me. her colorful sack of goods crackled under her weight. i sat back in my soggy seat. drip, drip, drip. this is not helping the fried onion smell that is permeating the bus. it´s like soggy fried onions mixed with vinegar. drip, drip, drip.... only 4 more hours to go...
2 nights ago i was on a boat returning from the isla del sol on lake titicaca. yes, that´s the real name of it. lake titicaca. where if you try and take a dip in the lake, you will freeze your titi and your caca off. it´s the highest altitude inhabitated lake in the world. it´s breath-takingly, literally, gorgeous. the clouds are so close you can practically pick some off, eat it and let it melt in your mouth like cotton candy.
3 nights ago i found myself dancing in the streets of puno, peru with HUNDEREDS of electric and eclectic groups of costumed dancers from fuzzy white bears, to sparkly-space cadet soldiers, to vegas-style-feathered mistresses... it was a rainy mess, but that didn´t stop them from celebrating until the wee hours of the night, drunkenly stumbling with half their costumes hanging off their bodies like an over-stuffed coat rack. it is a very strange sight to have an enebriated half fuzzy, now brown bear almost fall on top of you in the middle of a cobblestone street. very strange. and yet, at 8am the band struck up that same ól tune again, and there they went stomping through the puddles towards the cathedral to offer up their dance in prayer and celebration.
4 nights ago i found myself huffing and puffing up the steep alleyways of the witches market in la paz, bolivia staring at dried llama fetuses on sale. dried. llama. fetuses. apparantly, if you bury it in the ground in front of your house, it wards off evil spirits or brings good luck to your house and family. um, okay.
5 nights ago i found myself dancing with local bolivians to both traditional music and their version of dance-club hip-hop cumbia cumbia.... to be honest, the moves were the same. the music just changed frantically.
6 nights ago i found myself in sucre, bolivia dodging pre-carnaval water balloons thrown by adolescent boys that would ear-graze passed my head in whizzing speed in the center square where the indigenous people were holding a protest in front of the government house. ear-splitting booming dynamite was going off every 20 minutes or so to call all the villages together to protest. i watched as a man tried to cross the protest line on his scooter and he was literally pushed and pulled OFF his scooter and onto the ground. within moments he was hovered by the angry shouting protesters. a friend told me that a bus recently crossed a protest line in bolivia and the driver was dragged out and beaten, and some of the passengers hurt too. you just don´t cross protest lines in bolivia. the passion and need to be heard is both staggering... and humbling. some might find it scary, but i find it rather intriguing. when a friend educated me a bit on the plight of the indigenous people, it gave me goosebumps and filled me with compassion. so much history. so much oppression. then i got tagged by a red waterballon on my left leg. score.
7 nights ago i found myself on a yet another bus from uyuni, bolivia to sucre with a new friend who decided that i was going to be his human pillow for the entirety of the 9 hour trip. really, dude? really? YOUR space... MY space.... but i forgave him his ´´too quick to cuddle´´ ways as he DID help to stop the bus when i couldn´t get to my backpack because the travel agency had locked it away and decided to disappear for an hour as i waited, sweating bullets, outside. wouldn´t you know it, just as the bus took off, the lady came slowly waddling down the street. ´´no understanding of personal space´´ guy ran and stopped the bus for us. so i guess it´s okay that he crushed my lungs for a good 5 hours... only to have to transfer from bus to sedan ´´taxi´´ car at 1:30AM for another 3 hours with his head rolling back and forth on my left shoulder and the backside of the old bolivian man´s hand tapping on my right thigh to music so blaringly LOUD that i felt like i was going to throw up from the pounding bass. i didn´t have the nerve to ask the driver to turn it down for fear he would fall asleep at the wheel and drive us straight off the cliff into the deep, grey mining town of potosi.
8 days ago i found myself dancing in the otherworldly, blank white canvas of the salar de uyuni in bolivia... where the sky and the ground is such a pure white that you can´t distinguish between where the ground ends and the sky starts... there are no words, metaphors, analogies to describe the incomprehensible feeling and beauty of this place... so i grabbed my ipod... ran towards that blank bleak beautiful canvas and just started to DANCE DANCE DANCE... WAAAAHOOOOOO!!!! painting it with my breath.... my smiles, my laughter... after a good thirty minutes of this... i turned to the sun, did 3 sun salutations to give gratitude for my family, my friends, and my life... thank you, thank you, thank you.... then i skipped my way all the way back to the jeep.
ready to paint my life along....
last night, i grabbed the bus from la paz, bolivia. it took 16hrs to swivel down from the high altitude to this more tropical side of the country. at hour 12, the bus became so hot, humid, and wet (it´s pouring outside...and so, subsequently, its also pouring all over my entire right side, of course it ís, why wouldn´t it be??), that i considered letting the indigenous woman sleeping in the aisle have my seat. (i´m such a generous person... wait until the seat is a proper puddle THEN offer it up. better late than never??) i peered over luisa, the teacher who just got separated from her husband of 10 years because she wants to switch jobs but her husband thinks she´s cheating on him´(???), so they had to separate b/c he was getting increasingly more loco - (all told to me in spanish) snoring softly next to me, and lightly tapped the woman wearing her customary top hat (which acording to luisa, helps to keep the grey hairs away) but she only rolled over slightly and ignored me. her colorful sack of goods crackled under her weight. i sat back in my soggy seat. drip, drip, drip. this is not helping the fried onion smell that is permeating the bus. it´s like soggy fried onions mixed with vinegar. drip, drip, drip.... only 4 more hours to go...
2 nights ago i was on a boat returning from the isla del sol on lake titicaca. yes, that´s the real name of it. lake titicaca. where if you try and take a dip in the lake, you will freeze your titi and your caca off. it´s the highest altitude inhabitated lake in the world. it´s breath-takingly, literally, gorgeous. the clouds are so close you can practically pick some off, eat it and let it melt in your mouth like cotton candy.
3 nights ago i found myself dancing in the streets of puno, peru with HUNDEREDS of electric and eclectic groups of costumed dancers from fuzzy white bears, to sparkly-space cadet soldiers, to vegas-style-feathered mistresses... it was a rainy mess, but that didn´t stop them from celebrating until the wee hours of the night, drunkenly stumbling with half their costumes hanging off their bodies like an over-stuffed coat rack. it is a very strange sight to have an enebriated half fuzzy, now brown bear almost fall on top of you in the middle of a cobblestone street. very strange. and yet, at 8am the band struck up that same ól tune again, and there they went stomping through the puddles towards the cathedral to offer up their dance in prayer and celebration.
4 nights ago i found myself huffing and puffing up the steep alleyways of the witches market in la paz, bolivia staring at dried llama fetuses on sale. dried. llama. fetuses. apparantly, if you bury it in the ground in front of your house, it wards off evil spirits or brings good luck to your house and family. um, okay.
5 nights ago i found myself dancing with local bolivians to both traditional music and their version of dance-club hip-hop cumbia cumbia.... to be honest, the moves were the same. the music just changed frantically.
6 nights ago i found myself in sucre, bolivia dodging pre-carnaval water balloons thrown by adolescent boys that would ear-graze passed my head in whizzing speed in the center square where the indigenous people were holding a protest in front of the government house. ear-splitting booming dynamite was going off every 20 minutes or so to call all the villages together to protest. i watched as a man tried to cross the protest line on his scooter and he was literally pushed and pulled OFF his scooter and onto the ground. within moments he was hovered by the angry shouting protesters. a friend told me that a bus recently crossed a protest line in bolivia and the driver was dragged out and beaten, and some of the passengers hurt too. you just don´t cross protest lines in bolivia. the passion and need to be heard is both staggering... and humbling. some might find it scary, but i find it rather intriguing. when a friend educated me a bit on the plight of the indigenous people, it gave me goosebumps and filled me with compassion. so much history. so much oppression. then i got tagged by a red waterballon on my left leg. score.
7 nights ago i found myself on a yet another bus from uyuni, bolivia to sucre with a new friend who decided that i was going to be his human pillow for the entirety of the 9 hour trip. really, dude? really? YOUR space... MY space.... but i forgave him his ´´too quick to cuddle´´ ways as he DID help to stop the bus when i couldn´t get to my backpack because the travel agency had locked it away and decided to disappear for an hour as i waited, sweating bullets, outside. wouldn´t you know it, just as the bus took off, the lady came slowly waddling down the street. ´´no understanding of personal space´´ guy ran and stopped the bus for us. so i guess it´s okay that he crushed my lungs for a good 5 hours... only to have to transfer from bus to sedan ´´taxi´´ car at 1:30AM for another 3 hours with his head rolling back and forth on my left shoulder and the backside of the old bolivian man´s hand tapping on my right thigh to music so blaringly LOUD that i felt like i was going to throw up from the pounding bass. i didn´t have the nerve to ask the driver to turn it down for fear he would fall asleep at the wheel and drive us straight off the cliff into the deep, grey mining town of potosi.
8 days ago i found myself dancing in the otherworldly, blank white canvas of the salar de uyuni in bolivia... where the sky and the ground is such a pure white that you can´t distinguish between where the ground ends and the sky starts... there are no words, metaphors, analogies to describe the incomprehensible feeling and beauty of this place... so i grabbed my ipod... ran towards that blank bleak beautiful canvas and just started to DANCE DANCE DANCE... WAAAAHOOOOOO!!!! painting it with my breath.... my smiles, my laughter... after a good thirty minutes of this... i turned to the sun, did 3 sun salutations to give gratitude for my family, my friends, and my life... thank you, thank you, thank you.... then i skipped my way all the way back to the jeep.
ready to paint my life along....
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Jesus is Watching.
DISCLAIMER: the following is not a joke... nor an infomercial.
Jesus is watching me. Literally.
I can feel his eyes on my back. i am chopping an eggplant on a worn plastic blue plate scarred with old, deep scratches. the knife is dull and a bit rusty.
Lulu walks over and hands me an onion and a zucchini.
"Jesus Christ," she whispers. My eyes widen, I tilt my head towards the life-size picture of Jesus looking back at us with open palms and receiving arms. She glances at him, looks back at me, we look back at Jesus, shrug and say, "sorry?" This is followed by 30-minutes of uncontrollable laughter while Jesus watches on.
FACTS: (feel free to stop and take notes...)
it is Saturday night at 11:30pm and i am with a French, a Canadian, an Argentine, an Uruguayan, a drunken farmer and his son in a barren kitchen in an isolated church in the middle of a nowhere northern Argentina village at the bottom of a canyon with dried mud up to my knees and a thunderstorm crashing down aggressively outside....oh, and i'm making RATATOUILLE... naturally.
The drunken farmer, who rescued our little rental compact car just thirty minutes ago from the oatmeal-thick, soft-as-pudding-mud, wrestles with the neglected oven, attempting to light it up so we can start cooking the ratatouille... naturally. His eyes are red veins, but friendly. he coughs and the heavy spray of alcohol on his breath is sufficient to light the wheezing oven. who needs propane when you got whisky-cerveza flammable-grade breath? i plug my nose and continue chopping. The rain has ceased. My legs are itchy form the mud.
FLASHBACK:
Ten hours ago, i rented a compact car, a VW Gol i named "fuerte" (which looks like a VW rabbit but without the 'cool' factor. it's small. very small.) with a 6ft 3in Canadian named Stephen, and sassy, French Lulu. Stephen squishes into the driver's seat, knees scraping the steering wheel and we chug off towards Cafayete. enroute, we encounter 10 HOURS of the most phenomenal landscape show that mother nature ever directed. each turn on the dusty, rocky road revealed another breathtaking landscape. if mother nature ever had schizophrenia, this was the result of it. there were cactus forests that looked like a bunch of green alien nutcrackers standing at attention, at ease, and even, at play guarding the vast desert on the hood of the mountain. there were deep, grey-purple bruises on the mountain plains that ran down the green pastures like creases in the palm of your hands. there were mars-like canyon rocks that screamed of angry red and orange hues that only became more fired up as the sun danced across them. we gave ourselves whiplash tossing about in little 'fuerte' trying to take it all in. then mother nature took it up a notch... in the distance she seduced us with lightening bolts and a curtain of a storm way up high, on the rounded tips of the far away peaks, like a giant jellyfish in the sky. with a bulbous round head, the legs of rain touching ground, and electricity exploding within.
it was majestic.
until... 10:30pm, when all of a sudden as we skitted along the dark canyon road, twisting and turning like a restless cat, the road seemed to bleed mud and water towards us. stephen threw 'fuerte; in reverse, letting the water and mud chase us like lava.
"GO GO GO!!! OVER IT!!!!" i shouted, along with lulu. "FASTER FASTER FASTER!!!"
so we did. and fuerte bounced and found his inner 4x4 and took us over to the other side. within a minute, with our adrenaline still rushing, we found ourselves in yet ANOTHER bigger mudslide/ flash flood situation... stephen threw it into gear and fuerte lurched forward, over rocks, mud, branches... SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!!!!
um, uh oh.
we got to other side, got out of fuerte and the back bumper was sadly clinging on by a mere screw on the left-side. it's pouring and the sound of a make-shift river can be heard in the distance. oh crap.
despite the situation at hand, lulu and i are in fits of giggles. stephen, though, is freaking out. what to do? keep the bumper or not to keep the bumper? keep the bumper or not to keep the bumper? ummmm, definitely keep the bumper. definitely. but we have no rope, wire or anything to tie it back in it's place. errrr.... not to keep the bumper?
then, light bulb... a caribeaner!
with a caribeaner, we magauyvered the bumber back in place (yeah we did!!), hopped in, started fuerte and took off... ONLY to get stuck 10 minutes later in mud so thick and so soft, it was like quick sand. we stepped out, immediately sinking to our knees in mud and realized pretty quickly that we were not going anywhere anytime soon.
ENTER: the drunken farmer and his son to help push us out, the isolated church that we happened to get stuck in front of that we took refuge in until morning, the kitchen in the church that we cooked the ratatouille in...
....and, of course, jesus, with his open palms and receiving arms to watch over us.
i turn and give him a wink, "muchas, muchas gracias..."
Jesus is watching me. Literally.
I can feel his eyes on my back. i am chopping an eggplant on a worn plastic blue plate scarred with old, deep scratches. the knife is dull and a bit rusty.
Lulu walks over and hands me an onion and a zucchini.
"Jesus Christ," she whispers. My eyes widen, I tilt my head towards the life-size picture of Jesus looking back at us with open palms and receiving arms. She glances at him, looks back at me, we look back at Jesus, shrug and say, "sorry?" This is followed by 30-minutes of uncontrollable laughter while Jesus watches on.
FACTS: (feel free to stop and take notes...)
it is Saturday night at 11:30pm and i am with a French, a Canadian, an Argentine, an Uruguayan, a drunken farmer and his son in a barren kitchen in an isolated church in the middle of a nowhere northern Argentina village at the bottom of a canyon with dried mud up to my knees and a thunderstorm crashing down aggressively outside....oh, and i'm making RATATOUILLE... naturally.
The drunken farmer, who rescued our little rental compact car just thirty minutes ago from the oatmeal-thick, soft-as-pudding-mud, wrestles with the neglected oven, attempting to light it up so we can start cooking the ratatouille... naturally. His eyes are red veins, but friendly. he coughs and the heavy spray of alcohol on his breath is sufficient to light the wheezing oven. who needs propane when you got whisky-cerveza flammable-grade breath? i plug my nose and continue chopping. The rain has ceased. My legs are itchy form the mud.
FLASHBACK:
Ten hours ago, i rented a compact car, a VW Gol i named "fuerte" (which looks like a VW rabbit but without the 'cool' factor. it's small. very small.) with a 6ft 3in Canadian named Stephen, and sassy, French Lulu. Stephen squishes into the driver's seat, knees scraping the steering wheel and we chug off towards Cafayete. enroute, we encounter 10 HOURS of the most phenomenal landscape show that mother nature ever directed. each turn on the dusty, rocky road revealed another breathtaking landscape. if mother nature ever had schizophrenia, this was the result of it. there were cactus forests that looked like a bunch of green alien nutcrackers standing at attention, at ease, and even, at play guarding the vast desert on the hood of the mountain. there were deep, grey-purple bruises on the mountain plains that ran down the green pastures like creases in the palm of your hands. there were mars-like canyon rocks that screamed of angry red and orange hues that only became more fired up as the sun danced across them. we gave ourselves whiplash tossing about in little 'fuerte' trying to take it all in. then mother nature took it up a notch... in the distance she seduced us with lightening bolts and a curtain of a storm way up high, on the rounded tips of the far away peaks, like a giant jellyfish in the sky. with a bulbous round head, the legs of rain touching ground, and electricity exploding within.
it was majestic.
until... 10:30pm, when all of a sudden as we skitted along the dark canyon road, twisting and turning like a restless cat, the road seemed to bleed mud and water towards us. stephen threw 'fuerte; in reverse, letting the water and mud chase us like lava.
"GO GO GO!!! OVER IT!!!!" i shouted, along with lulu. "FASTER FASTER FASTER!!!"
so we did. and fuerte bounced and found his inner 4x4 and took us over to the other side. within a minute, with our adrenaline still rushing, we found ourselves in yet ANOTHER bigger mudslide/ flash flood situation... stephen threw it into gear and fuerte lurched forward, over rocks, mud, branches... SCRAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!!!!
um, uh oh.
we got to other side, got out of fuerte and the back bumper was sadly clinging on by a mere screw on the left-side. it's pouring and the sound of a make-shift river can be heard in the distance. oh crap.
despite the situation at hand, lulu and i are in fits of giggles. stephen, though, is freaking out. what to do? keep the bumper or not to keep the bumper? keep the bumper or not to keep the bumper? ummmm, definitely keep the bumper. definitely. but we have no rope, wire or anything to tie it back in it's place. errrr.... not to keep the bumper?
then, light bulb... a caribeaner!
with a caribeaner, we magauyvered the bumber back in place (yeah we did!!), hopped in, started fuerte and took off... ONLY to get stuck 10 minutes later in mud so thick and so soft, it was like quick sand. we stepped out, immediately sinking to our knees in mud and realized pretty quickly that we were not going anywhere anytime soon.
ENTER: the drunken farmer and his son to help push us out, the isolated church that we happened to get stuck in front of that we took refuge in until morning, the kitchen in the church that we cooked the ratatouille in...
....and, of course, jesus, with his open palms and receiving arms to watch over us.
i turn and give him a wink, "muchas, muchas gracias..."
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
hostal hustle
**i'm completely back blogged due to some unforseen.... errr... natural disasters and pequeno pueblos without internet... but here's one for the road...**
8am. I'm sitting in a tiny café in Humahuaca, Argentina. Just one of the many little pueblo towns in northern Argentina that I've been hopping non-stop for the past week. I was awake at 6:08am though. No, wait. Actually, I was awake at 3:17am, 4:24am, and 6:08am-7:48am respectively and for different reasons. The first being the girl at the foot of my bunk bed who decided 3:17am was the perfect time to re-pack her bags, zipping and unzipping every zipper she could find to zip and unzip on every single one of her bags. Each zip was like a violent scratch across the chalkboard of my ears. I passive-aggressively dug for my earplugs with a few looks to kill glances at her. Ok, maybe more aggressive than passive. She zipped on, unaware. The second awakening coming when the guy next to me started coughing, trying to choke up whatever had lodged itself in his lungs. He was failing, miserably. I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and tried to breathe as little as possible, remembering where I put my emergen-c. Note: take immediately after getting up. The third time was the drunken idiot who thought it imperative to flick on the lights to the room to find his upper bunk bed above little miss zipper-head. With eyes blurry from booze, he struggled to climb up, wrestling with the bed, and as soon as half his body was on, he was snoring like a broken trombone before the bed had a chance to stop creaking. Leaving… the lights on! Thanks jackass. I grabbed my sleeping mask and ipod and struggled to not hear his violent attempts to catch the next breath. After an hour and a half, I gave up, grabbed my mac and headed out for some peace. Luckily people don't really stir until well passed 10am, so at the prime hour of 8am, the town was quiet and this little café just opening.
Welcome to… the hostal hustle. (cue song here) do the hostal hustle!
The sleeping situation in hostals suck. There's no way around it. You have no privacy, no space, and no absolute power over the bathroom. If lucky, there might be a private bathroom for each room with 6 beds but only if you're really lucky. More often than not though, it's outside, down the hall or downstairs for the entire hostal to share. Summer camp, anyone?
When I was a kid, I remember hearing stories about how cool summer camp was. It was a very American thing to do… go to camp. You got to sleep in bunk beds, meet other kids from far away schools, hike in groups while singing camp fire songs, get crushes on the dudes and maybe even your first kiss in the bushes. I dreamed of it. I watched tv shows about it. I imagined my name sharpied on the tags of all my t-shirts. The closest I ever came to camp was going to the Poconos with my family. Surely, not the same thing.
But when traveling alone, the easiest way to meet people is to stay at a hostal. I have stayed in 'five star' hostals that came with a pool, hammock, ping pong table and tv room. And, I have stayed in 'minus star' hostals that had styrofoam for a roof, potato sacks for a ceiling, and a storage room/bathroom with no toilet seat on the loo and a shower that barely dripped freezing water out. Score.
Though, the saving grace is, by far, the people I have met. Like a quick high school study, groups and cliques are quickly formed and broken. Couples are joined and shattered. And promises of potential friendships are built and, sometimes, severed. I met this guy who was traveling to the same places I was so we decided to hit the road together, only to find out a couple of days later, that outside of our previous hostal life, we did not click whatsoever. So, we parted ways. It's like 'life' on speed. Things happen quickly, deeply, and honestly. There isn't any time for bullshit on the road. Nobody wants their trip to be overshadowed by negative energy, so you call it as it comes.
On the other hand, the trust that you place in others is unparallel. My sassy French travel buddy, Lulu, and I walked into a packed small empanada restaurant the other day and stood waiting for a table. After a few short minutes a group of guys from buenos aires invited us to sit with them, offered us their empanadas and a glass of their wine. We happily obliged. After about an hour of chatting, we found ourselves in their car heading straight for the implausible crimson colored mountains, singing Spanish songs in a natural amphitheater, and climbing into the 'devil's throat' alcove to sip mate (a local tea they drink in groups and in fervor) while watching the clouds morph formations. Trumpet! Penguin! Sombrero!
I looked up at the sky, sipped, smiled and thought… "Now this, THIS is the perfect summer camp day." Sip, sip, sip….
besos besos besos** y una mas...
8am. I'm sitting in a tiny café in Humahuaca, Argentina. Just one of the many little pueblo towns in northern Argentina that I've been hopping non-stop for the past week. I was awake at 6:08am though. No, wait. Actually, I was awake at 3:17am, 4:24am, and 6:08am-7:48am respectively and for different reasons. The first being the girl at the foot of my bunk bed who decided 3:17am was the perfect time to re-pack her bags, zipping and unzipping every zipper she could find to zip and unzip on every single one of her bags. Each zip was like a violent scratch across the chalkboard of my ears. I passive-aggressively dug for my earplugs with a few looks to kill glances at her. Ok, maybe more aggressive than passive. She zipped on, unaware. The second awakening coming when the guy next to me started coughing, trying to choke up whatever had lodged itself in his lungs. He was failing, miserably. I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and tried to breathe as little as possible, remembering where I put my emergen-c. Note: take immediately after getting up. The third time was the drunken idiot who thought it imperative to flick on the lights to the room to find his upper bunk bed above little miss zipper-head. With eyes blurry from booze, he struggled to climb up, wrestling with the bed, and as soon as half his body was on, he was snoring like a broken trombone before the bed had a chance to stop creaking. Leaving… the lights on! Thanks jackass. I grabbed my sleeping mask and ipod and struggled to not hear his violent attempts to catch the next breath. After an hour and a half, I gave up, grabbed my mac and headed out for some peace. Luckily people don't really stir until well passed 10am, so at the prime hour of 8am, the town was quiet and this little café just opening.
Welcome to… the hostal hustle. (cue song here) do the hostal hustle!
The sleeping situation in hostals suck. There's no way around it. You have no privacy, no space, and no absolute power over the bathroom. If lucky, there might be a private bathroom for each room with 6 beds but only if you're really lucky. More often than not though, it's outside, down the hall or downstairs for the entire hostal to share. Summer camp, anyone?
When I was a kid, I remember hearing stories about how cool summer camp was. It was a very American thing to do… go to camp. You got to sleep in bunk beds, meet other kids from far away schools, hike in groups while singing camp fire songs, get crushes on the dudes and maybe even your first kiss in the bushes. I dreamed of it. I watched tv shows about it. I imagined my name sharpied on the tags of all my t-shirts. The closest I ever came to camp was going to the Poconos with my family. Surely, not the same thing.
But when traveling alone, the easiest way to meet people is to stay at a hostal. I have stayed in 'five star' hostals that came with a pool, hammock, ping pong table and tv room. And, I have stayed in 'minus star' hostals that had styrofoam for a roof, potato sacks for a ceiling, and a storage room/bathroom with no toilet seat on the loo and a shower that barely dripped freezing water out. Score.
Though, the saving grace is, by far, the people I have met. Like a quick high school study, groups and cliques are quickly formed and broken. Couples are joined and shattered. And promises of potential friendships are built and, sometimes, severed. I met this guy who was traveling to the same places I was so we decided to hit the road together, only to find out a couple of days later, that outside of our previous hostal life, we did not click whatsoever. So, we parted ways. It's like 'life' on speed. Things happen quickly, deeply, and honestly. There isn't any time for bullshit on the road. Nobody wants their trip to be overshadowed by negative energy, so you call it as it comes.
On the other hand, the trust that you place in others is unparallel. My sassy French travel buddy, Lulu, and I walked into a packed small empanada restaurant the other day and stood waiting for a table. After a few short minutes a group of guys from buenos aires invited us to sit with them, offered us their empanadas and a glass of their wine. We happily obliged. After about an hour of chatting, we found ourselves in their car heading straight for the implausible crimson colored mountains, singing Spanish songs in a natural amphitheater, and climbing into the 'devil's throat' alcove to sip mate (a local tea they drink in groups and in fervor) while watching the clouds morph formations. Trumpet! Penguin! Sombrero!
I looked up at the sky, sipped, smiled and thought… "Now this, THIS is the perfect summer camp day." Sip, sip, sip….
besos besos besos** y una mas...
Saturday, January 17, 2009
malbec madness
mendoza, argentina.
home of the best malbec grapes that ever dared to drip from an overgrown vine bursting with juicy life, basking in the sun...with the andes painting the skyline ever so gracefully and clouds fluffing their way across them like little bunny rabbits hopping home... it´s warm, breezy... the canopy of trees swish in the wind as you...
ESCAPE DEATH teetering precariously on the side of the crowdedlikethis road on a crickety rental bicycle, choking on the exhaust that the enormous 10-wheeler just extinguished all over you and your pretty wine-tasting sundress that is drenched cause you´ve been working your ass off for the past hour in the unrelenting burning afternoon sun... when did wine-tasting become a life threatening game of chicken with oncoming traffic??!
i am in wine country. and yes, it´s absolutely GORgeous, but let´s just say the constant fear of getting run over or off the bloody road overshadowed the test of ´what do you smell in this varietal... oak? grapes? caramel?...´
"ummm,why does mine smell like weird seafood?"
after 4 incredible days in mendoza, i´m sad to report that i am no better at picking out the ´woody cedar berries with a smidgen of marshmallow´ or the ´buttery pear with a crinkle of vanilla´ in my wine glass. nope, apparantly, my nose doesn´t cut it. (and just a side note... why do they always use these obscure descriptions to 'identify' the damn wine? really? do you really smell the pinch of primrose pepper and drip of darjeeling in there?!? really?) in fact, i failed miserably. and i tried. oh, did i give it the home run try! but to no avail... i did, however, do an outstanding job of getting a wee bit tipsy and jumping off a cliff to perilously paraglide over the entire varietal valley while keeping the malbec safe and swishing in my belly... impressive, no?
i did walk away with this fact... did you know that the reason that the malbec grape grows so well here is because they can control the amount of water the grapes receive during the season?
and yeah, that's about as much info as i retained.
i did walk away with this fact... did you know that the reason that the malbec grape grows so well here is because they can control the amount of water the grapes receive during the season?
and yeah, that's about as much info as i retained.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
closet time....
"get out of the closet."
"no."
"we're only going to go out for an hour or so, i promise."
"not on your life."
i stayed in the closet, hiding behind the suits and ties, throwing t-shirts and socks over my head until everyone left. i listened for the snap, crackle, pop of the lock, threw on my cozy pajamas, tucked myself under the covers, exhaled and fell right to sleep. it was probably midnight.
i have never been a vampire. someone who thrives on the night air and moon rings in the sky. i like my days to start early and to end early. it's just the way that i was wired when i came out of the womb. buenos aires is a city jam packed with vampires... aaaaand, i may have been bitten for a bit. thank you, mr. bottom lip.
a normal school night in buenos aires consists of the following; meeting anywhere between 10:30pm and midnight for dinner (yes, DINNER), having a nice leisurly 2 hour dinner, tack on another hour or so for drinks and chatting afterwards, and at the prime time of 2:30-3:30AM, you hit the dance clubs for a good few hours, only to stumble out at 5am, hit another bar, which is of course FULL of people (of course! i mean, who doesn't want a pitcher of beer at 5:30am to really get the day started??), then sip that frothy beer over more chatting and maybe people watching (cause the PDA here is in FULL FORCE) and once that yellow orb starts to peak over the horizon at 7 or 8AM, only then is it time to reach for those cozy p's and rest one's eyes until it starts all over again.
i drank alot of coffee in bueno aires. ALOT.
and in the wee hours of the dark morning, i saw damp guys & dolls fist pump to the "friends" theme... yes, fist pump... to the FRIEND'S theme!! they were impressively serious about 'being there for you when the rain starts to fall...' then in a swipe of their sweaty brow, they were samba shakin' their booties to the cumbia, and when that stopped, they full body rocked out to roxette. they love them some roxette. i don't get it but by the end of the delirious morning evening, i found myself drenched and fist pumping along with the crowd. it was awesome. it was exhausting. it was full of pure, fun life.
now, where's my closet?
"no."
"we're only going to go out for an hour or so, i promise."
"not on your life."
i stayed in the closet, hiding behind the suits and ties, throwing t-shirts and socks over my head until everyone left. i listened for the snap, crackle, pop of the lock, threw on my cozy pajamas, tucked myself under the covers, exhaled and fell right to sleep. it was probably midnight.
i have never been a vampire. someone who thrives on the night air and moon rings in the sky. i like my days to start early and to end early. it's just the way that i was wired when i came out of the womb. buenos aires is a city jam packed with vampires... aaaaand, i may have been bitten for a bit. thank you, mr. bottom lip.
a normal school night in buenos aires consists of the following; meeting anywhere between 10:30pm and midnight for dinner (yes, DINNER), having a nice leisurly 2 hour dinner, tack on another hour or so for drinks and chatting afterwards, and at the prime time of 2:30-3:30AM, you hit the dance clubs for a good few hours, only to stumble out at 5am, hit another bar, which is of course FULL of people (of course! i mean, who doesn't want a pitcher of beer at 5:30am to really get the day started??), then sip that frothy beer over more chatting and maybe people watching (cause the PDA here is in FULL FORCE) and once that yellow orb starts to peak over the horizon at 7 or 8AM, only then is it time to reach for those cozy p's and rest one's eyes until it starts all over again.
i drank alot of coffee in bueno aires. ALOT.
and in the wee hours of the dark morning, i saw damp guys & dolls fist pump to the "friends" theme... yes, fist pump... to the FRIEND'S theme!! they were impressively serious about 'being there for you when the rain starts to fall...' then in a swipe of their sweaty brow, they were samba shakin' their booties to the cumbia, and when that stopped, they full body rocked out to roxette. they love them some roxette. i don't get it but by the end of the delirious morning evening, i found myself drenched and fist pumping along with the crowd. it was awesome. it was exhausting. it was full of pure, fun life.
now, where's my closet?
Sunday, January 11, 2009
cruising around the end of the world....
ok, i'm back, i'm back I'M BACK!... happy 2009 everyone! from the emails i have thoroughly enjoyed devouring while simultaneously inhaling these scrumptious, leave your fingers slick-greasy, fried empanadas and glass of wine, it looks like 2009 started with a bang for most of you. great to read everyone is taking the new year by patagonian storms... (falling in love (northwest-bound bean?!), getting knocked-up (congrats mattie & dana!), getting engaged (HOORAY C &T) and even hooking up (er... you dirty dogs shall remain unnamed)... it's all so exciting!!) thanks for all the emails, and for those few who thought i had been kidnapped, my apologies for thoroughly immersing myself in my family time on our 2-week cruise down the coast of chile, around cape horn @ the end of the world and up the coast of argentina. too tough to blog when one is watching one's parents, brother and sister-in-law trip over their fancy feet in tango, salsa, and swing dance classes as the ship waddles back and forth like an elephant trotting up a muddy mountain... (it was pretty impressive actually, and absolutely, stupidly adorable. my brother kicked some major tango ass. my mommo, on the other hand, kicked my bubbi's ass. i mean, she actually, physically KICKED him a few times. tango!) more on that later....
ont he cruise... we marveled at the most magical & massive chilean fjords and glaciers that glowed the most beautiful hues of blue, we river-rafted down the rio petrohue with the unbelievable backdrop of volcano osorno peering at us through the ever-swirling clouds, we joined in on a penguin parade, took a train ride at the end of the world and we stuffed our faces. alot. with some of the best fresh lamb, mouth-watering empanadas, creamy-stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth dulce de leche, sizzling plates of parrilla that comes with a mound of bbq meat that includes everything from brain to sweet breads to blood sausage. if it was sizzling on that plate. we ate it. and less we forget the famous argentine steaks... by the time my family crawled their heavy bellies all the way to the airport to head back home, we had all vowed no meat for at least 6 months... my current empanada is carne. and it's awesome. breakin' all the rules already. i love buenos aires.
after 2 weeks of cruise life, i am happy to be surrounded by the vibrant argentine souls as cruise life can start feeling like one is living on some strange alternate universe where life revolves around mealtime. people piling their breakfast buffet plates up up to their eyeballs and spending the remainder of the morning destroying that mountain. (NOT the same as our parrilla plates. not at ALL the same thing.) it's a terrifying sight to see a man sit before three plates of fried eggs, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs, potatoes, waffles, boiled eggs, corned beef hash, roast beef, egg pie.... etc, etc, etc... or eggscetera! oh god, did i actually just say that. the wine is working. moving on...
other time spent on the ship can be passed by going for a dip in the chlorine-thick burn your skin off pool, gambling, drinking, wandering aimlessly, or what my family mostly did... taking dance classes, napping and reading in our little nest of a corner on the ship. for lack of a better metaphor, the dance classes made me feel like i was smack dab in the middle of a dirty dancing moment where mostly older, mainly uncoordinated, but incredibly enthusiastic vacationers were out to tackle the cha cha cha beat in their minds. i didn't dance. i watched with delight. the older couples warming my heart as they tush tush tush their way around the one to three, one two three's of salsa. nothing like seeing a couple attempt to lead and let lead on the dance floor. i thought... someday, some lovely, poor fool will have to learn to lead me out there next to my parents... just like my brother and sister-in-law. good luck, lovely, poor fool.
my main obsession was actually with the dark & dirty underground life that must fester in the deep depths of the cruise ship. where the ship employees are smashed together for 6-8months at a time. i couldn't help but try and envision what kind of stories lurked in those bowels... affairs! lies! sex scandals! alas, i had to leave that up to my wild imagination as the one time i tried to spy on their timesheet billboard, i got hurried along by my mother rather quickly.
mostly, it was time to spend with my family. which was great... and exhausting. no gonna lie... traveling with a 2 and a 1/2 year old is like adding 15 more people to the trip. poor little rahrah munchkin hurled a few times all over my sister as the ship rocked forcibly back and forth. and she may or may not have drank a glass of oj that may or may not have contained something other than oj which may or may not have cause little miss rahrah to give us a glimpse of what she might be if she were a raging partyer at the age of 22.... but this is all just a possibility. merely a possibility.
well ironically, i say this as i take my final sip of my wine and plan to head out on the buenos aires town tonight.... mybe she's more like her auntie than we want to admit.
salud!
ont he cruise... we marveled at the most magical & massive chilean fjords and glaciers that glowed the most beautiful hues of blue, we river-rafted down the rio petrohue with the unbelievable backdrop of volcano osorno peering at us through the ever-swirling clouds, we joined in on a penguin parade, took a train ride at the end of the world and we stuffed our faces. alot. with some of the best fresh lamb, mouth-watering empanadas, creamy-stick-to-the-roof-of-
after 2 weeks of cruise life, i am happy to be surrounded by the vibrant argentine souls as cruise life can start feeling like one is living on some strange alternate universe where life revolves around mealtime. people piling their breakfast buffet plates up up to their eyeballs and spending the remainder of the morning destroying that mountain. (NOT the same as our parrilla plates. not at ALL the same thing.) it's a terrifying sight to see a man sit before three plates of fried eggs, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs, potatoes, waffles, boiled eggs, corned beef hash, roast beef, egg pie.... etc, etc, etc... or eggscetera! oh god, did i actually just say that. the wine is working. moving on...
other time spent on the ship can be passed by going for a dip in the chlorine-thick burn your skin off pool, gambling, drinking, wandering aimlessly, or what my family mostly did... taking dance classes, napping and reading in our little nest of a corner on the ship. for lack of a better metaphor, the dance classes made me feel like i was smack dab in the middle of a dirty dancing moment where mostly older, mainly uncoordinated, but incredibly enthusiastic vacationers were out to tackle the cha cha cha beat in their minds. i didn't dance. i watched with delight. the older couples warming my heart as they tush tush tush their way around the one to three, one two three's of salsa. nothing like seeing a couple attempt to lead and let lead on the dance floor. i thought... someday, some lovely, poor fool will have to learn to lead me out there next to my parents... just like my brother and sister-in-law. good luck, lovely, poor fool.
my main obsession was actually with the dark & dirty underground life that must fester in the deep depths of the cruise ship. where the ship employees are smashed together for 6-8months at a time. i couldn't help but try and envision what kind of stories lurked in those bowels... affairs! lies! sex scandals! alas, i had to leave that up to my wild imagination as the one time i tried to spy on their timesheet billboard, i got hurried along by my mother rather quickly.
mostly, it was time to spend with my family. which was great... and exhausting. no gonna lie... traveling with a 2 and a 1/2 year old is like adding 15 more people to the trip. poor little rahrah munchkin hurled a few times all over my sister as the ship rocked forcibly back and forth. and she may or may not have drank a glass of oj that may or may not have contained something other than oj which may or may not have cause little miss rahrah to give us a glimpse of what she might be if she were a raging partyer at the age of 22.... but this is all just a possibility. merely a possibility.
well ironically, i say this as i take my final sip of my wine and plan to head out on the buenos aires town tonight.... mybe she's more like her auntie than we want to admit.
salud!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)