Welcome to Uruguay

Phase 2 of my travels has begun... This morning I dragged myself out
of warm bed at 7:30 am to face the bitter cold wind and the chaos of
Buenos Aires in morning rush hour to get to the port. By 9:30 I was
all checked in for my boat ride, had passed through customs for two
different countries, and was comfortably seated on board an enormous
Buquebus- a mass transit type boat that runs between Argentina and
Uruguay several times daily. Though it was cold the river was
fortunately calm and we had a smooth 3 hour cruise over 'the pond'
as many argentines refer to the tremendous Rio de la Plata.

I arrived in Montevideo via bus later in the aftrnoon and was greatful
for my photographic memory when it comes to directions, bus terminals,
etc. I have been to Montevideo once before when I won a grant through
Lewis and Clark to do two weeks of thesis research down here about a
year and a half ago. I loved the city and its people and couldn't wait
to get back. Now I am excited to start discovering the unique culture
and to immerse myself into the daily rhythm of life in my new country
of residence! Tomorrow I will begin a self guided tour of Montevideos
yoga studios, hostels and language institutes to test the waters on
obtaining some type of employment and to get a feel for if my grand
plans are feasable or just pipe dreams...
For now, bienvenidos a Uruguay (via my blog)!!
-cate

chi-chi-chi-le-le-le!

Buenos dias gente!

Pardon the gap in my postings. I spent the last week in Chile and had such a grand old time that I didn't find a spare minute to post... I arrived at my old host family's house last Tuesday night and immediately felt right at home- almost as if I had returned from a long excursion back into an old life. Though it has been two and a half years since I have seen them, I was welcomed back with open arms and a hot meal. I found myself sitting at the same kitchen table where I had spent so much time, chatting with my host parents who seemed not to have changed in the slightest bit. So warm and fuzzy was the feeling that I could not bring myself to tell my host mom, who had just served me a large plate of rice and chicken, that I no longer eat meat!

The vast majority of my week was spent hanging out with either my host family or the group of chilean guys that I spent tons of my time with during my semester abroad in Valparaiso (3 years ago! Yikes!). The guys were psyched to see me and it was so fun to see how much they had matured in the last few years. For whatever reason, they suddenly saw me as a bottomless resource of random information, cultural observations, and linguistic comparisons. Everyone was quite entertained by my now very argentine accent, to the point where it generated several interesting conversations on the differences between Chilean and Argentine spanish (which are countless) and Chilean and Argentine culture (which are also quite abundant). Even when I made a tremendous effort to speak as chilean as possible I was always inevitably asked if I had spent time in Argentina recently... at some point I just gave up. However, back in Argentina now I have twice been told that my accent sounds Chilean! I can't win... I speak what I hear! Anywho, I arrived excited to hang out with some casual friends, and left feeling like we had really come to know each other on a much deeper level. Though I did much less exploring and visiting old hot spots than I thought I would, it felt like a very productive and satisfying week.

There was, as always, a new group of exchange students staying in Valpo. One of them lived with one of my Chilean friends, and thus I was around a group of juniors in college doing exactly what I was doing exactly 3 years ago in the same place. Listening to them talk about their semesters thusfar, about plans, about activities they had already done, about their classes, etc, was so familiar that memories from my semester seemed to line up almost perfectly with their current experiences. I was stuck between feeling infinitely distant from that time, and feeling as if it was just months ago. Amazing how much has happened in 3 years!

My week in Chile helped me to repaint my overall feelings about my semester there in a much more positive, satisfied light. While I have always had good memories and bad ones from my 6 months there, I realized I had skewed my attitude towards the negative, leaving me with little desire to return. Now I find myself fondly recalling my experiences there, and easily recognizing the good fortune I had to meet such wonderful, magnetic people. And isn't that always what it's really about? What's a place without it's people...

Thanks for all of you who have been reading and responding! Missing you!

foto-log

some pictures of the grand old city and my fellow explorers:


a colorful alleyway in the Palermo neighborhood

me, antonela, and ben after a delicious and very rare buenos aires brunch

Antonela enjoying the sun and palm trees after a lunch in Tigre. Tigre is a river town about an hour north of the city where the very popular weekend fairs draw people from all over the provence of Buenos Aires.

bomba del tiempo

Good Evening!
Thought I would give you all a quick little idea of some of the activities of the last week. I apologize if there are a bunch of weird symbols and stuff in this post... this spanish based keyboard is a bit funky. Also, I forwarn you that there are no quotation marks on my keyboard, so quotes will be in these <> and translations of any spanish words I include will be in brackets. Read on:

Last Monday I attended one of my favorite things ever in Buenos Aires (and perhaps in any city EVER), called the Bomba del Tiempo [Time Bomb]. The basic format of Bomba del Tiempo is a group of 8 drummers (as in hand drums like congas, djembes, etc) in a half circle on a stage in this large, partially open-air cultural center. Some nights it is just the core group of drummers, some nights there are other percussion instruments in the back like shakers or gourds, and some nights they have guest musicians. We hit the jackpot and got a combination of all three! Basically the musicians sit there and do crazy awesome drum jams, banging out beats, working off each other, and creating totally improvised and unique <> that are controlled by a sort of director who increases/decreases the tempo, creates pauses, and brings each song to end end. They play for about 2 hours, maybe a little more maybe a little less, and they play maybe 5 <> total! On Monday we had the good fortunte to witness the combination of the percussionists with a very talented Venezuelan guitarist. The combination was supurb. Towards the end of the night, who should come on the stage but one of the lead rappers for an uber famous latino rap group called Calle 13 (click on the calle 13 to see a youtube video of them if you want... you might recognize their music!). Turns out the guy was there just wathcing the Bomba del Tiempo and decided to get up and rap to one of their beats! SO COOL! Overall a highly entertaining and impressive performance.

Tuesday night included a visit to my favorite restaurant of all time, Dadá. It is a hole in the wall place that has a super funky artsy vibe to it, and relatively upscale dinner fare. They also happen to put a really unique twist on several typically Argentine dishes. In case you were unaware, Argentines pretty much only eat three main dinner food groups: pizza, beef, or pasta. Seriously. That's it. You can certainly find other food, but at any old place you go into in this enormous city, 95% of the menu will consist of pizza, pasta, or beef. Well, Dadá provides an excelent variation on the pasta/beef themes, as well as making some of the most unique and delicious mixed drinks ever. I was incredibly content sitting there with Antonela and John, sipping an Argentine Malbec wine, observing the obviously international crowd...

John leaves on Monday evening to return home and I leave on Tuesday for a week long visit to Chile!! It has been more than 2 years since I have been back to Valparaíso where I spent my first semester abroad, and I am filled with excitement that I will soon get to see my wonderful host family and friends there. It will also be fun to return to some of the old haunts in Viña del Mar (Valpo's sister city) and take a stroll on the beach there. It just so happens that I will be visiting during the Chilean independence day, which I remember well from my semester abroad there. It's funny to think that exactly 3 years ago I was just finishing up my 2nd full month in my first semester abroad. Unfortunately, I no longer have my journal to look back on what was going on for me during that time, but that is partially why I am looking forward to my return. Going back to somewhere you lived always brings back so many memories.... perhaps my week there will help me to fill gaps in my memory about my 6 months in Valparaiso/Viña...

Aside from that, I am drinking tons of mate, walking all over the city every day, thuroughly enjoying speaking spanish, and loving my <> here in South America. More to come! Much love- C

neighborhood hopping in buenos aires

Hola Gente [Hello People!]-
I'm sitting in Antonela's room after another day of neighborhood hopping here in Buenos Aires. I arrived at 4:30am Wednesday morning after a 30 hour stay in Miami (beach included) and went directly to Anto's apartment to sleep a few more hours. My dear friend John Stewart had arrived a few days before me and was ready for me. After months of planning, scheduling, rearranging, etc, I was happy to hear that my two friends had made several plans for me already... on Wednesday John and I set out to visit my old neighborhood, San Telmo. When I was living there two years ago, it was a funky, artistic, up and coming area known for its excellent antique markets and shops. It was also still a little bit sketchy, especially at night...

Walking around the area memories came flooding back to me. Every street corner reminded me of a different conversation, night out, meeting with friends, or casual Sunday afternoon. But it was clear that the neighborhood has gentrified quite a bit in the last year or so. High end clothing shops filled with the unique creations of local designers occupy spaces that were formerly dusty old antique stores or odds-and-ends mom and pop shops. Despite the obvious changes, John and I managed to find a favorite pizza parlour and a few new clothing items as well...

Every day I have numerous ''oh yah'' moments, as I have deemed them. Like, ''oh yah, the toilet flusher is 5 feet above the toilet on the wall here'' or ''oh yah, you have to ask for the check at the restaurant or they won't bring it'' or, a personal favorite ''oh yah, everybody is SO outgoing!'' It is funny to see these things with fresh eyes- things that became so normal over my year in South America that I didn't even think twice about them. The functional dysfunctionality of everyday activities... it is both comforting and nostalgic to be here again, especially with John since he was my saving grace and fellow city explorer through my 5 months here.

I'll leave you with a funny little story from our walk to Palermo, another infamous Buenos Aires neighborhood, yesterday afternoon. As John and I strolled down Honduras Street, a piece of art displayed in a window on the street caught my eye. It was a painting on a combination of driftwood and canvas, with a foggy hill and single tree standing in the middle, and a line of text across the center reading ''anything can be perceived as landscape'' in spanish. The painting was displayed on stack of large chemical barrels. As we stood there looking at it, two men walked by and one of them said ''it's nice isn't?'' as he walked past. 5 feet later they stopped at the door to the building and he turned and said ''would you like to see more?'' John and I looked at eachother, shrugged and followed him inside. Turns out he is an architect/artist/designer/musician and the painting was displayed in what was the window of his office! We chatted with him (or rather, listened to him chat) for about 20 minutes and saw more of his pieces and some of his architecture models. He gave us his email and told us to write him and he would send us photos of his new paintings... upon leaving both of us looked at eachother and just shook our heads saying ''oh Buenos Aires...''