Travelogue: Uruguay

5/24
Woah, the universities I've visited in South America are...not ideal. I seriously need to appreciate just how beautiful and affluent Stanford is.

6/2
When Uruguayans and Argentines talk to me in Spanish, they refer to the US as allá, meaning "over there," that place where you're from. It's an interesting word choice.

Several people have reminisced to me about a seminal experience they had traveling or living abroad, and how it really "opened up their mind" (as one woman in Montevideo said, me abrió la cabeza). So I have to wonder, has my mind opened up at all?

Computers and other appliances apparently cost more in South America because they have to be imported from the US; maybe that explains the comparative rarity of household appliances and gadgets I noticed here. Nearly all movies come from North America, and are shown in English with subtitles. It's funny how people here are so familiar with American culture because they see it all the time in movies.

I'm from the primer mundo ("first world," rather than third world).

I'm fascinated by the idea, expressed by several Servas members, that it's beneficial for older people to spend time with people my age in order to keep themselves young (mantenerse joven). Not that this is such a revolutionary concept, but for me it's a new attitude.

6/3
Staying for a few days on a farm in Uruguay. It looks just like any farm in the Midwest would, except for the South American addition of palm trees and parrots. Working dogs on the farm seem to have a good life. They run, they roll in the grass, they have all the space they want; they seem more animal than pet. The farm is owned by Hugo C., whose lifestyle seems Mediterranean, as if he were some farmer in Tuscany. Hugo was president of Rotary for a while in Montevideo, which reminds me of that famous Roman farmer Cincinnatus (Cincinnati is indirectly named for him), who left the countryside when Italy needed him to lead in Rome, but happily returned to his farm afterwards. Hugo had me help him out on the farm a little, and it turns out I'm a disaster at farm chores, although I do like working with my hands. It's beautiful here, unreal: I should never forget that I love the country and a life that's simple. Trucks go by, tiny in the distance, so far away you can’t even hear them. The clouds look huge and puffy the way they do in Dutch landscape paintings. The cows are kind of ugly and dirty; the horses are elegant. I'm thinking nostalgic thoughts about how there's just something missing in the current way of life, where you buy what you want at a store using money instead of having to make it yourself. Pretty naive, but it's what I'm feeling here.

6/6
Each individual is dense and layered. Inside one person, there's a lot of room for interesting experiences, accomplishments, adventures. You can just keep piling on so much stuff that you're proud of. Over a whole lifetime, wow, a single person can do so much!

6/9
Staying with Viviana A. and Aramis L., funny incident where Viviana was scolding her son Maceo for putting too much ketchup on his food, because “it’s not healthy.” What American mom would tell her kid not to eat ketchup because it’s unhealthy? It's okay, though, since Uruguayans make up for the loss of ketchup by pouring on large quantities of mayonnaise.

Some comments I've recently heard (originally in Spanish):

"No Protestant country is a member of the third world. The problem is our Spanish inheritance of the bad influence of Catholicism, which says you should be humble and accept fate.”

“Living in South America will cure you of this idea that being efficient and productive is good. We say, don’t plan and organize your whole life. Those business and self-help books on how to be productive or become successful arrive at bookstores here, too, but no one buys them. If they published a book called ‘How to Get a Lot of Money Without Much Effort,’ people would buy it. If someone becomes rich or successful here, they have to hide it because people will assume that they acquired their money by unscrupulous means.”

"Large countries with a lot of land [like Argentina or the US] tend to be arrogant."

6/10
Sometimes it seems like Uruguay and Argentina aren't so different from North America. It would be instructive first to live abroad in a country much less developed than the United States, then to live in a country that is arguably more developed: somewhere in Europe, maybe?

In the view of one Uruguayan, physically large countries (like Argentina or the United States) tend to be arrogant. When it comes to countries, size does matter.

6/13
A lot of aggressive pandhandlers. You pull up to the bus terminal in a taxi, and someone outside opens the car door unasked, pulls out your luggage, then holds out a hand for you to give them some coins. When you ride long-distance buses, too, many times the guy who puts your luggage away immediately sticks a hand out for a tip, even though he's literally done nothing except move your backpack a couple feet. I think maybe it's easier to be generous in a restaurant than on the street; as the guidebooks say, "if you can afford to eat out, you can probably afford to leave a tip." I've also noticed that Uruguayans and Argentines seem more generous than many Americans would be. In Montevideo, buskers strumming guitars and vendors selling trinkets frequently hop on the city buses, and a surprising number of people cough up some change. Sometimes when you return to a parked car in Montevideo, a person will be there "guarding" it, expecting a few coins from you in exchange for their service.

6/14
There is no magic key to greatness. Travel is not a silver bullet, nor is a gap year, nor is an exchange program... Plenty of people have spent a year in a foreign country, or traveled extensively, or had great adventures, but those experiences don't necessarily convert them into influential people. We put a lot of emphasis on being famous, but being influential seems more worthwhile to me: the important part is to change the world a little, not whether people know it was you that did it. And since very few people in the world achieve influence, maybe you don't have to influence the whole world. It's enough just to be influential to a few people. That's what parents do, isn't it? They change the world a little by shaping the lives of children.

6/18

There's a funny phenomenon I've noticed, where some people's voices sound warm and appealing when they speak Spanish, but when they speak English their voice sounds nasal and annoying. It totally changes the way you perceive them. Or the change can go the other way around: one woman I met seemed sort of frail and elderly in Spanish, but in English she had this compelling authority, and for the first time I noticed the graveliness in her voice. In a way, speaking in another language transforms you into a different person: since you're unable to express yourself fully, only a portion of your personality comes across.

I'm not sure what the protocol is when you enter a restaurant in Argentina or Uruguay. Do I wait for a waiter to direct me to a seat? Or do I just take a seat and then they come to the table? Weird how you never think about these things when you're in your own country.

Memorable sounds:

Dale vacas vacas vacas...

"Come on cows cows cows..." (this is what Hugo C. yelled when herding cows)

Paraguas vendooooooo! Paraguass paraguass paraguaaaaaas!

"I'm selling umbrellaaaaaaaaaaaaas! Umbrellas umbrellas umbrellas!" (yelled by one of the many street vendors)

I love to watch salsa dancers, or people playing candombe: drummers with smiles or with their mouths open, intent, focused. Behind the formation of drummers and dancers, a slow crowd of beautiful young listeners moves down the street, some clutching beer bottles or wine in paper packages. The sharp smell of smoke drifts from someone in the crowd every now and then.

It's a strange feeling when you wake up in bed and at first it's quiet, and then suddenly you hear your first Spanish of the day: maybe your host is calling to you from another room, or the radio's on, or someone's talking noisily in the street outside... Suddenly it hits you that you're in a different country. That's how every day begins.

Do I have a right to be offended by South Americans who treat Americans with suspicion and dislike? I need to learn the history of my country, how it affects and has affected other countries. What is the place of the United States in the world?

You know you've settled in abroad when you can eat at McDonald's without a trace of shame, ordering a "Beeg Mock" instead of a Big Mac.

Since I'm in Uruguay during a World Cup in which it performs spectacularly, I get to see the city after a victorious game. It's loud, chaotic, almost what I imagine Mumbai to be like. This is the day I get mugged. I get off the city bus a few blocks from the Plaza Independencia, where a gigantic screen has been set up for Montevideans to watch Uruguay play against Ghana. As I'm waiting to cross the street, I feel something touching my hands. It's three kids, probably my age or a couple years younger, who have walked up behind me out of nowhere, and two of them were prying my hands open, trying to see if I was holding anything valuable, I guess. Next thing I know, the third kid has punched me in the forehead. I'm down, they take the coat I was carrying (lent to me by my host family), and they're gone. I yell an unkind word in English, they yell back hijo de puta, and I watch the game against Ghana with a bad mood and a big bump on my head. For a while, I'm suspicious of all the sketchy soccer-hooligan guys I see (which is what the muggers looked like), and it occurs to me that prejudices based on appearance or nationality aren't right, but they're understandable. I'm no longer invulnerable; after that, I always look around carefully, because not paying attention is asking for trouble.

7/22/10
Walk slower, what's the rush? Slow the @%!# down and enjoy the moment more.

I'm preparing to leave Uruguay and spend a few days in Buenos Aires. In my imagination, Buenos Aires is a city full of well-dressed women in somber colors, black coat, fitted dark jeans, gray scarf, black leather boots (popular, maybe, because of the city's proximity to Argentina's cattle plains). Don't expect people to be friendly in Buenos Aires, I tell myself. When I get there, though, I'm pleasantly surprised after all the ominous warnings I'd heard in Uruguay.

Buenos Aires

FAQs about the Incas

I learned a lot about the Incas at the Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña (Museum of Alpine Archeology, or MAAM) in Salta, Argentina. To be honest, I didn't really know the difference between Incas, Mayans and Aztecs before traveling in South America. But now, I can knock your socks off with these answers to many common questions about the Incas:

Q: Who were the Incas?

The Incas were a Quechua-speaking empire along the length of the Andes from Ecuador to northern Argentina. The Incas arrived in that region in 1400, but it wasn't long before the Spanish showed up in 1532.

Q: Why were they called the Incas?

El Inca was the head of Inca society.

Q: What did they believe?
Travelers might be familiar with Cuzco, the city in Peru; to the Incas, however, El Cusco was the name used to refer to a sacred place. In fact, the Incas believed that mountains were actually gods or holy places, where people would go after death.

(I've almost felt that religious awe sometimes, looking up at mountains in Alaska.)

Q: What language did the Incas speak?

Their language is Quechua, which some people still speak today. I present my extensive research on the Quechua language:

Huasi, "house of"
Inti, "sun"

Thus in Salta there is a hostel named Inti Huasi, "House of the Sun."

Q: Didn't they perform human sacrifice? Why would anyone do something so disgusting and wrong?

Human sacrifice was part of Inca culture, but the details are fascinating. The most beautiful children, those totally free of physical defect, were gathered up from all over the empire. They traveled to the Cusco, then made the arduous return trip in a straight line, forcing them to cross whatever obstacles stood in their way. They were buried alive. The idea was that the community would receive health and prosperity in return for the sacrificed lives. The Incas gave the very best they had, their most beautiful children, because they hoped to be paid back in equal measure by the gods. These rites of sacrifice also served a practical function, bonding remote parts of the Inca empire to the center at Cusco.

In Uruguay, One Laptop Per Child

6/9/10
Uruguay is home to an impressive educational initiative called El Plan Ceibal, which gives a free laptop to every child enrolled in public school. The laptop, officially called the XO-1 but referred to in Spanish as the equis-o, sells for US $188. The idea came from the United States, where Nicholas Negroponte had proposed the One Laptop per Child Initiative (OLPC). His mission statement?

To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.

Uruguay is, in effect, the first country in the world to actually implement Negroponte's big idea. El Plan Ceibal, whose name is a reference to Uruguay's national tree (the ceibo), has been supported by no less a figure than singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler, whose song A la Sombra del Ceibal ("In the Shade of the Ceibo Tree") is featured in this short promotional clip:

Field Notes for Spanish Learners: More Method

Drawbacks of language schools and classes
Language schools and classes are great for learning grammar and provide a routine to help reduce the shock of arriving in a new city. The school where I studied in Córdoba for four weeks (Espanex) definitely achieved this. Unfortunately, a major flaw of schools and classes is that much of your input is incorrect speech produced by other foreign students:

4/29/10
I’m more accustomed to speaking Spanish with Brazilians [who study at Espanex] than with Argentines.

The problem of not meeting locals
It's easy to stay in hostels, hang out with other travelers, and have limited contact with people of the country you're living in. Now, that's perfectly valid and offers its own rewards, like meeting really interesting travelers. If your objective is to learn a language, though, it's not ideal.

The truth is, it's hard to meet locals. CouchSurfing and Servas are two great opportunities to break down the local-tourist divide and meet locals who are excited to hang out with foreigners.

Dilemmas for native English speakers
To be sure, it's a huge asset to be born speaking English. That said, there are advantages and disadvantages to being a native English speaker when learning a language abroad.

Advantages:

• Lots of people in the world want to practice English
• Therefore, it's easy to set up a language exchange

Disadvantages:

• You might get spoken to a lot in English purely based on appearance

Some caveats
The method below is intended to get you sounding impressive in a foreign language quickly.
However, it does not include all the basic steps, like learning grammar. For that, you will want a textbook or a class. The method contains some information directed at beginners as well as some insights aimed at more experienced language learners. Also, after spending four months in South America working pretty hard at Spanish, I'm inclined to agree with Douglas Hofstadter, who explained to me in an email that:

"In my view, a language is something that one spends a lifetime learning, not a year or two. There's no doubt that one can get one's feet wet in a language by studying it on one's own, but learning any foreign language deeply is a lifelong lesson in humility."

That said, I believe that in 4 months it is certainly possible to achieve functional, conversational fluency. You will have mastered a limited domain of the language. You won't always know the exact way to say something, but you will be able to talk your way around it. You can reach a sufficient level to travel successfully around a country on your own—which, it must be said, doesn't require particularly extensive language skills.

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Field Notes for Spanish Learners: The Method

My Method

Let's call it the Crispy Method. The main goal is to learn to speak, to learn conversation. Why?
Well, although I used to study languages for the intellectual satisfaction of it, I now view foreign languages as an interpersonal tool to derive greater enjoyment out of life. I love becoming friends with people from other countries, I love listening to unfamiliar music styles, and I love the challenge of mimicking a foreign accent as closely as possible. For me, speech is the most direct path to excitement when it comes to learning a foreign language.

I'll divide the method into its components:

Conversation
Notice that a small set of words and phrases are used over and over in everyday conversation. Listen attentively and try to identify them. Then, make it a game: deliberately insert colloquial words, phrases, and idioms into conversation every chance you get. For some Spanish examples, look at the "Castellano Phrasebook" post below.

You won't necessarily be able to identify these on your own; you may need the help of a native speaker, maybe even a speaker who speaks your language in addition to their own, to determine the exact meaning. I learned words like tipo and ponele ("like...") from a native speaker who explicitly pointed them out to me, and I only learned este ("um...") after directly asking my teacher Marisa what it meant.

Podcasts
Podcasts for learning a specific language are abundant. They're audio, which means you start developing your comprehension of the spoken language early on. And unlike programs like Pimsleur, they tend to use natural speech rather than stilted dialogues. Podcasts are also an easy way to pick up some extra vocabulary; I find that a few new words/phrases usually stick in my mind after listening. Finally, many high-quality podcasts are available for free.

Language Exchanges
In a language exchange, you meet with a partner and help each other practice a new language. For instance, as a native English speaker looking to improve my Spanish, I would seek a native Spanish speaker looking to improve their English. If you're unable to spend time abroad, you can do language exchanges over the internet using the program Skype and websites like Mixxer or MyLanguageExchange. If you can spend time abroad, I recommend joining CouchSurfing. CouchSurfing (CS) is primarily a hospitality organization, similar to Servas but with greater youth participation. As it turns out, many cities around the world have local groups open to all CS members; in Montevideo, the group meets every Thursday night to talk and mingle. In the Buenos Aires group, there's actually a whole page devoted to finding partners for language exchanges; whatever the local situation, CouchSurfing is a great medium to set them up.

Borrowing from various websites, here are a few things to keep in mind with language exchanges:

• Encourage your partner to correct your mistakes and suggest alternate ways to say things
• Be sure to resist the temptation to "generously" give up all your practice time. It's an exchange, so both partners should spend an equal time practicing the foreign language they're trying to learn

In fact, I've still barely explored the possibilities of language exchanges. As I wrote in my journal:

4/29/10
If I could have 3-4 different language exchanges going at once, like with Viki and her friends, I would learn so fast!

Flash Cards, Pocket Notepad
Barry Farber gives good tips on making flashcards in his book (see the post "How to Learn Any Language" below). They're really indispensable, but they can also be supplemented with a pocket notepad to jot down any new words or phrases as they come up in everyday life. Alternatively, you can carry around a supply of blank flashcards.

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Field Notes for Spanish Learners: Reflections

5/17/10
Crispy realization: my Spanish will only advance according to how hard I work.

5/18/10
1. I learn to understand Spanish faster than I learn to express myself in it
2. Gestures! It's such a cliché, but it's true: when people can't fully communicate, everyone starts waving their hands around and drawing pictures in the air
3. You become proficient with numbers very quickly, out of necessity
4. As you're immersed in Spanish, you start to be able to talk faster
5. A lot of what I say takes the form of comprehensible fragments, rather than complete sentences. For instance, subí vos, y después... ("you go up, and afterwards...") Context makes it clear that the missing fragment is ...yo bajo ("I'll go down")
6. The more you learn, the more you realize how brokenly you speak
7. Expanding your vocabulary is like decoding a cryptogram. First you learn a new word or phrase. Then it pops up later in conversation, and for the first time you recognize and understand it. With each decoded "letter" (that is, each new vocabulary item), you understand a little bit more of the cryptogram
8. As noted in point 5 above, I often speak in chunks separated by silent pauses. What you want instead is fluid speech connected by stalling words like tipo and o sea
9. In these first couple weeks in Córdoba, I notice the effects of immersion when I write an email: common phrases come to mind first in Spanish, and then I remember the English. For instance, first I think hasta luego and then I remember "see ya", because while I say hasta luego several times a day, I almost never say "see ya".
10. Speaking Spanish all the time is exhausting—I wasn't expecting that.

6/2/10
It's interesting that I still don't think in Spanish. It's not like I consciously translate when I speak. It's just that when I'm alone with my thoughts, those thoughts are in English. I wonder how long you have to live abroad before you start thinking in a foreign language?

6/3/10
What are my biggest weaknesses in Spanish?

1. Often don't complete my sentences. Choppy speech
2. Need to communicate key information faster. Get to the point
3. Have no method to ensure my skill steadily increases. Create a study plan
4. People rarely correct my blundering speech. Even when they do, I often don't remember the correction for long. I need someone to listen to me speak, stop me whenever I make a mistake, and suggest improvements. The best way to achieve this is a language exchange, where I could help someone with their English in exchange for critiquing my Spanish.
5. Translating from English, not thinking in Spanish. This leads to saying stuff like gracias, a vos también instead of gracias, igualmente (“thanks, you too”).

6/10/10
Other observations

1.When someone is speaking Spanish and they suddenly toss in a little English—for instance, the phrase "heavy metal"—there's a good chance I won't understand them unless their pronunciation is really perfect. It's just that I'm not expecting to hear English, so it catches me off-guard.
2. Whenever I'm on a computer, I tend to avoid websites in Spanish. It's like I hunker down at the computer to immerse myself for an hour or so in the familiarity of home and English, and I'm unwilling to let Spanish intrude on that. But really I should actively pursue websites in Spanish. Similarly, I tend to avoid answering the home phone for fear of screwing up. But in the future I should make a point of answering the phone every time, to practice extemporaneous speech.

That's the end of Field Notes for Spanish Learners. Hope some folks found these posts useful, and look out for more Field Notes posts in the future!

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Field Notes for Spanish Learners: Vocabulary

According to my notes, by late June I felt “functionally, conversationally fluent” in Spanish. "Fluent" doesn't mean "perfect" or "native-like." Instead, "functionally, conversationally fluent" suggests that I can be in any situation and talk my way through it. I might mess up and say stupid stuff, but I will definitely survive.

My Castellano phrasebook was motivated by the observation that spoken language is 70% responding to what other people say, and only 30% producing original speech. In a given conversation, therefore, you spend the majority of the time saying things like "Oh, great! Cool! OK, yeah... Of course..." To be a good conversationalist, you need to expand your stock of natural-sounding phrases. The phrasebook is a small attempt to do that.

There's still that 30% of the time, though, where you have to express your own ideas. To deal with those moments, you need to expand your vocabulary to cover more situations.

What's tough about producing original speech is, your vocabulary will have grown naturally in a few areas that get constant use when living in a foreign country:

House and home (words and phrases for eating, sleeping, cooking, throwing things out...)
Business (words and phrases for buying stuff, numbers...)
Asking directions (words and phrases to ask for help on the bus, in the street...)

To move one step closer toward the goal of approximating native speech, however, you'll need to put some effort into developing a couple more areas:

Filler or “pause” words (uh, I mean, you know, like...)
Vague adjectives that convey emotion (cool, nice, great, weird...)

To develop natural-sounding speech faster, first identify and then assimilate the little nonsense words that fill up so much of everyday speech in any language.

If you want to conduct business or give lectures in a foreign language, this approach won't be very useful. If instead you're looking to hang out with people and sound natural, I recommend you use it.

Now that you know what vocabulary you need, how do you learn it?

Make flash cards. It's a much better method than just writing up a long list of words to memorize. (Interestingly, flash cards don't seem to be all that widely familiar in Uruguay.)
I've always made my own flash cards by cutting up index cards, but since this is the 21st century, you might want to try SuperMemo, Vis-Ed (free), or VTrain ($25 but apparently very user-friendly), which you could use on your cellphone or computer.

Besides making flashcards, I also bought myself a little pocket notepad in Uruguay, which I always had on me so I could record new words and idioms as soon as they came up in conversation. This may have come across kind of strange, although sometimes I tried to be subtle by writing on my hand instead of whipping out a notepad all the time.

Don't be afraid to explicitly ask what a word means, whether you're listening or conversing.
Also, drawing from other language learning advice websites, I recommend increasing your vocabulary by reading texts that are slightly more challenging than you're comfortable with, as well as deliberately learning the most common words in the language first, using statistical lists like this one.

Appendix
6/14/10
I've noticed that vocabulary acquisition breaks down into a few categories.

1. Random words and phrases that inexplicably stick in your head
   (yuyo, "herb", pasarla bomba, "to have a blast")
2. Words and phrases you comprehend, but don't know well enough to use yourself (inodoro, "toilet")
3. Words and phrases you’ve noticed popping up a lot, but haven't figured out their exact meaning or proper usage (no más, "just"—as in "just take a seat")
4. Words you don’t even notice because you haven’t learned them yet; you are blissfully unaware of their presence

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Servas Youth Language Experience

I made this video for a Servas Youth conference in Seattle. It's pretty cheesy, but after all the time I put into making it, I can't just let it gather dust in my YouTube account.

The SYLE is a program of Servas Youth, where local Servas members volunteer to host an exchange student for one month. You buy your plane ticket and bring some spending money, but other than, it's basically free. My SYLE was in Uruguay from May 15 - June 15, 2010.

Field Notes for Spanish Learners: Castellano Phrasebook

Castellano is the name for the Spanish spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, where people say things like "vos tenés" instead of "tú tienes." I overheard these phrases constantly in conversational Spanish, so I put them on flashcards and made a deliberate point of trying to artificially insert them into conversations whenever I remembered. As a result, I probably sounded like a Valley Girl, but also got a lot of compliments on my Spanish.

Dale (tranquilo)
Go (right) ahead
Come on

Ya está (pronounced “yastá”)
That's it
All done

Ahí está
There it is
Exactly
That's it

Ahí va (pronounced "ay va")
Now you've got it
There you go
Exactly

Bueno
Okay!

Buenísimo
Awesome
SweetReally cool

Bárbaro
Great

Tá (Uruguay)
OK 

Bien
Good!

Pah!
Woah!
Wow!
Geez!

En serio?
Seriously?

Viste?
Ya know?
You see?
See?

Ah, mirá/mirá vos
Oh, huh!
Huh, look at that
Oh, that's interesting

Tipo, ponele, o sea, digo
Like (tipo is slightly classier than ponele)
I mean (o sea, digo)

Este
Uh
Um

Raro
Weird

Rico
Good (describing the taste of food)
Delicious

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Songs from 2010

This is the soundtrack to my four months in South America. Some of these songs got played a lot on the radio during that time, some bring back good memories, and some just represent a style of music, like bachata. If you want to skip a song, hover your mouse over the video and arrows will appear on the side.

Yo No Sé Mañana...Luis Enrique (Nicaragua, salsa)
Si Voy Al Bajo Soy Yo...Mc Caco (Uruguay, cumbia villera)
Chora, Me Liga...João Bosco e Vinícius (Brazil, música sertaneja)
Dile Al Amor...Aventura (Dominican Republic/NYC, bachata)
Todo Se Transforma...Jorge Drexler (Uruguay, pop)
Cuando Me Enamoro...Enrique Iglesias and Juan Luis Guerra (Spain, pop)
Pedro Navaja...Rubén Blades (Panama/NYC, salsa)

28 Quirks of Life in Argentina and Uruguay

1. European cars (Peugeot, Citroën, FIAT)
2. Old-fashioned skeleton keys
3. Lots of graffiti
4. Stray dogs
5. Horse-drawn carts collect recyclable garbage in cities. The urban poor can make a (meager) living by exchanging recyclables for a small refund
6. Clothes are dried on a clothesline
7. Stoves must be ignited manually by match or lighter
8. Most people do not have a printer or photocopier at home; instead they go to a cyber or kiósco and pay for these services
9. Toasters are uncommon
10. Dishwashers are uncommon
11. Public displays of affection: couples sprawl all over each other and make out in public [Córdoba]
12. Public baños usually lack toilet paper and soap, and very often require a donation of a few coins for "upkeep"
13. Trucks cruise slowly through town with giant speakers in back, blasting advertisements
14. Showers take place in an unmarked corner of the bathroom floor with no curtain
15. Coca Cola signs dominate every restaurant facade so that you barely notice the actual name of the restaurant
16. Mayonnaise on everything [Uruguay]
17. Milk comes in squishy plastic packages
18. Cooked eggs are normal at dinner but unthinkable for breakfast
19. Fondness for crackers
20. Waiters do not stop by periodically and ask "how does everything taste?"
21. Sidewalks made of corrugated tile
22. Mullets are popular among soccer-hooligan guys
23. Girls wear bangs a lot
24. Keffiyehs are popular
25. Lots of unappealing rock and ska in Spanish (I like cumbia better)
26. Electrical outlets in Argentina look like this
27. Outdoor trash baskets made of wire, instead of garbage cans [Córdoba]
28. Blue street signs. In Uruguay, they're affixed to walls of buildings

Alaskan Spring

Travelogue: Córdoba

After leaving Philadelphia, I arrived in Córdoba, Argentina on April 15. While I was traveling in South America, I wrote these notes in a journal my sister gave me for Christmas.

4/20
The key to travel is to accept that you are a foreigner.
You can try to dress like everyone else to blend in, and in a big city you might actually blend in some of the time—in Montevideo, people on the street asked me for directions every now and then. But as soon as you open your mouth, they'll find you out. In Argentina and Uruguay, looking like a gringo isn't necessarily a dead giveaway, but being blond and blue-eyed still caused plenty of people to spontaneously address me in English. If you accept that nobody will believe that you're local, if you understand that you're an outsider in a foreign land, and realize that the Argentines and Uruguayans are the ones with the right to accept or reject you, not the other way around—you will save yourself a lot of anxiety. On the other hand, some travelers don't care if they stand out and comfortably wear exactly what they would back home in Switzerland or California. If you're like me, though, and prefer to change yourself a bit to match your environment, just understand that you will stick out a little no matter what you do. Embrace that fact.

Just for fun, I'm going to include a haiku I wrote during the first two weeks while I was living in a house with Canadians.

Córdoba city:
Stray dogs and crumbling buildings
Plus us foreigners.

4/27
Just because something sucks at first, don’t worry, you’ll make it better. I wasn't happy with my living situation through the language school (Spanish was rarely spoken at home even though I was paying to stay with a Spanish-speaking family), so eventually I got myself moved to another house. I think this attitude will be relevant in college, so I want to remind myself ahead of time not to worry if things are rough at first. They'll work out.

4/29
I met a girl named Viki who was a film student at the university in Cordoba and we arranged to do a language exchange. Basically, I hung out with her and her friends on the campus for a few hours and got exposed to awesome, raw conversational speech. I learned more Spanish in those few hours than I did in classes. And I realized, if I could have 3-4 different language exchanges going at once, like with Viki and her friends, I would learn so fast!

Ironically, I’m more accustomed to speaking Spanish with Brazilians than with Argentines. At my language school, the Brazilians are more likely to speak Spanish outside of class than other foreigners are, simply because speaking Spanish is easier for them than speaking English. As a result, I try to hang out with Brazilians. Plus, they're fun!

5/7
Quiero pensar y soñar en español.
They say you know you've really learned a foreign language when you start thinking in it by day and dreaming in it by night. How long will it be before I start thinking and dreaming in Spanish?

On an unrelated note, Cordoba is home to a lot of Rastafarians, selling stuff in the street, hanging out, playing reggae and ska. Why? Maybe because there's a big university and therefore a big student population? Is it just me, or are there also a lot of hippies in Argentina? It's a big country, and I'm only spending two months here, so it's unfair to draw conclusions from such limited experience...but that's what people do when they travel.

Iditarod 2010, Part V

Sunday.
Today is the race "restart" in Willow. After the hooplah of Saturday's ceremonial start in Anchorage, the Willow restart feels more like going to a rodeo.
My mom is having a meltdown in the basement, overwhelmed by the organizational nightmare of packing for Iditarod. I am pushing my crisis management skills to their limits to stay serene and be helpful without getting in the way.

***

I feel more and more nervous as it grows nearer to my mother's turn to ride out into the chute. Finally, when it's time, I ride standing on one runner of her sled all the way to the "Start" banner.

I feel dazed after she leaves.

Iditarod 2010, Part IV

KTUU-TV in Anchorage covered my mother's story! Enjoy, as I put the finishing touches on the next few posts.



For more information, visit Shameless Huskies Kennel.

Iditarod 2010, Part III

Look, a frog! Each musher has an 'Iditarider' who pays to ride in their sled for the first 17 miles.

Saturday.
Official race start in Anchorage. It's a big deal. Wearing my "Musher Handler 2010" arm band lets me wander freely past the fences holding back spectators, of which there are many:

Here's my mom, coffee cup in hand, as she readies herself for the big time:

And this is what she's worked all these years to see:

Iditarod 2010, Part II

Our table at the Iditarod Mushers' Banquet. From the left, you see Caleb, Andrew, Sarah, and Laura.

A few days before every race, there is a Mushers' Banquet in Anchorage. It was surreal. The banquet was in a huge convention center, filled with tables and people. One of my mother's favorite musicians, Hobo Jim, was strumming away on his guitar. Hobo Jim holds an honored spot among the very small number of CDs that my mother regularly plays in her truck, so I am well-acquainted with the man's music.

ExxonMobil, a sponsor of the Iditarod

See those ExxonMobil bags? Inside each one is an Iditarod 2010 poster.
My mom wanted her poster autographed by every musher, so she assigned the project to my sister and me. Like a brother-sister con act, I identified the easy marks (that is, mushers I recognized), then my sister would swoop in for the kill (that is, ask them for their autograph). Sadly, the mushers usually seemed to be shoveling steak into their mouths just as we arrived to coax an autograph out of them. Nevertheless, we got a nice handful of celebrity mushers to sign my mom's poster: mission accomplished.

How I Remember Ithaca

Actually, this is how my camera remembers Ithaca. There's so much I experienced but didn't photograph during those five months.

For more information on the Ecovillage, look here.