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.