my big day

Today was a big day for me. I started school, which I LOVE. Yesterday, though, I had a bit of scare when I couldn’t find it right away and I wandered around the ‘bad part’ of town wondering what I was going to do if this whole thing was a sham and how I would get my $1500 back. Anyway, I found it eventually (look up!) and it’s this beautiful 2^nd floor space of tile and skylights and murals and spiral staircases. The staff is all smiles and heavily-emphasized Spanish.

After I blankly smiled back at this curly-haired woman who chatted animatedly at me, I was placed in the beginner’s level. At first, I was minorly disappointed, but after the first class I realized it was perfect. I only have one other classmate and he is German. Yes, he is very cute. Yes, he also has a girlfriend, and it happens to be a rather sweet story. What I got from his German-accented Spanish- She is Uruguayan. They met in Germany. She studied there for 6 years, then moved home. He followed her and is now learning Spanish, his fourth language. He also speaks French and English. The good part for me is that because our native languages are different, we speak Spanish to each other.

AND…I moved into my homestay today, which I love just as much as my beautiful school. Above is a picture of my room. It’s green and I like it. I have one picture that Abby gave me of her and I in Amsterdam. It hangs on the inside of my wardrobe on the mirror. I’m glad I only have one, because it nearly brings me to tears every time I look at it.

I don’t have internet at my house, but I think that’s a good thing. I found a hotel across the street that gave me their wifi password so the excitement of internet can be blamed for this slew of blog postings. I also have a tv with 4-ish channels, depending if you count the blurry ones. I will use it to my advantage.

My Uruguayan mother’s name is Amparo and she’s about 60 and very sweet. She doesn’t speak a lick of English. Again, a good thing. We just had dinner together and the range of topics that were peripherally covered is almost comical – family, Miami and black people. Sometimes, when I am speaking Spanish I just start to smile at the pure ridiculousness of it. I know I sound terrible, yet I just keep talking like I am making sense. It’s much harder than I thought it would be; yet at the same time, I feel I am progressing at a much faster rate than I thought I would. I already feel like I added hundreds of words and phrases to my lexicon.

my semi-beautiful city

This photo is a lie. Montevideo is not very beautiful. Most of the buildings are (it seems like I’ve been quoting LonelyPlanet a lot) "soviet style," which translates to concrete and usually graffitied. There are palm trees, though, which can make any place look desirable. Much less of an eyesore, however, is the rich people side of town, located near the airport.

I see no airplanes from my school nor from my homestay.

as promised

Mate is this tea-like beverage and (in the words of LonelyPlanet) “a national obsession.” It’s true, though, I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s more common than Jennifer Aniston with her Smart Water. Everyone carries a big thermos filled with hot water and a little leather canister stuffed with mate. They drink it through these metal straws that strain the tea at the bottom. And it’s hot, did I mention that?

I tried it the other day and it’s fine; I really don’t understand the mania. It is very high in caffeine, which I guess is a draw, but I rather enjoy my daily naps.

my first real meal

Grilled meat. This is what the Uruguayans eat. They drink mate (mah tay). That deserves it's own separate post, which will follow shortly. Anyway, back to the meat- there are these places called parillas, where all different cuts and kinds of beef are cooked and served. They also typically offer chivitos (sandwiches with steak, eggs, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, bacon, etc.) and pizza, which for some reason is a ubiquitous menu item in these parts.

Today, I went to my first parilla and ate all by myself. I even kept the conversation in Spanish, although we didn't say much beyond "carne, futbol and Montevideo." I'd been a little scared to go out to eat without my friends (who left for Punta del Este today) as a crutch. But by 7pm, I realized I couldn't survive on postres con dulche de leche alone, so I went down to the Mercado del Puerto, where all the parillas are concentrated. Needless to say, I was starving and had two huge ribs, fries, a beer, desert and cafe. (Not that my order would have been any different if I had been eating all day.) In this particular parilla, the mostly toothless chef cooked the meat on open flames behind the bar. It was absolutely delicious, especially the fries all soaked in steak blood. Desert was this postre typica de Uruguay and it was this wonderful mess of meringue and honey and cream.

Total bill - $200 pesos, equalling about $10, mas o menos. I think I found my place.

my first friends

These are my friends Nathalia y Diana (which I thought was Llana) until she wrote it down for me several hours after meeting her. They are from Paraguay and they are angels.

I met them in my hostel and they immediately showed me that my Spanish absolutely sucks. Luckily, their English is much better, so we speak that which, yes, I realize is counterproductive, but I justify it every once in a while, by asking "como se dice en español?"

the cougar

This morning, the day I leave for Uruguay, I received an e-mail from a girl who found my wallet and told me I could pick it up whenever. Obviously, I won’t be able to get it and at this point, I don’t really need it, but it was a nice thing to wake up to.

In keeping with my ups-and-downs, however, my mom’s car broke down on the way to the airport this morning and it wasn’t just your standard flat - there was fumes coming through the vents and some very loud, undistinguishable noises. We pulled over on 95 and our little civic shook as trucks drove by at frightening speeds. My mom being the responsible, problem-solver she is, paged through her blackberry of contacts and found a friend to meet us on the shoulder by exit 13. (By the way, do you know it’s illegal for cabs to pick up people on the side of the highway?) So, 10 mins later we were throwing my luggage into a prius parked in front of us and I was back on my way.

On the first leg of this impossibly long trip (23 hours!), I was forced into the middle seat. On my right – an nondescript older woman that looked pretty much like any other women in her 60ish age group. On my right - the quintessential cougar. She was wearing an anklet, toe-rings and had flowers painted on her toenails. She carried a logo Louie Vuitton baby backpack and when she opened up her shiny purse, you could see her pack of Malboro lights. The best part was that these two women despised each other and I somehow, ended up as middle-man for multiple pee breaks and various other forced interactions.

a walk in tori's (unlucky) shoes

As most of my friends know, I misplaced my wallet Monday on Phrancesca’s Pharewell to Philly tour. And by misplaced, I mean I got drunk and left it in a cab. However, I was sober enough to take out all of my money first, almost like I knew I was going to forget it. Many phone calls were made and angry cabbies were hailed, producing no luck. After wasting battery life on all the iphones, we said fuck it and went to Silk City. Except for that little blip, Monday was fantastic and lovely and wonderful and I want to thank all my girls (and Seth) for it and for all the other LWL dates in the past few months, which were, by far, my favorite days of the summer.

That night, I ran into Tori at Silk after losing my wallet and she said that obviously something bad had to happen to me before I left. She has terrible luck (in a 36 hour time span, her car was towed and got denied a visa), so it was almost like I was being cursed for agreeing to take this trip with her. But generally, I’m not a particularly lucky or unlucky person and things usually work out in some sort of way for me. So, I woke up the next day and ran all the annoying errands that losing a wallet necessitates – DMV, bank, et al and even though I was totally freaking out, it didn’t turn out that bad.

The worst part was that a week ago, I handed a beautiful Brazilian $130 and the most important piece of paper I own only to get a stupid little receipt which for some reason, I didn’t take out along with the cash from my wallet. Then, when I went up to NY on Tuesday, I got a little bit of attitude from a less beautiful Brazilian. She was supremely annoyed that she would have to open up each passport to look for my name and told me to come back in an hour. Instead, I sat right in front of her and Sierra and Sacha and I watched her do nothing for a while. I guess then she felt a little bad, so she casually started looking through them and after about 15 mins and some harrowing questions that led me to believe it may have been lossed, she produced my passport with a brand new visa containing a picture that makes me look like a 300lb convict with red lipstick.