I'm upset. It started pouring down rain in the night and the noise drowned out my plans to let the sounds of the morning be my alarm. I accidently woke up an hour into church. :( Disappointed, I love church.

It is so strange. I'm pretty sure when we were getting ready to come to Uruguay we were told rain was out of the picture... its rained more than once every week I've been here. Just like Italy is supposed to be hot and dry in June and it rained everyday for the first three weeks that I was there. Rain makes everything feel like home.
Last summer i sat under the shelter of the entrance on the steps of the Duomo in Florence and took pictures of everyone else scrambling to get somewhere out of the rain with their umbrellas and wellies.
Another time the rain interrupted my painting in a small town that we took a bus to get to. So I sat on the ledge and watched the lightening over Tuscany from the veranda of an old Cathedral set on a hill. Rain has been my constant companion in the world... even when its was supposed to be sunny.
It's probably raining in Uruguay because of me.





mmm.. someone is cooking something. Smells like Zambia.

Mi Buenos Aires querido...

Afternoons in Montevideo are crippling. This type of heat has a way of making your body weak. No week is ordinary, this week was extraordinary. Perhaps in a day or two I can relate to you the most significant events... for now my mind is too preocupada con las cosas estuvio.... estuvio lejos de normal.
I met two important people in Buenos Aires. Maria y Rudulpho. Maria was sitting on the side of a large pedestrian street in Buenos Aires, Florida Street (calle Florida) with her sister Tamana. In the past year I have kicked myself many times for walking away from a face that I so desperately wanted, so desperately NEEDED a photo of and just didn't have the nerve to try. I've cowered my way through countries all over the world. It was either the perpetual wear and tear of the emotions that comes with traveling in groups or the unwanted responsibility of punishing myself for another missed opportunity but I resolved to never walk away again and made my companions wait for me as I dug out some small bills and approached the two. My spanish is relatively good for ordering food and most casual conversations (especially with friends) in light of the fact that in Buenos Aires I celebrated the close of my first month ever of formal spanish lessons. Hopefully this next month with prove as fruitful as the first. Tamana was older, I forget her age, and a little less interested in me as a person. She did warm up but Maria, who's dirty feet and pretty pink dress caught my eye in the first place wasted no time to alert me to the fact that she was two, and her name was Maria... and she was two... "como este." ("this many.") I've struggled with my desire to continue taking photographs lately, discouraged for many reasons including but not limited to: my fatigue of marketing shots and photos that are really good, but useless to me in regards to art and expression. My favorite thing to take pictures of is interesting people, and one of my favorite parts of taking pictures of interesting people is showing them the pictures I take. Especially with Maria because it was like a game for her which made it even more gratifying to me. I reviewed my photos as I walked away reluctantly and saw the shots and instantly denounced my waning and decided that if I got no more good photos the rest of my time in Buenos Aires, I was satisfied.



I did get another good shot. Equally as gratifying but chronologically it came later so there is a natural order of favoritism. On our last day in BA we were finally granted free time and naturally Kara and I used it to go find the bohemian craft Market (...what? don't act surprised... isn't that the point of traveling? tranquilo bohemians selling things?) Sundays are nice in South America because on Sundays, even in the big cities, you can find some amount of solitude and peace. We were walking down a street near the Pink House (not the White house, the pink house) that two days before was crowded with tourists and locals alike but this day was almost deserted. Side note: I have a severe infatuation with beards. The crazier the better. We're talking Zach Smith to Z.Z. top- I don't discriminate... and old men... old men are really cool to take pictures of... especially with messy hair and beards.

aahumm.. anyway...

There was a man. He had a beard. He was just sitting. He was dirty but he wasn't begging but I walked by and I said to Kara (again... always) "DID YOU SEE HIS BEARD?! he was so cool... I wanna take a picture. I should take a picture." But this time I did. We conversed and as I walked away I dug in my mochila to see what bills I had... the smallest one I had was bigger than I was seeking but it wasn't much still so I ran back and gave it to him and told him I forgot to get his name. The man never smiled the duration of the 5 minutes spent from beginning to end when we walked away, but his surprise at the money and gratitude was all over his person. Rudolpho, the man in the maroon shirt and the dirty hands.

my redemption cost me ten bucks.




Buenos Aires estuvio mi muerte... pero estuvio mi salvacion.

Two pictures. that's all I have for you.

of course, on the night of free chocolate mousse..

Hola. I have a bit of time on my hands here in Buenos Aires because I am in the hotel instead of on the trip we were supposed to make today. Sad, i know. It's because last night at the Tango show I began to feel very queasy (a rarity for me) and ended up being sick all night (even more rare). It was pretty upsetting all around but the fact that I had chocolate mousse I didn't get to finish at the Tango show was just salt in an already open wound. However don't fear because I feel like I'm on the road to a quick recovery. Rosalinda stayed behind with me today. Kara wanted to but they felt like it was better in case I got worse and needed a doctor or something. She called from downstairs before she left and i could tell the sweet one was torn up cause it may be all day before i see her. She felt bad, but i feel like we'll meet up soon. I feel much better than I did through the night and I think we may meet up with the group later in the day. I rarely can sit still long... I'll try to sit still long enough to recover first.

Otherwise Buenos Aires has been great, with only a few minor mishaps. (it's travel.) Hopefully I won't have time to get on again until I'm back in Montevideo with 4 gigs of pictures and no time to play with them.
I do miss Montevideo...
Uh oh, sounds like someones already feeling at home

i suppose I'll go rest.

ps. I changed the colors on the blog cause that white on black made me want to throw up and i feel like I may not be the only one....oh and don't bother checking the other blog. it will be basically the same story second verse.

yo hablo spanglish.

here's the thing... I started to post for today but I got caught up in (henna) tattooing a fingerbeard... (on my finger obviously...) so typing is a little hard now. Well worth it though... I now have the capacity to create numerous expressions with a slight move of the finger. Its actually a finger mustache, I guess.

Tonight we went out with a Uruguayo from the gym we joined. In particular the climbing wall (its called La Muralla.)
There have been times that, mostly because of the language barrier, our encounters are very awkward with lots of pauses and silence, but tonight the tension between us all faded quickly and we spent two or three hours at dinner conversing, mostly in spanish.
My favorite thing in Uruguay has been the people we've met, and any time we have spent in close companionship with a Uruguayo... and I realize that the conversation we maintain is typically geared towards the vocabulary that we know but when we get together with the friends we've made and we speak spanish, the progress I've made in three weeks is apparent... and I blow my own mind.

I was going to give up English & chocolate for Lent but tonight while we were at dinner Kara and I talked about it and really just decided that we should be speaking mostly in spanish not just for 40 days but all the time. So I guess its just bye-bye chocolate for Lent and (because i have a really phenominal and dedicated roommate) Spanish will be all the time. We do pretty well most of the time but hopefully we will do better.

Anyway, thats not much but its what is on my mind at the moment. When we were struggling with our conversation at dinner, Stefanie asked us why it is that when we stumble over spanish words and stay completely confused in conversations, it doesn't make us want to use spanish less, but use it more. In response I have to say that I am much more frustrated with not being able to have conversations than I am the struggle of learning. Its good I think because it give me momentum to rapidly grow. We do stumble through a lot of broken sentences and give up on a lot of failed attempts to convey thoughts but the fact of the matter is that 7 times out of 10 we are successful and can only get better. Plus, my spanglish es FENOMENAL.

chao para ahora.

I'm taking a break from the computer for a day or two. With my job it just consumes some time and its time for a break.
chao. te hablas mas tarde.

Fuemos al asado a noche.

(our awesome casa)

OK so I'm having a battle with my computer and the internet here. I was ready this morning to update but uploading pictures seems to be brain surgery. It takes forever then I have class for three hours and don't have time to fix it and here I'm at my days end and the post has yet to be finished. Its fine for now though I will just continue on with todays happenings. Luckily there are no pictures to upload for today (yet) and I can just write and leave the other pictures from last night to load. I would prefer to update in the morning here so that by the time you rise it will be a new post for a new day, but no such luck. I could just post without the pictures but then you might be bored. It was an eventful monday. I got up and attempted to post (obviously to no avail since here I am) but right after lab and spanish was lunch and a short break until our Latin America class at 3. Today however was no ordinary day in the life of Latin American learning for today we had a Candombe workshop. Candombe is a dance with African roots that is specific to Uruguay. Regardless of how silly we all looked, we had fun... and we all looked silly I'm sure. Right after class I went with Kara and Stefanie L and Shelly and Nathan Sanders to the mega YMCA. We were on a mission to find the rock climbing room. We found it, full of elementary schoolers. It was intimidating at first to walk into a room of u-15ers that are showing you up but we figured out (thanks to the instructor Pablo, who speaks English) that from 6-7 was the class for them and ours would start at 7. It was slow but eventually we went through the harness, belaying etc etc and started climbing. After a bit Pablo said it was time for crunches so we unharnessed and joined the group of guys (who had been monkeying around the walls (and around us) without harnesses) on the floor for a killer workout. It was lots of fun and another opportunity to make some friends. By the end there was the satisfactory feeling of having accomplished something and even better the feeling of belonging because Pablo gave the whole group a speech about how we are a team and we will be learning Spanish and climbing from them but we will be teaching them English and other things (I haven't thought of anything else I could teach them yet) as well. Now I'm going to try to find some leftovers... that is if our pirana housemates haven't devoured it all.
(end of new post)

FUEMOS AL ASADO A NOCHE! BARBEQUE TIME!

Nathan, Wimon and the chefs


(post from earlier.)
Buen dia. Hope the day finds you well. Last night we had a Uruguayan asado (bar-be-q) on the roof of our house and the adjoining church. I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for myself (and I'm going to speak for Kara) when I say that it was a fenomenal night. We gathered on the fourth floor patio and past the time by taking pictures & enjoying the company and the view. A few members of the church and Nestor the man who runs the church and lives on the third floor and his family grilled the meat with the help of the boys of the youth group. Eventually the meal was ready and we gathered one level lower at the tables prepared for us. After dinner we took the elevator up to the roof of the entire building for a bilingual devotional. It was finally dark but the clouds reflected the lights of the city enough to illuminate the faces across the circle and with the first much needed breeze we had felt all day we sang and listened as a group made mostly of teenage boys and their little sister sang, slightly off key, but without concern for anything but the words. Kara and I concurred as we sat there that in our time here we have been no happier than the times that we have spent with this group. I'll say this with the risk of sounding inappropriate but we are both in love with those teenaged boys. (we would be in love with the teenaged girls too if there were any. OK?) With the exception of Martin the oldest boy's girlfriend Andrea these boys are the only teens from the church, at least that we've been with.

anyway, it was fun. thats about it. Next weekend they invited us all to walk the rambla and watch a movie with them. I'm sure it will be fun. We utilize and learn our spanish best with them as well.



Mathias is my sweet little friend. After he burned his hand Rosalinda designated me his "nagger" because he apparently requires extra nagging. It might've had something to do with the way he followed me around and constantly ran his mouth in Spanish that was way too fast... even after I (repeatedly) said "MATHIAS. mas dispacio, PORFAVOR."

Rosalinda- nagging. :)



My "Holland face"







GUNS N' ROSES... YEAH!

Last night was curry night at casa ACU. awesome- thats all i need to say about that.

Somehow over dinner conversations my new found Reflexology/Acupressure practices came up... one thing led to another and Zanessa ended up doing muscle testing (I personally call it a healthy energy test) to all the non-believers while I yelled obscenities at anyone who tried to argue its validity. That's a joke, but I did get really excited cause I'm a firm believer in natural medicine. The test determines what things (specifically foods) are good for you or that your body needs. On this video we filled two cups with water and in one cup put some sugar (which isn't good for you) and did the test... I can happily say Rosalinda is now a believer. :D all in all, besides the injuries acquired during the fist fight over herbs or tylenol it was a really fun night. Tonight we're having un asado (barbeque) tonight with the kids from church.


healthy energy test from jessalyn massingill on Vimeo.


check back for more later.