Springtime in Montevideo (we got a preview the other day and I adore it...)

Springtime
I always thought
was red robins and daffodils
green grass
buds on bare branches
and lemonade.

Springtime
it seemed to me
would be the same almost anywhere.

As it turns out
Spring, like so many things here
has a bit of a different flavor in Montevideo.

It’s not the crocus breaking through the last velvet sheet of frost
but rather the bum emerging from behind his plastic tarp
carefully folding it to store away for the day
and with any luck, until next winter.

It’s not the seasonal allergies that stop up your sinuses
but the pedestrians strolling at a more leisurely pace than usual
leaving the sidewalks congested.

It’s watching the omnibus go by
without swallowing pangs of jealousy
because all those people are warmer than you.

It’s bicycles passing more slowly
no longer struggling to race the cold home.

It’s the antagonistic wind
that yesterday threatened to tear the scarf from your face
lulling to a breeze and
like a playful kiss
gently brushing the hair back from your eyes.

It’s wanting to burn jasmine incense
instead of cedar and sandalwood.

It’s the clunking of leather boots on brick crosswalks
giving way to the sprightly clicking of stilettos and sandals.

It’s the smell of shellac in the street
as you walk by the old carpenter
painting his cabinets on the sidewalk outside his shop.

It’s the almost forgotten sensation
of sweat on your shoulder
beneath the strap of your canvas bookbag.

It’s sitting outside at a café beside the plaza
ordering a peach milkshake instead of hot chocolate
and counting the signs of Spring in Montevideo.

This is me a with a very big *SMILE* on my face...

And why might there be a very big smile on my face?, you may ask. Mumkin because I HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM!!!!!!!!!! That's right, no more going to smelly cybercafes with little kids running around screaming in incomrehensible Spanish over their videogames as you sit in the corner looking for the question mark or the @ on that cursed keyboard and visibly going through an entire roller-coaster of emotions as you read the various emails, blog posts and comments from all those dear to you. Yes, now I can laugh and cry and do whatever else I please (including a.i.m.!!!) in the privacy of my own room!

As you have most likely already noticed, this post is going to be slightly lower on the entertainment factor as its purpose is to inform you that in addition to being in Uruguay, I am now officially plugged in. This opens a new chapter of communication possibilities, the most exciting of which is SKYPE. I'm under Cata513 (or I think you can search with my full name). If you already have it, seek me out. If not, what are you waiting for? Get it! Talking computer-to-computer is FREE, which is way better than...not mentioning any names...paying $30 for a 15-minute call...

Besos y abrazos para todos,
Cata

Arabic!

Have you ever been so simply blissful that as you walk down the street (or rather, prance down the street because for once you actually know where you´re going), positively beaming from ear to ear, you worry that your smile is so loud someone will hear? Even though you haven´t listened to them since you got here, for fear it would make you too nostalgic, Great Big Sea suddenly starts blaring in your head and you find yourself double-checking to make sure that you haven´t accidentally burst into song and that everyone isn´t staring at you. You haven´t. And they aren´t. Even if someone does happen to notice the glow in your eyes, they´ll most likely pass you by thinking you got some last night. Which you didn´t. But maylish.
Friday morning, I met with a woman from the Facultad who kindly explained to me that the readon I have been showing up to Arabic class and not finding any professor or students is that the class is not actually at 8:00 in the morning alla schedule Midd, but rather at 8:00 in the evening. Sweet! She also told me that this class is 4th year Arabic but that I would probably be able to integrate into the class since I´ve already studied a year. Not entirely sure how that will work but I´m going to go meet with the professor next week. I´m hoping I´ll at least be able to audit it. Also, (and here´s my favorite part!), this amazing woman also invited me to Middle Eastern dancing classes...

So yesterday, I wondered downtown in search of this little hole-in-the-wall hippie/Eastern influence studio where I found a group of 7 women and a teacher who gather every Saturday at 2:00 to learn gipsy dancing! It was AMAZING! At first, it was terrifying to try to dance in front of these women who all knew each other, had been dancing for years and spoke Spanish much better than me. But they were all really friendly and even lent me a gipsy skirt and a veil. Eventually, I loosened up and although I still didn´t really know what I was doing, the music sort of takes you off in a direction all your own and pretty soon you find yourself spinning and leaping around the room, dodging others that are doing the same and trying to keep up with the scarf that is whirling above your head one minute and draped over your face, your shoulders or you hips the next. We danced to music in Arabic, Persian and even some in Spanish! It was beautiful and lots of fun! And on Thursdays they have belly dancing. Which I will also be attending!

After the class, we all went to one of the women´s houses and spread ourselves out on the floor amongst silk pillows, a round table cloth filled with coffee liquor, dulce de leche and snacks, shut out the lights, lit insence and watched Middle Eastern dance films. It was like I found the Arabic House in Montevideo, only it was way cooler. And there was no Leyla. So I´m basically stoked. I´m not entirely sure how I did it, but by some strange yet wonderful twist of fate, I think I just networked myself into a community of Arab enthusiasts in Uruguay! Rock on!

A Beautiful Saturday

Here´s a little something I wrote on Saturday...

I think the weather has conspired to take over my mood and is possibly looking for a means to control my entire future. You see, today was the first truly beautiful day I´ve had here. It may be that I needed to survive 2 weeks before I would find myself un-overwhelmed enough to be able tp look around and see myself in my new surroundings, see life and find beauty in it. Or it may just be that today was the first day that I saw the sun in the Southern Hemisphere. It´s a relief to know that it does actually shine here and quite comforting that it looks and feels just as wonderful here as it does at home, plus, I would argue (at least today) that it may actually have a slightly-higher-than-usual capacity to boost one´s mood.

Another reason today was beautiful is that it was a day of firsts. Granted, every day in these past 2 weeks has been filled with firsts. But today was a day of simple firsts. Of firsts that make you smile just knowing they´re firsts. For example, if was the first time I opened my bedroom window and tasted fresh air that actually made me want to take off my fleece blanket and let the sun touch my pale skin that has been hiding away beneath layers of wool, flannel and fleece ever since I got here. I t was the first time I squeezed my own orange juice by hand and used oranges that didn´t have to cross half the country or an ocean to arrive at my kitchen. It was the first day I spent alone. Not with my host brother or sister, not with other girls from the Midd program, just with myself. When I´m by myself, I notice myself more and occasionally even find that I´m not such bad company.

I went to the Saturday Fair, where I sepnt a couple of hours wondering around and seeing far too many things I wanted. I have to keep reminding myself that this is not the Hebron Harvest Fair or the Big E that comes around once a year so you have to buy everything all at once. This fair is here every Saturday all year, so it´s fun to just looks and tuck ideas in the back of your mind for next week, for Christmas, for whenever. It is hard, however, not to buy things when you see them, especially since everything claims to be one clearance. Like that green poncho. Or that red sweater. Whatever, stuff at the fair is cheap and I didn´t bring enough winter clothes, so I forgive myself. More or less.

As the fair was wrapping up, I couldn´t bare the thought of hopping on an omnibus and leaving the sun to got home and do nothing. So I bought 3 mandarinas for about 12 cents, sat on a bench and ate 2 of them while pondering what to do with the remainder of this gorgeous day. My host mother had said the fair was too far to walk to, but I decided to pull out my map and have a look for myself. After calculating that it would probabaly take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half depending on how fast I walked and how many times I got lost and comparing that to the amount of time it could potentially take me to find the bus stop, I opted to go for a stroll.
It was quite a lovely stroll. Generall uneventful, with a few minor exceptions. There was a group of volunteers that approached me to ask for a donation. The looked to be 20-somethings, so I asked them what organization they were with and they said that they built houses for the homeless of Montevideo. It sounded like an interesting project and a decent way to meet people, so I took down the website to check out later. Then, there was a dead pigeon and for about 10 seconds, I freaked out that I might get avion flu from looking at it, but that passed pretty quickly and I was able to recover my sanity. Overall, it was a nice walk, and when I got home, I was feeling pretty good about myself for having not gotten lost.

Then, I pulled out my key, and to my dismay, no matter how many times I turned it in the lock, the door refused to budge. Feeling like a fool, I tried for probably about 10 minutes and finally gave up. I called my host mother, brother and sister but no one answered. I knew it would be getting dark soon, so I headed back in the direction I had just come from. I would walk 20 minutes to the mall, where I could hang out until I managed to get in touch with someone at my house. The mall is full of people and open late, a good refuge.


On the way there, I spent a lot of time debating whether or not I should go back and try that key just one more time. I knew I would look like a lunatic if I told my host mother my key was broken and she came back to only to discover it worked perfectly. Let´s face it, it wouldn´t be the first time something lame like that happened to me. Flashback to me standing in the camer shop telling the man that I had absolutely no idea why the camera had suddenly stopped working and it taking him approximately 2.7 seconds to flip the battery over and solve the crisis free of charge.

Emerging from my daydream, I noticed that in the past not-too-many-minutes, the sky had gone from sapphire with a warm, golden sun to grey and a fog so dense I could barely see to cross the street had descended over the city out of nowhere. While I´d been playing with my god-forsaken jey, the weather, just like my day and confidence level, had done an about-face. It was then that I decided the weather was conspiring against me.

No matter, I was not going to let the color or the sky ruin my day, much less decide my fate. So I found a discreet, little bar at the far end of the mall and sat myself down at a corner table. I ordered a glass of red wine, took out the memo pad where I write down what bus to take where and began to write. Even though it was only 6:00 and people don´t eat dinner here until 10:00, I was starving. Having no idea what it was but being indescribably attracted to it, I ordered ¨Princess Chicken.¨ It turned out to be chicken with strawberries and jam on top, which was somehow amazing! They don´t kick you out of restaurants here when you´re done eating, which is nice because I have nowhere to go. I just ordered a strawberry milkshake and plan on staying until the mall closes or I hear from my host family. I would have said until my pen ran out of ink, but that already happened and I had to ask the waiter for a new one.

Watch out, Buenos Aires!

I haven't been blogging a lot because I don't have internet in my house and it is slightly awkward to blog in an internet cafe because it always feels like there are people reading over your shoulder.

Right now, I am actually in Buenos Aires. We found that classes don't start classes until next week and so rather than sitting in my house and freezing, another girl from the Middlebury program and I decided to visit Buenos Aires. We got here on Monday and are staying until Thursday. Ximena, the girl I am with is American, but her parents are Argentinian and Colombian, so she speaks Spanish really well and is somewhat familiar with Buenos Aires. We ate lunch with her grandmother today. I met up with Joachim yesterday (we lived together in the Spanish House) and we went out to eat with some of his friends. Tonight, I am sleeping in Kolbe's (another girl from Middlebury) room and tomorrow we are spending the night at Ximena's friend's house. I am also going to try to meet up with Pablo (who I also lived with in the Spanish House and who is from Buenos Aires) for lunch tomorrow.

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city. Ximena and I wandered around it today and did some shopping and sigh-seeing. We figure since we're not allowed to be tourists in Montevideo, we might as well get it out of our systems here. Tomorrow, we're planning on taking a tour of the Teatro Colon. Being in Buenos Aires, however, has made me very glad that I decided to study in Montevideo. Montevideo is much smaller and feels a lot more manageable. There is only a bus system and no subway, which makes it easier to navigate. It is also possible to walk just about everywhere. My school is about a 40-minute walk, so when the weather warms up I will probably walk to and from class everyday. I am signed up to take Linguistic Theory IV and Historical Linguistics, which both sound like they should be great courses! I am also going to check out Arabic IV, although I have no idea what level of difficulty it will be, but I am going to go to the first class and see what happens.

Well, that's about it for now. Wandering through Buenos Aires trying to speak Spanish all day is quite taxing, although very fun.

I love and miss you all very much.