Today, I got mooed at...

That's right, moo. As in cow. As in I did a double-take to make sure I hadn't been mysteriously transported back to Middlebury. It seems the cows here are different. They're not black-and-white-spotted; they walk upright on two legs, and they bear a striking resemblance to the species commonly referred to in the English language as "men."

What do strippers, Professor Stoll & Japanese erotica have in common?...

...They're all featured in this post! (sort of)

Today I was carrying a little bit more cash than I usually like to at night, and since there have been kids that rob you with broken glass bottles in the plazas, I took my 500 pesos and proceeded to wrap the bills neatly around the elastic of my underwear. I felt a little bit like a stripper.

There is a picture of a random man reading a book that hangs outside the librería on the corner. He has glasses, wild hair and looks like he lives his life defying authority. I walk by this picture an average of four times a day but that doesn’t stop me from doing a double-take each and every time just to make sure it really isn’t Professor Stoll.

I was reading the Middlebury Cuaderno Blog that all of the students studying abroad in Latin America have to post in when I noticed that my latest post, which was simply a list of things that will forever remind me of Montevideo had 2 comments listed under it. “Oh boy,” I thought excitedly, “no one has ever commented on my posts before!” I was even more excited when I noticed that the comments were written in Japanese! Naturally, I was quite curious and the linguist in me was overjoyed, as I seemed to be the only one with comments in Japanese. The signature was underlined in blue, indicating that it was a link. Eager to embark on a Japanese adventure, although admittedly not entirely sure what kind of adventure, I clicked on it…and found myself instantly whisked away to a webpage that (despite my inability to read Japanese characters, but judging by the pictures) was pretty unmistakably a Japanese erotica site…

Unrelated pensamientos/thoughts

The cuffs of my jeans are torn and whitewashed. My shoes are simple black ballet slippers with tiny sequins. I like the way they look together. For some reason, I also really like that the tops of my feet are white and that you can just barely see the space between my two biggest toes before it disappears inside my shoe.

Since I’ve been in Montevideo, the price of the bus ticket has changed three times. First it was 16 pesos, then 17 pesos, and now 15. If I stay long enough, maybe it will end up being free.

There’s an omnibus that says it goes to London. I wonder what would happen if I took it. Can you take a bus from South America to Europe? Is there a London in Uruguay? Does it have a clock tower? Is it named Benjamón? Do they speak English there?

The floor tiles in the Facultad are black, white and grey. They are arranged in such a way that the entire floor looks like a sprawling iron gate laid on its side. I keep wondering what would happen if I dropped my pen. Would it fall through to the other side? Where exactly is the other side?

I made soup yesterday. I’ve never made soup before. I don’t really know how to make soup. I didn’t know how much of anything to put. All of the veggies that I bought at market were measured in kilos. I’m still not entirely sure what a kilo is. The soup kept turning out with too much of one thing and not enough of another, so I kept adding until it was just right. I know have enough soup to feed approximately 40 hungry people.