Game Over.

Among the things that go on behind the doors of our little duplex, there is The Mouse.

It starts like this: Jack, in one of his wildlife ecology labs, stuffed a little field mouse (which I discovered on the oven when I moved in on the first day-- oh, how I'd missed college). The Mouse, Harold (or something like that), has been traveling the house and hiding in the nooks and crannies of our Stuff. Whoever finds the mouse re-hides it.

The game began in the now-famous household story of the day that Jack and Yael hid Harold ON TOP OF THE SILVERWARE in the silverware drawer and NOBODY NOTICED. On the third day, while Jack and Yael were in the kitchen, Marly came in opened the drawer, reached right underneath the mouse, and got a fork. Unable to contain himself, Jack told Marly to look at the drawer again and, so, nudged it open with his foot ... to which her response was, "EWWWW you opened the drawer with your FOOT!"

Anyhow, after that day, the mouse began appearing in random places. Like behind soup cans and in glass jars and Bisquick boxes. One day, after finding the mouse on my kitchen shelf, I took him and craftily hid him underneath the record on our record player. It was a perfect hiding spot, I was so proud of myself. Whoever went to change the record next would lift it up and ha! there would be Harlod.

A few days passed.

Finally, one evening, Jack, Yael, and I were in the living room listening to music and generally bumming around. Jack lifted the record up and, lo!, the mouse was missing! Huzzah! Game on! I asked Jack and Yael who had moved it. They had no idea. Well, then, Marly must have found a good spot, we figured.

A day later we cornered Marly and commented, slyly, that the game must be going. She looked at us blankly and said that she hadn't touched the mouse. We all looked at each other. Where was Harold? Finally, we remembered that there had been some strange fuzz in the hallway a few days ago ... and went looking for it. It was museum stuffing fuzz.

Then, we looked at the dogs.

Onyx wouldn't eat a stuffed mouse, Yael said slowly. After all, even a black lab that eats cat shit and bottles of corn oil has her limits. I guess.

When we looked at Lad, he gave us his standard look of clueless hope. Were we going to pet him yet? How about now? And now?

You know, there were multiple sharp wires in the mouse so that it would keep its shape. We haven't found them yet.

So, I Suck and So Does Lad

Don't worry, Max has already made sure I'm aware. I got busy with school and dropped the blog. I know, I know, I know.

But, I've been working SO much lately ... catching up to the routine of constant "that's what she said" jokes and consistently sleeping through classes is really, really hard. I mean, seriously, you have to be dedicated about the sleeping when your collie so frequently jumps out of bed at 6 AM and decides to bark at the wall.

Ah, Lad.

A lot of times he doesn't even get up. A lot of times he doesn't even raise his head. It's just like, around 6:30 in the morning, Lad's eyes open and I kid you not: I think sometimes he just doesn't remember he was alive. I swear I can hear his brain going, "Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Who am I? Where am I? What is this room? Who is this person next to me? WHERE DID THAT WALL COME FROM??? Grrrr! Grrrr! Arf! Arf! Arf!"

And then, when I hit him for the millionth time for doing it, he jumps on MARLY'S bed, lays down, and growls quietly. Turns out everything is just as dangerous from a new position.

One of these days Marly is going to shank us both in our sleep.

And we are SO going to deserve it.

Fussing with Picassa

Canary #1

Canary #2

Rehabing Feral Barn Kittens

WARNING: Dog Nightmares Enclosed

I haunt The Daily Coyote on occasion ... which is something Dooce posted ages ago ... the fact that I come back on occasion is proof of my love because I never come back to a site--well, hardly ever-- because I'm usually too busy with the three necessities: Dooce, Postsecret, and Facebookstalking. But Daily Coyote is this catalog of pictures and stories from a woman who lives in rural Wyoming who adopted an orphaned baby coyote at 10 days old ... it is majorly a cuteness overload kind of guilty pleasure.

This morning I was killing time before I decided to go for my run and on this page of the Daily Coyote, I found an audio file of the author howling to make Charlie the Coyote howl ...

I clicked on it, shamelessly. Thoughtless of the consequences of playing coyote noises in a house with a Britney/Velociraptor cross that has been on the ranch enough to know that sound EXACTLY PRECISELY.

She was too busy watching our new kitten (tell you next post) to notice for the first bit where they're just sort of warming up ... But near the middle, as Charlie really starts to get into it, her head shot up. She left her kitten post and ran directly up to the computer's speakers and pointed with one paw, trembling. She cocked her head this way and that way and the look on her face was VERY CLEARLY just broadcasting, "I HEAR EVIL AND IT IS HERE". When the recording ended (it was only like 30 seconds long) she started running around the house whining ..... with me calling after her, "It's okay, baby, baby, it'll be all right honey ..." you know, how I do.

Trail Rides

(Taken by Angela on her iPhone)

Lately we've discovered a whole new world of trails back up in Santiago Canyon. We ride through the golden scrub grass and skeletal trees to climb to the canyon ridge. After crossing a fallen barbed-wire fence there are miles of access roads.

Praise the Dog

I got a bird. In the traditional Female Stevens Family fashion, I acquired an animal without thinking of the consequences.

I can't help myself. Whenever any hapless critter comes within a galaxy reach of my fingertips, my ovaries send a direct message to my brain reading, "PUPPY BABY BIRDIE KITTY CUDDLE SNUGGLE PONY FEED CARE BABY ANIMAL NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED!"

Or something like that, anyway. It's genetic. I won't even go into mom and grandma, seeing as they were going into that bird store looking for a fourth canary.

So this is where I was, sitting in the bird shop, holding a tiny conure. Petting its tiny feathers. Watching it turn its tiny head up at me. Meeting eye to tiny eye.

... When an insistent voice of reason sat in my gut started whispering: you have roommates, you need money, it's gonna live for 30 years, what about school, you move a lot, life is too complicated ... pain and misery shall rain upon you ..... you will spend the rest of your days in a world without Johnny Depp movies or Starbucks Passion Tea or Michael Phelps' abs ...

That was when my ovaries kicked my voice of reason in the balls.

But, as it flailed away, the voice managed one last pained whisper to my reproductive organs before collapsing completely: you have ... you have ... a bird dog .......

Ah, yes, my ovaries replied, the dog. Yes, well ... well ... yes .... I'm sure ... I'm sure something will, you know, work out ..... awwwww look how cute it's nibbling my finger!

But, the truth is, I don't just have a bird dog. I don't even have The Bird Dog. I have a Brittany.

I have the Chase Anything That Moves Dog. Worst nightmare for anything smaller than a breadbox. She is The Warrioress, The Hunter, The Exterminator.

As a family friend once put it, she kind of reminds you of, you know,

a velociraptor.

So, naturally, I bought the bird. Meanwhile, my voice of reason was writhing somewhere near my toenails.

He's been around for about a week now. I named him Salsa Pissanya (because when we were running through potential names, at hearing the name Anya my grandma shouted, "PISSONYA!").

Most of the time when I get him out, I lock Aspen in the back room. To keep her from drowning in a pool of her own saliva.

If I do get him out with her around, I hold him to my chest in a death grip or keep him wrapped in a blanket and tell her "no no". She can't even really see him as she sits next to me and shakes.

But this morning, as I was holding him and talking to mom next to the slider, I did something utterly, supremely stupid. I relaxed one hand. I got distracted. And he got loose.

His wings are clipped, he couldn't go anywhere, really. He just sort of fluttered to the ground with a little thud where Aspen was sitting. She froze. He froze. I leaped toward him. But not before I noticed her looking from him, and then to me, then back again. She didn't move. She knew. The dog that has spent the past seven years of her life in a desperate attempt to catch one had a bird handed to her on a silver platter and she didn't move.

She wasn't shaking. She wasn't drooling (okay, maybe she was, but it was a smaller lake ) ...

As I straightened up, she shifted her gaze from me, to my mom, to the treat cupboard.

Salsa Pissanya

Stupid First World Conversations

Dooce made a list the other day of stupid first world conversations. I realized I had one to add ...


Mom: "Al, 'cause you speak Spanish, you've GOT to talk to the housekeeper."

Me: "What about?"

Mom: "She waxed the wood floors too well. We're slipping all over the place."

Conversations with Clay

Today in the car:

"Allison, wanna hear a joke?"
"Sure."
"Mychal's a dad."


"Clay, wanna hear another joke?"
"Yah."
"Dad's a grandpa."

Hehehehe ... It SO never gets old.

Mmmm cheese toes

... now belong to a tiny human being named Dominique Nicole.

I got the news in a car wash yesterday. My mother refused to tell me just to watch my reaction ... So I hit her on the arm and gave her a stare normally reserved by border collies for use on unusually stubborn cattle.

It's a good thing she gave in fast and cried "DOMINIQUE" or I would have been forced to nip her ankles.

Mykie Made a Shrimp

4 pounds 6 ounces.

Still named Baby.



My brother comes out of the operating room-- blue scrubs on the bottom, red polo, and those squared-off Clark Kent glasses.

"Where have you guys been?" He smirks. "You missed all the action!"

After we fling ourselves on him (okay, physically speaking, that was mostly me), he pulls out his cell phone pictures.

I imagine my brother watching an operation-- you know, that thing he's been doing for years at 10 pm on Discovery Health-- on his girlfriend. At this point, pesky med school degree aside, he could probably do the surgery himself. All the while narrating in a calm, metered voice for a squeamish audience. And then he could advise the hospital on what to do with Siamese triplet stone babies.

We have to wait for Baby to be stabilized before we can go in. Standing in the hallway, talking, taking pictures. This Is The Moment Before The Moment That We See The Baby.

Ashley is recovering. And, man, if I were her, after making a few good, solid demands to see my baby right now, I would request (calmly and politely) that they knock me out for a week. Also, a million bars of dark chocolate figure in there somewhere.

At the Natal Intensive Care Unit (eh, the nicky), we all mill about, wash our hands twice, and periodically get kicked out for being too many people in the room. Think of it this way. Baby, she is cheese. Really tasty cheese. And we are mice. On steroids.

When we get kicked out we are mice on steroids staring at the cheese through a window.

I leave you with my brother's favorite picture. The Stink-Eye:



Welcome to the world baby Baby.

In BA

In BA with Daddy ... will catch time to post soooooooooon swear! But right now, Dad and I are going to find a massage parlor ... which is something PJ and I used to joke about doing in Cusco as we scratched our bugbites and paid our $7 a night ... and if it sounded wonderful then ... well, now I feel like God has come down from heaven to personally give me a hug and a beer.

Love,
Me

Airports.

I want to sort out my two days in Lima here ... but I have to take off for my crazy endless Chile bus ....... so, I give you ... my Airport Story:

When I arrive to the airport in Puerto Maldonaldo at 11 in the morning for my 12:40 flight, the line is short. I´m grateful.

In Cusco, LAN had cancelled two flights but hadn´t had the sense to seperate the queues of people ... so I was stuck anxiously watching the time behind dozens of people who weren´t going anywhere that day ... but all still had to argue with the staff. It was nerve-wracking. I kept pleading with guards in Spanish who moved me from line to line still behind all of the flight-cancelled people with no order at all (I swear this to you) and I barely caught my plane with 5 minutes to spare.

So in Puerto, even though it only HAS two airlines it´s so tiny and I make sure to arrive with almost 2 hours this time, the short lines make me sigh with relief. Until 25 minutes into watching the little kids run around me, I realize that they aren´t moving. At all.

The man in front of me is getting antsy. He moves up, talks in Spanish, comes back, and moves up again with his bags to crowd the desk and stays there. I glance nervously at the people behind me. And them at me.

I start looking around for somebody in a jacket who might be important. I still have almost an hour to meander through the surely extremely relaxed security, but still. What is going on?

A man in a tee-shirt approaches me (he looks like a guide, maybe). He asks me when my flight is ... and I tell him today, at 12:40. His face is suddenly intense concern. I´m in for it.

(I´m going to put our spanish conversations in italics ...)

You have to go up to the front. Now.

I look around. All of the receptionists are busy but he ushers me urgently with his hands and I try to get a handle on my very heavy bags to sidle awkwardly up to make myself counter space.

A man turns to me. They´ve closed the flight.

I don´t even understand the term. Closed? How is a flight closed? Cancelled, yes. Closed, no. What the hell? Did they lose the keys to the cockpit or something?

I give him a funny look, so he tells me the same sentence more slowly. Right, great. He tries again.

There are no more seats.

No more seats? I´m baffled. I hold up my ticket. No, I tell him, I have a seat, it´s okay.

I hand my ticket to the receptionist who asks me if I´ve checked in. It seems like a weird question ... isn´t that what I´m doing right now? I tell her yes, just for good measure.

She accepts this, scans my ticket and then looks at me with her eyebrows raised.

I´m sorry, you can´t board. The flight is closed. There are no seats left.

I´m completely confused. No, this is my ticket. I bought it weeks ago. I. Paid. For. It. My receipt is here ... I flew HERE like this. How is the flight closed?

She pushes me aside and looks for the next customer. Confused, I let her look but don´t move from my spot. My tour guide friend finds me.

They´ve sold too many tickets. It´s not your fault, but you´re too late and they don´t have seats now. You have to be insistent now and talk really, really fast if you want to get on the plane.

Right. Easy for you to say. I take a deep breath.

Excuse me, miss, but you cannot keep me off of this plane. I am boarding. I have to get on. I must be in Lima. It´s urgent. I have a bus waiting for me that I paid 400 soles for and I can´t miss it. My dad is going to be in Buenos Aires and he doesn´t speak Spanish and I have to be there. This is not my fault. I will board this plane.

I´m as intently urgent as I know how.

Another employee asks when my bus leaves.

Tomorrow. A lie. My bus leaves the day after. The immediate smoothness of the lie terrifies me a little. But outwardly, I don´t even flinch. I latch on. My bus leaves tomorrow and I paid a lot of money. I must get to Lima today.

They look at me nervously. I put my baggage on the scale and stare at them.

You will let me on the plane. You have sold a ticket that is mine. This is not my fault. It is robbery. I am flying today.

The tour guide looks at ME nervously now and tries to tell me to calm down. But I am feeling something else too- besides anxiety about the plane. Travelling, you get the sense that everybody is discriminating against you because you´re foreign. I mean, when taxis and shopkeepers try to charge you triple rate, it´s a fair sense. But other times you are so frusterated, you are sure that it is Us and Them no matter what. I was sure suddenly that the moment I walked up to the counter, that lady saw me and decided that a tall, blonde foreigner was not worth the effort.

That is what makes me angry.

I stare at the airline lady. She is intently clicking on the computer now. Good, because being so argumentative has brought me close to tears. As much as I am determined to get on the plane, I will not cry, I tell myself.

I will give you a standby ticket, she says. You will go into the lobby and wait to see if there is any space.

No. I tell her. I am flying. No standby. I point to my baggage on the scale. Put that on the plane.

Another man comes up to fight the same battle I am fighting. He holds out his cell phone with, presumably, somebody on the other end to yell at this woman. Who, in all other circumstances, I would feel deeply sorry for ... but right now I am sure that she is snobby and aloof and if she had a choice, she would keep me off just to spite me.

I impatiently watch her argue on the phone.

I have never been this mad at somebody in public. Ever.

Ten minutes later, after more circular arguing, she produces a ticket. I take it quickly. I have no more than 10 minutes to be boarded now. With the help of my guide friend, I run to pay my taxes, slam through security, and dump my backpack in the ... peaceful long line waiting to board the plane.

Lima

In Lima again.

Lots of thoughts (most of them curly) but things to do ...

Will write soon .............. love love love!

Me.

tidbits and notes

Things I would like to say to you in bullet form ...

My tummy hurts.

Edson, I found out from his mama, lied to me about his age ... hes 17 so THATS why he looks so young! HA! Also, I guess it means that in dragging him to bars with me I have enabled a minor, lol.

My tummy hurts.

Today is my last day in the jungle!

Love,
Me.

Dance Dance!

Ohhhhhhhh dear the dancing in this city wants me to stay forever. People sure can shake their hips here!!!!!!!!!! Cumbia, salsa ... you name it, theyre movin it. Love it love it love it.

Things left unsaid

Today and last night I spent with three other people. One- my trusty friend and roommate, the quiet Ekson. He only speaks Spanish. Two- his cousin, Aldo, who is talkative, outgoing, and a bit of a womanizer. He speaks some English if you talk directly to him and very clearly. He loves to have a few beers and dance. Three- an English (as in England) girl named Laura who volunteers researching with macaws in the jungle (SO cool! ... she and Aldo work together). She speaks almost no Spanish.

Aldo and Laura communicate laboriously in English and poor Ekson, who is so quiet to begin with, is more or less unable to contribute. He and I chat some, but Aldo seems less interested in talking to him (like I said, womanizer). I am the only person in the four of us who more or less fluently speaks both languages.

Its funny ... the dynamic in groups of people when there is no common language. Frequently confusing and frustrating, you feel like there is SO much there that everybody can reach individually but nobody can all together, all at once ... even though you know that a group conversation, if you could have one, would last for hours. Instead, you communicate in bits and phrases- in translated words, glances, gestures, and infectious laughs. If simple card games (as the official rule explainer, I request simple ones) and a few bottles of beer in a cool bar can provide hours of entertainment for people who can hardly hold a group conversation, imagine what it would be if we COULD talk and joke fluently.

Sometimes I feel like because Im the only person who is following all of the conversations, Im the only person who knows exactly, precisely whats missing. I frequently translate between one language and the other anymore- and watch, every time, the other persons brighten up as they understand a subtly, an insightful comment, a goofy joke.

Sometimes I love to be the translator. In the middle of it all. Needed. Because it is so hard for my new friends to talk to each other, they frequently talk to me for a brain break. I love the attention and the conversation but every time I speak one language I feel guilty for leaving somebody out by not speaking the other. Today Laura and I talked for a long time about travelling (I needed a brain break). Because shes going a lot of places Ive already been, she had a long list of questions that took up the entire 45 minute drive back from Infierno (the native community). For 45 minutes we discussed living and travelling in the country of Perú in detail while the Peruvians themselves stared blankly out the car window.

Before now, Ive been doing a lot more of tourist travelling. Most all tours on the Gringo Trail (nickname for the white-people-traffiked Machu Pichu/Cusco etc travel plan) are given in both Spanish and English. Many people in tourist towns are bilingual (or are intently set on becoming so ... sometimes no matter how much better my Spanish is than their English, our conversations continue in English anyway), and most European travellers speak English and also their own language. In Aguas Calientes near Machu, I was talking to a German guy who told me (in English) that he was picking up Spanish as his second language ... when I pointed out that it was clearly his third (his English was very fluid) he responded that learning English was standard and it hardly counted. It has been rare, really, that Ive come across a group dynamic where not everybody speaks at least a decent degree of English.

But here, in Puerto, the tourists all pay hundreds of dollars to flock almost immediately to cush jungle lodges with bi and trilingual natualist guides. The people of the town itself are far less used to tourists lingering for any real length of time (if the language thing wasnt a hint, the stares I get definitely are). In staying with my Puerteño family, this is one of the first times since Ive been here that Ive been truly forced to speak Spanish. Even in Argentina, Ani and her mom (my family there) both spoke some English, so if I got really stuck we could start swapping languages to figure it all out. Mery was the only one who didnt speak much English, but even shed taken classes and knew some.

I think now, with these new friends in this past day and a half- how amazing is it that we all hang out together even though half the time we can barely talk to each other. Where exactly do we meet up in our shared grey area? When we have no real common language or even culture and way of life, we always seem to find something real to laugh about. What exactly, I wonder, are we all doing?

Notes from the Jungle

Yesterday was so hot I thought I was going to dissolve in my own sweat around 2 in the afternoon. I was on the hunt for some tourist information in the morning (the first time Ive ever had to deviate from my trusty LP!) ... I wanted to know the DL on getting to a nearby native community so I jumped on a moto to get across town to the INRENA office (for the national park service). That proved to be a bust and I had to grab another moto to another office which was in such a confusing part of town that the young guy helping me offered to walk me home when he got off (in 15 minutes).

We ended up having lunch and ice cream together. Here, you really have to watch how you invite people out to eat. It is cultural that the inviter pays (wheras for us, this only happens if its a date). I have had a little confusion with this and havent quite sorted out HOW exactly to ask somebody if they want to go out for lunch without implicating that I will pick up the tab. I mean, I dont care if lunch is super-cheap (actually, better that way) I just like having company, you know? But I guess I figure picking up the tab for friends on occasion is the least I can do in a town where everybody has treated me so exceptionally kindly.

Anyhow. I wanted to elaborate a little on taxis. There are two kinds of taxis here. One: motocarro/rickshaw. Two: moto. Motos are ... motorcycle taxis. There are a lot of motorcycles here in general because theyre cheap to buy and fuel up. Its actually pretty weird to see a whole car in the street. You know which motocycles are taxis because they drive around town like mad, honk their horns excessively, and stop if you so much as glance in their direction. Seriously, though, I think they just like to honk.

The driving age here is 14. As far as I can tell, there is no real drive test. Moto drivers wear helmets but the passengers just jump on and hold on. It is really common to see an infant squashed (and often asleep) between the driver and the passenger. I also saw one tough guy zooming through town with his little black dog balancing free on the front of the bike (front paws up near the handlebars). The motos here are so fast and cheap Im frequently tempted to take one just for the joy ride ... theyre about US .30 to get across town.

I should add here that, no, very unfortunately, I cant post a picture of a rickshaw taxi. My camera got stolen along with about $100 US cash on a night bus between Lake Titicaca and Cusco ... I lost about 400 pictures of everything between Lima and Lake Titicaca which I am desperately trying to recover through email by friends I have made throughout the trip. I have been taking pictures here with disposable cameras which, I am sure, will give my photos a terrific jungle flair. I will point and shoot my new professional green paper-covered cameras at a rickshaw taxi for you, Max.

I have to take off ... Im supposed to leave for the native community of Infierno at 11 with friends.

Love,
Me.

I have to pee but ...

... I thought Id leave a post first. This is how much I love you all: a bladderful.

On my new family. Its the same family that I went with to the jungle lodge. The mom, I guess she likes me, invited me while I was staying out at the lodge to her home and family. Theyre hillarious and adorable. Theres a mom, a dad, a grandma, and four kids (one girl whos 16, three boys- 9, 15, 19). The house is cement (mostly ... I think it has one or two wood walls?) ... with a corrugated tin roof and dirt floors and its on one of the main city drags. The roof doesnt match up with the walls perfectly (its supported by wooden planks so theres a couple inches between), but they gave me a mosquito net so I wouldnt get munched in the middle of the night. My bed is as cozy as the hostel bed, but its quieter and I dont worry so much about the people coming and going.

My bedroom is a boys room ... it makes me laugh. The three oldest brothers share a room, and I have the bed of the brother who has gone into the military. Theyre artists, the boys, and they have decorated all of the walls and the door with graffittied names of girls, faces, marijuana leaves, and one lovely lime-green rendition of a hairy penis. When the mom directed me in there, she just kind of laughed and shook her head. Boys. The youngest one just hides any time I get near.

My bedroom-mate is Ekson, who was also my guide in the jungle. Contrary to what you would think given the wall art, hes pretty shy. Hes shorter than me and very round in the face-- I would have guessed he was younger than 19. When I asked about the girls names, he got very embarrassed very quickly ... especially when I pointed to the one above his own bed ...

Last night the mom worried about how dirty I was and wasnt I going to take a shower ... and this morning before I left she worried that I hadnt washed my face ... and when was I going to do my clothes ... and where was I going today ...? Mothers.

Love,
Me.

So you´re going to laugh ...

I got adopted completely.

I´m staying with a Puerteño family now in the same room with their 15 and 19 year-old sons. Their 9 year old son hides from me. I took a shower last night in the kitchen/bathroom/laundryroom in a cement stall with a shower curtain duct-taped up (they had to adjust it higher for me because I´m so tall ... It´s pretty hillarious. I meant to leave a long post, but I´m feeling lazy and I want ice cream, so I´ll do it later.

Love,
Me.

Other notes ...

One more for the bathroom list:

11. If you touch the water knob of an electric shower AND the running water at the same time, it makes a complete circut and you get shocked. Turn the knob, take your hand off, THEN test the water. Repeat as necessary.

Other things that are a priviledge not a right:

12. Free glasses of water at resturants. Actually, really, this is a pipe dream in Peru. In Argentina if you know just how to ask, though, you can accomplish it. Sometimes.

13. Microphones in internet cafes.

14. Microphones that work in internet cafes.

14. Computers that work in internet cafes (I tried out at least 5 computers today before I got to this one).

Some travel-related things that are especially wonderful (because I realized that in being so amused by everything else, I forgot to tell you!!)!!!:

1. Hotels and hostels that let you leave things for days on end for free if you want to take off for a few days without your million pound backpacking backpack. This, wonderfully, has been every hostel Ive been to so far.

2. Coca tea. Because if youre me and caffine doesnt work you should absolutely turn to the origin of cocaine. Works like a cha-cha-charm.

3. The food, Oh-My-God, the food. I have been sick so many times now my stomach is made of iron and I can eat most street food with relatively little fear. Highlights: Lucma ice cream, fried plaintains (banana relative), unusual fruits- LOVE fresh passion fruit, FRESH CHEAP ORANGE/PAPAYA/PASSION/BANANA/ECT JUICE, picarrones (these are like fried sweet potato doughnuts and are AMAZING and I will make them when I get home), cerviche (raw seafood cured in lime juice), the freshly-caught grilled kingfish and trout from lake Titicaca, fried squeaky cheese made by Titicaca islanders, quinoa (its a grain), dulce de leche, corn/cheese/tuna empanadas, breaded eggplant, and apparently there is some kind of bug-grub street food here in Puerto that I will have to try now that Ive decided officially that my vegetarianism does not include bugs. I am an ovo-lacto-pesca-insectatarian.

4. Other travellers. Are. So. Wonderful. Last night I dropped into a pizza place for dinner alone and got adopted by a group of about 20 Americans working on a project to build an orphanage. They wouldnt let me pay for my own dinner. They were SO SO SO sweet!!!! The woman running it invited me to go horseback riding with her to ruins in the jungle ...!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope she was serious because I really really really want to go.

5. Friendly Peruvians. With how friendly Carla is I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN ... theyre especially wonderful here in Puerto with the small-towny feel. I stick out like a sore thumb and everybody Ive met has been so open and truly kind. In three days I have recieved one invitation to dinner and one to lunch, one to coffee and picarrones, one of acompaniment to visit a nearby town (so I would be safer and I wouldnt have to go alone). One elderly man told me repeatedly that I was welcome to stay at his house for the rest of my stay in Puerto. Another guy who took me from ATM to ATM all over town until I could find one that would take my debit card. ... And not to mention all of the people that not only give me directions but personally walk me to wherever Im going so that I dont get lost. Even if its blocks away. They are protective over me when they find out that I am alone.

6. The animals. Are. Everywhere. I was almost too distracted petting the kitty in my lap to eat breakfast this morning. There are chicks (like the baby chicken) everywhere! I went out boating from the port of a nearby mining town yesterday to a jungle town up the river and they had a town parrot that they loaned me to play with while I wandered around. Im going to monkey island today, too, which is exactly what it sounds like.


.... ahhh no more time I have to go to lunch before I meet the woman who will take me to the port to go into the jungle!!!! Im staying at a jungle lake lodge (for $20 US a night!) for three nights (all food included) ...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (BY THE WAY add her to the list of wonderful people ... shes letting me use her husbands name so that I wont have to pay too much to get into the national park!!)!!!!!!!!!!!

Bathrooms: Shitters and Showers

This topic is near and dear to my heart. It is a lengthy subject. There is always something new and unusual to discuss. I have come to learn many things about bathrooms here in South America ... so here is my newest list ...

Ten things you need to know about bathrooms in South America:

1. Toilet seats are a priviledge not a right. Pop a squat, sit in the rim, whatever ... you have to pee so get over it.

2. The same goes for shower curtains.

3. And toilet paper.

4. Also for sinks being securely attached to the wall.

5. Wait ... that toilet FLUSHES??? What ARE you complaining about?????

6. When you dont scoop enough water into the toilet in the middle of the night (using your standard half-a-carton jug from the freestanding bucket full of water in the corner of the outhouse) when there is no light and you have no idea what youre doing ... the toilet does not flush, you do not realize it, and bad things happen.

7. A bare-lightbulb-directly-above-the-shower floorplan makes more sense than moving it over a foot outside of the stall. After all, its more fun to wash your hair thinking youre going to start an electrical fire any moment.

8. Electric "hot" showers mean that the water is not totally freezing (just mostly).

9. Also, dont even think of making any sudden movements in electric showers because if you touch the showerhead, you get shocked.

10. When the shower only has one water knob, you know youre in for it.

Im actually in the jungle now, but ....

Goodbye Cusco, city of endless stairs. Hilliest city in the entire world. One Giant Mountain. Its an official Allison-statistic that Peru has more stairs than any other place on earth. And the thing about stairs is (I dont know if you knew) they go up. And up. And up and up for ever and ever, Amen. And when youre at roughly 12,000 feet altitude it is a law that when you ask for directions to your hotel (when youre tired and aching and carrying everything you own) the helpful stranger will nod and point UP and kindly tell you that no, it never ends.

I have neglected you all sorely over the past few weeks. I always seem to just barely have sat down at a computer when PJ wanders by and prods me because whatever destination we had decided upon next was about to close (or maybe the shopkeeper was about to go out for a 2 hour beer break ... equally likely). If you can believe it of me ... Im a little bit of a space ... and his sense of time (as opposed to my "eventually") is probably half of what kept us together and moving this entire trip.

The night we got back to Cusco from our Machu Pichu hike we had a 10:30 night bus to Lake Titicaca. I have vivid memories of PJ checking my cell phone anxiously as our Machu Pichu tour bus ambled into Cusco at around 10 pm, trying to figure out the best place to have us dropped off so that we could go racing up and down the hills of Cusco in the dark and cold to reach our hotel, grab all of our stuff, make reservations for the 24th, and frantically hail a taxi to the bus station. Fortunately both of us had enough common sense NOT to try to tell the weaving, honking, typically lawless taxi driver to hurry up.

I have no idea how we actually made it.

The bus to Puno (the town next to the lake) is hereafter known as The Coldest Six Hours of My Life. I shivered, shook, huddled next to PJ, and scratched my million bugbites until we got dropped off alone with our bulky backpacks on a deserted street at four in the morning with no idea of where we were. We were saved by a rickshaw taxi.

Rickshaw taxis. Motocarros. These are, quite possibly, my favorite things about South America. Or at least the parts of Peru remote enough to have them. They consist of a motorcycle and a sort of attached buggy (I sort of feel like Im in the big-kid version of a burly cart). Our luggage gets strapped onto a little platform at the back and we crawl into the little bench seat. Hold onto your backpack and purse because the doors have a habit of sliding open while youre racing along ... not to worry, though, sometimes theyre tied closed with a bit of rope.

But back to Puno and our taxi driver rescuer. After negotiating the price (in Peru, there are no meters in taxis, you negotiate everything before you get in) he helpfully drove us to the hostel we had picked out of our Lonely Planet Peru book (also affectionatly referred to as "LP" or "Lonely"). Wherein we negotiated something which seemed to define the whirlwind night-bus-filled second half of our trip. Namely, "Do we have to pay for this night (at 4 am) or can we only pay for tomorrow? (because the bus was SO cold/hot/uncomfortable/loud/rough/smelly that we didnt sleep more than an hour and we really, really, really want to go to bed) ..."

Finally, as per usual, after a small amount of discussion whoever is behind the desk takes pity on us and just gives in and points us to a room. Where aching, dirty, exhausted, thirsty, hungry and itching we set the cell phone alarm to way earlier than were going to get up and fall into bed.

Welcome to Puno.

pictures

Exhaustion.

My legs are so sore ... and my feet have so many blisters that I can hardly walk. My sneakers are Satan in a shoe. I can´t even wear my Rainbows without socks to soften the pain.

I had the most amazing five days of my life.

Have to go get my laundry done. I have never had dirtier clothes in my entire life. Will let the pictures do the talking (will post more later, no time now) and write more later.

Love,

Me.

Late night wackiness and general bathroom destruction ...

Okay, so, while I have 20 minutes to spare, I need to get this down. PJ and I leave Monday for our 5 day trek to Machu Pichu, and while we´ve been waiting, we´ve been walking all over Cusco and testing out every resturant that the guidebook said was supposed to be good (and ducking into a couple random ones full of locals too, of course). So far, I have tried desserts and tea made of coca leaf (you know, like the cocaine plant), passion fruit cheesecake ... and alpaca and guinea pig ... guinea pig tastes like chicken.

We´re staying at a funky inn-hostel place that´s doing a lot of renovations, so we got a sweet price (20 soles a night/person ... which comes out to something like $7 dollars). The charming side effect is banging and loud radio from 8 in the morning until 8 at night. But, hey, beggars can´t be choosers. And we got our own room with a bathroom and two beds ... one featuring a Winnie the Pooh bedspread (much to PJ´s dismay, I left this one to him and took the horse spread-- but, as he said, there was really no winning there for manliness, anyway).

Our first night in town, we were wandering through the main square thinking of going to an internet café when we noticed a line of people coming out of a building and a cluster of unusually-dressed kids. I asked what was going on, and they said that there was a music show for 1 sole. Of course we went in (of course!), stopping at the bake sale table to pick up cookies and cakes made with coca.

The show, it turned out, was an informal (but very entertaining) affair. The first group was a bunch of students performing an ancient 3000 year old altiplano musical style with wind flutes, drums and dancers. This seems to be what kids learn in school here, if they learn music-- not violin or saxaphone or anything like that. I saw a group of uniformed school boys in the plaza dancing something similar the other day too. The highlight of the performance was an 8 year old boy dressed in a complicated black, white, and gold outfit with an enormous feather hat (almost as tall as he was) playing his wind flute, tapping his feet, and shaking his little body like there was no tomorrow.

Yesterday we woke up at 9:00 (or, I woke up at 9:00 and finally hit PJ around 9:30) and went on a wild goose chase looking for a tour company that had moved. We were hoping to skip town and stay with a Quechua family for a night, but by the time we found out where the tour company had moved to, it was all the way across town and we didn´t have time to look into it before check out.

Disconcerted, we walked through town-- up and down the narrow cobbled streets with our little map. The city is REALLY hilly and sometimes the only way up is a narrow flight of stone steps almost straight up. The buildings are cobblestone and plaster, and all of the doors are painted bright colors (usually an intense blue or green). We came across a live concert with local college singers and little girls reading poetry in Quechua.

Finally, we walked back to our hotel to take a pee break and plan our next attack. I crashed on the bed to wait for PJ when all of a sudden an immense CRASH comes from the bathroom. I sit up.

"PJ are you okay?"

-Silence-

Then, without warning, water starts shooting out of every crack in the bathroom door with pressure like a hose with a thumb over it. PJ starts yelling, "GET HELP!!!!!!! GET HELP!!!!!!"

"PJ ARE YOU OKAY???????"

"GET HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The entire sink came OFF OF THE WALL and flooded our entire room.

Welcome to Cusco, Perú.

Love,
Me

PS:
Some pictures ...


Cusco ... view of the hills and the buildings around the Plaza de Armas ...



Me at Qorikancha -- originally a huge Inca mecca, but, when the Spanish came, they converted it into a church (Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco). Now the structure is a museum with a bunch of Inca ruins mixed with 15 and 16th century Spanish architecture and artwork.


PJ five seconds after complaining about how much he hates tourists ... Also check out the shapes in the grass ...!!!

Cusco ...

I´m in Cusco right now in a locotorio ... and honestly ... I´ve run out of brain power to leave a long post. I will write it out by hand and type it up later. Suffice to say that Cusco is amazing and that there´s so much to say I don´t even know where to start.

Love,
Allie

IN PERU

PJ and I are here in Lima, Peru. Lima is way better than I expected ... I was waiting for a dirty, noisy, sprawling city that would make me feel trapped and nervous. And that is exactly what Lima is ... and I LOVE it.

The buildings are every color and style and they run right up against the narrow streets like protective relatives. Little doorways cut into sheets of metal lead down to hidden resturants and bakeries as cars drive by you on a tiled sidewalk. We walked two blocks from our hostel this morning and evetything opened up to a huge plaza with enormous baroque-esque buildings and clusters of middle-school age school children in uniforms moving with their field trips.

Maybe its the air ... which smells like the ocean. Or at least feels like it ... my nose is pretty stuffed up. After the sharp cold of rainy Buenos Aires, the thick, humid marine layer hit us both like a wall as we left the airport at 1 30 am last night (last morning?) to get into a taxi going to a hostel for which we had no reservations at all. But we read it in our Peru book. And they said it had hot water.

The hostel is tall and narrow with wooden staircases and painted walls. Our beds have little wooden frames and bright, striped woven bedspreads. Our shower smells, our pillows are lumpy, and the yellow curtains block almost no light ... and certainly no sound when they start playing music at 8 30 in the morning.

BUT. Hot water.

I LOVE IT.

Love,
Me.

Mendoza my love

After saying goodbye to all of my friends as they take off back to the states or travelling, I have to say goodbye to Mendoza. I´m leaving tomorrow for Perú, and even though I´ll be back in a month or so with Dad, it´s surreal ... knowing that my time truly living here is ending.

It´s been so weird, the goodbyes to my friends in the program. They aren´t real-- all of these people are still here ... there is a huge part of me that´s sure that if I could pick up my cell phone (yes, I finally lost it) and send a text message ... everybody would be in the same place as before. In my brain, I still have music class tomorrow and I´ll see everybody in the "comedor" for lunch at one.

I never knew it was possible to secretly want finals week to last just a little longer.

And I know it´s a little random, but I don´t want to be depressing, so I´m going to honor this moment with a list ... my ideas for it have been in a memo in my gmail for over a month ...

Things Mendoza/Argentina in general do more/better/crazier than the States:

1. [CRAZIER] Driving. Especially backing up. Most of the streets are one-way, so when you take a taxi, if if the driver can´t conveniently turn down your street to drop you off, he will turn the other direction (to face the right way), put the car in reverse and floor it straight back for the whole block. You and your O-shaped mouth will arrive at your doorstep in record time.

2. [MORE] Eating crackers. This was confusing for me at first. I didn´t know it was possible to have a cultural habit built around crackers. My family eats them by the package with every meal, with their tea, and any time in the middle of the day. Putting the crackers on the table for dinner is as normal as setting out forks and knives.

The first day I got here, when I had gone without sleep for almost two days, I stumbled into my host family´s house disoriented and practically incoherent. They offered me crackers, and I was slightly puzzled, but so grateful to sit down and not think too hard, I accepted. Ten crackers into our cultural differences, they were bewildered when I asked for a glass of milk. Milk on it´s own? Plain? Without coffee? Are you sure you don´t want it with chocolate? What about heated up? You really want a whole glass? Cold?

3. [MORE/BETTER] Staying up later. Argentina is ahead of the States by four hours literally ... and by four hours culturally ... which makes it weird, because if I were talking to a friend in CA, we´re four hours apart on the clock but doing the same things at the same time.

When I´m talking to people from the states around 10 pm my time and 6 pm theirs, both of us are about to take off to dinner. Normal time to leave to go out here is 2 am, so if I were to talk to somebody in Davis it would be 10 and they would be getting ready to go too. In Davis, 2 am is when I´m ditching the party to go home and crash, and here I got in at 6 this morning from bar hopping. Four hours. It´s trippy.

4. [MORE] Exercise. Forget blacks, whites, asians, hispanics-- they don´t have any of that here. Argentinians are prejudiced against fat people. The anorexia rate here is flat-out staggering. (So, is, I should add, the percentage of psychatrists. The number of shrinks here is second only to the states.)

5. [SO MUCH MORE] 80´s pop. Especially bad 80´s pop. When we were in the Andesmar bus going to the Chile border in Patagonia, the CD of BAD 80´s POP got stuck on the same song for almost a half hour while everybody in charge was inside trying to figure out our visas. If ever there was a time that I wanted to kill myself ...

6. [CRAZIER] The busses. Because God-forbid there be a bus schedule. The official bus schedule of Mendoza is "get there early and hope you catch it". Because if there´s a strike, you´re walking. If it´s too full, it won´t stop. If you happen to glance the other way and don´t have time to throw yourself into its path and MAKE it stop, it powers by. And if you DO manage to stop it, jump on fast because half the time it takes off again before you´ve got that second foot down all the way.

When I think of the bus system here, my head is full of images of little old men standing (literally) in the middle of the road to stop their bus. They´re so old, they don´t care if they live or die ... just as long as they make it to wherever they´re going.

Not to mention the fact that the drivers decorate them. And that they occasionally decide to race.

Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Patagonia

This is the foozball table in the hostel we stayed at in Buenos Aires. The hostel was a converted house-like place that was very tall, narrow, and ... somehow attempting to be ... Victorian style with palm tree motif shower curtains. Downstairs there was a living room with a TV, a couch, and this illustrious piece of furniture. There was also a room with a pool table, a bar, and a balcony. The staircase to get to our rooms slanted so much, I felt like I was in a Dali painting (you know those paintings with the melting clocks ...?) ... and the bathrooms were of ... dubious quality.

If I could tell you one life lesson I learned from Buenos Aires it would be:
ALL McDonads smell exactly the same.

This is the Mendoza Mall children´s play area.
If you don´t get it, ask someone.

Putting on make-up before going out. This is the same Buenos Aires hostel. I loved that all of the comforters were orange.

FÚTBOL!!! This had to have been taken WAY before the game started because we´re all sitting down. Right now, we are watching the Boca fans throw rolls of toilet paper onto the Racing side and complaining about how we all need ice cream.

This is Patagonia, actually. It´s a little long-lost. We hiked up to the snow, but my camera died. I had my friend use his to take a picture of me ... but instead it appears I got attacked ...

Fútbol Loca

Okay, so I have to be honest. To me, this looks like one of those pictures that you see on the covers of those volunteer-to-help-the-children leaflets. Look at me, being adorably mobbed by half a dozen pint-sized Argentine devils. I am helping out. I am playing with the children. Aren´t they just SO precious?

But this, my friends, is an Argentine soccer game. All of those people that you see in the background, plus about 20 more that you do not see (they are probably beehiving to one corner), are frantically attempting to (not) murder each other for the sake of the most important game in the history of all humanity: el fútbol.

There are at least 30 people in the scene by this point, but it did not begin this way. Oh, no. Our story began, ladies and gentlemen, with nine US citizens, an empty patch of scratchy grass on the side of the road, and one magical object made of wonder, light and sprinkles-- which hereafter I refer to as the "Soccer Ball".

--- --- ---

So we begin, my friends and I, our informal game. We use our backpacks to mark goalposts, we kick things around, argue a little, try to avoid the trees and power lines, then number off. Immediately we have to re-arrange because some of us have genuinely never put a foot to a ball in our lives. We´re oddly-numbered. We really don´t care. We begin.

I spend most of the first ten minutes trying to remember which blonde faces are on my team, so it is some time before I realize that we have spectators. A man and a woman are stopped in the sidewalk intently watching our rather lawless game. The man steps forward, reflexively, to join. We accept, grinning, I mean, now our teams are even. The woman finds a tree and settles down to watch. The dude is good. Our game moves a little faster.

Fifteen minutes later, three teenage boys are frozen in place. They join us immediately. Now numbers on the teams don´t really matter--all that really matters is that everybody has an even number of Argentines. The game starts to fly. We race, tumble, scream, drop kick balls into power lines and forget all boundries. There are barely any rules because nobody wants to stop the game long enough to figure them out.

Overshot balls go hurtling towards the street and we go barreling after them. Whoever gets there first smacks the ball in whichever direction he or she damn well pleases. We play until our sides burn and we keep playing long past the time that our legs have begun to tremble.

When our Argentine friends have to leave, I feel confused as if something has interrupted the turning of the earth. I feel as if I had been drugged and now I am slowly settling back to the normal world.

We slow down. Shake ourselves off. Prepare to begin another game.

Before we can start, the local P.E. teacher (who went to Patagonia with our group and knows us) shows up on the field with about 20 kids between the ages of 7 and 16. Who knows what they were originally planning to do, but they see our soccer ball and our professionally constructed backpack goalposts, and suddenly it doesn´t matter.

Will we scrimage?

Which leads me, finally, to my picture.

--- --- ---

I went to a Boca Junior game in Buenos Aires this weekend. While spending two hours jumping up and down and screaming myself hoarse in an endless sea of blue and gold fans, I watched as dozens of people hurled rolls of toilet paper onto the opposing team´s goalie from hundreds of feet up in the stadium. We had no seats, no organization. We cried chants that we could barely understand from rows and rows of concrete benches.

I tried to go shopping in my newly bought jersey. The theme was not what I was going to buy, or how to impress me so that I would buy wares. It was whether or not they liked my team or not.

They can´t help themselves, these Argentines. It´s really not their fault. They see a Soccer Ball and are mystically drawn to it like my brothers to frozen Costco taquitos. It calls to them, work, school, relationships be damned. As they say here, born with a ball.

Pinche Micro

Before you run around saying it, Mom, "pinche" means "fucking" ... "micro" means "bus" (so you can say that one) ...



Am I really taking a 3 day bus to Perú? I know I´m really taking an all-night bus to Buenos Aires this Thursday. Does anybody else take double dizzy-pills like I do? I mean, I barely even look at the box. I just take two ... or three ... or, you know, the whole package plus a couple perscription sleeping pills and a bottle of red wine (well, really I just sniff the wine). Then I plug myself into my iPod, close my eyes ... and pray.

Another Blast of Poetry

I celebrate me and my curly hair
My cackle-like giggle and my childlike air
My lazy manner and smirking humanity
The truth of it is: I harbor some vanity
What you think of me matters - I won´t deny
I love to be loved-- I really can´t lie
No, really, I can´t, so ask for the truth
You´ll get it -softened- because I´m a goof
So when you see me, please give me a hug
(Plus a whiff of your vodka - then I´m your bud)


Love,
Me.

Daysleeper

Slick red walls and open bottles,
close your eyes--and you can hear it.
The beer, the faces, the street,
are all swirling pitch till 6:00 am.

Glisten like a penny. Be tall (be obvious),
Move awkwardly. Your shoulders are-
gawky wings.
Let the language drain into your ears,
until it saturates your brain.
Drip dripping down your spine like
an unearthly drug.

Try to fit in.

Curl up in the back of the car--
while Ani drives a barren world.
Dry scrub and white adobe-
Here even the buildings
look like foreigners to their own land.

The club is:
dark-haired crowds
jostling outside a building
screeches and burbles and smoke
high heels and purple
ragged jackets, flashing eyes
and me.

Next time I´ll really write something, I swear.

After an intense practically straight-up hike of 3,000 feet.

My snow woman, "Jugs" representing the rights of big-boobed women.

My ride.

The mountains reflected in an iced-over lake.

A few pictures (for the people who don´t have facebook)

This sign was in a café in Bariloche, Patagonia as decoration ...

The trail.

Peace.

English.

Okay, I can´t stand it anymore. I have to tell you: I miss my language. We don´t think about it, we don´t realize it, but we have a sound, us Californians. Us chill SoCalers who take the five to Wahoo´s to have tacos and, you know, stick a skater sticker on the back of the toilet.

I thought that I would leave my language behind when I came to Argentina. My plan was: forget English. Learn Spanish. Become Argentinian (never leave). So I buried my language and decided that it was gone.

That plan lasted maybe 4 days. Then I was aching to speak English. I felt a weird emptiness that made me want to retreat to my bedroom away from the rolling burbles of Argentine Spanish. A dialect that, really, puts so many "j" sounds into everything, they might as well admit that they´re Spanish bastards of French parents and just move on.

I don´t think I ever valued the ability to express myself before. Forget any talent, just ability. When you have a great joke to say, when you´re gonna pee your pants just thinking about how funny you are, having to spend 10 minutes explaining your slang can be almost physically painful. And I make up so many slang words of my own that are, occasionally, a far cry from common slang to begin with ...

I don´t even have a "normal" English accent here, because everybody in Latin America is taught British English, not American English. They all pronouce their t´s with proper puffs and painstakingly remember the h´s in where and there. Their English sounds like England, France and Spain had one hell of a love child. (Possibly named Fabio.)

I, on the other hand, lazily slice off the end of every other word. My t´s, they have marvelled, come out as d´s, n´s, and u´s ... if they survive to make any sound at all. "Economy of sound" one Mendocino English student painstakingly pronounced to me. I miss my economy of sound.

Besos, Cuidate

By far the best part of being a "Level 3" student is translating for the Level 1 and 2 students when their new Latin lovers text them.

Fín.

In the Taxi

I appear to have developed a certain problem concerning the, uh, public, uh, propriety of my English. If I can just pretend, that if I talk ... just fast enough ... nobody else will know what I´m saying ever ... I could say ANYTHING. Anything at all. Uh, not that I would, but, uh, I could.

I would like to inform you, though, that I am rapidly not spinning into the dark abyss of, say, heathen-who-talks-about-her-thong-sensations-in-public. (... But if I call it a "cracker", nobody knows, right? ... ... Right?)

Picture Theft and Argentine Drag

Tiles at "Plaza España" (shipped over from Spain especially because apparently them Spaniards want some Mendocino glory too) ...
PS: I "borrowed" this picture.

I´ve been busy facebook stalking this morning, and "borrowing" pictures, so I decided that, because I CANNOT SLEEP IN EVER EVEN IF I GOT IN AT 5 AM, I would very calmly and cordially update this blog. For you, Max. For you.

I went out last night to a tango show, then to dinner, then to a club, then to a, uh, "Mr. Dog" around 4:30 in the morning.

At the tango show, they passed out free wine to whoever wanted some (...WHY can´t they do that in the States?? WHY???)

Dinner afterward was $60 total for 8 people to either eat WELL, split a bottle of wine, or both. It should be noted here that I DID NOT (ahem) drink half a bottle of red wine and then proceed to go around giggling like a maniacal troll.

The club we were directed to by our darling (gay) Mendocino friend "Facku" ... which is the kind of name that you just want to SHOUT ... was called "Queen". Wherein I danced with a lot of boys in tight shirts that were surruptitiously looking at my guy friends over my shoulder, and convinced the Mendocino (wearing a wedding ring?) at the counter to order me something (anything) with vodka because the barista was actively ignorning my little blue eyes and gringa face.

I recieved a cup of vodka and an energy drink called "Speed" ... and I can´t seem to decide if it´s worse or better than the energy drink called "Cocaine". The vodka was SO harsh on my little princess Costco-Grey-Goose tongue, that I almost spat out the mixture and had to give half to my darling Facku. Who took it, drank it without batting an eye, and then shook his head sadly at me.

The drag show was indescribable. Suffice to say that a 6 foot tall blonde queen wearing nothing but fishnets from the waist down immitated Marilyn Manson by dancing, lip synching, and cutting up a Barbie.

Figuring Pictures out ... with food.

Quince ¨Bread¨

1 kilo quince
1 kilo sugar
Molds or something of the like. Pretend you´re making small loaves of bread. Plastic is OK.

Make quince paste:

Buy a bunch of quince. Wash, peel, quarter, and core. Save skins and cores to one side (for jelly).

Boil peeled quince in water like you would potatoes until it´s soft enough to mash. It should be turning a golden brown color.

Mash quince into mashed-potato consistency. Dump into saucepan and heat with a little less than an equivalent amount of white sugar.

Heat and stir with a long wooden spoon (it gets kinda bubbly and hot) until the mixture is a jelly-like consistancy and starts pulling away from the sides of the pan. When you drag the spoon from the edge of the pot to the center, it should take the quince paste some time to fill in the space. Make sure not to do huge batches of this all at once. Fill half of a medium-sized saucepan. If you do too much, the quince is too dark.

Wet the molds. Fill each with paste until it is level with the top of the mold. If you´ve got extrys, you might have to improvise a few little molds. Let cool.

After 6 hours or so, flip the molds upside-down on a plate. Sprinkle sugar on top. It should be clearish golden with a jelly-like consistency. It´s good now, but really you should let it dry for a few days.

Tasty with nuts and cheese.

Pankekes or however they actually spell it ...

3 eggs

Roughly 1 cup flour

Milk until it´s fairly runny

Cook like a pancake, but not too big. Should be relatively thin, dense, and eggy. Put dulce de leche on top. Forget the maple syrup. Eat rolled up and at will.

Also, find a cute gaucho to kiss.

Love,
Me

Patagonia

I don´t need to tell you how gorgeous Patagonia was, because I´m sending pictures. I really, really had a blast. Patagonia is about 20 hours south driving of where I am in Mendoza. Another 5 or 10 hours and we would have been at the glaciers at the tip of South America. I REALLY wanted to go see the glaciers, but those are for another trip, I think. We went hiking almost every day, and everybody stayed in the same building with 2 or 3 people per room. We all shared walls and the walls were REALLY thin, so there was a lot of ... bonding going on. You could hear toilets flushing two rooms down, not to mention everybody´s alarm clock and conversation.

The view from my bedroom window was spectacular-- I could see the lake and the snow-capped Andes. A few of the nights, the ground frosted over and in the morning everything was white and still. I was doing classwork too, because my professor came with us, but it was only for an hour or two a day, and the rest of the time I was hiking or horseback riding, or in town ... or at a club dancing. My whole body aches from hiking mountains, playing volleyball and dancing until 4:30 am in smoke-filled clubs. I slept the whole drive back and barely made it two hours awake at home in Mendoza before I fell into another 3 hour siesta. All of my clothes are wet and smell like me, mountain, and cigarette.

On one hike, we went to (basically) the border of Chile to the "Selva Fría" or "Cold Rainforest". There were lories (like those colorful birds they have at the San Diego Zoo with the exibit where you can go in with cup of nectar), and bright red and yellow mushrooms in between the ferns. Not to mention funky red waxy fungi growing from the trees, bright purple hanging flowers, and cows. There are cows everywhere here. Between the constant sprinkle of rain, hiking into the hollows behind waterfalls, and the waist-deep rivers I crossed clinging to a rope, I got completely drenched.

Well, we were so close to Chile on that hike that we had to go through customs. On the way there, nobody had to get out of the bus, but on the way back, everybody had to get off and present their faces with their passports. Well, I had been so drenched getting back on the bus, I had decided that I wasn´t going to sit for two hours in soaked jeans ... so I took them off and covered my legs (and crotch) with my ski jacket ... so you can imagine my face when they stopped the bus 20 minutes later and told us all that we had to get off and go into the customs building. My jeans were in a muddy dripping pile at my feet. And I was naked except for underwear from the waist down. Imagine me, with two tiny rag-towels (borrowed from friends) clutched together around my bum and front, standing in the Argentina customs line soaked and barefoot with my passport between my teeth (because I needed two hands to hold the little towels up). You should have seen their faces. They´ll think twice before they kick me off the bus again.

Love,
Me

PS: The upside is that I got my passport stamped again, so my tourist visa has been re-extended and I have another whole 90 days in Argentina. Yes!

Security for Flying Elephants

The doors here mean business. They´re big, heavy, solid things that probably don´t even love puppies. The door to this house is inches thick. I think it might be some kind of re-inforced metal in the middle. It swings real smooth, though, clearly there is WD 40 down here.

And I have never seen more decorative iron in my life. No house or shop goes without swirly iron bars. I guess it´s the catty way of saying keep the fuck out. At night, to go into the minimart, they have to unlock the metal bar doors to let you in. But the doors are broken and not actually attached to anything, so it´s really pretty funny to watch the dude lift the whole door away to let you in, and then fuss with it to wedge it back into its little crevice.

I live on the second floor above a 15 foot flat wall, and even my littlest window is covered in ¨decorations¨ that also conveniently keep even the most daring flying elephant safely on the other side.

Not to mention our house laser security system that I´m SURE I´m going to drunkenly screw up at 4:00 am sometime within the next week. The police are going to show up and I´m going to be frantically pressing buttons and begging to know why there is suddenly three of every number on the keypad.

The first few days my sister walked the town with me to teach me how to exchange money. Carefully. Like the Argentine that I´m not.

... It should be noted that obviously she wasn´t teaching me how to find my way back from the center of town. Never fear, I still have absoultely no idea where I´m going ever. Not that it´s her fault. I mean, seriously, when Chuck Norris is confronted with my sense of direction, he can´t even roundhouse kick it.

PS: I love maps.