The day I traveled through Chile, Argentina, Uruguay

19:00 Mendoza-->BA 

In the Mendoza airport. So have been ready for this moment for awhile now. Chile's nice but I'm ready to be back in my querida Buenos Aires. What remains left of this day is my dirty feet from walking around al day trying to kill time, some thoughts about the Swedes I met in the creepy hostel, and a thirst that I'm too stubborn to relinquish because I know LAN airlines is always pretty generous about their drink servings. I'm wearing my Parque Nacional Iguazu t-shirt and I wonder if people who keep looking at me think that I'm argentine or totalmente extranjera because of it. At least I'm out of Chile now. I've had enough of those piropos from street doors and corners. I passed through the Andes mountains this morning, criss-crossing through the staggering teeth of the highest peaks, mostly dry with the snow from last winter retreated, but with some bits of snow that stayed signaling the highest altitudes. 

I spent a lot of time today thinking to myself but not yet have I allowed myself to think about the inevitable last taxi ride to the International Airport. Tomorrow I have to pack my things. I have to fit everything in my suitcase. I have to look at my return itinerary back to the states. I have to tell my parents what time to come get me from the airport. 

22:00 --> Uruguay 

Well, I'm effecively on the tarmac here in Uruguay. There was a lightning storm and lots of turbulence, and after trying to land a few times in Buenos Aires (much to my horror), the pilot decided to cross the Rio de la Plata. I can't really tell Vicki or Bev or Lucia to wait for me because I don't have internet connection nor do I know anyone's cell phone numbers. Typical. 

23:00 It's funny that I should be here right now, stuck on this plane, stalled. Me-the only foreigner, full with a bunch of rather rowdy argentines. It's almost midnight, making this return flight back to BA a 6-hour flight instead of a 1.5 hour trip. At least maybe they could let us get off the plane now.

10:45 pm. BA-->Dallas. It's really crazy. Buenos Aires is like that, all spread out underneath us, every light in the city lit up, the perfect deceptive grids of streets. It's hard to believe now I'm on my way back.

"what could an underdog shape be?"

IT'S DECEMBER 1st. It can't be. Seriously how did this happen I won't allow it. I know my blog has been reduced to a series of one-liners but really, seriously, I can't leave. I'm getting ready to travel and I'm travelling with a really lovely friend of mine which obviously I'm very excited about but also I know that when you travel, time really speeds up because you're having such a lovely time and so I really don't want for the time to pass that quickly. I'd like it to just stop now but also somehow continue going so I can keep on living here and living out all the things I've been doing here and meeting all the people I've been meeting here and finally I really feel like I get it here and so PLEASE, if you would, for the first time I've ever said this, DECEMBER, back off.


I'm listening to this song right now. I've always thought of Grizzly Bear as more of a winter band, which is why I usually listen to them this time of year. But now it's actually summer. So that's strange.

<<now listening>>


there are so many things about tonight this week that I don't want to forget 

...currently working out a scheme to stay here indefinitely...

it's a love/hate relationship

everyone seems to have a mixed opinion about the wachitorros. either way, they are taking over capital federal

on the causeway

it's almost beach weather. good thing too, it's been too long. three months, I mean.

EDIT: Recently got back from Mar Del Plata with Vickie. Can't keep me away for too long. 

I just really want to start a Camera Obscura cover band.

this is a good way to meet

Iruya

Gauchos

On the road

Not very recently, I took a trip to northern Argentina and visited the cities of Salta, Perico, Tilcara, and Jujuy. My friends and I knew we wanted to check out the northeast to see some mountains and also try to get a bit off the touristy path by going to the Festival del Virgen del Rosario in Iruya. And so, after missing my plane flight out of Buenos Aires and rescheduling a new one for the next morning, we found ourselves at a peña-folklorico one night and almost to the border of Bolivia the next. Also, for the first time in my life, I experienced what it's like traveling on my own; slipping into salteño cafes, asking taxi drivers where to buy a good empanada, and inevitably sharing a room in a hostel with a few guys from Portugal and a girl who I only saw when she was sleeping. At first, I felt pretty tense trying to get around, after being robbed just before leaving in BsAs (this really was not my week) and hearing that in general, traveling solo/sola as a female in South America is something to think twice about. But of course, I was alright. I decided it's probably safer anyway to look like I knew what I was doing instead of looking afraid and suspicious, clinging to my LeSportSac weekender bag between bus rides. 

One thing I started thinking a lot about in the north, now really having to put my Castellano to the test, was all the little phrases and words that don't really translate at all from English to Spanish or vice versa. Whenever I find a word that expresses something in Spanish but not in english, I usually think it's just funny, unneeded, or actually really useful. One word/phrase I heard a lot up there was the use of the verb aprovechar which means in English, "to make the most of." So succinct. APROVECHÁ, I say. Make the most of it. Take advantage of it while you can. It would seem that, yea, English/Spanish - the translation's not that different; "we have a way of saying that too." But really, the use of the verb aprovechar carries a certain weight to it that doesn't hold the same way in English and depends much more on context. For example, walking up the steep, oxygen-deprived hills of Iruya to our hostel room, I told the host how we'd traveled a long way for a long time but were happy to be there finally. "Sí, bueno, hay que aprovechar el día." Later, hiking with my own personal llama by my side, I was explaining how I didn't have much time left in Argentina and my friend told me, "Aprovechalo." Even my host mom, who, granted, isn't the most friendly Porteña I've met, and is actually pretty gruff, still manages to nudge me and let me know I've got to aprovechalo when it looks like I'm thinking of sitting out another night in the boliche. In vidrieras when something is on sale, you'll see a sign reading: "APROVECHÁ ahora!" Don't let this deal pass up, because obviously the price on this toaster oven is too good to pass up at this moment. When someone tells me this, especially coming from a stranger, it's a sort of blessing. It's like you and them are quietly acknowledging the fact that some things can't be repeated. They only happen once. Moments happen once, and while they last you've got to make the most of it.

I like this verb because it captures to me, what is Argentina, cómo es la Argentina. What I've been trying to convey all this time about Buenos Aires. A city that seems to live from moment to moment, reflected in its  uncontested nightlife - the fact that no one seems to see sleep as a priority, a city that drinks more coffee, smokes more cigarrettes, and takes in more sugar than I can keep up with, but for who time slows down just enough to relax during for three-hour lunch breaks, meriendas, or make-out sessions in the park. Argentina to me is a city on stilts; it's jarringly beautiful at the same time that it has its problems and dysfunctional aspects but it's this idea of aprovechandolo that holds it all up.

Also, as an update on the Spanish progress: after coming back, I felt incredibly more confident in speaking Spanish. I think before I could speak fine, but I now feel like I actually have command of the language or some hard-earned right to speak it. The best part was when I was stayed with Nati in Perico and met some of her good friends. At some point in the night, I realized that I'd completely forgot I was speaking spanish with them. I wasn't struggling with how to say something or trying to find the right words; I was already saying them.