The Best Day of My Life

About a week ago, I considered how ludicrous some of the comments I say to myself are when I converse alone. This was triggered by the series finale of Scrubs, a show that adhered itself to the hearts of my roommates and I of late. We finished it last Thursday, and I laid awake after we turned off the DVD just staring at the ceiling, watching my future play on a video screen before my eyes, feeling as if I had just seen an old friend off forever, just said farewell to embark on a brand new stage of life from which I would not be coming back. I was, needless to say, in a very melancholy, reminiscent mood (I use any excuse I can to get into these) as I drove alone to San Antonio, and I thought, Scrubs is the perfect show. The perfect show. Immediately after I realized how ridiculous that sounded. So simple, so easily declared. I talked to a friend of mine about how we make ungrounded, impossible-to-back-up claims like that, and proceeded to tell her things like "Texas is the best" all weekend.

Despite saying that, I come to you now with a claim that I know with absolute certainty is the truth: I just experienced the best concert of my life. Blink-182 came through The Woodlands, Texas tonight on their reunion tour after breaking up about six years ago. To give you the background, they are not the first band that really turned me on to music (that was MxPx) nor the first band I could credit with changing the direction of my music taste (that would be Relient K or Switchfoot) but rather the band whom I found shining and profound among all the other good bands I liked, like a pearl buried in a pile of pretty shells. This band was irreverent, immature, rebellious, rippling with angst, and imbued with all the energy of being a teenager. The last two CD's they released before disbanding defined a period of my life. Every single song I could sing along with, and they were the first CD's I bought that were incredible in their wholeness, for each song, rather than for a few standout tracks. I stopped listening to Blink in high school and only pulled them out of the closet again once I went into my first year of college, and the magic of being young returned and was made stronger by the curious fact that the music was still good. Then, a year and a half later, came the unbelievable news that this Super Band was un-disbanding, was in fact re-banding, and coming near our town in the fall, and we bought tickets and reassured ourselves it was actually going to happen. This concert came at a time when my college career had begun its downturn and was barreling towards a precipice called Real Life under which sits a pit called Responsibility. Tonight, we stopped the train, and sang together as one gigantic crowd.

Most of our conversation during the show consisted of us saying things like "DUUUDDE!!!" and "YEEEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!" and "AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!" with gestures that involved holding our hands palms up with the fingers curled like some kind of Emperor impersonation while screaming our joy towards the cloudy night sky. Every single song, every note, brought back the past eight and a half years. My friend and I screamed every word aloud, hurling the lyrics up in little packages filled with all the stored-up passion and anger I never expressed due to my lack of a rebellious stage, coupled with all the affinity these words had become gilded with over the years. It was like we knew there wasn't anything holding us back, like there wasn't a tomorrow (as cheesy as that sounds, it was true); we were watching a resurrected band. Their humor was dirty. The crowd was pungent, smelling thickly of plant smoke. The lawn was less of a lawn and more a gigantic pit of mud. I had never before felt such a feeling of I-CAN'T-FREAKING-BELIEVE-I-AM-HERE-AAAGGGHHH!!! The place was packed with people, hands raised and rocking out, from stage to farthest back corner. I said goodbye to expectations for graduation, for my wedding day, apologizing to the future wifey. I knew with a sinking and elated feeling that no day would ever beat this one. And what do you do on your last night left worth living? You SING! And we DID!

Leaving was surreal, and getting off 105 onto Highway 6 we joined a close-knit caravan of six cars traveling together through the night, united in our common love for the band that represented our past.

My roommate and I have been shooting knowing glances back and forth. Best Night Ever, we say. That was the Perfect Show, we say. And I know it is true.

What's Going On (Junior Year: Begin)

As a writer, albeit an unsure, indecisive, rusty, and uncommitted one, I am finding that sometimes, I must force myself to write, must scrape a topic from the scoured interior of my brain, must encounter that ever-dreaded Writer’s Block against which all must stumble, and other times, the topics and the themes just come to me, all wrapped up nice and pretty like a Welcome Home! present from life, something like a pie or a free coupon for a pizza. This is the preferable situation to write in, more enjoyable for the reader and the writer both (which is great for me because for most things I write that will be just me). As you might guess, life throws quite a few prime situations when beginning one’s junior year of college. I’ll give you a quick run through – try not to get lost in the technical jargon.

1) A Ticket for Exceeding the Speed Limit in Unjust Little Town

2) Watching so much TV and playing so many video games that my roommates and I actually consider Wii Tennis exercise

3) A Ticket for Parking Without A Permit for a School Event Honoring Our Fallen Aggies

4) Inventing a Game Called Head-Butt Each Other

5) Making a Table By Hand With Afore-Mentioned Genius Roommates

And you can catch the drift. Accompany me, if you would, on my rant explaining, detailing ,and dismantling the case against me for Speeding in Bremond, TX.

Bremond sucks.

Admittedly, that answer is quite immature and unfair. Instead of spending my valuable time watching hours straight of Scrubs or practicing my (virtual) golf swing, I now have the privilege of taking the online Defensive Driving course for a total of 300 minutes. But it’s a good experience. It’s sort of like finally getting a cavity; I’ve been clean my whole life, and now all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I have this blight. And I say what everyone else always says – I’m a great driver! And I am, I just got caught being a really good driver. An Eleven Over level driver, to be exact. I never speed more than five over. It wasn’t even a good ticket, for something outrageously unlawful like going through a drive-thru backwards or robbing a bank, or a really bad ticket, for something outrageously meticulous, like stopping an inch over the turn-lane line. I just got caught in a speed trap in a revenue-hungry little Texas town. The injustice!

Now, in reference to point 2, it would be unfair to say that we are just spending our time in the apartment. We have gone to class (at least the majority of classes, three days is an ample amount of time to maybe accidentally let one or five slip) and we have (gasp!) been to the Rec to exercise (this might be a life record) four times in a week and a half. I consider this to be valid credit for a lifetime of New Year’s Resolutions. However, we have also instituted a Candy Bowl Policy in our apartment which basically states, when stripped of all the legislative jargon, that we must have a Candy Bowl furnished with candy such as Skittles or Starbursts or M&M’s at all times, open to easy access on the countertop. The constituents are very pleased.

Yes, I did also get ANOTHER ticket for parking without a permit on an A&M lot. I went to highly attended campus wide Bible Study followed by a ceremony honoring all Aggies fallen in the month prior, or in this case, the summer prior to the memorial service. Thousands of us stand in one of our plazas, uncomfortable, sweating, but together, completely silent, to show our support for the members of our family we might have never met or even seen, who we will never have the chance to meet or see again. It is one of the most beautiful traditions we have here at A&M and it was the event that I attended as a freshman that made me begin to feel the spirit running under the campus and through all those who counted themselves as members of the community. It showed that we loved our own enough to come together for a time of silence to honor their passing, to say and to show that they were important enough to be missed, and that they leave not unknown. I love being a part of this family and I have the deepest respect for the University.

How I feel about the pettiness of the Texas A&M Transportation Services is a different story.

Regarding number four, we do play a game where the object is to headbutt the fatty area of the chest just under the collarbone next to the shoulder. There’s pretty much nothing I can say to make that seem any more intelligent than it actually is so I’ll go ahead and leave it at that.

This same group of headbutting roommates are also now the proud owner of a table we made completely by ourselves, consisting of a narrow door for a table top, support beams, thick ex-fence post legs, and feet bases, soon to be painted with our beloved Texas flag. Before you even think to yourself if a table can get any better, I’ll confidently declare No, it cannot.

That is the latest update of What’s Going On. I’ll leave you on the edge of your seat with a (just what you were dreading!) TO BE CONTINUED!

A Reflective Start to the Year

Classes have started in College Station and since arriving in Texas from Orlando I have done my best to avoid anything resembling responsibility or the acknowledgment of its necessary hold on me. I have not written, because doing so signifies the end of each day, breaks up the flow of time, gives it a start and a finish, and I did not want that, and still do not. I have a passive dislike for my cell and Facebook and even email. I was home for a week and change, and it was the best visit home I have had. I think this was for the sole reason that I did now know when I would leave, and had no organized schedule, and was still sufficiently worry-free after seven months of Latin American culture and a Bob Marley fixation that I did not overload myself with things to do or people to say hi to or ridiculous plans. I let the flow simply do so and it let me spend more time with my siblings and parents than it has ever previously allowed. Then the day to leave came, and I left. I loved my time with my family but I can’t say I wasn’t ready to get to College Station, where my crew of old friends and a new apartment awaited me (along with classes chock full of potential lady interests). The only developments of note were a ticket given me by a dandy police officer in Bremond and a subsequent week spent catching up with the inner circle and unhealthy but nonetheless impressive amounts of Wii Golf and Scrubs. We equipped the apartment and classes came as the twilight period before their commencement whispered away without much fuss. I say without much fuss purely in the detached observational sense; we of course gave the mandatory complaints about the end of summer and anyone (particularly of the female persuasion) who happened into our apartment would surely give a great deal of fuss at the decorations with which we have so embellished it.

To some extent I feel that this leg of life hasn’t started yet. I couldn’t tell you why. These last few days have been a pleasing mush of catching up with old friends and syllabi-day classes, and my thoughts have had no centering relationship, no anchor. But I have learned scattered lessons, like learning to be okay with letting a best friend go. Or, learning to accept the fact that though I am doing nothing, accomplishing nothing, crossing nothing off my to-do list, that might not be bad per se, but rather a little piece of the simple life I have previously enjoyed, and believe exists, somewhere deep down.

I talked to a few of my close friends, members of the Crew, and they feel similarly, like this semester in particular just hasn’t had that distinctive cut off, the cut and dry ending of summer and beginning of classes, of college life. My roommates and I have had fun, and I’ve been able to see a lot of old friends, but it’s different this time. After a few days, I’d have to say I start it not somber, not melancholy, but a gray tinge of reflective. There have been a few bright spots; today I got to help a freshman find a library, and we’ve had a few of those Wow, remember when we first… talks. This whole transition thing just means stuff is changing, and I don’t doubt that something great and even profound might await.

Belated End of Guatemala Entry

As the concluding bookend of my trip to Guatemala, I flew to Orlando to visit my best friend from high school. He was busy with classes but we had great fun when he was home, eating eggs and chicken and cookies and cream milkshakes fortified with actual Oreos. When he was gone I passed the time falling back in love with Arrested Development online. Our hangout finale was the midnight showing of District 9, this sci-fi movie that we had gotten ourselves all pumped up for, and it did not disappoint. We arrived an hour early to a crowd whose overheard speech consisted solely of Halo and Xbox and things one might consider Nerdy and I therefore felt safe and comfortable and at home among them. The great thing about going to a movie that is mostly for a Nerdier side of the population in such a crowd one can do or say anything and it is actually more acceptable the more outlandish and unexpected it is. It’s a good thing to be able to leave judging to the tune of what’s Cool or Not behind. This is an especially good thing when one, for example, dresses up for Pirates of the Caribbean in a costume that was planned out months ahead of time and has a sword fight in front of an appreciative crowd of ten thousand (or however many sit in those stadium theatres), but not so good a thing when one goes to Star Wars accompanied (acceptably) by the usual characters like Han and Luke and Anakin but whose girlfriend chooses to dress as some obscure Jedi who needs face paint and a robe and looks more like a Franciscan monk who is very confused and you wish she could have just been Chewbacca or the Millennium Falcon.

As we sat in anticipation, heavy with excitement, we watched those pre-movie slideshows and I wondered who had the audacity to assume that audiences could somehow be entertained by the same five slides played over and over until ten minutes before the movie starts. There were quotes that merited at least a sympathy-nod of appreciation solely because well-known actors said them, and even an ad advising the crowd NOT to shake their babies, though many of us were actually thinking of doing that right at that very second.

And then the movie began, and the middle came, and then it ended, and I must say it blew away my expectations like a plasma grenade. It was completely unique and a whole new twist on alien-human interaction, but had all the needed elements in a sci-fi, namely laser guns that made people explode and a mech suit that decimated the bad guys and caught an RPG midair. Consider the crowd pleased.

We were justifiably jazzed as we drove home, and had planned on staying up all night till my flight. Leaving had occurred in a similar fashion up until then; I stayed up until my flight talking to my good friend in Buenos Aires before we left, we danced until dawn in Lima, my first visit to Orlando we stayed up all night talking, and I left Guatemala with only an hour and a half of sleep after a grand-finale hangout with the crew there. So, I figured the trip would end in like manner, keeping the streak of spending the last amount of time together in the best way, aka not sleeping. So we talked, and then decided to watch an hour-long video on YouTube of all the cutscenes in Halo 3. After this awakeness-drain we threw out any notion of staying up for the last two hours and set every alarm in the house we could find, which, as you could already guess, did nothing but allow us to wake to a cacophony of three alarm clocks and an oven a scant fifty minutes before my flight left, with a forty minute drive to the airport. We knew we could make it.

And that is how, in a state heavily drugged from lack of sleep, Martin and I said goodbye and I waddled my way into the airport with my ridiculously overstuffed backpack and waited in line at the counter for Southwest, watching the clock until “Yep. There goes my plane. Hmm…” Upon arriving at the counter I informed the clerk that my flight had left ten minutes earlier (yes, do the math, we made remarkable time and I waited twenty minutes in line) and she said it’s okay, we can get you standby to Dallas, and I said Okay, can I go to Houston instead, and she said Okay. And I thought, if it was that easy, why not go to L.A.? And she shook her head No, because people always think that. And It just so happened that by missing my flight, and by flying to a different city, I was able to be on the same flight as my cousin and his wife as they returned from Scotland after a year of studying there. I was really tired and my stomach was empty so luckily the full improbability of the situation did not fully settle on me and I was able to have normal conversations with them that did not center on how crazy the world was and a terribly awkward rendition of It’s A Small World After All. I’m trying to avoid jokes that get the pity laugh lately.

That last statement is absolutely untrue. I live off pity laughs.

With that flight, I made it back to Texas, my home. Right when I flew back into the States from Guatemala City people had joked with me about my Argentina jersey, asking if I was Riquelme or however you pronounce that name, and I loved it, loved the ignorance of soccer players and the easy manner of speaking to anyone, and it was all English, so effortless to joke back or order pizza or organize a standby flight when I missed mine. And I loved being back in the midst of the U.S. culture that I grew to appreciate so much more being gone. But nothing was like being back in Texas.

And then we walked out of the airport and it was freaking hot and as my eyebrows began to singe I thought about the perfect climate back in Guatemala City…

Stuff That Is Going On

I'm going to go ahead and just let this one be all frazzled and completely unrelated in content, in an attempt to give a little glimpse of the happenings of the last month and a half or so. First of all, I have been avidly following the U.S. soccer team in their smoking performance on the world futbol stage. I'm being honest when I say I can actually sit through an entire game and enjoy it, even excitedly gush about upcoming games weeks before they happen (August 12 against Mexico baby!!!). Being down here in Latin America has undoubtedly rubbed off on me, but I can promise that I'm not just one of the fairweather fans jumping on the soccer bandwagon. How can I back this claim? My fanship was tested and purified after attending a game (alone) between the U.S. and Costa Rica back in June, where we were demolished 3 to zip. I, a lone gringo, endured the jeers, stares, and insults of an insanely fired up Costa Rican crowd. Favorite chants against American fans ranged from ¨You are the son of a very disrepectable woman!¨ all the way to ¨You have AIDS.¨ Fortunately I had a throng of drunks around me who protected me from insults as their (admittedly very quiet) pet gringo. A lesser fan would have cracked under the pressure, maybe even claimed to be temporarily supporting Costa Rica, but not this one. I am fire tested. And despite that loss, the States haven't let me down one bit - we made it into the finals of the Confederation tournament in South Africa, the mini-championship before the World Cup to be held there next summer, and surprised the world by eliminating Spain (who could arguably be called the best team on the globe) with authority. In the finals we led Brazil (who could be called the best team in the world with less argument than one would give to someone who said that Texas was generally hot in the summertime) 2-0 into the second half but let the game go and lost by a goal. This smarts especially because my second team is Argentina.

This sense of pride in the States has not been confined to soccer. I've really been reflecting on how amazing it is that we can dream to such an extent, us Americans. Every kid has a dream and no matter how outlandish it can be encouraged. There is opportunity, there is hope, there is an ability to be ever set about change that I have not encountered elsewhere. Even a dream as unlikely as wanting to be a columnist-style writer/amateur rock-star trying to do something about all those things that make the world seem dark while also fighting crime on the side in a sweet suit that includes stretchy pants is not completely out of the picture. As long as the stretchy pants aren't too tight I don't think anybody would have a problem with that at all. Expressing our fondness for the Union, Mason, Beau and I sang the Star Spangled Banner at full belt-out level at the strike of midnight on July 4 and then spent the day at a volcano where we ran down the side and fell and threw a skateboard on hot lava rocks. Now all this is not to say my pride in the Independent Republic of Texas has been diminished in the slightest - quite the contrary. I proudly tell people here about the homeland every chance I get. I think it's especially hard for Mason and Johanna, being from Arkansas; naturally they lament having been born just one mere state away from greatness, and thus express their disappointment with half-hearted jibes and slights. But Beau and I can see through their facade.

That's enough for that little thread. I'd love to tell you now about trip highlights, and the best place to start would be to tell you about Tikal. Yes, one might think it is just another one of those old piles of rocks arranged in a pyramid that old people built a really really long time ago whose sole purpose today is to provide tourists with an opportunity to go back home and tell their friends over dinner of another pile of rocks arranged into a pyramid that old people built a really really long time ago that they have gone to visit, and would they like some more tea. But that simply would not be fitting to describe the absolute, universal importance of this old pile of rocks. Ladies and gentlemen, this is in fact the location used to film that scene at the end of Star Wars Episode IV where the ships (an X and a Y wing, I believe? check me on that) fly in over a green forest with some old pyramids and then Princess Leia gives medallions to Han and Chewie and Luke and the guys! Yeah. So that means that instead of saying that they've been to Tikal, an awesome Mayan ruin in northern Guatemala, these very same tourists can now say something to the effect of ¨Why yes, I have to been to the Fourth Moon of Gavin. Quite nice in the fall.¨ Writer's Note: Forgive me if that is not the right moon. I'm probably way off. (Samsonite!)

Before Tikal, we went to a great place in the forest, a little eco-lodge tucked away in the woods, and spent the afternoon...passed out in our room. After Tikal, we went to El Faro, a great place on the beach, a little resort tucked away near the Pacific Coast, and spent the morning...passed out in our room. It was a great trip for sleeping. Also for trying to float out to sea on a log, beating our chests and whooping and acting like monkeys, knocking coconuts out of trees, and for poor, unfortunate Mason, pouring (rotten, as he quickly learned) coconut juice (actually, putrid would be a better word) all over his body upon opening one of the afore-mentioned coconuts, in accordance with his role as the Silverback. Some time later we went to El Salvador with pastor Rene from the church, to the town where he is from, and spent the first day...passed out in a four hour siesta. Along with sleeping a lot, this summer has brought such exciting events as regularly drinking whole liters of yogurt and also not showering. We entertain ourselves by saying very funny things, and then quoting ourselves at least eighteen times a day for the six weeks following said hilarious comments.

English classes are going well. I help teach at a middle school from 730am to 1230, and afterwards we teach sixth graders on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 4pm, and we´ve gone through several rounds of adult classes. One just ended that was at 1pm on Tuesday and Thursday, and we also have one at 730 pm on Monday and Wednesdays. Next week hopefully we'll get started teaching a handful of people at Chili's on the Tuesdays and Thursdays until we leave. Now, if you think you feel bored just having read that, you should see the faces of the kids we bring to the 4pm class. You'd think we were enthusiastically telling them to come learn about the multitudes of varieties of paint shades under the umbrella-color of magenta, followed by a lesson on how they make those wooden popsicle sticks.

This has been a long entry...hope you feel up to date. In Dallas I once went to a concert where I was the sole member of the audience, besides a groupie who gave me a sticker and an old guy that left after a few minutes. The artist on stage was, well, not great, but I felt bad and stayed for the whole show, and afterwards he looked out and said "I don't want to point fingers or anything, but thanks for coming to the show everybody..." It was sad, to be sure, but there was a sort of head held high flair to it.

Now I don't want to point fingers or anything, but thanks for coming to the show everybody...

Guatemala...A Belated Introduction

Yes, it is true that I have not written an entry in over seven weeks. But I´ve only just arrived in Guatemala City six weeks ago and it´s taken me that long to adjust to Guatemalan Time. And as shown by the promptness of this update, I obviously am still much too punctual for these new Central American standards.

The update, then. I am here in Guatemala with Beau, a really good friend from high school, and I arrived without the slightest idea what I would be doing, other than that the whole summer would be used serving in some way while also knowing that I would inevitably learn invaluable life lessons that could be used as clues to determine my purpose in life or as the morals to children´s picture books. Heavy stuff.

We began teaching soon after arrival in a middle school that sits 30 minutes away, walking at a zombie´s pace (we leave for class at 7 am each morning, you understand the resemblance to the undead). I´m an assistant teacher for eighth and ninth graders and it has just recently started going really well, as we finally won the respect of the rough, undisciplined students. I won´t tell you how we did this but it does involve killing and then eating a polar bear. Seriously though, we have just this week began to notice real bonds of friendship with some of the kids, and with the really unruly ones we just practice insults that will hopefully make them cry.

We live with an amazing family, the Polancos. Our house mom Lilly is a firebrand Christian and we naturally poke fun at her all the time and tell her how we love drinking and less than respectable women. She jokes back by making us climb over the wall to get inside. Our house bros Fernando and Mario, or Suso, 26 and 19 respectively, have been great friends, and truly brothers. This is in spite of the fact that we barely see Fer due to his gringa girlfriend being here and his sickening state of puppy love that brings us endless entertainment. Suso was ensnared by another gringa, a good friend of ours who left last week, Johanna from Arkansas. We were not above assembling gangs of sixth graders to spy on them and pretend we saw them making out. Or in sending in Lilly and making sure she actually did see them making out. And our house dad Mario spends his days catching movies on TV. Interesting side note - he did meet the Che, and fought during a stint in the Cuban revolution. Those days are over now, and we bond by making crazy gestures at Lilly behind or in front of her back.

I´ll be back to update what we´ve actually done since being here, including running down a volcano, a lake excursion in El Salvador, and of course, many tales of the amazing national treat, the ChocoBanano. If my current level of cultural assimilation holds, that´ll be in less than a month. Try not to fall off the edge of your seats.

Arenal and San Jose

I left Monteverde and went by Jeep-boat-Jeep to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano. It was weird leaving the Pension hostel - I wasn't able to say bye to the crew I'd hung out with over the weekend. As soon as I got in the first Jeep and began driving through the Costa Rican countryside I wasn't in as good of a mood as I had been before, and this continued through the boat ride, and the second Jeep to my hostel. I stayed in Arenal Backpacker's Resort, reputed to be the best hostel in all of Costa Rica, and was able to wish a best friend happy birthday through Facebook as soon as I got there. There was nothing to do in the city - it was too cloudy to see the volcano, and I slept for hours.

I realized that I didn't feel like making new friends in this new city... I had it made back in Monteverde with a small weekend crew, several temporary close friends, but I was still living in a cloud after the semester abroad and the amazing friendships from that. What I learned in La Fortuna, and what I realized that I had come to Costa Rica to learn, was that personally, I needed friends to make travel real, to make it fun. Without friends, the Arenal volcanco was just a big, stupid, hot mountain. And these friends didn't have to necessarily be a lifelong crew, but rather people to share life with, whether that means years, or decades, or a semester, or even a day. But I had a friend to go see in San Jose, which made me more excited than I was disappointed I didn't see the Arenal lava flow. I was on the verge of bungee jumping that morning, but decided I'd wait to try and talk my friend in Guatemala into doing it with me. So I stayed in town, read while it rained, got some ice cream, and got on the bus to San Jose. I accidently got off in the wrong city and had to pay 20 bucks for a taxi after a 4 dollar bus ride, but I didn't even mind, as close as I was to hanging out with my ISA friend. However I did realize that from then on I should include a "Stupid Mistakes" section in the budget that should basically multiply what I should be spending by three.

Learning the lesson about friends made me feel contented; I am leaving Costa Rica too soon to experience anything but a tease, with all the unspeakably sweet sights here, but I'm ready to be with people who'll make whatever I'm doing, whatever we're seeing, spectacular. A friend made San Jose more meaningful yesterday, and Guatemala will be the same.

A song by John Legend came on the radio on the Jeep ride from Monteverde; I have a playlist of songs on my Shuffle that will bring back so many memories after this trip. I peeled off a beer label from a cafe in Monteverde, in memory of a best friend who always used to peel them off back in South America, and I stuck it on my moleskin book. Tonight I'll try and make it to the Costa Rica-U.S. soccer game, and after that, I'll hit the road for Guatemala, the third and final chapter of the trip, where I'll get by with a little help from an old friend...

There and Back Again (USA to Costa Rica)

I did not cry when I said goodbye to the group at the airport, although it would have been an excusable excuse, along with your football team winning/losing a semi-important game, thinking about Old Yeller, or running out of milk after you've poured your cereal. It was strange to leave, because it felt like we'd be gone from each other for a few days and then be back; really, the entire time I was back in the States was a sort of dream. Without my dear friends, I did notice that I was able to move faster than a beach ball filled with sand, which was nice when I had to do things like use the restroom. Throughout the next few days, however, I did find myself turning to say things to several of them specifically and realizing that they weren't around. Just in case, since we were all going our separate ways, I wore my lucky boxers our last day, Saturday. To ensure everyone made it back allright I kept them on until Tuesday. Just to be sure. I think they would appreciate it.

That first day I spent time with my dad's side grandparents, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins; I passed out for hours in their house and then we went to buy books. I met my mom and her parents in my college town, and we drove by the apartments I'll be in next year. We ate some INCREDIBLE cheesecake with my grandparent's friends that was so good it might go down in the annals of my Food Hall of Fame, forever overshadowed by the greatness of that Orange I Ate Back in Junior Year of High School. I spent the next three days in Dallas with my awesome family and great old friends and was off again, this time to Orlando where I stayed up all night with my two best friends eating junk food and watching TV and playing Halo. Then it was time to leave and I was at the airport and on the plane to San Jose.

I arrived in Costa Rica's impressively modern airport and had the exciting hmm...now what? feeling and found a taxi that took me to a bus station, where I met a friendly American couple, an Australian girl, and several Texans. We got on the bus and were on our way to Monteverde, and I bid consciousness goodbye for the several hours we were driving. We arrived and all went to the same hostel, which was owned by a Texan. Yee-haw. I loosely planned the rest of my trip that night, and got ready for the park the next morning.

Let me begin this by telling you a story about a small world. I was in Costa Rica, specifically in Santa Elena outside of the Monteverde cloud forest, and went to the said forest's national park. No sooner had my Australian companion and I embarked on the trail did we encounter a guy around my age with long hair and a hippie head band collecting berry samples on the side of the trail. We found out he was American, from Georgia, from Berry College (the largest campus in the United States!) and I stared at him dumbstruck and asked if he knew a friend of mine from Buenos Aires. And he says yes, he knows this friend, they went to high school together. And this is made all the greater by the fact that Berry College has all of 2000 students plus change. I love travelling.

The cloud forest was, interestingly enough, devoid of clouds for much of the morning as we hiked. I talked to my friend about Australia and learned quite a bit about the continent which, although gigantic, has a population smaller than that of Texas. It's nice to run into people from places I won't go to for awhile. Along the hike we saw several groups seriously rapt in concentration watching for birds, and we very politely laughed at them. We saw a brown winged friend with an orange stomach in a tree we passed and my Aussie mate wondered what it was called, to which I replied very matter-of-factly "That's an orange-bellied...brown...bird." She was impressed with my technical knowledge.

We hiked all the way to La Ventana, where, with luckily cleared skies, one could look to the Caribbean side as well as the Pacific side of the forest. I don't know if you were actually able to see the water, but you were at least supposed to stand there with a serious look on your face and hmmm thoughtfully and then make a remark to the effect of you wishing there weren't clouds so you could see China. Once up there, the clouds showed up in force. It was strange to stand there looking out over the hills visible through the fog; the clouds advanced, thick and dense as an approaching army, and when I held my arms out to meet them the mass passed right through me, unaware and uncaring of my resistance. Going over to the Pacific side you could watch the wispy soldiers continue on their way, advancing heedlessly to the vast waters of the ocean.

My friend and I split up after La Ventana and I began a large circuit flyin solo. Alone in the forest my mind wandered and I pondered such interesting things as how marvelous it was that there were no spiders in the forest at all, how maybe I could come to like a jungle without spiders, and how it was never a good thing to feel stuff fall in your hair. I was only thinking this because I'd felt things fall in my hair several times, but after shaking my mane like a Pantene commercial there was never anything there; really, the only things it could have been were bugs or bird poop, both of which would have made me do a high-knees, hands flailing sort of dance that might be similar to a twelve year old girl at an N*SYNC concert, though the twelve year old might have shown more fortitude. One never finds pleasant surprises in the hair. It is never Halloween candy, or a s'more. The best one can ever hope for is rain. Speaking of rain, we had passed through a deluge on the way to Monteverde, and I was afraid of getting stuck in a downpour; really, I wanted to keep my shoes from getting soaked. I am very hardcore. It fell completely, eerily silent while I was walking the trails. Being from Texas, I usually assume this means there is a tornado brewing or a football game on. I quickened my pace, hoping to beat the rain.

I ran across my friend coming through her trail, and asked her how the suspended bridge was. Very...bridge-y, was the response I got. And she was right, as I realized when I got there. It was pretty much an old rusty bridge on top of some trees. I have this bad habit of mimicking accents that started my second semester at college when I had two very good British friends. I always want to say things like 'rightright' that comes out more like 'quiteright' or 'whiterice,' and after hanging out with those two so much I wanted to start saying 'well' in front of things for no reason. Well good. This problem only enhances a greater issue I have which is talking to myself in public, and naturally, as I walked the trails, I would say things to myself in Spanish, and then in Australian. This has, as you can guess, led to a great many awkward situations; apparently talking to oneself and looking off into the distance is somewhat socially awkward. The worst instance happened back in Lima, when I was going through a phase where I wanted to try my hand at rapping. I was walking to school one day, bustin' and flowin', and some students ahead of me apparently heard me rhymin' because they turned around, looked right at me, and stopped until I passed by, very quiet and a little scared. I kept bustin' my rhymes and breakin' my change.

I got back to the lodge area of the park and found the American couple who was a part of my crew for the three days I was here. They excitedly pulled out a camera to show me what they had seen and I watched, suddenly shocked and terrified, as they played a video of a gigantic black and orange tarantula on the path. You probably walked right by it, they said. Maybe even stepped right over it. So much for any sense of security.

I left to go look at a waterfall despite my fears being awakened and intensified. The forest grew ominous and I felt something watching me; soon, a spider became the spider became The Spider. Should the octo-ped nemesis spring into the path, I knew I'd be forced to respond with my best defense, a girly shriek and a Roadrunner-esque escape, except instead of a nice cloud of dust with a POOSH! I'd leave a warm puddle of urine and my DIGNITY! They say that animals are as scared of you as you are of them, and that might be the case with cuddly things like anacondas, grizzly bears, and white tigers; however, when said beasties want not only to eat you but also to psychologically torture you, I don't think they are scared of you at all. When I say this what I mean is spiders, and sea monsters, and zombies. Also, girls my age.

On an unrelated note, what I've come to realize is that Travelling is like this shared, but quiet and unspoken, secret between its members. It's like a treehouse from childhood that has gone equal oppotunity after intense political reform and finds its exclusiveness not in gender exclusion but rather in its members simply being found on the fringes of real life. It is a fun little club. Last night in the hostel I got harmonica lessons from the American man, and this morning as I made my eggcake sandwiches a surfer from the states gave me a rashguard, followed by a quick lesson on wave mechanics and top breezes. A couple from Singapore, also in my crew, told me about their journey yesterday; they are travelling the world on motorcycles, and have been gone for a year and a half going on two years, and have been, to put it shortly, everywhere. On tap for them now is to drive through Mexico and Texas all the way to Rhode Island, and then to Alaska. The thing I love is that the guy says this so nonchalantly it's like he's telling you about the weather back in Singapore, which is, if you were wondering, warm. It's a trip he's planned for ten years (!!!) and he says its everthing he hoped. They married two years ago and she thought he was crazy and hopefully still does.

ETD: One Hour

It is the last day.  Everything has carried with it a sense of finality; yesterday we said goodbye to our first friend departing, and today there will be more.  Last night we had our goodbye party, and we danced all night.  It was the best way to end things.  I did not dance suicidally bad and thus it was one of the most successful dance nights of my life.  I withdrew from time to time just to watch the group interact, as I've been doing for the last week or so, and enjoyed it.  It won't happen again, the way it is now; we'll see each other again, pockets of us surely, but the group is its own dynamic.  We are Multisa, the Multisa Family, and the time has come to leave on our jet planes and go back to our real lives.  It's sad, I suppose, but every good thing ends and if it wasn't today it'd be tomorrow, next week.  Truth is, it's now, and there's nothing to do about it but enjoy the last few hours and memories we have with the people who have become so dear.  Imagine this, that you were with fourteen people day in and day out for over four months, living in a completely foreign and exciting and dynamic environment, spending time together everyday, becoming friends who are so close they'd (in purely hypothetical terms) give each other tattoos on their rumpuses, whose time was from the beginning set and limited but who carried on with each other impressively, who at the end would scatter in an America diaspora, never to be reunited as a whole again.  There is only, in this situation, to treasure the crazy time we had.  That I will do, and I will miss my South American family.  These will be the memories and the times that hit the hardest when they bring themselves back into my consciousness.  But the absence of friends only brings into focus that which we hold most dear about them, to paraphrase Gibran...

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

The Jungle!

We were in fact able to make it to the jungle that fateful foggy day, three moons past; I just arrived in my room, which I can honestly call home in my mind, with its nice soft bed and open window and breezy curtains.  I was so happy I decided to accidentally hit my head on the low hanging chandelier-light-thing, an unfortunate event that occurs with astonishing and embarassing frequency because I sometimes forget it is there.  When I say sometimes I mean that it usually happens once a day.  Home sweet home...

Also, it was just Kara's birthday, her 21st!  Somehow we pulled right up to the university as we counted down from ten and the clock hit midnight, marking the beginning of what is sure to be an AWESOME birthday-day.  

Our trip began last Thursday, when we successfully left an incredibly foggy Lima and arrived in Iquitos, a city of several hundreds of thousands of people that is actually the largest city without road access.  The only way in is a plane or a boat.  Some people say once a guy got there with pixie dust and happy thoughts but that sounds pretty outlandish to me.  

Iquitos was exciting personally because I had heard of a University of Texas alum who had started a restaurant in the city called The Yellow Rose of Texas, and in the back of my mind for the entire trip I had planned on visiting it.  The thing with being a Texan is that every now and then I just need to talk to someone about the homeland, reflect on our status as the Most Glorious State in the Union while also chuckling warmly about the fact that we are a country on our own, with an optional bashing session on other respectable but inherently inferior states, before moving on to the inevitable talk of football, something I could not wait for.

We left the airport and met our guide and headed towards the city.  We learned that there is very little crime, and I began to feel a sense of isolation from the rest of the world, but in a good way, a way that made me feel like the world was a little different here.  We neared the Plaza del Armas and down a street adjacent to the plaza I saw the restaurant, adorned with regalia from my rival school.  I was floored.  I had also heard that there were respectable heladerias around the plaza and my mind was set:  Texas restaurant and ice cream were the main attractions for the afternoon.

We checked in at the hotel, Henry and I chilled in our room for a minutito, and we were off.  We assembled the gringo parade and embarked towards the plaza.  I got to the Yellow Rose first and talked with the staff for a bit, realizing that Mr. Gerald was sleeping upstairs.  I asked if I could just walk around the inside of the restaurant.  The rest of the group turned the corner and were waiting outside on the sidewalk, and were probably a little disturbed when they saw me gazing at the walls full of Texas mementos and memorabilia, all googly-eyed, maybe tearing up a little (*editor's note:  the writer is actually too chock-full of testosterone for his body to produce tears.  However, missing Texas is a perfectly manly and acceptable thing to cry about.).   

I finished my reminiscing and we went to a fastfood burger place along the plaza, where we got all kinds of new food, including camu camu juice which was an electric pink color with a tastelike a sugar shock.  I was quite impressed.  After dinner most of the rest of the group went out to a kareoke bar, but I went to assuage my eternal vice and ate some ice cream with Maria Elena, our ISA mom.  We walked back to the hotel and talked for a good while, and she told me of her experiences working back in the States and how hard it was to be away from her two sons.  She eventually decided to come back and be with them, and I got to hear about a good number of jobs she had before her current one as the resident ISA angel.  It was nice getting to know her story a little, and I felt priveleged being able to hang out with her.

Friday

Woke up at 8am and everyone was still asleep from the club the night before.  Maria Elena and I took a moto-taxi, aka a taxi motorcycle-turned-tricycle with a bench seat on the back, to Belen, a town that Maria Elena said represented the mental image she had of Iquitos.  Belen was a city on the outskirts of the central part of town, and was made up of wooden house, the majority of which were built on floating platforms.  The area was one of extreme poverty.  We hired a small canoe and the two of us and our moto-taxi driver went through the little village as he explained to us the history of the area and how the people got by day to day.  I was really interested and wanted to see it, but I hate the feeling of being such a tourist, tramping through people's lives and looking at their livelihood through such distant eyes; it makes it hard not to feel uncomfortable and a little self-repulsed.  It was such a new experience though, motoring in the little boat through the floating village, in a city without roads to the outside world, quietly nestled in the Amazon.

We finished our tour and went on a short drive through upper Belen, the part on land, and then the driver took us to the Yellow Rose where I was able to meet the owner Gerald and talk to him abow-ut Texan thangs fer a why-ul, as he'd say.  Long live the Lone Star.  He made an Aggie joke and I didn't even mind.

Maria Elena and I went back to the hotel, and everyone gathered to set out for the jungle.  We carried our bags a couple of blocks to the river and hopped in a boat and were off.   Not thirty minutes into the ride we encountered our first wonder of nature, the Amazonian river dolphin.  I am mildly embarassed in a kind of proud way that as soon as I first saw the fin I, along with a handful of others on the boat, calmly brought it the attention of the rest that there was a DOLFINDOLFINDOLFINDOLFIN!!! in the water.  After making sure that I hadn't peed my pants I was astounded when we saw a pink Amazon dolphin jump out of the water.  When I was in Brazil we were on the river for ten days and never saw a pink dolphin show itself like that one did.   We followed the dolphins around for twenty minutes or so in what was similar to a seven-year-olds-at-the-zoo-wired-and-impossibly-excited kind of euphoria, and got some good views of gray ones swimming and a couple brief glimpses of pink ones as well.  

We got to the lodge and relaxed in hammocks.  My life was complete.  In the back of my mind there is a part of me that is forever pointing me towards a very simple goal, wherever I happen to be, and the objective is to find a hammock, and get in it.  Also, the lodge had very soft toilet paper.  Livin the life.

We went to visit a shaman that afternoon and learned a lot about local herbal medicines, and also got to sample a good number of drinks, my personal favorite being the Siete Raices.  We went out that night and listened to the noises the jungle made.  The moon was so bright we couldn't see many stars.   A bunch of us sat together in the lodge dining room and played a game where two teams were given one word (like blue, tears, shampoo, etc.) and had to find songs that had the word in the lyrics, the title, or the band name, and then sing two lines of the song with the name and the artist or sing enough of the song to show they knew it.  One team would give their song, then the next would answer, etc.  It was a pretty fun game.  We got competitive.

Saturday

We woke up early and went out on the river, in search of more dolphins.  Saw a few, but not as spectactular as the first day.  We did some other stuff but it kind of blends together.  I know we went to this one spot to look at something, a bird I think, and then on the way back we jumped in the water and swam around in the Amazon.  Some of us took pictures proudly holding our  undergarments above our heads.  Proud moment.  Can't wait for the pics.  

After our swim we went to see a gigantic tree, and upon arrival we suddenly heard a WHACK!  WHACKWHACKWHACK! from the front of the boat, where a guide on the front killed a poisonous snake that was chilling on a tree we pulled up next too.  The group took pictures and talked about how we could have died.

We went back to the hotel and ate lunch.  I look forward to meals more than anything else.  I love food.  We unsuccessfully fished for piranas later; Hannah caught one, and Caroline caught three but all of them jumped off her hook as she was pulling them from the water.  We spent the night in the lodge dining room again, this time just talking and trading hilarious stories, gruesome stories, and finally scary stories, which is a great idea to do when in the middle of the jungle in a hotel with lanterns for lights.  We all went to our rooms a bit shaky and wishing we had some sort of cuddly stuffed friend to keep us safe.  It was a bittersweet night, the last we would spend together as a group on an excursion; we bowed out humbly, without being over-conscious of the fact that our trip is very quickly winding down, simply enjoying the company of good friends while making some pretty sweet memories.  

Sunday

In the morning we went to birdwatch somemore, I think.  Then we went to a little village where we got to shoot a blowgun and watch a traditional dance.  A bunch of the people in the group bought blowguns.  Some bought four.

We had an amazing lunch:  fried banana chips, fried yucca, fish, lentils.  We headed back to Iquitos after a short nap-time.  

We shopped around in Iquitos and Henry and I were very close to getting tattoos.  I finally realized what I want to get for my Peru tattoo - a llama on the right buttcheek.  Ashley did not approve in the least bit.  As the co-founding member of the Hey Let's Get Tattoos In Peru club she does hold some sway, but a llama on the butt cheek has the potential to be talked about even by friends of friend's cousins.  

We ate at Yellow Rose at my Texas restaurant and all was well.

On the plane ride home, Corey and Henry and I sat in a row.  We were...pungeant.  We watched the hilarious gag reels videos that they play on flights, the videos from Canada.  Those videos have single-handedly made me think Canada is awesome.  

Embarcamos a Iquitos!

We (hopefully) are going to the jungle tonight, specifically the city of Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon.  I say hopefully very quietly because I don't want to jinx it...the thing is, last weekend was when the excursion was originally planned for, but we did less of the going to the uncharted wilderness and more of the waiting in the airport for six hours only to be told that our flight was cancelled due to the fog, which to add insult to injury, smelled like a microwaved fish tumor.  But I'm trying to be optimistic despite the fact that a million other flights out of Lima's Jorge Chavez airport have been cancelled this week (that is numerically accurate, I checked) and the fog is already creeping around the buildings outside like some riduculous, malevolent Dumbo thinking we don't notice it and snickering to itself about how it's going to ruin our flight again.  

But as far as recent events have gone, things are good.  Last night, we had a lesson on how to play the cajon, a percussion instrument created when slaves were not allowed to have instuments and began to use the boxes which held clothes or food or other items.  It was really fun, at least for those of us playing.  I can't imagine how painful it must have been to everyone within earshot.  After the cajon lesson, we were given an introduction to several traditional dances, which really are strikingly similar to every other kind of dance I have ever done, in the sense that they are impossible for me to do without becoming someone who is tall, awkward, and rhythmless.  It is decieving, for somewhere inside me there is a River Dancer waiting to burst out in a blinding show of amazing-ness.  However, one must not hurry things before the world is ready.  So we spun, we thrusted, we hopped, we frolicked, and really did have a good time, mostly because once I accepted that I was not going to be good at what we were doing, I just let myself be horrid.  And it was a masterful horror.  The thing is, my dance problems are compounded by the fact that the only moves I can do competently are those I learned from Hitch.  The rest of the time I let my body do ridiculous things, but smile with the eyebrows raised to assure everyone that I really dance better than this, and am simply in a mood to entertain by pretending that the horrendous thing that is taking place is certainly not what I consider dancing talent.  

After the class, despite being soaked in sweat and having had my dignity somewhat shredded, I was talked into going to get pizza, with the condition that I would not go dancing after.  Two hours later, forty soles burned on expensive but exquisite pizza, I find myself in a bar where our group of seven are the only ones taking advantage of the empty dance floor and the pulsing lights.  We shuffle around and pretend not to feel super awkward.  I pull out the move I learned from the Simpsons where you lay on the floor and run in a circle, and then try and do a ninja-jump up move.  It doesn't work and I fall down.  We decide to leave.

In our Marketing class, we talked about the Bottom of the Pyramid market, where the 4 billion people in the world who live in poverty are given the dignity of being considered micro consumers and micro producers, rather than charity cases.  I am thinking much more about the idea of being an entrepreneur to this market, where real change can be made in the lives of the customers while avoiding the inferior-superior relationship that exists all too often in charity or aid situations, something that always bothered me.  I still have a lot to learn, as things like this remind me.  What is now on my mind is how to organize what Peter, my close friend in Kenya, and I will do for the projects he has underway there.  We have to get our needs recognized, our objectives set, and search for income-generating activities for Baragoi, a more traditional city in Northern/Central Kenya.  From there, we'll set up a documentary, get some promotional materials, and hopefully prepare a cross-country fundraising journey here in the States that we will undertake during a semester or summer, or both.  

Peace friends.  Talk soon.

Y Ahora, Empieza

I am setting out to start a blog for the same reason I guess anyone does, because I am really bored and sometimes I like to feel important thinking I am beaming out profound thoughts into the world to a rapt and admiring audience that is “enamored with my voice.”

What goes into a blog?  What makes this worth reading?  I figure that whatever I say will be acceptable as long as I say I’m a “traveler” every now and then, maybe bash modern music on the radio, maybe use some strange slang words that no one has ever heard.  Like “legit.”  And talk about “vintage” things like old clothes and books and posters are so cool.  Maybe say that I feel disenfranchised by the mainstream boxy life.  Ok.  All this is pretty immature, I know.  I like the radio.  I actually do like to travel.  Vintage stuff is cool.  I don’t really use slang well, though my grammar is pretty horrendous and I hear that’s in.  I wouldn’t really know what it was like to feel disenfranchised.  I might even be enfranchised. 

And how often should you write blogs anyway?  I mean, let’s be honest, I am going to be the only one reading this, save for some poor unfortunate soul who finds my “Lonely Island” (I’m going to try and work in band names/song titles whenever possible) through some ill-fated Google search.  I guess it doesn’t matter how often I write then.

So what should it be about?  I’m in South America right now, studying in Peru.   That’s cool.  Also, the beach is cool.  As are animals with funny names, like llamas.  And aardvarks.  You probably haven't even thought about aardvarks for at least five years.  Maybe ten.  I ate this marvelous candy today that is a hexagonal chocolate bar filled with caramel that is so perfectly fluid it makes you feel like you're on a commercial when you eat it.  I’ve eaten four or five in the last two days which is a pretty sissy number to be honest.  The first theme of this blog will be about getting my man on and eating some freaking chocolate.  Everyone likes chocolate.  And by everyone I mean everyone I want to be friends with.  And by chocolate I mean sweet things that have sugar in them.  And by sugar, I mean anything that is sweet, so that could be sugar substitutes which, although cancerous, can sometimes taste mighty fine.  Usually that is not true.  Sugar substitutes are pretty weak.  Real sugar is the best.  And when I implied way back, like five lines ago, that I don’t want to be friends with people who don’t like chocolate, that sounded kind of mean.  We can be friends.  Advanced acquaintances, at the very least. 

And so, after haphazardly messaging my friends to ask them what a good blog site was, I now present my blog, the proudest new virtually insignificant virtual soap box.  I, as the sole audience member, will be modestly interested but will probably quickly move on to wasting time on iTunes and YouTube, feeling a little guilty for not putting in more time to the lonely blog, but not guilty enough to keep reading.

Ah!  But what to name the blog?  Something witty?  Something deep?  Something thought-provoking?  Could always go with my name, followed by a travel verb.  But that is a cop-out.  Something in Spanish...the people will love me...

Welcome to the magic.

Here is a picture of an aardvark, courtesty of National Geographic.  I knew you were still thinking about them...