Where to begin?! Where to begin?! Well I didn't get robbed, lost, or in trouble so that's good. I have gotten asked by everyone freaking Gringo here where to buy marijuana which I think is hilarious. I've been in San Jose, Costa Rica for a week now and there is so much to say already I am completely perplexed where to begin. It is very different yet strangely similar here. It seems as if I have walked through some science fiction time warp where familiar things now are skewed, like it is a blend of past and present. Technology is limited, hence, the reason why I am just now able to update. Internet cafes are few and far between and when you do find one the wireless connection is often unpredictable due to the sudden colossal rainshowers that can happen at anytime of the day. It can be frustrating but I like it. I like not knowing what time it is or what day of the week or not having instant access to everything.
What I don't like is my limited Spanish conversational skills. Unfortunately my conversations don't go any farther than asking where something is or explaining what I like, need, or want. And even then I don't get that right. Today, for instance I thought I was ordering pineapple juice, but due to my barnyard mule accent I was pronunciating jugo, the Spanish word for juice, as juega, the Spanish word for play. So instead I just kept telling the poor guy behind the counter that I play pineapple. It wasn't until after the third time I told him this that a nice lady standing in the back of the line finally just ordered the damn thing for me.
Speaking of pineapples, they are delicious here! I'm staying in this nice old Tico lady's house named Lily who gives me pineapple, papaya, mango, and banana every morning with the best coffee I have ever had. The food is amazing since everything they eat comes from Costa Rican soil. For example, I hate bananas. I think they are fucking gross, but here I love 'em. I eat a whole one a day and it baffles me at how delicious this bizarre shaped piece of fruit actually is here. The ironic thing is that bananas aren't native to Costa Rica. They were actually brought over from China, and now Costa Rica is the second largest banana exporter in the world! If I ever make it back to the states I'd like to stick to the Tico diet often referred which is referred to as comida tipico or comida cansado: fruit, rice, beans, coffee, and carne asada. Yum Yum!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
man oh man!!!
Sleeping in airports is an adventure within itself. After a 4 hour sleep/nap I woke up with an awful neck cramp and feeling nauseated. Either it was the broccoli pizza I ate or I'm pregnant. Probably pregnant ;)
Ay carumba! Only 3 hours left before I'm in San Jose, Costa Rica! and still I speak Spanish as if I only got half a tongue. It is gonna be fun navigating myself around the first couple of weeks and having to explain my lack of documentation by simply saying No tengo un visado and No say, senor? Actually, I'm a littlrre unsure where I'm going once I get to Costa Rica. I think I'm supposed to meet the group I'm studying abroad with, but I took a different flight and kind of forgot to figure all of that out. Whatever... This is what I want to happen when I get to San Jose
(1) not get robbed
(2) not get lost
(3) not get in trouble
--- if I can manage these three then I might can do the following:)
(4) exchange currency
(5) hope my family isn't crazy
(6) hope my family doesn't think I'm crazy (or at least not immedietly)
(7) eat
(8) sleep
(9) have at least one conversation in Spanish without sounding like a backwoods mule
And that is pretty much all I got folks.
Ay carumba! Only 3 hours left before I'm in San Jose, Costa Rica! and still I speak Spanish as if I only got half a tongue. It is gonna be fun navigating myself around the first couple of weeks and having to explain my lack of documentation by simply saying No tengo un visado and No say, senor? Actually, I'm a littlrre unsure where I'm going once I get to Costa Rica. I think I'm supposed to meet the group I'm studying abroad with, but I took a different flight and kind of forgot to figure all of that out. Whatever... This is what I want to happen when I get to San Jose
(1) not get robbed
(2) not get lost
(3) not get in trouble
--- if I can manage these three then I might can do the following:)
(4) exchange currency
(5) hope my family isn't crazy
(6) hope my family doesn't think I'm crazy (or at least not immedietly)
(7) eat
(8) sleep
(9) have at least one conversation in Spanish without sounding like a backwoods mule
And that is pretty much all I got folks.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
15 hour layover begins now!
Ahhhhhhhh airport food. The assortment of artery clogging & wallet raping choices are astounding. I expected the Miami airport to have fresh oranges and pina coladas garnished with extravagant umbrella toothpicks, but instead those golden arches glowed proudly as the cardboard pizza stand appeared to be the McDonald's only competition. I opted for a slice of the pizza with one giant piece of broccoli strategically placed in the middle for no other reason then it amused me. It tasted like one fantastic dog biscuit.. yum yum.
Now that I have put something in my grumbling tummy I've got the longest layover in my life to look forward to- 15 whopping hours! There are only two people in the entire terminal
(1) Me
(2) and the girl working at the hand lotion kiosk who hates her job
I would hate my job, too. Part of me wants to tell her that there are probably other jobs out there that don't require you to pretend to care about the chaffed hands of people arriving to Miami, but I'm sure she is aware.
It is still surreal. Even though I know that I am definitely gone it feels like I'm just on pause, like I'm standing on the edge watching the world spin. It seems that people have two ways of associating what home is. One is upbringing- where you were raised. When people ask me where's home? I automatically say Mississippi, but I know that I will never live there again. Mississippi was the place I came from- a past- it houses the oldest memories but will not be a creator of new ones. The second home has to do with where your belongings are- home is where your stuff is. But what if you own nothing? Before I left Austin everyone kept asking me when will you come home? But this time home isn't something I'm leaving as much as it is something I'm bringing. What I mean by this is that my home is wherever I am. I have nothing in Austin. No job. No house. No bed. No car. No phone. No clothes... Nada. I got rid of it all! and now I'm sitting alone in the Miami airport watching a thunderstorm with the only belongings I have underneath my feet and waiting... This time tomorrow I will be somewhere I once thought as so far away become my present. Tomorrow will be the first time I will have left the country. I'm not scarred or nervous as much as I am delightfully uncertain and anxiously awaiting.
Right now, the earth is spinning 900mph yet no one notices at all. We continue like we do, answering phone calls, cursing the alarm clock, drinking too much on the weekend, spending more money then we know we ought to, waiting at stoplights, making lists at night so we can be productive in the morning... With all this rush- this heave and haul- I wonder how many of us know the eye color of those who love us more than we like ourselves? All these things we've grown accustomed to are the things we don't notice. Just a little while longer and I'll be farther from everything familiar.
The earth is spinning 900mph so I hope you notice all of the things that may be passin' ya bye...
Now that I have put something in my grumbling tummy I've got the longest layover in my life to look forward to- 15 whopping hours! There are only two people in the entire terminal
(1) Me
(2) and the girl working at the hand lotion kiosk who hates her job
I would hate my job, too. Part of me wants to tell her that there are probably other jobs out there that don't require you to pretend to care about the chaffed hands of people arriving to Miami, but I'm sure she is aware.
It is still surreal. Even though I know that I am definitely gone it feels like I'm just on pause, like I'm standing on the edge watching the world spin. It seems that people have two ways of associating what home is. One is upbringing- where you were raised. When people ask me where's home? I automatically say Mississippi, but I know that I will never live there again. Mississippi was the place I came from- a past- it houses the oldest memories but will not be a creator of new ones. The second home has to do with where your belongings are- home is where your stuff is. But what if you own nothing? Before I left Austin everyone kept asking me when will you come home? But this time home isn't something I'm leaving as much as it is something I'm bringing. What I mean by this is that my home is wherever I am. I have nothing in Austin. No job. No house. No bed. No car. No phone. No clothes... Nada. I got rid of it all! and now I'm sitting alone in the Miami airport watching a thunderstorm with the only belongings I have underneath my feet and waiting... This time tomorrow I will be somewhere I once thought as so far away become my present. Tomorrow will be the first time I will have left the country. I'm not scarred or nervous as much as I am delightfully uncertain and anxiously awaiting.
Right now, the earth is spinning 900mph yet no one notices at all. We continue like we do, answering phone calls, cursing the alarm clock, drinking too much on the weekend, spending more money then we know we ought to, waiting at stoplights, making lists at night so we can be productive in the morning... With all this rush- this heave and haul- I wonder how many of us know the eye color of those who love us more than we like ourselves? All these things we've grown accustomed to are the things we don't notice. Just a little while longer and I'll be farther from everything familiar.
The earth is spinning 900mph so I hope you notice all of the things that may be passin' ya bye...
Thursday, May 21, 2009
one day left..
Gotta go kayaking the river today in my last attempt to work on my gringa tan and spaghetti string arms before take off. Before I bike down there I'll probably stop by the WholeFoods for one last farwell. I remember the first time I ever went there, it was when I first moved here and had no idea what it was. I just had this intense craving for orange juice so I asked someone where the store was and they pointed that-a-way.. Where I come from, people will drive 45minutes just to buy cheese-puffs at the Wal-Mart and eat dinner at the Olive Garden. This is why I felt my chest doing jumpingjacks when I walked in the posh Astrodome of grocery stores-- WholeFoods.. I remember thinking, "Gee whizz! the strawberries look like strawberries!" and "Holy Cow! the apples taste like apples!" I literally had an orgasm in the produce section.
While in South America I plan on doing something called World Wild Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). How it works is that you register with whatever country you would like to WWOOF. You pay a small membership fee and they send you a detailed description of all the farms in that area looking for assitance. There is usually no paid positions at these WWOOF farms because it is more of a volunteer program created for people who have the desire to learn first-hand about organic farming & sustainable living. Room and board is covered, however. When I lived in my car and traveled the States for about a month or so with my good friend Dana, we had the privilege to meet several WWOOFers. We stayed in this great CO-OP filled with the loveliest folks in Omaha, Nebraska who were former AmeriCorps volunteers and future WWOOFers. That was where I first heard of WWOOFing and knew that I needed to keep that information tucked away for future opportunities, and now here it is. Chile is where I'll be WWOOFing as well as helping out at a vineyard! It will be hard work but gratifying work. I can't wait to have a glass of wine at the end of the day and be able to say, "Hey! I was the one who picked those grapes".
Alright, enough of this typing stuff-- it is onward bound to the river to get one last glimpse of this beautiful town and a little color on my pastel legs.
While in South America I plan on doing something called World Wild Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF). How it works is that you register with whatever country you would like to WWOOF. You pay a small membership fee and they send you a detailed description of all the farms in that area looking for assitance. There is usually no paid positions at these WWOOF farms because it is more of a volunteer program created for people who have the desire to learn first-hand about organic farming & sustainable living. Room and board is covered, however. When I lived in my car and traveled the States for about a month or so with my good friend Dana, we had the privilege to meet several WWOOFers. We stayed in this great CO-OP filled with the loveliest folks in Omaha, Nebraska who were former AmeriCorps volunteers and future WWOOFers. That was where I first heard of WWOOFing and knew that I needed to keep that information tucked away for future opportunities, and now here it is. Chile is where I'll be WWOOFing as well as helping out at a vineyard! It will be hard work but gratifying work. I can't wait to have a glass of wine at the end of the day and be able to say, "Hey! I was the one who picked those grapes".
Alright, enough of this typing stuff-- it is onward bound to the river to get one last glimpse of this beautiful town and a little color on my pastel legs.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
2 days before take off
Right now I feel like the lyrics of that John Denver song Leaving on a Jet Plane yet I still have 48hrs before I even get on the plane. I should be practicing my Spanish and figuring out what to do with my bed, but instead I've been sitting at Epoch for the past 3 hrs trying to figure out how to create a damn blog and listening to the wonderful Alex Olison talk about vaginas.
I guess if you are reading this you already know my plans- or lack of them- a 6 month backpacking excursion through South America :) I am going alone, can't speak Spanish, don't exactly have my Visas, and I only have a one-way airplane ticket so I don't know when/how I'm getting back to the States but I'm currently fantasizing my crewman position on a sailboat. I fly into San Jose, Costa Rica May 24th, in which I will live with a family I know nothing about for a month. I'm pretty anxious to see the look on their faces when they see me- tall, blonde, dreadie, un poquito espanol speaking, holding one big backpack partially filled with:
2 pair of pants
2 t-shirts
one nice button-up in case I need to be snazzy
a handful of socks
swimtrunks
long sleeve
rainjacket
two-pair of fancy boxer briefs
All of my clothes bundled together weigh a whopping 4.8lbs- yep that's right, I weighed 'em.. that shit is important when your home is on your back. I still got a little more packed in there, though:
a week's worth of mallaria pills
a tiny computeer that weighs 3lbs
cheap camera
multi-vitamins
poo-poo pills
water filter
documents (passport, yellow fever record, etc...)
journals & pens
a really cool towel
toothbrush
a whole lot of tampons
barsoap
The Story of Forgetting book
I'm sure I'm forgetting a whole mess of things, but hopefully I've packed all I really need.
I've sold a lot stuff which was an awesome feeling of relief.
I sold my Macbook, a really nice camera lens, guitar & amp, I gave my TV & DVD player to a homeless man, and got rid of about 60lbs of clothing, along with a red dress I'm a little baffled about how it got in my closet to begin with? It is such a liberating feeling to shed myself from all these things I once owned. Yesterday I had a room with pictures on the wall, guitars on the floor, books on the shelf, my dog sleeping on the bed, a computer, and a whole slew of unfinished poems and credit card reciepts scattered across my desk.
Today, I woke up one the floor with just a bedsheet- nothing else- and it was such a beautiful surreal feeling waking up in my own bedroom and being completely unfamiliar with it. I made coffee and sat on the floor with the window open looking out. It felt like the first day I moved in. How it is both great and scary moving to a new place that you start calling home yet you really know nothing about it. Street names sound like foreign countries, when you get hungry you drive the access road because you know you can't get lost on it and are bound to come across something, when people ask you if you know such and such you can honestly answer No because you are new to town, and you discover that states like to have their own grocery stores like HEB.
I've only lived in Austin for barely two years and I feel like I've grown leaps & bounds in the short time I've been here. I'll probably be back, but it will be different or maybe just the same and I'll have been the one who changed or maybe all of it will happen. Who knows? People keep asking me why are you doing this? Why not just a few weeks or even a month traveling through the Amazon and hiking up the Andes? I don't know what to tell 'em. For me it isn't about the why as much as it is about the how and the because. Every night before I go to sleepI hit the map hanging behind my bed that I got out of a cereal box and whatever country/city/mountain/ocean my finger is pointing to I read a little about in the morning. I started this bedtime ritual of mine about 8 months ago. My finger never landed on South America much, though, and I think that is because it is a place I don't need to read about as much as I need to go. I am going to South America because I am- it feels right. This is the time I need to be canoeing through the Amazon, hiking the Andes, learning sustainability from the indigeous people who know the land better than anyone, communicating in a language other then the one I was taught because of the country I was born in. These are the things that make what I'm doing both exhilerating and terrifying.
There are two reasons people leave/move and they are either (1) going to a place (2) or leaving from one. Never both. I'm going to, not leaving from. There is a difference. I'm going to live on an entire continent in which they speak a language I know not, encounter things that have the ability to eat me, has a high propensity of muggings, a plethora of diseases, and some of the most corrupt border crossings in the world. In two days I'll be in the distance.
I'm looking forward to the adventure...
Stay tuned, I can't wait to tell ya 'bout the ride ahead...
I guess if you are reading this you already know my plans- or lack of them- a 6 month backpacking excursion through South America :) I am going alone, can't speak Spanish, don't exactly have my Visas, and I only have a one-way airplane ticket so I don't know when/how I'm getting back to the States but I'm currently fantasizing my crewman position on a sailboat. I fly into San Jose, Costa Rica May 24th, in which I will live with a family I know nothing about for a month. I'm pretty anxious to see the look on their faces when they see me- tall, blonde, dreadie, un poquito espanol speaking, holding one big backpack partially filled with:
2 pair of pants
2 t-shirts
one nice button-up in case I need to be snazzy
a handful of socks
swimtrunks
long sleeve
rainjacket
two-pair of fancy boxer briefs
All of my clothes bundled together weigh a whopping 4.8lbs- yep that's right, I weighed 'em.. that shit is important when your home is on your back. I still got a little more packed in there, though:
a week's worth of mallaria pills
a tiny computeer that weighs 3lbs
cheap camera
multi-vitamins
poo-poo pills
water filter
documents (passport, yellow fever record, etc...)
journals & pens
a really cool towel
toothbrush
a whole lot of tampons
barsoap
The Story of Forgetting book
I'm sure I'm forgetting a whole mess of things, but hopefully I've packed all I really need.
I've sold a lot stuff which was an awesome feeling of relief.
I sold my Macbook, a really nice camera lens, guitar & amp, I gave my TV & DVD player to a homeless man, and got rid of about 60lbs of clothing, along with a red dress I'm a little baffled about how it got in my closet to begin with? It is such a liberating feeling to shed myself from all these things I once owned. Yesterday I had a room with pictures on the wall, guitars on the floor, books on the shelf, my dog sleeping on the bed, a computer, and a whole slew of unfinished poems and credit card reciepts scattered across my desk.
Today, I woke up one the floor with just a bedsheet- nothing else- and it was such a beautiful surreal feeling waking up in my own bedroom and being completely unfamiliar with it. I made coffee and sat on the floor with the window open looking out. It felt like the first day I moved in. How it is both great and scary moving to a new place that you start calling home yet you really know nothing about it. Street names sound like foreign countries, when you get hungry you drive the access road because you know you can't get lost on it and are bound to come across something, when people ask you if you know such and such you can honestly answer No because you are new to town, and you discover that states like to have their own grocery stores like HEB.
I've only lived in Austin for barely two years and I feel like I've grown leaps & bounds in the short time I've been here. I'll probably be back, but it will be different or maybe just the same and I'll have been the one who changed or maybe all of it will happen. Who knows? People keep asking me why are you doing this? Why not just a few weeks or even a month traveling through the Amazon and hiking up the Andes? I don't know what to tell 'em. For me it isn't about the why as much as it is about the how and the because. Every night before I go to sleepI hit the map hanging behind my bed that I got out of a cereal box and whatever country/city/mountain/ocean my finger is pointing to I read a little about in the morning. I started this bedtime ritual of mine about 8 months ago. My finger never landed on South America much, though, and I think that is because it is a place I don't need to read about as much as I need to go. I am going to South America because I am- it feels right. This is the time I need to be canoeing through the Amazon, hiking the Andes, learning sustainability from the indigeous people who know the land better than anyone, communicating in a language other then the one I was taught because of the country I was born in. These are the things that make what I'm doing both exhilerating and terrifying.
There are two reasons people leave/move and they are either (1) going to a place (2) or leaving from one. Never both. I'm going to, not leaving from. There is a difference. I'm going to live on an entire continent in which they speak a language I know not, encounter things that have the ability to eat me, has a high propensity of muggings, a plethora of diseases, and some of the most corrupt border crossings in the world. In two days I'll be in the distance.
I'm looking forward to the adventure...
Stay tuned, I can't wait to tell ya 'bout the ride ahead...
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