¡Vamonos! a librarian on the move

australia summary

2011-11-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

so we headed over to australia to visit my aunt and uncle in melbourne, with the idea that we would then travel all over the land of oz going on zany adventures and looking at huge rocks in the middle of the desert. however, this did not happen. due to the exchange rate not being so favorable, the jacked up rugby world cup prices in new zealand, and the general pricy-ness of australia, we decided to ditch said plans and go to south east asia instead. yup, that's how we roll.

but i couldn't just skip to tales of malaysian adventure without telling you about our fabulous but brief adventures in the land down under.

the bolshevik finally realized his dream of being a professional didgeridoo player and i made friends with a very sociable, and very tall, kangaroo .... just kidding. well, i guess it's actually not quite that far from the truth ...

tasmanian devils fighting over
a wallaby leg

i think one of my favorite australia activities was the penguin parade, which sadly we were not allowed to take pictures of. but pretty much, you go to this island where they have lots o' penguins and you sit on these little bleachers and wait for all the penguins to come in from the ocean. these particular penguins are very small so it's super adorable to watch these foot-tall penguins come over the sand dunes and then waddle over to their nests. and as it was mating season, we got the rare opportunity to watch two penguins getting it on. yup, happened right in front of us. the male penguin flaps his flippers surprisingly fast. that's what she said?

then the bolshevik and i headed over to tasmania for a couple of days where we frolicked with various wildlife. i've realized that outside of the u.s. they run fast and loose with the safety rules and will allow tourists to do all sorts of questionably dangerous things. for example, walk into a big field of kangaroos and feed them without any supervision. so there i was happily feeding a bunch of little kangaroos when a very large kangaroo snuck up on me from behind and started eating out of my hand from over my shoulder.

we stayed in a little beachy town called bicheno (pronounced "bisheno" not "bitchin'-o") and did a walk along the shore to see a blowhole. there were many inappropriate comments inspired by the blowhole that i will not repeat here. but trust me, we covered the gamut of blowhole jokes on our walk.

so that's pretty much a week in australia. while i'm sad that we won't get to explore the outback or go to the great barrier reef, i think we made the right decision to give up on oceania and venture over to asia. so next post: awesome malaysian adventures!

a koala and her joey ...
c'mon, you can't have a post
about australia without a koala

new zealand wrap-up

2011-10-19T12:30:00.000-04:00

we are currently in the town of Waipu, which i had picked for the specific reason that it had nothing to do. that's not entirely true ... i thought there would be a few activities, but enough boredom to force me to do some schoolwork and finish up my novel. well, there is certainly no shortage of boredom.

there is one bar in town, which is conveniently attached to our hotel and is populated by old men gambling on horses, beginning from the early hour of 11 am. there is one cafe called "y-not" and then an odd take-out place boasting "magic tasty" chinese and european food. what exactly is "european food?" i am imagining pierogies topped with spanikopita wrapped in a pizza on a bed of paella. anyway, the only "fancy" sit-down restaurant is called the "pizza barn," however, when we tried to eat dinner there at 8:30 on a sunday, we found out that they were no longer accepting new dinner customers. walking the streets, the entire town was abandoned. i kid you not, the bolshevik shouted "helloooo?" down the street and it just echoed back at us. 8:30 pm.

anyhow, we will be off to melbourne, australia to visit my aunt and uncle! but before we head over to OZ, i'd like to do a brief summary of some of our adventures that i had not previously discussed. here goes:

we spent a couple of days in christchurch, despite the fact that the rugby games were cancelled because of all of the earthquake devastation. i think it's important to continue giving business to areas that are struggling after a natural disaster. while we were there the entire center of the city was fenced off due to the reconstruction work. however, i've heard that they will soon be offering tours through the city center to see the devastation and the money will all go to rebuilding the city. here at the city gate there was a memorial of sorts where people have left flowers and notes to their loved ones. it was quite sad actually, but i'm glad we went.

we also went to a place called waitomo, where they have a system of caves that are full of glow worms. we did this thing where we rappelled into a cave, went tubing inside the cave, then climbed out. this picture doesn't really get the full effect, but you can see there are these little glowing dots behind us, which are in fact glow worms. it was actually quite cool when we shut off our headlamps and then all of a sudden the cave was filled with all these brightly glowing dots that hadn't been there before.

while we were in dunedin, we visited baldwin street, which is the steepest street in the world. (even steeper than in san francisco) ... which leads me to comment that new zealand loves to proclaim that they have the most superlative something: steepest street, tallest rock arch, most voluminous sea cave, etc etc (we have in fact seen all of these sights). it was difficult to really photograph how steep it was. this was the best we could do. but it was seriously steep!

alright ... that is all i need to report on new zealand. on to australia!

bay of islands and The Rock

2011-10-18T01:29:00.002-04:00

relaxing in our room on The Rock
(please note awesome bay of islands
island in background)

i am not one to endorse products and/or services, but i'm going to give a little shout-out to The Rock cruise in the bay of islands, nz.

first off, the bay of islands is a big bay in new zealand with something crazy like 150 little islands in it. it's quite beautiful. and the bolshevik arranged for us to take an overnight boat cruise through the bay and i must say that it was awesome.

the boat itself was kind of like a huge house boat with a big bar/dining/lounging area on the first floor and then bedrooms on the second floor. i was quite pleased with our bedroom because it had a huge window, sliding glass doors onto a shared balcony .... and best of all it was private. the bolshevik and i have been staying in hostels to save money, which i do not care for as i do like my alone time with my man.

moving on! so the staff on the rock were all young people who were very friendly and were very enthusiastic about having the opportunity to get paid to hang out on a boat. they were great though, they really went out of their way to get to know everyone.

i think the best thing about the boat was how many activities there were. as a children's librarian, i love activities.

first we did some target shooting, which consisted of shooting a paintball gun at a floating plastic duck. no plastic ducks were hurt during this activity. then we did some fishing and amazingly, with no fishing experience, the bolshevik was the first person to catch a fish. as a reward he was given a free drink, but not before having to kiss the fish he caught. the fish was ultimately thrown back because it was too small.

after fishing we had a big bbq dinner, and then we went night kayaking. the night kayaking was absolutely amazing. once you got far away from the lights of the boat it was really dark and you could see millions of stars. and apparently in the bay of islands area there is a strange plankton that lives in the water so any time you touch the water in moonlight the plankton let out this luminescent glow, so it looks like you're making the water shimmer and glow just by touching it. it was pretty magical. sadly this was impossible to get a picture of, but it will be in my memory forever.

the following morning we had a big breakfast and then went out to one of the islands to do a little hike up a hill (all the islands are quite hilly) and get an amazing view of the bay. then we did some snorkeling and diving for sea urchins, then some more kayaking, and then we headed back to the dock.

while in the bay of islands we also did this "hole in the rock" boat tour which is just a few hours and they drive you to this very tall rock in the middle of the sea which has a large hole in (hence the name) and then the boat drives through the hole and it's pretty cool. however, this was really nothing in comparison to the fabulousness of The Rock boat tour ... so if you're in bay of islands and you can only do one thing ... go on The Rock.

bay of islands, nz (i have learned how to stitch together many shots to make a panoramic shot!)

what would George Bernard Shaw do?

2011-10-16T18:24:00.003-04:00

so we went to this town called Rotorua where they have a crazy amount of thermal activity ... there are hot springs everywhere, and hot mud pools and random steam escaping from the ground in various parts of town. in fact, we were told that some people have even had to move their homes multiple times due to a dangerous amount of steam and activity on their land. i think after i moved my entire house the first time, i might consider moving my house to a less thermal town the second time.

anyway, we went to this place called "Hell's Gate" which is a barren rocky wasteland with huge thermal mud pools, many of which are so hot they would actually cook you alive. others are just like a really nice mud jacuzzi. a maori tribe used to live in the area and they used the pools to cook in, create medicines, have a bath, commit suicide, etc ... very useful these pools. but it makes me think of how shocked they must have been when they went to visit other tribes and found out that other people had to actually start their own fires in order to create heat. suckers.

moving on! apparently, although europeans visited from time to time, the only white man the maori tribe seemed to accept with open arms was George Bernard Shaw. random, no? i don't know, maybe they were all big fans of Pygmalion.

so GBS visits and he is really taken aback by this crazy thermal area that the maori's live in, and he dubs it "hell's gate." and then as he's being toured around he proceeds to rename all the different areas as he sees fit ... "oh this pool is now called 'sodom' and this muddy area here is now called 'gomorrah.'

can you imagine? he just renamed half their land, and they allowed it. strange. they must really dig irish playwrights.

anyway, it is in the spirit of George Bernard Shaw that i have coined my first rugby term. now, if you have ever watched a game of rugby (and i assume most of you haven't) there is this thing called a "scrum" in which the players get into a huddle sort of formation and then slam into each other and whoever has the better scrum gets control of the ball. (this may not be an accurate interpretation of the rules)

but then there is this other thing they do when someone with the ball gets tackled, their teammates make a train behind them, passing the ball between their legs until finally the player on the end of the train is able to take the ball away from the area. the players are all very very close and there is a lot of ass on groin action, not to mention some head in ass action as shown here ... well, it's all very homoerotic.

i feel that this move is different from the scrum used at the beginning of the game, however, as it is a means of getting the ball from the tackled player back into play. with that said, i hereby call this move ... "the ass train."

yup, you can thank george bernard shaw for that. he was my inspiration.

you won't get my chocolatey secrets: a cadbury factory tour

2011-10-08T19:17:00.001-04:00

apparently, here in new zealand everyone thinks you're going to steal their recipe for everlasting gobstoppers. so it wasn't a big surprise when we went to tour the cadbury factory that we weren't allowed to take our cameras. but if you are wondering what it's like inside, it's pretty much exactly like this ... http://youtu.be/RZ-uV72pQKI (please ignore the strange 10 second anime intro)

one thing i have to say about cadbury is that they know how to run a tour ... a woman in a purple oompa-loomap-esque jumpsuit led us around the factory, her pockets laden with mini cadbury bars. sometime she would pose a question to the group, such as, "where does cadbury get their milk from?" the answer is right here in new zealand, and if you answer correctly, you get a piece of chocolate. and if you answer incorrectly, you also get a piece of chocolate. and sometimes you get a piece of chocolate just for climbing several flights of stairs or holding the door for someone. brilliant. i love the reward system. i am way more prone to actively participate if chocolate is involved.

this actually would've been very helpful on a 4x4 excursion we took in tahiti. our tour guide would stop for easily 15-20 minutes at a time and ramble on about various tahitian things, asking us questions that we didn't know the answers to and then waiting an uncomfortably long time before finally telling us the answer. this process could've been made much more pleasant if there had been miniature cadbury bars involved.

the highlight of our tour was when we watched the chocolate "waterfall" inside a large chocolate silo (the silo housed chocolate and was not actually made of chocolate) ... the waterfall rapidly dumped one ton of chocolate in a rather spectacular cascade. the tour guide told us that one ton of chocolate is worth about $5,000 NZ ... when asked what purpose this waterfall served in the chocolate making process, our tour guide said, "none ... it's just really cool." ahhh, new zealand.

by the end of our tour we had accumulated quite a large variety of cadbury products, not to mention all the chocolate and/or marshmallow-centered items we ate along the way. (i think there is an unusually large amount of marshmallow here in NZ) needless to say, we felt a bit ill upon exiting our tour. and then we were suckered into eating an unprocessed cocoa bean, which tasted absolutely awful, and only got more repulsive the longer you chewed it (as shown here at right)

dorking out in new zealand: auckland library

2011-10-03T20:09:00.001-04:00

you may or may not know that as a librarian i have the extremely dorky habit of wanting to visit public libraries when i come across them in foreign countries. i like to look at their books, see how they organize things, check out their teen room, scrutinize their seating choices, etc etc.

yes, i am that much of a geek.

i was very impressed by the auckland library, and i'll tell you i don't go easy on these foreign libraries. i really scrutinize them. first, they have a variety of excellent seating options. there are cushy seats with special little laptop tables, comfy couches, study tables, etc. everywhere you turn there's a little seating area with a different type of furniture, all of which were being utilized by the patrons. while we were there they implemented a high "express" counter that people could stand at and use their laptops or read books while drinking coffee. it was almost as if they designed the library with patron-use in mind. crazy.

there is also a very nice cafe attached to the library with a surprisingly good selection of food.

the library also implemented a variety of eye-catching displays. when we first arrived there was a rugby display. by the time we left town they had changed it to an exhibit of banned books.

of course they had the typical computer labs that you need to sign up for with your library card, but they were pretty liberal about how much time they'd allow you.

when i went to the circulation desk to see about getting a card i noticed that they had labeled the desk "issues." i really like the honesty in this labeling, because really, that's what the circulation desk is: dealing with a bunch of random often ridiculous issues.

i happen to be taking a couple of online classes, and i found some materials in the library that i wanted to take out. i thought it was a long shot, but i asked if it was possible for me to get a library card. amazingly, all they wanted was a letter saying that i am staying somewhere in auckland (accompanied by a photo id of course). now, they didn't want anything with official letter head, anything proving that i will be staying in auckland for any sort of extended period of time, or anything which would allow them to track me down after i left auckland (which actually was only days after my card was issued).

so i got a very shady letter from my hostel and i am now a member of the auckland library! oh the people of new zealand are so trusting! i could've walked off with hundreds of dollars of library materials never to be seen again!

one thing i do not approve of is that the new zealand public libraries seem to charge you in order to take out certain items. for example, i needed to take out two dvds and they were $2 each. cheap, sure, but it should be FREE! there were also charges for new books and selected paperbacks. audiobooks are free though which is strange because they are way more expensive than dvds, but i guess fewer people want to steal them?

anyway, there were many other things i would've liked to take pictures of but i was told by a librarian that there's no photography allowed in the library due to privacy issues. oh, auckland library, so considerate of the patrons!

this is not a picture of hobbiton

2011-10-01T20:48:00.002-04:00

this photo was taken outside
of the tourist office in matamata, nz
it is NOT part of the hobbiton tour

a friend recently asked me, "hey miss dewey decimal, where are the pictures of hobbits?" well new zealand is more than just hobbits my friend. shame on you for thinking otherwise.

that's a lie. new zealand is all about lord of the rings.

so i did go to "hobbiton" which is the sheep farm that peter jackson turned into The Shire and will be filming the upcoming film, The Hobbit starting next week. however, in order to be let into hobbiton i needed to sign my life away, promising not to post any of my pictures on the internet. SO, if you know me in real life and would like to see my pictures of hobbiton, you will have to come over my house and look at them in a private, personal, non-commercial way. like, maybe i'll leave my laptop open and then while i am fixing us some tea and finger sandwiches you will happen to locate my pictures in iPhoto.

but here is what i can tell you without fear of peter jackson suing me ... hobbiton consists of many hobbit houses built into the sides of hills. they look really cool, i swear.

the tour consists of walking around hobbiton on a fenced-in path so that you can't ruin the set. apparently they have had some problems with visitors climbing on stuff and killing plants and doing other damage to the very carefully crafted set.

but you do get a very nice view even though you can't go right up to the houses and pose in the door frames like they did in America's Next Top Model.

our tour guide told us many interesting facts about the making of the set, none of which i can share with you here, as i am sworn to secrecy. then afterwards we got to watch a sheep shearing show.

yeah, that's right ... a sheep shearing show.

there is something i realized being here in new zealand ... it has always been my dream to shear a sheep. i think i must have seen some little clip about it on mr. rogers or sesame street, and now i really want to take those crazy shears and shave a sheep.

i finally get to hold a sheep ... almost as good as
shearing one myself

they do NOT let random tourists shear sheep in new zealand. even though they have SO many sheep available. and trust me, i have tried. we have seen many a sheep show advertised and none of them let audience members shear the sheep. wtf?!

however, in hobbiton, after watching a trained professional shear a sheep (apparently it takes four years of training to be allowed to shear sheep) ... we were allowed to go into a penned little area where the nice sheep farmer released a whole bunch of lambs.

ps. i think more villains need to shout "release the lambs!"

eye on "sports:" zorbing

2011-09-24T02:20:00.000-04:00

so new zealand is a very beautiful place with lots of many natural wonders to explore. however, when you are not exploring these natural wonders, it has come to my attention that there isn't a hell of a lot to do. but do not fret my dear blog readers, the good people of new zealand have invented a variety of activities to keep busy!

if you've ever had a pet hamster, you probably already familiar with the concept of zorbing. pretty much, due to what i can only imagine was immense boredom, the people of new zealand created a large human size hamster ball. this is no normal hamster ball though, it has been engineered by top new zealand scientists to allow for human beings to be propelled down steep hills without injury. thank god! how long did mankind have to wait for such technology to be developed?!

there are a few different zorbing variations: wet, dry, single, group. in a dry zorb you are strapped in to a space simulation type device inside the zorb, so as you are rolling down the hill you will be tumbling upside-down, leaving you very very dizzy. this sounded torturous to yours truly as i do not like to be upside-down. in a wet zorb, warm water is sprayed into the zorb allowing you to splash around freely inside the ball whilst you are rolling down the hill without fear of friction burns (and without fear of drowning). then there is the option to do the wet zorb with up to three people all bouncing around at the same time. so many choices! what a country!

and that is how my beloved bolshevik and i wound up splashing down a hill inside a giant hamster ball on a brisk new zealand day.

p.s. if you stand up in the zorb when you start to move (as the bolshevik did much to my initial dismay) you go down the hill crazy fast.

eye on sports: rugby world cup

2011-09-18T17:43:00.001-04:00

you can't go anywhere without
running into some
argentine hooligans

i bet you have always thought to yourself, “self, i wish that miss dewey decimal would commentate on more sporting events!” (and by more you mean at least one) well dear blog readers, you are in luck because today i am going to expand my charming brand of witty observations into the realm of rugby. hold onto your hats! (hats are something that people sometimes wear when playing sports, but not so much in rugby where hats are not typically implemented ... are you witnessing this sporty knowledge?!)

SO, here in new zealand everyone is very excited for the rugby world cup. i am supporting the new zealand national team, the All Blacks. i support this team for the following reasons:

1. they do a maori war dance called a "haka" at the beginning of each match to intimidate their opponents. it's pretty badass and i like dancing.

2. they wear all black, which is much more sophisticated than the typical garish color combinations that many sports team have on their uniforms.

3. i already own an All Blacks hoodie that the bolshevik purchased for me the last time he was in new zealand. this is part of his attempt to get me to like sports by appealing to my interest in accessories and outerwear (i now own three, yes THREE, sports related hoodies!)

waldo watches the maori boats row
into town on the big screen

yup, getting my support of your team is that easy.

moving on!

when we arrived in auckland it was a few days before the opening game of the RWC and the excitement was palpable. every store window was somehow tying in rugby and the All Blacks into their displays, there were signs all over the city advertising different opening day events, etc. even though i really don't care about sports, i found myself getting excited too.

on the day of the opening game, there was a huge event in the city center where hundreds of maori tribesmen rowed into the harbor on huge maori war boats. sadly, we couldn't actually get anywhere near the harbor since there were so many people there. but we were able to catch glimpses of it on the huge screens they had in the middle of the street. this was followed by a maori parade down the main street which we also couldn't see because there were so many people. it was around this time that we decided that maybe it was best to just get to the stadium since we couldn't actually see any of the events that were going on where we were.

i join in a haka

at the stadium there was an opening ceremony that included a long dance number that was not dissimilar to the interpretive dance numbers that they used to have at the oscars. there were hundreds of people running around the pitch (that means field!) in loin cloths, carrying shields and spears, and weird metallic sailboats raced across the grass. then another hundred or so dancers came out dressed as rugby players and were dancing with a young blonde boy who was then dramatically raised about 75 feet in the air as he tried to grab hold of a gigantic inflatable rugby ball floating overhead. this part was actually quite cool, although it made me wonder how this kid's parents ever signed off on this as it seemed highly dangerous.

then there were some fireworks and a maori guy blew a large horn and then eventually some guys came out and played a game of rugby.

sonny bill williams gets help
putting on his super tight jersey
deeeee-lish

rugby is very similar to american football except they don't stop the clock every five seconds. they just keep playing, which is nice because it keeps the game moving.

the highlight of this particular game was when sonny bill williams' jersey was ripped in a scrum (big pile of sweaty rugby men) and it exposed his very cool maori tribal tattoo. then there was some lovely footage on the big screen of him getting assistance in putting on a new jersey. (these jerseys are super tight) turns out he's totally cut.

miss dewey d
reporting to you live from
the new zealand rugby world cup
2011

oh, and the All Blacks beat tonga. GO THE MIGHTY ALL BLACKS!

and thus concludes my short-lived career as a sporty commentator.

the story of auckland sky tower

2011-09-07T20:59:00.002-04:00

Once upon a time in a far away land, there was a large tower ...

one day this tower was visited by a boy in lightning pajamas ...

and then THREE ...

TWO ...

ONE ...

SPLAT!

just kidding, he's fine ... he did it twice in fact.

tahiti ... where the french go to speak french and act fancy

2011-09-06T20:14:00.001-04:00

i know that i like to get my kvetch on now and again, and i hope that usually it is lovable and charming in a woody allen meets larry david meets phoebe buffet kind of way. but i know that some of you beloved blog readers will have difficulty with my complaining about being in the island paradise of tahiti. but i shall do it nonetheless ...

here goes ...

on with the kvetching ...

poolside sunset in tahiti ... do not be seduced by the
beautiful tropic tranquility!

so, we arrived at our free hotel in tahiti and it was just plain gorgeous. definitely of a fancy caliber beyond our means. on the grounds was a very chic looking pool overlooking the beach and the mountains and the little floating huts out at sea. very lovely.

at happy hour we sat on oversized armchairs on the beach and sipped extremely pricey cocktails that were only affordable from 5:30-6:30 pm ... thank goodness for this or we would've spent the entirety of our trip sober! the shame of it.

in the morning we arrived at the breakfast pavilion and were given warm chocolate croissants and breads, and then we gorged ourselves on a buffet of french cheeses (i must say that the combination of french cuisine and island living is quite nice) ... however we were quite shocked when we found out that said breakfast cost about $30 per person. to be fair, the bolshevik did eat his weight in brie.

side note: we were in the rare minority of non-french speakers in tahiti and i have developed the odd problem that when someone speaks to me in a foreign language i cannot help but answer in spanish. this is not helpful in french polynesia.

it is also interesting to note that the majority of visitors to tahiti had traveled there from france. if you look on a map and are successfully able to find tahiti, you will see that it is damned far from everything, especially france. i can only assume that wealthy french people are choosing to fly across the globe in order to have tropical vacations where they can still have the comfort food of home and speak their native language. odd.

anyway, moving on ...

we tried to save some money by having dinner in town where (i had read in our guidebook) they have a plaza filled with food trucks every night selling "cheap" food. mmmmm .... food truck food. when dining in tahiti there are three food truck options ... seafood, chinese, and crepes.

we quickly found that the cheapest dish at the food trucks was about $20 ... seriously? it's food from a truck, which is then eaten on plastic picnic tables. this is not to say that i do not love food truck food, however, i think it should come at a discounted rate.

heaps of raw fish deliciousness

anyway, we opted for seafood and i must say that it was deeee-lish ... i got a dish that was pretty much a pound or so of raw tuna in a coconut milk sauce and a side of fries. it was definitely a good value considering the amount of food i received, however, it would've been nice to get something like a half a pound of raw fish and save myself some cash.

i will not bore you with the rest of my complaints, which all revolve around expensiveness ... but here is a little list, just so you know:
rental car: $150 ish for about 5 hours
polynesian dinner show: $75 per person (we didn't actually go due to pricey-ness)
very short cab rides after the bus stopped running: $35 each
hotel wifi (which was extremely slow, and had the odd habit of continuing to charge us even when we had logged off and left the hotel room) - $6 per hour

anyway ... after a while we kind of felt like we were hemorrhaging money, and all in the period of a three day layover.

okay, enough with the kvetching ... i will now tell you about fun things we did in tahiti:

view from our 4x4 adventure

- we swam in a cave
- we visited a religious site with tiki statues
- we rode in the back of a 4x4 through the mountains and looked at flora, fauna and waterfalls
- we swam in a waterfall
- we drank tropical cocktails (but only from the hours of 5:30-6:30 pm)
- we ate ridiculous amounts of french cheese

in conclusion ... tahiti is quite beautiful and filled with natural splendor. however, if you are not independently wealthy i would suggest visiting a different tropical island. next time we will try fiji.

just one thing before you go ...

2011-08-30T08:21:00.003-04:00

i was talking to my ex-step-father (don't ask questions, just go with it) ... and he was saying that he doesn't ever prepare for vacations because he always goes to the same place and he doesn't do any activities beyond eating and sitting on the beach. must be relaxing. anyway, as you could imagine, our adventures take some planning. and of course when you're leaving for an extended period of time, there are all these little things you have to get done before you go. as stressful as this can be, the past 3 weeks seem to have included an inordinate number of ridiculous problems. observe:

- went to the dentist and found out i have 4 cavities, one of which needs a root canal. after many phone calls with my insurance company i found out that said root canal is not covered because i have 8 other teeth that touch. yup, that's right ... because i am neither a hobo nor a crackhead, my teeth are too good for a root canal to be considered a "necessity." moving on!

- spent an extended period of time desperately trying to prove to a community college that i am in fact a resident of new york ... please note that i have never lived in any other state other than new york in my entire life. thankfully i finally convinced them (it involved my brother venturing into our mother's attic in search of old tax returns) and they have allowed me to enroll in online classes. nothing better than lugging a bunch of textbooks around an entire continent for 2.5 months! yay!

miss fifi took this lovely shot of me
amongst the flash flooding caused by the
"hurricane" ... do not confuse this flooding
with a small puddle created by a hose left on.
news casters have assured me that this is
hurricane related devastation.
p.s. does this guy have enough sandbags?
p.p.s. does this guy even understand what
sandbags are used for?

- went out to long island because my mother was having a medical procedure done, only to experience a minor earthquake while she was in the operating room. it was a very minor earthquake, but seriously? an earthquake?

- after planning a nice little going away party for ourselves, our lives are interrupted by a "hurricane" and the city's entire mass transit system is preemptively shut down for no reason, making our party impossible to get to. thank you to those two devoted guests who attended!

- however, during the extreme boredom of the non-hurricane, i was able to finish the online portion of my scuba certification. i am now ready for the practical portion of my open-water training!

- yesterday i proudly strode into the dentist office for the 4th time in 3 weeks, ready to receive my crown, only to find out that the crown didn't fit. really?! but it was so expensive! and of course there is not enough time to re-adjust the crown before we leave today, so i am being shipped off to Oceania with only a temporary tooth that is cemented in place. no salt water taffy for me. le sigh.

- and today, before we leave for the airport at 3pm we need to rent a zip car, load it with our crap, and move our remaining stuff into storage. why didn't we do that yesterday? because after the crown fitting i spent several hours tracking down textbooks. one of which i found in nyc and was able to purchase for the bargain price of $145 (what the hell? these books aren't even interesting! why are they so expensive?) the other the bolshevik was cleverly able to find on a new zealand website and it is being shipped to our hostel in auckland. ridiculous.

so .... off we go!!

things i didn't do

2011-08-25T01:51:00.000-04:00

so i had this whole idea that i would write insightful and witty posts about the many odd culture shock things that happened when i returned to new york and wound up living in long island for a month. of course, i did not do this. and really, the only massive culture shock moment i had was when i stared at a shopkeeper in disbelief when i got change for a $20 without any grumbling, complaining, dirty looks, etc.

across the street from this lovely
sewage treatment plant there is
some sort of recycling center
that collects and sorts through
garbage. you can imagine
that the smell in this particular
area leaves much to be desired.

then once we moved to nyc for the summer, i thought i would write about our random nyc adventures ... like the time i found a piano locked up in front of the nearby sewage treatment plant. obviously, when you find a piano in front of a sewage treatment plant the first thing you do is go to the nearest public library to find a book of sheet music (all they had was children's folk songs). then call your friend to sing several rounds of I've Been Working on the Railroad, only to later be joined by a passing unicyclist. yes, this happened. exactly like this.

but alas, poor forsaken blog readers, i didn't do that either.

i also did not bore you with the many details of tests and classes i am taking in order to become a certified school librarian. apparently, years of experience as a children's/teen librarian does not count for anything when you want to be a librarian inside a school that would work with children and/or teens. of course there is much red tape and many hoops to jump through.

BUT, the bolshevik and i are about to depart on a new adventure and i think that it is only fair and just and proper to try to resurrect this sadly ignored blog! so here's the deal:

this is merely an artist's rendition
of what it might look like if i tried to drive
a pickup truck full of money all the way
to tahiti. i do not plan on bringing
any large sacks of money with us, as the
bolshevik has urged me to pack light.
also, driving pickup trucks to tahiti
is not recommended.

the bolshevik and i are going to new zealand for about 5 weeks to go see the rugby world cup and then traipse around the country seeing many beautiful things. we may even go zorbing! then we will go to australia to visit my aunt and also see more beautiful things and go on more zany adventures.

but my favorite part about this trip is that after months of fretting over the jacked up prices of air travel, we found an amazing deal on air tahiti which provides us with a FREE LAYOVER IN TAHITI ... yes, we are going to tahiti! and we are getting A FREE HOTEL ROOM FOR THREE NIGHTS! they keep offering us these deals to upgrade to a super fancy room that floats in the ocean, but f*#@ that! we will keep our free tahiti room and just walk the 30 seconds it will take us to get to the ocean. TAHITI!

we leave next week. hopefully i will get my act together and keep you moderately informed.

xoxo
miss dewey d

these are a few of my favorite things ... part 2

2011-04-14T10:29:00.000-04:00

i forgot to mention public holidays! now, working in a public library i got a fair amount of holidays off. however, i often had to work the day after thanksgiving, the day after christmas, election day, etc. but in argentina they sure know how to celebrate a holiday. first off, everything closes. EVERYTHING. there is no office left open. everyone has off for every holiday. there's no, "oh, i don't get columbus day off." not in argentina my dear blog readers! dia de la raza is celebrated by all!

now, during our time in buenos aires the good president Christina decided that it was a travesty that there was no public holiday in november ... so she created a new holiday! just so there could be a holiday every month! (check out the calendar of national holidays, all of which must be kept oh-so-holy and work-free)

then, in march this year, there were two holidays that fell mid-week ... one on a thursday and one on a tuesday. so it was decided that a feriada puente or "bridge holiday" would be instituted. this means that if the holiday falls on a thursday, everyone gets off of work thursday and friday. or if the holiday is on a tuesday, everyone gets off monday and tuesday. which means that in march we had not one, but two four-day weekends! four days! it may only be one day more, but a four-day weekend totally kicks a three-day weekend's ass. ah, i remember those sad sad days in hell's library where i was excited by a two-day weekend. lame.

the only problem with this is the productivity was at an all-time low during march ... everyone was coming off their summer holidays and you'd hear things like, "well because of the two bridge holidays this month, we probably won't get to that until April." but really, who cares when you have two four-day weekends?

did i ever tell you about the time that the entire city shut down so that they could take the country-wide census all in one day? maybe next time ....

these are a few of my favorite things ...

2011-04-13T22:18:00.000-04:00

as i'm sure you've noticed, sometimes i like to get my kvetch on. but i love buenos aires, despite any complaining i might do. so i'd like to highlight some things that i think are really cool ...

1. free bikes

bike kiosk at plaza italia

several months ago, the city of buenos aires created a free bike borrowing program. all you need to do is bring a passport or DNI card and proof of your address (bill, bank statement, etc) ... you wait on one line where they quickly set up an account for you, taking a picture of you for their files, and showing you how to create a PIN. then you go to the other line where you can use your PIN to sign in and you are given a bike with basket, helmet, and lock! you're only allowed to use the bike for 2 hours, which kinda sucks, and the weekend hours are limited. however, there are bike kiosks all over the city, so if you wanted to ride to work, you could drop your bike off when you get there and then pick up a different one when you're ready to ride home. it's definitely a good start, and if people continue to use the program maybe they will expand the hours. in general, although the traffic is a little scary, buenos aires is quickly becoming a decent city to bike around. in the short time i've been here they've massively increased the number of bike lanes throughout the city. now all they have to do is get cars to stop parking in them.

2. free cultural events

call me a socialist, but i love free stuff provided by the government. the city of buenos aires provides extensive free cultural activities throughout the summer (and the rest of the year as well): free tango performances, children's theater productions in the botanical gardens, "drive in" movies in the park (bleachers provided for pedestrians), concerts in various plazas and outdoor venues throughout the city, etc etc. i wish we had took advantage of this more, but the few events we did go to were all excellent. one was a concert in constanera sur, near the nature preserve ... they had a reggae singer that apparently is mildly famous. the music was great, and within the crowd there were people selling homemade breads and other snacks, and people going around selling beer. mind you, these are not official vendors; these are just random people who thought they'd bring beer or make sandwiches to sell at the concert. at one of these events i even saw a guy pushing a shopping cart filled with all the makings for milanesa sandwiches (this is a breaded steak cutlet that is very typical in argentina). sure, the health department could have a field day with this, but i love the industriousness of these people and the sense of community it creates. much nicer than having to pay $10 for a taco from some vendor at lollapalooza (and that was back in the 90s ... think about how much the price of tacos must've increased with inflation!)

3. random charming silliness
an argentine friend once complained to me that she felt argentines were completely illogical. at the time i had just moved to buenos aires, so i had no idea what she was talking about. but then as time went on i would encounter random odd things and wonder to myself, "why on earth would anyone choose to do this in this way? certainly there is a better more effective option." and of course, when pressed for an example it is often difficult to come up with something concrete.

pares y impares
or odds and evens

the other day i went to a new doctor and i was waiting in the lobby for the elevator. when an elevator came, i walked into it, holding the door open for the other two people who were waiting beside me. but they just waived me away, saying that they would wait for the next one. at first i thought this was odd, assuming that they purposefully did not want to share an elevator with little ol' me. but then when i entered the elevator and tried to push the button for floor 11, i realized that the elevator only had even-numbered buttons. so i had to go to floor 10 and then walk up a flight.
yes, that's right ... they had an elevator for odd-numbered floors and an elevator for even-numbered floors. now, while i could see how this could be useful in having the elevator make less stops, the fact remains that it is highly conceivable that the proper elevator could be many many floors away and then the other elevator could be in the lobby, taunting you, unable to take you to the floor you need. this leads me to wonder, "why on earth would anyone choose to have elevators operate this way? certainly there is a better more effective option."

4. street art / graffiti
i've never thought of graffiti as a problem. sometimes i hear people complain about it as though it were a blight on our society, but i have to admit i like graffiti. and i especially like murals, street art, and other colorful things painted onto the sides of buildings. and such urban art is plentiful in buenos aires:

5. things that are filled with and/or contain dulce de leche

my favorite alfajor ... cachafez brand

mmmmm ... dulce de leche ... let me count the ways
   1. alfajores - sandwich cookie with dulce de leche inside
   2. various ice cream flavors like dulce de leche, dulce de leche con brownie, super dulce de leche etc etc
   3. breakfast foods like toast or croissants with dulce de leche
   4. on fruit like apples or bananas
   5. on top of desserts such as flan, cakes, ice cream sundaes, etc
   6. straight out of the jar or container using only a spoon or finger

and now ... the end is near

2011-04-06T17:00:00.000-04:00

all i have to do is practice
my dance moves and i'll be
ready for carnivale!

hello my poor forsaken blog readers ... oh how i have ignored you.

sadly, due to a family emergency, my time in argentina has been cut short. but before i move on to my misadventures of readjusting to life on strong island, i have a few more stories up my sleeve ...

first off, you can't leave south america without going to one last parade. so we took a bus to gualeguaychu for carnivale for one last parade hurrah. the plan was simple ... get drunk on the beach, watch carnivale, and then take a bus home at 4 am. simple.

for those of you who don't know about carnivale, the town of gualeguaychu celebrates carnivale every weekend from january to march. they close one of the larger streets and set up bleachers on both sides, making a long runway of sorts for the paraders to parade down. it's the largest carnivale celebration outside of brazil. apparently, HUGE amounts of money go into the elaborate floats and costumes, and a lot of time is spent practicing dance steps. typically the parade starts at around 11 or 12 at night, and goes on until about 6 am.

but sadly, somebody (your truly) had a bit too much to drink and ... well ... i believe i slept through a large part of carnivale. i seem to have a large chunk of time from midnight to 2 am where no pictures were taken and i don't remember much. but luckily i do have some photographic evidence that i was there!

scantily clad carnivale dancers

i liked these older ladies and their more regal costumes

dancers atop of a float (with dance handles for safety)

i'm not quite sure what this guy is supposed to be ... but i like it

i love a parade ...

2011-02-13T09:31:00.000-05:00

oh dear blog readers, it's been such a long time since we've seen a good old fashioned south american parade. it used to be that we were welcomed to town by a parade wherever we went. well, luckily the other night while we were walking around san telmo looking for a cheap parilla, we stumbled upon this parade of sorts.

so it all started off rather normal with music and dancing and shiny costumes. good stuff. then we noticed that there were a large number of precocious children running around spraying each other with what looked like white silly string. fine. i'm all for merriment.

soon the bolshevik and i were lost in the crowd and wound up getting split up. it was around this time that i noticed men selling spray cans of nieve or snow. what was this stuff? was it like the fake snow people spray on christmas trees? well, that's kind of charming then that a culture where no one has even seen snow wants to have a snowy parade. how cute.

but it all got malicious rather quickly ... apparently the nieve is really just a special type of shaving cream good for spraying at people. as soon as i entered the crowd i was getting hit everywhere. at first by punk ass kids, and then later by adults as well! wtf?! i was just an innocent bystander!

the bolshevik covered in nieve
moments before spraying me

by the time i found the bolshevik again we were both soaking wet, covered in nieve. as i approached him, thankful that we could finally leave this crazy parade, the bolshevik shot me! enraged by what was going on, the bolshevik had bought his own can of nieve for self-defense.

so then we both re-entered the crowd, hoping to get our revenge. but man, those kids were good. ultimately, we left the parade having inflicted way less damage than we would've liked.

breakfast of champions

2011-02-12T09:26:00.001-05:00

the bolshevik started this morning's
baked-goods-for-breakfast
before i could get a good picture
of all the cookies

it is my belief that if you have fresh baked goods in your house, there is no reason not to eat them for breakfast. and it is with great pride that i tell you dear blog readers that this morning i had homemade chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. (i also recommend brownies and cupcakes as excellent baked-goods-for-breakfast)

now before you get all preachy on me, let me ask you ... is this really any worse than a bowl of sugary cereal? especially if the cereal in question is cookie crisp? (i was never allowed to have cookie crisp as a child. obviously my baked-goods-for-breakfast initiative is some sort of rebellion)

moving on!

since many of you were concerned about my inability to bake here in buenos aires, let me walk you through how this was accomplished.

first i was finally able to find baking soda (bicarbonato de sodio) and baking powder (polvo para hornear) you really have to do some searching to find these things since they are kept in these strange little packets, and aren't put in an obvious place. then i found "brown sugar" or azúcar de fantasia negro. it was difficult to tell if this was true brown sugar or if it was just regular sugar that had been colored brown. but lo and behold this sugar of fantasy actually was legitimate brown sugar!

next i needed chocolate chips. a key ingredient in chocolate chip cookies. however, i went to two different stores and couldn't find any. later i was informed that you have to go to a special party store to get chocolate chips. so i improvised and bought a large chocolate bar and then smashed it into little pieces.

then we had the numberless oven problem ... so i put the dial near the "little flame" setting, assuming that it's better to underbake than overbake.

much like at an argentine parilla, my chocolate chip cookies were slow-baked to perfection ... much like re-inventing the wheel, i have re-invented the art of baking.

i am not a professional baker

2011-02-04T16:05:00.000-05:00

if you read my old blog, you may remember that i have a fondness for baking. and yet, here in buenos aires i have made very few baked goods. why, you ask? because i cannot figure out how.

first, i had a hell of a time finding ingredients such as baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, etc. it makes me wonder if everyone just makes their baked goods from a mix. but eventually i was able to locate some (not all!) of these essential items.

but then we have the problem with the ovens ... you see, when i bake things, usually i like to set the oven at a specific temperature. usually 350 degrees. sometimes 375 degrees. but this is an impossibility here. please see the oven at left.

you may notice that there are NO NUMBERS anywhere to be found. now, for the stove i guess numbers aren't really necessary. but i ask you, how are you supposed to figure out what temperature to cook things when all you are given to work with is a picture of a big flame and a little flame? at first i thought maybe we just had a shitty oven, but then i learned that everyone has ovens like these in their homes.

so i asked an argentine how you are supposed to bake under these conditions, and he was quite shocked that i had a problem with this system. "why do you need to know the temperature?" he asked, "certainly you can tell if the oven is hot, no?"

yes, i can in fact tell when an oven is hot. i have that power. but i explained that i wanted to know the exact temperature.

"why," he asked, "are you a professional baker or something?"

well, this stunned me a little. am i asking for too much? am i being a baking prima donna? so i decided to quit my whining, and i set off to bake some cookies.

now, let me tell you that cookies are hard to find here in argentina. sure, they sell oreos and chips ahoy in the supermarket, and i have become quite fond of the dulce de leche sandwich cookie goodness which is an alfajor, but try to find a good old fashioned homemade chocolate chip cookie and you're shit out of luck.

so it was with great sadness when my cookie baking experiment turned out like this. first off, i have no idea why the cookies did not expand and rise like normal cookies. instead they remained as little balls of cookie dough. (i blame the baking powder). second, the oven temperature was obviously too high making it impossible for the cookies to be baked on top without being severely burned on the bottom. and finally, although the non-burned parts tasted okay, they more closely resembled biscotti than a chocolate chip cookie. (again, i blame the baking powder).

this baking disaster took place in our old apartment, and during the baking the window of the oven actually FELL OUT of the oven door. i'm sure that didn't help matters. anyway, i have yet to attempt to bake again in our new apartment. probably because i am not a professional, and am therefore unqualified.

happy 112th anniversary

2011-01-30T18:28:00.000-05:00

what? what do you mean that the buenos aires botanical gardens is reusing the sign from their 110th anniversary? that's crazy! obviously this sign was made specifically to celebrate their 112th anniversary. shame on you for even thinking otherwise.

the blog of bad pants revisited OR seen in san telmo

2011-01-29T18:25:00.002-05:00

apparently, cusco is not the only south american locale plagued by bad pants ... as we see here, bad pants can be encountered right here in fashionable buenos aires. let's examine the offense more closely, shall we?

1. oddly fitting bright day-glo orange pants
2. random thick yellow strap used as a belt
3. white crocs (i do not know what is worse, the pants or the fact that they are being paired with crocs)

c'mon people, get it together! we can dress better than this.

not quite a hanukkah miracle

2011-01-27T09:22:00.000-05:00

so not to be rude or disrespectful, but i've been noticing that things here in argentina are made in a way ... oh, how to say it politely ... like crap. we have this thing in our kitchen called a calefactor. the calefactor heats, or is supposed to heat, the water in the apartment. it is a simple idea, really. there is a pilot light which is to remain lit all the time as a signal that gas is not leaking into your apartment slowly killing you. then, when it is time to use hot water, there is a great whooshing of flames inside the calefactor which immediately heat the water you are using. simple, right?

here are the problems:
1. often the pilot light goes out for no reason. we have told numerous handymen this, but they say that the problem is not the innocent calefactor but the fact that the calefactor is so close to the kitchen window. obviously, it must be a breeze from the kitchen window which we keep CLOSED AT ALL TIMES that is blowing out the pilot light. i ask you, why put this thing near a window then? and why is it constructed in a way that a small passing breeze could blow out the flame in the first place? sometimes, and this is my favorite, when someone tries to use the hot water and the calefactor actually works, the whooshing of the flames is so intense that the wind that the fire creates (or lack of wind?) actually puts out the pilot light. ironic, isn't it?

2. frequently (usually in the morning when i am trying to take a shower before work) even if they pilot light is lit, the flames do not catch, and then the gas is going but it's not on fire, and therefore it is not heating the water. when this happens, you need to go over to the calefactor and turn the knob ever so slightly, testing it out in each position, until you are able to find that magic spot where the gas will actually catch fire (please note: the magic spot is different every time).

so recently we had a handyman in to "fix" the calefactor. and for about 5 days we actually didn't have any problems. the pilot light stayed lit, and when we turned on the hot water, the calefactor automatically began heating the water, without any fidgeting or fussing. AMAZING! it was, as the bolshevik brought to my attention, quite nearly a buenos aires hanukkah miracle. but as we approached the eighth day, with fingers crossed that the pilot light could stay lit for eight whole miraculous days without needing to be attended to by us or a technician, what happened? ... the calefactor failed us! and now we are back to this (several times a day) ...

spare room buenos aires: the exciting conclusion OR the bartender and the bolshevik

2011-01-26T09:47:00.003-05:00

living room with cable television
(not just a physical cable,
but also a connection to a
paid account that transmits
television programming
into the tv for us to watch!)

you may be wondering to yourself, "self, i wonder what happened with miss dewey d and her apartment dilemna?" well, we were able to find a very nice two-bedroom apartment only a few blocks away from our old apartment. it's good because that way we still know where everything is in the neighborhood. and i am happy to say that our new landlady appears to be a non-psycho. say what? yes, it's true.

1 out of 2 balconies

and get this, when things are broken in the apartment, she promptly sends people to fix said things. now, that is not to say that these people actually fix the things that are broken ... on no, that would be expecting too much. but they do show up with tools and tinker around and make loud clanging sounds as though they're hard at work. and even though that isn't quite as good as actually having things be fixed, i appreciate the illusion that they're creating.

living room

anyhoo, we've been living here since november and i think it is safe to say that we will not be moving into another apartment during the remainder of our stay. (fingers crossed!) for those of you who may have lost track, this is now the third apartment we've lived in here in lovely buenos aires.

the apartment has a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms, and two balconies (one off the living room and one off the master bedroom).

master bedroom

you may have picked up that we do in fact have a spare room in our apartment. what on earth on we doing with this spare room you ask? well, the bolshevik and i have taken on a flatmate who will hereby be referred to as "the bartender." the bartender is someone we knew from nyc (yes that's right all the cool kids from nyc are moving to buenos aires) and he has a tendency to make us cocktails. not a bad trait in a flatmate if you ask me.

kitchen (with the world's
weakest washing machine)

so all in all it's pretty amusing here in the new apartment, much like an episode of three's company, except that none of us are pretending to be gay in order to live in the building.

the bar

this brings me to a question that has been plaguing me as of late ... why did people have to pretend to be gay (or cross-dress) just to get an apartment in the 70s? was the housing market that bad? i think we can assume that television was accurately portraying a serious societal issue here. i'm so glad that we live in a time where people no longer have to live a life of deception just to get a decent place to live.

adventures in vino

2011-01-22T09:04:00.009-05:00

cute little guest house

hola chicos, i do so apologize for the blogging delay. but if you are a reader of this blog, you know that my blogging schedule is sporadic at best. disculpame.

entonces. maybe you are wondering how our trip to mendoza was. i hope that you are because that is what i am going to write about today and you will be sorely disappointed if you were expecting something else. here goes:

pool within a vineyard

mendoza is awesome. and after a few ho-hum trips to uruguay, this was a well-deserved real vacation.

our first night there we stayed in a little guest house at a vineyard. it was super cute and we had access to a little swimming pool surrounded by plum trees and olive groves. adorable! and the plums were delicious. easily the best plums i've had in my life. and for breakfast we were served fresh peaches with our tostadas which were also quite delicious.

the only problem with staying in a cute little guest house at a vineyard is that you are very far away from civilization. we made the mistake of staying there on a sunday and then we were sort of stranded there and the one nearby restaurant was closed. extremely hungry, we took a bus into town. of course, everything in town was closed too, so we wound up buying gas station snacks, and much to our dismay, the girl at the counter refused to give us any change for the bus back. due to this moneda shortage, we found ourselves unable to collect enough change to get back. apparently they sell a metrocard type card for the buses, but all the kioskos that sold this card were closed on sundays. so we went from store to store begging for change. now, when i say "begging for change," i of course do not mean that we were asking for a free handout. i mean that we were begging people to give us coins in exchange for bills. often we even offered to buy something. but it took quite a while until we were able to scrape together enough change to return to our cute little guest house.

exclusive bike parking

but once the week began and we returned to the land of the living we were able to hoard our change and ride buses and dine at fine restaurants and everything was peachy keen.

so what can you do in mendoza?

you can ride bikes to wineries and drink lots o' wine. they even have special bike parking at all the wineries! this biking and wine combo might seem like a bad idea, as we did have a little problem with this one time in uruguay, but the biking in mendoza was lovely. the roads are all perfectly flat, and the drivers there seem accustomed to having tipsy tourists biking from vineyard to vineyard, so it all was very safe.

wine tasting + baked brie

we visited many vineyards, and learned a lot about how wine is made. we also were able to visit a place that grows olives and produces olive oil, as well as a place that makes various chocolates and liquors. but our favorite place was a vineyard called tempus alba. they had this gorgeous roof terrace where they served food and did wine tastings. we went there twice we liked it so much. i recommend the baked brie if you go there .... deeeee-lish.

and of course we went on exciting adventures. one day we did a rafting / biking combo. we spent the morning white water rafting, and then we biked through the mountains. while we were biking a small torrential downpour began and we needed to take cover in a tree. yes, in a tree. we found a tree with a nice opening in it (kind of like the tree the gummy bears live in) and we hid inside it. we were then joined by a stray dog, also looking for shelter. let's just say that three's a crowd when you're hiding inside a tree.

biking through the mountains

once the rain let up we resumed our biking and our canine friend began running alongside me, much like people used to run alongside departing trains in the 1950s. have i mentioned that i do not really love dogs very much? well, this dog was freaking me out running alongside me, and then all of a sudden he ran straight into my front tire. i have never seen a dog do this before. thankfully i was able to swerve out of the way without falling, but i ask you ... is there any other person who could possibly have a biking accident with a kamikaze dog? no, only yours truly.

el bolshevik rappelling
off the side of a cliff

moving on ... once the rain subsided we saw many beautiful sights on our ride back.

on another day we decided to do a hiking/rappelling/hot springs combo ... we hiked up a mountain for about 45 minutes and then we rappelled down using ropes and harnesses and things. now, we had done this once in belize, and you may remember that i had a minor freak out and refused to walk off the side of a cliff. well, i was much better this time. i'm an old pro at walking off the sides of cliffs! so we rappelled off a few cliffs and then we walked to a nearby hot springs.

a "not that hot" hot springs,
but at least there was a view

this hot springs was way classier than the ones we visited in Colon ... it was built into the side of a cliff with lovely pools where you could sit and relax and look out on the "pre-Andes." pretty cool. of course, most of them were not all that hot (much like Argentine cuisine) but what can you do? it was pretty awesome all the same.

and that was our trip to mendoza.

happy chocotorta

2010-12-25T09:05:00.017-05:00

many of you may know that i am not a fan of cooking. i am however a fan of baking. so when i first learned of the chocotorta i was compelled to find out how to make one. i actually found a very helpful youtube video that gives helpful instructions. and it turns out baking is not even required! what could be better?

the other day i was discussing my love of chocotorta (the desert, the ice cream flavor at freddo, the sundae at freddo, etc) with one of my bosses, and she said that she has a friend who puts banana in her chocotorta. brilliant. although typically served at birthdays, i decided that i would make one for my friend's christmas bagel brunch.

here's how it works ...

ingredients:
chocolate cookies
dulce de leche
crema
chocolate flavored liquor (or coffee flavored liquor, or cold coffee mixed with the booze of your choice)
bananas (optional)

step one:
empty the dulce de leche and the crema into a mixing bowl and mix until smooth. it should be a 1:1 ratio crema to dulce de leche.

step two:
take each chocolate cookie and dunk it in the liquor, then place at the bottom of a large baking dish

step three:
spread the crema/dulce de leche mixture in a thin layer over the cookies

step four (optional):
create a layer of sliced bananas (i did this in the middle, which then made the above layers a bit wonky. it may be better to put the banana layer on top. however, bananas are not traditionally in a chocotorta at all)

step five:
repeat layers of cookie and crema/dulce de leche until you run out of cookies. end with a layer of the crema/dulce de leche mixture.

step six:
take any leftover cookies and crumble them on top of the dulce de leche in a decorative fashion. (or do other creative decorating with any extra cookies)

step seven:
refrigerate for at least 2 hours

happy holidays!!!

uruguay: quite possibly the most boring place on earth

2010-12-24T09:20:00.000-05:00

november 2010 - visa renewal trip

the bolshevik and i seem to have a little problem picking the most boring parts of uruguay to visit when we have to do our visa renewal. since we've already been to montevideo and colonia, the two "big" tourist attractions, we stubbornly choose to explore new parts of uruguay, believing that there might be some hidden gem to discover. why do we do this? i don't know.

so last time we needed to renew our visas i stood firm on the fact that we needed to go to punta del este or punte del diablo, both of which are supposed to be fun beach towns that are non-boring. we even found a cheap flight to montevideo, then an equally cheap bus connection to punta del diablo. we're set, right? no. sadly we waited too long to buy the ticket and then they jacked up the price and we could no longer afford it. damned it!

and that is how we wound up spending the weekend in colon (argentina) and paysandu (uruguay) ...

now before i begin my kvetching, let me tell you that colon wasn't so bad. it was about a 4-5 hour bus ride from buenos aires (they have luxury buses here, which i will describe later), and the town was okay. it had a couple of main streets with lots of little shops and restaurants and bars. they also have quite an active art scene apparently, which includes intriguing street art such as this (more street artists need to pay tribute to slash!) ...

a parilla on the beaches of colon

anyway, once you leave the main strip, it's all little houses on dirt roads. but the town is right on the water so it's got some charm. there are some beaches to hang out at, and overall it has the feel of a sleepy little beachy town. it's probably good for families who want to go away but can't afford to do anything too extravagant.

you may be asking yourself, "self, how the hell did miss dewey d and her bolshevik choose this town to visit?" two words: hot springs ... and border crossing. okay, that's four words.

our not-so-trusty guidebook told us that there were hot springs in colon. let me tell you, the bolshevik and i love us some hot springs. when we were in costa rica (our first trip together!) we went to this gorgeous hot springs that had several lovely pools filled with spring water heated by a nearby volcano. we were surrounded by beautiful lush plants, a delicious and healthy spa lunch was included with our admission, and there was a bar where we could order cocktails and then drink them while relaxing in the hot hot water. awesome.

the hot springs in colon were similar to going to your local public pool. you pay a very small amount to get in, there's a bunch of cement pools painted bright blue, filled with what we were told is extremely healthy mineral-rich water that was the same temperature as a warm bath tub (hot springs should be hot, damnit!) and there was a snack bar with fries and soda and simpson's themed ice cream pops.

ok, so maybe these were not the dreamy costa rica hot springs we were expecting, but the bolshevik and i can roll with the punches. we had a fine time at the hot spring, even though we were among the minority of hot-spring goers who were under the age of 75.

the next day we took a bus to paysandu, which is a short 12km ride across a bridge into uruguay. paysandu also has hot springs, so we figured we would try out their hot springs and if the town seemed at all interesting we would stay overnight.

well .... it took us 2.5 hours to get to paysandu. say what?! it took as about 10 minutes to reach the border crossing. then the bus driver took all the passenger's passports to be stamped. we wound up sitting on the bus for about TWO HOURS waiting for everyone's passport to be stamped. urgh.

then finally when it's time to move, the bus leaves the border crossing about goes about 20 meters before stopping to let someone off randomly at the side of the road. then the bus drives in a large circle and doubles back to the border crossing. at this point i was really confused. weren't we just here? then three guys get off. why didn't they get off the bus during the TWO HOURS we were waiting? i don't know.

so we finally get on our way and we are on a large entrance ramp to the highway and it's our bus and motorcyclist on the road. no one else. just us. and i swear to you, for no reason at all, our bus just swerves into the motorcyclist, knocking him off his motorcycle. it was almost like the bus had hip-checked him.

exciting metropolis of paysandu

then of course the driver stops and gets out of the bus to yell at the motorcyclist as though it could possibly be his fault. after about a half hour of confusion a local bus comes to pick us up. now the problem here is that we have no idea where the local bus goes, but we get on it anyway because at this point we're kind of furious and annoyed ... and really hungry.

finally, we get to "downtown" paysandu where absolutely nothing is open. saturday at 2 pm ... everything is closed. maybe it was siesta or something, but we really didn't care. we decided we had to get the hell out of uruguay.

after wandering around for 30 minutes wondering how to get to the bus station, we finally stumbled across an open "restaurant" that sold very basic fare: meat, fries, empanadas, and beer. so we took a quick lunch break (mmmm, empanadas and beer) and then finally got some legitimate directions to the bus station. but not before encountering the most fascinating sight of paysandu, uruguay ... nevada cigarettes.

yes, this american blend of cigarettes may double your risk of erectile disfunction, but don't worry, it's only if you're between 30 and 40 years old. everyone else can smoke away!

we had to wait a couple of hours for the bus back, but we entertained ourselves with crossword puzzles and beer at the bus station. then we went back through the border (which this time only took about 45 minutes), back to colon, and back to our hotel. the following day we visited a different hot springs ... this one was fancier and had a little spa (which sadly was all booked up), and it had water slides!

although we did get a little heat for being the only child-less adults using the water slides, we slid down those things for quite some time anyway. and honestly, this trip needed some water slides or else it may have been a dud.

conclusion 1: water slides make everything better.
conclusion 2: 90 days from now we will get our act together and go to punta del diablo

a lonely jew on christmas ...

2010-12-22T04:41:00.000-05:00

on my way to punk some rope
in palermo park

as a cultural atheistic jew, i am very strict about not celebrating christmas. for example, i've never had a christmas tree or eaten christmas turkey or hung stockings or anything like that. however, one time i lived with someone who was a unitarian and we had a "holiday" tree with dreidels and buddhas and an oddly charming christmas pickle, but that hardly counts.

anyway, often i get pitying looks from christians as though mine is some sort of awful scrooge-like existence, and that i am in some way spiritually and culturally depraved. (this is not an exaggeration dear blog readers, i could quote many stupid mindless things that people have said to me in respect to this over the years) mind you, i do enjoy looking at christmas lights, eating cookies, and drinking festive cocktails as well as cleverly named seasonal drinks from starbucks.

so save me your pity, because i actually love christmas. want to know why? because it's usually two non-weekend days in a row in which i don't have to do anything! i have no obligations! not only that, while all you revelers are stuck traveling to go visit your families i am usually hanging out with a merry gang of jews and heretics doing super fun things like eating korean bbq, going to movies, drinking mimosas, going sledding, or even playing ping pong! ahhhh, christmas is such a very special time of year!

however, here in BsAs i've noticed that things have a tendency to shut down completely on holidays. and since christmas is a much more holy than say, national census day, i was a bit worried that things might be closed:

me: i want to have jewish christmas! you know with a movie and asian food!
bolshevik: i doubt anything will be open.
me: but they have jews here!
bolshevik: (silencio)

well, apparently the bolshevik was right because as it turns out movie theaters are actually CLOSED on christmas. and on christmas eve the last showing is at 1 pm or so. what the hell?! what are all the jews going to do?

anyhoo ... the bolshevik and i decided that we will travel to mendoza for the holidays to drink wine and hang out in the andes. but not before stopping at a friends for a christmas bagel brunch (thank god for other jews!). yes, that's right, they do have bagels here. although not quite a new york bagel, quierobagel probably does the closest thing you can get to an authentic bagel. ahhhh, a christmas miracle.

goodbye old girl ...

2010-11-26T19:43:00.002-05:00

for this blog post i was hoping to do some fancy technological shit where a song plays when you read it ... sadly i have no idea how to do that. so instead, please press play on this video so that you can hear the song that i would've attached to this post had i known had to do that.

okay, is the music playing? cool ... then please read on!

my dear blog readers, this week has been mierda. to recount ... first i took a tumble off my bike injuring my knees and leaving me hobbling around like a cripple.

then .... THEN ... the other day i had to walk to one of my classes since my knees still weren't bending properly. and i saw that my trusty old bike was locked up outside of my apartment building as always. so i limp over to my class, only to be stood up by my student ... grrrrr ... and then when i come home i find that my bike is gone. GONE!

say what?!

that's right. ladrones stole my motherfucking bicycle!

oh girl, had i known that our time
together was gonna be so short
i totally would've taken more
pictures with you. i'm sorry i
didn't treat you better. and i didn't
mean to get mad at you when you
fell out from under me and made
me skin my knees. i'd do anything
to have you back.

now as i have mentioned before i have been the victim of bike thievery before. my bike's been stolen, my back tire has been stolen, my gears have been stolen, my quick release lever for my seat has been stolen, and multiple lights have been stolen. but i'll be honest with you, every time i was lucky enough to be in the financial position to replace these things. but now, being a lowly under paid english teacher / writer, i don't really have the funds for a new bike. and i rely on my bike to get to several of my classes that are in transportational black holes.

it's very much like the famous italian film Bicycle Thieves. i have even thought about stealing someone else's bike, but as a moral and upstanding citizen, i cannot bring myself to do such things.

so with this blog post i bid a fond adios to my beloved bicycle. yes, dear bicycle we have come to the end of the road. it is unnatural for us to part this way. you will be missed greatly.

a chocotorta and two skinned knees

2010-11-20T17:56:00.002-05:00

i don't like to think of myself as accident prone, but the evidence is stacking up to prove that maybe i am. as a child, i typically always had at least one skinned knee and there was probably a band-aid somewhere on my body covering a recent accident. and now as an adult it's still pretty common for me to have black and blues from where i have accidentally walked into stuff or knocked into something.

since coming to buenos aires i have had the following "accidents" which have needed some level of first aid:

1. i sliced the side of my hand on a broken glass while doing the dishes. had this wound been on a different part of my body, it probably would've needed stitches, but since it was in such a weird spot there wasn't much to be done. so now i have a nice v-shaped scar on the base of my thumb.

2. while taking an outdoor fitness class, i slammed my shin onto the ledge of a concrete wall causing a large gash in said shin.

3. and today, while the bolshevik and i were out on a pleasant saturday afternoon bike ride, i had a little biking accident. you see, there are some lovely bike lanes here in buenos aires, but the problem is that they don't all connect properly. so there's this area by the waterfront where the bike lane dies for a bit and all of a sudden you're left to fend for yourself in this shady industrial area. first, there's a part where the bike lane actually spits you out into oncoming traffic. great. then after that there's this weird area with all these old trolley type tracks crisscrossing over the street. so i was riding over the tracks and my tires hit the tracks the wrong way and my bike slid out from under me. not cool. and i did this little number to my legs. (please note, there is actually one more bruise on the side of my right leg, but i couldn't get it into the picture. not only that, but i fell in a way that i actually re-opened the injury listed above in #2!)

so now i'm laid up in bed with a swollen knee. grrrrr.

and of course, we were far from home when this happened so we had to stop by a pharmacy to get first aid supplies. and then the bolshevik decided the best thing to do was to take break before riding back home, so we got some ice cream. claro!

we got a chocotorta sundae from freddo ... it was divine. for those of you who don't know, a chocotorta is a dessert typically served at birthdays, consisting of several layers of booze soaked chocolate cookies alternating with layers of a dulce de leche and crema. the freddo's version has dulce de leche ice cream and big hunks of crumbled chocolate cookies. i highly recommend it regardless of whether or not you have sustained an injury.

everything's coming up rosario

2010-11-18T13:33:00.001-05:00

man, i am just the worst blogger ever ... i am SO behind on my posts. how do you stand it? anyway, about a month ago the bolshevik and i went to a little riverside town called rosario. here are some highlights:

there's a long promenade along the water so the bolshevik and i decided to stroll around and look for a restaurant, as i am a sucker for waterfront dining. mind you, we have a guidebook and the guidebook does not say anything about waterside dining.

as we are walking around, we see all these odd looking elevator shafts that seem to be advertising restaurants. strange. eventually we venture over to one and look over the side to see a fully functioning restaurant below the promenade right on the water. that's right ... secret riverside restaurants only accessible by elevator! why wouldn't you put that in a guidebook? anyway, we ate at different "secret" restaurants every meal, and had some fantastic fresh grilled fish. mmmmmm. i love buenos aires, but they are lacking in the pescado department.

later we tried to find che guevera's house, only to learn that it is now a bank. lame. but they did make this nice park in his honor down the street. here is the bolshevik looking all radical and shit.

one of the more interesting things about rosario was that they seemed to have a wide range of free community programs. for instance, we were walking around these old warehouses by the river promenade and we saw one of them had been converted into a skateboarding park where all these local teens were hanging out. skateboarding is not a crime dear blog readers! as we explored further, we also saw that there were free art lessons and other social organizations that offered various activities and services to the good people of rosario. but my favorite was when we walked by the old train station that is no longer in service and we saw a bunch of girls learning how to do some elegant style of trapeze on long flowing scarves.

all in all, it was an amazing ruckus trip ... i mean, nice weekend getaway.

this week on spare room: buenos aires edition

2010-10-27T17:23:00.001-04:00

this week on spare room ...

miss dewey decimal and her bolshevik are forced to flee their all-in-white apartment and move into a friend's spare room.

say what?!

it's a long story dear blog readers, but basically my bolshevik lost his cell phone. (then he lost his replacement cell phone, but that's less important) SO, even though we alerted our landlady that the phone was lost (since she is responsible for the bill, and we just pay her for said phone), she somehow believed that we were responsible for paying for the 500 pesos in calls which were made in the two weeks that followed. apparently, telling someone that you lost their phone is not enough information, so she decided instead of calling the phone company and canceling the phone (which is in her name), she would do absolutely nothing.

good plan.

this is quite typical behavior for her. it's quite similar to her reaction to the fact that we don't have cable (or even a television in the apartment) even though both are supposed to be included in the price of the rent. or her reaction to the fact that the handle broke off our oven door while i was baking cookies, and then the windowpane of the oven door fell out, leaving us without a working oven for 5 weeks and counting. she is quite good at doing nothing.

but when she came to our apartment screaming about responsibility and how we owed her 3,000 pesos (yes, somehow the price went from 500 pesos to 3,000 pesos all in the course of one argument), we decided that we'd had enough.

so we absconded in the middle of the night, in a "midnight flit" as it were, and are now taking refuge in a spare room. this spare room also doubles as a storage room for various pieces of luggage and random personal belongings. needless to say, adding the bolshevik and myself and all of our own crap has made the spare room quite snug.

but fear not! i believe we may have found a new apartment to move into next week. tune in next time to spare room to see what happens next!

this is why your bike is stolen

2010-09-27T12:31:00.002-04:00

entonces ... being the joiner that i am, i have joined several e-mail lists, yahoo groups, etc filled with expats living here in buenos aires. now, i have met some lovely people through these groups, and i have found some valuable information. for instance, one of these groups had a long string of emails recommending gynecologists in the area, and i was able to find a very nice doctor for my *ahem* problems down there. moving on!

sadly, despite the helpful nature of these groups, i can't help but notice that they are filled with a lot of whiny cry babies. (please miss dewey decimal, don't hold back! speak your mind!) yes, it seems that every day i read messages complaining about this or that: oh buenos aires is so dangerous ... oh buenos aires is so dirty ... oh buenos aires isn't exactly like the town, city, country i came from and i expected this foreign country to be just like home but with palm trees ... oh buenos aires is chaos, i want to be in an orderly country like germany ... oh, i'm upset because i moved to buenos aires hoping to exploit an economy that is in poorer shape than my home country, but lo and behold i am making pesos now and the exchange rate is no longer working in my favor. (please note that these are not the opinions held by your beloved miss dewey decimal, but rather ridiculous rantings that i have encountered from various expats)

let's face it people ... although when walking down the supermarket aisles it may seem as though we're living in soviet russia (really, would it kill them to stock a few more varieties of cereal?), it is in fact not soviet russia. YOU ARE FREE TO LEAVE AT ANY TIME. so if you don't like it, pack it up and go home. no need to clog up what could be a useful forum with your random complaints about DHL service.

you may be wondering to yourself, "self, what the hell is miss dewey decimal going on about?" well ... i do have a point buried in here somewhere ...

obnoxious note from old italian ladies in brooklyn.
note reads: move your bike. this is not a bike rack.
if anyone falls getting out of a car or crossing the
street, i could get sued. it's on my sidewalk.
(this of course is wholly untrue. if you're
retarded enough to trip and fall over a bike
you cannot sue some random brooklyn
resident who IS NOT the owner of the bike. residents
do not own the sidewalk)

you see, the bolshevik and i are in the process of getting bikes. yay, bikes! so i checked out a forum on biking, thinking i could find useful information on the following topics:
1. bike lines, and where to find maps of bike lanes (i have since figured this out on my own)
2. biking laws - can you ride on the sidewalk, are you supposed to ride with traffic, are you allowed to ride the wrong way on a one-way street, etc)
3. bike lock etiquette - there are no bike racks here, and in brooklyn there are a fair amount of crazy old italian ladies who will get mad if you lock up a bike near their property. they will actually come out of their homes and yell at you, OR they'll leave obnoxious notes taped to your bike.

anyway, although i did find a few pro-bike voices of reason on the internets, mostly instead of finding answers to my questions i found a bunch of complaints. go figure. these complaints fell into three categories:
1. danger - not only is buenos aires a lawless city of criminals waiting to pounce on you at any moment, but it is also a dangerous place to ride a bike. BE AFRAID!
2. dirtiness - buenos aires is so dirty and if you ride a bike you will be choking on bus fumes the entire time. (i ask you, except for Melbourne, Australia aren't all cities dirty? is that not the nature of cities?)
3. theft - your bicycle will be stolen immediately. because, as it is stated in #1, this is a city of criminals just waiting to rob you blind.

now, i have been the victim of a fair amount of bike thievery. my bike has been stolen. my back wheel has been stolen (with all the gears! super expensive to replace!). my lights have been stolen (this is just mean as it leaves me riding in the dark at night). and finally, the release lever for my seat was stolen. i had the seat with me, but some asshole stole the lever so then i had to have my seat permanently bolted on.

anyway! i have noticed that when i see bikes locked up here they are not using the height of bike locking security. usually they have a rather skimpy lock, which i'm sure could easily be cut with a wire cutters or other hardware store tool. when i had my bike in brooklyn i locked it up with a thick metal chain and padlock. it looked rather badass, and the thick metal chain also doubled as a weapon. (one time i had to wield it menacingly at a creepy guy who followed me home one night) ahhh, brooklyn.

so the other day i saw this bit of silliness locked up in front of my house. now, please note that although the lock is locked around the fence, the lock is not actually locked onto the bike. if you were to turn the bike on its side slightly, you could easily slide the handlebars right out of the lock! in addition to locking a bikelock to a fence or other secure area, you also need to lock a bikelock TO YOUR BIKE! as in, through the wheels or through the frame of your bike.

dare i say, that if this is how people are locking up their bikes, then it's no wonder their bikes are being stolen.

i am not a thief, but even i was kinda thinking that maybe i should try and take this bike, just to see how easy it would be. AND to teach the owner a valuable lesson.

this is my old bike when i hung it up for the winter
and then decorated it for christmas. what? is that not
normally what you do on christmas?
i'm jewish, i don't know these things.
ANYWAY, if you look at the handlebars
you can see my badass chain and padlock,
for proper bike security.

for instance, i used to "double lock" my bike, locking the frame and front wheel with my badass chain, then locking the frame and back wheel with a kryptonite lock. one day i came to get my bike and the kryptonite lock was sliced in two. now, my bike was still there because they couldn't break the badass chain. i like to think they were sending me a message. as in, "hey ... we've got our eyes on your bike and don't think that crappy little lock does jack shit."

yeah, that's how the thieves roll in brooklyn. this little lilac number would've been gone in seconds had it been locked up in south williamsburg.

t-t-t-tigre! (and carmelo, uruguay)

2010-09-16T16:19:00.000-04:00

oh dear blog readers, how i have forsaken you ... so a couple of weeks ago my beloved bolshevik and i journeyed (and by journeyed i mean we took a 50 minute train ride) to the riverside town of tigre.

tigre is super cute and kind of reminds me a bit of new england, you know ... if new england was flooded with spanish speakers. tigre seems to be famous for two things ... rowing and markets. due to it being kind of winter-ish here, we did not do any rowing. but we saw the famous tigre rowing club, which was quite pretty.

the fruit markets, as they are called, are a huge complex of market stalls spanning several different blocks. they sell furniture, art prints, antiques, old signs, mate gourds, and random things made of wicker. and then i came across this little stall that only specializes in troll dolls? say what? the bolshevik refused to go inside this one because apparently he has a fear of troll dolls. fair enough ... these guys were kinda creepy.

later, we rented bikes at our hostel and rode on a promenade that runs alongside the river. eventually we came across a beautiful building which turned out to be the museum of tigre art. as we did not actually go inside, i am unsure if this means it is a museum of art by tigre residents (or maybe artistic renderings of tigre) OR if it is just an art museum that is in tigre. either way we took a gazillion pictures of it.

the following day we took a boat into carmelo, uruguay. while we would've been happy to have another day in tigre, we needed to leave and re-enter the country in order to renew our visas. so we took a nice ferry type boat ride and after 2 hours we docked in carmelo.

two "points of interest" at once: the bridge and the promenade

there are only 2 boats going to and from carmelo ... one arrives in carmelo at around 11 am, and then leaves at 5:30 pm. let me tell you something about carmelo, uruguay ... it is possibly the most boring town on earth. at around 11:05 we wondered how the hell we were possibly going to entertain ourselves for another 5 hours and 55 minutes.

at the boat terminal, we were given a small map of the town, with several little "points of interest" ... things like: bridge, plaza, fire department, new church, old church, tourist office etc. during our 5-minute walk to the tourist office we actually passed by a large number of the sites on the map. see that, they call that multi-tasking.

the nice man at the tourist office suggested we go to the winery. but the winery was several miles away, and when we asked if we could take a taxi he explained that the next taxi wouldn't arrive until 1pm. hmmm.

thankfully we noticed a whole load of bikes in the back of the office, so for the bargain price of $10 US for the entire day, we both got outfitted on some run-down bikes.

well i'll tell you dear blog readers we were infinitely happier once we got ourselves on some bikes. we rode past farms and vineyards and horses and the four seasons golf course.

what? yeah, apparently there is a huge luxurious four seasons in carmelo, uruguay. we looked into hanging out there and it turns out its like hundreds of dollars for just about any activity. (little known fact ... miss fifi and her man got hitched at the four seasons in uruguay. yup.)

my busted up bike in front of Narbona vineyards

for the first couple of miles everything was going well. then the hunger set in. then a few miles later we reached the hills. oh, so many hills. we were starting to get very disheartened that maybe we had passed the winery and would then have to go back and ride over all the hills again.

then luckily, without out any signage that can be seen from the road (really people, what are you thinking? it's the only point of interest for miles. invest in a sign!) we finally stumbled upon the winery.

inside the winery was a super cute little restaurant that was all dark and cozy and filled with wine. the bolshevik and i, being starving and having just ridden about 7 miles or so on very shitty bikes up and down a variety of hills, were eyeing many menu items. they were a bit pricey, but we figured that we deserved it (hey, we were on vacation!) and then we realized that the prices were in US dollars and not uruguayan pesos.

and that is how the bolshevik and i wound up having the most expensive lunch we have ever eaten in our entire lives! but we did it in style dear blog readers! we tasted several wines, tried some grappa made from honey ... all before ordering a bottle of wine, a plate o' cheese and some amazing homemade pastas. mmmmmm.

the only problem was that afterwards we had to ride 7 miles back to our boat, full of pastas and cheeses and a fair amount of vino.

i won't lie to you dear blog readers, it was rough at times. but in the end we made it to our boat with several minutes to spare. back in tigre we got some raised eyebrows from the border patrol, but ultimately we were allowed back into the country and no one was detained and no bribery was required. all in all, a successful visa renewal weekend.

the end.

¡feliz rosh hashanah!

2010-09-08T17:51:00.000-04:00

on this day we eat apples and honey ... and then we take the leftover apples and drop them into a vat of vodka along with some cinnamon sticks and simple syrup and then let it sit one full week until the day of our housewarming party ... wait, that doesn't sound right ...

people i have kissed

2010-09-01T16:36:00.001-04:00

here in buenos aires it is customary to kiss everyone you meet on the cheek. everyone. men, women, everyone. and it does not matter what your relationship to this person is. if you speak to someone for more than about 2 minutes, you are now on kissing-terms with them. if you walk into a party, random people you have never met will kiss you first, then tell you their names.

although the bolshevik finds this highly uncomfortable (being a cold-hearted anglo-type), i find a sort of comfort in knowing that there will be no awkward goodbyes, no wondering whether or not you are going to hug, shake hands, kiss, etc. or worse, no going in to kiss someone on the cheek only to realize that they were planning on shaking your hand. i like a good steadfast rule.

with that said, here is a list of random people we have had to kiss:

1. our realtor - a woman showed us ONE apartment that we absolutely did not want to take, and then afterwards we had to kiss her as we tried to excuse ourselves from the situation. uncomfortable.

2. my students - i kiss all of my students both hello and goodbye. it's just odd to be that friendly.

3. our banker - the bolshevik had to kiss his banker after a fiasco with a lost ATM card. i'm sure he had not expected this level of treatment when he became a premiere member of HSBC. for a while, this was #1 in awkward kissing situations, but then today i had a winner with ...

4. my gynecologist - yup, i had to kiss my gynecologist today, as well as her receptionist. very strange.

although odd, i am kind of getting used to this level of affectionateness with everyone. the other day, the bolshevik and i were watching an episode of mad men, and i was amazed at how stiff and unemotional everyone was. at first i thought, "oh, that's what conservative late 1950s/early 1960s america was like." but then i realized, no ... the reason everyone seems so uptight is because people are shaking hands and the entire office of Sterling Cooper aren't kissing each other hello. (which i would imagine in a large office takes a long time ... it must be at least 9:30 am before everyone has kissed everyone and can commence with the work day)

¡obra social!

2010-09-01T08:29:00.003-04:00

hey you americans out there ... i just want to gloat about my new health insurance!

for AR$260 a month (all taxes and fees included), i now have health insurance. i can go to any doctor, dentist, specialist or hospital on the list FOR FREE without the need of a referral. i get 40% of all medications as long as i have a prescription, and 30% off glasses or contacts (which i need since i seemed to have left my glasses somewhere between peru and buenos aires). and for a measly 20 pesos i can get a doctor to come to my house. i think i'm going to do this at least once, just for the fun of it. also, i am pretty sure that after one year i can get one free cosmetic surgery? am i reading this right? i can get a free boob job?

moving on!

anyway, totally psyched to go to a whole bunch o' doctors.

my blog of broken spanish

2010-08-30T15:27:00.000-04:00

sometimes people will ask me if my various writing jobs are in english or in spanish. really? do you have to ask? i am flattered that anyone thinks i might be capable of stringing together a coherent sentence in spanish. but then i had an idea. what if i did write a blog in spanish? maybe that would help my practice my spanish more. so here it is ... my blog of very very very bad spanish.

http://myblogofbrokenspanish.blogspot.com

visa renewal weekend!

2010-08-27T08:30:00.001-04:00

oh it's a rough life dear blog readers, and the bolshevik and i totally need a weekend away from our permanent vacation. more accurately, we've been in argentina almost 90 days which means it time to renew our visas!

i feel like this is some sort of rite of passage in the expat community ... we have been here long enough that we now have to leave and come back. don't fret dear blog readers, here's how it works ...

the argentine government requires that all people here on a tourist visa (almost all expats) need to leave the country after 90 days. however, there are no rules about how long you need to be gone for OR how many times you can return. in fact, we paid a pretty penny for our tourist visa which allows us in and out of the country for 90-day periods for the next 10 years.

while we would love to spend a few days in brazil or chile, we don't quite have the money saved up for airfare, so we are going a cheaper route ... we will be staying one night in the riverside town of tigre (only an hour train ride from buenos aires - trains cost less than a dollar!), and then tomorrow we will take a 2-hour scenic boat ride to carmelo uruguay. we will have lunch in carmelo, walk around and see the one or two sights, and then come right back to argentina, freshly stamped passports in hand.

i don't want to speak too soon ... but i think that this time, (fingers crossed!) a certain bolshevik will NOT be held captive by the border patrol.

spice free: adventures in cooking

2010-08-26T13:08:00.000-04:00

i may have mentioned that they have a little problem here with the lack of spices. it makes cooking rather difficult (not that i ever excelled in cooking) because everything winds up tasting rather similarly. a few weeks ago i tried to make chili, which is something i can usually make well, and it wound up tasting like an italian style tomato sauce filled with lots of pinto beans. not cool.

part of the problem is the lack of black beans. they only have one kind of canned bean here. in order to get black beans you have to buy them dry and then soak them for hours. but i realized the larger problem was cumin. you can add loads of chili powder to something (which i had to buy in a special "health food" store), but it does not necessitate chili. so yesterday i went on a quest for cumin. i'll be honest, i only looked in one place.

they have these stores called dieteticas which from the outside look like health food stores. they have lots of rice cakes, teas, spices, nuts and grains, but they also have lots of "specialty" items like chocolate chip cookies and gluten-free dulce de leche. so it's not quite a health store. it's more of a shit-you-can't-get-in-the-supermarket store.

so i went in and asked for cumin. i tried to pronounce it real spanish sounding, because often they take non-spanish words and just pronounce them with a thick spanish accent. like the time we tried to order shots of jameson and were told it was pronounced cham-ih-son.

moving on!

i received a small sachet of an unfamiliar spice, but i continued with the transaction in hopes that maybe it was cumin in some sort of raw form. like maybe this is what cumin looks like before your grind it up.

not so. what i actually received was a bag of rye seeds. not helpful for chili making. however, the bolshevik is either going to make rye bread with it or possibly try to distill his own icelandic rye-flavored death schnapps.

in the end, i had an okay chili with black beans, corn, tomatoes, crumbled veggie burger, carrots, celery, onion and garlic. but it just needed some cumin. so i got creative. and let me tell you, when i get creative in the kitchen it usually is not good. there is much eye-rolling from the bolshevik when i try to freestyle a recipe.

we have this little armenian store not too far from here that sells stuffed grape leaves and hummus and falafel mix. and i thought to myself, "self .. there is cumin in falafel!" i will admit it. i added falafel mix into my chili. i don't know if it gave the desired cumin effect, but it certainly didn't hurt. but next time i go on a cumin quest, the first stop is the armenian store. and hopefully i will figure out how to pronounce cumin by then.

chinatown and tango

2010-08-25T11:25:00.000-04:00

this week on vamonos librarian we journeyed into chinatown or barrio chino ... this is a neighborhood consisting of about two blocks here in buenos aires, but it was interesting nonetheless. we had some yummy chinese food for lunch, which was nice since it is not often that we get to eat a meal that has spices in it. not that this food was spicy, but they did at least implement two or more spices in the preparation.

then we checked out some of the local groceries stores, which apparently are the only places you can buy things like red pepper flakes and chili powder and coriander. crazy. they also had sushi and dumplings and other more typical asian items, along with an extensive collection of fresh seafood.

then we found what i would consider to be "staples" but are not present in any local food stores. things like soy sauce, coconut milk and of course ... the ever elusive peanut butter.

apparently, what expats miss most about their homes is the availability of peanut butter. i personally could go years without peanut butter, but to each his own. (although all this talk of peanut butter does kind of put me in the mood for some peanut noodles) ... anyway, at a recent expat gathering i suggested that someone could "make their own" peanut butter if they missed it so much. this idea was met with much hemming and hawing. certainly, with such a long list of ingredients (peanuts, oil, salt) no one could possibly make this in their own home. you'd need to be a professional chef or something!

moving on.

barrio chino also has a large supply of buddha statues, paper lanterns, and other asian tchotchkes. just in case you needed a dragon carved out of jade, that's where you get it.

anyway. after chinatown, we went to one of the many free tango events that are going on this month as part of the tango festival.

you may not know this, but the bolshevik takes a firm stand against dancing. he's like one of the old townsfolk from footloose who wants to keep dancing outlawed. one time, i had to bribe him to take a tango lesson by promising to attend a world cup qualifying futbol match. but luckily he doesn't mind spending an hour or so watching some dancing, so i guess he's not all bad.

anyway, straight from buenos aires for your viewing pleasure ...

a helpful message to the women of buenos aires

2010-08-24T08:35:00.001-04:00

it has happened several times now that i have opened a door or stall in a public bathroom only to find an embarrassed woman already inside there. then there is a whole string of phrases like "lo siento!" "perdon!" on my part.

at first i blamed myself. but now i have come to realize that it is not my fault. it is the fault of las mujeres.

the other day i went into the bathroom at a cafe and i pushed on the stall door only to have it bump into the woman inside and have her shout out "occupado!" of course, the first thing i thought was that the lock on the stall must be broken and this poor woman is the innocent victim of poor door design.

but oh no! that was not the case. when it was finally my turn and i entered the stall, i saw that there was in fact a lock on the door and it was fully functional. i even tried to force the door open once i had locked it, and it was impossible. i would've had to kick down the door like they do in the movies.

then, thinking back to my other bathroom encounters, i realized that all the bathrooms i had been in had locking stall doors. why would you choose not to lock the door in a public bathroom stall? i can understand if you're in the privacy of your own home, but in a cafe or restaurant? is this a cultural thing? i don't know, maybe it's just me, but being walked in on in the bathroom is definitely one of my top fears, right up there with spiders and death.

so women of buenos aires ... let me give you some advice. because as much as i love you portenas, i don't need to see your ass every time i have to pee. SO when you enter a bathroom stall:

1. check the door for one of those little metal bars or "locks" as we call them in english.
2. once the door is closed, slide the little metal bar from the door into the "locked position"
3. the door is now locked. you can pee in privacy

boca, boca de mi vida, vos sos la alegria de mi corazon

2010-08-23T17:30:00.000-04:00

the bolshevik in camouflage
at la bombonera

you may be asking yourself, "self, what has miss dewey decimal been up to recently?" well, we've been quite busy. in addition to teaching to the masses, impersonating men on the internet and writing their online dating messages for them, and some other odd writing jobs, sometimes the bolshevik and i actually get out of the house and do some fun stuff.

the other weekend we went to la bombonera for our first boca juniors match. since it's a bit tricky to get tickets, we decided to go with a tour. so about 20 or so expats from a variety of english speaking countries all went to the stadium with a loca tour guide who would protect us from the "virtually lawless" streets of la boca.

now, there are two sections of the stadium for "hooligans." we were in the "guest hooligan" section. apparently there are more "official hooligans" who get to be in a different section which was directly across from us. due to safety reasons, we had to arrive to the stadium very early. while we were waiting for the game to start, i snapped this shot of the bolshevik. can you find him? he blends in with the scenery so well here.

now, the bolshevik makes fun of me for owning so many dresses. to be honest, i could wear a different dress every day and i wouldn't have to repeat for a fortnight. (and those are just the ones i've brought with me to buenos aires) but my beloved bolshevik now owns enough sports-related apparel to put on a small futbol fashion show: track jackets, jerseys, scarves, hoodies, etc. he is prepared for almost any sporting event.

anyway, once the game was about to begin there was a whole lotta spectacle. first there was all this blue smoke that came from various parts of the stadium.

then came the confetti. now, there is a certain amount of confetti which fans bring with them. but then there were confetti canons which blasted confetti from the field. within a few minutes, between the blue smoke and the blue and yellow confetti, we could barely see a thing.

then, across the field in the "official hooligan" section, all these people with blue and yellow umbrellas came marching down the aisles beating drums and playing horns (actual horns, not those annoying vuvuzela things). soon they were lowering all sorts of banners and flags. then they actually lowered a gigantic boca jersey that covered the entire section of the stadium. it was rather impressive. i can barely fold sheets with the rounded corners, and here a huge group of people were coordinating the folding and unfolding of a 3-story tee-shirt.

this shirt belongs to jugador numero 12, or player number 12. it was explained that only 11 players can be on the field and that the "12th player" is the boca fans. apparently, number 12 is never given to any player as it is reserved to honor crazy boca hooligans. that's nice.

then after all this rigmarole, the game actually started. i had almost forgotten there was a futbol match at hand. for the first 15 minutes our boca juniors were playing a great game. they were on like gangbusters. they scored a goal pretty quickly and things were looking good. but then all of a sudden the opposing team scored, and then boca just lost all their pizazz. and yes, pizazz is a term often used in futbol commentary. in the end, boca lost 1-2. a sad sad day.

then, just when we thought we could drown our sorrows in the free pizza and beer that came with our tour, we were told that we had to wait 20 minutes before we were allowed to leave the stadium. you see, for their own safety, the away fans need to be evacuated from the stadium before they let any of the hooligans out.

now, if you read my previous boca juniors post, you know that the away fans are penned into a special barbed wire "away" section. as they were leaving this section, they were hooting and hollering, stamping their feet, and banging on the walls, making a very loud ruckus as they exited. (stupid away fans always rubbing it in)

"official hooligans" quarantined in la bombonera

after about 15 minutes we noticed that the other sections of the stadium had been cleared as well. you know, all the normal, non-hooligan types. across the field we saw the "official hooligans" were the only other section (besides ours) which remained. and of course, even though our team lost, they continued to play their horns and bang their drums, having a fine old time as we all waited to be released. yup, we were quarantined with jubilant futbol hooligans. just another day in buenos aires.

we continued to wait a good long time, wondering if they ever left fans in the stadium before. but eventually we were freed from the stadium. the end.

nuestro departmento nuevo

2010-08-14T08:33:00.000-04:00

here's our building from the street.
that stylish balcony with the moss
hanging down from it its ours!

this is the view from our "work room" ...
it's a narrow room with a counter for lap-top use.
quite handy really, but i didn't take a picture of it yet.
these are the french doors leading out to our balcony.

It's still a bit cold for balcony use, but sometimes
i will sit out here with a cup of tea and my laptop
while wearing a hat and fingerless gloves
and try to do work out here.
that usually doesn't last long.

and here is a view down the street.
please notice our potted plants which
the bolshevik dutifully takes care of.
i have tried to explain my "tough love"
method of plant care (ie, only watering
them once a week, maybe). he has now
asked me not to go near the plants.

unbeknownst to me, i am now a member of the bourgeoisie

2010-08-06T10:08:00.002-04:00

i would like to preface this blog post with a caveat ... i have never had my own cleaning lady before, mostly due to the fact that i couldn't afford it.

and yet, when i received an e-mail from my landlady the other day i was truly shocked and appalled to find out that our all-in-white apartment does not include weekly maid service. instead we have to pay 12 pesos an hour ($3) for such luxuries. i am shocked.

and of course the bolshevik is refusing to pay. he thinks we can change our own sheets and mop our own floors. (as i have done my whole adult life)

but now all of a sudden i cannot believe the injustice of it all that we do not have these services for free. surely, i shouldn't have to clean my own dishes 7 days a week? i am entitled to a dish-free day, no?

i'll tell you, after only six weeks of having someone come in weekly to do dishes, mop floors, wipe down surfaces, and change the sheets ... i have become quite used to this luxurious lifestyle. i don't know if i can ever go back to the way things were.

lo suspiro.

brother can you spare a dime? or a piece of candy?

2010-08-05T10:04:00.001-04:00

you'll be happy to know that i have become a master of the colectivos, or buses as you may like to call them ... ok, master may be a stretch, but i have learned to take buses to and from my home to various places of interest, and can even sometimes "freestyle" a bus route with little planning. this is with much help from the following websites such as this one put out by the city or this one which i find to be inferior but useful nontheless.

but here is the thing ... you need monedas or coins to ride the bus. no metrocards, no bills. only coins. easy enough, right? but if you need to ride the bus every day to and from work (and since i often have more than one student a day, that can be 4 or 6 colectivo rides) all of a sudden you need a hell of a lot of coinage.

apparently, there is a shortage of monedas here, so people at shops are reluctant to give you change unless absolutely necessary (even after you have bought something and asked them really nicely for coins).

in fact, several times when i have bought something and i was owed 5 or 10 centavos, instead of giving me a coin the cashier has given me a small piece of candy instead. yeah. wrap your mind around that. you are owed 10 centavos and instead of receiving money you just get a sucking candy. i wouldn't mind this, as i do like candy, but i also like being able to get to work. and much to my dismay, they do not accept candy as bus fare. (maybe they can create a little candy slot next to the coin slot? or you know how they used to have those big funnels at toll booths and you just threw your change in ... they could have those that accept change or candies)

anyway, now i am quite mathematic about my purchases, trying to get the most amount of change out of every item i buy. sometimes i will even spread out my shopping, going to more than one store so that i can receive more change per item.

i have realized that the problem is all due to the 2 peso bill. you see, there are coins for 5, 10, 25, 50 centavos, and a coin for 1 peso. then there are bills for 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100. it is this 2 peso bill which is ruining it for everyone.

for example ... you have a 5 peso bill and you buy something that is 3 pesos, but when you get change you get a 2 peso bill instead of getting 2 coins. so you have to be very thoughtful about what you are buying and how much you are giving the clerk, because if your change is in multiples of 2 then you'll never get any coins back. one also must consider that if you purposefully purchase something so that you will get 1.90 or 1.95 back, the most amount of change you could possibly receive in coins, it is possible that the store clerk may opt to round up and give you the 2 peso bill instead of monedas.

to be perfectly honest, it's more math than i care to do.

the solution to this problem is simple, although i am sure it will never be implemented. stop making 2 peso bills! instead make double the amount of 1 peso coins. another economic crisis solved by miss dewey d.

new apartment, all in white

2010-07-20T10:56:00.001-04:00

through the grapvine (the grapevine being my beloved gossipy mother) i often hear about family members and library employees reading my blog. apparently, upon reading the description of our first apartment, a cousin replied to my mother, "it sounds like miss dewey d and the bolshevik are living in some sort of cupboard."

quite right.

if you imagine our front door as the door to a cabinet, our apartment has the exact layout of a cupboard with a shelf cutting it in half. on the first shelf we have a 15 x 15 foot room that is the kitchen/dining room/ living room, with a small closet-like bathroom. then a spiral staircase up to the second shelf where we have a bed, a dresser, and a small tv hanging from the ceiling like a hospital room. and that is the cupboard we have been living in for the past 6 weeks.

but today, oh joy of joys, we are moving to our new grown-up sized apartment!

when i first saw the pictures of the place on craigslist i thought that i would hate it. first, it was over-priced by BA standards. second, everything in the apartment is white. EVERYTHING! floors, walls, futon, chairs, tables, counters, etc. when i move into a place the first thing i do is paint every room a different color: pink, blue, peach, violet, green. i have never lived with such whiteness. but when i walked in there was something oddly cool and sort of mod going on with the whiteness. and then i walked onto the balcony. sold! (and luckily i was able to talk the landlady down $100 per month. i haggled!)

the apartment is an odd sort of layout, with a living room and a dining room, each one having it's own loft area. so the larger loft area will be our bedroom, and then the other loft area will be for storage and guests.

did i mention it has a kick-ass balcony?

so dear blog readers, it is a fond farewell to the cupboard today! we've signed a lease which ends in january, so let the parade of house guests begin!

xoxo
miss dewey d

la boca ... BOO!

2010-07-19T12:28:00.000-04:00

scary, scary, scary la boca!

la boca is a very colorful neighborhood in Bs As that has sadly gotten a bad rap for being dangerous. and the more you read about it, the more alarmist people seem to become. now, i've never walked down any dark alleys at night there (you know, because i'm not an idiot), but every time i've been there it has always been fine. i actually like the neighborhood a lot. however, it is a neighborhood of a lower economic class, so you know if you walk around flashing your wallet and your iPhone you could get mugged. kinda like every nyc neighborhood i've ever lived in or worked in.

la boca is probably most famous for it's brightly painted houses, but it is also famous for being the home of the Boca Juniors, our favorite futbol (soccer) team. while many people support the opposing BA team, River Plate, we support la boca, viewing them as a sort of underdog team of ragtag misfits, not unlike the Brooklyn Dodgers or the NY Mets (if the Mets didn't suck so much).

anyhoo, my beloved bolshvik has already begun adorning himself with a variety of la boca hoodies, jerseys, scarves, etc. and taking a day off from my various jobs, i decided to join him on a little tour of la bombera (the chocolate box), the famed stadium where the boca juniors play.

being my mother's daughter the first thing i did was peruse the gift shop. there is so much we can learn from gift shops! for instance, who knew that dulce de leche (much like wheaties) was the breakfast of champions for futbol players? well, it must be because they sell coffee cans filled with special Boca Juniors dulce de leche. i am a dulce de leche fan and all, but this seems like a hell of a lot of liquid caramel goodness, even for me.

on the tour, we were allowed to walk around the empty stadium and take lots of pictures. we were even given the option of paying an extra 30 pesos to pose on the field while holding a replica of the world cup. although tempted, i passed on this photo op.

apparently, psychological warfare is a big part of futbol stadium design. we learned that the away team enters the field through a very small door, so small that they actually have to watch their heads in order to get through it. while the home team gets to enter through large grandiose type doors. but my favorite is the area for the away fans.

in a stadium that seats 50,000 people, there are only 2-3 thousand seats for the away fans. and no, they cannot mix with the boca fans. they must be kept in their own separate area. for their own safety, the away fans are penned into this sort of futbol interment camp where they are fenced in by barbed wire. according to our guide, this section also has the worst view of the field, AND is at such a steep angle that fans are often afraid of getting too rowdy up there for fear of falling. nice!

the bolshevik was quite anxious to try to become members of the Boca Juniors club, so that we could get tickets to games. apparently, there are about 100,000 members and of course there's only half that number of seats. so we asked around and were told there is a waiting list to become members. ok, fine. we'll be here for several months, we can be on a waiting list. but when we finally found the proper representative to talk to, we learned that the waiting list is EIGHT YEARS LONG! yup ... you could probably get yourself on a shorter waiting list to adopt a child than you can to get membership to the Boca Juniors.

but fear not dear blog readers, supposedly there are still ways for us to get tickets either the day of the game or from scalpers. so we may be sitting in the stands eating from a tub of dulce de leche just yet.

sho no entiendo nada

2010-07-12T13:17:00.000-04:00

you may be wondering to yourself, "self ... how is miss dewey decimal's spanish coming along? surely she has been in spanish speaking countries for almost 3 months now ... she must talking up a storm."

no. that is not the case.

so the bolshevik and i took two weeks of intensive spanish courses in peru. i took 4 hours a day, and the bolshevik took 6. for TWO WEEKS! and we were speaking pretty well in peru. we understood a lot of what people were saying.

at one point i even had a conversation with my teacher about movies, and in order to stall her from giving me any boring exercises i proceeded to explain to her the entire plot of Shawshank Redemption. in spanish! then she told me about a movie staring a young kristie alley (she had no problem explaining to me that kristie alley is now muy gordo. she couldn't remember the title, but after getting the details i was able to conclude it was actually this film starring sidney poitier, who apparently is not as famous in peru as kristie alley)

anyhoo ... point is, when we arrived in argentina we came to a rude awakening. that awakening having to do with the fact that our spanish does in fact suck. turns out, they speak really slowly in peru. and they don't tend to use any flowery language. it's all very basic and easy to understand. but here, i can't understand a word anyone is saying.

for you spanglish speakers out there, i'm going to go on a little rant about argentine spanish (please note, once i am able to speak argentine spanish, i will stand firm that it is the proper spanish, and that spanish from spain is somehow incorrect) ...

first, i noticed a lot of people using the word sho ... sho this, sho that, sho blah blah blah. eventually i asked someone, what is this sho? turns out, sho is how they pronounce the word yo, which is probably the first spanish word i ever learned. yup, i don't even know how to say the word for "i" in this crazy country. pretty much any word with a y in it may or may not be pronounced as "sh."

then, i heard people saying stuff like eh-shos for ellos, po-sho for pollo, cah-shay for calle, or cabasho for caballo. when telling people where i live i have now become accustomed to saying veesha crespo instead of villa crespo.

this is not even to mention all the words that people are saying that i just don't know. for instance, they don't use the word tu for "you." instead they use the word vos. they've also created this word called sos, which from what i gather is a form of "to be." so someone might say, "vos sos?" when asking where you are from. wtf?! those aren't even words.

grrrrrrr.

and, in general, when people are speaking here they have this very melodic way of talking that is very sing-songy and involves a lot of hand gestures. it kind of reminds me of the swedish chef from the muppets, if the swedish chef spoke spanish.

so many jobs, so little time

2010-07-08T14:36:00.002-04:00

before we left nyc there was much debate over how the bolshevik and i could possibly live in a foreign country. surely, we would be destitute within minutes of landing. well, dear blog readers, i am happy to report that we are doing just fine.

to recap, here are a few of the potential jobs we had brainstormed before arriving:
english teachers
menu proofreaders
milk shake consultant
punk rope instructor
baker (they have a lot of mediocre bread here)
singing/basic piano teacher
babysitter (who will teach your child english! or prevent your expat child from learning spanish!)
dog walker (this was not high up on the list as neither the bolshevik nor i like dogs)

even once we had gotten here, there were many naysayers who told us that it would be nearly impossible for us to find work, telling us that the market was flooded with expats trying to do just about anything for a few pesos. well, they couldn't have been more wrong.

first, on a friend's recommendation i tried out elance which is a website filled with freelancers and freelance jobs for said freelancers to bid on. it takes a bit of time to set up a profile and whatnot, but after a few days i was bidding on jobs, and even though i had no rating or references, i was quickly offered a project to write a gay blog.

that's right. i'm not even gay, but i made quite a case for myself explaining how i am "a friend to the gays" and that i support gay rights. in the end of my pitch i simply said, "i'm from new york city." what else do you need?

after that, using my credentials as a punk rope instructor (i knew that certification would come in handy!), i landed myself a job writing a fitness eBook. this eBook was a mash-up of pilates and boot camp. now, i have never been a fan of pilates, having only taken a few classes and always been bored out of my mind (seriously, could exercising be any less exciting than pilates?) anyhoo, i wrote the book, hoping to maybe see pilates in a new light. in the end, i can honestly tell you that although pilates is good for building up your core muscles, it is a silly means of exercise. just go out and do something active (jogging/aerobics/biking/hiking), and then do some crunches after! it'll have the same effect, and unlike pilates it's more fun than watching paint dry.

moving on.

then i was commissioned to write 60 short articles on dating. they sent me 60 titles, and i just wrote whatever i felt like about them. pretty sweet. and i learned that i am in fact an excellent source of relationship advice. i highly recommend taking advice from me.

during this time, i was also hired by two different language schools to teach english. i only have four students right now, but i meet with them once or twice a week for an hour or so and we go through different lessons. i actually enjoy it a lot, although i still question my ability to teach anyone anything.

and finally, as a piece de resistance, last week i was hired as an online dating assistant. what is that, you ask? well imagine some wealthy businessmen who wants to meet a nice girl online, but just don't have the time to sort through all those pesky dating sites. so instead, they hire out a company to write their profile, pick out women, write them messages, and arrange dates. all the guy has to do is show up. yup, so now my main job is as an "opener." i go through the lists of all the candidates and send them messages as though i am mr. wealthy business man. morally questionable? probably. interesting work? definitely. so i'm outsourcing my elance jobs to the bolshevik, and now being an online dating assistant is my main writing job.

and that is all dear blog readers ...

bringing in the pesos,

miss dewey d
xoxo

everyone employed

2010-07-05T08:56:00.001-04:00

there is something going on here in buenos aires that is kind of charming in it's inefficiency. there seems to be a job for everyone.

now, i like that i buy my fruits and vegetables from a store that exclusively sells produce, and that we get our fish from the fish store, and our fresh hand-made pasta from the fresh hand-made pasta store. (what, you don't have a fresh hand-made pasta store?) i even bought my teaching supplies from a stationary store, as it seemed to be the only place that sold things like folders and staplers. that's cool. i like specialty shops.

but i have noticed that there is a bit of an over-employment going on at some of these places. for instance, at the supermarket when you walk over to the produce section (assuming you didn't buy your produce at the produce store), there is a man there whose sole job is to get you your produce for you. so you tell him what you want and then he bags it for you. seems a little useless, no? i mean, i can get my own carrots. i'm quite capable that way.

then at the electronics store when i went to buy a flash drive, one man helped me find the proper item and input my information into a computer (why is my personal information even necessary?). then i was escorted to another desk where i paid for the item, declining any payment plans for this purchase (i was actually offered a payment plan for $25 item. really?). then, i walked over to another counter where a man stood beside a freight elevator and stamped copies of my receipts. he made a phone call to someone, i assume at the bottom of the elevator shaft, who then put my flash drive on an elevator. after i finally received the flashdrive, i was stopped by a security guard who checked that my item matched my receipt, and i was then sent on my way. the whole process was rather time consuming. and really, why do i need 5 employees to assist me in the purchasing of such a small inexpensive item?

have i mentioned that we have trash collection 6 days a week. 6 days a week! it's so often that you don't even need to buy trash bags. you just put out the day's garbage in little plastic bodega bags. i can't even imagine how many garbage men it takes to collect trash 6 days out of 7 for a city of about 13 million people. crazy.

have i mentioned that i am now in the employ of three different companies? not to mention the various freelance writing gigs that i am now outsourcing to the bolshevik.

biking buenos aires OR the escape from the beehive

2010-06-22T08:08:00.002-04:00

i've been busy as a bee in a beehive. this is truer than you think since everything i do is set to the background noise of those god-damned vuvuzela horns from the world cup. anyway, i've actually gotten several writing jobs through this website called elance, writing eBooks and authoring blogs and whatnot. so i have been spending a lot of time working from home. and during this time my beloved bolshevik has been quite busy watching futbol matches ... three a day!

anyhoo, i may have mentioned that i am a member of the south american explorers club. needing to get out of the house and away from the sound of a million vuvuzelas, i decided to join them on a bike ride through buenos aires.

taking this bike ride has really inspired me to buy a used bike once we move into our "grown up" apartment. turns out there are lots of bike lanes around the city.

before i describe the ride, please excuse the fact that i will most likely not use the correct names for any of these sites, and that all information given may or may not be factual. i should be a tour guide!

we rode through palermo park and stopped at the top of a little bridge overlooking this famous large metal flower. the flower opens its petals in the morning and then closes them at night. kinda cool.

then we rode plaza san martin, where they are showing every game of the world cup, projected onto a large screen. more about that later. plaza san martin has this lovely statue (shown above) honoring one of the founding fathers of buenos aires. sadly i forget his name. maybe san martin?

then we rode through reconquista, which seems to be a combination of irish bars and financial looking buildings. then we continued on to plaza de mayo:

having been to buenos aires before, i had actually already visited many of these sights. so i was very excited when we went through puerto maderno and onto the nature preserve, which i hadn't seen yet. it was very beautiful, and it had that kind of central park type feeling to it where you feel as though you have escaped the city into another world.

then we stopped by the river. yes, this huge body of water is actually a river. apparently, it is the widest river in the world, and separates buenos aires from uruguay.

we went back through puerto maderno to take a look at the swinging bridge. this bridge actually swings open to let ships go by.

then we ventured into dangerous "la boca"... oooh, dangerous. apparently la boca is considered a bad neighborhood, but so far i think it's pretty cool. i love a colorfully painted house. and it is home to the bolshevik's favorite local futbol team, the boca juniors.

the famous caminito ... birthplace of the argentine tango.

and then as it began to get dark, our lovely bike tour came to an end. i have to say, there's nothing quite like biking as a means of getting to see a city. i have a new understanding of how the different neighborhoods of buenos aires are connected. and of course i have a newfound desire to go buy a bike.

the end.

guia T ... it's not stupid it's just different

2010-06-14T16:28:00.002-04:00

when i was living in london, going to university and all that, i had to take this course called British Life and Culture in which we learned about how those crazy foreign brits lived. and during one lecture our professor explained that sometimes differences in culture may seem odd or even "stupid," but that they were in fact just "different." profound. really.

one time i was out to eat with a bunch of southerners at a restaurant that served ethnic food, i don't know maybe portuguese? anyway, at this particular place they served all the food together on one large platter, kind of like how they do it at ethiopian restaurants. and this one barbie-doll type girl was terribly offended, finding the whole thing to be quite awful, and she went on and on about how stupid the restaurant was. then, a kind young southern gentleman (not unlike kenneth from 30 rock) told her, "remember what our teacher said, it's not stupid it's just different."

and with that i introduce to you the Guia T ... oh how different it is. it makes this look clear and logical.

here in buenos aires, there is a subway system called the Subte which is owned and operated by a company called metrovias. the subte works well enough, but most of the trains go to the city center, leaving very few trains to connect other parts of the city together. but, there are millions of buses running all sorts of routes through the city. everywhere you look there are buses. so, being a new yorker and all, i figure that it can't be that hard to learn this bus system. surely, all i need is a map. right? wrong!

it turns out that every bus route is owned and operated by a separate company, and these companies have not gotten their act together to make one cohesive map. instead they have what is called the Guia T. the Guia T is a 192 page book which breaks the entire city up into sections and lists which buses run in each section. fine. i prefer a map, but whatevs. i should be able to handle this.

here's how it works:

1. you look up the street you want to leave from using the index, then you find the corresponding grid on one of the 36 maps listed in the book. check!
2. when you find your grid, look at the adjacent page to see a list of buses that serve that grid. check!

but wait! how do i know where these buses stop? each grid is typically 5 streets by 5 streets. how will i know which street each bus is on? answer: you don't! you just have to walk around an area of about 25 square blocks hoping to find the right bus going in the right direction.
moving on!

okay, so i don't know where each bus leaves from ... how do i find out where the bus is going to? answer: you can't!

3. find the street you are traveling to using the index, and then find its corresponding grid one of the maps.
4. once you have found it, you look at the adjacent page and see what buses service that area.

are any of the buses that service your destination the same as the ones that service your area of departure? i hope so, because if not you're kinda fucked!

5. flip through the maps in a sort of bus matching game and hope that you can find a bus not too far from your departure point that is also listed on a grid sort of near where you are going.

however, at no time or place is there a list of bus stops or picture of the bus route. not even at the bus stops! and don't forget that you'll need to plan for extra time to aimlessly walk around a 5x5 block grid hoping to find a bus stop.

the other day i miraculously figured out that the 34 has a stop about 7 minutes from my house and goes directly to the park. cool. i'm on it. after asking a lot of people in the street for help, i was able to finally find the bus stop and board a bus. crazy!

when i tried to get home, i walked down the street where the 34 was running back towards my house, but there were no bus stops. buses were flying past me not stopping and there were no bus stop signs in sight. was i on an express route? then after many many blocks of walking, i finally found a 34 stop. and lo and behold after only a few minutes a 34 came driving down the street. and then it drove right past me. hmmm, was i supposed to signal to the bus? was i not standing on the corner expectantly enough? then a few minutes later another 34 came and i waved my hands like a maniac. and again the bus zoomed right past me. defeated, i walked a couple miles back to my house.

later i asked an argentinian about this and she explained that often the bus stop signs are no longer at the stops and you just have to know where the bus stops are. "how would anyone know where the stop is?" i asked her. "oh," she said, "just ask around."

she went on to explain that the buses are supposed to stop if you wave at them, but if they are running behind schedule then they can choose not to pick you up. "is there a schedule?" i asked, hoping that maybe dream against dream, that there was a posted schedule and maybe even a nice map of routes. "oh no," she said, "there's no official schedule. it's just if the driver feels they're running late." ah, of course. bus drivers have their own personal goals of how quickly they want to drive the bus route. much like runners in training for a marathon. no need for an official schedule.

and that, dear blog readers, is why i have been walking everywhere.

buenos aires: everyone shall have ice cream, and everyone shall have a maid

2010-06-14T08:40:00.000-04:00

it's been quite a journey, dear blog readers, but we finally made it to buenos aires! (la paz was rather boring and unworthy of a blog post) you're probably asking yourself, "self, were miss dewey d and her bolshevik greeted with a parade to welcome them to argentina?" well, dear blog readers, the answer is yes. (if by parade you mean upbeat political protest).

anyway, as soon as we arrived we hit the ground running (after a day of napping), and began the search for an apartment. who needs to find a job first? we need to live somewhere, no?

it seems that in buenos aires there is a huge number of furnished apartments that are rented out on a weekly/monthly basis, so that was a bit of good news. and the rent prices cover all utilities, including electricity, internet (usually wifi), cable, local phone ... some apartments even come with a cell phone that you just need to add money to. what luxury! nyc could learn a thing or two from buenos aires landlords.

apartments here also seem to include maid service. at first, being the members of the proletariat that we are, we looked down upon this. surely we don't need maid service. we will gladly pay less money and clean the apartment ourselves. but this turned out to be an impossibility. even the cheapest apartments come with weekly maid service. at one point the bolshevik asked a prospective landlord if the apartment came with a maid, and the landlord looked at us as though we had asked something really obvious like "does the apartment a door?" si, claro! of course there is a maid!

now apartment hunting is hard work, so often we had to stop at freddo between viewings. it's a rough life, dear blog readers. for those of you who have never been to Bs As, freddo offers a variety of delicious fresh ice cream flavors, and typically you get two flavors per cone. the bolshevik and i have decided that not only will we make it our mission to try every flavor available, but we will also rank the flavors and try to determine what the best flavor combinations are. in the week that we have been in buenos aires, we have already had freddo 4 times. we're off to a strong start.

in the first weekend we looked at about 10 apartments. we found a rather tiny place in a very nice neighborhood, and decided to set up shop there. it's a loft of sorts, with one small room with a kitchen, table and chairs, and bathroom on the bottom floor, then a spiral staircase to a bedroom above. there isn't much room, but there's a cozy charm to it and it's super cheap.

we have already found our "it" apartment (more details to come), but we don't move in until mid-july. but do not fret dear blog readers, because both apartments come with maid service. phew!

bolivians love bolsheviks SO much they want to keep them in their border patrol office forever and ever

2010-06-11T16:22:00.000-04:00

all good things must come to an end, and so it came that we eventually reached our last day in peru. although i thoroughly enjoyed my time there, as it is a truly beautiful country filled with interesting culture, i was excited to be on our way to buenos aires. mostly because i wanted to eat a cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato without fear of illness. so we hopped on a bus to la paz, bolivia. why bolivia, you ask? because apparently they have really cheap flights to buenos aires. but only on fridays.

our itinerary was as follows:
1. board bus
2. cross over border into bolivia
3. have 90 minutes of free time in copacabana (sing it with me!)
4. continue on to la paz
5. fly to buenos aires 36 hours later

ah, but nothing is ever that easy, is it dear blog readers.

first, while we were in the south american explorers club office in cusco, we saw that the entry rules had changed for US citizens to enter bolivia. instead of being free, it would cost $135 american. this is what is called a "reciprocity visa," which means that the bolivian government has decided to charge US citizens the amount that the US charges them to enter our country. anyway, we would also need passport sized pictures, a completed visa form, proof of yellow fever vaccination, proof of place to stay in bolivia, and copy of travel itinerary showing pre-purcharsed departure from bolivia. ok. we could do all that, but it kinda sucked since we would only be in bolivia for 2 days.

as we boarded the bus in puno, we went to an atm and took out enough american money for both the bolshevik and i to get our visas. and each of us had about $5 or $10 to spare. on the bus, the driver explained that we would be going through a checkpoint to leave peru. then we would be going through a seperate checkpoint to enter bolivia. after that we go to copacabana, where we would need to pay 1 boliviano each to enter the town, dollars or peruvian soles would not be accepted.

we stopped in a little town before the checkpoint where we were told that we could exchange money. i try to exchange my $5 (leaving me with $140 to pay my $135 visa), but the woman behind the counter would not except it because it has a small tear in the corner. this is an ongoing problem we had. people in south america do not like money with little tears or creases or marks on it. you know, used money. i guess we should all just use our money once and then throw it away and buy new money. so i wound up changing one of my $20s, thinking i would just pay my visa mostly in dollars and then pay the rest in bolivianos.

around this time the bolshevik got to thinking that maybe we should get some extra cash. so he went to a nearby bank, only to find that the atm was boarded-up old wild west style.

at the peruvian checkpoint, we were told that we had overstayed our alloted time in peru. say what? apparently, instead of getting the 90 days allowed for US tourists (and listed on all peruvian government websites, as well as in all guidebooks) we were only given 30 days. we were 9 days over.

the bolshevik and i were then carted over the opposite end of the counter, where they bring bad people. everyone on our bus went through the line with no problem, and there we were being punished in the corner.

the man behind the counter told us, in spanish, that we must pay a dollar a day overage fees. fine, between the two of us we would have just enough money to get our bolivian visas. the bolshevik tried to pay for the two of us, while the man repeatedly said "nueve. nueve." which if you don't understand spanish, means "nine." then he wrote down the numeral "9" and pointed at it repeatedly. yes, nine, we got it. please move on.

there was much back and forth between us since we could not understand why he wouldn't take our $18 and be done with it. then eventually, he wrote the number "19" and said "diez y nueve!" ok, so it was $19 each. but why write the number 9 and point to it, if you want 19?

for $38, we finally got out of there. we were a bit frazzled as to what to do at the bolivian border since now we were a little short for our visas, and of course there was no ATM in sight.

note: the bolshevik has dual-citizenship, so we were thinking that if they would allow him into bolivia on his irish passport (which would be free) then we would be all set.

the bolivian border patrol was housed in a one-room building with two desks. at the first desk i gave in my paperwork and passport and paid my $135. i was then told i had to get a photocopy of my passport. when i asked where, they pointed outside to a small bodega where i paid a man a dollar to photocopy my passport. then when i returned, i was ushered to the second desk where a man stamped my passport. (this is a two-person job, of course)

after my passport was stamped he told me i needed to photocopy the stamped part, as well as the passport picture, which i had already photocopied for the man at desk #1 and had not changed in any way. so then i went back to the bodega to pay another dollar for two more copies of my passport. which leads me to wonder why the bolivian border patrol doesn't have their own photocopier if they love copies so much.

meanwhile, the bolshevik was being detained by the border patrol. say what?! yeah, they would not accept his irish passport since it did not have an exit stamp from peru. and when he tried to pay for his visa, they would not let him combine dollars with bolivianos. take note, dear blog readers, if you find yourself at the border trying to enter bolivia, they do not accept bolivian money. only US dollars.

i rushed over to assist, and ultimately we figured out that the only way to free the bolshevik was for me to go to the nearest ATM without him, which was a 15 minute drive away. so i returned onto the bus, sans bolshevik, and entered the town of copacabana.

at the bank i was told i could not take out american dollars, i could only take out bolivanos and then exchange them for dollars. what is the difference, you ask? a small fee. so i took out 900 bolivianos and then exchanged about half of it, leaving me with more than enough american dollars to spring the bolshevik, and enough bolivianos for whatever other ridiculous fees we would incur next.

15 minute cab ride back to the bolivian border.

triumphantly, i entered the border patrol office to liberate my man. i sashayed over to desk #1, the bolshevik at my side, and we handed the man $140 in crisp twenties. the man began to sort through the bills making two small piles -now, keep in mind that half of this money was from an ATM in peru, and half of it came straight from a bolivian bank- the man pushed one pile back towards us, and told us that it was in unacceptable condition. thereby leaving us without enough money. again.

i went through the bills and a few of them had a faint pink ink on the edges, which i have seen before and believe is some sort of authentication marking from the bank. these bolivian bank-authenticated bills were not good enough for the border police.

around this time the bolshevik had a little outburst and was told to go sit down. take note, dear blog readers, the bolivian border patrol do not like little outbursts.

then i took out all the money i had, american and bolivian and fanned it out on the table. i explained that all this money had been given to me by the bank and was real currency. i then took out all 5 credit cards that i was carrying with me at the time, and fanned them out as well. i then explained, in bad spanish, that i had $135 in dollars, as well as what was equivalent to $135 in bolivianos, and that he could take whatever he wanted.

he then, reluctantly, counted out $140 of the fresh crisp bills from the bank, giving me $5 change (which i accepted!) and then he ushered us over to desk #2.

and of course, at desk #2, the bolshevik was told that he needed to make a 2nd set of copies of his passport. when we went next door to the bodega, the nice man there had decided to close up shop and go on a well-deserved siesta. really? i asked a nearby elderly woman if she knew where a photocopy machine was, and she helpfully pointed to peru.

what happens at the bolivian border if people need to make copies then?

i'll tell you, dear blog readers, i had to pay a bolivian border guard to walk the 300 feet over to peru so that he could make copies of the bolshevik's newly stamped passport at the peruvian border office. yeah, that's how they do things.

eventually the border guard returned with the necessary copies and the bolshevik was finally freed. then we rode off in a cab to cobacabana where we arrived just in time to get back on our bus for the final hours of our journey. but do not fret dear blog readers, because we can always go back to bolivia ... we have 5 year visas now.

the end.

there's a house on the island in the reeds on the lake

2010-06-10T17:41:00.000-04:00

i won't lie to you dear blog readers, the town of puno is rather boring. yup, it's true. but the one interesting thing to do there is take a boat tour of lake titicaca (please hold your inappropriate laughter). one option is to actually stay with a native family overnight in their houses without heat or proper bathrooms. but after our misadventures in cusco, we decided that a day trip was best for our failing health.

so we went to Uros first, which is a series of about 50 or so floating reed islands. these islands are actually man-made out of reeds. crazy. apparently, when the spanish invaded 500 years ago, a group of several hundred puno inhabitants took to the lake and hid out on their boats for a while. eventually they figured out a patented method of making islands out of the lake's reeds and they've been living there ever since.

dear blog readers, you may be asking yourself, "self, how is this possible?"

well, some nice ladies of the island explained to us the process.
1. find a huge lake (preferably at a very high altitude above sea level)

2. make large blocks out of the roots of reeds (much like when you pull a plant out of a pot and all the roots and soil are clumped together)
3. using rope and wooden stakes, bind together root blocks so that they are 6 feet in depth
4. cover in 3 feet of freshly cut reeds
5. find desirable location and anchor island
6. add more reeds monthly
7. tada!!! (jazz hands)

let me tell you dear blog readers, these were a crafty people. i was a bit jealous. they made everything out of reeds: boats, houses, look-out towers, festive decorations. one island had even created a little "cuy island" where they were raising guinea pigs and rabbits. this is quite brilliant because you can just put them on a little island where they'll be out of the way, and then drag the island in when necessary (aka slaughter time).

now, one may question the quality of life on these islands. but when i looked inside one of the houses i saw it was equipped with one of those old school 3-CD changer dual cassette deck stereos that were so popular in the mid-1990s. at first i assumed that it ran on batteries. but then i saw a solar panel. that's right SOLAR PANELS! these people live in reed huts, but even they have mastered solar power technology.

this leads which me to wonder why it is that we cannot get our act together in the US to utilize solar power. reed huts ... with solar power. wrap your mind around that.

can you tell me how to get, how to get to lake titicaca?

2010-06-08T23:23:00.000-04:00

when planning our route in peru, we decided that we wanted to take a long train ride. we had heard that peru had beautiful train lines. and really, shouldn't we all be traveling by train more often? many people we encountered said that they were venturing to puno via bus, but we had heard horror stories of rickety old buses going up and down windy mountain roads for endless hours. so that is how we wound up on an infinitely more expensive 8 hour train ride from cusco to puno. and let me tell you dear blog readers ... it was awesome.

we boarded the train at about 8 am, where we were seated at a small table (with table cloth & small vase of flowers) along with big cushy armchairs. as the train left cusco, we passed all sorts of sites, including a strange area where people seemed to have a large variety of wooden furniture for sale set up right next to the tracks. (wooden furniture row?)

soon it was announced that there would be a "fashion show" in the last car. ooooh, fashion show! the front half of the car was a bar, with more cushy armchairs, and the back half of the car was all windows with a long bench where you can sit and get a 360 degree view of the scenery. nice! so we planted ourselves in the back by the windows and watched while the "models" showed off a variety of scarves and peruvian style knit hats and gloves. i guess when you're in cold mountain towns this is what high fashion is.

there was some debate between the bolshevik and i as to the level of professionalism of these models. for instance, are they really models at all? or maybe they are just a collection of the more attractive Peru Rail employees who usually answer the phones but on certain days they get to ride the "fashion train?" i then pondered the possibilities of becoming a "train model" myself. surely i can meet their standards of excellence, no?

after the fashion show, we were entertained with live peruvian music. i tell you, i love live peruvian music. it's quite common to see performances in the fancier restaurants: men in ponchos with guitars and drums and all sizes of pan pipes. one time i went to dinner without the bolshevik and of course i wound up buying a CD of one of the local bands performing. i am a sucker that way.

anyhoo, nonstop fun on this train! at one point we made a little stop at a small mountain town where locals tried to sell us handicrafts. the bolshevik and i were distracted by a large field of llamas.

we went over to take pictures, and soon a little local boy came up to us and said, "you give me a dollar?" now, this kid has a lot to learn from the merchant children of cusco. did he have any finger puppets? no. did he liken me to any celebrities or first ladies? no. sorry kid, i'm not just giving out money for kicks here!

back on the train we were served lunch, which included a soup, entree, glass of wine, and a small torte for dessert.

as the day went on there was a second round of peruvian music. we watched as we passed by mountains and rivers and other majestic nature. in the late afternoon we were served tea and little finger sandwiches with the crusts cut off. all of this was included in the price of our ticket, which although expensive by peruvian standards, was probably of a similar cost to an 8-hour train ride on amtrak.

this leads me to wonder about the suck-fest which is amtrak: why is amtrak so expensive when there are never any llamas included? ponder that dear blog readers, ponder that.

the dark side of cusco

2010-06-03T09:49:00.006-04:00

we have been to many places dear blog readers, many fabulous places: belize, costa rica, honduras, mexico, etc. and we have never had any problems. (well, except for in belize when it was SO hot it actually made me feel ill, and then later i was poisoned by one of their 13 varieties of poisonous trees. but these were minor problems!)

anyway, when we were in lima we ate like kings. the food was fantastic and super cheap. even when we went to divey-looking whole-in-the-wall places the food was very high-quality.

typically we would get these "tourist menus" which is kind of like a prix fixe deal where you get to pick an appetizer (soup, small potato dish, or ceviche) then you get to pick an entree, usually a grilled fish or chicken, served with potatoes and rice. sometimes you'd even get a little glass of fruit punch and a strange but tasty gelatinous dessert. all for the bargain price of about $3-$5 american dollars per person. not bad!

but things changed when we got to cusco. now, there are several problems stacked up against us gringos in cusco. first, due to the high altitude and lack of oxygen, people actually digest at about half the speed as normal. so if you eat a big meal, it stays with you for quite some time. second, and probably more important, cusco has several bacterias and parasites that the locals are immune to, but visitors are not. we were told that if we stayed away from lettuce, tomatoes, all uncooked vegetables, thin-skinned fruits, raw fish (no ceviche! so sad!), and of course tap water, that we would be fine.

week one, coming off of lima, we ate at one dodgy place thinking peru was a land of fantastic cheap food. but unlike lima, this dodgy places was just ... well ... dodgy. but we followed the rules! no raw veggies, nada. we were even brushing our teeth with bottled water. but within a few days my beloved bolshevik fell ill.

he was a little annoyed that he was sick and i wasn't, considering my propensity for illness. but he went to this little clinic known for treating tourists, got lab work done, was given some meds, and in a couple of days he was fine.

what was interesting though, was at this point, he and i had eaten the same food. so why wasn't i sick? the doctor explained that anything, ANYTHING, could make you sick. a waiter doesn't wash their hands and then they touch the edge of your plate and touch your food and then you have a parasite. or a fly lands on your food, spreading the local bacteria to you. scary stuff.

so the following week, 2 days before we are about to head to macchupicchu, i get sick. now, the bolshevik had waited a few days before going to the doctor, but i went immediately, knowing i needed to get some meds in me if i was going to recover in time for the inca trail. again, we go to the clinic, get blood work done, they give me some meds, and by the next day i was notably better.

so by this time we think we're in the clear, right? we've both gotten sick, now we are super careful about everything we eat, only eating at "expensive" restaurants, everything should be fine. but then the week after the inca trail, the bolshevik falls ill again. this time considerably worse than the first time. so again we go to the clinic, and they say that he has a different infection than last time. they give him the meds, and again within about a day or so he is feeling much better.

but now we are both kind of terrified. how many different infections can we get? we were in cusco for over 4 weeks, that's a lot of time to sample the local bacteria.

then, wouldn't you know it, about half a week later i wake up in the middle of the night vomiting profusely. i try to sleep it off, but at about 5 am the bolshevik gets me into a cab to the clinic.

it is my theory that as time went on, each sickness was worse than the last. by the time i got to the clinic i was in a lot of pain. but they were so good to me! they saw me immediately and gave me a pain killer shot (i will not tell you were they injected me dear blog readers). and they even gave me my own room with a bed and a flat screen tv! i laid down for several hours, had lots of tests taken. at one point a nice older woman brought me tea and toast, and then seeing the bolshevik sleeping on the little couch next to me, brought him tea and toast as well.

eventually the doctor comes in and tells me i have "the most serious parasite" in cusco. we debate for a while if i need to stay in the clinic overnight (which at this point would be over 24 hours in the clinic since we got there so early). but then he agrees to release me into the bolshevik's custody to go back to the hotel. but not before prescribing me the following medicinal assualt:
1 pain killer (3 x per day for 5 days)
1 parasite killer (3 x per day for 5 days)
2 antiobiotics (1 2x per day for 3 days, 1 2x per day for 5 days)
2 large bottles of electrolytes (in disgusting "anis" flavor. gross)

given how ill i was, i was amazed that i felt so much better the next day. tired, but much much better. which leads me to believe that although the peruvians have some serious bacteria/parasite problems, they at least possess super fast-acting drugs to combat them.

so we spent our last week in peru terrified of eating (but loving food! it's so unfair!) at one point we took a little cooking class, which came free with our spanish classes, and i refused to add lettuce to my dish. i think i insulted the teacher who continually told me, in spanish, that the lettuce was clean and that she washed it herself. but then i was thinking, unless you wash the lettuce in piping hot boiling water that will sear off all bacterias and parasites, leaving the lettuce a wilted soggy disgrace, i'm not going near it. i told her, in spanish, that i believed that she had cleaned the lettuce, but that i had fear. FEAR!

and now i am just counting down to when we will be in buenos aires and i can eat a big salad. mmmmm, baby spinach.

random things about peru: a row of one's own

2010-05-30T11:46:00.000-04:00

in peru they seem to organize their business so that similar businesses are all on the same street. sure they have this to some extent in new york city: the garment district, wall street, the canal street "crap district," that block on bowery that sells all the lighting fixtures, etc. but i have never seen anything quite to the extent that i have seen it in peru.

we saw puppy row, which of course had been my favorite. how can you not like walking around and seeing peddlers selling puppies? there was also shoe shine row, home repair row, wooden home furnishings row, medical office supply row (then another block with stores selling only dentist chairs). we have seen mattress row, with numerous mattresses and bed frames for sale. christian relic row, where you can get all your fancy candles and statues of jesus. cheap hole-in-the-wall eateries row, etc, etc. i guess it makes shopping easier, knowing that if you want to get the best price on frankincense all you have to do is look around on this one block.

but then. oh then, dear blog readers, then we stumbled upon something very intriguing .... Cake Slice Row. on ONE BLOCK in cusco there were easily 7 to 10 different bakeries, several of them next door to each other (as the blocks are not very long). these bakeries not only sold seemingly identical cakes, but also offered the option to buy cake by the slice for take-away. this is a brilliant concept.

there were typically 5 or 6 varieties of "to-go" cakes, : apple, chocolate, vanilla, black forest, strawberry, some things we couldn't recognize, etc. you point to a cake (typically a long "log shaped" cake for easy slicing) and for the equivalent of 50 cents, they sliced off a big hunk-o-cake for you and wrapped it in waxed paper for you to eat while strolling the city streets. genius.

this is especially useful if you've had a rough day. for instance, maybe you trekked all the way out of town in hopes of getting a yellow fever vaccination so that you will be allowed to cross the border into bolivia, and then you find out that the clinic you were looking for isn't there because your guidebook wasn't as updated as you thought. these are the days when we need a slice of yellow cake with dulce de leche frosting for the long defeated walk back into town. (and we did eventually get our vaccinations, so we will not be spreading the amarillo fiebre around)

oooh, i need a sexy woman. oooh, i need a dirty girl.

2010-05-29T08:56:00.004-04:00

get your mind out of the gutter, dear blog readers! i'm talking about serious inca history here!

before we went on our 4-day trek on the inca trail, we did a little practice hike to a nearby archeological site called sacsayhuaman. pronounced properly, it sounds like saxy whoa-man. pronounced like a dumb tourist, it sounds like sexy woman. get it? don't be that guy, dear blog readers. don't be that guy.

anyway, sacsayhuaman is located right outside of town, on a nearby mountaintop, and consists of several different sites a few km away from each other. although we were walking through the city to get there, we were actually "hiking" up very steep streets for a mile or so until we reached a church at the half-way point. from this point we had quite the view of the city. then we had another mile or so uphill, and of course some serious stone steps (why are the incas so obsessed with steps?)

up at the site a man who i thought was an official ticket taker convinced me that we should rent horses. si, caballos! there was some grumbling from the bolshevik about this one, as he wanted to walk the whole thing ourselves. but i insisted that we wouldn't make it to all the different sites without horses.

now, it turns out that if you are on foot you have to walk mostly on the sides of streets and highways to get to the various different sites. however, when travelling por caballo you are not allowed on the streets and highways, and you actually have to go through mountain passes in order to reach the different sites. it was kind of like stepping into one of those old school marlborough ads from the magazines. it was breath-taking. slighty terrifying at times, since i'd never actually been on a horse through steep rocky terrain and was suddenly envisioning all sorts of christopher reeve scenarios, but breath-taking none-the-less.

and of course dear blog readers, there were llamas! cute little baby llamas! roaming around on mountain-sides!

out of the mouthes of merchant children

2010-05-26T23:32:00.004-04:00

so we're waiting on line to get into this gringo restaurant that serves breakfast all day ... stop me if you've heard this one ... and there is a couple in front of us, the man is white and the woman is black. out of the corner of my eye i see a merchant child selling postcards, making his way over to try to sell his wares to those of us stuck on the line. i avert my eyes and he passes us by, going instead to the couple ahead of us.

he walks up to the woman all proper-like, extending his hand to her. and then he says with great sincerity, "please to meet you michelle obama! you like to buy postcards?"

and that dear blog readers is why peruvian children can sell me almost anything.

the blog of bad pants

2010-05-26T08:53:00.006-04:00

there is a plague that is sweeping the city of cusco, and that plague is bad pants. bad bad pants. now, don't get me wrong blog readers, it's not los peruanos that are wearing the bad pants. in fact, i feel that the people of peru are a very nicely dressed people: nothing too flashy, keeping it respectable. sometimes you'll see women in traditional peruvian costume, typically while holding a baby llama and asking you if you want to pay to have your picture taken with them, but it is the gringos who are wearing the bad pants, and the gringos alone.

i have made it my mission to capture these pants on film whenever i encounter them. for you, dear blog readers, for you. because i am that devoted.

the pants in question are a multi-colored sort of hippie granola-crunching pajama pant mash-up. this has lead the bolshevik and i to ask the question, "why do people who supposedly love nature and the outdoors choose to dress so poorly?"

now, we have "hiking clothes," which are useful clothes made out of breathable quick dry materials for use while hiking in the mountains. they aren't the most fashionable things: khaki colored pants with many pockets, solid colored sporty looking tops, but there is a functionality there. however, these bad pants seem to serve no purpose. maybe they are comfortable? i mean, they look comfortable to sleep in. but i wouldn't be caught dead wearing them in public. i'd rather be wearing my gym clothes in public, at least people would think that i am a motivated active person, as opposed to a slovenly bum.

(please note that in the photo at left, these two guys were traveling together, wearing identical bad pants. this is a double faux pas. one time in the same area i saw a guy in the bad pants with a matching shirt. he looked like he had escaped from some sort of hippie prison/commune. sadly i didn't have my camera to capture that one)

now, these pants are for sale at many of the little tourist shops in peru. i've seen miles and miles of boldly colored pants for sale. this leads me to a "chicken vs. egg" type question. do gringos wear the pants because peruvians are selling them, and the gringos think it is traditional peruvian garb? OR, have gringos brought their own ugly pants to peru, thinking that in mountain towns you must dress like a fool. and then the peruvians caught on, seeing a potential tourist market, and began selling them here, along with the typical trinkets and jewelry?

either way i hope the peruvians are having a good laugh, (and making some good money) selling ugly pants to gringos, that they themselves would never wear.

the british columbians (the opinions and ideas expressed in this blog post are not representative of this blogger's ideas and opinions regarding all british columbians. this blogger intends no disrepect to british columbia and/or its inhabitants)

2010-05-25T08:36:00.020-04:00

there is a little something i forgot to mention about our trek. you see, i didn't want to taint my travelogue with a whole load of complaining. but now that i have shown you how amazing our trip was, i can do a little kvethcing. the gloves are off people!

so we met the british columbians at orientation, and everything out of their mouths was negative. to be fair, it was more the woman that complained about things. the man didn't speak much, and when he did it was often indiscernable, much like the way paddington bear speaks.

the woman began by complaining about what equipment came with the tour and what didn't. now on the tour company's website (and in every e-mail the tour company sent me) there are VERY CLEAR lists of what equipment is included, what equipment isn't, and what is recommended for you to bring with you. did they read this? oh no, the day before the tour mrs. british columbia is huffing and puffing that walking sticks are not included. did we know this? yes. did we go to a local shop and rent walking sticks for less than a dollar a day? yes.

moving on! then we discussed the porters. the british columbians did not want to carry anything and would be hiring two porters to carry their things. fine. but when our fearless guide explained that the porters take your things and then transport them up the mountain for you with jedi speed so that said things are waiting for you at your tent, mrs. british columbia had a thing or two to say about this.

apparently, she wanted the porter to walk with her at all times, so that she could access whatever she may need at any time. now, most people had a very small bag that included: water, jacket, camera, and a snack, which was very very light and they carried that with them while the porters carried their heavy stuff, like their sleeping bags, sleeping mats, and 4 days worth of clothes. no, mrs. british columbia cannot carry her own water. she wanted the porter to act as an indentured servant and fetch her things for her as needed.

our fearless guide explained that the porter cannot walk that slow, it's actually painful for them. and that she would carry the three or four personal items she needed throughout the day and the porter would take the rest.   then there was much muttering back and forth between the british columbians, and the bolshevik and i exchanged knowing looks, dreading what would happen on the trail with these people.

now, the bolshevik and i assumed that since the british columbians seemed to be rather clueless and easily bothered, that they probably hadn't traveled much. but once we we were on the trek, we quickly learned that they had traveled all over the world. they had lived in china, south korea, europe, vancouver, etc. then we found out that they were currently touring the continent of south america. the bolshevik asked some questions and with a sigh of relief we found out that they were traveling in the opposite direction as us. phew!

but then we realized a little something. here were the british columbians spending months touring south america ... did they know any spanish? no. now, i understand that if you tour europe or asia, since there are so many languages spoken you may choose just to rely on english. but in south america, aside from brazil, spanish is the only language spoken. how can you travel around for months without bothering to pick any of it up? we had to wonder .... "do these people just travel the world, oblivious to the fact that they are annoying the crap out of everyone around them?" the answer is yes.

so far this may seem a bit petty. oh dear blog readers, i am saving the best for last ...

the last night we all sat around the tent discussing what to tip the porters. it is customary to tip the porters, the cook, and your guide. let's recap: the porters carried everything up a fucking mountain for us.   but the british columbians were very upset at the idea that they would have to tip anyone.

mrs. british columbia said, and i quote, "but it's their job, isn't it?"

yes, it is their job to schlep our stuff up a mountain for four days like pack mules. sadly for them, that is their job. i'm sure they're not paid very well, nor do i expect that they receive medical & dental insurance.

the group decided that each person would contribute s/150 (soles) for the tips. this is the equivalent of about $50 american dollars per person, to be split up amongst 9 porters, 1 cook, and our guide. this is not a lot of money people (although generous in the peruvian economy). i've tipped people in nyc way more for doing way less. i won't even tell you what i tip my hair stylist.

but the british columbians stood firm that they did not want to tip, that it was ridiculous, and that we were being very american. now, i am not a big patriot, but one thing we do well in the states is tip our service providers. and i stand by that!   (a dollar a drink at bars, 20% at restaurants, 20% for taxis, $2-3 per suitcase at the airport)

after much fighting between the british columbians and the rest of the group, we collected the money from everyone. and wouldn't you know it, every single person gave in s/150 each ... except for the british columbians, who gave in s/150 for the two of them. yup, they tipped half. (and they used more porters than any other duo in the group)

but wait, there's more!

after the tipping, the porters went off to pack things up for the evening. our fearless leader explained about our morning options. as i explained before, we needed to wake up at 3:45 for two reasons:
1. to see the sun appear from behind the mountains at the sun gate, and watch the breathtaking view of machupicchu becoming drowned in sunlight.
2. if we didn't leave on time, the porters would miss the local train, and being unable to afford the "tourist" train, they would inevitably WALK BACK TO CUSCO.

now i'll tell you blog readers, i was tired. and i would've loved to sleep "late" until 6 am, but i couldn't do that to the porters. however, mr. and mrs. british columbia had a lot to say about the matter. they didn't want to have to walk when it was dark. they didn't want to have to wake up early. they didn't see what was so great about a sunrise. etc, etc.

so eventually the group decided to vote. we voted 5 to 2 that we wake up at 3:45 am. who were those 2 opposing votes? well, when the vote was cast mrs. british columbia said, "all for a sunrise? really? just to see the sunrise we have to wake up so early? won't the sun have risen before we get to the gate anyway?"

i wanted to say, "no, you dumb cunt. we're waking up at 3:45 so as to not fuck over the porters." but i kept my mouth shut.

in the morning we painfully awoke at 3:45. we went to the breakfast tent for breakfast, and everyone was moving very quickly. the porters were trying to serve us breakfast while simultaneously packing up the entire camp so that they wouldn't miss their train.

after scarfing our breakfast, everyone left the breakfast tent to get their stuff and head for the check point. everyone that is, except the british columbians. they were in their tent eating painfully slowly, much like spoiled children who didn't get their way. the porters were running around the outside of the tent packing up the remaining camp items, and one of them eventually took the light out of the dining tent. then from inside i hear mr. paddington bear exclaim, "well i can't very well eat my breakfast without any light!" and thus ended breakfast for the british columbians.

by the time the british columbians left the breakfast tent, the entire camp was deserted. all the other campers and porters were long gone. well, except for our little group of hikers who were waiting for the BCs to get their act together. then mr. and mrs. british columbia stormed up to our fearless guide and told him that they were refusing to hike.

say what?

it went something like this:

BCs: we told you last night that we would not hike in the dark

fearless guide: yes but we must if we are to make it to the checkpoint. please, everyone is waiting.

BCs: you can't make us hike when it's dark out. it's dangerous.

fearless guide: we do this every week. it will be fine. we will go slowly and by the time we pass the checkpoint it will be lighter. [checking his watch] the checkpoint has already opened. if we wait too long there will be a line.

BCs: we can't walk in the dark! we don't have flashlights!

[this is actually a bold-faced lie. they had flashlights. i saw them. and we all had flashlights, and some people even had headlamps.]
fearless guide: [wishing he could curse these people out but wanting to keep his job] it clearly says in the brochures that we wake up at 4 am the last day. it says that.
BCs: we said last night that we would not hike in the dark! this is ridiculous! i can't believe this is how you run things!

me: [thinking that no one talks to our fearless guide that way] we voted last night that we would wake up early. you guys never refused to hike.

BCs: we agreed to wake up early, but not to hike in the dark. this is absurd!

bolshevik: [tag-teaming like a proper NYCer] you can't have it both ways! you understood that we were waking up early to hike to the sun gate by sunrise. therefore you must have understood that it would be dark before the sunrise.

at this point our fearless guide was a little overwhelmed at having two brooklynites join the argument. so he told us to go with the rest of the group (please read: non-whiners) to wait for him at a little lodge right before the check point. so the "good group" walked to the lodge in the dark (which really wasn't difficult or dangerous since everyone had a flashlight) and then we waited about 20 minutes for our fearless leader to placate the BCs.

the bolshevik and i were determined not to let these selfish british columbians ruin the last leg of our trek. so we high-tailed it to the sun gate, successfully making it in time to have the sun shine upon us as it emerged from behind the mountains. we watched as machupicchu was quickly flooded in light.

and then, from behind us, we heard mrs. british columbia chime in with her typical words of wisdom, "it's quite small, isn't it? i thought it would be a lot bigger, didn't you? it's really rather small."

yeah, you fucking idiot. when you are on top of a mountain, looking at an ancient city on another mountain peak about a mile away, it will look small. IT'S FAR AWAY! things look smaller when you're far away from them. then they get bigger as you get closer. grrrrrrr.

and for their last trick, just to slow the group down a little more, the british columbians somehow got "lost" walking down the one-way path to machupicchu. yup. all you have to do is walk. there is only one direction to go. down. no steps. easy as pie. just head towards the ancient inca city on that mountain over there. a monkey could do it.

but somehow when the entire group had walked the hour to the ticket booths to get inside machu picchu, the BCs were nowhere to be found. our fearless guide actually had to go back and look for them. then when he found them, climbing around on some random rocks off the side of the trail, knowing we were all waiting for them, they complained that his instructions were somehow unclear and they didn't understand that they needed to walk on the path that goes straight to machupicchu (with no other possible offshoots of said path to possibly follow. one way. this was somehow unclear to these passive-aggressive selfish idiots.)

and then after our tour of machupicchu, we bid a much-anticipated adieu to the british columbians. hopefully to never ever see them again.

the end.

inca trail addventures day 4: the arrival to machupicchu

2010-05-24T08:11:00.024-04:00

there are two reasons we woke up at 3:45 am on the last day
1. if you wake up really early and hike your ass off, rushing past other groups on the trail, you can get to the "sun gate" in time to watch the sun rise above the mountains and shine onto machupicchu.

2. (pay attention because this information will come back later!) we were informed that if the porters leave late they will miss their train back to cusco. apparently, peru rail only has two "local" trains a day, one at like 5:30 am and one at night. there are more expensive "tourist" trains during the day, but the porters cannot afford the tourist trains. so what happens if the porters miss their early train, you ask? don't they just wait 12 hours for the evening train? no, dear blog readers. these badass porters actually WALK back to cusco, with all the shit they've been carrying for 4 days. now, as much as it pains me to wake up at 3:45 am, i couldn't live with myself if i chose to sleep late and then forced the porters to walk the 30 or so miles back to cusco. and i'm sure they don't get paid extra if they miss their train and walk.

so with much grumbling (more about this later!) we all eat breakfast in the dark and then make our way, flashlights in hand, to the sun gate. now, we were told that everyone is trying to rush to the sun gate at the same time so the bolshevik and i decide that we are going to pull out all the stops and use our last bits of energy to get to the sungate as quickly as possible. even though i was wearing my backpack again, i was a renewed woman, zipping past all these suckers who were stopping to do such silly things as taking pictures and trying to breathe. we watched as the sky got brighter and brighter, hoping that we would make it to the sun gate before the sun appeared from behind the mountains.

our fearless guide had told us that right before the sun gate there would be "50 steps." fifty steps? that's all you got? according to our fearless guide we had already done 3,000 steps! what's another fifty? but when we got to the fifty steps we were a bit alarmed when we saw that they were straight up. more than "steps" i would say they were 50 stone notches in a wall. instead of walking up them as one would walk up stairs, we had to ditch our walking sticks and crawl up them one by one. halfway up i had to stop to pant for air for a while, but eventually i made it to the top.

we walked through the stone pillars of the sun gate and once we were through we could see machupicchu below us on the other side of the mountain. it was still shrouded in darkness, and we breathed a sigh of relief that after all our hardwork (and some annoyances that will be discussed later) we had made it in time for the sunrise.

a few minutes later the sun emerged from behind the mountains, with an incredible brightness. one of the guides explained that it you put your hands in the shape of a diamond (as though you were singing twinkle twinkle little star), the sun would shine on you through the diamond shape and the gods would grant you a wish.

then over the course of ten or fifteen minutes the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, completely illuminating machupicchu. and then we set off for the last hour of our hike to actually reach the site of machupicchu.

walking around the site of machupicchu was spectacular. it is so vast and impressive. it is amazing to think of anyone hiking through the mountains to this spot and then building such a huge organized city. and, our fearless guide explained that the incans built aqueducts below the city, which still work today. incredible.

one thing i was not prepared for was the llamas. a large number of llamas live in machupicchu and walk around, showing no fear of tourists. our fearless guide explained that the llamas act as "lawn mowers" eating all the grass and weeds, and keeping machupicchu "well fertilized." clever.

after exploring the vast inca city, the bolshevik and i were pretty tuckered out. soon we took the bus to aguas calientes town, where we had lunch and beers with our guide and some of our fellow hikers. then we checked into our treehouse hotel room and took a nice long nap.

the end.

inca trail adventures: day 3 OR short shorts and sacrificing virgins

2010-05-21T20:06:00.001-04:00

on day three i awoke from the tent feeling a sinking feeling of dread when contemplating putting my backpack on my back for a 16 km day of hiking. even though our fearless guide assured us that day 3 was significantly easier than day 2, i was feeling the burn. my knees were not happy after all those steps. ¡ay mis rodillas! ¡no mas gradas!

so while the bolshevik was busy packing up his things, i snuck out of the tent all stealth-like, found our fearless guide, and asked him if it was possible for one of our fabulous porters to carry my crap for a day. there are actually very strict rules about how much the porters are legally allowed to carry. porters have rights too, you know. but thankfully our fearless guide assured me that they would be able to carry my bag for the day. i know, dear blog readers, i know. i totally pussied out. but you know what? day three, sans backpack .... fuckin' awesome.

let me tell you a little something about the inca trail ... legally, there are only 500 per day allowed on the trail. and even though these people are from all different tour groups and countries etc, you wind up passing and being passed by the same people every day. like this man, for instance. now, i don't know if you can quite tell from the picture, but this man's shorts were miniscule. and, there were slits on the sides of the shorts, making them even shorter. it was hard to get a good shot, but often when i would see him coming i would avert my eyes for fear that i might accidentally sneak a peek at his balls. seriously people, how is this useful hiking attire? i'm new to the hiking world and all, but i'm thinking long shorts or pants.

moving on!

in addition to the aforementioned sights, we also saw some inca sights. phew. at this particular sight our fearless guide explained that the incans would find the most beautiful girls in the empire and bring them to live in this place. i started imagining a harem of beautiful women in togas (i don't know why, since the incans didn't wear togas). they probably would lounge around and discuss art and politics while eating grapes and being adored from afar by the empire's men. sadly our fearless guide explained that only the most beautiful women would be collected here and then sacrificed to the gods. not cool, incans. not cool. but they certainly know how to build them some archeological sights.

after the inca sights, we got to hike through the cloud forest, which was quite lovely. it was all tropical trees, flowering vines and fluttering butterflies.

and then came more steps.

the last couple hours of hiking was all steps again. and even without my backpack it was killer on my knees after a while. and that pesky bolshevik, he was flying ahead of me, backpack and all. no fair.

towards the end of the day we were racing to get to our campsite before sundown. and on the way we caught this glimpse of machu picchu mountain. of course the inca site is on the other side and you can't see anything, but it was exciting none-the-less.

end of day three.

inca trail adventures: day 2 OR the slowest most boring game of tag ever

2010-05-18T21:15:00.001-04:00

over a lovely breakfast of quinoa porridge, our fearless guide explained to us that the second day of the inca trail is the hardest. it is about a 14 km hike, and the first 4 or so hours are a steep uphill climb. yay!

at this point in time i'd like to discuss the make-up of our group. there was the bolshevik and i, both young fit whippersnappers. then there were two gentlemen in their late 40s early 50s. and get this ... they were both librarians! 3 out of 7 members of our group were librarians. crazy! anyway, then there was a man traveling alone who was 60. and then there was an older british columbian couple, we believe the woman was in her mid to late 60s, and the man his early 70s. so the bolshevik and i are thinking that we are going to be the shining stars of this group, no? i mean, these people are old, right? how can they compete with the likes of us?

well, as soon as i put my backpack on i was feeling not-so-hot. the soreness from the day before was creeping in, and i had a long road ahead. no sooner than we started, the elderly british columbians shot up the mountain, out of sight for the rest of the day. granted, they weren't carrying anything (nada. more about this later), but still you'd think that a backpack would at most be an equalizer between us and two senior citizens. not so. these guys kicked our asses. they made it to the top hours before us.

the first hour or so of the hike was pleasant, even with the steepness. we were suddenly surrounded by a completely different type of environment: huge trees with big broad green leaves, beautiful flora and fauna, lovely shaded areas. it was difficult, and every few minutes we would need to take a little break to catch our breath, but overall it was so beautiful it was a fine experience.

and then came the steps.

after a while we were confronted with stone steps. now, let me elaborate ... these are not stairs made out of stone. these are crude step-like structures that have very uneven surfaces and vary greatly in spacing and height. due to the uneven-ness, we had to take the steps extremely slowly, and often they were so high i needed to step up onto them, as though i was climbing onto something. this was extremely tiring, then add the fact that i'm carrying all my crap on my back, it was downright exhausting. also, during this portion of the trek, we seemed to lose the beautiful fauna and foliage of the morning, and were now in the beating hot sun. fun!

soon, the bolshevik and i found ourselves shuffling along very slowly like slipper-clad inhabitants of a nursing home. we would take a few small steps and then rest. then shuffle our feet a bit more, and then rest. we were moving, as our fearless guide would say, "slow like pregnant turtles."

but then dear blog readers, the bolshevik and i created a silly new game. we call it The Slowest Most Boring Game of Tag Ever. the rules are similar to regular tag. one person is "it" and he or she must tag the other person, making them "it." however, instead of running around and being chased and other fun aspects of tag, we were instead very very very slowly trudging up an extremely steep mountain path in the andes.

it went something like this:

bolshevik: [three feet behind me, and speaking in an old person's voice] i'm gonna get you, miss dewey decimal. i'm hot on your trail!

me: [trying in vain to stay out of arms reach, while also speaking in an old person's voice] oh no you don't, bolshevik! you'll never catch me!

[bolshevik eventually is able to gain a foot or two and tag me, then pass about three feet in front of me]

me: [waving a fist in the air] oh you bolshevik! i'll get you yet!

and so on and so on, one of us very slowly passing the other every few minutes. not to continually reference bugs bunny cartoons, but it was very much like that one where bugs bunny goes to the mad scientist's castle and a bottle of ether is somehow knocked over during a chase scene, and the mad scientist says "Come back ... here ... you ... rahhhh ... bittttt."

anyway, after two hours of these painstaking steps we eventually reached the top of the mountain. quite literally, we were on a very pointy bit of mountain with nowhere to go but down. it was very satisfying to finally make it to the top, and we took a nice long break once we got there, snacking on luna bars.

then when it was time to go down the other side, we thought it would be a snap to go downhill. NOT SO! although it was certainly less tiring, since it didn't cause us to huff and puff like going uphill did, it was very challenging. the entire two-hour hike downhill was also solely comprised of these uneven stone steps. and as much as i wanted to walk down them quickly, as i would regular steps, it was impossible for fear of tumbling down several miles of rocky terrain. every so often there would be a flat bit of path where we could walk at a normal speed and it felt like we were flying along, or maybe possibly gliding on roller skates. either way it was a long journey to our camp, where again we passed out soon after dinner.

end of day two.

inca trail adventures: day 1

2010-05-18T17:05:00.001-04:00

well dear blog readers, i am back from my adventure trekking through the andes. so much has happened and i have several hundred pictures to sort through, but hopefully i can give you some interesting tidbits.

we were picked up at 5 am on the first day, and then i promptly fell asleep as soon as we were in the van. about an hour later we went to what was referred to by our fearless guide as "porter village." you see, there are porters. now, don't get the wrong idea about the bolshevik and i. we didn't hire any porters. oh no. that would have been sensible. instead, we decided to be a couple of badasses and carry all our personal items ourselves. but the porters carried the tents, kitchen supplies, food, etc.

anyhoo, at around 6 am we arrive in a small town where many of the porters live, and we are told that we will be having breakfast in one of their homes. porter village is pretty much a dirt road town, with houses constructed from bricks made out of mud. we walk through the town and there are chickens and donkeys and dogs roaming the streets. the bolshevik and i were particularly taken with this donkey that looked like he was trying to disguise himself as a bush, like they used to do in old looney tunes cartoons.

the house we had breakfast in was pretty much one large room with a dirt floor. in one end of the house was a "kitchen" consisting of a hot plate and a brick oven. in the center of the room was a long table for eating, with benches covered in llama fur. then behind the table was a cushioned area for sleeping. our tour group sat around the table eating a lovely breakfast of breads and cheeses and potatoes and corn, and of course, coca tea. while dining, we notice a lot of free range guinea pigs scurrying around on the floor. we were informed that these were called cuy and that on special occasions they would be eaten for dinner. poor little cuy.

and then we were off!

the first day of our hike was the easiest. much of it was walking on a flat dirt path, which afforded us such spectacular views as this one. if you look closely, you can actually see a glacier in the background behind the clouds.

we also would pass by very small farming communities on the way, many of which set up little stands selling water and other bottled drinks, as well as snacks. i was surprised to see civilization while on the hike, but it really only lasted the first and second day. after that, we were in no-man's land.

now let me explain a little something about the porters. they range in age from about 20 to 60, and every single one of them is a super jedi master. these guys were incredible. each of them carried huge sacks on their backs, containing several people's backbacks, sleeping bags, etc. other porters carried huge office-sized water cooler bottles on their backs, tents, food, cooking implements, etc. not only were they carrying about 30 pounds of stuff each, but they flew up the mountain. FLEW! we'd be trudging along and then all of a sudden a porter would be right on top of us trying to get around our sorry asses.

anyway, at lunch time we would stop at these little camping grounds along the way and by the time we got there the porters would have already set up dining room tents (we ate in a dining room!), created a temporary kitchen, and had lunch underway. our meals were amazing. i wish i had a picture of them but i was too mesmerized by the movable feast before me to stop and get my camera. we typically had a soup (different soups each day), bread, cheeses, salads, a vegetarian option or two, meats, pastas, rice, etc. then we would have some coca tea before heading back onto the trail. their culinary accomplishments were truly incredible. better than some restaurants.

on day one, we also passed some inca sites. many of these sites are inaccessible unless you do a multi-day hike like we did. so we felt pretty cool about that.

then, after 12 km of hiking, we made it to our camp. now we didn't realize how quickly it gets dark in the mountains. but the sun sets at about 5:30 and by 6:30 it's pitch black outside. we had imagined that we'd be up at night reading books by flashlight, or playing cards by a fireside. but after dinner, we promptly passed out.

end of day one.

gone hiking, be back soon

2010-05-11T18:41:00.000-04:00

i had this great plan that i would write a bunch of blog postings and have them post once a day while i am gone on the inca trail. sadly, i didn´t get my act together on that one. tomorrow morning i leave on a 4 day trek to machu picchu, so you won´t be hearing from my until we get back sunday. assuming we don´t pass out as soon as we get back. oh my beloved blog readers, how will you survive without me?

llama llama

2010-05-09T09:57:00.007-04:00

here in cusco there is a huge beautiful plaza in the center of the city called plaza de armas. it is truly truly gorgeous, and even though i've been there several times now, i still feel my spirit lifted every time i go there. with that said, there is a downside to plaza de armas. tourists. who me? yes me. due to the overwhelming number of tourists in the plaza, you cannot walk through without being accosted by people trying to sell you jewelry, drag you into their restaurant, get you to buy a massage, etc etc. i'd say in the time it takes to cross the plaza, you'd be getting off pretty easy if only three or four people ask you to buy something or partake in their services.

but sometimes i just can't resist. the other day a little girl was selling these finger puppets and when i saw that there was a llama finger puppet i just had to buy it. i am a sucker for odd animals portrayed in toys (i have bought my niece an emu beanie baby and a coatimundi stuffed animal)

the llama only cost a sole, which is a little less that 30 cents. so no skin off my back, really. but when the bolshevik questioned what i would possibly do with a llama finger puppet (aside from compose this lovely photo which itself is already worth more than 30 cents) i explained that when we go to lake titicaca (he he he) we are supposed to bring little toys for the children. see, i am weeks ahead of the game! i have a little toy for a child!

but then, later in the week another small child asked me to buy a finger puppet, and i had to put my foot down. i mean, i can't buy finger puppets from everyone. it went something like this:

boy: hey lady! want to buy a finger puppet?

me: [waving him away] no gracias.

boy: [jogging after me] why no? buy a finger puppet!

me: [quickening my pace] no gracias. i already have one.

boy: [still following along my side] why no? you have ten fingers and ten toes. why no buy more?

me: [at a loss for words at such fine logic]

and then dear blog readers, just before i was about to break down and buy another finger puppet, the boy stopped dead in his tracks as though he had run into a force field. i've actually seen this happen with other child vendors, and then i realized something. we had reached a corner and he was not allowed to cross the street. but it does seem likely that by the time i leave cusco i may have a puppet for each finger, and maybe even a few toes.

the mysterious "belgian" woman part 2 OR meeting people is easy

2010-05-08T10:13:00.000-04:00

for reasons i cannot disclose at this time (please read: the bolshevik asked me to "hold off" on it), i was on my own yesterday afternoon. so after writing for several hours, and then watching the most recent episode of america's next top model (it took forEVER to download), i decided to visit the shop of the "belgian" woman's ex-husband.

i entered the shop and it was more or less what i thought it would be: silver jewelry with large stones, flowy shapeless hippie dresses, incense, bongo drums, you know the drill. i began looking around all inconspicuous-like, and the handsome peruvian behind the counter said, "anything you like you can try on: jewely, clothes. you try whatever you like." then he hopped off his stool with a little swagger and said "you can try me if you like."

yeah, this is our guy.

i politely thanked him and told him i was just looking around. as i perused the store's wares i realized i had no game plan. nada. and really, at the end of the day i am the kind of person who loathes talking to strangers. i do not start up conversations with people i don't know. i do not ask people questions about themselves unless it is part of social banter at a bar or party. i believe i have inherited this from my mother, who throughout my life has refused to befriend any of her neighbors.

anyway. i was about to leave this shop with my tail between my legs, having not found out any useful information for you, my beloved blog readers. but then as i was walking out the door, the young peruvian asked me my name. now, i hate telling strangers my name. maybe Stranger Danger sunk in all too well with me, but i feel like if you tell someone your name, then suddenly they're going to scam you. but then i remembered the task at hand.

i told him my name and he jumped up from his stool and hugged me, giving me a peck on the cheek. well, i didn't see that one coming.

mucho gusto! he said, and then he told me his name is marco (names have been changed to protect the innocent). he asked me where i am from, and i fought every unfriendly bone in my body and told him i'm from new york. then he jumped up again. "i love new york!" he said, and gave me another hug. "i love the movies!"

so we had a little chat about new york. it turns out he has never been, but he loves the tall buildings he's seen in films. then he asked me if i'd like to have a cup of tea. he pointed to the counter where there are mugs and tea bags and such. "it's on me," he said. "sit and have some tea."

again, it is against my every instinct to have tea with him, but then i remembered i am a super sleuth travel writer now, and i must do this for the greater good.

i asked him if he had coca tea, which i have grown quite fond of, and he proudly showed me that he makes his coca tea with real coca leaves, and not with teabags.

soon enough we were drinking our tea and having a nice little chat. he asked me if i had a boyfriend, and i explained yes i do in fact have a boyfriend, but he is not with me today. then marco said that he is an "iron man" and that if i were to switch over to him, i would be much better off. i thanked him, but stood firm that i was sticking with the bolshevik.

then he began to tell me about an ex-girlfriend of his. of course, i was reeling at this point. here i was having tea with the ex-husband of the mysterious "belgian" woman and he was about to give up all sorts of information.

marco: i have this girlfriend. no. how do you say you have, but no more?

me: had

marco: si, had. i had a girlfriend once from .... oh what was the name ... cincinnati

me: [damned!] oh really? do you only like american girls?

marco: no, i date all women! i do not care where they are from, or if they have blonde hair and blue eyes. i like them for their minds and who they are.

me: [starting to think this guy isn't so bad] what happened with her?

marco: well, she went back to the US and she called me only once. she said she would call me every day. but she never called again.

he went on to explain that she was a medical student and that she told him she was too busy to call him. then he said that he saw a picture of her in her medical lab coat on facebook and he wondered, "how come she has time to download pictures, but not call me?" he said, "now, i do not trust girls who live far away. i don't believe what you say if you live far away. but if you are here with me, then i trust you."

awwww. poor marco.

then i asked him where he was from, thinking that i didn't want to dwell on the hearbreak of cincinnati girl. "i am a child of the universe!" he exclaimed. and suddenly i could really see him and the mysterious "belgian" woman hitting it off.

"but really," he said, "i am from lima. i have been in cusco for two years."

marco then told me how when he lived in lima, he worked at the mcdonald's in miraflores as a deliveryman. i found this very interesting, and i explained to him that in the US mcdonalds doesn't deliver. he was quite taken aback by that. he told me that he had a little motorcycle with a mcdonalds basket in front and he would ride around the city doing deliveries, and then he would take breaks by the beach and smoke joints.

then we went on to discuss cusco, and i said i thought it was very beautiful. he agreed and said, "cusco has taught me many great things. i have met great people. and learned how to be a great person."

wow. at this point i was starting to think that maybe this wasn't the guy. because, eccentricities aside, he was actually turning out to be a pretty decent stand-up guy.

i asked him if he owned the shop, and he said no, he only worked there. around this time some other customers came in and they began speaking in spanish. now, eavesdropping in spanish isn't easy but i didn't my best.

the two people came in and told marco that they were from sweden. now this raised a bit of a flag because the "belgian" woman is from sweden. then marco pointed to a large merchant's license mounted on the wall and said the wife of the shop owner was from sweden. aha!

i took a good look at the picture on the license. the man pictured was a large tough-looking rastafarian guy. hmmm, not what i had expected for the "belgian" woman's husband.

after the swedes left, i asked marco where the shop owner was. "oh, he's probably home smoking joints," he said. nice.

marco told me how much he loves working in a shop and talking with people. i concurred that he is very friendly, and it had been lovely chatting with him. then, seeing that there was no more investigating to be done, and feeling that i did not want to take up any more of marco's time, i decided to head out. marco hugged me a third time, and asked me to please stop in again before i left.

so what have we learned about the mysterious "belgian" woman? absolutely nothing.

south american explorers club

2010-05-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

we are members of a very exclusive club! (see doctored membership card at right) yup, we are official members of the South American Explorers Club! (not to be mistaken for the Clean Plate Club, which according to my mother we can be members of if we finish our dinner) ... one of the many perks of membership to SAE is baggage storage.

now, we had a little problem with baggage coming here. we overpacked. i'll admit it. i am typically an overpacker, but the two of us went overboard with this trip. part of the problem is that since we will be traveling through various climates and temperatures we need a variety of different things. then we will be settling down in buenos aires, and we'll need our regular day-to-day things there. so when we tried to get on the plane in new york we were met with some serious baggage overage problems. we very nearly had to pay for extra tickets for our luggage! but luckily the saintly woman behind the counter was able to do some sleight of hand tricks, and got us onto the plane for a much smaller fee.

anyhoo, yesterday we dropped off our extra baggage at the south american explorers club (you know, all the stuff we won't need until argentina, which is still a few weeks away). luckily we had the good sense to take a cab because shown here are the endless cobblestone steps which we would have had to climb up with luggage in tow.

now, the bolshevik doesn't really know what i've packed in this extra luggage. sure he saw me pack about 12 or 13 dresses and we had a good laugh about that. but i think he will be rather shocked when he sees me pull out pair after pair of calf-high boots from my bag, similar to the endless exodus of clowns from a clown car. shhhhh, don't tell him what's in there!

then last night we went to a pub trivia night hosted by the SAE. now, the bolshevik and i are both some smarty-pantses, so we thought we had this one in the bag. but sadly, it was harder than we thought. where were the literature questions? or movies and music? instead there was sports, car logos, country outlines. in the end, we placed 7 out of 9 teams, but in our defense we were the only team of two. most teams were 4 or more. the bolshevik has taken this loss to heart and never wants to return to the pub again. but i on the other hand am obsessed and want to return every week, twice a week if necessary, until we can leave victorious.

p.s. do you know what the first human invention to break the sound barrier was? i do, but the bolshevik didn't believe me and then we got the question wrong.

the mysterious "belgian" woman

2010-05-06T08:43:00.001-04:00

i have gotten permission from the bolshevik to publish my version of this story first, even though he had "called it." hopefully he will write his soon so that we can all compare ...

back when we were in lima:
one night we were rather tired after a long day of sightseeing and eating peruvian deliciousness, so we wound up coming back to our hostal on the early side. to get to our room we had to go all the way to the roof garden, and then take another set of stairs to the top floor. at the roof garden level there was a woman smoking cigarettes sort of in the shadows. she greeted us in spanish, and then we went on our way.

for some reason the bolshevik needed to go back down to get something, and when he returned he said that the woman had invited him (and by default, me) to a reggae show because she was traveling by herself and didn't want to go out alone at night.
obviously the first thing i thought was
1. what a wuss
then 2. why is this woman mackin' on my man?

but the bolshevik assured me that he made it quite clear that he had a girlfriend, that girlfriend being me. it is important to note that one of the reasons the bolshevik was eager to go to the show, was that he had learned that this woman was from cusco, and since we would be in cusco the following week, it would be advantageous for us to talk to her (this ties back in later) so after some prodding and some gussying up, i agreed to go to the show.

but when we returned to the roofgarden the woman was nowhere to be found. of course, i used this opportunity to taunt the bolshevik mercilessly. it went something like this.

me: so where is your mysterious belgian woman? huh? huh?

bolshevik: she's from sweden. and she's not mysterious. you saw her twenty minutes ago.

me: yeah right, like she really exists.

we waited around awhile, wondering if the mysterious "belgian" woman would return. then we decided to go to the lobby to buy a bottle of water, and lo and behold the mysterious "belgian" woman was chatting up the guy at the front desk.

so then off the three of us went like peas in a pod. now, i quickly decided that i did not care for this belgian woman. she had that kind of flowy hippie dippie free spirit child-of-the-earth thing going for her that i do not relate to, nor do i particularly care for.

as we walked through the plaza the bolshevik asked her what she does in cusco. "oh i owned a shop," she said. "but i left that behind." hmmm, red flag number one.

when we got to the bar, we found out that there was no reggae show. in fact, we were the only three people there. so we decided to get drinks and sit out on the balcony. no big deal. i figured we could excuse ourselves after a round or two and then be done with this woman.

the bolshevik had some trouble communicating with the bartender so then the "belgian" woman and i were left on our own. not knowing what to say, i asked her about her shop.
"oh i make jewelry," she said, "and clothes and other things."
she pulled out some silver jewelry she had made, which was nice, and showed me some other trinkets that she crafts.
"i sold these in my shop. well, now it is my husband's shop. i mean, my ex-husband."
"you won't be working in the shop when you go back?" i asked.
"i'm not going back to cusco," she said. "i left it all behind." and she made some sort of airy motion with her hand like this was a very breezy decision. red flag number two.

the bolshevik returned while she was giving me a business card for the shop that is now run by her seemingly very recent ex-husband. of course, he didn't hear the part about the leaving it all behind.

while talking, she wrote down several places for us to check our while we are in cusco. each time accentuating her advice with comments about how much she dislikes lima, and how dirty lima is, and how lima is so boring, and lima is dangerous, etc. hmmm, odd ... then why did she come here?

the bolshevik eventually asked her when she was going back to cusco, and she reiterated that she is not going back. in fact, she has no idea where she will go after lima. red flag 2.5?

around this time, i began to notice that the mysterious "belgian" woman had a tendency of laughing after every few sentences. whether or not this was a nervous tick, a linguistic/cultural difference, or more likely a symptom of mental instability. i was not sure. red flag number 3.

as we walked back to our hotel the mysterious "belgian" woman asked if we smoked pot. now, i won't lie to you blog readers, back in the day i used to partake quite a bit. but NO MORE! luckily the bolshevik was quick enough to say something about not liking to do illegal things in foreign countries. good save, bolshevik!

- let me interrupt the story for a moment to tell you that right outside of lima is a tall mountain with little houses all along the side. from the look of it, i would assume the houses are rather meager and the people who live in them rather poor. back to the story -

the mysterious "belgian" woman began to tell us that lima is so dangerous and such a terrible city and it isn't safe to go anywhere. she explained that she and some friends had gone up the mountain to the little shacks in order to buy marijuana, and then after they purchased some marijuana they were stopped by a scary man with a gun who was shouting about them being "on his turf." but after giving him some of their newly purchased pot, he let them go. thus concluded her story of how dangerous lima is. red flag number 4.

i don't want to sound prudish, as i do believe that marijuana should be legalized, but i think it is unfair to say that a place is dangerous, if you knowingly and purposefully go looking to buy drugs (typically sold by drug dealers) and are then upset that the criminal activity you are partaking in is happening in a "bad neighborhood." aren't you guilty of making the neighborhood bad? would it have been a bad neighborhood had you not been consorting with drug dealers? i'm just saying.

anyway, eventually we made it back to our room. alone. not knowing what the bolshevik was thinking about this whole encounter, i tried to keep it light.

"she was odd, no?" i said.
"odd?" the bolshevik replied, "she was totally crazy."

phew.

so i then told the bolshevik the story of how this woman had confided in me that she had left her husband and her store and her whole life behind. now let me tell you, the bolshevik usually does not enjoy gossip, much to my dismay. usually, when i have a good piece of gossip, he isn't the least bit interested. but he was really into this. suddenly we were discussing potential reasons for her sudden departure, wondering who in the relationship was to blame. then, we realized that when we get to cusco we can actually go to this shop and meet this guy! obviously, we will not mention the mysterious belgian woman, but we can sniff around for clues. maybe we can even ask some leading questions like "who made all these trinkets?" i am curious to see if he is visably distraught, or if there are any signs that he may have be abusive. the bolshevik thinks he is a wife beater. not a tank top, but a violent spouse. i personally think she is to blame, being a flighty flake type person. only time will tell.

. . . to be continued in cusco

exploding toiletries

2010-05-05T10:38:00.000-04:00

it seems as though being up at this altitude, and having 40% less oxygen than normal, has strange effects on many things. first off, the bolshevik and i seem to get tuckered out pretty quickly. usually we have lots of get-up-and-go, but after walking up hill for about 30 seconds, we get rather tired. and this tiredness hits really quickly, like as though one minute you're fine and then the next minute you're kind of tipsy and goofy. but we were prepared for this and have been drinking lots of water and partaking in the coca candy (we found a toffee version! so yummy!), and i feel like we are almost back to normal now.

but one thing we did not expect was the effect that this altitude would have on our toiletries. the first day we had walked around for a while, and we decided to take a break in the shade so that the bolshevik could put on sunblock. he is a pale one, you know. i was minding my own business when all of a sudden i hear the bolshevik mutter a stream of curse words, and then i notice a suspicious white liquid had splattered all over my sneaker as well as all over the ground. my first thought was that a large pre-incan bird had shat on us. but then i look over to the bolshevik and see that his sunblock was errupting on us, much in the style of a school science fair volcano.

now, i have seen this happen to stuff when you take it on a plane and then it somehow has to depressurize or something. but this is way worse, there's a serious amount of force involved. we do not exactly understand the science behind the phenomenon, but every time i open one of my toiletries for the first time i forget to point it away from me, and this happens all over again. so far i have errupted sun block, shampoo, and facial moisurizer on myself. we cannot help but wonder why there are no warning about this in our guidebooks.

no fucking way

2010-05-04T11:19:00.001-04:00

so i was checking my bank account online to see if the YMCA really did cancel my membership and stop my automatic monthly payments, when lo and behold i noticed that my balance was significantly higher than i had expected. this particular account i had only left open for emergency use, like if for some reason i had to send a check to someone. so i was only supposed to have a couple hundred dollars in it. but this was like, significantly significantly higher.

now, many of you may know that i have a bit of an aversion to math (hence why i will not switch over to the metric system!). but when i had left my job at the library i was pretty sure i had calculated how much money i would be paid in backpay and unused vacation time and all that. but apparently, i had underestimated something, because according to my bank statement, the day before i left my ex-employer deposited AN ADDITIONAL FULL PAYCHECK into my account! say what?! do you know how much that is in nueva soles?! mucho mucho soles!

what is the lesson here? everyone should quit their stable jobs and run away to other countries.

xoxo
miss dewey decimal

p.s. this picture is of a convent/church here in cusco. it has nothing to do with this post aside from the fact that i like pictures.

cocaine, breakfast of champions

2010-05-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

ok, not really. but since our arrival in cusco i have been enjoying the coco te, tea made from cocaine leaves. apparently it is supposed to help alleviate symptoms of altitude sickness. it sort of tastes like a mild green tea mixed with freshly cut grass. it's not half bad.

we have also been sampling some of the coca candy. it's a sticky sort of sucking candy, that tastes like a really sweet raisin with a hint of caramel.

i have no idea how effective these things are. maybe it's all a scam. but day 2 in the mountains and so far we are feeling fine.

off to work on the great american novel ...