If a picture´s worth a thousand words, what is a song worth?

My friend Marlene gave me a book she had just finished reading in her book club called "Love is a Mix Tape". The author, Rob Sheffield, tells the story of how he and his wife were brought together by their common love of music, and the role that same music took for him after her sudden death at the age of 31 from an embulism. The book got me thinking about how music has played a role in my own life. How certain songs have come to represent certain periods in my past, and some that remind me of specific people and events. There are songs I've shared with ex boyfriends that still need to be skipped past when they come up on shuffle on my iPod, and even though I'll never listen to them again I need to know they're there. Because if the memory disappears, well... That's all I have left. And then there are others that bring a smile to my face and never get old, no matter how many thousands of times I've heard it and sang along because it brings me back to some place in time that I'll never see again, but during the 4 minutes and 30 seconds the song plays, I'm right back there.
So I've put together my own little list of the songs that seem to stand out to me, in tribute to friends, times, and my adolescence. In no particular order:

-Sublime 40 oz to Freedom. Entire album. Summer of 1997, Bedford Park. My first summer of freedom, 15 years old. I'm pretty sure that was the only song we listened to that entire summer.

-Collective Soul, Run. There was a little trail on Albany's campus that led behind Indian Quad to the road behind campus. I think I stumbled across it looking for my first job at the undergrad admissions office. No one ever seemed to be on that path, but I used to love to walk it with my discman when I wanted to be by myself for a while. Yes, discman. These were pre-iPod days. And since there were no iPods, I had in my possession one CD, my modern-day version of a mix tape, with some random songs I burned from Napster. Oh, how I miss the technology from the beginning of the millennium. All I remember being on that CD was this Collective Soul song, and whenever I hear it I'm 18 again, back on that trail where my little rabbit Trixie went on to carry out my legacy when I was forced to set her free at the end of the semester.

-Sweet Caroline. Senior year of college. I don't remember why a Neil Diamond song was as popular as it was in 2004, but every time we went to T's (our senior year bar) this song had to come on the juke box at least 3 times during the night. And the whole bar sang along, everyone chimed in at least for the Bom Bom Boms.

-ABBA, Dancing Queen. Cjap, the summer before I left for college. I don't know why this song makes me think of you but it had something to do with Seaside Heights. Do you remember?

-Here Comes the Sun, The Beatles. Summer of 2008. Melissa and I were heading to Margate on the shore for July 4th weekend to meet our new friends from Israel. It was taking a long time to get there. We spent a night at her parents house in Long Branch to break up the driving, and on our way out the car ran out of gas and Melissa had to walk to the gas station to get more. By the time we got there we were a little bit irritable that it took so long, so we threw on our bathing suits and went to the beach to start having fun. Someone put this song on, and suddenly everyone was happy, the sun was shining,  our friends all appeared and kickstarted off an amazing weekend. Whenever I hear this song I know I'm going to have an amazing day.

-Boston, Augustana. The summer before my brother went to college we took a trip up to Bear Mountain to do some hiking. We got a little bit lost on the trail, it rained and we slipped and thought how awful it would be if we died right there and Adam never made it to college (Emerson is in Boston, hence why this one reminds me of him). We did make it out alive, and on the car ride home Adam told me this was the song that was getting him ready for his journey, the next step in life. Now it's my song for him, and my memory of that awesome day at Bear Mountain.

-Too Big To Fit in Here, from The Sweetest Thing soundtrack. Danielle and I always have to jump around and mimic this song and accompanying dance whenever we hear it, or put it on when we're getting ready to go out.

-Secondhand Seranade, Vulnerable. Okay, this is one that belongs in the skip when you hear it batch, but it's one I can't skip over. My ex sent this song to me randomly at 3am weeks after we broke up. No note attached, just the song. Whenever it pops up I try to listen to the lyrics to make sense of what his purpose was in sending this, but to this day I've never been able to figure it out. One of my personal enigmas I'll never know the answer to.

-So Happy Together. Pimp Daddy Stu Kess took me for a father daughter day to 6 Flags when I was about 10 years old. This song came up in the car, and he told me a story about how he first met my mom, and this was their song. Gail claims this isn't true and was never their song, but when it played on the radio in the car we sang along, and I always think of him, their happy marriage, and that day at 6 flags with my dad. I also nearly rode my first roller coaster that day, the Great American Scream machine, but after making him wait online for an hour, freaked out when I got to the front of the line and refused to go on the ride.

-Blink 182, What's My Age Again. Freshman year of college. I don't know if that's when this album came out, but I know it's all the bars played that year and I still associate it with that time.

-I'll Be Missing You, dedication to Biggie. Summer of 1997(?). It's all everyone listened to once it came out. But for me, most specifically, I remember taking the bus out to Rockaway beach, which was a pain in the ass to get to, but Liz brought along her boom box so we could blast it on repeat all day at the beach.

That's all I got right now. This was a fun little activity/trip down memory lane. Especially when I'm gone almost 2 months already, it's nice to have things that remind me of home.

Celsius 451

Maybe they're not burning the books, but South America as a whole seems to be hellbent against me picking up any English books. I did buy a kindle for the trip, which turned out to be an amazing purchase since I've blown through 11 books already in less than 7 weeks. There are certain books, however, that for some reason Amazon doesnt let me download.

Motorcycle Diaries, for example. When I got down here, I thought it would be nice to read books native to certain areas. I read "In Patagonia" when I was traveling down south, and read Lost City of the Incas when I decided I'd be making a trip back to Peru. Motorcycle Diaries seemed to be the next logical choice. There are very few bookstores that carry English books, and when i do find one MD is never there. I assumed at the Che Guavara museum they would have it for sure, but no such luck.
 In the entire city of Cordoba, not a trace of it.
I finally found it in a bookstore in Uruguay, with no price. I excitedly carried it to the register and when I asked "cuanto Cuesta", the woman behind the counter laughed at me. Normally I would assume this meant that my Spanish was off, but i know for sure I can ask for prices.
The lady told me it was 760$ uruguan pesos. I did the math in my head - $40 USD? That couldn't be right. The book is only about 180 pages! I doublechecked on my iPhone calculator, and there the numbers didnt lie. $40.  There isn't a book in the world I would spend that on, so I walked thinking there must be some mistake. Sure enough 2 weeks later I found it again in Salta, with a pricetag of $20. Still more than twice what I would pay at home for a paperback book!!
I honestly can't figure out how a complete steak dinner with a million sides costs $20 and a book costs $40. If anyone can clue me in, please do! For now, I'll have to hold off on reading my beloved Che!

2 countries, 250 waterfalls, 1 amazing experience

So for me to take a bus 20 hours to stay somewhere for only 2 days just to get on another 23 hour bus, that place had better be well worth it. There's probably about 2 places I would spend that long traveling to do this for. Machu Picchu is one, since that's the place that changed my life. Iguazu is obviously the other.

Iguazu is located at the very northeast part of Argentina, bordering Brazil and Paraguay. Iguazu national park, where the falls are located, span both countries. The Argentinean side has a network of catwalks that take you over the falls so you get more of a birds eye view. Brazils side let's you go way up close. Both sides are amazing, and luckily my visa is good for 3 more years so I did get to see them both!

The Argentinean side day I showed up at my hostel sick, exhausted and dirty. I showered, downed 3 cups of bad coffee, and popped the rest of my meds and took off. The park is really spread out and there are lots of activities you can do inside. I opted for the upper and lower view of the falls, a walk around an island in the middle, a boat ride into the falls, train ride to the Garganta del Diablo (devils throat), and 6km walk on a nature trail that had no nature whatsoever.  The boat ride was the coolest but scariest part, only because I heard a boat capsized 2 months ago from the pressure of the water and everyone died. So the whole time I was thinking, "this is amazing. Please let me live to tell about it!". You get completely soaked, which is ok because iguazu is the one place I've been thats actually hot all the time. Needless to say my boat did not capsize, and I made it back to land in time to run through all the activities. This was one day that I was actually really glad I didn´t have anyone with me, because I was running around like a crazy person so that I didn´t miss anything.  The nature trail I mentioned called Macuco was the only part of my day that sucked - they close the trail at 3pm so I had to rush to make it there, and when I walked through it (in my flip flops, which I thought I was being smart wearing since I was doing the boat ride til I realized I was now on a hike and that was the opposite of smart) I saw absolutely nothing. Not even the little anteater racoon creature or butterflies that I saw at the falls. 

For day 2, the Brazilian side, the lovely people of Iguazu are nice enough to let me pay another 100 pesos to cross over through their country.  These 2 people on my bus actually didn´t have visas and weren´t allowed to cross the border because they didn´t have the right visas. I was so glad I did my Rio trip because I wouldn´t have paid $130 just to cross this once, and the Brazilian embassy actually makes you do it from the US and not here so I would have been screwed anyway.

The people in this hostel were all in a group and not very friendly, so I intended to have another day at the falls myself.  Except when I got to the bus stop I ran into my friend Tom that I met on the volcano in Pucon, so not only was I not alone but I had someone I already knew and had hung out with 2 full days in Pucon! This is actually the 2nd person that I met on the volcano that I´ve run into since.  We got to the Brazilian side which reminded me more like Disney World with their monorails everywhere. The Argentinean side was walkable once you got to the park, but the Brazilian side you had to take a bus to the front, then another bus to get to the falls, to the safari, to all the things there. So we took the bus down and I saw the difference in the sides, and it´s basically from Brazil they set up their platforms to let you get up close and personal with the falls.  There were rainbows everywhere again and it was just as beautiful as it was the day before. 

This time I was kind of rushing because there was a 2:50 bus and then a 5:00 bus, and there is a point downtown in Iguazu that you can see Brazil and Paraguay from Argentina and I wanted to get there before the sunset and I couldn´t find it.  So I skipped the safari walk, but I did manage to squeeze in this bird park that I thought would be lame because I usually hate birds, but was actually really cool because it was all in a giant garden and you felt like you were walking through the jungle as you got to each exhibit.  You even got to go in to these caged areas and get up close to the parrots and toucans! Really cool.

I made it back to town, changed into sneakes (I learned my lesson) and ventured off to the 3 country point. I met a really nice couple from Bristol, UK and ended up trekking there with them, and discovered that when I order vodka sodas here, just like at Japeanese places in the US I am given a full glass of vodka and a can of diet coke. Which actually makes 2 drinks, so for about $7 I am set for the night!  I treated myself to real dinner since I knew I was getting on a 23 hour bus in the morning, and discovered my 2 new friends will be in both Bolivia and Peru the same time as me! 

Last stop in Argentina, Salta. Then it´s off to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and onward to Bolivia!

Current issues with Argentina

I got really sick my last day in Buenos Aires, and had a 18 hour bus ride that turned into over 20 when 1) our bus randomly broke down right when we left BA, and 2) we stopped to pick up passengers every 13.6 seconds along the way. So that might be the reason for my current rant, but either way, I have some reasonable qualms with this country to get off my chest!

1) There is no need for every Argentinian man to speak to me when I pass in the street. Sometimes I know its harmless and maybe even nice. Like, I know the word lindo means beautiful, so I´ll take that one as a compliment. However, the slurping sounds when I walk by? I´m not sure if that means you´re hungry, I look hungry (I probably am, food sucks again in Iguazu), I look like I taste good, you want to take me to dinner, or you want to eat me. None of the above are acceptable, so please don´t slurp or chomp at me when I walk by. Especially when, at times, it really doesnt even make sense, like this morning when I was 2 days unshowered, hair in a bun, and wearing sweats. And not even my cute lulu ones. Baggy, boy sweats. Even speaking to me then is puzzling.

2) Don´t sell me a sandwich when you´re serving me dinner 10 minutes later. At the bus stop at 8pm they let these men on with sandwiches, which I proceeded to buy since I assumed we weren´t getting dinner. Not even 10 minutes after the bus left, and I ate my bread since the dude gave me the wrong sandwich - I dont eat breaded noname meat - they gave us our dinners. Thanks for the heads up, Expresso Singer bus man.

3) Dont give me the wrong currency!!! Because of someone giving me Brazilian money today, I had to promise the guy at the Iguazu Falls boat station my first born and a kidney to get him to let me slide by being short one peso, which I would have had if someone hadnt given me a Brazilian coin, or I hadnt bought the unnecessary sandwich on the bus last night.

4) Know where you live. Your town has 10 blocks, citizens of Iguazu. How do none of you know where San Martin street is?? Why, when I ask for a supermarket, you have no idea where I can find one when I stumble across it on my own by turning the corner and walking 10 feet. If someone asked me where 2nd avenue was, or the nearest Trader Joes, I could tell them every single place they could buy a loaf of bread in a 20 block radius.

5) Iguazu Falls, like Uruguay, does not sell my beloved puffed sugar corn cereal. Probably for the best, since I was living on that stuff. But I do miss it, Salta better have some!

On a happy note, Iguazu Falls was one of the best things I´ve seen on this trip so far, but more on that next entry when I´m not doped up on Sudafed :)

3rd time in BA is the charm

My third time back in Buenos Aires has proven to be much better than the first 2 trips. My first day was spent at the US Embassy, but I still managed to get in a run, be reunited with my corn puff sugar cereal (Uruguay didnt have it and I was going through major withdrawal), go to the botanical garden, find the frozen yogurt place (it's no 16 handles, but it's healthier than the gelato I've been getting from Freddo and Voltra every day!). I walked around Palermo, which is one of the prettiest neighborhoods I've ever seen. There are beautiful restaurants and cafes on every weeping willow tree-lined block, each one completely packed by 10 pm. I could spend months trying to fit them all in. There was a street called Cordoba that I remember a French girl telling me had the most amazing shopping so I ventured over there. To my utmost dismay, I couldn't even find a store worth going into. I don't know if it's because I don't have any room in my backpack to put anything, or because I'm trying not to spend my nonexistent money, or because I'm from New York and simply have better taste than these stores have to offer, but I walked home completely empty handed. I met a guy from Sweden who is headed to a yoga retreat 2 hours away. It's a 5 day retreat, I wish I had the time to do it, but I'm on a strict schedule now to make sure I get to Bolivia in time to meet Melissa. Day 2, my friends Marlene and Alex, who I met on birthright 3 summers ago (wow, I can't believe how long it's been now!) got to BA after coming from Machu Picchu. We spent the day exploring the city and it was so nice to spend time with familiar faces, especially since I hadn't seen them in so long. We realized that including the airport at Newark when we boarded for Israel, this is now the 3rd continent we've hung out on!! Even though there were some more shady creatures that were definitely eyeing our bags, I felt more comfortable with them and we had a great day, unharmed. I even got back on the metro, and I think to reward me for overcoming my fears, I found money twice while we were walking around!!!
It started raining and got ice cold during the day, the one day I chose to wear shorts, but luckily we ended up in a mall that had cheap sweatpants which I'm much in need of anyway.
For dinner we had a reservation at La Cabrera, the steakhouse I've been hearing people talk about for the last 6 weeks now. I was SO excited, which usually leads to my expectations being high and then ending in disappointment. Well, this was not one of those times. I can't even begin to explain how amazing this place was. I have never seen so much amazing food in front of me in my life. I ordered a half portion of the tenderloin, which came as 3 giant pieces of the best steak I've ever bitten into.

It came with a million sides - spinach, mashed potatoes, pumpkin purée, onions, carrots, bread, a salad - and just as i thought there was no room left on our table a man came around with garnishes to add to it. Artichokes, mozzarella and sundries tomatoes - it was insane. And besides this being the best food ever? The meal was $20 for the steak!! In total, with the cover charge (the fancier restaurants charge a cover charge for the table, bread, etc. I actually thought it included tip also but I was wrong this because our bill clearly specified that the tip wasn't included), the $4 soda (yea, the soda cost 1/5 the price of the steak. Go figure!) my total dinner was like $35. And I had leftovers for the next night!! Alex liked it so much he made a reservation to go back again before they head back to the states, before he even finished eating!). When we left around 10:45, there was a million people waiting outside to get in, filling up on the complimentary champagne.
The only bad thing about this experience is my body isn't so used to eating this much red meat, so I had to skip out on the bike ride to Tigre I wanted to do the next day. It's okay though because i slept past 9 for the first time in weeks, and decided to have a relaxing day while combating the cow growing in my belly.  I found the rose garden while I wandered the Palermo parks, went to 2 museums (MALBA and the National Bella Artes museum), played at the Recoleta and Palermo markets, got a haircut and a massage, and found more froyo. All with stopping every half an hour or so because I´m starting to get sick and my body isn´t handling all of the walking and no rest. Tonight I´m going to go to bed early with some Tylenol PM and wake up with crossed fingers that I´m better for my 18-20 hour bus ride tomorrow!
I actually saw so many nice things at yesterday´s markets - artwork, clothes, sculptures, leather, etc. So many things I wanted to bring back for souveniers, but most was breakable and won´t last in my backpack, even if there was room. I´m still saving my souvenier shopping for Bolivia, the halfway point in my trip, so that I can send things home in one swoop. After Bolivia it´s Ecuador, Colombia and possibly Panama, all warmer countries, so I can get rid of some of the warm clothes too. And the alpaca ponchos I know I´m going to stock up on in Peru.
Ok, off to the market to get enough comida to last my long bus ride. Pray for me that I don´t get sicker and die on this bus. I want to get to Iguazu and see the falls, not the inside of my dorm room!!

Luck's turning around - thank you Uruguay!

After my 2 bad experiences in BA, I decided to escape town for a few days to recover. I tool a morning ferry (express, only 1 hour!) to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay  the boat itself made feel better because it looked like a cruise ship inside and since the tickets are $50 each way I knew i wasn't in danger of being robbed. At the terminal I made friends with a guy Justin who waa from Boston and recently moved here, so his Spanish helped tremendously. We spent a few hours wandering around Colonia. It's a tiny town but super cute  it's supposed to look like a Portugese town from the 1600s.

All cobblestone streets and old buildings. I learned that no matter how good your spanish is, there will always be something that will surprise you. When we went to lunch, one of the menu items was tortuga, which translates to turtle. Justin never heard of that being a Latin dish but it turns out tortuga is what uruguayans call a certain type of sandwich bread. We still refused to order it, just in case. In the afternoon we took a bus 3 hours to Montevideo, and just as i thought things were going smoothly, a rock came plummeting through my bus window, shattering glass all over the both of us. My first thought was that people were attacking the bus, but it was Actually some idiot, prob a teenager, who pelted a rock at the window to be stupid.
In any case, we got to Montevideo with just a few shards of glass remaining but everything else intact, to find out that the buses and taxis were on strike. A taxi driver had been killed on Saturday night by 3 guys and since the government wasn't doing anything about it, the transit system went on strike. This meant we had to walk the 45 minutes to the old city. Thank god I had Justin there, who was pissed because he had his entire bag with him (my bag was in buenos aires so I was traveling light). The city was safer, I made it in one piece, and was happy to be somewhere new. My friend Joel was also in Montevideo so we met up the next day and toured the whole city. There is a lot of old buildings by one side of the port and the rest of the city is surrounded by the beach. There was a Carnival museum that had some cool costumes and the history of Carnival but all in Spanish so I dont really know what they were saying.

We walked the perimeter, and even though it wasn't beach weather we walked on it and pretended we weren't so abysmally off season. We even found a movie theater that plays English movies! Unfortunately all that was playing en ingles was the Fast and the Furious part 4, so no movies for me quite yet. Hopefully Harry potter will be there in English come July.
Montevideo was an okay city, I can imagine in the summer it's a really cool beach town but I wasn't super impressed with it. The food was not nearly as good as Argentina with the exception of their chocolate and dulce de leche, but then again they pretty much just copy Argentina with that anyway. They did have one dessert there that I loved, it was a chocolate covered ice cream cone filled with dulce de leche. Amazing. Punta Ballenas was their famous brand, which I´m pretty sure translates to Dolphin Point, but as long as no animals were harmed in the making of this product, I´m happy!
I met another interesting person at my hostel. The man was probably about 60 years old. Originally from London, moved to Canada and was an aspiring actor. Wasn´t working for him in Canada, so he decided what better thing to do than to get on his bike and ride to South America.  He´s been traveling for 2 years, went down through the states through Mexico and down the west side of South America, all the way to Ushuaia. He said that to save on accomodations there were times he slept on the side of the road in Patagonia. I mean, I wouldn´t even do Torres del Paine down there because I thought it was too cold in a tent and sleeping bag. The longest he went sleeping outside was 12 days. Sometimes he asked firehouses or gauchos if he could pitch tent in their front yard. He paired up with this guy who used to be in the French military, who told him certain places in Patagonia were too dangerous to sleep because there were land mines all over. When Argentina and Chile fought over the land decades ago, they put land mines down to get the opposite side away. Now that the boundaries are all established, the land mines are still there and obviously can´t be dug up because they would explode. They send mules out into the fields to try to clear a path, and when a mule flies up in the air after setting one off, they know they found one. Crazy!! He said there were times he ran out of water, and the wind was too strong to light his gas stove to cook, but it was part of the experience. I wonder if I´ll ever feel able to let go of everything like that. The dude looked happier than anyone I´ve ever met. Maybe he lost his mind somewhere along Route 40. But it was amazing listening to his stories. I tried to encourage him to write a book, because he was also a fascinating story teller. Maybe that will be his new calling when he finishes riding home up the east side of SA.
I'm glad I went to Uruguay and got another stamp in my nearly full passport. I made it back to Buenos Aires in one piece, and even managed to walk the 30 minutes back to my hostel at night without getting robbed, killed, raped or sold on the black market.

I went back to my non-shady San Telmo hostel (dinnerless, since I managed to find about 2,000 calories worth of chocolate and dulce de leche at the bus station in Montevideo to tide me over) and went to sleep in my private room!  I woke up in the morning nice and refreshed, hopped in a cab to the US embassy, and got more pages added in my passport all within about 4 hours (and $82 later). Now I can travel for 26 more pages worth! Dont worry, it wont be all on this trip, promise!!!)

I now have another 3 days in Buenos Aires, and 2 of my friends Marlene and Alex come in tomorrow! I can´t wait to see them!!

Buenos Aires Take 2 rant

Everyone has told me horror stories about BA. All I saw when I was here for my brief stay the first time was beautiful buildings and parks, amazing steak and chocolate, and friendly backpackers. This time, however, I was assaulted at the metro within minutes of stepping off my bus from Cordoba.  I was with 4 other girls, and these stupid Argentineans did every trick in the book to try to steal our backpacks. One asked me for the time and I ignored him. A second splattered something on one of the girls bags and then people were coming at her with tissues to clean it up (a trick that gets you to stop, take your bag off so they can steal it). Then a guy went to a third girl and was trying to pull her bag out of her hand. He luckily didnt get away with it. Then I felt my small backpack fall down off my bigger backpack, and realized someone opened up 2 of the 3 places it was attached.  I grabbed it just in time before it fell, and he reached in and grabbed what he could out of the pocket. Moron got away with just a deoderant, so I hope he smells powder fresh at least. I was so frazzled because there were 5 of us and it was 8AM in the middle of a crowded train station. I am traumatized from taking the Metro again.
Robbery attempt 2 happened at the hostel. I met the friends I made in Valparaiso and Mendoza at the Garden Hostel near San Telmo. The first night went smoothly, but some of the people said there were locals staying at the hostels who were friends with the owners and a little shady. In the morning, 3 of our friends were checking out, so they left their bags in the other 2´s private room, which locked but didnt have a locker inside for passports and all. One of the local guys went to escort us to the market, and was being REALLY odd. He walked off to make phone calls, and when 2 of the guys were getting suspicious that they thought he was calling back to the hostel to tell his friends we were far enough away, he was asking where they were going, why they had to leave, what was going on. The whole thing was just so weird. We all ended up running back to the hostel and the locals were looking at us funny and seemed surprised we were back. We made an executive decision to lose the $ from the hostel and just change to a different one in San Telmo. I am happier here but still on guard about everything. I´m nervous to take taxis too because my friend just told me that in La Paz his friend got held up at knifepoint, robbed and dropped of on outskirts. It makes me want to cut my trip off and come home, but I know its just a bad couple of days and things will go back to being wonderful again like they were for the last 5 weeks. On a happier note, I had a really nice day in San Telmo today at the street fair, watching live tango and crazy pieces of artwork. If I wasn´t staring every potential robber in the street down it would have been much nicer though :) Tomorrow I had to Uruguay where it has to be safer than here!!