Ser Porteña

Walking down the street named "Bolivar" in Buenos Aires, peering into open doors while being hustled along the crowd down the bustling street of businessmen in dark summer suits, students with large architecture portfolios bound by weathered leather straps, and old women sipping on grandfather's musty pipe while sneaking glances at children bouncing glass marbles on the cool, tiled floors, I comfortably ease into the quotidian porteño rhythm. Buenos Aires, I am fully here and fully yours. 

So long, and thanks for all the fish

I suck at goodbyes. They always catch me in a panic. I always panic. I could be having a lovely last meal with my friends, and then we find out that the last colectivo for the night leaves in two minutes -- so we throw down the money, hug quickly and ardently, and then part. 

It isn't until I've gathered my bearings in the bus that I realize that I just said goodbye -- forever (maybe not forever, but a few years could feel like it). 

Goodbyes don't have to be a grandiose show, but I usually always lack a certain kind of closure - perhaps that's what can keep the fire buring, but it is still like unfinished business, as in we could have hugged just one more time, or I could have appreciated your essence for five more minutes. 

But it isn't the end that ever counts  -- it's what's in between, the meat of the relationships. 

I'm only ever down on goodbyes because I think some relationships deserve a final hurrah. Will we remember the hurrah? Maybe not, but our subconscious can peacefully rest with the fact that we've honored the relationship and all of the memories at the core. 

I always say All's well that ends well, but that's not entirely true -- for instance, stopping the story at a bad moment, a hiccup in the relationship, a trying time - then it wouldn't be well, and the one terrible ending would be lording over every pure moment anterior. Either we can evaluate by looking back at the entire story, or we can evaluate the present and know that it is good. 

I almost think goodbyes are preposterous in trying to finalize or make sense of anything because the end doesn't even matter. So, sorry we never had a proper goodbye (whatever that is). I really just want to hug you one more time and tell you how much you mean to me. Bye for now, sweet cheeks. 

My heart might be left in Mendoza...

I have never consulted WebMD or Askadoctor so many times before my visit to Argentina. 

The wine and meat are excellent, but my sitting heartrate and heart pain just might be too high for my delicate body's comfort. 

But hey, I can ask for a doctor and explain my symptoms in perfect Spanish. Como se dice "looming heart attack in Mendoza." 

The cultural fair at the local park was great, even though they ran out of Inca Cola.... 

And now it's time to not worry - thank goodness for student health insurance! 

The Hostel Phenomenon

I have lodged in quite a handful of hostels over my years of traveling, and every time upon experience I am exhilarated by this confronting sense of a common ambition and understanding of the traveling life these "backpackers," "traveling comrades," and "vagabonds" seem to possess. 

I find myself confounded by my own story of "what I happen to be doing here," and I ponder these common themes in both the stories that I share with others around the twenty-seated communal dining table and the activity of washing the raspberry marmalade-crusted breakfast dishes with the early morning creatures at the kitchen sink. 

These others and fellow traveling comrades could also very well be considered strangers, but given the fact that we are sharing a hostel, we are obviously immediately friends (maybe not completely trustworthy), and you admire them just the same for the happening presence you share. 

I immediately set about blogging about this "I am a traveler" feeling, and I was confounded by my own lack of descriptive words and thorough explanation of what these sentiments are ought. 

I do find myself assuming an international identity whenever I discover that the Australian couple happen to live down the road from my grandmother's house in Sydney, or the lone Texan has visited my hometown for every one of his summers. I find my accent slipping into a familiar 'Strain slang, empowering a natural attraction to an assumed similar upbringing. 

The characters who pass through these red-painted hostel walls, swapping all sorts of paperback novels, hiking advice, and personal accounts of various life-changing experiences won't necessarily be remembered when my stay at the hostel comes to a sweetly sorrowful goodbye, but in a new-age sounding sentiment my own travel will have been exponentially enhanced, and it will have become my own. 

My Jansport school backpack shamefully pales in comparison to the typical backpacker's 70-lbs yellow duffle, but nevertheless it carries my own backpacking story and limits the unnecessary baggage I could have probably managed to shove into it. 

23:50

We are about to get on a bus that will take us to Bariloche, Patagonia, Argentina. 

Duration of bus ride: 23 hours and 50 minutes 

Oh South America, how your expanse charms me! 

Avena mi vida!!

Oatmeal for breakfast. 

This isn't just your average oatmeal. I think the two heaping spoonfuls of Dulce de Leche make it the breakfast of the Latin American gods. 

To be stood up, for the third time

I have been stood up twice in the past three days for a social engagement and work. Waiting time: 1.5-2.5hs.

Hashtag: Latin America

Hopelessly devoted...

Argentines: on exercise and old men

A typical Argentine scene:

old men lacing up their tennis shoes before they jog around the local park in their jeans in the early morning. 

mosquitos

- the distant sound of women wailing and children screaming

Ye fearing mortal!

"You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don't notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you has a full and overflowing supply - though all the while that very day which you are devotion g to some key or something may be your last. 

You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire."

On the Shortness of Life

- Seneca

It's refreshing to be back in the hands of Seneca.