OR
Hello, Mendoza!
After a long and very fancy bus ride…
…I arrived at my hostel in Mendoza!
…with grotesquely swollen feet and ankles:
Ah, well. You can’t have it all. Fingers crossed that this is from my non-vegan meat-fest yesterday (I was so hungry, and so tired of snacking. Argentina is the worst place not to eat meat or dairy), or maybe from too much running? I would hate to have to go to any sort of doctor here.
OR
Goodbye, Buenos Aires
Sunday :
Then Tuesday :
Then Goodbye :
Time flies, Friends. It’s true.
…of which there are many, and they are called ferias.
This was my personal favorite, because it was antiques/antiguedades. Just call me littlesarahBilingualWorld!
The blue glass collection also reminded me of a photo from this post, from about this time last year.
I do like an early summer adventure.
A couple pleasing sights:
Because I think we all know about my appreciation for graffiti, especially when traveling.
~OR~
Pub Sneaking-Away
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Why I’m the Biggest Aguafiestas of All Time
Last night I did a thing that I would not typically do–I went to a pub crawl in a foreign country with a sizeable group of Americans.
Normally I avoid Americans in foreign countries. Normally I don’t go to pub crawls. But…when in Rome…
Mostly I went because I had an itchy feeling, wanting to be out of the house. And I wanted to meet Josh, a friend of Brett’s from Peace Corps, with whom I’ll be travelling.
He was nice, and also Mike (who will apperently be travelling with us, as well) was nice. And Mike’s friends Tim and Dan were nice. I think they’ll be travelling with us? I didn’t verify that. I started to get anxious, the more menfolk that jumped aboard this backpacking adventure. It just seems like a lot of dudes. Too many dudes. And me.
Actually, I came away from last night with the impression that the Peace Corps is basically a do-gooder frat.
So…yeah. That’s not really my style. Nor is binge drinking with a side of peer pressure. I prefer to binge drink on my own terms, thank you.
I mean, I understand that the deal worked out between the pub crawl people and the bars is that the bars give us free shots, knowing that we will then buy several drinks. But maybe the pub crawl people shouldn’t have encouraged us to drink so much in the park before hitting the bars, eh? Or maybe I still reserve the right NOT to have a drink in my hand at all times and NOT to have the pub crawl organizer order a bunch of drinks, tell people to drink them, and then demand money. And it’s not my fault that it was a Sunday night and there were only six of us and therefore nobody was going to make much money.
Yeah…I got cranky. And drunk.
So I did what I do when I’ve had one too many and am just generally over the situation–I walked home. Without saying goodbye.
I walked miles and miles through Buenos Aires at night and then struggled with the door at Jose’s (damned foreign keys!) before collapsing into bed (but not without trying to read a bit first. Why do I think that I must read every single night before bed, no matter how late it is or how drunk I am?).
Then, this morning, I woke up with a raging hangover, counted last night’s drinks (EIGHT–something I should have been counting at the time), and tried to have a day.
I hate letting hangovers steal the better part of the next day.
I hate doing things that I don’t feel like doing, only to prove myself right and have to live with the regret.
I’m not sure how I feel about do-gooder frat boys. It certainly doesn’t bode well for the next few weeks…stay tuned…
~OR~
Introduction to Buenos Aires
Spent the afternoon out walking around with Jose, after napping for 2 hours on his bed.
I must seem so non-plussed to him, but really it’s just…I don’t know.
I guess I don’t feel any radical changes right now, despite being in a foreign country.
I guess it’s pretty weird that yesterday I was in the Spring and now I’m in the Fall. That, at least, continues to blow my mind.
~OR~
I Made It!
After over an hour sitting on the runway in Salt Lake, a 3 hour flight, a 2 hour layover in Houston, a 10 hour FREEZING and stiff neck-inducing flight, an hours bus ride, missed connections and several frantic locutorio/couchsurfing/skype communications…I’m here. Safe with my couchsurfing host, Jose, in his apartment.
…in Buenos Aires.
Because, you know, this is what I do. Getting to know the Big World, one random, crazy adventure at a time.
~OR~
Catchphrases of the 90s: Where Are They Now?
Aw, Friends, you didn’t really think I’d abandon you for 3 whole weeks, did you? Now, I can’t promise daily posts (as though that were the standard that I’ve set…), but I will do my best to treat you to enough catch-up posts and guest blogs to keep you coming back for more.
Because the “more” will be pictures of South America. Argentina, Chile, and Peru, specifically.
In the meantime…here’s a March Round-Up! March was fun, Friends. Or did you not see the two bottles of wine above? That happened! We took two bottles of wine to a dinner for three. This was that dinner:
That was at Pago. For Stephanie Red’s birthday. Also for Stephanie’s birthday, we had cake. In a bar. Because of this movie. It was cheesecake:
Ah, birthdays. We basically celebrated for a week, which is how everyone should birthday.
Also in March, Salt Lake got a new mall! What? YES.
Lindsey Friend works there. We ate Subway about it.
Anyways, that was March! How was YOUR March? I wanna know. No, really.
Also: stay tuned.
~OR~
Slow It Down, Now
Remember how I had to get sick to realize that sometimes it’s okay to just do nothing? To amble, meander, even saunter? I was serious about that, Friends! I’ve been working on enjoying the journey, not just racing to the destination. So I walk more. Sometimes at night. Here’s what that looks like, from the library to my place.
~OR~
Lately…
I think a lot of people go to Grad School because they don’t know what else to do, they’re unsure of what comes next. After graduating from college and living the dream for a while–just hanging out, working a couple part-time jobs, keeping up with the ol’ hobbies, etc.–they begin to wonder, “Now what?” They have interests, passions, curiosities, but maybe that’s not enough. Maybe they want something bigger for themselves.
I think most people want something bigger for themselves.
And there’s so much pressure to succeed in measurable and familiar ways. That’s why you end up with a whole flock of uncertain, indebted 20-somethings, “advancing their careers” with more schooling. I’ve seen it happen, like a fever spreading among my peers. They’re not sure exactly WHAT they want, but they need some sense of forward momentum, and society approves of higher education.
“What are you up to?” your parents’ friends ask, and you get to say “I just got accepted to Fancy Pants Academy in Ivy Town.”
And then everyone’s happy.
Except…except maybe they’re not. Maybe they don’t actually want to be a doctor or lawyer or mathematician. Maybe they just know that they’re ready for something more, something bigger than house parties and part-time jobs and poor finances. So they commit 2, 3, 4 more years of their lives in the hope that they will then be transformed, birthed like a grungy pheonix from the flames into full blown adult-hood.
Don’t get me wrong–I think Masters degrees and PhDs are fine, if you know what you want. If you are passionate about Physics, go for it. If you’ve always known that you want to be professor, or a doctor, or a lawyer, then study up and make it a reality.
But I think it’s wrong to pretend you’re something you’re not, to follow a set path and give up your individuality for the approval of others. Progress for the sake of progress, with no regard for who you are or what you want. I think there are many ways to “grow up,” move forward and be constantly changing for the better, and I would never push myself to blindly follow someone else’s definition of the next logical step, just because I was ashamed to admit that, honestly, at the age of 26, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
I think I might like to be a school teacher, or possibly a journalist. I know I could succeed in either of those careers. But right now those are just notions, and there is plenty of time. I’m not certain of those choices, but I’m more and more certain of myself.
Recently I realized that most of my anxiety stemmed from trying to figure out the next step. What do I want? Where should I go? How can I best plan out the future in order to move on from the past?
It was freaking me out, Friends, trying to maintain a hectic, busy life here while also planning for a future that I could never quite convince myself of…so I stopped. I stopped planning. I stopped working so hard just to make a buck so that I could keep living a life where I’m working so hard all the damned time. I’m not going to move back to Spain, I’m not going to make any radical career changes, and I’m not going to Grad School.
Instead, I will:
-read more, watch TV less
-write more, facebook less
-run more, worry less
-listen more, talk less
-walk more, rush less
-sleep more, work less
-share more, isolate less
-hug more, stress less
-cry more, feel more, listen to my heart more, dream more, defy more, and spend less time obsessing over what my former classmates are doing, what my former friends think of me, and what my former goals were when I was a person who would ignore her gut instinct and stick to the plan, one foot after the other, even when it made me sick and anxious and depressed
In short, I will do as I please. I commit to me, to my ideals, my passions, my creativity and self-worth. They don’t give out degrees for that, but I feel a hell of a lot more certain of myself and what I want than so many of my peers that I see grinding the axe at a nine to five plus night school, just to get ahead. Even if all I’m sure of is taking things one day at a time and doing what feels right. Because what I’m sure of…is myself.
* * *
I think a lot of people go to Grad School because they’re unsure of what comes next. But I know exactly what I want. I want this, I want here, I want now. Spring is here, life is good, and every day I feel more and more alive. I’m not going to Grad School, because I’m committed to the present; I don’t want to change a thing
First a quick trip to South America, though. See you in 3 weeks and 3 days, Friends.
little sarah Big World 