A Very Hairy Halloween!

It's not really a big deal here, but some folks like to roll out the red carpet for Halloween. Halloween also happened to be the birthday of my host sister's boyfriend, Luis. He turned 22. My roommate and I thought we should buy him a little something, so we picked up a bottle of Venezuela's most popular beverage, Casique rum.

To our surprise, they already had two bottles in the fridge, and another sitting on the table. We stuck around for a rum and coke, then took off for the little halloween shindig at Venusa. One of the gringos in the group noticed that my roommate happened to look a lot like the Roman emperor Haydrian, hence his costume. Anyway, here's us in costume.

There was dancing, followed by more dancing, and then eventually a trip to everyone's favorite grungy bar, Birosca. Dancing and alcohol consumption followed. This is a picture from earlier in the night in Venusa, mime = Antoni & young lady = Kayla.

Today I woke up at 7:20, bright eyed and bushy tailed from my early bedtime the previous night. Some of my colleagues were not so peppy, so I considered myself lucky to just be slightly fatigued. Had a test in one of my Spanish classes, had a little chat about my flights back home, and hung out with the host family for a while. I figure I'll have a section on them coming up soon, but just as a little preview, you can check out this rockin' pic of Esperanza, Alonso, and Camila. Camila's the dog, but I don't know what kind she is, other than sorta cute and pretty stand-off-ish.

Other than that, I've been killing time at the chemical shop across the street from my place talking with Angel, a young 20 something Venezuelan-US American. Time runs in short bursts, and then stops for a breath only for a second. I've been wishing lately that I had more time here, that I could go back and tell myself things before I came here. I'm still nervous about using my Spanish, although I know that it has improved a great deal. I'll have more to come soon.

HAIR!

I say "anywho."

I want you all to know that when I use anywho, I do it on purpose. Just FYI. I'm more than a stickler for good spelling, but I'm all about regional expressions. Thus, I use both "anyhow" and "anywho." Just keep it in mind.

Rafting was a lot of fun. We did class three and class four rapids. It was a two day, one night trip. Both days involved several hours of driving though mountain roads, made possibly even more difficult by our full bellies and tiredness.

The rafting experience itself was uneventful, apart from the gigantic rapids which tossed and turned our little inflatible dingy. We had three guides with us, who constantly reiterated how important it is to stay in the boat and hang on to your paddle. We obeyed, cluthcing our paddles and taking care to keep our gringo behinds in the boat. But by the end of the second day, one guide had fallen out and another had to fish out his paddle.

We stayed in a posada owned by a couple that reminded me of Lucy Kruesel's parents, for those of you who know who they are. The husband spoke French, Spanish, and enough English to get his point across. He was exceptionally proud of some little bag of dry pasta, which was evident only because he showed it off not only at dinner (when we had spaghetti) but also at breakfast the next morning. The mistress of the house was also very kind and helpful, and was a terrific cook.

A good weekend, topped off with a good dinner upon arrival home. I didn't bring my camera with me for fear of having to take all of my belongings in the raft, but as it turned out my fear was unfounded. I did have a good time, anywho.

Okay, so one last thing before I go.

I went to a Mcdonalds today with my pessimist friend from Pennsylvania, Ryan. It was quite possibly the nicest McDonald's I've ever been to, and probably the second nicest place I've seen in Venezuela. There was two floors complete with grand staircase, an elevated walkway, a spot for you to study and plug in your laptop, and an entire second counter just for desserts. Amazing. That's the only word I had for it. It felt good to be home.

I got a 6 piezas McNuggets, which of course brought back a significant portion of my childhood. Afterward, we hit up the dessert counter only to find that the specialty chocolate dipped softserve cone which I had come to McDonald's for in the first place was sold out. I bought a normal cone for 3500 Bs, and prefacing that I only had a 50,000 Bolivares bill, was served with quite possibly the strangest expression ever.

In a normal Venezuelan establishment, paying with a 50 thousand and asking for more than 20 thousand worth back in change is practically suicide. Here in McDonald's the cashier gave me a look somewhere between "Why the hell would a 50 thousand matter?" and "Doesn't he know that this is a MCDONALD'S??!!" I was expecting to be refused service or to wind up receiving a dozen ice cream cones as "change." I was pleased that change was not a problem, and shrugged off the look by reassuring myself that sometimes it's okay to be a gringo.

All McDonald's' aside, while I was walking home with my new backpack, I saw a powerline spark like a firework and split in two. It was pretty crazy. It's totally understandable just by looking at each utility pole here in Merida, but shocking nevertheless. Get it?

Two, two, two updates in one... day.

So, Thursday was sort of a fun day. I made some brownies in my free time between classes, which despite all my worrying still turned out pretty good. These, like my cookies that I had made earlier, turned out tough in the end. I think it's because the sugar melts at a lower point here or something, or maybe more of the water from inside the baked good boils out of it. Anyway, before I do any recipe swaps with Espy I'll have to see if I can figure out this whole alititude adjustment thing.

Anywho, here's how the brownies turned out. I forgot that I had a make-up class scheduled for today, but I managed to get there on time anyway. I also paid for the rafting trip we're taking this weekend, so you'll be hearing about that on Monday. I also bought myself a bright orange camping backpack for a decent price (compared to the states) which will get its maiden voyage this weekend. I hope it floats.

Anyhow, here's those brownies. They taste pretty good even though they don't necesarily come out of the pan with the greatest of ease. But how could they not taste great when one pan of brownies calls for three cups of sugar and a bottle of chocolate syrup?

It's not that I forgot, it's just that I couldn't!

Umm, when I wrote this, it was Thursday. Yesterday (So Wednesday) I did a wire transfer of some money from my bank in the states over here, but since the transfers take a while I was unable to get the money before the banks here closed. That being said, apparently Venezuelan banks close at 3:30. Who knew? In my mind, that explains a lot about why there's always lines out the door at every bank in Merida.

The only problem was that I needed to pay for the airline tickets for Peru and back (Wednesday) yesterday, which meant that I ended up taking out huge loans from some of my friends - under the promise that they would get paid back in full as soon as this money came through. It was an uneasy feeling, but I'm glad we got it taken care of.

I've been forgetful about these head pictures lately, and I've been having to do this updates later and later in the day each time. So, finally I've thought enough ahead to take this picture before it gets dark out. Without much further adieu, my head.

The Venezuelan report card, the most money I've seen, and my best work ever.

So, I hope you've all been patiently awaiting tomorrow's hair update. I know that I have. I felt that I couldn't jam pack that one with quite as many crazy events as I had initially planned, so this is my WEDNESDAY EMERGENCY UPDATE!

The other day I got my grade for film class. I wasn't expecting any sort of a mid-quater update, so I was pleasantly surprised when the opportunity arose to check my grade. Class was getting out early, because the teacher had to leave early to go to the doctor. When I was handed this report card, I was flabbergasted.

Not only had I been a good enough student to get a 90% in this class so far, but I had also been special enough to receive a corner piece! Isn't that great?! This piece of paper is roughly the size of my thumbnail, but I wasn't too upset. Some of my fellow students didn't even get a piece of paper with one straight edge. Mine had TWO.

Today's Children's Literature class was excellent. We spent a little under two hours doing things like painting, glueing, coloring, cutting, pasting, etc. This my final product. I don't know that I've ever been so proud.

Finally, Andy and I paid for our trips to Peru today. I tried to get my flights to the States pushed back to a later date, but due to someone having an unfortunate accident with a coffee grinder (I'm serious) I have to wait a little while longer.

Speaking of paying for stuff, this was how many bills it took to buy us all of our flights to and from Peru.

Updates are here!!!

So I updated, but for whatever reason blogger decided not to put my latest update first, as is the normal protocol.

So far as my blogging experience goes, I have come to the conclusion that blogger is not the blog for people who like to be perfectionists when it comes to layout and design. Although it is nice and simple, it's very limiting as far as layout and personalization. Anywho, you'll have to scroll down a bit to see my latest update.



Sorry about this, folks. I have been meaning to update in a while, and I've got a monstrous post coming, but I can't seem to get it done just yet. The formatting on Blogger is less than desirable, so just hang in there and I'll have something new soon.

En serio, chamo.

This weekend we went to Catatumbo again. But, before we start that, lets have a small discourse on the zoo, shall we?

We went to the parque zoologico as a class field trip on Thursday. It was zoo-y. Anyhow, here's one of my favorite photos from the zoo.

I know what you're all thinking; "Chris, you've flipped your lid! This isn't from the zoo!" You're exactly right, but the problem with all the zoo pictures was that the animals were all behind fences with only small holes, or bars with only the tiniest of gaps between them. The picture above was from a craft shop near the zoo. I think that this one here is pretty good.

Then... on to the Catatumbo trip. We went with a guide this time, so no worries about having to trek around with all our own food and liquor and that sort of thing. No siree, Bob, we had it all taken care of for us. The first place we went was a tobacco and sugar factory. Originally I had thought that these would be separate places (i.e. tobacco factory and a sugar factory) - but as it turns out they were one in the same. We watched the boiling vats of tobacco leaves slowly turn in to a tar like substance, which was then stored and dried in used 5 gallon buckets. The guide said even kids here use the stuff.

We left after about 10 minutes, as the "factory" was really a corrugated tin roof covering the boilers for the tobacco, and headed for our next stop, the hot springs. These were incredible. They stopped the jeep at a gate, and said, "it would be best if you took off your shoes." After trekking through some incredibly deep and squishy mud before getting to the hot springs, we understood why. We set our stuff down when we got there and our guide said, "If you're going to go walk around, look out for scorpions."

The hot spring ran into a plain old river, creating perfect temperature water somewhere in between the bank of the river and the small fall of the hot spring. The hot springs were probably only 3 inches deep at the deepest, but were located a good 3 feet higher than the river bank, which led to the guides building a homemade shower, complete with hot water.

We picnicked for lunch, finally arriving in Catatumbo in the afternoon. After an hour of swimming in the lake water which was, in Esperanza's (my host mom) words, "Muy contaminado," we went on a nighttime excursion to hunt for baby crocodiles. The guide caught two, and tried for what he thought was a python. He just simply grabbed them out of the water with his bare hands, although he says he underestimated the size of the snake, which was actually much bigger around than his hand could reach.

I stayed up late that night, watching the lightning and solving riddles with the folks I was with. The guide Manu was very cute, I'm told. We came back to Merida the next day, stopping by an incredible waterfall and a cave, which was only midly interrupted when Manu decided to grab a snake off of the mountain road and release it somewhere safer. His "take-this-boa-constrictor-in-the-van-with-us" attitude was hardly surprising at this point, but with the help of a stick and a little patience the snake was saved successfully. Woo, successfully sure has a lot of double letters, huh?

Anyway, that was my weekend. Thanks for sticking around until the bottom. I'm going to Peru at the end of this semester, so this week I'll be a busy body planning all of that. Ok, I have class now. More updates soon.

Jueves

So, today is Thursday... How's it going? I went the zoo on a class field trip. It was sort of quaint, but a nice little place, for the people at least. I felt sad for all those little animals like I always do, wondering if they've known anything other than concrete and chainlink fences all their lives. There was a waterfall, plenty of landscaping, and a decently sized bird exhibit, but I thought that the thing that really charmed the place up was the way the stone steps had a thin layer of moss that gave everything a really nice aged look.

I have some pictures from the zoo, so maybe I'll be updating and posting some of those soon. My online life has been sort of slipping later due to a lack of an internet connection yesterday and a two and a half hour nap this afternoon. I was absolutely exhausted after the bus-rides to and from the zoo, but I had to recoup my backpack at school in order to do this blog update. Whoo!

Anywho, I've got a trip to Catatumbo this weekend again, and if this sounds familiar to anyone, it's because I've already been there. It was pretty cool the first time, but because we got up so darn early and did everything ourselves we missed the "relaxing and watching the lightning" aspect of the trip.

Anyway, here's my head!

Down with Facebook, up with Guestbook!

Listen up, everyone. I don't have a guest book on my blog, and I can't add one because Google's infamous "Blogger" has deemed it unworthy. However, this does not mean that I do not enjoy hearing from you guys.

So, I'm taking this opportunity to announce that I would officially enjoy more comments on this blog. You don't have to say anything about the entry, or whether or not I'm your favorite son, boyfriend, lover, internet personality, etc, but I would definitely appreciate knowing who's keeping track of me back at home and abroad.

That being said, I also have info on the gnome situation. I'm sorry to say, but the gnome detector was dismantled the night after I posted about it. It would seem that the gnome sabotaged the project because was wary of so many people knowing his/her whereabouts, but this is not the case. Actually, my host sister took the remaining coin out of the dirt and dumped it all outside because our host mom got sick of having a vase of dirt on the table. In the end, no one was caught with their hand in the proverbial dirt jar, so it seems that everyone left the scene unscathed - although I'm sure our good friend the gnome left a bit richer.

Here's a picture!

Mufos Wofias

As Monday lazily rolled around the corner, I stopped a moment to consider my weekend. I didn't really do anything, but I did keep up with my homework. I did stop time for a moment and sat down to watch the Bourne Ultimatum (which is pretty good, fyi).

I remembered playing a memory game on friday when we were all sitting by the little river in the Paramo, just my three Venezuelan compadres Lankins, Kayla, Eliza and me, all seated in that order. We all thought that it was a simple enough game, but Eliza reviewed the rules just to be safe. Lankins started off saying, "dos limones, medio limon."

Kayla follows up with "dos limones, medio limon, cuatro limones"

Now it's Eliza's turn "dos limones, medio limon, cuatro limones, seis limones"

Then my turn, "dos limones, medio limon, cuatro limones, seis limone... (translated) Hey, why can Lankins say two different amounts of limes?"

Eliza explains the rules (in spanish) again, this time adding that Lankins should have only said one amount of limes on his turn, even though he started.

Lankins starts again. "Medio limon," he says.

Kayla takes a turn, saying "Medio limon, tres limones."

Lankins interjects before Eliza starts her turn. "Doesn't she have to take the number I said and multiply it by two?" he asks the group.

"No!" Eliza says, going over the rules in spanish a third time. "okay," she says after explaining as thoroughly as possible, "does everyone get it?"

"Great," she says. "Let's start again. Lankins, you go first again."

"Okay, Dos limones, medio limon" he states confidently.

I feel a "Noooooo!" escape my lips, and then we wonder how it is that Lankins was still a bit confused about the rules, whereas the gringo got it on the first try. We were all mildly exasperated, but on the fourth try, we all finally got it.

After playing for about 3 or four rounds (that's 16 different quantities of limones to remember folks!) I became convinced that Lankins was actually the one who knew the rules and strategies the best and was just giving us the run around. It was pretty funny, I will say that.

Later that day, we stopped by a restaurant. It served traditional Venezuelan fair, and as such the waiter brought us out an appetizer of arepas and cream. Eliza asked me "Como se sabe?" meaning, "how do they taste?" I pulled the old... "They're TERRIBLE! I'll eat all of them so you guys won't have to suffer." But, since it was in Spanish, it took longer than it should have for me to get out the second part. Because my back was to the waiter, I could not see that he was within earshot of the table.

I was horribly worried after I finished the joke and Eliza told me that she thought that the waiter didn't understand I was joking. Thus, by the time that the waiter would return to drop off our beverages, I wanted to be sure he knew I wasn't serious. The service was speedy, but I was determined that the best way to prove that I liked the food was to finish the entire basket of arepas by the time he returned. While I stuffed my mouth full of the pita like substance, our waiter entered the room valiently carrying a tray with assorted fruit juices. Just before he left the table, I turned to him, crumbs flying everywhere and managed to eeek out... "Mufas Wofias."


(muchas gracias)

Cien años de soledad

Yesterday I went to the mountains. I went with two sisters, Elizabet and Kayla, and their "brother," Lankins. It was a wonderful experience, to say the least. We spent some time at Pico Aguila, which is one of the highest points in Merida, and then we went to a national park called the Paramo, and finally ate a Venezuelan lunch at an adorable little posada complete with a great view of the rest of the mountainside, and their very own horse in the backyard.

Yesterday I made a joke in Spanish about not needing a lawnmower if you have a horse. I thought it was pretty good that I figured out how to say that. Really, the hardest word was lawnmower, just fyi.

My host family also went up into the mountains this weekend, meaning that I ended up with an apartment in Venezuela to myself for the weekend. My host mom was thoughtful and left me plenty of left-overs, so that way I don't have to worry too much about food at all.

Although I have plenty of food, I took a trip to the supermarket today in hopes of finding all the ingredients to make my father's recipe for "killer brownies." Unfortunately, none of the employees I asked had any freakin' clue where I could find chocolate syrup, so the quest shall continue into next week.

I have plenty of pictures to show from the trip yesterday, but I also have plenty of homework. Thus, my flickr account may just have to wait until I'm a bit more productive before it gets updated. Anyway, here's a little something for you - Again, I know the effect is cheesy, but I did it by myself, okay?

Gnome Sweet Gnome.

Well, it's hair update day again today. I hope you're all prepared...






This is just one of the many gates we walk through to get into the main chill out space in our school building. Everywhere in Venezuela is behind bars, and in this picture so am I. Kind of an interesting social commentary, no? I thought so.

This week has been relaxing to a t. My roommate tried to get me to go with him and another gringa (female gringo - read "foreigner") to angel falls, but I wasn't really in the mood to stress out about getting the whole trip together and riding a bus for another half a day. Instead, I hung out with my host family and had a few random conversations.

The first thing that I have to say is that a large vase of dirt found its way on to my family's dining room table sometime last week. I originally thought that it was in preparation for some long awaited plant to arrive from their house in "el campo" (the mountainside) or something to this extent. As it turns out, it was actually a gnome detector.

Miguel, my host mom's nephew that's vacationing in Merida for an indefinite amount of time and living in this apartment, and my host sister Daniela decided that they needed to set it up because of the weird noises that they kept hearing at night. Daniela swears she felt something slap her bed in the middle of the night sometime last week.

Anyhow, it's just a vase of dirt with 7 coins buried inside. If the coins get taken, you have a gnome in your house. I asked my sister what the gnomes did for people not to like them, and she simply replied "I don't know." Daniela said that she, Miguel, and Esperanza were all afriad that there was a gnome (maybe the better translation is dwarf) in their house. She didn't really seem to understand why I was having trouble understanding their fear. "Some are bad," was her only attempt at explaining this to me.

Apparently, they've been counting the coins over the days and now only one remains. I have no idea why a gnome would go to all that trouble of digging through a vase of dirt to get so little money when our lock box is usually in some stage of unlocked and/or wide open, but who am I to think like a gnome?

Miguelito was asking me if I had stolen any of the coins or knew anything about it. After repeating himself several times to get me to understand what he was asking, I finally figured it out and said a firm "no." Later Daniela sat down and ate lunch with me, and we talked about it for a while.

I thought then and still to this moment think that it was my host dad stealing the coins. Daniela firmly denies this, which sort of makes me want to change the amount of money sitting in the jar. Anyway, this is my on going saga now. I can't decide if it would be better to drop another six coins in there, or just throw a handful of change in.

And speaking of changes, I'm finally working up the gusto to have random conversations with people in parks and in the city squares and such. Today I met two Venezuelan-American brothers who work at their father's cleaning supply store across the street. They were some friendly dudes, alright. Anyway, I killed a little under three hours today just hanging out and talking with them in their chemical store. It was a really genuine experience.

A lot'a Cata.

After a 13 hour bus ride, what's the first thing you want to do? Get on another bus for 2 hours, right? I thought so. Thus, with more than 15 hours on a bus we began the weekend. The beauty of the beach in Bahia de Cata made up for the strenuous bus rides from Merida, but it was a hell of a trip nonetheless.

Being on a bus and traveling across the country made me think of my Grandma Fox riding a bus with her friends to someplace like Branson, Missouri. In my opinion, I had more fun at the beach than I would have in Missouri, but it reminded me of her just the same.

I made sure to take plenty of pictures, so if you'll check my flickr you should be able to see how gorgeous the beaches were. White sand, crystal clear water, the usual stuff. The nicest part was that the beach was surrounded by mountains, which made a sizeable cove. There were pelicans, terns, and pigeons galore, as well as a decent sized ferrel dog population. There were also plenty of shops and restaurants on the beach which were (surprise, surprise) closed more often then not. Asi es Venezuela.

Add some children who couldn't swim playing with a log in water that was too deep (or "profound" as the spanish speakers say) for them to swim in, and you got yourself a weekend of saving the lives of kids that aren't yours, wondering why they chose to pester you. Not that I personally watched them for all that long or anything, most of that fell on one of the ladies I was with who had worked at a daycare back in the States.

We went to the pueblo de Cata (town of Cata) for the festival of Patron Saint Franscisco, for whom (I'm just guessing here) San Fransisco, CA was named. Anywho... it was hard to get a taxi in to the pueblo, and even harder to get a cab ride home. We ended up catching a ride home with a fellow we'd met earlier that night, because of the impassible walk through the jungle at night and because of our severe lack of other options.

Apart from the hectic trips into and out of the neighborhood, the trip went well and the beach was great. A little body surfing, talking with some strangers on the beach (who were often in various states of intoxication), and a bit of coconut milk can really help a person remember what it is to relax.

...Here we come!

We've been on the run/ Shadow weighs a ton/ travelin' down the 101 / Bahia de Cata here we come, Bahia de Cata here we come!

So, to the beach or bust indeed. After my plans to go whitewater rafting fell through, a friend of mine said they had some extra room on their trip to the beach this weekend. By weekend, I actually mean Wedneday through Sunday - Thus, I will not be by my computer for the weekly Thursday hair update. I have made the executive decision to do my Thursday update today instead, as not to upset my loyal fans. That being said, I'll have my camera at the beach, so I should have lots of good pictures to share when I get back. Once again, I give you....






My head.

my first book

Today after my Children's Lit. test I decided to take the time to go hit up some travel agencies and comparison shop rafting trips. Later I walked the roundabout way back to my place, bought some cookies, and wound up browsing through a bookstore looking for, what else, books in Spanish.

My thoughts in the bookstore originally were, "get a book from a famous South American author. Yeah, that's the ticket!" This eventually changed to, "Well, that Noam Chomsky looks mighty interesting." Which after about 10 mintues deliberation, devolved into, "Well... I probably would have a difficult time fully understanding his book in English."

After gravitating towards the Harry Potter display twice like a moth to lamplight, I also rejected the notion that this book would somehow improve my Spanish.

***Here's a little aside - In Spanish, a library is called "La Biblioteca." This would more or less fit right along side English with the prefix "Biblio" - coming from the Latin and winding up in our language in words such as "bibliophile" and "Bible." However, a store that sells books is called a "Libreria," obviously quite similar to our word, "Library." This makes even less sense when you consider that the root-word "Libre-" means "free." Spanish is crazy.

In the end, I found a book that looked to be my level, by an author who (unbeknownst to be) turned out to be a relatively famous post-modern Spanish author. It's a collection for Short stories of suspense, written by Cristina Ferandez Cubas. I'll let you know how it goes.

The walkout.

My first class today was Film Criticism. The teacher decided not to show up today, so after twenty minutes, we took off. It was the first time I've ever had the chance to do that, so I used the time wisely - I went to study for another class and study up on my travel plans. I'm only here for another 2 months, and I feel like I still have too much to see.

I'm all about the beach lately. I'd love to be able to go sailing somewhere, but the problem is that all of the beaches are at least 12 hours or 150 dollars away.

Of course, everyone who lives in Venezuela will be happy to tell you that they have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Unspoiled, untouched, beautiful beaches. The reason they've stayed so untouched is because they're not very easy to get to, and much of the population of Venezuela isn't living on the coasts. Ain't that a horses patoot?

Indeed it is, but to the beach or bust!