Growing up is an odd thing

I've never been much of a reader of junk books. Garbage like Babysitters' Club, Twilight, and Gossip Girl have never held my attention nor been of much interest to me. Rather, my zone-out-over-Christmas-or-summer-break books have always fallen in the Amy Tan/Secret Life of Bees category. They're easy reads yet they have more than one layer to sift through and I don't feel my brain rotting away while I flip through the pages.

One such book, which I'd argue is of a slightly lower caliber than Ms. Tan's books, is Love Walked in by Marisa De Los Santos (a Delawart). This book is the prequel to the book Belong to Me, which I read after my mom. She bought the book because the cover featured several sets of rainboots lined up in a row and we're total suckers for that kind of advertising!

Anyway, in that book the protagonist makes a comment about how French women always look put together. She specificially says that they can quickly tie a silk scarf around their neck and it falls in that perfect-you-could-never-achieve-this-flawlessly-careless-look-in-a-million-years kind of way. Well, this afternoon, while walking back from the Stanford center, I bought a silk(ish) scarf and I am going to try to achieve that look.

For those of you who don't know, this is a big step for me. Let me give you a bit of history:
For the majority of high school, I sported jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt, which apparently aren't couture or high fashion. When I went to Tahoe over Christmas break junior year of high school, my sister and best friend Jaclyn raided my closet, removed everything they dubbed "unacceptable," and then made a chart of everything I could and could not wear together a la Granimals. While I did not appreciate this blatant display of paternalism and disrespect for private property, I did appreciate the helpful/interventionist sentiment behind it. It's funny because come junior year of high school, my little sister Emma confessed that she now understood why I wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and T-shirt everyday--junior year is crazy busy and sometimes there's just not time to focus on fashion details.

Now, beginning senior year of high school and freshman year of college, I tried to start wearing scarves. No, not tiny silk scarves around my neck. I simply tried to wear normal scarves. However, while trying to wear these fashion accessories, I faced a problem. This adjustment process felt exactly like when I first started to wear a bra. That is, when I first started wearing a bra, all I could think was "oh my god, oh my god, I'm wearing a bra." And I felt that way until my older friend Lauren told me to try sleeping in it to grow accusotmed, which actually worked. So, my initial attempts at wearing a scarf were highly distracting because all I could think was "oh my god, oh my god, I'm wearing a scarf! I wonder if it's falling properly? I wonder if everybody thinks it's weird that I'm putting extra effort in today? Should I try to make the scarf perfectly symmetric or should I go for casual asymmetry?" Basically, wearing a scarf was too stressful, so I abandoned it.

Then, something miraculous happened! I went to London/Paris over spring break last year and it was cold. I brought a scarf and needed to wear it. With the help of Jaclyn and Laurel, I learned how to wrap/tie it so it looked nice but not too planned and, with a bit of practice, I became accustomed to scarving it up. All junior year, I have sported scarves left and right with hardly a second thought. Now, the scarves I've worn have primarily been for utilitiarian purposes of warmth. However, I am now feeling confident enough to try the purely-for-show scarf. We'll see how it goes--wish me luck!

Ode to my Pink Umbrella

Ode to my pink umbrella
meant to shelter me from storms
meant to keep my body dry
that my body might stay warm

Ode to my pink umbrella
carried in pocket or purse
small, compact, transportable
useful when weather turns worse

Ode to my pink umbrella
I´m sorry for having left
you on the floor of the cab
by means of Anne-on-Anne theft

Ode to my pink umbrella
I hope you are not alone
I hope you´ve been adopted,
used and loved in your new home

Asados Pasados

In the opening scene of the movie (not book) Gone with the Wind, Mammy helps Miss Scarlet prepare for the picnic at the Wilke´s house. With the use of a corset, Mammy helps Scarlet achieve her desired tiny waist and tries to convince her to eat a bit before the party because no boy wants to see a girl stuffing her face. Scarlet reluctantly takes two bites to appease Mammy.
This scene has come to mind each time I have attended a barbeque (asado) here in Chile as I always wish I had taken Mammy´s advice to have eaten a bit before hand. No, this is not because I am afraid of eating in front of boys. Rather, it is because each asado has plenty of food but that food is usually served at least one hour after we were told it would be. And if I don´t eat, I get a bit grumpy/snarky.

The first asado I attended was at a hostel in Pucon called el refugio (this name keeps occurring throughout my Chilean adventures). The hostel director invited my three friends (Lauren, Jason, and Zach) and I to join him and the other guests for an asado and we eagerly accepted the invitation to enjoy a hearty meal of steak, fish, salad, and beer and wine. That day was a particularly active one as Jason, Zach and I had spent the afternoon river rafting. Lauren chose to forego this event in favor of being productive and not getting her hair wet. Rafting was awesome and at one point in time we had to get out of the boat and jump from a cliff into the water. For those of you who don´t know, I do NOT do things like that (27 waterfalls anyone?). Thus, throwing myself off of the precipice into the freezing water was quite a feat. Apparently while I was contemplating how I could climb down rather than jump, the guide was behind me making pretend kicking/pushing threats.

When we returned to the hostel, the idea of the warm Franklin stove, good food, and a nice evening with my friends and Negra was increasingly appealing. Negra is the hostel´s dog. I used to say that I do not like dogs. Now I say, ¨I don´t like dogs, but I love Negra.¨ She is sweet and social and I might go back to Pucon just to kidnap her. But I digress. We had been expecting to eat at about 8PM, which was feeling late on its own merit. However, I think Peter did not even leave for the store to purchase asado materials until about 7:30. To pass the time and cover our hunger, we began to play some cards. We played 13 (also called killer) and hearts. We were all pretty grumpy and one person in our group, who shall remain nameless, is used to winning. However, said person was not winning and I believe humorless death threats were made. Hehe.
We finally ate at 9:00ish and I am almost willing to say that the feast was worth the wait. If the food wasn´t worth the wait, the company certainly was. This was the first weekend that I stayed in a hostel with only a few Stanford students rather than the huge crowd. This was particularly wonderful because we were able to make friends with the other guests and more easily share travel stories and tips. Honestly, I´d be fine remaining in the smaller group all of the time.

The second asado I attended was at the la Universidad Catolica, one of the premier Chilean universities. One Stanford student studied in Chile winter quarter and he decided to stay on an extra quarter, enabling him to take classes at Catolica (he´ll be here until July). Thus, he arranged for us to get together with some of his engineering friends. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it´s been pretty difficult to meet/get to know Chileans and so we were all particularly excited for this Thursday night barbeque. Yet again, it was pretty late by the time we ate and when I´m hungry my ability to speak/listen to any language (especially a foreign one) diminishes in a non-linear fashion. I was also a bit off because on the metro ride to Catolica, my purse got slashed. Fortunately all of my purse possessions were in inside pockets and so I didn´t lose anything. I was really upset though because 1. I really like that bag (now I´ve had to pin it shut and I look like a freaking hipster) 2. I was clutching the bag close to my body, which means the knife was close to me and 3. I hate the destruction of others´ property/theft and I believe very firmly that property rights are necessary (but not sufficient) for a stable community and world. I believe that even little acts like that are reflections of larger corruption and corruption is problematic because it inhibits goodness and improvement. I hate that one person´s success make one a target. Thus, I was a deeply peeved in addition to being hungry. Just as at the first asado, there was plenty of food--some boys had two hamburgers and two choripans (sausage in a bun). Yet again, I wished I had taken Mammy´s advice and had eaten a bit before leaving so I could have better engaged our hosts and potential friends.

The third asado I attended was last Friday and it was quite possibly my favorite evening here in Chile. Earlier in the day we had a day trip to Isla Negra where Pablo Neruda (one of Chile´s most famous poets) had is favorite house. Contrary to the name, Isla Negra is not an island. Rather, it is a coastal town much like Monterrey and there are huge black rocks that stick out of the water. Neruda thought these rocks looked like little black islands, hence ¨isla negra.¨ I was not expecting much from this little day trip, but I was quite impressed. First of all, Monterrey/Asilomar are my favorite beaches in the world. I´ve been to Hawaii, the Cook Islands, and the most pristine beaches of the Dominican Republic and yet Monterrey remains my favorite. Simply going to this beach and having the opportunity to climb over the rocks and watch the sapphire blue water crash would have made the day more than satisfying. However we also went on a tour of Neruda´s house, which is more like a peculiar natural history museum or a personal Smithsonian than a regular house. Shortly after being torn from the beach and the tour, we loaded onto the bus for our late lunch. Our 3PM meal consisted of the largest empanada I´ve ever had, two glasses of fresh cantaloupe juice, and pastel del choclo (which is essentially a corn-based pot pie with onion, chicken, ground beef, egg, and olive). We ate in a large building with a dirt floor and a thatched roof and faded Chilean flags. While others were still chatting and eating, I spotted a hammock hanging in the corner and I made good use of it (I´m so looking forward to the hammock at home after a late summer evening BBQ). Our lunch was so filling that it more than met Mammy´s recommendation and I was not hungry at all for dinner.

This third asado occurred in the hills outside Santiago at the house of one of the professors who teaches at Catolica. Apparently he hosts large get-togethers every few weeks and this time he invited us because he is friends with the Stanford visiting professor. He also invited many Catolica students, several of whom were familiar from the previous asado. Since we had all had a relaxing and filling (both on soul and food based level) day, we were eager to meet and chat with real Chileans (WOAH! Real Chileans!?!?). This evening was definitely one of my favorite and we are all hoping that, with enough thank you letters, our more-than-generous host might feel inspired to invite us again. Nonetheless, many of us have already or have plans to spend more time with our Catolica friends and some even have plans to do a volunteer trip to help build houses next weekend—I´m 90 percent certain I am going to join!

Buenos...

This last summer, I did interview-based microfinance research and almost every time I would ask a thought-provoking question, the interviewee would start her answer with “Bue-no…”

Anyway (no “s”), I spent the last weekend in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we do not have Friday classes, meaning every weekend is automatically a three-day weekend. Well, this past weekend had a Monday holiday, meaning we had a four-day weekend (my life is so difficult here). As soon as I realized that the first weekend of May would be an extra long weekend, I earmarked it for Buenos Aires. My older brother and his wife are avid travelers. Before they met, they’d each traveled about Europe, etc. Since dating and marriage, they have taken on the world—even taking a one-year break dedicated to world travel. After they returned from this vacation (?), they told me that Buenos Aires was quite possibly their favorite city in the world. While Eric and Mariah certainly have the travel bug and often itch to venture to new places, I do not, in general, feel this impulse on such an instinctual level. The two places I have felt this type of urge to see are Buenos Aires and a place in China that Amy Tan describes in Joy Luck Club. I’ll have to re-read Joy Luck to remember the name of that place, but she described a placid and crystal-clear lake that had giant rocks sticking out of the water that look like giant fish leaping to catch a mosquito. And, ever since Eric and Mariah (muffin and muffin) told me about Buenos, I’ve yearned to visit it. It’s not that I don’t want to visit and explore other places; it’s just that I don’t feel a deep yearning to do so.

One might ask: Anne, if you felt this unbearable need to visit Buenos Aires, then why would you waste some of your long weekend in Uruguay!?! Well, the answer is fairly economic. If you fly into Buenos Aires from Santiago directly, you can only stop at the main Buenos airport. In the main Buenos airport, you must pay a reciprocity fee of $131. However, if you stop in Uruguay first, you can fly into a more minor airport in Argentina and thus avoid this nasty tax. Thus, at the dark hour of 4:00 AM, I woke up, showered, and trekked to Manuel Montt where a large group of us met to take a shuttle to the airport to fly to Montevideo for one day before heading on to Buenos Aires. The flight to Montevideo took about two hours and I was able to read, sleep, and chat a bit.

In Santiago, the weather has changed such that it very much feels like late fall/early winter. I wear long pants, boots, long sleeve shirts, scarves, and jackets. The weather in Montevideo was much more pleasant. I sported a dress and flip-flops and even had to put my hair up for a bit because it was a tad toasty. This change of weather was well welcomed and I’m beginning to grow excited for California’s summer. We spent one day and one night in Montevideo. And as soon as we had checked into the hostel, organized our belongings, and took out a few Uruguayan pesos, we set out for our day. Most of our group of six was hungry and so we settled upon a restaurant in a park that was bustling with people, full of flowers, and complete with fountain. On Tuesday of that same week, I had begun to feel a bit ill and, when I woke up for class on Wednesday, I felt atrocious. I somehow managed to take my morning shower but as soon as I put on my clothes, I realized that attempting to go to class was utterly futile. I was weak, exhausted, and had an unstable-at-best stomach. Unfortunately, that Wednesday was also the morning of my Spanish midterm and I had studied and was ready to take it and do well. I have never missed a test in my life but that morning I did not even care if the teacher would or would not let me make it up. I called the program director who talked with the Spanish professor who told me that we could reschedule for next week. I then slept the rest of the day and ate nothing but a few saltine crackers and a mug of tea. Thus, on Friday even when everybody else in our group was quite hungry by the time we ate in Montevideo, my stomach was still a sensitive and I did not have much of an appetite.

After finishing up our lunch—one boy, Kenan, had a steak that was bigger than my head—we decided that we would like to spend the day walking along the water. I say “water” because it is unclear whether it was a river or an ocean. My main group of four often gets into little debates and spats that last a few minutes and pass as a distant memory. However, our “river or ocean” disagreement was by far the most contentious and long lasting of all our disagreements. Our group was evenly divided (Zach and I against Lauren and Jason) and each side was equally fervent in our convictions. The water flowed like a river, but there was not a visible side to the river. The map called it a river, but the tidepools had saltwater animals living in them. The water was brown like a river, but the coast looked a lot like the Caribbean coast in the Dominican Republic. Etc. etc. etc. After several days of bickering and arguing we learned several things. 1. Montevideo is on an estuary (where a river and ocean meet) and 2. The river that runs into the ocean is, in fact, the widest river in the world. It is comforting to know that our most vehement fight had merit on both sides and that, in truth, we were both half wrong and half right. Yeah, yeah, yeah I hate games where everybody wins, but still at least one side wasn’t stubborn AND completely off base.

Our day of walking along the water was lovely. There was a sidewalk that ran along the coast and along the way there were people fishing, sitting and chatting, and enjoying mate. Mate is loose leaf, highly caffeinated, and bitter tea. The way it works is a person has mate cup, usually wooden, and it is filled with mate leaves. You then add water to the leaves and drink the tea through a special straw that filters out (most of) the leaves. Then, since the tea is so strong, after you finish the tea, you just add more water and you do this on repeat until the leaves loose their flavor and strength or until you’re bored. Apparently drinking from second day mate is a recipe for disaster and you’ll surely become sick. Anyway, we saw dozens upon dozens of people sitting or walking around town/the coast with their cup and straw and thermos full of hot water.

I fell in love with the idea of mate. I was swept up in the romance of people’s killing a whole day just chatting and sharing this tea that you drink with a special, silver straw. I was determined to try mate and then purchase all of the accessories so that I could enjoy the quintessential Uruguayan/Argentinean cultural experience whenever I wanted. I’ll have a 50-minute commute this summer and I had imagined myself driving to work while listening to my book-on-tape with my mate in my cup holder. In Argentina I finally had the chance to try mate and, try as I might, I could not like it. It was too bitter and woody. Even after sweetening it with sugar, I could not stand the taste. In Steinbeck’s East of Eden, he writes (paraphrased) that it is as if the gods have fallen when children first realize their parents are not perfect. While the fallibility of my parents has never been a personal stumbling block, the tea gods lost a good deal of their power when I discovered my distaste for mate. Ultimately, I decided that I appreciate the cultural role that mate plays, but the flavor was enough of a deterrent to keep me from purchasing any mate paraphernalia. I guess I’ll be sipping my homemade café au laits on the way to work this summer.

After walking along the coast for a little over an hour, we came upon a nice grassy spot. Several people wanted to take a nap but I had spotted a pier and decided I would rather explore that area then sleep. One other intrepid traveler, Zach, went with me and we climbed over some rocks as we made our way to the pier. Once on the pier we decided to walk to the very edge and sit with our feet dangling. Literally seconds after Zach expressed concern that we might get splashed, a wave hit a rock beneath us, drenching Zach and sprinkling me. Being the good friend that I am, I let him use my sweater to dry off a bit. It was particularly funny because he had been the one who was most concerned about getting wet and most disturbed by the quality (or lack thereof) of the water. I guess karma exist because while walking back down the pier, I put my hand in some gross brown thing on one of the beams.

We then ambled back to the group and together ventured back to the hostel. We met up with the rest of the big, big group and went out to dinner. As I mentioned in a prior post, there is not much that is efficient about a large group of people. However, I was ultimately quite happy with where we settled for dinner. I had sausage and bread was seated such that I could see into a tango club. It was called Tango Joven, which could be interpreted two ways 1. Young tango or 2. I am young. There were only older couples in the club so I suppose the idea is that you are never too old to learn how to dance and/or that dancing keeps you young. I believe both. There are few things I openly proselytize, but dance in one of those things. I believe it is good for your body and your soul and there are many important life lessons that apply to dance and visa versa. Between mate and old couples dancing tango, my romantic senses were thoroughly peaked in Uruguay.

Since we were only in Montevideo for one night and since it was Jessie’s 21^st, many people wanted to go out in full force. I, however, was exhausted from the early morning, still coming off of being sick, and eager to make sure I could “go out in full force” while in Buenos Aires. Thus, I ended up crashing at about midnight. I rose before the rest of the group, was one of the few to have a piping hot shower, and enjoyed the breakfast spread of fruit, cereal, and coffee before we left for the airport.

Now, as I had mentioned, I had been itching to go to Buenos Aires and I had three goals for that trip: 1. Eat lots and lots of steak. 2. Try mate, love it, and bring it home. 3. Watch and/or dance lots of tango. The first I fulfilled several times over. Eric and Mariah had tempted me with fairy tales of steak and wine dinners for less than $10 USD and those fairy tales turned into a very sweet (and savory) reality. I fulfilled the first part of goal number two but, as I said earlier, parts two and three did not really materialize. Little did I know that brief glimpses of tango that I caught in Uruguay would be the only tango I watched during that weekend. I could very much go back to Buenos because I would be happy to eat more food and would like to actually experience Argentine Tango.

However, in not seeing any tango, I learned a good lesson about myself. On Sunday night, we were walking to check out three different tango places, all of which were closed because we got too late a start. While our group of four was talking, somebody made a quip about needing to have made better plans. I felt personally insulted and not supported in these efforts because people had been napping and had not really helped with tango research while we were discussing what to do earlier. Thus, I stepped aside, walked around in a couple of circles, and took a few deep breaths. When I returned to the group, they all looked at me a bit weird and asked what was wrong. I just said I needed to cool down a bit and that I was good now. However, they did not let me get away with that. They told me it was important for me to tell them what was bugging me and for me to be open. That comment hit me like a 2x4 to the head. I realized that I am not very good at expressing my desires or frustrations. Instead, I try to persuade my friends through other forces so that they realize what I want them to realize. What I realized in that moment is sometimes my wanting to do something can be enough of a reason for my friends. Of course, the same is true for me with respect to them--not all of the time and certainly not with everything, but sometimes it’s ok just to do something to make another person happy and sometimes I get to be the recipient of that happiness.

Other tid bits from Buenos:

My favorite ice cream in the whole world is chocolate malted crunch. In Buenos I tried vanilla, caramel with chololate-covered malted crunch balls…and that was awesome.

I also went to a club on Saturday night and requested a song. The DJ played my request almost immediately and I felt rather triumphant.

The stop lights go from green to yellow to red and then from red to yellow to green. I have always thought that it would be so much more convenient if there were a color in between the red and the green.

The widest street in the world is in in Buenos Aires and you basically would have to run to make it all the way across with one cross light. Lauren tried speed walking and just barely did not make it. In one weekend we saw the widest river and widest street in the world. Pretty damn epic if you ask me.

In addition to debates and story swapping, our group of four likes to play various word games while traveling. This trip we developed a new one. It’s called trivia question. Basically, one person asks a trivia question, if you get it right, you get a point and you have to ask the next one. Just so y’all know. I’m currently in the lead with 15!

Some of our questions:

-Where is Coca-Cola headquartered?

-What does “L” represent in Roman numerals?

-What country are we in? (no, Lauren, the answer is not Chile)

-a teeter-totter physics/balance problem

-What is Dr. Seuss’s real name? What fraternity was Dr. Seuss in?

-What famous author navigated the Mississippi?

-What was the first country in South America to have a railroad?

Sorry, this post kind of drops off, but I’m not really sure how to tie it up properly

So *Insert beautiful conclusion here*