Friday, June 19, 2015

The Most Beautiful Woman in Uruguay, Or At Least The Tackiest
























In a city of browns and greys I was hyper-color.

A hip hop journalist sent from a far off land to blend in with brown eyes and freckles yet a strange woman in a strange land, not accustomed to their winter wardrobe.

With a cozy down comforter and light eliminating blinds in my humble abode I slept in and slowly dressed in every layer I brought with me, having opted for my less is more approach to packing despite my travel into another season.

After a fairly uneventful first evening of wandering, and grocery shopping I retired early and decided to make today my day to explore.


































Arbitrarily choosing my direction after exiting the hotel's front door, I set out around noon to a crisp, clear winter day. I found my way to San Francisco Cathedral that appeared, from the outside to be an abandoned building and, from the inside, appeared much the same. With no candles to light and an eerie sense of emotion creeping up into my throat I made a quick exit and was back out on the pavement heading no place in particular.

By chance, I landed on Avenida 18 de Julio, a street a quick perusal of my guidebook listed as a must-do. Julio is a street, not only named after my birth month, but a major thoroughfare lined with shops echoing America and consumerism.

Having missed out on the hotel's breakfast I was jonesing for some fuel and when I saw Cafe Copacabana I said why the hell not.

It always feels good to walk into an establishment such as Copabana, request a table for 'solo una' and get 'sola una?' with questionable indignation. Yes bitch - just me in my newsboy cap and pain spattered leggings. Just me. Sigh.

After filling up on a single egg and toast I felt properly nourished and was ready to traverse this city of Montevideo.

With a quick stop into the Museum of Contemporary Art, that mirrors a undergrad art show held in the basement of the student center more than a city sanctioned cultural hub, I saw my first meme exhibit before heading to the Artisan Market where I couldn't resist an mother of pearl ring and a pair of earrings for Mom.

Further down the road I began my quest to find a converter for a laptop charger. Not realizig I could not fit a 3 prong plug into the converter I brought along I was in deperate need of some laptop juice and nothing was going to stand in my way. Except for food.

Locating Cafe Tortuga I felt it was a sign, as turtles have a very special place in my heart. Witht the accessible wifi I googled a a name on the menu, ordered it, and was promptly served up a dish of pasta with chicken. It was at this moment that I realized one should really not order Italian food outside of Italy. And, to add insult to injury, this seems to be a salt-free town. My blood pressure was getting scarily low and I was in need of some sodium. Stat!

Luckily I was offered a little distraction by two young woman who sat across from me who sat, silenced by the the world-wide epidemic of total engrossment in one's mobile device whilst totally ignoring their real life companion. Equal parts disgust at overcooked noodles and tech-obsession and I was out onto the chilly streets of Montevideo once again.































There are a handful of handsome men, with dashing dark South American good looks wandering the streets. And though those are rarely the ones that pay me any mind, stateside or otherwise, I like the way the men here look at women. I like that their glance lingers, like a heavy hand resting on your shoulder. They hold your eye contact just a moment too long, to let you know they think you're beautiful. Or, at the very least perplexing enough for an extended look.

Days are cold and short here in Montevideo. Allowing for early bedtimes and late rises.

Street vendors seem to set up around noon, as the city comes alive and once the sun sets behind the buildings people scurry like roaches with the lights on.

Never one to shy away from a good, solid melancholy moment, as the night started to nip at my nose, I wandered back through the hood in which I am staying, listening to Leonard Cohen and savoring the warm tears streaming down my frost bitten face.

A quick visit back at the Frog Supermarket, that I discovered the night before located around the corner from my hotel offered me the opportunity to dine once again in bed to charge up and rest up, preparing me for a new day to come.








































I Slept in. Way in

The early morning light crept out from under the blinds but the weight of the down comforter kept me warm, safe and protected from the day ahead. I have a new love in my life, and it was this bed. Used to staying in hostels where languid mornings are frowned upon, as well as just plain old uncomfortable, this time I splurged on a pillbox sized room with hot water and clean sheets. Though still preferring to travel on the cheap, I am a far way away from two months I spent in Europe post-college shoving free bread and sugar cubes at the hostel breakfast in my backpack for sustenance. 

The morning felt cold, both literally and figuratively and I was in not rush to meet it. I tossed and turned until my body ached from laying down far too long, at which point I threw on my very well loved pair of Sauconys and black spandex head to toe - either ready for a late morning run or to fight crime in this exotic metropolis - it was all very TBD.

While dodging the pot holes and dog shit that litter the streets of the ciudad vieja I saw the water, sparkling in the bright light and once I reached the promenade it was just me and Donald Glover, alone in the world and it need of a good sweat.

























It's funny. I look just like everyone else here. My olive skin and chestnut locks blend in seamlessly. That racial ambiguity I rely on so much in the states rings true here as well but there is something off. I look just like everyone else but something about the way I present myself is just .... Other.

It is either I am the most beautiful woman in Uruguay, or maybe just the tackiest.

Either way - I am getting some strange looks.

The night I arrived, I had ducked into a cool art and book store briefly, as as it was almost quitting time and I decided to revisit later. The store had a pungent smell, though a nice one. It smelled uncannily like my paternal grandfather's den. Damp eyes were instantly elicited. 

Memory is such a sensory experience. 

You cannot describe what someone smells like but you know it when you smell it again, for the first time; the sound of their laugh. The taste of a chocolate bar can bring you back to a family vacation in one sweet bite. Before you know it you're holding that Skor bar in your hand, listening to Pearl Jam and growing breasts. Then, just as quickly you're transported back to reality. Back to the current day where you're breasts came in long ago and you're not afraid to say you never really like Pearl Jam, always knowing they were far inferior to Nirvana. But I digress...

After a long run along the water, past graffiti strewn walls and fisherman I made my way back to the ho-tel to shower, change and locate a post office. With today being Natalicio de Artigas I had some hopes of locating a parade or celebration of sorts, but what I was met with instead were deserted streets and closed up shops. I did later find out that the city is quiet year round, as the population is just around 1 million, mere peanuts for a New Yorker like me! 


Taking a few minutes to fill out purchased postcards in the crystal clear sunshine I went to do a little window shopping and, what else - some more eating. 

Finding a little hole in the wall I ordered chicken and salad and fell in love with Latin America all over again. Unlike their Northern American counterparts I find the ordering of food to be quite literal here so, when I was handed a plate of lettuce - no dressing even offered - and a hunk of chicken, no garnish in sight I had to smile. I'm a straightforward girl - and a simple eater, so I can dig it. 

Billy Joel and I decided to walk off the paleo meal in which I had just partaken and threaded our way through the streets, all lined with trees and partially dilapidated buildings in various stages of disarray. 

Having purchased a ticket to a Tango show later that night, I made the decision to stay out and avoid walking the streets late at night. Also to keep me awake past sunset.

Eager to finish Foreign Tongue,a book I was hoping would have a happier ending - as I am in need of more of those in my life, I was searching for a place to read. With nary a Starbucks to be found I stopped into Sportman Bar and Cafe to defrost and drink some tea before the 8:30 call time at big show. 

Americans get a bum rap. We are known as the loudest and fattest people in the world, but the two morbidly obese women sitting next to me, listening to their music audibly on the blackberry they passed back and forth between the two of them proved to me that fat, stupid and annoying people exist all over the world. 

Of course I witnessed this when devouring my own plate of churros.
So my judgement is limited.

Nowhere near the location google maps had intimated, El Milongon was located at the corner or rape and pillage. Luckily the drunken vagrants and icy winds helped guide me along my way...

Once inside El Milongon it was like a theme park- but for old people. Perhaps that is what dinner theatre is. I was promptly seated at a table of what I believed to be Brazilians though they don't hold up the beauty standards the Victoria's Secret models have set for them. Nor did they offer any of that Latino warmth. Luckily I'm not in need of strangers approval and, after ordering off of the prix fixed menu I was perfectly content to look at the checkered dance floor, stare into the colored lights and occasionally steal glances at an elderly man who resembled my Grandpa Benevento so much I could have sworn he stole his windbreaker.

This trip seems to be the trip filled with the ghosts of loved men past.

A salad of South American spam and mayonnaise was the first course. As I picked at the cabbage, careful to avid any questionable food product, coupled with the silence at the table, I realized just how long a night I was in for. 






















When I completed the NYC triathlon in 2014, a few weeks after losing my father, I felt like a badass. When 6 short months later I packed up  my life and moved cross country, ready to make a change and take a huge risk for love, I felt like a badass. And when I sat at a table in a ballroom two thirds empty at a table fraught with frigid strangers to match the winter weather, slight traces of pity and confusion in their stolen glances wondering who this lonesome American girl is, I felt like a badass. 

I have mentioned this before, and I will likely do so again, but I too used to pity the lone diner. After years of enriching, worthwhile experiences alone, I now not only don't pity the lone diner, the lone traveler, or the lone survivor (Marky Mark and Taylor Kitsch - a must see!), I respect them. For those people who have the balls to do what they need to do; what they want to do without the permission,acceptance or scheduling of another - they know true freedom. Don't get me wrong - I'd like a partner; a family. My heart tells me I have already met this person - my match - but in the interim - hell even after we are blessed with 2 children and a blissful union - I will maintain a level of independence, of freedom, to occasionally sit alone at a table of frigid strangers.

Fear will not dictate my life. It's that simple.

Soapbox relinquished. 

The table warmed and a few pleasantries were exchanged in English, which apparently I speak very clearly according to my table-mates. The courses were served and my 'authentic' Uruguayan meal of orange-something stuffed chicken and silencio de perros (see hush puppies) was sufficient at best. 

As the performances began, some more culturally sound than others  I very quickly discovered this was not only dinner theatre, but bad dinner theatre, replete with middle aged crooners and poorly fitting costumes. The kitsch factor was high and the talent level varied - and I loved ever second of it. 

I expected the experience to be like watching flamenco in a cave in the south of Spain. This was absolutely not that. I would liken this more to the time I was 9 and my grandparents took me to see Sammy Davis Jr. and Red Buttons at a Harrah's in Tahoe. Rife with class. 

Things began to look up as the tango portion began, even more so when noticing that dancing does a body good and one of the male partners had an ass that wouldn't quit. 

When the candombe performance closed out the show, ie. when the Afro-centric part of the program took place, the party really got started and for some reason the singer, and 800 year old man in a sparkly red jacket made me sort of fall in love with him. However, it was the 17 year old drummer who had me thinking impure thoughts and wondering just how I would look in prison coveralls because that is most certainly where I would be headed. 

After the emcee gave a shout out to each table and their country of origin (I was the ONLY person there from a non-Spanish speaking country) ladies in pasties and fishnets came out to shake a bon bon, inviting guests who most likely imbibed during dinner to get up and join in the celebration. Though not one to either imbibe or shake my groove thing in a room that is too well lit I enjoyed myself immensely and would absolutely recommend you check out the show if you find yourself in these neck of the woods. 

A quick cab ride home and some catching up on my writing finished out my last night in Montevideo. Tomorrow I am off to Punta Del Este, apparently a particularly famous part of the country that I just caught wind it even colder than here...

No sleeping in for me tomorrow. I've got a bus to catch!

Thursday, June 18, 2015

The Day The Music Died/For Whom The Bell's Tolls/I'm On My Way to Uruguay


June 17th - the day the music died.

Confrontational by nature I have chosen to deal with this particular anniversary a bit differently. In October, when His birthday was upon us, I booked a trip to Southeast Asia and spent the 29th changing planes in Tokyo, so jet lagged and wanderlustful that it was easy to let the day go by, almost unnoticed. Now I have two separate days a year from which to escape - a welcomed excuse to travel, if not for the best reasons.

Today, June 17th 2015, I board a plane to Montevideo, Uruguay. I will arrive in this foreign land after touching down in both Houston and Rio de Janeiro - almost guaranteed to be too distracted with overpriced airport fare and restless upright slumber to see the sun rise and set on a day that changed my life entirely and forever.

I could talk about my father endlessly. From what I am told I always have.

Regardless of whether I was on a first date or on a transatlantic call with an old friend, my dad came up in nearly every conversation. He touched every part of my life in an incalculable way. Even when living 3000 miles apart it was he who I called to help me pick out an appropriate pair of running shoes. It was he who I forwarded inappropriate text messages from unsavory men to, hoping for some insight into the bewildering gender. He knew what I had had for lunch on any given day, because he was most likely on the phone with me when I ordered it. When someone is this involved in your life, their absence is felt in such a profound way that there is no safe place to hide.

Movies and books are simply things you want to discuss with the Shel Silverstein inspired missing piece.

Decisions to be made, contracts to be signed. Ensembles to be purchased. With a relationship this intimate and a bond this unbreakable, like the strands of DNA coursing through both of your veins, there is no possible way to detach.

I have a very kind, if very dim friend who recently suggested perhaps it was time to 'let go' of him. Now, I know this gentle giant meant well, but he is an idiot. There is no way I could let go of my father without erasing my very existence; without destroying who I am. What I can do, is manage the feeling of loss and the reality of a new life. In recent weeks I have likened this shift to diabetes. A condition that is not fatal, but chronic. One from which you can never be cured, but hopefully, through trial and error, you can manage - you can live with.

Trying to live with it; trying to #keepwalkingkeepwinning is what I have chosen to do. So here it goes...

What better way for me, a bit of a travel junkie, then to pack up my bag and head south to visit a new land and mark a year of torture, ready to turn the page on a new perspective, a new life?

This new perspective was in no small way aided by a recent health crisis.

Three weeks before my scheduled departure to Uruguay, a country about which I know absolutely nothing, I suffered a bit of paralysis. This was scary, sudden and very very unattractive. This physical manifestation of a 12 months of stress, sadness, love and loss could have made me sink deeper into the pool of depression in which I have been more than wading for some time now. It should have pushed me over the edge, but for some reason, awaking to a face that only half functions and a right hand too jittery from either nerve damage in my once so efficient brain or the meds used to help quell that has left me, better...

When your body starts to scream at you. When it starts to turn on you. You have no choice but to listen.

So I did what any grief stricken, partially paralyzed young woman would do to deal with the world falling down around her. I grabbed my camera, packed a duffle bag, and foraged forward.

Travel has it's ups and downs. There are always the rude passengers and endless lines, but being seated next to a nice young Mormon man on the Houston - Rio leg of my journey south of the equator allowed me to have a conversation about faith, marriage and family with a total stranger and, despite the fact that he asked about my own personal timeline for marriage and children, started my trip off in this positive vein, on in which I am attempting to live.

Having long harbored a fantasy of being a Latina through and through, the Rachel Dolezal of Afro-Latin America (yes - that was for you and yes, you know who you are...), being mistaken for a native in Brazil - flattered though I may be, was fantastically awkward as I don't know how to utter a Portuguese syllable yet alone understand a series of phrases and/or questions thrown in my direction, intensifying in speed and agility the more contorted my already stroke induced face looks.

Wedged into the last seat on the plane, confined to a space few Americans could fit according to the most recent obesity polls did not in any way stop me from uncomfortably passing out before take off on the last leg of my multi-stop voyage to Montevideo. I was awoken by the sounds of a snotty pubescent both figuratively and literally. Spoiled brat seems to transcend language and when my empathy for the teary teenage quickly gave way to disgust once I realized her tears were not over Sean Cassidy or the Biebs, but over the fact that she was not pleased to be served a muffin during the snack coarse on the plane. 

Off the plane and quickly ushered through immigration I grabbed some pesos, hopped in Angel's Mercedes cab and took what I only later realized as a $60 cab ride to Mercado del Puerto, the hotel at which I would be laying my head the next couple of days.

The drive in was at dusk and gorgeous and once I made an attempt to chat casually en espanol with my driver I settled into my South American sojourn.

Death, taxes and For Whom The Bell's tolls was left back on US soil, at least for the week, and the plan is to return, a woman reborn.

Wish me luck with that...