Have you ever tried to shave your left armpit with your left hand? Well I just did. And I must say, I'm rather impressed with myself. At least I took a shower though. I'm pretty sure the last time I showered or even changed clothes was Wednesday night. Today is Saturday. Oops.
I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, except today is worse than yesterday. I am the definition of pathetic right now. Seriously- I am, right now, allowing my mom to cook breakfast for me. If any of you know my mother, that is pathetic. My body is also very sore. Apparently, you can get sore from sitting down for a long time. Who knew?
My left hand is now tired from hunting and pecking, backspacing, and hunting and pecking again, so I think my blogging is done for today. I should probably get back to hanging out with my mom and my boyfriend anyhow...they haven't seen enough of me in the last 3 days.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Friday, December 16, 2011
Adventure?
Today was what Tyler and noelle referred to as an " adventure." I used the term "fucking nightmare" instead. But you say tomato, I say tomato I guess.
Let's see...where to start...oh I know, lets start with everyone in the entire city of disgusting Corumba, Brazil having no idea how the hell to cross the border. Now, I would get it if we were in say, denver trying to figure out how to cross into Tijuana. But going from Corumba to Bolivia is the equivalent of crossing from El paso into mexico. Its really the ONLY reason people come to this godforsaken place, but i guess they all just wander around until they find Bolivia.
10:30 am: The so-called "helpful" woman at the sketchiest hostel on the planet says, yes, just go to the border, get your stamp and then buy your train ticket to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Easy enough. So we went to the border, and what do you know? There's a long line, and we find out that we have to get a Brazilian exit stamp first. Ok, so we walk back to Brazil. Long line there too. Oh, did i mention that my dumbass thought it would be a good idea to wait to get our Bolivian visas until we got here? I should officially be committed to an institution. Anyhow, we decide to go back to the hostel, get our bags, come back to get stamps and visas, buy our train tickets before it sells out, and wait til it leaves at 6. Thinking back now about the fact that we thought that would actually happen, I laugh a little. No, I take that back. I laugh really, really hard.
We get in a taxi to go get our bags, and the taxi driver says that it would be easiest to go the Bolivian consulate in Brazil to get the visas, because there is no line. Perfect, things are working out here. We get bags, head to the consulate. Here's what I want to know- why don't Americans get to take 2 hour breaks for lunch? Because everyone else on the planet does. So of course the consulate had closed until 2 to take a nap or eat or get drunk or go do something completely counterproductive. At this point, I was sort of frustrated, but still looking at this whole thing as a cultural experience. However, the fact that I hadn't eaten more than some friggin bread with mystery meat on it for breakfast did not help my mood in the least. (I mean, seriously, at least the other hostels gave us some crusty looking watermelon.) Oh, and it's about 40 degrees Celsius at this point, so we are all sweating profusely and smell like the raccoons that my neighbor used to feed when I was a kid.
We got our visa documents together, found some decent gas station empanadas, unsuccessfully tried to use an ATM, and waited. The people who worked at the consulate showed up at 2. Apparently, the consulate himself gets to take a 2 1/2 hour nap for lunch. More waiting. My hopes of making the nice train with ac and hot food were dwindling. Consulate arrives, and the secretary takes him our passports. After waiting for another half hour while he probably copied all our personal info to steal our identities, he asked us to come into his weird garage office. Before reading the rest of this paragraph, please keep in mind that Bolivia is closely aligned with Venezuela, and I'm sure you know about the Venezuelan/US relationship. First the man asks, "do you speak English"? When i responded yes, he said in Spanish, "ok then I will speak Spanish". Weird. Good thing i have that one covered too. Then he proceeded to flip through every single page in my passport, asking about several of the places I had travelled. He was particularly interested in and confused about my travels to Chile. Weird. He then asked what I did, who I worked for, and why I am going to Bolivia. I decided to leave out the part about how I work for a government agency. He then turned to Tyler, who speaks no Spanish, and asks him the same questions. Except he adds a question, and asks "quieres matar nuestros morales?" Or, "do you want to kill Morales (the Bolivian president)"? Straight face, no joking, really weird. WTF. Tyler didn't understand, so I asked him to repeat the question and then translated. Tyler looked at me like I was insane and then responded appropriately, with surprise and a little fear. "Welcome to Bolivia," responds the consulate, and shakes our hands. What is that? Is that normal? Do we ask The French if they are going to kill Obama when they try to visit the US?
We then find out that they wont accept cash from us and that the banks are all closed so we have to come back tomorrow. Jesus H Christ. We talked our way through that one, after about another hour. Apparently, US citizens are the ONLY people in the world required to get a Bolivian visa, so no one at the consulate even knew how the hell to handle us. It's now 4pm. I'm way past enjoying this "cultural experience" at this point. Now comes the point where even Tyler started to flip out...after making us go wander around Corumba once already to make copies of THEIR visa forms (because they only had ONE), they made us go BACK to the freaking copy place to make more copies of the visas they just gave us. In the consulate office, they had 2 printers and 2 fax machines. So where's the damn copier?! The lady who runs the copy business out of her shack apartment must be doing sexual favors for the consulate, because there is no way she would stay in business without them. Oh and I got yelled at for accidentally writing on the original. It wasn't notorized or anything-it was a piece of paper with a smudged Bolivian seal printed on it! We had already made her another copy! But oh no, I ruined her original.
Get to the border, get stamps, change Brazilian Reals for Bolivian bolivianos through the random pregnant lady on the street, head to train station. Oh, i forgot to mention that at the Bolivian border, they made us go across the street to some random office and make copies of our passports and visas. Hop in a cab with a toothless driver and head to the train station in Quijarro, Bolivia. Train is sold out and of course there is not another one until tomorrow. There was absolutely no way in hell I was about to even consider staying the night ANYWHERE in that town.
Fortunately, we are all grad students and had already come up with plan B. To the bus station. We are all past frustration at this point, and are wiling to do anything to get out of this place.
To describe the bus station in words would not do it justice. I'll let the picture describe that one (which was taken with a disposable camera for fear of digital one getting snatched instantly). Regardless, there are open seats on a bus, it has air conditioning, it's cheap, and it has TVs. Done. So we wait some more...Noelle and I run into some Europeans we met in Bonito who somehow manage to be more lost and confused than we are, and Tyler chats with a Brazilian med student friend that we met at the consulate. Things are going better.
Well, we just got on the bus. And this Scottish guy sits down next to Tyler and says that he hopes we haven't seen him on the news, because...wait for it...he has been all over the news for child molestation. He and his Filipino wife and daughter are currently running from the law. No big deal.
We just sat in the bus outside of the police station while they made that guy and his family get off for questioning. He must have paid the cops off, cause they let him back on the bus. So that's where I am at this very moment. Watching Fast 5 in Spanish while trying not to fall asleep so the Scottish pedafile doesn't come kill me. Call it what you want, but this ain't no adventure.
Let's see...where to start...oh I know, lets start with everyone in the entire city of disgusting Corumba, Brazil having no idea how the hell to cross the border. Now, I would get it if we were in say, denver trying to figure out how to cross into Tijuana. But going from Corumba to Bolivia is the equivalent of crossing from El paso into mexico. Its really the ONLY reason people come to this godforsaken place, but i guess they all just wander around until they find Bolivia.
10:30 am: The so-called "helpful" woman at the sketchiest hostel on the planet says, yes, just go to the border, get your stamp and then buy your train ticket to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Easy enough. So we went to the border, and what do you know? There's a long line, and we find out that we have to get a Brazilian exit stamp first. Ok, so we walk back to Brazil. Long line there too. Oh, did i mention that my dumbass thought it would be a good idea to wait to get our Bolivian visas until we got here? I should officially be committed to an institution. Anyhow, we decide to go back to the hostel, get our bags, come back to get stamps and visas, buy our train tickets before it sells out, and wait til it leaves at 6. Thinking back now about the fact that we thought that would actually happen, I laugh a little. No, I take that back. I laugh really, really hard.
We get in a taxi to go get our bags, and the taxi driver says that it would be easiest to go the Bolivian consulate in Brazil to get the visas, because there is no line. Perfect, things are working out here. We get bags, head to the consulate. Here's what I want to know- why don't Americans get to take 2 hour breaks for lunch? Because everyone else on the planet does. So of course the consulate had closed until 2 to take a nap or eat or get drunk or go do something completely counterproductive. At this point, I was sort of frustrated, but still looking at this whole thing as a cultural experience. However, the fact that I hadn't eaten more than some friggin bread with mystery meat on it for breakfast did not help my mood in the least. (I mean, seriously, at least the other hostels gave us some crusty looking watermelon.) Oh, and it's about 40 degrees Celsius at this point, so we are all sweating profusely and smell like the raccoons that my neighbor used to feed when I was a kid.
We got our visa documents together, found some decent gas station empanadas, unsuccessfully tried to use an ATM, and waited. The people who worked at the consulate showed up at 2. Apparently, the consulate himself gets to take a 2 1/2 hour nap for lunch. More waiting. My hopes of making the nice train with ac and hot food were dwindling. Consulate arrives, and the secretary takes him our passports. After waiting for another half hour while he probably copied all our personal info to steal our identities, he asked us to come into his weird garage office. Before reading the rest of this paragraph, please keep in mind that Bolivia is closely aligned with Venezuela, and I'm sure you know about the Venezuelan/US relationship. First the man asks, "do you speak English"? When i responded yes, he said in Spanish, "ok then I will speak Spanish". Weird. Good thing i have that one covered too. Then he proceeded to flip through every single page in my passport, asking about several of the places I had travelled. He was particularly interested in and confused about my travels to Chile. Weird. He then asked what I did, who I worked for, and why I am going to Bolivia. I decided to leave out the part about how I work for a government agency. He then turned to Tyler, who speaks no Spanish, and asks him the same questions. Except he adds a question, and asks "quieres matar nuestros morales?" Or, "do you want to kill Morales (the Bolivian president)"? Straight face, no joking, really weird. WTF. Tyler didn't understand, so I asked him to repeat the question and then translated. Tyler looked at me like I was insane and then responded appropriately, with surprise and a little fear. "Welcome to Bolivia," responds the consulate, and shakes our hands. What is that? Is that normal? Do we ask The French if they are going to kill Obama when they try to visit the US?
We then find out that they wont accept cash from us and that the banks are all closed so we have to come back tomorrow. Jesus H Christ. We talked our way through that one, after about another hour. Apparently, US citizens are the ONLY people in the world required to get a Bolivian visa, so no one at the consulate even knew how the hell to handle us. It's now 4pm. I'm way past enjoying this "cultural experience" at this point. Now comes the point where even Tyler started to flip out...after making us go wander around Corumba once already to make copies of THEIR visa forms (because they only had ONE), they made us go BACK to the freaking copy place to make more copies of the visas they just gave us. In the consulate office, they had 2 printers and 2 fax machines. So where's the damn copier?! The lady who runs the copy business out of her shack apartment must be doing sexual favors for the consulate, because there is no way she would stay in business without them. Oh and I got yelled at for accidentally writing on the original. It wasn't notorized or anything-it was a piece of paper with a smudged Bolivian seal printed on it! We had already made her another copy! But oh no, I ruined her original.
Get to the border, get stamps, change Brazilian Reals for Bolivian bolivianos through the random pregnant lady on the street, head to train station. Oh, i forgot to mention that at the Bolivian border, they made us go across the street to some random office and make copies of our passports and visas. Hop in a cab with a toothless driver and head to the train station in Quijarro, Bolivia. Train is sold out and of course there is not another one until tomorrow. There was absolutely no way in hell I was about to even consider staying the night ANYWHERE in that town.
Fortunately, we are all grad students and had already come up with plan B. To the bus station. We are all past frustration at this point, and are wiling to do anything to get out of this place.
To describe the bus station in words would not do it justice. I'll let the picture describe that one (which was taken with a disposable camera for fear of digital one getting snatched instantly). Regardless, there are open seats on a bus, it has air conditioning, it's cheap, and it has TVs. Done. So we wait some more...Noelle and I run into some Europeans we met in Bonito who somehow manage to be more lost and confused than we are, and Tyler chats with a Brazilian med student friend that we met at the consulate. Things are going better.
Well, we just got on the bus. And this Scottish guy sits down next to Tyler and says that he hopes we haven't seen him on the news, because...wait for it...he has been all over the news for child molestation. He and his Filipino wife and daughter are currently running from the law. No big deal.
We just sat in the bus outside of the police station while they made that guy and his family get off for questioning. He must have paid the cops off, cause they let him back on the bus. So that's where I am at this very moment. Watching Fast 5 in Spanish while trying not to fall asleep so the Scottish pedafile doesn't come kill me. Call it what you want, but this ain't no adventure.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Corumba sucks
Hello from The Bolivian/Brazilian border! I thought I would send an update on my travels! I am currently in week 3 of traveling, with 1 more left to go. I landed in Sao Paulo after thanksgiving, headed to rio for 6 days, then to Ihla Grande (an unbelievable place off the coast of brazil), back to rio for a day, then to bonito, Brazil via Campo Grande. I have walked through the slums of Sao Paulo, learned to samba with some children from the favelas, climbed an 40meter rock face overlooking rio, gotten seriously sunburned climbing that rock face, snorkeled in the most secluded lagoons in the world, drank cachaca with the Godfather of Cachaca, swam beneath beautiful waterfalls, and repelled 70 meters into the Abismo Anhumas (a 15 million year old cave full of cristal clear water and breathtaking limestone formations). Those are just a few of the highlights so far. Right now, though, i am sitting in what might be the grossest hostel ive ever been in my life in the biggest shitball town in brazil. All part of the adventure, right? Tomorrow, we will take an overnight train through the Pantanal wetlands on our journey toSucre, Bolivia, where we hope to visit the Salar de Uyuni. We may not make it due to weather setbacks, but if we don't, we will head to La Paz and Lake Titicaca instead. So don't worry, I won't be sitting around twiddling my thumbs :)
Friday, September 30, 2011
You have GOT to be kidding me.
Ever since I got my cast off, my wrist has bothered me a bit. It's not usually unbearable (note the use of the word 'usually'), but I have shooting pain every few days, especially after playing volleyball or doing any serious exercise. I've gotten away with popping some Ibuprofen before exercising, and the pain usually subsides. Since I had never broken a bone before this one, I figured that perhaps, humans aren't really like iguanas, and we don't just grow back perfect new bones. Well, the other day, I was heading to Walmart to pick up the most recent 3 Wolves Howling at the Moon t-shirt, and somehow I ended up in the so-called "ghetto" of Denver. By the way, "ghetto" in Denver translates to "East Memphis" where I'm from. Anyhow, I pulled a U-turn in an attempt to get un-lost. I don't know if it was the way I twisted my hand around the steering wheel or what, my I swear I thought my hand had detached from the rest of my body. Seriously, I instantly looked down to make sure it was still there. I was somewhat disappointed when it was still attached to me, because I would think losing it completely would have hurt less than the pain I felt. Now I know I can't expect 110% use after breaking something, but I was pretty certain that after almost 18 months, my wrist should NOT feel like someone just stabbed me with a bayonet.
So I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Awkward again. Great, this should be friggin fantastic. I hoped he would tell me I was a weakling, needed some physical therapy and and send me on my way. WRONG. As the nurse took me in to get new x-rays, I started having flashbacks of the last time I was there. The twisting. The pushing. The news. The cast. The tears. I shuddered. When the doctor came in, he introduced himself to me. Thanks, Doc. You went through a very traumatic experience with me about a year ago and you don't even remember meeting me? Aren't they supposed to look at the chart before entering the room to avoid being that rude? Sheesh.
Well, he pulled up the x-rays, and even I could see there was some serious inconsistency in my scaphoid. You know when you have to use the hole puncher on a stack of paper and it doesn't go through the first time? And then the 2nd time, you re-punch the hole, but the paper isn't lined up right, so you end up with a hole like looks like an 8? Well, that's what the inside of my bone looks like. There's a friggin figure 8 punched into it. I don't figure skate. So I have no appreciate for damn figure 8's. Now as you will recall, the scaphoid is like the worst bone to break in the body besides MAYBE your neck. It's also apparently difficult to read on an xray, which was the excuse the doctor gave me for taking me out of the cast last year. I think he was trying to avoid getting sued. Anyhow, after the cat scan I get next week, which I'm sure will cost me more than this computer, he will be able to determine whether 1) I have a cist growing on the inside of my bone, in which case I need a bone graft and a few weeks of recovery, or 2) my bone never really healed, and I actually DO have to have a pin put in it this time. Recovery would be around 3-4 months with that one. F my life. The doctor literally said, "Start mentally preparing yourself for either scenario. I don't want you crying in here again like last time." I thought he didn't remember me, but I think my smart ass sarcasm throughout this encounter jogged his memory a bit.
I used to be afraid of the Mayan 2012 prediction. I'm actually sort of looking forward to it now.
So I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Awkward again. Great, this should be friggin fantastic. I hoped he would tell me I was a weakling, needed some physical therapy and and send me on my way. WRONG. As the nurse took me in to get new x-rays, I started having flashbacks of the last time I was there. The twisting. The pushing. The news. The cast. The tears. I shuddered. When the doctor came in, he introduced himself to me. Thanks, Doc. You went through a very traumatic experience with me about a year ago and you don't even remember meeting me? Aren't they supposed to look at the chart before entering the room to avoid being that rude? Sheesh.
Well, he pulled up the x-rays, and even I could see there was some serious inconsistency in my scaphoid. You know when you have to use the hole puncher on a stack of paper and it doesn't go through the first time? And then the 2nd time, you re-punch the hole, but the paper isn't lined up right, so you end up with a hole like looks like an 8? Well, that's what the inside of my bone looks like. There's a friggin figure 8 punched into it. I don't figure skate. So I have no appreciate for damn figure 8's. Now as you will recall, the scaphoid is like the worst bone to break in the body besides MAYBE your neck. It's also apparently difficult to read on an xray, which was the excuse the doctor gave me for taking me out of the cast last year. I think he was trying to avoid getting sued. Anyhow, after the cat scan I get next week, which I'm sure will cost me more than this computer, he will be able to determine whether 1) I have a cist growing on the inside of my bone, in which case I need a bone graft and a few weeks of recovery, or 2) my bone never really healed, and I actually DO have to have a pin put in it this time. Recovery would be around 3-4 months with that one. F my life. The doctor literally said, "Start mentally preparing yourself for either scenario. I don't want you crying in here again like last time." I thought he didn't remember me, but I think my smart ass sarcasm throughout this encounter jogged his memory a bit.
I used to be afraid of the Mayan 2012 prediction. I'm actually sort of looking forward to it now.
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