Walk like an Egyptian

Sitting by the Red Sea, drinking mango juice or sipping tea. Perfect

...and to all a good night

Merry Christmas!! I hope yours was as perfectly lovely as mine...

My steps towards Nomadfest (aka New Year's Trip, aka going to Egypt and Ireland for no reason other than I was invited) begin in 7 hours. I am not nearly packed, but I figure that I have a good day and a half to sleep in planes and ports (air that is). I am excited but nothing ever hits me until I am sitting somewhere drinking in the experience. I'm not expecting to be able to blog before New Year's (although I better be able to check my email at some point...) so I thought I should write before 2005 whispers its last sunrise. This was a great year. A great difficult challenging life-changing adventurous self-discovering hysterical impossible improbable ridiculous random painful beautiful bittersweet fantastic year. A year so full that I have grown tired just trying to put it in words... So I will stop trying to pack ideas and feelings into meager words and start trying to pack clothes and shoes into as small a suitcase as I can manage.

Goodnight

Happy Holidays

Happy New Year

We're almost there

Alright, let's finish this up...
Rio was beautiful and it was great to see Lauren B. However, I do think Rio slightly overrated. I mean, it's beautiful and the beaches are surprisingly clean and people are surprisingly comfortable with their bodies, but a lot of people on Nomadlife claimed it as one of their favorite places. I don't think I would come close to claiming that, but it was nice all the same.
Iguazu Falls
After a rather horrible experience in the Sao Paulo airport and Varig airlines which is ALWAYS late (according to my experience), I arrived in Foz de Iguazu at about 2 in the morning. The actual town of Foz was not that great, but the Falls were amazing! The Iguazu Falls sit on the border between Brasil and Argentina. Bright and early the morning I got there, I headed to the Argentinian side. It has all these walkways and you are pretty much on top of the Falls most of the time. I also came upon at least 10 lizards varying from the size of my pointer finger to my arm... That night I made some friends at my hostel and went out to this local all-you-can-eat 'BBQ' place, good times. The next day I headed to the Brasilian side which was beautiful. There was also this Bird park place nearby that I went to. To be honest, it kind of depresses me to see the ones that are in the small cages, but oh well. When I got back to the hostel, I hung out by the pool with two of the people from my hostel. One was this Aussie guy, who had just finished travelling through the US for four months. He GUSHED about the states: "I LOVE the US! It's like 50 different countries...it gets such a bad rep when it shouldn't!!...I loved Texas, those people are so proud and so warm and welcoming!...etc" He was also in the Superdome during Katrina...he still has nightmares. The girl we were talking to (and he was travelling with) is Chinese/French, born and lived in the US for 10 years, father works high up for the US gov in China...wow this was one of the most interesting conversations I have had.
Curitiba
So I arrive in Curritiba after 10 hours in a bus and feeling disgusting. I have to say, yay for Alltech (my sister's company). Lauren had a conference or something in Curitiba during this time so she was being put up in this swanky hotel. Of course, you notice right away that it's nice, but when the lights in hallways go on as you walk by, you know the huge backpack you're weighed down by is a little out of place. A huge fluffy white comforter, incredible spread for breakfast, fitness center and bathwater-warm pool later, I was pretty relaxed. It was fun meeting the people my sister works with and hearing them talk about her ("Lauren really gets things done, if you want something done, you give it to Lauren...Has she always been like that?" yup, pretty much).

And then I left...sat in the dreaded Sao Paulo airport for 14 hours ICK and arrived in Atlanta. Let the weirdness begin...
Suddenly, I could understand everything. EVERYTHING. Signs, TV, conversations around me...a little bit of overload. There was this father and son that walked by and sat near me. The father was speaking perfect English, but then the child (who was like 2 or 3) said something. I didn't understand a word so I begin thinking "oh, maybe he's bilingual, I wonder what language he just spoke..." as the father says "blahblahblah? you want your blankey?" ...babytalk...babytalk... hahaha. So I still assume that if I don't understand what someone says, they are speaking a different language. I also hold myself back from speaking Spanish...the tongue has been bitten countless times to keep from saying gracias y hola. Chao (ciao) still gets out though.

I was also suddenly thrown into Christmas. They have decorations and stuff in South America, but it's not the same. I was sitting in the Atlanta airport, hearing X-mas music, seeing people dressed in the winter/holiday gear, smelling coffee and peppermint from the Starbucks nearby, and there it was...Christmas. Then Wisconsin provided the Winter Wonderland, snow, FREEZING temperatures, lights and trees.

Home. kind of

baby it's cold outside

I don't currently have the motivation to go over the rest of my time in South America in detail, so the short story is:
My family arrived and we had some time before heading to Mendoza so I showed them my house and neighborhood. They were a bit horrified with the place I was living in although maybe a bit impressed that I seemed to be perfectly fine living in a sardine can for 5 months.
Mendoza
The family went to Mendoza Argentina where we visited 5 different wineries. It was fantastic. We ate great food, had great wine, and I was completely comfortable for the first time in months. And the beds were awesome, I'm a sucker for a huge fluffy white comforter. Also got my first professional massage...excellence.
Chile
It was fun showing my family around Santiago and I think they liked it more than I thought they would, although they also saw how much weather can damper your feelings for places in Chile. Unfortunately, Valparaiso got the rainy end of the stick on that one. It was a bit too warm at times but we still got some nice sunny days. People from my program had a Thanksgiving party that we went to. It was actually pretty hard saying goodbye to everyone when we left, knowing my time in Santiago was over.

Friday, Lauren and I headed to Southern Chile. Everyone in Chile says that you have to go to the South. "it's sooo beautiful" "it's my favorite place in the world" add volcanoes and make Wisconsin less populated and that's pretty much Southern Chile, which pretty much confirms that Wisconsin is highly underrated. We went white water rafting on level 3-4 rapids, our boat nearly tipped and then Lauren and I took over and lead our raft to awesomness for the rest of the time. I definitely want to do that again. The rest of the time we went to some waterfalls and tried to stay out of the never-ending rain. Our hostel was great, a first for Lauren.
Rio de Janeiro
Our hostel was crap but had a great breakfast. It was incredibly hot and humid. The beach was beautiful and clean. The people were less attractive than expected but became more attractive because of their obvious comfort with their bodies. Lauren and I loved walking down the beach and seeing these men and women scampering around the beach without trying to hide the cheeks or flabbiness hanging out of their suits. In Rio my undying love for Mango juice was born. We went to see "The Christ."
The rest of the 'short story' will have to wait until tomorrow when I'm not so tired...