30 December, 2009

Death-styles of the Rich and the Famous

A group of us were finishing up lunch in the outdoor cafe, when Pat suggested that Nathalie, a french woman from Brazil visiting for the holidays, and I find the famous cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. I pointed directly behind her, “you mean, that cemetery?” Giant stone crosses and towers poked over the gray cement wall that quartered off several blocks of the city. Elaborate mausoleum roofs and the tips of statues peered over at us. We had had several glasses of wine, so walking amongst a few thousand dead bodies seemed like a terribly fantastic idea. So, we finished the bottle and wandered to the entrance.


For a couple hours, we took photo after photo, trying to capture the immense detail in the stone and marble carvings. The overcast sky above us glowed ominously as we wandered without direction, circling mammoth tombs, not quite sure which way we were heading, or if there was even a reason to head anywhere. Each direction held a piece of art made for the deceased, worthy of a museum – or at least, a photo from an awed tourist. You might even suspect that the dead are getting big headed with all the photo-shoots they're doing. I can see them posing in their graves now, “Yes, yes. Get my good side. Don't I have a lovely bone structure? Am I model skinny yet?”


Now, I didn't know this, but it should be common knowledge: a cemetery is a great place to charm a woman. Basically, you're starting at the bottom of expectations. The relationship can only go uphill from a cemetery... unless you're Stephen King. Yet, there's nothing like making a woman feel young and alive, than the juxtaposition of dreary tombstones, ancient death dates, and playing tag through a maze of sacred grounds. Plus, when she gets goosebumps, guess who takes the credit? That's right, you stud. High five a statue on your way out.


The main attractor to the cemetery is the famous, Eva Peron. I had read there was a great uproar about allowing Eva to be buried in this cemetery, because of her humble background. This cemetery is meant for the high class, the powerful, the important. It's the Bevery hills of death, or should I say, the Beverly Kills... or Maliboo... the Haunted Hampton's... mmm... no, no I shouldn't say. Anyway, being the savvy tourist that I am, I lead the way through the labrynth of death, and I could absolutely not find her. Nathlie, proved her french citizenship with the conclusion, “Eet juz wazen't meant to be.”

Now, to answer the question on everyone's mind, “Did you see any ghosts?”. I can only say that there were silent creatures that lurk the grounds, feeding off souls of the living – and they're super cute and furry. Cemetery cats. They seemed almost too comfortable in this setting, as if they were meant to be the watchers of those passed beyond this world. They round the corners and glide in and out of the small openings in the older tombs, making themselves at home.


One day, in the distant future, like one hundred years from now, I'll pass on. So, I've added one last tick to the list of things to do, become famous enough to be buried in the Recoleta Cemetary in Buenos Aires. Looks like I'm going to be marrying into the president's family soon. I'll send you a gold plated email when that happens.

18 December, 2009

First World Home, Third World Mosquitoes

I don't want to frighten anyone who may one day visit Uruguay. But make a tiny note in the back of your head that when you're in bed, and at your most vulnerable, malicious creatures will attack, who have the gift of flight and near invisibility whose lives consist of sucking blood from your face. I know it sounds like the cast of Twilight, but it's much worse: South American mosquitoes.Um, which I assume aren't that different from North American mosquitoes - other than their speedo tan.

For the past two weeks I've been living with Pat and Bob in a beautiful home just a five minute walk from the ocean. I wake up early, walk on the beach, swim in the pool, maybe teach some Spanish to Pat, run errands, cook dinner, relax, and go to bed. However, some nights I am awoken in the middle of the night by a zzzz (translation: hey.)........ zzzzz (wake up.) ............. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (If you don't swat at me, I will lay eggs in your ear). At that point, sporadic flailing of the arms commences, always missing the mosquitoes and only succeeding in raising my blood pressure. On those nights, I get a good fours hours of restful sleep, and a good 3 hours of Jedi training, blindly trying to smash the mini-vampires while half-awake.

One could be proud of surviving each nightly air strike of these insects, showing off their red bumps of courage. Or, one could just hose himself down with bug spray before going to bed and stop complaining. Maybe though, one doesn't like to smell like chemicals before going to bed. Well, one could shut up! Hey, one could stop and see that these mosquitoes are tearing us apart! One has a tear...

Okay, big deal. I'm in a foreign country, living by the beach, not paying a dime, and I'm complaining about mosquitoes? Yeah. Yeah, I am. Why? you ask. Good question, Mr. Jealousy, sit down and I'll tell you. Because habituation is the most powerful equalizer of society. No matter what one's situation, they will, for the most part, get used to it. Then what matters? Only differences in what one has versus what one wants. Before this, I was living in a basement that flooded on occasion, had a mildew smell, a very low ceiling, and stray cats out back, but I was just fine... mainly, because there were no mosquitoes malditos, del infierno!!! They make me go Ricky Ricardo, that's how I feel about it.

Honestly, I'm grateful this is the only thing I can pretend to complain about. So, wipe those tears, I'm adjusting well to my situation. I spray myself with bug spray before I go to bed, I sometimes put a light sheet over my head, and I surround myself with hungry frogs. Now, I just need to get habituated to the sound of croaking.

12 December, 2009

How to lose 20 pounds in just 30 waves!

I challenge anyone to get fat while surfing. It's impossible. First, the boards don't have any cup holders for your 48oz slurpee, Mr. Tubbs. Second, just because “fat floats”, doesn't mean you'll be able to stand on the board any better. Third, every muscles in your body is used when surfing, especially the “thumbs up” muscles. I personally increased my “thumbs up” reps by six today. Oh, vocal chords get a workout too. Wooooooooooooooooooo!
Have you ever had surprise exercise? You're minding your own business when a bear wanders into the office, and bam! You're exercising your way down the stairs, across the street, and into a more realistic analogy? That's exactly what happened today. I had met a surf instructor last week while walking along the beach and got some information about the classes. Since, he's there everyday, I figured I would eventually walk by and set up a time to start. Today seemed fitting, Pat was sitting by the pool reading and we had no other agenda. I was sore from running on the beach yesterday, but I wanted to walk around for a bit.
I set a good pace down the main road, next to the beach, and in thirty five minutes I made it to the surf spot. The waves looked small and the sky was overcast, I thought, not typical surfing weather. I saw Juan and waved at him. He recognized me and invited me to start surfing. I logically explained that I had no bathing suit or water or energy. Plus, the waves looked too small. Yet, with matching eloquence and persuasion he said, “we have a wet suit, come on.” Curse his superior reasoning skills! I slipped the suit over my boxers and hit the water.
I've only surfed once before. I took a three day course in the Canary Islands a few years ago and learned the basics. From the first wave though, it all came back. I caught nearly each wave. Over and over. My Hawaiian roots must have helped too - although, I only learned to dance the hula. We did exercises of standing up and laying down, how to read a wave, how to turn and paddle, and how to whip my long blond hair around my face... well, that comes at the advanced stage.
This was the most exercise I've gotten in months. Every time I caught a wave, I had to paddle back through eight more. The lift off requires you to thrust your body up, and then stay squatted to keep balance. I even threw in some Tai-bo while wiping out. Over and over, I swam in and out. The instructor, Matias, kept pushing me into waves, “Go Kevin!” “I can't help but go when you keep pushing me!” They never teach useful phrases in Spanish class; for instance, exploding lungs.
There was only one other student, a girl a little younger than me from New York. She didn't seem like a typical new yorker when I talked to her. But she did drive like one. Or steer. Or whatever surfer lingo describes heading straight towards someones face with a solid edge of hard plastic, causing them to leap out of the way, matrix-style, with just a few centimeters to spare (I'm getting used the metric system.)
The lesson lasted an hour and a half, just enough time to remind me what muscles I haven't used in awhile. It was exhausting, exhilarating, and excelente. Tomorrow will be different story, when I wont be able to move, but that will give me more time to think about returning to the cool blue water once my legs function.

09 December, 2009

I Hit a Car Today (And Other Great Things About Uruguay)

When visiting any new country, it's advisable to learn the customs, to fit in, not draw attention to oneself, and occasionally, to smash a car. Today, I was in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. Pat and Bob had some meetings, so I was left to wander the streets and learn the Uruguayan way. On my two hour walk, I encountered a few differences between the Americans of the north and the Americans of the south.


Lesson 1
What I saw: A woman pushing a parked car forward, presumably not her car, while a truck helped nudge it forward with its bumper, in order to turn a compact space into a jumbo jet parking zone.

What I learned: Uruguayan cars are not people, unlike their American counterparts. In fact, you better go cover their audio inputs, for this next bit.
Lesson put into action!: Later, Pat and I were dropping off Bob's broken computer in  Maldonado, the local town, next to the touristy Punta del Este. I was driving the rental car (it's a stick shift – which I haven't driven in awhile. Oh, and the reverse is right next to first gear, not back and to the right.) As I attempted to reverse, to put more space between me and the parked car in front, the car lurched forward instead and gave the car in front of me a little, tiny, itsy-bitsy, love wallop. Luckily, there was only a small dent in our car, and no visible damage to the other car. Actually, there was already a lot of visible damage to the other car. It was super-Uruguayan, I think it even liked being bumped a little bit. Pat, however, suggested she drive back.


Lesson 2
What I saw: Stray cats and dogs roaming the streets of Montevideo like government workers; they're everywhere, they don't do much, and occasionally they bark at you.

What I learned: Uruguayan cats and dogs are not people either, unlike Mr. Mittens and Fido Reginald III of the USA, shacking up in the dog motel.
Lesson put into action!: I refrained from putting Versache sweater-vests on them, and held off on feeding them gourmet foods, better looking than the slop I ate through college. In reality, most of the strays looked perfectly content with their surroundings, as if their instincts were more in tune. 
Bonus lesson!: In Montevideo, they have professional dog walkers, carrying up to ten or more dogs on leashes. Lesson being, even if dogs aren't strays, they still love being outside. Which is similar to people in that way... Oo, twist lesson.


Lesson 3
What I saw: My skin turn red.
What I learned: The sun is hot.
Lesson put into action!: Wait, let me explain.

Still learning: The sun is hot! Especially, in the southern hemisphere. I rarely burn in the sun, even without sunscreen. I have some weird disease where I look beach-ready all the time. It's a curse. Normally, I slowly roast to a golden brown; good enough for the thanksgiving centerpiece. However, my first day, I went two hours in the sun and came back with skin like a naughty boy's freshly smacked behind. Over the next two days, I put on sunscreen in the morning, yet continued to darken. At this rate, I'll be able to sneak into Namibia by January. Now, when I go out, I put on sunscreen at least three times a day. I'm actually avoiding these pristine blue days left and right so I don't have to worry about looking too different from my passport photo. In which case, I may have to stay here with the strays. All I ask is a care package of Pedigree.


Summary of Lessons
A^2 + B^2 = C^2. 'A' being my Uruguayan driving score, 'B' being how many animals I can “adopt” (carry in my arms), and C equals the liters of sunscreen I'll consume in a month. The answer is in the back of the book.


06 December, 2009

Country Road Prostitutes

Of the varied events piled behind me in life, few involve prostitutes. Occasionally on my travels, I'll run into a ho or two. My friend Caleb and I have a running debate on whether we spent an entire day in Cairo with a prostitute without knowing it (we only paid for pizza). In the red light districts of Germany, I glimpsed the large display cases of women, most of them looking mainly bored. However, the strangest-environment-to-find-a-prostitute award now goes to Uruguay.



Pat, Bob, their gardener, and I were driving down a lazy road, as if on the way to Grandma's farm, to buy some plants for the tiny garden in front of Pat's tiny castle. Bright green trees lined the roadside, dirt trails lead onto long driveways, and light traffic coasted beside us. A beautiful setting for a Saturday afternoon. Pat piped in, “Oh, this is the road with all the prostitutes”. Before I absorbed  exactly what she said, a saw a woman dressed in revealing South American Walmart clothes standing on a dirt road, as if waiting for the bright yellow school bus to take her to her first day at school. If she had been wearing a purse on her arm, instead of a box of cigarettes, I might have at least, optimistically, assumed she was waiting for a city bus.


I'm accustomed to strange cultures, but I couldn't locate an explanation in my brain for how this could make sense. Business sense, even. Low traffic area in dusty settings rarely equals bang for the buck. Excuse the hilarious and witty expression. I may not have been clear, so I will reiterate: the prostitute was standing on a dirt road in the middle of a rural area.


Pat explained, this is the road workers use to return home, so here the women “workers” wait . For some reason, this information did not help that she was leaning against a wood post, similar to those seen in Lincoln cabin photos.


The sins of man may one day be counted by an unknown source, but until then, I only judge on testable reason and logic. So I shun the prostitutes of Uruguay solely for their lack of aesthetic business sense and physiological persuasion. I reject their proposals of pleasure on the basis of the principle of practicality. To put it more elegantly: A dirt road??? Really??

05 December, 2009

What to do on a 15hr flight OR How to stop worrying and love the Mullet

Buenos Aires is far away. Like, Bangladesh far.

Luckily, every good traveler knows how warp time around him and turn eighteen hours of travel into a blip in the American-space-time-Airlines continuum. From Baltimore to Buenos Aires, I elicited the magic of mental time travel. I people watched and people ignored. I zoned out, tuned out, and spaced out. I entertained myself through music, books, TV, and computer.. I reached zen in my non-stop barrage of thoughts, mashed together without coherent conclusions or solid structure, designed specifically to kill hours of time without even recognizing the countries passing below me beneath the hazy clouds. Before I could comprehend that I was flying past Cuba, Jamaica, the Panama Canal, Machu Pichu,the home of Cocaine and kidnapping, and the Amazon, I was there. I slept four hours out of the eighteen. Was the trip worth it to spend six months abroad with free travel, room, board, bread, and booze? Just barely.


We lugged our luggage to Bob's, Pat's brother's, apartment in Buenos Aires. After a decent nap, Pat and I explored a small part of the city. That night, we all ate in a fancy Spanish restaurant. In the morning we packed up and left for Uruguay. From my tiny taste of Argentina, I had the chance to experience the three T's of Buenos Aires: traffic, trees, women, and women. (And women).

T number one. Traffic. On our ride from the airport, the taxi driver was consistently several inches away from having too much fun. Broken windshields, bashed doors and bumpers, broken horns from extensive use: these are the trophies of good driving in Buenos Aires. The aggression I saw was worthy of a new york cab driver – sponsored by NASCAR - in a race to the death - held in downtown Bombay. It was wonderful. Any country that threatens my safety on what would otherwise be a common activity, scores high in my book. In Mexico, it's drinking the water; in Iran, it's having a good time; and in Buenos Aires, it's a nice cruise down the highway.

T two: Trees. Although the city is expansive and home to several million people, they've maintained a great deal of greenery all around. Trees line streets and pop up between buildings without permission. Pat and I walked to a park where the branches of an ancient tree were so immense, they could have been trees of their own. Argentinians seem to have a keen sense of plant preservation. Although, they may have planted these trees purely to deal with the fumes from all the traffic. So, let's not get too generous with our praise.

And finally, the last T stands for women. Total ten women. If I weren't scared that on the wedding day of my marriage to an Argentine girl, she would ram our limo into six cars, swerve through traffic at 120km/h and finally park in the street with oncoming traffic screeching behind us, then I would be married already. The mix of cultures and backgrounds in Argentina has created this bizarre race of beautiful women that float up and down the sidewalks, dressed to get away with murder. And if I have to be an accomplice to a night filled of tango treason, so be it.

I'm in Uruguay now. We only spent the day and night in Argentina, and we'll return right before Christmas. As for Uruguay, I've only been here a day or so, and already I'm sunburned from a two hour walk along the beach, I tried a type of bird that is similar to ostrich, meet a dude who teaches surfing, and drove several hours through a country I barely know anything about. So, it's been good. Uruguay is peaceful and green - and then it's beach town and bold. I can almost hear its call for humanity.

I'll update more later. I'm beginning Pat's Spanish lesson tomorrow. It's not all fun and games here. I occasionally have to do something productive. At least once a week. Chao.

Oh, I almost forgot. Mullets are still in fashion in the Latin world. They refuse to die out. Mullets may turn out to be the blue jeans of the Latin hairstyle. Except no one looks good in a pair of mullets.

02 November, 2009

Prologue

Uruguay is located between Argentina and Brazil on the Atlantic side of South America. It also has an evil twin brother, Paraguay (he has a thin mustache), landlocked near Bolivia. Where is Bolivia? It was kidnapped by Columbia, so I don't know.

The important question is really this: Kevin, why in holy Chipotle are you going to Uruguay?

It's really very simple.

I am going to be a translator, bodyguard, assistant, Spanish tutor, guide, and exotic animal trainer.

Here are my credentials:

Translator - I have a degree in Spanish language and literature (dónde está el taco, Sr.Bond?)
Bodyguard - I have a black-belt in Taekwondo. Granted, I got it in 2001. But, to me, kicking someone in the face is like riding a bicycle while kicking someone in the face.
Assistant - I am organized, resourceful, and I have a touchscreen phone.
Spanish Tutor - Rosetta Stone was actually a stone I passed through my urethra. Haha, that's gross. And true*.
Guide - I've been to seventeen other countries and have only gotten lost once... per day.
Exotic animal trainer - Sorry, that's a misprint, I meant, exotic animal eater. Can't wait to taste sloth!

If you're wondering how a job like this is even possible, I have to ask you a serious religious question: Do you believe in Oprah?

According to the scriptures...er... scripts, she's a mystical being that convinces people to be generous and caring; to give freely of their time and money.
I know it sounds unbelievable, but a friend of my mom's happens to be one of those people, duped into being generous with others. She, Patricia, is retired, and after once owning three restaurants with her late husband, she's looking to live an endless summer between Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. Although she doesn't speak Spanish, she plans to travel the country, see the sites, and settle down. Her thoughts were, "who do I know who isn't doing anything, knows Spanish, loves to travel, and is named Kevin?" Naturally, I was her fourth choice.

A string of coincidences lead us to the same restaurant; she asked if I was interested, and it took me at least two seconds to agree to leave everything and live abroad for six months. I only hesitated for the first second, because I thought I had to burp.
Another coincidence is that the exact amount of money she can afford to pay me, is the exact amount I need to pay my bills each month. (Oh, I know. Oprah does indeed work in mysterious ways).

All of this happened about a month and a half ago. So I've been quickly preparing to leave the country; which is difficult - It takes a lot of planning to subtly brag to everyone I know**.

Also, since my Spanish has gotten a little rusty sitting in the corner next to my yoga mat and ab ripper, I've started a marathon of Spanish soap operas. You may ask, "porquuuuue Kevin?? Porquuuue??" Because, concerned reader, Spanish soap operas embody all that you'll ever need to know about the Spanish language. It has drama, action, humor, intransitive verbs, and the notorious subjunctive. Besides, how else am I going to learn to seduce a Uruguayan maid?

En conclusion, Oprah loves me. I'll be documenting my travels even though I'm not sure what I'll be doing, except teaching Pat Spanish, relaxing at the beach, traveling around a few countries, and maybe learning the Argentine tango. It sounds positively grueling, I know, but don't pity me. I have a strong spirit, a positive attitude, and all expenses paid. However, if your heart throbs profoundly for my desperate situation, send an American care package to my future address. (Don't you dare send that care package without freedom fries!)

Stay strong here at the home-front. Don't forget to feed my uncle Chet when I'm gone. Only open my mail if it says "Sweepstakes winner!" (Hey, with my luck, why not?). Oh, and remember, most importantly, don't ruin the economy while I'm gone! I still have to exchange my American dollars to Uruguayan... um... rupees.

Hasta mucho luego,
Kevin "El Suerte Suave" Guertler


*not true
**In your face, grandma!