Oil, Glitter, and Perfumed Foam

So, last night, after eating at a neat little seafood place that I´ve taken a liking too, I grabbed a liter of Pilsen at the nearby store and started reading a book I paid way too much for. At about 10pm, which is fairly early here - I eat dinner at about 9-9:30pm - I heard what can be simply described as lots of drums. I grabbed my camera and easily found the crowd.*

*Camera  note: I have lots of pictures and even some short movies, but I have yet to be able to upload them anywhere so far. 


They had the main drag on the penninsula - Ave. Gorlero - blocked of for tambore, the beginning of Carnaval, which I didn´t think started until next week. Anyhow, this is tambore:

1. A guy with a big, sparkley banner marches first, upon which is written what specific group is coming next. (I have no idea how many groups there were, as I arrived after they started 10:30pm, left before they were done, 1:30am, and fell asleep at 2:00am to the still-beating drums.)

2. A half-dozen odd guys follow the first guy with giant flags in the color of the group. Lots of gold, lots of purple, lots of green, and lots of Uruguayan light-blue.

3. Now come the dancers in increasing attractiveness - and legality. The first are about twelve years old, decked out in glitter and not much clothes. A little strange and awkward. The next group of dancers seemed about sixteen, eighteen, something like that. Less clothes, more glitter, oil. The last group was the crème de la crème (homey!) of the dancers. Only pictures can do justice, so I´ll try to get those up.


4. After the dancers, and before the tambores (drums) were two people dressed up as chariacatures of an old, fat black women and an old, cane-carrying black man with a medicine bag. They danced just about how you imagine they would. It was like black-face, but sparklier. Once again, pictures ASAP.


5. The proverbial caboose of the drum train was, obviously, the drummers themsevles. Probably about thirty-sixty in any given group. Cool stuff.


Now, this whole progression of a single group took about fifteen to twenty minutes, and I have no idea how many groups there were. Twenty, probably more.


Oh, and there were vendors who sold espuma perfumada (perfumed foam) to kids who would run around and blast the dancers with the stuff. So not only were they covered in oil and glitter, but it looked like they were all hit with shaving-cream balloons.


All in all, a good, quiet, Sunday evening. 

Keyboard Love

Look at all the cool things you can type on a Latin American keyboard!

Ç, Ñ, Ö, ª, ¿, ¡

Fun for the whole family.

My Life is Murphey´s Law

Well, right off the bat, I had a four hour wait in Kalamazoo to catch a train. Boarded the 9:50AM train at 1:35PM. The approximately two hour train trip took about four and a half hours. The time difference going to Chicago got me there at about 5ó clock, the L got me to O´Hare at about 5:55, barely enough time to catch my 6:25 flight to JFK...

...which was canceled. Ok, whatever. New flight to JFK in the morning. Turned out I would be spending the night in Chicago instead of NY. However, the Miss Genius at the ticked counter failed to notice that my new AM flight to JFK would arrive after my flight for Brasil was scheduled to leave the next morning, thankfully the guy who checked my passport/ticket did and sent me back to the ticket counter. Fantastic.

So, they throw me on an 8:00PM flight from O´Hare to La Guardia. It´s not JFK, but it´s close. Whatever, I´ll take it. However - and here´s where the story actually starts getting bad - they put my bag on the morning flight to JFK, which I find out at La Guardia. At 1:00AM. And if you think reading this in English is confusing, try explaining it in Spanish.

So there´s not much I can really do now, as I´m in NY, my bag´s in Chicago, and the next flight from Chicago to NY arrives after my flight to Brasil leaves, which I think was the only flight to from Brasil from NY that day. F. Uck. So after a $35 taxi ride from La Guardia to JFK, I spend the rest of the night, from about 1:40AM to 6:00AM, curled in a ball, propped up on an iron I-beam, sleeping about 45 minutes of nodding sleep.

Flight to Brasil arrives at about 8:00AM, leaves about 10:00AM. And may I say, it was the strangest, most bizarre flight I have ever been on. From take-off to landing, about ten hours, the entire plane was sealed shut. Every single window was shut, overhead lights turned off, and people sleeping, during the day, the entire trip. I also was only offered a Coke the entire time. Strange. Strange. Strange.

Sao Paolo is the worst-designed airport I have ever been in. It makes no sense. It wouldn´t have made sense if spoke Portuguese. Insane. No sign, in English, Spanish, or Portuguese mentioned that there were other terminals, terminals where my flight was. So after a broken Spanish-Portuguese conversation, I learn of this other terminal and am pointed to it´s vague direction. It´s also really hot in Brasil, and I´m still in the cashmere sweater I put on in Kalamazoo where everything was covered in ice and yuck. I also haven´t showered in about a day and a half and the only sleep I´ve gotten was on a tile floor at JFK or nodding nap/sleep in the crazy plane to Brasil.

Finally arrive in Montevideo at about 2:00AM. Talke to about a dozen people trying to get them to request my bag. TAM airlines sends me to GOL airlines, GOL sends me to Pluna, which gives me a number to request me luggage. This paragraph could be about ten times as long, but I don´t want to write about it, because I´d rather write about getting a enema.

Anyhow, after that I spend the day at a hostel sleeping on a plastic chair because the beds where taken, showering and drying myself off with a flannel shirt, breaking my day and a half fast with a burrito I got with a cool dude from Ireland. (In hindsight, the burrito was a terrible idea.) Slept like a dead man that night once a bed was open, woke up, just out-smarted burrito-fueled explosive diarrhea, and have been walking around the city, waiting for the airport here in Montevideo to give me a call about my elusive green duffel bag.

On the bright side, I didn´t have to eat any rugby players.

In the Air

Leaving for forty-eight hours of travel. I'm really glad there is ice everywhere in K-zoo/Chicago and a forecast-ed snow storm in New York. Because ice and snow never cause problems with flying. At least there is no snow in South America now, because I am not eating a rugby team.

Twenty-Four Years of Accumulated Living

Apparently, twenty-four years of material life accounts for one duffel bag, a backpack, fancy shampoo, Panamanian sandals, some batteries, and a wooden Oktoberfestbier hanging from 1975.

Untamed Pleasure

Stay classy, Petoskey.