SOTU and the clinic

I watched Bush's State of the Union this evening and managed to not puke up my tacos. Almost nothing new was presented, and there is no money for the new things that were presented. I'm a little unsettled at how many Members I can still name and the gossip I remember about some of their offices.

Far more interesting was the busy phone day at the clinic. My español got a workout, as did my Capitol Hill-honed phone skills. A tip for callers from New York City who (1) have stable jobs with the Department of Whatever, (2) speak excellent English, (3) can afford to fly themselves and their cousin to San Antonio for a court appearance, and (4) already know what a motion for change of venue is yet still want free representation for a relative from clinic students in Texas: you are not our client demographic. I'm being very nice and helpful by providing you with a referral in your area. If you push the point, become argumentative and waste my time, I will hang up on you.

Free Coffee

I got free coffee yesterday. On my drive back to Austin from Dallas, I stopped at the Starbuck's along I-35 and ordered a small (excuse me, "tall") coffee. When asked if I wanted bold or regular, I responded, "um, bold." The barrista then told me that the bold was brewing and that I would have to wait 5 minutes. I said, "okay" and then handed over a twenty only to be told that there was no charge since I had to wait. In addition to the indignity of having to wait all of 5 minutes for some free coffee, team barrista messed up my order - they gave me a medium (I mean grande), which is 4 more ounces than I wanted. The nerve.

Two snaps for Starbucks and free coffee, and for bringing good coffee to places like Lubbock and Waco.

Goodbye, 131919282

My passport expires this March. In case I need to flee the country in the near future, I have sent in my old one along with a renewal application. I'll be vulnerable for the next 6 weeks.

I assume I'll get a new number, which is too bad since 131919282 flowed out of the pen and onto various entry/exit forms. Although the validity spanned the past ten years, it does not include the places I visited while in the Peace Corps since we had to use a separate PC-issued passport. 131919282 has "only" been to 30 countries; this inspired me to make this cool little travel map:

Pictures of a Transition

Here are some random observations from the past 10 days of transition from Belém/South America to Austin:

I spent 5 months in one of the least developed parts of Brazil and don't remember any illness. I've been sick with a bitch of a sore throat for more than a week now that I'm back in the U.S. of A.

Pineapples here (1) suck and (2) are expensive. I saw some mooshy pineapples for sale at HEB for $3. Why would they want to get rid of those? And a decent looking (but probably unripe) pineapple at Whole Foods was $6. Belém? < US$1.

Getting run over is not at the top of my list of concerns as I cross the street. I have yet to see a bus run a red light. And I am now a champion jaywalker.

Where is the milky gray gutter water with bits of trash that I so often stepped over?

My Mexican food / meal ratio stands at 9/35 since my return on Thursday Jan. 12.

Sometimes I talk to myself in Portuguese. But I did that before I went to Belém, so that isn't much of an observation.

Missionless

So I'm back in Tejas, back to life as a student, and I'm thinking that my blog description needs revision. I guess that is why I put the "and beyond" part in there.

El Sastre

I´m running errands today. This morning I dropped some film off to be developed and also took a pair of pants I bought last week to the tailor to have the hem altered. The tailor was about 80 and had a shop filled with shirts and suits, waiting to be picked up by customers. Some were for sale, so I´m assuming they were abandoned by their owners. My pants will be ready this afternoon for 15 pesos (US$5).

Change of Location

Perhaps it was the shock in going from this hotel to this hostel, but I don´t think I can stay in hostels any more. After what I would later learn to be part one of seeing my mom off to the airport, I checked into Posta del Barto in the Congresso area of Buenos Aires. The hostel was sub-par for hostels; the bathrooms were dirty and the door to my spartan* room´s mini-balcony was broken. With those two complaints as my excuse, I left and upgraded to a two star hotel about 5 blocks away. I now have AC, cable TV, my own bathroom, a great view from the 9th floor balcony, and a little refrigerator to keep Cokes and water cold. The difference in price? US$10 per night.

*two twin beds with uncomfortable mattress, a chair, and a rickety fan 15´ up.

Buenos Aires, Parte Dos

We`re back in this gigantic city. Yesterday we visited the Museo de Arte Latinoamerica de Buenos Aires, which had some decent exhibits on contemporary Latin American artists. I enjoyed some of the stuff from the 40s and 60s but could have done without the floor dedicated to a temporary exhibit by a dead Brazilian artist whose preferred medium was photographs of pop icons decorated with lines of cocaine. Think Yoko Ono and Marilyn Monroe with white eyebrows and moustaches. Stupid, really. Afterwards we shopped in Palermo and I convinced mom to get her own stylish pair of crazypants. 3 down, 8 to go.

Today we visited some of the older parts of the city, starting with La Boca near the original port. The colorful buildings in the 1.5 block refurbished area were pretty but I kind of felt like I was in tourist hell and was ready to leave after about 20 minutes.

Souvenir shop in La Boca

We then walked up through San Telmo, a more relaxed neighborhood, before coming to Plaza de Mayo and the Casa Rosada, the historic home of the President.

Don`t Cry for Me, Argentina...

DRT II

In addition to soon-to-be-swarmed little girls feeding pigeons, on Thursdays Plaza de Mayo is the site of women protesting the disappearance of their children during the dictatorship from 1976 - 1983 (?). The protest was a little weird, since it started exactly at the scheduled 3:30 and had far more observing tourists than mothers of the disappeared. Also, there has been some mission creep as this photo shows:


The sign calls for redistribution of wealth. There was a smaller line of moms wondering what happened to their kids several paces behind the main even but no one was paying attention to the truer protest.

Mendoza

On the last full day in Ushuaia we hiked up to the nearby Glacier Marital and then slowly walked back to town with a long stop for lunch at a place called Chez Manu. Saturday was pretty boring as it took us almost all day to fly to Mendoza, but at least I finished the book I was carrying around and napped a bit on the plane. For some reason my ipod reformatted itself so there were no tunes for the day of planes and airport waiting time.

Mendoza is good so far. Our hotel is nice and in a central location, but it seems to make a point of hiring bitchy unhelpful 20-something concierges. And while my job search to be an attorney hasn´t panned out this past fall, I do not intend to submit an application here. I may be bitchy from time to time and I do have some months left as a 20-something, but I`d like to think that I am helpful, at least when I want to be, so that should disqualify me from the running.

My purpose of being here is to eat and drink, and I am proud to say that I am fulfilling my purpose in this short phase of my life. Last night I rang in the New Year with some tasty goat and a great malbec. Today we walked around the deserted city and visited the pretty plazas and huge Parque San Martin. Mendoza is the most Spanish of the cities I´ve been to in Argentina, with its numerous plazas, wide boulevards, and sidewalk cafes.

Back to food. I had wine (borgoña, mini-bottle for U$S 3) with my pepper steak lunch and again (merlot, regular bottle for U$S 7) with my dinner of ngocchi. Tomorrow the plan is to rent a car and visit a few of the region`s wineries.

(The sign is only funny if you hablar a little español)