The weirdest part about "traveling" is when it stops feeling like traveling and starts just feeling like your regular life. That's when it's time to come home.
I can't think of much else to write about on a blog that's supposedly devoted to travel and conveying life in South America because, while it's still very interesting, it's not exactly remarkable anymore. I mean, I'm still scared during the twice-daily $1, 15-minute cab ride where I can't help but pray that my last breath is not in a freaking Daewoo, but I've even gotten used to brushing my teeth with Listerine to avoid drinking the water, and I don't panic when there is no water whatsoever pumping through the pipes (not even enough to flush the toilet). I don't stare at the 30-year-old parents with only like half their teeth left who come pick up their four kids from our after school care. My alarm clock completely stopped working about two weeks ago and I haven't been bothered. Trying to avoid massive alpaca poops on my street feels more...normal than reading the Chicago Tribune online, and spanish is sometimes the first language that I think to express myself in (although sometimes I still can't express myself at all so that's a funny thing about brains I guess).
In short, it's ok that I come home next week because I think when you have to remind yourself to appreciate something, it's probably because you weren't appreciating it. It's been 49 days of nonstop awesomeness. But don't be discouraged if you can't quit your job and move to Peru. Some of the best trips are only a week. And sometimes you only need a day.
In the spring of 1993, when I was still 11 and my dad was 43, we went to Italy together. We divided 10 days between Rome and Milan, and we packed it all in. The family, the Coliseum, you name it. I left home being the girl that could memorize the names of rivers in foreign countries, and came back knowing what they smelled like. The experience was so burned into my mind that 10 years later I practically gave the tour of the Vatican to my friends.
When we got to Rome my lips were so chapped from spending the night on a train from Milan that my bottom one split, and my dad and I were walking around looking for chapstick. It took awhile because we didn´t realize we needed to go to a pharmacy to buy it, and a few significant moments occurred.
First of all, we walked by a sunglasses store that had some really awesome Euro chic-trashy window displays. I pouted until my dad bought me a pair (not hard when your lip is bleeding), but they came in this quality leather, padded case that was stamped in gold lettering, Occhiali da sole, (that just means "sunglasses" in italian) and the whole experience was so grown-up and sophisticated that I've had a love affair with sunglasses ever since. I could name every pair I've had since and exactly what awesome things happened to me while wearing them...
At lunch, my dad had a carafe of wine. It came in one of those straw-wrapped bottles. He gave me some. We were officially very far away from my mother's dinner table....
then we went to the Coliseum, and there was this writing etched into the stone, and my dad translated the roman numerals into some year that was a really long time ago, and I realized that someone who actually had a life and hung out in a really different world than mine had still stood on that exact same spot, that people had been standing there on that exact same spot since togas were popular, before Jesus, before Columbus, before New York. My Social Studies book turned 3-D. When he said that girls my age were eaten by lions there because they were Catholic like me, I almost cried.
And we found the chapstick, of course. It was a swiss brand, very cool, I used it only sparingly so that it would last (I had it for years, whipping it out to show off at sleepover parties, pretending like I put it on every night). So with that small triumph, we got in a cab to head to a part of town that was closer to our hotel, Holiday Inn Vatican City. The driver asked questions in bad English, my dad answered in bad Italian, and it was the first time I'd ever been in a cab or witnessed driving scarier than my father's. In the square in front of the Vatican there were a bunch of dudes walking around carrying semi-automatic rifles, HUGE guns, and I had never been that close to anything capable of causing that much violence in real life -- but they were swinging them around on their necks, nonchalant, the same facial expression as the girls at school who twirled their hair. Some of the guys even had on mob gear. And the reason for the pistol party? A pro-choice rally that we joined in with for awhile (I only felt cool enough to join because of my new sunglasses). The chant was "Papa, oh Papa..." Hence the NOW card in my wallet.
After dinner we decided to walk back to the hotel, thinking it was really close, but it wasn't, and we walked around a really long time. I kept looking at my Swatch-Watch thinking, "It's 11 o'clock and I'm still walking around ... It's 11:30 at night! ... It's 11:45 P.M. and I'm not only NOT in bed, I'm actually on the streets, in a CITY, in EUROPE, right NOW."
When you don´t know the lay of the land, it's entirely possible to have life-altering adventures while you shop for chapstick. Well, if you're with my dad anyway.
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