Tales from the North

Apparently my readers(thank you both) want to hear about my recent trip to Brazil, the land of soccer, sun and samba. I'm now able to comment on two of the three, unfortunately there was far too much rain in the weekend to get a good sampling of the local sun or beaches-a shame.

We departed from the school in normal Uruguayan fashion-which is to say an hour and a half behind schedule. After 12 hours in a bus, much of them spent trying to drown out the Cumbia music and Reese Witherspoon movies that were seeping from the speakers into my defenseless brain, we arrived in Brazil.

As we got off the bus I looked at my watch. 10 a.m. I looked at my teammates. Destroyed. Our first game for the day...scheduled for 11 a.m. This was not going to be good. Ambling towards the field I felt like I was in a scene from the Mighty Ducks, or The Big Green, or some other Disney Sports movie. The rag tag Uruguayans, cresting the hill to see their Brazilian counterparts mid warmup, looking like a well oiled machine. I now know how it feels when Trinidad and Tobago shows up at the World Cup.

We were, to put things in perspective, the only non-Brazilian team. Not only that, we were the only under 20 team. That means we are drawing our players from a 2-3 year age range. The other teams were comprised mostly of players in the 23-30 year range. Atleast one team received a pretty decent salary.

Our first game, which kicked off so soon after our arrival, took us off guard. 2 Goals conceded in the first few minutes, they almost scored on their first play. To give us some credit we rallied after waking up to keep it at a pretty respectable 3-0 loss.

The next game was against a better team. We did however, have the power of sleep on our sides, and actually took the lead at one point. We knew what to expect now, and we knew what we had to do-play Uruguayan soccer. That is to say, play hard, play dirty, be that dog that doesn't lie down when you kick it but fights back(or whatever Mike Katz says). So we took the lead 1-0 on a penalty kick and go into halftime. Shortly into the second half one of their players is sent off with a red card. Things are looking good. With about 10 minutes to play they equalise off of a corner kick. Then, a few minutes later, another goal from the corner. I'm not going to point fingers, but that's a pretty lame way to go out.

After this game, with 2 losses, there was no chance of advancing. Thus, a lot of the guys who hadn't played much played in the last game(which was against the eventual champs) where we were spanked a solid 6 or 7 to 2. There wasn't much to play for at this point though, and the Uruguayans were more interested in sampling the Brazilian nightlife.

As for the tournament itself, it was much more than I expected, which makes up a bit for the fact that we didn't get to see much of Brazil itself. It was very similar to a small scale Olympics. 1600 athletes, Judo, Volleyball(2 man and 5 man), Basketball, Handball, Soccer, Track, Futsal(indoor soccer), men and women, etc. Everyone was staying in a certain sector of the school, which I will call "The Olympic Village", which shared an open aired hallway sort of deal. This led to a lot of mingling and playing of Samba music at night.

In other news, I got my first haircut since May today. It is worth noting that it is a very Uruguayan haircut, whatever that means(read:mullet), but I kind of like it. I have had my U.S. Citizenship questioned a few times already but I hope for a bit more of that now.

Another Half Assed Blog Attempt

A quick update for those of you playing along at home. I am now in Brazil, playing in a soccer tournament. Acutally, "playing soccer in a small version of the Olympics consisting of 5 sports and two(or 3?) countries" might be a more apt description.

As for my lack of posting, it doesn´t help that I think I fried the electrical outlet in my room. That, and there is a small void on my keyboard(and in my soul) where my "L" key once was. That complicates things a bit.

This trip has been pretty cool thus far though, despite the awful weather we have had. Apparently it´s not all sun in the country that calls the Amazon Rain Forest home, whuddathunkit? That´s all for now though, I will try and have a more detailed recounting of the weekend´s events next Tuesday or so.

bem vindo(hello in Portuguese, still working on goodbye)

Quick Update

Just a quick update here. No, I haven't been shanked in the street, my lack of posting has more to do with the two tests I've had this week and my hatred for my keyboard-which requires an act of congress to type a damn 'l'. Anyways, I'll(two of them that time, that was tough) be going to visit Miguel in Buenos Aires tomorrow so that should be fun. I'll hit you guys up with more after that epic viaje.

Another Night Out

Yesterday, like every Saturday, we had a soccer game(2-2 tie). Also-yesterday, like every Saturday, we went out after the game. Electing to go out with the other exchange students instead of the soccer team this weekendI soon found myself in an apartment celebrating a birthday. It's worth noting that this was the...eighth or ninth exchange student birthday in my 7 weeks in Uruguay. There are only about 30 or 35 of us. I feel like I, with a June birthday, was excepted into the program as part of some sort of bizzare affirmative action program.



We head out to Ciudad Vieja in a taxi, which is a long ride (relatively speaking). it usually costs about 100 pesos(5 bucks). When I look at the meter and see it's at about 120 I get pissed. When I see la Plaza Independencia two times I getreal pissed.
"Bro, what are we doing?"
"I don't know where the City is"
"$%^# that, it's one of the most popular clubs in Montevideo and you're a cab driver."

You give most of these guys some obscure corner on the other side of time and they get you there with frightening speed, like they'velived in Montevideo their whole lives or something. Oh wait, they have. But this guy doesn't know where La City is? Naw.

My cab mates, a Mexican girl and a Spanish girl, try to bargain with the guy. He's not having it. I pay him real slowly, letting him know exactly what I think. Of course, we also don't exactly know wherewe are going, sweet. Luckily we were close and find the place without too many problems.
Upon entering the City(this is the boliche I wrote about earlier if anyone recalls) I'm as confused as ever aboutwhy this place has such a good reputation. The other Boliche's I have been to have all sorts of cool screensand lights and shiny objects. The City, not so much, its pretty much a couple of dance floors and bars with asmoke machine and seizure inducing lights.


On the subject of the game yesterday. Another start for me and I played a part in our first goal again. I lasted about 60 minutes but after we went down to 10 men I couldn't keep up. There was an improvement thoughso I'm happy about that. I also had my face spit on for the first time in a soccer game which I guess is a milestone.

Uruguay vs. Ecuador

Here's the video from "The Clash of Titans", Uruguay vs. Ecuador. I'll try to write a short summary and post some of the cooler pictures tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no2Wq0piBFg

RMallion Makes his Debut

Two things to write about this week 1)my experiences at the Uruguay vs. Ecuador soccer match and 2) my experiences in this week's Universitario league game with Club UCU. We'll get to the pros in the next post but for right now it's all about me.



As I've mentioned a few times on here, I've been training with the University Catolica sub 20's for the last 3 weeks or so. I spent the first week on the bench and last weekend our game was suspended due to foul weather. Thus, I woke up Saturday morning hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. I've been trying to work my way into the squad, but it's always tough work establishing yourself in an existing team and I had been hoping I would get a shot to prove myself this weekend.



Before the game the team meets up at the school to set up the car pool situation, it's not America and vehicles are scarce. This game is important the coach tells us. They don't like us and it's hard to play on their field apparently.


I didn't really understand what our coach had meant until we rolled up to the field. For one, it's in Kilometro 23. My community service is in Kilometro 16. My keen observational skills have led me to believe that you don't want to live in a neighborhood that's defining feature is its distance from the center of civilization. The charming Kilometro 23 barrio is very similar to Kilometro 16, lots of trash and animals.



This game is "almost a clasico" the coach said, a big rivalry. I get it now. It's the same sort of situation as when Exeter played the lower-tier prep schools or when Gulfport played some second class team like Biloxi. The jealousy or resentment is the same. The situation is clear, they're poor, we aren't.



They also have fans, a crucial element that seemed to be missing in our home game 2 weeks ago.



Around this point I'm thinking, "should be a good game" while the coach rattles off the starting lineup. Volante y Afuera Derecho-Reechard Malanfan '. Uhhh what? I'm happy, but a bit nervous. I was hoping for a 30 minute run at the end of the game, not a start, and frankly my whole body is sore before the game begins.



The game starts.



2 minutes in-The field sucks. A lot. That said, I feel alright.



6 minutes in-Our left midfielder crosses the ball from the endline. It's a bit deep. I put myself in position. The ball seems to be hanging in the air for a while, or my mind is working faster than normal. I size up my options. I want to shoot but the ball is coming in at an awkward angle. I'm taking it out of the air and having a go at goal. No I'm not, two defenders closing in. My forward is now unmarked. I shape my foot to pass, splitting the two defenders with a first touch pass. Santiago's eyes go wide. As he pulls his leg back I'm looking at the chance, incredulous, it's too good to be true. No it isn't, Santiago buries the volley into the bottom left corner. Gooolll!



I'm instantly surrounded by teammates. The sidelines erupt with cheers, and the bench is cleared as I run to the sideline to meet the chicos halfway. A storybook beginning, and so early at that.



10 minutes-I still feel alright.



12 minutes-I'm getting tired, already? Damnit.



20 minutes- The familiar feeling at the beggining of so many seasons sinks in "conditioning cannot replicate game conditions." I'm damn tired and these boots are killing my feet and feel unstable.



25 minutes-I arrive late to a ball, determined not to be passed I annhilate their left back's thigh. He's down for a little while. Warning from the referee.



30 minutes-I hustle back on defense, deflecting a pass. Unfortunately, the wayward pass finds an oncoming attacker. He cuts back onto his right foot. Our right back has him locked down pretty well but he puts a fantastic curled effort off the far post and in. Tie game. I wish I had a bit more energy, I might have put a little more pressure on him.





40 minutes-Goal UCU. 2-1 again. A bit sloppy but we'll take it.



45 minutes-halftime. I'm dead, I consider telling the coach not to start me the second half but I've got too much pride. Besides, the players seem happy with my performance.

halftime dead



As the second half starts I quickly realize the break didn't do a whole lot for my endurance. I'm still dead. About 10 minutes into the half there's a loose ball in our half. Their player has the edge in getting to it. I arrive late again but determined not to let this guy have a look at our goal. My metal studs slam against his Achilles, man down. The ref is coming towards me. Yellow card. Saw that one coming. My first badge of honor.



A couple minutes later, exhausted and with a yellow card, the sub is inevitable. I'm grateful.



The rest of the game continues without me, a closely fought battle as they hit the post with only a few minutes left. The pressure continues, we're counting down the minutes here. We blow a one on one with a minute left before holding on until the end. The whistle blows, the players cheer, the thrill of victory.



A very satisfying experience and start. I started well but I think I'm going to have to do a bit more extra running on my own before I can play at the level I want to. This week I will begin running to and from practice. I hope to find some new cleats as well.

Pictures

Uploading pictures sucks with this connection but because I love all of you I've put up a few from a week or two ago when we went to the beach.


surfer
some of us enjoying the sunset



our rather ridiculous hous

taken from the roof of our house

The Gym Situation

I was talking on the phone today (May have been yesterday, things get hazy when the phone goes off during a nap) and while I was talking to Dad about the gym I realized I hadn't said anything on here about the rusted out dungeon whose corroding walls are graced so often by my expletives. It's 2 in the morning here, but thanks to my ridiculous class schedule I'm in no rush to get to sleep. So, with the sweet sounds of Jimmy Page's guitar wailing through my headphones, I'm going to write a bit.

A few days after arriving in Uruguay I set off in search of a gym, as you may recall from my previous blogs. My findings were less than reassuring. There have to be a few good gyms in Montevideo, where do all the big guys train? Oh wait, there aren't any big guys. I spend about an hour a day walking the streets to and from class and might see someone bigger than me once or twice a week. I've been told the people in Peru and Paraguay and what not are noticeably smaller as they're indios-Indians. My house mother called me Gulliver a few days ago but I can't wait to wreak havoc on the tiny people in these other countries, Godzilla might be more like it.

Now my search for gyms has led me to four respectable institutions, including one that apparently was only for females ("I can't join? Seguro?"). Of the four one seemed decent, unfortunately it was staffed by one of the first bitchy females-or people in general-I've met here. Since I keeps it reeaall I muttered something obscene in English before continuing my search.

Eventually I ended up at Defensor Sporting Club. The familiar purple and white badge on the sign seemed so comforting (Fredy, Gustavo's dad, was the goalie for the legendary 1976 Defensor squad). I figured I might have some street cred here, and the prices weren't awful. On top of that it's got an outdoor soccer field and an indoor court for Futbol Cinco. SIGN ME UP.

What they didn't mention was that the soccer facilities seem to constantly be occupied by small children or a group of some real winners. To quote 'I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell' : [they seem] like the type of guy who would profess his love for a girl in spray paint across a highway overpass. I bet his busy schedule includes screaming into his pillow and crying himself to sleep because his life sucks." This place really attracts a lower breed of human.

The human mind has a great capacity to reason with itself, to believe what it wants. For example, my cursory inspection of the weight room. I'd imagine it went something like this. "Hey, they don't have a rack of dumbells. But..they do have a bunch of little handles that you get to fasten weights to, COOL!" Honestly, I have no idea why I thought this 100 square foot pit of rusted out weights and shaky benches would suffice. I was a bit too optimistic, hoping for a sort of old school Venice Beach vibe. What I got was more along the lines of weightlifting for the geriatric set.

Some pearls from my training log:

Incline Dumbell Press:
"35kx...Dumbell BROKE, loud noise, stares."
"Dips-note:Wobbly. Feels like an Earthquake"
"Gym closed Saturday and Sunday, sweet"
"Dips(week 2)-x8 reps,
x F*#& this, 0, leaving"


In other news. I have been dubbed Richard Phelps by two separate people in the past 72 hours, we'll see if it sticks. I figure I've got a few more weeks before I become so catabolic they change the nickname to Richard Simmons. I'm playing one of the most catabolic sports known to man. Not soccer, cross-country running. In theory I AM on a soccer team, but it seems more like a "running team with a soccer problem." Four training sessions in and I've touched a ball for about thirty minutes, and I'm looking forward to taking an endurance test tomorrow. Last Wednesday I passed up Azabache-apparently a really cool disco-to be a good little athlete. I'm checking it out after training tomorrow I think so we'll see how that goes.

A Quick Update

Just a quick update to keep your appetites sated.

I started Community Service last week, which went well. I was greeted by gasps of awe upon entering the room. Seconds later one of the kids would stand up and point saying, "he's gigantic!" That was pretty cool. A little while later one of the kids decided to get out of his chair, run over and hug my leg. Prompted by the enthusiasm I picked the kid up for a second, for some reason every small child loves being lifted overhead. Of course I spent the next fifteen minutes picking up the rest of the little kids.

I'm big over here, but not giant, but I must be to a small child. Most of the time that was supposed to be spent in small groups doing something structured I just played with the kids. Two in particular were quite animated. Franco, the one who initially stood up and yelled, and Agustin. Highlights: Franco giving me a drawing of the two of us, complete with my horns and all, and for some reason Agustin smelling my leg "Huele muy bien!"

They're about what you would expect from a group of 5 year olds, fun but a lot of work.

I trained a few more times with the soccer team, 3 total now, although only twice with a ball. I'm looking forward to getting into the squad, and I'm officially part of the team now. The game this weekend was a lot of fun and we won 6-2. Picture of me in the uniform(note the size) attached. Pictures from the beach still coming in the future.

As for today, Sunday, I went and got a helado before meeting some friends on the beach. We played a bit of volleyball and hung out for the sunset and what not. I stopped by a Chivito(sandwich with steak, ham, bacon, egg, lettuce, pepper, tomato) place that always smells really good on the way home. It was a religious experience. I think I will try and take the camera next time I go.

Weekend at the Beach

As some of you may know, this past weekend was a long one in Uruguay. Somehow this country missed the memo that Independence Day is every Fourth of July and decided that it should be the 24th of August-weird I know (Thanks Thomas). Now, industrious little exchange students that we are, we capitalized on this book keeping bungle.

The initial plan was Iguazu. If you don´t know what Iguazu Falls is, you probablly should...google it. That said, there were a few complications-primarily that George Dubya Bush and Lula(The President of Brazil, where apparently every name sounds like a soccer player) don´t get along too well. Because of this, American´s have the pleasure of paying about 200 dollars more than anyone else before entering the exotic homeland of Samba, Futebol, and legions of transvestites.

A lot of us didn´t want to pay, as we have a whole continent at our fingertips, Brazil can wait. Now, the ironic(ironical?) twist is that I may end up having to(getting to) go to Brazil to play soccer in October. That will, however, certainly be ´vale la pena´ or worth the hassle in my book. More info on this later.

I´m not entirely sure which of the mad Spanish genius´ came up with the plan, but it was decided that a trip would be made to Rocha. A beach. Now remember, it´s winter here. So we rented a beach house(for about 5 dollars per person per day) and set off.

When we got to Rocha my expectations were immediately exceeded. The beach was awesome and the water was beautiful with some really impressive waves. The house was huge. Think Tuscan villa.

So basically we passed the next few days walking up and down the beaches, climbing up a lighthouse, finding dead penguins on the beach, watching a few guys surfing and a baby walrus(apparently, it looked like a seal to me, but I´m told such things don´t live here, only Walrus´/Walri[if that's not the plural form it should be]) swimming. We played a bit of soccer on the beach, sampled the local nightlife-which was ´about as cool as taking a shower with your dad´, and played a good bit of card games and what not. Oh, and I did the whole Polar Bear thing or whatever and jumped in the water with another American. I may never do that again. All in all, a weekend well spent, and not a lot of money spent.

This really requires pictures, I´ll see what I can do when I get home.

Soccer and the Weekend Plans

So I am now, unofficially, part of the soccer team. Hopefully the paperwork will get done by early next week. What that means is, I've had a chance to break in my new cleats a bit and my feet feel like hell. It also means that I've just been connected to a bunch of young Uruguayans, which is a good thing for sure.

My first impressions of the club came when I went to training last Monday. It just turned out to be running, as they were coming back from a tournament, but everyone seemed to be very nice. The big lankster jumping around hugging people and singing turned out to be the goalkeeper, which didn't surprise me a bit. Always the craziest right?

Wednesday I went to our first game. It was an over-20s game actually, I am eligible to play with the under 20s so I will probablly be doing that with a chance to come on as a sub with the overs if I do well I suspect. The game was really exciting, though the result didn't go our way.

Five minutes in the other team scored a fairly disgusting volley from about 25. Not more than two minutes later our left winger equalized with a snap shot on a bouncing ball to the far post. Early in the second half we take the lead with a golazo of a header from a cross. 2-1 Universidad Catolica. Things were going well until about the 60th minute. My attention faded for a minute, but somehow we let in two goals in 5 minutes, at least one from a defensive error. The rest of the match consisted of us getting fouled or pressuring their goal but to no avail. The boys were heartbroken.

The players here are more passionate, firey latin types and die-hard soccer fans(I'm not sure the two are that far removed). They are also more skilled. The pace of the game is fast, with a lot of pressure, which occasionally leads to some ugly clearances, but overall the quality is quite high, I would like to think this team would beat most D1 teams in the United States.

I got to practice with the squad yesterday, actually about 5 hours ago. Things went pretty well all things considered. The new shoes are being broken in and the field and speed of play took some adjusting. That said, I had a few good plays and not really and bad plays, I was a little slow getting a few passes off but they weren't off the mark and I didn't lose possession much. My defending was a bit weak but oh well. I heard bien Reechaard and a Reechard, a Richard quite a few times so that can't be too bad a sign. I'm looking forward to settling in a bit and hopefully playing on some decent fields. We train 8 am on Wednesday mornings I think on the field where the national champions practice apparently so that should be quite nice.


As I eluded earlier, it's quite early here. I got in fro training last night at 1, got cleaned up and packed up by about 2:30 and it is not 6 a.m. We're going to La Rocha until Sunday then Sunday night is I guess the biggest party night in the year here. Monday is their Independence Day. That's really all for now, chau.

RJ

RJ Luh'daKids

It's been a little while since I've wrote in here, and I have a couple of things I would like to talk about so expect blogs on my sorry excuse for a gym and my first experiences with my soccer team in the near future.
Yesterday marked the beginning of my Community Service endeavors. It's time for RMal to give back to the community. This saga began a few days ago. I had signed up for the community service 'class'-it's a class because(theoretically) we get credit for it, I doubt I will ever see any of those hours on my U.S. University transcript- because it will hopefully provide some sort of learning and talking experience and give me that warm fuzzy feeling we all love so much.
It started with a phone call. First off, I hate phone calls because it's much harder when you can't see theperson's mouth or take some other verbal cues when their speaking in a foreign language. What I get from this phone call is that we have a meeting the following day at noon. This however, would be much to simple, so to make the whole thing a bit more fun they decide to send me an email saying we have a meeting at 11. That's Uruguay for you.
Punctual as always, I decide to show up at 11 which turned out to be a wise choice. We go into a quick debriefing. My project will basically entail playing with young kids at a small school on the outskirts or suburbs of town.Suburbs mean quite a different thing in South America. If you have seen Ciudad de Deus you know what I'm talking about. Much like the favelas of Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro, the outskirts of these South American cities seem to bethe poorest parts. No Starbucks in Kilometro 16(where I will be going).
These Uruguayans are clever, they waited until after we were locked into the project to tell us that we willhave to travel an hour by bus to get to our location. The bus ride itself is entertaining, the first time, I expect the appeal to fade quickly. Entertainment is provided by the local derelicts, who get on the bus every second or third stop. One was selling pencils. Don't scoff just yet, these pencils were apparently importedfrom Italy and could BEND. I'm still a bit perplexed as to why I need a pencil that I can form into whateverfun shape I may desire, but whatever. The next two were selling little hard candies, they had much worse salespitches, but looked a bit less like Daniel Day Lewis from There Will Be Blood and had some sort of vaguely usefulproduct and thus actually sold a little. The last guy was my favorite. He actually came on with a guitarand performed a few songs. His skill wasn't noteworthy, but the guy was trying. He actually made a little bitof money and retained a bit of his pride by not staking his fortune on moldable pencils.
As all of this was going on you could notice the scenery slowly changing. The buildings becoming a bit smaller, the paint looking a bit older-think the transition when you start getting into the West Pass Road area. The transition continued though. Eventually, I could tell we were getting close. One of the biggest things I noticed was the litter. Everywhere. The litter and debris were similar to something you would have seen after Huricane Katrina. A little less debris but more litter. The houses themselves, looked like some sort of makeshift shelter. Many of the roofs are pieces of rusted over tin, and the fences as well. There were a lot of horses too. The poor people here, or the garbage people, I'm still unsure about this but I'm not sure thereis a huge difference between the two, use horse drawn chariot/carriages. As a result, I saw more than a fewhorses tethered up by the side of the road out here, which is one of the things I still haven't become accustomed to. So eventually we get to the school and we talk a bit. The lady says something about the kids are goingto love me(the only guy in the group) because many don't have father figures or something. We really don't haveany expectations except to play with the kids and show up consistently. Then we go to see the kids. There are a lot of them. 32 I think. And they are all 4 or 5 years old. They were loud. But they were cute little kids.

• A google search gave me this bit of help:
  What should you expect of children from 4 to 5 years old? Children this age...
  
• Are active and have lots of energy.
• May be aggressive in their play.
• Can show extremes from being loud and adventurous to acting shy and dependent.
• Enjoy more group activities because they have longer attention spans. Like making faces and being silly.
• May form cliques with friends and can be bossy.
• May change friendships quickly.
• May brag and engage in name-calling during play.
• May experiment with swear words and bathroom words.
• Can be very imaginative and like to exaggerate.
• Have better control in running, jumping, and hopping but tend to be clumsy.
• Are great talkers and questioners.
• Love to use words in rhymes, nonsense, and jokes.

I am looking forward to this. I find it a bit entertaining that they speak better Spanish than me. I spellbetter at any rate though, haha. That's all for now.RJ

EDIT:I hate my computer

Another outing into Ciudad Vieja

We went to the Mercado del Puerto this weekend. All in all in what a really cool place, the first kind of "touristy" thing I've done down here (with theexception of taking obnoxious ammounts of photos of mundane things) and probablly one of the most fun outings yet. A pretty good crew of us went downthere, seven people I guess-2 germans, 1 dane, 3 Mexicans, y yo.

The mercado(market) is an interesting little place somewhere between the port and the center of the ciudad vieja(old city). Ciudad Vieja reminds me a lot of the French Quarter, kind of pretty to look at in a dirty way, and kind of unsavory. As one of the Germans put it, "You don't really want to be aroundthe port at night, it's where all the trash settles". The building itself is quite interesting, I have no idea what purpose it served in a past life, itkind of looks like a bombed out train station. A lot of interesting architecture and semi-open aired. This whole place is filled with really big grills. You can grab a bite to eat at the counter around one of the independent little grills, or you can go into one of many restaurants and put food from their grill in your mouth.

We ended up in one of the restaurants, led upstairs to a table by the window. We had a nice view of an old plaza outside and all the gypsy sort of peopleselling their stolen or knock-off goods there. The prices were a bit more expensive than some other places, as it's a tourist trap, but the food is among the best in the city and relatively cheap compared to something of equal quality in the U.S. I had a very good steak, although I should have spent a few more pesos for the 'lomo'(llama?) cut, a caprese salad, and potatoes roquefort for about $25 U.S. This included the tip and the medio y medio theybrought us. Medio y medio is a Uruguayan concotion that was originally only available at the Mercado del Puerto. It's a half and half mixture of dry white wine and champagne. When they brought us out little flutes with the bread I figured it was a complementary sort of thing but I'm pretty sure itpopped up on the check.

The meal was concluded with a long walk down the Rambla/beach/coast and a rousing game of team WAR(RISK) in which my NAFTA Mexican American alliance hadvictory snatched from our hands by the cunning German duo. I don't think I'm even going to touch making a joke there.

That's about it really, it was really fun though and I'm going to watch some tango or something tonight so that should be pretty cool.

Ciao

Naw

I showed up a little early last night to play soccer with that group I played with last week. Some volleyball team had the court before us. Those guys were good. Real good.

The Boliche

Hmmm. It's been a couple of days since I have written anything on here so let's see what we can do.

Friday was our last day of orientation. We took a nice little bus tour of the city, you can see some of the pictures below, and we also took a Spanish placement test. In addition to the tour and tests we got a little sheet of paper telling us that there would be an orientation party in Ciudad Vieja(the remnants of Spain's colonial fortress/city before Montevideo exploded into the medium sized city it is now.) To be honest, everyone was a bit skeptical about the party. I for one, was expecting one of those "meet and greet" things where a bunch of old people would tell us how happy they were that we were in their city eroding their cultural values with our american rock music and clothes. Whatever, we all decided to go, if it turned out to be lame we were in Ciudad Vieja and it wouldn't be hard to find something new.

I was in for two surprised. 1)Hotel Ciudad Vieja was not what I was expecting. When a school rents something out named Hotel Ciudad Vieja I'm thinking it's an old establishment-you gotta get a name like that early on right? I can't actually vouch for the age of the place, but it was much smaller and shoddier than I expected. The food they offered was prepared in a kitchenette, claro?

2)The party was a lot more fun than I expected. There was no faculty present, which was good, just the same students I had been hanging out with the past couple days and a few people staying at the hotel more or less. There were a couple other foreigners who weirded me out a little and I didn't inquire too much about who they were, but I suspect they were exchange students from a previous semester still here.

So we hung out for a while at the hotel. There were three English lads there, 2 from Newcastle and one from...somewhere else, the 3rd guy kind of sucked. The other two were quite funny though and we had some good laughs. They were surprised by my knowledge of 'The Toon", the soccer team from Newcastle upon the Tyne, so that gave me a bit of street cred I think. Our grading system is pretty strange here, it's only used in Uruguay(The rest of the world will catch up soon I'm sure). Basically though, the passing grades have numbers attached to them but we were told not to worry about that, you will either get a 'Bueno','Bueno Muy Bueno','Muy Bueno' or 'Supersaliente'. Now, needless to say I have begun placing everything I can into this scale-think Thomas' "tier-ing phase". That Chivito I just ate? It was good, not great...Bueno Muy Bueno. You get the picture. The Uruguayans don't really get the comedy here, but the English blokes really picked up on it quickly, so there was a lot of Bueno-muy-bueno'ing going on.

The Mexican girls gave me a little crash course on salsa dancing which took me back to my days(can you call one night "days"?) salsa dancing at El Rancho. I'm thinking I need to continue working on this because I have the feeling dancing is much more important in this culture than back home. One of the Austrian girls also introduced me to 'The Waltz' which I don't think will be so useful in Uruguay but whatever.

At some point in the night a classical guitar showed up. I haven't played the one at the house yet because something is wrong with it, so I eagerly embraced this opportunity. This brazilian guy, who was a bit of a creepster but a nice guy, was hammering out some Nirvana tunes. Now, when I say 'hammering out' a mean 'struggling through'. I ask him if I can see the guitar, partly to put an end to his performing and because I'm a bit curious about the classical guitar. I strummed on the thing for a little bit before my new Brazilian friend asks me to sing. Since I speak English I guess I am automatically qualified to perform any American song. As he keeps requesting "Ehh, Pearla Jam, Pearla Jam" I run through Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town. They loved it! I guess it is that easy. As long as you speak English you're set. I then pull out Rocky Raccoon and Coldplay's Dont Panic for the small crowd that has gathered, Don't Panic happens to be one of the English guy's favorite songs so that works out well.

I'm not sure if it was the Patricia(cerveza) the brazilian guy was pounding or the fact that he didn't speak English but they genuinely enjoyed my playing which was pretty cool. My 'set list' is quite short though as I only know a handful of songs all the way through so this didn't last too long. Some German girl I had never met was apparently a singer but couldn't play the guitar. She requested a couple of songs, but I didn't know any of them.
A snippet of the conversation is below:
German: "Aghh, you don't know that? Well, where are you from in the United States"
Me:Mississippi
G:"Oh Mississippi, well how about Uncle Cracker-Follow Me?
Me:Absolutely not
G:"Oh, you should know that, you are from Mississippi"

uhhhhh...

At this point it's about 4 a.m. and the little party is dying down so we decide to go to the Disco. Actually, that needs to be rephrased, the people I am sharing a taxi with decide to go to the Disco. I'm ready to go to mi cama. So we roll up to the Disco, which had a cover fee which sucks. Guys have to pay twice as much as girls, which really sucks. Luckily Uruguay's economy kind of sucks so it wasn't very steep.

Uruguayans use the words boliche or disco, but apparently this is Spanish for fire hazard. The place is quite dark with a few strobe lights going off, packed wall to wall with small, sweaty Uruguayans. It is, needless to say, quite different from anywhere in Oxford. We quickly head upstairs to the sort of wraparound balcony where we bump into the English blokes. We exchange Bueno Muy Bueno's briefly. The experience as a whole was fairly entertaining, except for the intermittent fog machine bursts. Apparently disorienting fog in a hot, crowded place is someone's idea of fun? We return home some time around 6 am, incredulous after our taxi driver tells us they don't really have 24 hour restaurants in Uruguay. Really Uruguay? Your clubs stay open until 8 in the morning but you can't find a bite to eat? Someone is dropping the ball here. I will be writing an email to the Waffle House corporate office shortly.

Got to run now, I'll have a short post up about my first days of classes up soon. The search for a gym and the quest to get on a soccer team continue, but I feel I am making some progress.

Hasta Luego

Some Photos

I should have another blog up in the next 48 hours or so on my weekend, and first day of class is tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled for that. For now though, I thought I would just upload a few of my favorite pictures that I have taken thus far.

View from high up on a hill far from the center of the city, I live a little to the right of where this is, across the water though and about 1/2 mile down the coast probablly. (you can see some little kids playing soccer in the middle ground)

A guard at the General Artigas statue

General Artigas. Uruguyuan George Washington I guess.

This was some little statue in a park on the beach. From the city tour we took.
Another picture on the walk home
Where I sleep at night

Panorama of the city from the same location as the picture earlier

My First Experience with Uruguayan Soccer

Before I get into the soccer thing I'm going to give a little run down on my first experience with Uruguayan Nightlife. At least half of the exchange students(There are maybe...35 of us) went out to a bar in my neighborhood called "La Primata" last night. I'm fairly sure this means "The Primate", which is cool-the Silverback Gorilla being one of my favorite animals(right SouthernStunna?). La Primata is fairly small, and without a roof in some places, I believe this is design feature as there were trees growing out of these holes. If not, big ups to the trees for being heads up. Everything was fun, fairly unremarkable. There were, however, two Uruguayans that were pretty funny. The two of them were a year or two younger than me and had incredible mullets. I'd put the mullets somewhere in this range, but more of the South American variety:

So these two young Uruguyans are getting very animated. Each is trying to sway me into pledging my allegiance to their soccer teams. Like most Uruguayans, these cabelleros fell into two camps. Nacional y Penarol. The two biggest soccer teams in Uruguay. Mullet one is in my left ear telling me that his club is "The King of the Cups", and the other mullet really didn't have an argument but that didn't phase him in the least.

Out of the blue another Uruguayan, no mullet here-more along the lines of Cory from Boy Meets World-butts into the conversation. "Soccer is not about violence! Penarol and Nacional, they don't get it. This is a game of peace, it brings people together. Look. " At this point he pulls up his sweater to reveal a Bob Marley T-Shirt. He then starts saying that he is a fan of Defensor, a more peaceful team. This is where I make my mistake. Fredy, Gustavo's father and my soccer coach, played soccer at Defensor. I mention this, claiming that I like Defensor-mostly just to get a rise from the two young mullets-"Cory" goes crazy. He starts off saying that he was a goalie like Fredy but wasn't tall enough, and ends up putting his forehead against mine and telling me he knows he will see me playing for Defensor in the future. How he got to that conclusion..your guess is as good as mine.

Now, back to the subject of this blog. I was sitting in my casa a few hours ago and what I really wanted to do was play guitar. Apparently the guitar is missing some strings or something, so I decide to go for a walk. The 500 blocks I walk to school every day just aren't catabolic for me today.

I'm walking, and it's dark so I act like I know where I'm going. Pocitos is safe, but I figure it's best not to look too much like a tourist when you're walking alone in the city at night. So I'm walking, still quite close to my house, and I hear a ball bouncing and I see a crack of light through these doors a bit off the road. It's a highschool(I think, I later tried to clarify this with mixed results. It may have highschool and college classes) Unfortunately, there is a metal fence between what seems to be soccer and my current location. I look around, not sure how to get in...not seeing much except some old guy, looks a bit like Oscar the Grouch

I go over to him, "Yo Oscar, they playing soccer in there?"
"Sha Sha Sha. Sha Sha Sha. Sha." Thankfully, Oscar gesticulates while mumbling. I figure that I can go around the corner and find my way in. I eagerly press the door open lightly...VOLLEYBALL! Volleyball!?! practice? really guys? No wonder the door was closed, I wouldn't want anyone seeing me either. I feel like men practicing volleyball inside is on roughly the same level as someone taking steroids to enhance their badmitton performance. Volleyball is undoubtedly a sport best enjoyed in the summer...in the company of the opposite sex? Even better. These guys were practicing tactics and shit, in the winter, in the gym. Bad.

I walk back to my boy Oscar. He mumbles some more, no gesticulating this time so I'm out of luck. I walk a little more, as far as I dare before I might get too lost, and head back. Walking back I pass Oscar again. He calls me out! Oscar really is a nice guy, he actually gesticulates this time too. I'm supposed to go inside, talk to another guy. Let's call him Jabba. Jabba is also very helpful, and mumbles slightly less than Oscar. Jabba is kind enough to tell me that there is indeed soccer going on, I can't play as it is a private team, but I can watch.
"What is the team Jabba?"
"ORT Universitario"
ORT(Universidad de La Republica-I guess someone just likes the letter T) is the public school in Uruguay. I'm not sure how many students go to ORT, but it's a lot, a whole lot. It is the national school that students can go to for free somehow and I pass their architecture building on the way home. It's probablly twice the size of my school-which I am told has 5,000 students. These Universitario teams are the equivalent of college soccer I guess, I'm not too sure of the regulations because some of the teams are parts of professional organizations(Nacional Universitario for example) and some of the players are in the mid-late twenties. So I go to watch, they are just getting started and haven't actually begun playing yet. They look friendly enough, and I really want to play, so I approach the guy who looks like the coach.

Just to clarify for a moment, this is futbol de sala, not regular soccer. Think soccer on a basketball court with a small ball that's much heavier than a normal ball, it doesn't really bounce. It's a bit strange to hit, you can't put the same sorts of movement on the ball as you can't wrap your foot around it the same way. A lot of players seemed to almost shoot with their toes a lot of the time.

After a bit of talking, I understand this guy, I ask if I can play. This isn't a formal training session so he says sure. I held my own. There were two badasses, I would say another 2 were probablly a bit better than me(at futbol de sala atleast) but I definately held my own in the field of 8-10 players. I figure this is a good sign. There are tons of trophies and photos of the equipo universitario(our team in this league) in my school, but we can't be much better than these guys given the size of their school I am thinking. The coach and I talked for a bit, which went smoothly, although he either had a bad memory or I wasn't speaking as clearly as I hoped because he asked me the same questions a couple times. He joked that I should drop out of Catolica and go to ORT so I could play with them though so I take that as a good sign.

I didn't have many highlights, it took a little while to get used to the feel of the ball for sure, but I had huevos(literally:eggs, I'll let you guess at the meaning) and definately won a lot of balls. I did have one nice goal from about half field(again, think basketball court, not soccer field) and scored four all together, a respectable tally. Oh, and I almost had a nasty little chip off the volley, they went nuts when it missed by an inch or two.

That's about it though. I left a little early because my toes were killing me. I think I am going to need to buy some indoor shoes because these cross trainers aren't working. Pulling off my shoe when I got home, my hopes were confirmed. I've got a black toe nail again, or I will in a few days. They invited me to come play in this game, they usually play Tuesdays at 10:15 so I think I am going to try and start doing that. I need to send an email to some of the Catolica people too and get into the actual team at my school.

First day of classes is Monday, we do a bus tour of the city and a placement test for Spanish tomorrow.
Ciao

Orientation

Ok, I've got a bit of time around the house at the moment so I'm going to try and write a little bit about my first day of school.

Classes don't start until the 4th but today was the first of a three day orientation. As we arrive at the school this morning I was quickly introduced to a few other exchange students. I think three of them were Austrian and an American girl, one of the Austrian girls may have been German though. Austria, Germany-what's the difference anyway?

So upon being ushered into the classroom I slide(literally) into a seat that was not built for my American body. For visual reference:


we are introduced to a few members of the staff. They proceeded to speak rapidly in a foreign language, I missed most of that part. After the staff came Nacho, a Uruguayan student, and perhaps a part time comedian. Nacho gave us a short speech and began leading us through all sorts of introduction excercises/games. Thankfully none of these were especially awkward or embarrassing, as they tend to be in America.

I should also note, that the only two games that were winnable, I won. Setting the standard for US olympic athletes, I brought home the gold for Uncle Sam. The first of these games was a team game fairly similar to Simon Says, without requiring knowledge of the body parts, thankfully. The other, seemed to be a test of reflexes. In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure what it had to do with getting to know your classmates at all. That said, I had to run to the middle of the (small) room and grab something from Nacho's hand and return to my seat. For maximum dominance you had to avoid being tagged on the way back to your seat. In true American fashion, I used my athletic superiority to obtain the prize and then deftly dodged a Mexican girl on the way back to my seat. I was, might I add, the only one who accomplished this feat.



I came to an interesting revelation during these introductions as well. Foreign people still have the same accents in Spanish, and French guys still sound stupid. I honestly thought the French guy(who has been here a semester already) was speaking "Ubby-Dubby"-you know what I'm talking about.

After classes I was supposed to call the house mother for a ride home. Because of some sort of phone complications, this didn't work out. So, I set out on foot. There was one caveat to this plan. Having been here for under 24 hours at this point, I don't know exactly where we live. So...I walk with another exchange student, a Spanish girl named...Lauria, Lewria, I still don't really have clue, who is living with the sister of my house mother. Using my inherent problem-solving skills, I try talking to Lucas, a member of this woman's family. Now I imagine Lucas, if he lived in New York, would have an accent that put Pauli from the Sopranos to shame. Talking to Lucas sounded something like this: "sha-do sha-deh shashasha shan". What I did gather, was some semblance of a way home.

Now it's a bad sign when you ask someone for directions to el Ombu, a landmark near my house, after losing my way, and they say "you're walking?!" This happened several times, as I zig zagged my way around looking for Boulevard Espana for a while, "It's almost 20 blocks!" They warned me. Thankfully, I have graduated from the Tim Malenfant School of City Travel which includes hiking from Central Park to Ground Zero, going back up to Times Square then swimming to the Statue of Liberty, etc.

I gladly hoofed it, and saw a decent bit of Pocitos(my neighborhood) in the process. Montevideo seems like a pretty cool city. You see a fair ammount of horses on the road, I probablly saw 4 today. I was told they were the poor people, but I think they are also the garbage people, or maybe they just take the garbage to find food..again, language barrier. The architecture is interesting, I saw a bank today with a pool, I'm thinking that getting a membership there would be a clutch move. None of the buildings seem to fit together in any sort of style really though and grafitti is rampant.

Shortly after finishing my trek Laura, Lorna(the English girl whose computer I am using at the moment :) )and Jose, her boyfriend from Peru, got home. Apparently they had gone to look for me, aware that something had gone wrong in the rendezvous process. They were surprised I made it home and impressed with my directional skills because "Lucas gave you terrible directions." Oh well, I kind of winged it anyway haha. I've included a few pictures from my little walk below(Edit:I'm apparently adding one picture because that is all that will work.):

I'm going to be running here shortly so I'm going to wrap this up. We are supposed to be going to some bar tonight with a bunch of the other intercambio students, whether this happens or not I can't say because without a phone life is difficult. And Mom-I actually have a phone down here already, I haven't sorted out if it works yet or anything though.

Mi Viaje

First things first, I'm here. I am safe and sound in Uruguay, so you guys can breathe easy for the time being. I will recount the tales of my voyage below. I have not explored the city outside of my drive home, so I am going to hold off on details on that front for the time being. My family is really cool though. So far I have met Eduardo-the dad, who is walking around the house in a Jaques Clousteau beanie at the moment. That alone wins a few badass points.

Eduardo is apparently a former lawyer, minister in the government and quite well educated. He is also a big joker. He refers to Mississippi as 'The Jungle' and has a thing for Paris and French. This has quickly established my name in the house as "Mal Enfant." As a result I have also been thebsubject of interogation in no only Spanish, but French. I may end up coming home tri-lingual. Laura is the mother and is very nice and helpful. THe youngest son, Pedro(25) has been around but I haven't really met him yet. Oh, and we have a dog. A black lab named Marito that is "casi humano"-almost human. That's it for the family thus far, an English girl from last semester is here for another week or two and here Peruvian boyfriend, but on to the flights:

As an avid reader of 'Going Down South:Mal in Argentina" I've got my fingers crossed while boarding my first flight. This mantra is going cycling through my head, something along the lines of "Please not 'bitch'seat', Please not bitch seat." My concerns however, are apparently unfounded. Suffice it to say, American Airlines may be struggling. Seriously-don't invest. There are 20 people on the flight, I have an entire row to myself. When I say an entire row here I'm not talking three seats either. The whole row, six seats to sprawl out across if I so pleased. This was a good thing, like Vince Vaughan in MADE-"I'm a tall drink of water, I need to stretch my shit out."

This first flight went quite smooth until the very end. I should have recognized the foreshadowing when I glimpsed the familiar pulse of heat lightning outside the window. Now I'm not entirely sure what heat lightning is per se, but in my book nothing with the word 'lightning' in it bodes well for a flying metal coffin, I mean airplane. So I should not have been surprised when several minuted later we start hitting some turbulence. No, not 'turbulence'-TURBULENCE.
The pilot, apparently experiencing a moment of reverence for the japanese Kamikaze pilot, decided to rush headlong into some of the stoutest clouds I've ever seen. This was thick stuff. To give you a reference point, its consistency was somewhere between quicksand and a brick wall. I lost sight of the wing's tips from my vantage point, my only solace was that I could see the wings still attached to the fuselage. For how long things would remain that way I wasn't sure given the fact the wings were shaking as if a '400 pound black woman' was jumping on them.

After touching down my first thought is that the lightning storm somehow transported us back in time, The Boeing had somehow gained Delorian-like powers! I was, obviously, incorrect. I'm just going to say that I don't think Miami airport has renovated since the Miami Vice days and leave it at that.

Aside from the awful decor(trust me, I really tried to find a more masculine way to say that-wasn't happening) something else wasn't quite right in the airport. I had that "I'm not in Kansas anymore" feeling. I expected that...in South America. I should have realized, Miami's International Terminal is not far removed. Needless to say, mullets were abound (generally of the 'soccer rocker' variety vs. the U.S. 'Kentucky Waterfall'. The gates' destinations read something like this: La Paz(glad I'm not going there), Buenos Aires, Montevideo(Why the hell am I not going there?),Santiago(for some reason I AM going there) and oddly... London Heathrow.

There were a few confused looking, pasty Brits holding it down for the English language with me. I wanted to slap the worried look off their faces though, "See-this is how we felt after getting off the Mayflower and rubbing elbows with Pocahantos and crew. Paybacks a bitch."

My seat number on the flight to Chile was forboding. 44E. 44!?!! What is this, a superboeing, there's got to be like 60 rows in this beast, right? right? WRONG. If there was something after business and coach class, let's call it Dungeon class, it would be comprised solely of seat 44E. The very last row (10 feet behind the nearest window), right under the bell summoning the flight attendants, in the middle(read:bitch) seat. My only solace was that I was flanked by two matronly type Chilean women who were very friendly...and very quick to espouse the merits of Chilean 'vino tinto' over its Argentinean brethren.

I can say nothing bad about Chile. I was very impressed with Santiago airport from the time we set foot in it and the sweet sounds of Samba(I was a bit confused by that as well) graced my ears. The whole airport had an oh-so-familiar smell that was quite pleasant but difficult to place. It brought me back to my days in Italy, I'm fairly certain it was the combined odors of unconstitutional quantities of espresso and cigarette smoke.

The flight to Uruguay was short and quite pleasant. As I just got back from my orientation I discovered the girl next to me on the plane is another one of the foreign students. More on Orientation and the school and what not later, still haven't figured out this wireless network-no one knows the password.

Ciao

T-Minus 7

7 days. One week. 168 hours until I leave apple pie, jazz music, and baseball(thank god) far behind me and set foot on South American soil for the first time.

Miguel is in Argentina already so hopefully the continent can handle two Malenfants. My preparations begin today, packing and what not. In an effort to ease into this process I have been in correspondence with my future house mother, Laura Zabala Carzolio. I received a very profound message yesterday. After discussing the logistics of bringing my guitar down to South America and trying to decide if it was worth packing Laura writes back, ...""Guitarra, si es española, tenemos en casa."

Now if you didn't take 8th grade Spanish, this is essentially saying, if it's a classical guitar we have one here.

My first response was, "No it's not a classical guitar. Erejota does not play classical guitar. I also do not sit in Barnes and Noble and write poetry. I'm American, we ROCK baby." However, fearful that something would be lost in this translation, I settled for expressing my gratitude. I am honestly intrigued by this revelation though. Classical guitar is pretty badass and it may offer an avenue to parlay my mediocre musical ability into another asset.

I expect to be something of an anomale over there, somehow I don't think a classical guitar playing soccer badass with a mullet fits in too well with the American stereotype, so that should be fun. That said, I will do my best to be loud and offensive. This one's for you Toby.

Back on track here...so hopefully I will be like this guy in a year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_UwyfsJSQg
actually, he looks pretty damn creepy. Let's go with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU68qT4T1bE

That's all for now, next time you hear from me I will be in South America.

Prelude: Expectations and the Nature of Blogging

They say the hardest part about rollerblading is telling your parents that you're gay. I've always felt the same way about blogging. It's fun in its own little way-much like I imagine rollerblading would be if for some reason I got that urge-but tends to leave me feeling a little shamed, and quite frankly, a little emasculated.

Not anymore. I've come around on this blog thing. Now don't get me wrong-if you avidly update your comic book blog or whatever other stupid shit some people write about on here, I probablly don't want to talk to you(edit-exhibit a:http://thyhum383.blogspot.com/)- but right now this just feels so right. I can see the furrowed eyebrows and worried looks already, it's cool guys. Really though, I figure this would be the best way to address my many fans, admirers, friends, family, whatever, and let you get your R.J. fix when you will inevitably miss my humor and company and what not.

I intend to write on this thing as often as I can, keeping you sorry saps updated on my exotic new life in strange and faraway lands. I would expect 'blogs' on all sorts of things from food to soccer, etc. I will also probably ridicule people I meet, post some cool pictures, and who knows...maybe even expand your minds a little bit.

So sit back, subscribe if you're into that sort of thing, and get ready because this is going to be epic.

And on a side note, check out Miguelinho's blog if you haven't for a little taste of action across the river.