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