Only in Uruguay

Things are going really well here. I'm working on my tan, orientation was good, etc. I was sitting at the school talking to some of the new students the other days and sports came up. They asked me some questions about what one must do to acquire a physical, and I shared the following story with them. I don't think I ever shared this story on the blog last semester when it happened, so I figured I would put it up now so you all can have a laugh at my expense:

It starts innocently enough, I need to acquire a physical before I play soccer down here. Physicals are not generally my favorite thing (cough....cough again...turn your head..cough), but that's life. I'm sitting at the kitchen table as my house mother talks on the phone, getting the details as my Spanish is still a bit shaky. She sits down at the table and lays out everything I need to bring. I.D., urine sample, money....wait, rewind that...urine sample?!?

I'm thinking that she misheard something, but when she pulls out a little mason jar for me a few hours before my phyiscal the next day I realize this is the real deal. This must be the Major League Baseball drug testing system. I've always been fond of the honor system, but not when it requires me to transport my own urine in a backpack.

I do my business, bottle it up as tightly as I can, and walk on egg shells to the stadium where my physical is. I might as well have been carrying a block of highly reactive plutonium in my back pack.

After making the 15 minute walk in 30 I go into the place. I'm carefully laying down my backpack in every room I have to go through. I get into the last room and by now I'm thinking my house mother must have messed up. Then the woman asks for my "sample." Now take a minute to put yourself in my shoes. This becomes a sticky situation, I don't want to pull out my trump card just yet, sample could mean any number of things. "Sample?"
"Yes, your urine sample"
I eye my back pack nervously, did I hear that right....
"urine sample, pee, piss..."
ahhh, 'pichi'-I recognize that word, thanks Gustavo. So I pull the thing out, hand it to her, and much to my dismay she places it in a box. How I had missed the box I don't know, but there it is right on the shelf. A big cardboard box full of urine samples, all in their own distinct, home-brought, containers. Bizarre, but oddly relieving.

So that's my story for now, I was hoping to be able to write about a big, free music festival a few hours away in one of the vacation cities but it didn't work out with registrations for classes still, bad weather today, and whatever.

Classes start Monday, I've got an idea of what I want to take but haven't signed up for anything yet...