alecsander trip diary vol 2

today was reasonably uneventful. it's about 11pm as i write this, and the companeros are out shopping for something or another, and i decided to stay at the apartment in punta del este where we're staying for the next couple days. some thoughts:

.) i've seen a lot of really beautiful women holding hands with relatively dumpy men. this sounds like my entire life history, so maybe something about being uruguayan makes people who should know better decide to slum it a bit. who knows.

..) everyone here is still nice looking, though some of them are argentinian; you can kind of tell who they are. they look like jerks and drive like jerks. dec. 26 is the first day each year when uruguay, and especially punta del este, gets invaded by foreign tourists, so despite the fact that it's cloudy and raining on and off, tons of people are out.

...) mi hermana and i are traveling with people whose ages range from 50 to 70, which makes things a bit weird-- we don't know exactly what to do with our time. i certainly have no plan whatsoever to go out dancing, as seems to be the only option as far as nightlife here, and since it was gross out today we couldn't just go to the beach, so i feel like i'm going to rapidly run out of ideas as to how to spend my time. i used up my "i'll sit around and play guitar while you go out" night on the second night here, so i'm kind of at a loss. some relatives suggested ("hilariously", but discomfitingly as they are decades and decades older than me [and this went for both men and women, which naturally also depressed me]) that i should find an argentinian girl who is sweet (cue them miming a big butt) and nice (cue them miming large breasts). uhhhh.

....) that brings me to my next point: communication. trust me, i'm trying to get by as best i can, but let's face it: i spent 15 years taking spanish, speaking spanish on a daily basis, hearing spanish, etc., and i have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that i can't do it. plus, going to latin america doesn't magically make me outgoing, so it's not like i'm going to wander up to some people and befriend them with my hopelessly rudimentary spanish skills.(1) so, i mean, what can i do? i feel like an ugly american waste of space, but fuck, it's 11pm and lunch was at 5pm and i don't want to eat again or go to a club or frankly meet people. so what am i doing here?? all my visions of disliking traveling with relatives as a child are playing through my head, but that's just me being neurotic. and i can't even be neurotic in spanish.

so, we'll see. we may have more family around, and i hope the weather gets better so i can wander off to the beach. maybe there are american tourists(2) here that i can meet and dislike. i am kicking myself that i didn't introduce myself to steve's doppleganger yesterday. maybe it was my weird faith that all moustache-sporting people are wise(3), but i feel like he would have known the thing to do.

i have not ruled out busking with neutral milk hotel songs. let's all hope, for the sake of the argentinians, that it doesn't come to that.

see you soon america! te extrano.

footnotes:
(1): it also doesn't particularly help that i've structured my entire personality around being "funny" and "charming" or whatever weak approximation i actually am, so communication is especially important. i can't, i don't know, flex at people. that's how other people communicate, right? i'm basing this purely on watching MTV spring break specials while in middle school but i have sort of a hunch that i'm a little right.

(2): big ups to h-burg

(3): they have to be, right? they were wise enough to grow a moustache!