Adventures of a Vagabond

After some good fun, amazing food, and an incredible/surreal experience down in Montevideo, I said goodbye to Lisa and hopped on the for the first of three flights in my return leg to Seattle. It was sad to leave. It was the end of an era in my life. I’m returning to start my new job in less than a week and a half, with a to do list with things like, “move into new place,” and “aquire car.”

Things didn’t really hit me until I was walking around Washington Dulles airport on a lay over. Suddenly I could understand all the conversations around me, easily talk to anyone, and able to read all the books sold in the airport mini-bookstores. In fact, it was really weird speaking English to the cashier when I stopped to buy a Coke. The things that defined my lifestyle, adventures, and comfortability with the uncomfortable for the last 130 days were done and gone. And I missed it so much already. I found my hearing drawn toward conversations in Spanish and Chinese, grasping at straws of difference and difficulty in a sea of complete comprehension.

When the plane flew within sight of Mt. Rainier, my heart sank and my eyes were momentarily misty. I was back. Around the world in 130 days.

Amazingly enough, it seems that my reverse culture shock was limited to the hour and a half I was in Washington D.C., because as soon as I stepped off that plane it was back to life as usual. It was even a little scary–as I progressed through the day I could feel my old methods, feelings, and lifestyle emerging instinctively. Is this what it means to be home? It was a little scary and I can’t say I want them back. I know that I grew and changed a lot on my trip and I expected that I would need some time to integrate and readjust.

And it’s not just my surroundings, it’s also what I do. I ran some errands with Uncle Ben and we stopped by Costco (no surprise there) and he asked me if I knew where they had contact lens solution. My answer, given without possibly of doubt, just sprung right out of me. Things like knowing the best places to park, what streets to take to avoid traffic, and familiarity with the bends in the road are still second-nature to me. A huge change from always walking around in unfamilar cities, where I’d see something new every day, surrounded by a culture, language, and people I was trying to hard to see, understand, and experience. Now I’m back. I am the culture, language, and people.

I can already tell that my brain processes have switched modes. Reading Argentinian version of Google News this morning, I found my attention span to be short and felt slight bits of frustration with my comprehension. I can tell already. I’m far too comfortable.

I want to be knocked off-balance again.

I’ve been in Montevideo for four days now and it’s been a bit of a surreal experience. The notion of coming down here started out as a really silly (crazy) idea that I got back in Bosnia and behold, three weeks later I’m actually here! Coming all the way down here was not something I had prepared myself for when I started planning out my trip, so to walk around the streets of Urugay has this, “wow…I can’t believe I’m actually here” feel to it.

In our conversations before I arrived, Lisa had purposefully skimped on the details of getting from the airport to her apartment because she planned on surprising me at the airport. Although she’d told me she would be at work when I arrived, I had already suspected that I’d be finding Lisa on the other side of customs. “Planned” is the key word in this story however, especially since I walked through the frosted glass doors of customs to find no Lisa in sight! I would later read an email titled “the best of intentions” that was written by a frantic Lisa after she realized she’d overslept by three hours.

No problem. I have been doing this four months, haven’t I? I used the Spanish skills that I’ve been developing for the past two months as I trained across Europe and hit up the airport information people to figure out what busses I could take from the airport to somewhere close to Lisa’s apartment.

My actual destination was actually the hostel that Lisa told me was across the street from her apartment. Made it there without a problem, the airport information people were spot on. I checked in and dropped off my bags and decided I’d go for a walk to orientate myself. Before I took on the town though, I figured I walk across the street and ring the buzzer for Lisa’s apartment just for the heck of it. I did just that and not surprisingly, nothing happened. But suddenly I heard a loud yell somewhere off to my left, and I turned around to see a super-relieved Lisa running across the street and at me with arms outstreched for a hug. She had spotted me while turning the corner, coming back from the cyber cafe where she had just sent me the hugely apologetic and aforementioned “best of intentions” email.

Things since have been a blast. Lisa’s been taking me around to visit her friends and giving me a sample of her lifestyle here, which is awesome, both in the sense that I’m having a good time and that she has a great life down here. We’ve walked around the city, went to various markets and ferrias, went to a Roteract reunion, and a couple of church services. More about these some other time, I’m far too tired to type them up now. Lisa’s español sounds incredibly fluent to me, although I know she’d disagree. I’ve been really impressed with how well she’s able to communicate in all aspects of every day communication.

The non-standard approach I took to learning Spanish by reading, writing, and looking up tons and tons of words (even if I couldn’t remember them) seems to be paying off. Although my speaking skills are non-existant, my comprehension skills are the point where I can get the gist of some conversations, especially with Lisa and her roommate Sandra. All this is just inspiring me to learn more. The biggest hinderance to understanding and experiencing a culture is the language. I’m having an amazing time going around to all these aspects of Uruguayan culture, but can’t help but wish I could communicate with them better.

The wish of any traveler. =)