At least I haven't actually burned any houses down

In the last year or so, I've averaged moving every two months: started in Seoul, Korea, traveled a bit through the US and Peru, lived in Cuzco, Brasilia, Copacabana and Laranjeiras, visited Cleveland and New York again, spent a few months living Tijuca, and am now back living in Copcabana (yes, that's a mix of countries, cities and neighborhoods). Every time I move, I unpack as soon as I get there and, with everything in its new place, and I immediately feel right at home, even if it'll only be my home for a few days.

Still, houses work differently in each country and there are things that I have to get used to. You all remember me washing my clothes with two different kinds of softener instead of detergent for the first year and a half that I was in Korea, right (in case you missed it, click here)? Yeah, I've been doing the same kinds of things here in Brazil as well.

Like most of the places I've lived, I haven't had clothes driers here in Brazil; they have a different system that I'd never seen before. My first experience with this was my first weekend couchsurfing in Rio. I stayed with an adorable couple in Copacabana. I remember that I left some clothes draped over the shower stall to dry one day but, the next day, when I went to get them, I saw that they were hanging to dry from little wires up next to the ceiling. Something like this:

Since I'd never seen this before, and because I am a dumbass, I didn't understand how the clothes had gotten up there. Instead of looking around to figure it out like a normal person, I started jumping up and down and swinging my hand through the air like an idiot to grab the clothes and pull them off the line. I accomplished my mission. Soon after, I realized that almost all apartments in Brazil have this same system going on and that all you have to do is unhook the strings one by one, using them as pulleys and letting the little wires come down. Good times. (Disclaimer: the pulley strings are obvious on this particular contraption. The other one only had one string that ran directly along the wall and it pulled all the lines down together. I swear to you, it was a lot less obvious. Stop judging me.)

Then recently, I had what could've been a really exciting, and horribly terrible, adventure. I wanted to bake some sweet potatoes (shout-out to Lizzy and Christian) so I was going to use the oven for the first time. Since it's a gas oven, I didn't know how to turn it on and had to ask the woman who lives there for help. She came and showed me how to turn it on and I put the potatoes in. I went to set the temperature and saw this:

"Wow." I told her, reflecting on what I assumed to be the shitty-ness of her oven. I'd wanted 375º but that wasn't an option so I turned the dial all the way up and wondered how freakin long they'd take to cook at just 290º. "It's not very strong," I said. I looked up and saw she was looking at my like I was crazy.

 "It's very strong," she told me and then she turned the dial down to 190º.

"Ohhhh my god!" I yelled...and then I reminded her that I'm from one of the only damn countries in this world that uses Fahrenheit and apologized for almost having burned her entire house down.

(FYI: 290ºC = 554ºF)

At that same house, there were two refrigerators and they were both shitty. (I was told it was because it was too hot outside.) For a few months, the larger of the refrigerators was filled with all of the house's dishes, due to the high volume of cockroach sightings in the normal dish pantry. The other one had all of our food in it, which barely fit because there were ten people living there. One day, the lady who owns the apartment asked us to take our food out of the refrigerator so she could clean it. Half an hour later, I walked through the kitchen to see her using an actual blow drier to defrost the freezer. No joke.

A few days later, a girl who had just moved in was in the kitchen making food and asked me if there was a cheese grater. Normally I don't know the answer to questions like that in houses in different countries but I happened to have seen it earlier that day. "Yep!" I told her, and I reached into our "dish" fridge and pulled open the freezer door. "Here you go!" I told her...and we both died laughing.

 I'm already curious about the housing differences I'll find in the next country and am hopeful that I will continue to be successful in not burning any houses down!

Argentina

Brazilian bureaucracy had me needing to border-hop yet again so I decided to hit up the next country on my to-do list: Argentina. I wrote a friend of mine who lives there, who I had met last year while he was here visiting Rio. He'd come to visit a mutual friend of ours and ended up spending a few days hanging out with me and two friends (from the U.S. and another city in Brazil) who happened to be visiting me at the time. We all got along really well and he and I stayed in touch afterwards...you know how these kindred-spirited travelers do.

I wrote him a few months back saying I was thinking about visiting Buenos Aires and, because he's amazing, he responded saying that he'd come get me at the airport and that I could stay at his house! Ridiculously freaking nice!! So I bought the ticket.

I found out as soon as I got to the country that the airport is very lax with their rules--important for me because I'm not the best rule-follower. I'd done a half-assed job filling out the customs form (by that, I literally mean that I only filled out half of it) and nobody even looked at it. They just threw it onto the pile of other papers and I walked right through. Then I got up to the customs counter and the woman asked me for the address of where I was staying.

the view

"Great question," I told her,  "I didn't think to get that ahead of time."
"Well where are you staying?"
"With a friend."
"Okay, well at least just give me his phone number."
"Uhhh...I don't have that either."
"Then HOW are you in touch with him? How are you getting to his house?"
"He's picking me up here. We talk on facebook."
"Well I need an address or phone number."
"Well...do you have wifi here?"
"No."
"Uhhh....."
*awkward silence*
Finally, she pushed my passport back through the window with an angry "Whatever! Bye!"and I sailed on through the glass doors to find Walter and start exploring Buenos Aires!

I don't know if Walter thought he was auditioning for World's Best Host or what....but not only did he let me stay in his bomb-ass apartment in Palermo (a super nice area of Buenos Aires), he gave me his freaking bed for the week and slept on the couch (which I still feel bad about).

halfway through our run

 My first day there (and then again a couple days later), we ran Walter's 9km route throughout Palermo. Palermo...and the rest of the super nice parts of Buenos Aires that I saw, looked nothing to me like the other parts of Latin America that I've seen. The older buildings reminded me of the architecture in Spain and London, while the newer buildings reminded me of the latest renovations that Brendan showed me the last time we were in downtown Cincinnati. Then the smaller streets reminded me of Italy while the bigger avenues made me think of a (much) cleaner version of a big city like New York or Seoul. I was seriously confused about where we were the entire time we were there. Anyway...it was beautiful. And there's nothing like going on a run through a brand new city to make me feel alive!

The whole trip was perfect. Exercise, food, minimal tourist activities and maximum time spent with the people and getting to see the real culture. A day after I got there, Walter invited his friends over for an Asado, which is a typical Argentinian barbecue. It's a whole process. The first step is to buy a giant-ass slab of meat...dead carcasses are not typically my thing but I handled it like a pro...and they even got a chicken (not typical) for my gall-bladder-less self. They spend 4+ hours cooking the meat and, in the meantime, other people help out by making other typical foods--salads and whatnot--to go with the meal. They also play a card game called truco which is super confusing to me, although they claim it's easy. It's like a mix of Poker and Kemps but the cards are all different and the hands are not the same as in Poker. Walter's friends were super nice--and hilarious--and I had a great time talking to them...not to mention getting to speak Spanish again and listening to their beautiful, beautiful Argentinian accents. I may need to spend some more time there at a later point to have a little bit of that accent rub off on me... We'll see. ;)

See? Giant-ass slab of meat.

El Asado!

We watched plenty of soccer (including the Argentina vs. the U.S. game in which the U.S. got their asses handed to them over and over for 90 minutes straight...awkward) and explored some of the other neighborhoods in the city as well (San Telmo, La Boca, the Historical Center, Recoleta & the cemetery, etc...).

La Boca

Centro Histórico

I want to add a side note on the cemetery....but I'm not even sure what to say. People say that it's beautiful. It is. For sure. But the whole idea is seriously so weird to me. The concept of trying to keep dead bodies around for any reason is weird and then building them their own expensive-ass shrines while other people who are alive and could actually really use some of that money (or some of the organs, for that matter) actually exist. I could go on and on about this and all the other things that weirded me out there but whatever....I'll say no more.

So overall, the trip was freaking amazing! The travel bug bit the shit out of me while I was there so I am currently planning my next move. Traveling is almost the most beautiful thing in the world...but the people you meet in each place actually top it.

Our last mate!

Walter, thank you for such an amazing week, for giving me your bed and sharing your friends with me, for taking time off work to hang out with me, for all the laughs and great conversations, for all the mate and my own pollo, and for being the all-around bomb! You're an amazing person and an inspiring traveler! I'm excited for your next adventures!

In other news....Colombia, anyone? ;)