Bienvenido a Montevideo

Hola amigos! Estoy en Montevideo, Uruguay. I want to write in Spanish but for the sake of my dear English-speaking friends and family, I will refrain. Although you may have to just translate certain parts if I switch over. I've been writing in Spanish in my journal and am pretty excited about that, but actually conversing with people is so much harder! I arrived this morning around midnight. It's been a bit of an adventure. Rewind.

I arrived at my terminal in the Raleigh airport around 4pm and found my friends Christina and Eric sitting at my gate to get on the same plane to Miami. They were traveling to Buenos Aires to visit Christina's family and then were heading off to Peru to do social/mission work. Our flight was almost 2 hours late, which was fine. As I was about to board, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt from a climbing competition I went to, so we chatted it up a bit and will hopefully climb next fall after we get back into the country and before he leaves for the Peace Corps. So the flight lands in Miami, I get off, but Christina and Eric are already gone off to catch their next plane (the whole time I was worried cuz I didn't see them and I thought they were on my flight). So I get to the gate, they announce a change, I go to the next gate, they announce that the flight was delayed from the 11pm take-off time to 8am. So we all stood in line as they gave us vouchers for a hotel stay and some food. I met some older friends in line, Wayne and Theresa. Wayne spoke little Spanish and Theresa spoke no English. We stuck together and were a lively crowd. So when I got to my hotel room, I couldn't fall asleep because I was worried that I wouldn't wake up on time in the morning. Alas, I made the flight and arrived in Buenos Aires to find out that since I missed my connecting flight by 12 hours, I had to travel to another airport 40 minutes away. A rental car driver took me and this other Uruguayan man, Sebastian, over there. I met a man that Sebastian had befriended on the plane que se llama Heber who was a huge help! He helped me get through customs alright and bought Sebastian and I drinks as we were waiting to board our small plane to Montevideo. He was so worried that I wouldn't make it to my destination. So when we arrived in Montevideo, no one was there to meet me so I took out my short list of numbers and Heber and 2 of his friends, an older couple, were on their phones calling my numbers for me. They were so concerned and kind to wait with me. I guess it wouldn't have been a good idea to leave me alone at 11:30pm at an empty terminal with 3 young Uruguayan workers eyeing me as they drank yerba mate. We finally got through to Ana, the girl I'm staying with, and so she, her mom, and their friend came to pick me up. Heber and his friends gave me their numbers and told me to call them and come hang out later in the summer! It was SUCH a relief to get into the car with Ana and go to my new home in Uruguay. So after about 33 hours of traveling, I made it! Thanks to many kind strangers and a lot of grace.

Wow, I'm really sorry, that was a bit verbose. Today I did the basics...exchange money, buy shampoo, go to the panderia (bakery) with Ana. And I realized that my choice in shoes are very different. I knew going into this that few people here probably ever heard of Chacos, but I didn't realize that my Merrel clogs would look so ridiculous in contrast to the little cute shoes everyone wears here. I did have one pair of cute red flats I wore to blend in more so I wore those today. Just in case anyone was curious about my shoe crisis.

Tengo miedo. Escuchando a espanol es muy dificil! I want to open my mouth, but I'm afraid of being wrong. But that's okay. I've already been wrong SO many times and that won't change, but I'm just hoping that eventually all these wrongs will start paling in comparison to an acquired accent and extended vocabulary. Espero que si!

I do hope these entries will become more exciting. Once I get out more around the barrio I think it will. Hace frio. Tengo que buscar para mi chaqueta...