How Peace Corps made me insufferably pretentious

My college asked me to write a short essay on my experiences in Peace Corps. They didn't give me any direction beyond that so hopefully they have a sense of humor because here goes:

How Peace Corps Made Me Insufferably Pretentious

Pretentious, defined by my big, heavy and expensive Webster New English Dictionary as "a showy display, as of wealth or knowledge," describes many a Peace Corps volunteers. I can see the shadow of doubt crossing your face so allow me to explain.

First, please take a moment to think of all the loathsome behaviors of those who continually try to impress with their greater knowledge, experience and cultural savvy. Now think of your average returned Peace Corps volunteer. Using me as an example (Bolivia '07-08), let's see how they compare...

Listen to world music: Peace Corps Bolivia introduced me to new instruments (the charrango, the tarka) and new music (the chacarera, the copla, the ever so sexy saya), some of which I loved and some of which I hope never to hear again...and many of which have made it onto my next generation iPod.
Greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek: due to depth perception and personal space issues this culturally acceptable greeting took a lot of getting used to. Now that I’m used to it I find that it keeps my pressed suits from wrinkling.
Use the word ciao: in much of South America they say "chao" to say goodbye. It's less final then "adios" and makes me seem so cultured.
Use foreign words in every day conversation, particularly from obscure third language: heck, Peace Corps taught me to speak Quechua. Where else will I use it if not at cocktail parties?
Stock your refrigerator with exotic foods: at first I did not really enjoy squeaky cheese, dehydrated potatoes, or purple corn but I will admit that I now have an unhealthy addiction to all of them. Ok I lie. I will never ever enjoy dehydrated potatoes but I am pleased that my supermarket carries them just in case I should experience a conversion. I will serves papas a la huancaina or sopa de mani with pride at my next fine china dinner party.
Pronounce foreign country names in their original language (eg, Mexico = May-hee-co): I was mocked mercilessly during my Peace Corps career for mispronouncing Chile. It won't happen again. And now I sound intelligent and word traveled.
Use the phrase "pencil you in": things don't always go as planned in Peace Corps. Meetings that you agreed to and confirmed several times may not actually happen generally due to circumstances beyond your control or cultural issues that will never fully be explained to you. It is best not to be too firm in your scheduling. It is also common to...
...arrive fashionably late: I had Bolivian friends who would invite me to parties saying "It starts at 8. You should arrive at 10." After a few months it was no longer necessary to advise me on the proper (late) arrival time, an attitude that I find has stuck. Either way I am much too busy and important to show up on time.
Name drop: by some unfortunate quirk of familiarity, most people refer to Bolivia's President Juan Evo Morales Ayma as simply Evo. Examples would include: "Evo has a really large head. Quite enormous in fact." or "Evo is the first indigenous president of Bolivia." which brings me to my next point...
Make obscure references to politics, world leaders, geographic locations, etc: I might say, in casual conversation, "Last Spring, Evo sponsored a conference in Tiquipaya on global climate change inviting environmental crusaders from all over the world." You will be impressed by how I keep my finger on the pulse of Latin American politics (and I'll never tell that I am updated by my Bolivian Facebook friends).
Say things like, "when I lived in South America...": Well I did live there! I learned a lot, met wonderful people, and started listening to chacarera, eating humintas and referring to the President by his first name. You too can become insufferably pretentious. Consider Peace Corps.

Lenni (‘03) served as an environmental education volunteer in Bolivia ('07-'08). She set up schoolyard tree nurseries and a couple of community gardens maintained faithfully by the kindergarten. She worked with the middle school to host an environmental radio show and tried desperately to get the high school interested in recycling. She was an insufferable American, eating exotic cheeses and reading English books.

Road Trip From Hell

My heroes at CarTalk recently put out the call for Road Trip Stories. I shared mine with them and will now bless you all with it too:

Sometimes road trips (and breakdowns) let you see the good (and the less good) in the world. In July 2004, I moved back to Washington, DC from St. Paul, MN stopping along the way to visit various relatives. My 1995 Dodge Intrepid (white, named Moby) was packed to the gills and equipped with a few days worth of snacks and the same mix tape that had been stuck in the tape deck for the past six months. First stop: Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Correction. First stop: somewhere in the wilds of Wisconsin. Moby, with impeccable timing, overheated on a stretch of country road where cell service was unavailable and no buildings were evident. In a characteristic belief that all will go well, I abandoned my car and started walking. Soon I came across a small housing subdivision and started knocking on doors. (What was I thinking?) At one house, a young couple (just married they said!) invited me in to cool down before setting out to cool down my car. Instead of just handing me a phone book to call a tow truck they grabbed a jug of coolant and drove me back to my car. They refilled the radiator and accompanied me to the nearest gas station…still miles away from a garage. The couple waited for a tow truck with me and the gas station attendant even let me recharge my cellphone.

Not the end of the story! I made it to my aunt’s house in Fond du Lac and after a short visit and a surprisingly long mechanic bill I set off to pick up my brother-in-law in Gary, IN. In a complete highway-driving haze (or perhaps I was distracted by the vitriol of Indiana’s conservative talk radio) I drove right past the exit and wound up going an hour out of the way. When I finally made it back, my brother-in-law nicely offered to take over driving. Instead of enjoying the ride and napping I found myself cringing when he started to drift a bit into the shoulder with increasing frequency. He was falling asleep at the wheel! I offered to take the driving responsibility back but he declined...at which point I yelled “PULL THE HELL OVER AND GET OUT OF THE CAR!” I am nothing if not subtle.

The road trip still held a little more excitement. I had to make a desperate pit stop for “lady products” and explain to my brother-in-law why exactly I needed to borrow 50 cents. AND after dropping him off in Pittsburgh, my car broke down again a half an hour outside of DC. Resigned to my fate, I packed an overnight bag, left the rest of my worldly belongings (and my car) at the mechanic, and hopped on a bus to a friend’s house. Not quite home safe: he had forgotten I was to arrive and wasn’t home. I slept on his back porch braving the 900 degree heat and a swarm of eagle-sized mosquitos.

No exaggeration. Except for maybe that last part.

Lenni grows up!

So I just signed a lease on a one bedroom in which I will live all by my lonesome. and although I'm a little concerned that it might take even longer to discover my body if I die I am mostly thinking of all the wonderful things that living alone provides:

• working out in the living room without my roommates watching
• having a big worm (compost) bin without grossing out my roommates
• closet space! mine! all mine!
• refrigerator space
• peeing with the door open
• sleeping with the door open
  
• letting the yellow mellow
• being able to leave my stuff in the living room or kitchen or anywhere
• feeling slightly less guilty about not doing my dishes
• naked time!
• having all my books in one place
• sleepovers
• decorating all living space (including the refrigerator) with MY photos and artwork
  

I do however have cold flashes when I consider other things about living alone

• as previously mentioned, longer time needed to discover that I've died (if I happen to die)
  
• I have no living room furniture! or appliances!
• I have to pay the whole utility bill all by my lonesome
• My spectacular roommate won't be there to buy toilet paper when I forget to...or dish soap, or paper towels, or cleaning supplies
  
• No one to help me open hard-to-open jars or reach hard-to-reach shelves

So I suppose if you, loyal reader, have a couch, coffee table, book shelves, armchair, microwave, cleaning supplies, can opener, bottle opener, tool kit, air conditioner, nightstand, tv, dvd player or area rugs you know to whom to donate them.

Me.

last day in the Crescent City

I should probably clarify that I'm not one of those live blogging types. I am not currently in New Orleans but back in my apartment chomping on some late night chocolate chip cookies. So let's flash back together....

Friday morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed, climbed in the cars and drove out to East New Orleans without saying a word. The morning continued in silence as nursing hangovers and sleep deprived we continued to build houses. I moved on from painting things blue to painting things gray and then cutting J channels for vinyl siding. I don't mean to sound like Ms. Dudley can't-Do-Right but it involved geometry skills that I lack, or rather that I have to work super hard at. The day picked up when our fellow workers from a church outside Philly bought enough ice cream pops for everyone. Appropriately refreshed we took one last group photo and skedaddled into the sunset.

As much as I love people I am a big believer in me-time so that evening I splintered from the main group with Laura, a colleague from Parks, to seek out Mexican food. It was an interesting experience if only because they sold the nacho cheese and salsa separate from the chips. My face expressed a confusion evidently previously unseen in New Orleans when asked "You want chips with that?" I was tempted to respond, "No, just a spoon will be fine."

Switching gears we walked along the ole' Miss and stopped in at Cafe du Monde to sample beignets. They're open 24 hours a day! I would guess that the French donuts (fried dough smothered in powdered sugar) are one of the more unhealthy foods of the world but Cafe du Monde was opened in 1862 before the advent of cholesterol. Tradition calls for blowing the sugar onto a friend but Laura politely declined.

The next morning (day 6!) I decided to take full advantage of the day and go on a bus tour of the entire city. We stopped at St. Louis Cemetery. Built over an old leper graveyard (heck yeah, I'm composing the all-singing all-dancing leper musical in my head now) it is built with walls of niches. The bodies are laid there, do their thing, and then are transferred to ossuary buildings. During yellow fever, graves couldn't be reopened until a year and one day after the bodies were interred. I would love to share more fascinating information about the cemetery and new Orleans but I fell asleep on the bus waking up only to note where the Ann Rice lived and the Manning family lives.

Ok, I'm less than inspired tonight...blame the chocolate so I shall end with the flight home. It was the bumpiest, scariest landing I have ever endured and I did think that death was a possibility. Compounding my anxiety, there was a woman on my flight who was super afraid of flying...to the point that up until the minute we took off she kept asking her companion if perhaps they could drive. I am a super low key flyer but it was a rough landing.

Crescent City

Day 3: Hump day! Wednesday was the first clue that I might not make it through the whole week unscathed. Bright and shiny we met at Bayou Rebirth's nursery to be led into the wild blue yonder of a real live bayou. Unfortunately their truck wasn't quite in working repair. While the men folk tinkered with the engine (and by tinker I mean remove large parts of the engine that I'm pretty sure are necessary to its proper functioning) we occupied ourselves by devising a hockey-type game with broom sticks. But sun exhaustion and a twisted knee and a replacement truck conspired to cut the game short.

Driving to the site, we passed endless waterways and several oil refineries to arrive at a newly built waterfront park. On site we dug through the bucket o' waders to find boots in a size approximating our own and then headed into the water to plant the marsh grasses that we had lovingly repotted the day before. This was more complicated than you might imagine as mucking through two feet of water (and a foot of mud) in incorrectly sized boots leads to imbalance and wet pants.
After lunch crossed the water to plant cane. The boat ride would have been much nicer if waders in direct sunlight didn't conduct so much heat but it was a nice opportunity to see the innards of a bayou. I may or may not have seen an alligator and some of the girls swear to having spotted a dinosaur. We did positively identify several nesting kildeer.
Night 3: Anyhoo, at the end of the day we were glad to peel off four feet of rubber and make our way towards Lafayette Square for Wednesday at the Square, "a free, 12-week concert series with food and drink for sale to benefit the Young Leadership Council." Of course we benefited the Council by purchasing Mar-GO-ritas, the adult version of a Capri sun and then went to soak up the alcohol at Deanie's Seafood because "you haven’t done New Orleans, until you’ve done Deanie’s." After doing Deanie's (and boy did we do Deanie's) we walked off all the fried, steamed, and boiled fish-y goodness on the way to d.b.a.

According to their website, d.b.a.'s "building dates back to the 1880's, and musicians say the all cypress wood music room is one of the warmest sounding rooms in New Orleans." The website also says that it's located it one of the hippest neighborhoods in the country besides perhaps Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I maintain that Frenchmen Street and its live music venues and Creole mansions is way super cooler than the hipster haven. After drinking, dancing and feeding Philip (as in fill-up the tip jar) we caught a cab back to our plush bunk beds to dream of marsh grass and levees set to a blues soundtrack.

Let's just move right on to Day 4: Switching gears we began work with Habitat for Humanity. Although our crew leaders were total hotties and I could forgive them most anything I would have appreciated more of a welcome to the work day than "We have a lot of injuries each year. Please don't cut your fingers off or get hit on the head with a two by four." But besides the admonition not to rest tools on top of ladders that was about it; we were broken into teams and set to work hanging Tyvek sheets.


I immediately admitted to my team my complete inability to stand on ladders and do anything but stand. I was not blessed with a surplus of balance, if any, and was so relegated to the post of "ladder- holder and hammerer of low things" for the morning. At one point a two by four fell on my head. Seriously. Anyhoo, it was not an ideal job for any of us as there was no shade and boy is Tyvek reflective. We did take a brief break to construct a fort out of extra boards to provide a refuge from the blinding rays of the sun but I realized early on that any more time in the sun might cause my arms to fall off so after lunch I bribed someone with an inside job to take my place.

I spent the afternoon cowering in the shade and happily painting things blue. My arms, unfortunately had already started to blister a little (I'm allergic to the sun. neat huh?) which prompted a rational fear of what Friday might bring. But I didn't concern myself overly because of what Night 4 had in store.
Night 4: The leader of the gang (the fearless Brian, Lousiana native) had prepared a crawfish boil for us. We arrived to his house to be greeted by the spectre of 60 pounds of dead crustaceans on a table, with more in a large vat stirred with an oar. Also on the menu were corn on the cob, boiled potatoes and artichokes all smothered in cayenne pepper (which incidentally stings quite a bit when it comes into contact with your eyeballs) and a healthy selection of Abita, the local brew.

We spent the evening schmoozing and competition story-telling before Brian's neighbor hit on the bright idea of dragging us all to Rock and Bowl. Evidently this woman had an in so we paid a $5 cover and were treated to free shoes, $1 socks (bleached to germ free perfection), and an hour of bowling... to the sultry tunes of live zydeco. There was even a man with a washboard. It was perhaps the hippest bowling experience I've ever had. The lanes were new and pristine and the building featured a huge bar and dance floor.

In some fluke of lane assignments, I got a whole lane to myself and played against myself in five different positions. I impressed by bowling pretty much continuously for an entire hour and scoring higher than 60 for each spot. Sober with a tired arm I was in that first car to skedaddle home at 2am. We closed that place DOWN.

Does our hero survive Friday with only four hours of sleep and facing the threat of sun poisoning? Stay tuned for the next installment...

The Big Easy

Before I enlighten you on Day 2, I should probably give you a brief tutorial about wetlands restoration in general and in New Orleans in particular. Please keep in mind that I am by no means an expert. Any information that I hope to impart comes from an undergraduate degree in biology, several web searches, and three all-too-short days working with City Park and Bayou Rebirth.

Wetlands, as the name implies, is an area of land that is covered in shallow water all or part of the year. Think bogs, marshes, swamps, bayous. They are considered the most biologically diverse systems in the world.

New Orleans is basically one giant wetland. Bounded to the north by Lake Pontchartrain, to the south by Mississippi River and to the East by miles and miles of canals, most of the city is below sea level. It wasn't always that way though. The River, like all rivers, used to flood periodically depositing silt and sediment and building up the land mass of the city. After a particularly destructive flood, levees were built to control the flow of the river with the unfortunate effect of funneling all the dirt into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Additionally, channels were excavated to facilitate the transport of petroleum and ship traffic. The excavation increases the surface area of land exposed to erosion. So without new dirt provided by the river and with channels dug everywhere, New Orleans is slowly sinking. (National Geographic's feature "Gone with the Water" also points to overpopulation of nutria as a problem. Evidently those little suckers chomp wetland plants like no other. But not to worry, they're edible and soon they'll be as integral to Nawlins cuisine as jambalaya.)

Everyone we talked to in New Orleans also pointed towards the destructive influence of Mr. Go. Not a supervillian of extraordinary powers but the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, Mr. Go was dredged to serve as a 500-ft wide shipping shortcut. Unused, it has eroded to three times it's planned size and in Hurricane Katrina provided a direct route for storm surge to reach the city.

Storm surge, by the way, is the wave created by hurricanes in open water. But for every two to four miles of wetlands the wave's height is reduced by 1ft. This would be good news if the wetlands of New Orleans were untouched by levees, shipping channels and Mr. Go. (I have to say, it was remarkable how bitter NOLA citizens were about Mr. Go. Even the average joe seemed to be consumed by vitriol at its mere mention.)

Obviously people aren't just sitting around watching the wetlands disappear. There a number of groups doing phenomenal (albeit sometimes scattershot) work to restore the wetlands.

On Day 2 we got to work with such a group: Bayou Rebirth. "Founded in 2007 partly in response to the environmental and community needs present in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Bayou Rebirth envisions a revitalized and restored city through local and visiting citizens’ connection to the ecology of the coastal wetlands. Bayou Rebirth is offering local residents and visiting volunteers a way to get involved in solutions now."

Hidden in a parking lot behind an abandoned kitchen fixture store Bayou Rebirth has a nursery of wetland plants. There we stepped up marsh grasses, drained pools, weeded and cleaned up bags and bags of styrofoam in the unfortunately direct sunlight.

Night 2: After work, we ventured over to the lower ninth ward, the neighborhood of New Orleans that sustained the most damage and casualties in Hurricane Katrina. As it turns out, the levees built to control flooding were found to be in complete disrepair, or rather they were built in a manner that was since found to be completely negligent. Disregarding the settling and sinking of the land and using outdated methods the levees were not built to standard. In some areas, the walls were filled with crumpled newspaper and sand instead of dirt and cement. The citizens of New Orleans filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers and in a historic settlement were awarded damages.

The levees were rebuilt twice as high but only 60% of NOLA citizens returned after the hurricane and houses remain abandoned. They retain the water line and markings indicating FEMA searches. The juxtaposition with modern new houses built by Brad Pitt's Make it Right is especially eerie.

After a dirty day in the hot sun, and the depressing spectre of a devastated neighborhood, we recovered our spirits with frosty daiquiris at the drive-thru.

Coming off the high of a craw-gator frozen drink we went to Mandina's a "Creole-Italian" restaurant near our house. I didn't notice anything remotely close to Italian food (except for perhaps mufaletta sandwich which is a glorified sub) but they did have several varieties of traditional NOLA sandwiches including a French-fry po'boy. Really.

Then we rested for a hot minute before going to the Maple Leaf Bar to check out the Rebirth Brass Band. The bar hosts live music seven days a week....and it was packed to the gills. With good reason. The Band, which plays there every Tuesday, has been a "New Orleans institution" since 1983. I suppose they could be classified as funk, solid gold brass funk. Oh and Tim Robbins was there! He's tall!

You most definitely should download some Rebirth Brass Band tunes before reading the next installment of the NOLA files. Consider it homework.

a New York interlude

Today, while I was walking in midtown (the lights! the bustle!) my iPod got into the spirit and started playing songs from the great white way (Broadway). It took all I had to not burst into song. I know that most anything is acceptable in the big bad city but I still think people would frown upon me belting "Seasons of Love." And yes I am that trite.

A Streetcar Named Desire

Two weeks ago, I went on a work-sponsored trip to the Big Easy to plant things and build stuff. Arriving on Sunday evening we went straight to business at Franky and Johnny's with alligator nuggets. That's right, delicious fried reptile. Mmmmm. I never knew what I was missing living in NY where alligator is not readily available. Moving on to other items in the Nawlins repertoire I ordered red beans and rice which you are evidently only supposed to eat on Mondays. Don't ask.

Have you noticed that thus far I've only talked about food? I'm afraid it will continue as cuisine and New Orleans seem to inseparable. If anything can be made bigger, better or deeper fried, it can be done there.

Day 1: Donning our waders and braving poisonous stinging caterpillars we set out to City Park to plant trees, dig up marshgrasses and just get dirty. At 1300 acres City Park is one of the largest (and oldest) urban parks in the world. It has an amusement park, golf course, botanical garden and so so many big beautiful gorgeous 600 year old live oak trees. After Hurricane Katrina, the whole park was under water and much of the vegetation was destroyed. Five years later, the Park's staff still works out of a trailer. But they are a few hundred trees closer to being restored after our work day!

It's gonna eat me! These suckers dropped out of trees and lurked everywhere waiting to sting the unsuspecting.

A spring chicken of a live oak tree. Their branches can reach lengths of 40ft!

Night 1: When most people think of New Orleans they think of Bourbon Street: the traditional center of drunken debauchery where open container laws hold no stead. But as upstanding young citizens we opted to go for sno balls instead! According to several culinary websites, sno-balls are an institution unto themselves not to be confused with sno-cones. Sno-cones are made with crushed ice. But a snow ball? light and fluffy shaved ice. Made with the one and only Hansen's Sno-Bliz and you can get just about anything you want on top, including sugar syrup, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce.

...And then we went to Bourbon Street. At the Gumbo Shop I ate my first crawfish ever and drank my first hurricane of the trip. Actually four of us girls split a hurricane because we might be a bit lame for New Orleans. After dinner we popped into a voodoo shop selling Virgin Mary tokens (that looked an awful lot like Frida Kahlo), charms (unfortunately all for fertility) and a wide variety of cigars. I was tempted to peek into the aura reading happening in the back room but the posted signs promising death and doom to those who looked without paying scared me back on to the street. We moved on to souvenir stores selling beads, boas and bourbon and walked by Big Ass Beers several times. And then headed to bed.

All right ladies and gentleman, please watch Spike Lee's When the Levees broke before reading the next installment of Nawlins for lame-os.

dispatch from the big bad city

I've lived in the big bad city (NY, the original big bad city) for over a year and haven't written nary a blurb on it. Perhaps as a native NY-er I tend not to feel a need to remark on the weird that has become the everyday. Or perhaps the big bad city isn't as weird as outsiders think....no. that can't be it.

This weekend was an umbrella killer. Facing the rain and some terrific gusts of wind my umbrella promptly turned inside out and I decided that I had had enough. I disposed of it and bought a new one for $3 at the corner store; umbrella #2 bit the dust pretty much immediately. Screw it, I headed back to the apartment to nap and watch reruns of Gilmore Girls...more appropriate rainy day activities.

But Saturday nights are flamenco nights! So that evening, against better judgement, I grabbed umbrella #3 and headed out to Chelsea. According to the New York Times' neighborhood profiles (a thinking girls' bible) Chelsea is "charming in some places, and less so in others, including some pockets of high crime." I was likely in one of those areas where the two meet.

Because after the wind had destroyed yet another umbrella and the rain had soaked me through I realized I didn't have any cash. No, I wasn't pickpocketed just cash-less. The flamenco lady recommended that I go to the bar across the street to use their ATM but unfortunately she wasn't quite accurate. The ATM was in the store next to the bar, where surrounded by fake lady parts I withdrew some cash. I was in a porn store. But it was warm and dry and the staff was friendly, although a bit sad that I didn't make any purchases. Perhaps for Christmas. Sensual love toys for all my friends!

On the way home the subway was closed due to "smoke conditions," I saw a rat as big as a bobcat and a man in a dress called me beautiful.

Oh and the flamenco show was sublime.

2009 in review

In 2009 I...
...drove or walked across the george washington, throgs neck, triboro, 49th st, manhattan, brooklyn, and verrazano bridges and through the midtown and lincoln tunnels. Only the whitestone bridge and the holland tunnel remain.
...finished 60 books including War and Peace, the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Wild Card Quilt, What is the What, Mountains beyond Mountains, Half the Sky, and Animal Farm.
...planted 45,000 trees (with the help of 3000 volunteers).
...had 5 first dates. Sigh.
...set foot in 7 states.

El Reino de Espana - por fin!

If you don't mind I'll squeeze the last three days of our trip into one posting. Day #2 in Sevilla we decided to maintain our long-standing tradition of visiting museums off the beaten path...so off the beaten path in fact that we spent much of the morning wandering lost in the haze of a 100 degree day. Finally we stumbled through the oasis that is Parque Maria Luisa where Chachi lectured us on the finer points of urban planning and forestry. According to Wikipedia the park "tiene una particular característica, sus palomas, que al agruparse forman una blanca alfombra cuyo apetito resulta difícil de saciar." Fighting off a white carpet of insatiable pigeons we arrived at the Museo de Artes Populares y Costumbres which had an extensive collection of doilies. Even the display on sausage-making did not make it worth the threat of a fowl death. (Ha?) Next we hit up the Museo Arqueologico de Sevilla where we learned all about the history and culture of Spain from trilobites to tapas. I was perhaps more fascinated than my lovely companions but generally our indomitable tourist spirit was lessened and we spent the rest of the day eating anything but tapas, swimming in the hotel pool and shopping.

Sevilla from above (duh?)

Day #3 in Sevilla we actually spent on the beach in Cadiz. Due to some quirk in train reservations Mary and I were seated in a diffferent car than Chachi and arrived sans our favorite tall redheaded companion.

The woman at the information desk in the train station convinced us that no trains would arrive for the next few hours and that we should probably just go to the beach. We hopped on a bus, stopped at the grocery store, tried calling Chachi several times and finally settled on the beach hoping against hopes that we would run into the boy eventually. A mile or so and the beginnings of a good sunburn later we spotted our fair (literally) friend who had gotten off at a train stop closer to the beach, didn't see us, took the next train to where Mary and I had gotten off, spoke to the same woman who evidently didn't absorb that the three lost Americans were together, took a bus back to the beach and in the mark of a good traveler also bought some groceries and settled himself. Reunited, we continued to work on our sunburns until we headed back to Sevilla. here, Chachi left to meet up with a friend of his and Mary and I ventured out to a flamenco show. Unfortunately I don't have any photos so this one will have to do:

The next day brought the end of our trip. Mary and I, erratically and uncomfortably sunburnt (I still bear marks today) traveled back to Madrid and in the whirlwind typical of the last day of vacation visited the Archeology Museum, ate McDonalds, bought souvenirs, took photos of the train station...
...and then sat in the airport for three hours due to mechanical difficulties.

We are now home safe and sound and are planning our next vacation which I won't write about until six months later. Bueno pues nada.