i went on a trip

the most ordinary things can be beautiful when in another world. grafitti in argentina, for example. they use stencils for their grafitti. i am no expert in grafitti, but i think it's pretty artistic. i was just amazed at the amount of effort these artists exerted - do they make stencils of bono for fun? Ok, I did just realize that they probably printed out the stencil or something like that, but isn't it cool, still?



I can't really condense my trip to Argentina and Peru (with spontaneous side trip to Uruguay) into words. I would have to whisk you away there, sit in a lovely cafe in Buenos Aires, sipping our cafe con leche and watching the beautiful people stroll by, listening to their sing-song-y Spanish. Or, maybe we could go to Machu Picchu and lie in the grass, just watching the mist rise off the peaks. Yeah, it was pretty a pretty amazing time.

One thing I don't want to forget - I remembered what it felt like to be an outsider - in every way. I didn't look like people there, I didn't speak the language, I didn't know that you're supposed to tell the bus driver where you are headed when you get on the bus and then he charges you a fare. Cultural etiquette was beyond me. And it has been so long since I have been on the outside.

But people here feel it every day. So, I want to remember what it feels like. And I want to remember that people were very often kind to me, and I only got cheated once by a cab driver in Lima. Maybe that way I can be kind too.

My friend whom I traveled with wrote more about our adventures. You can read about them here. And here too. We spent nearly every hour together, so we experienced similar things.