Life after the mundial...

Well everything is settling back into a routine of essentially: wake up, go to work, eat, finish working, walk home, talk to people and sleep. One of the most apt exclamations I have heard since the mundial, that accurately describes the sentiment right now is "Qué vamos a hacer sin fútbol?" "What are you we gonna do without soccer?". And it's basically the truth, as I enter the last month of my stay in Uruguay, things seem to be winding down - with many of my friends taking winter break and going back to their home provinces in the interior, leaving me with my electric fish.

On the up side, my Spanish has suddenly drastically improved. I managed to decipher something that sounds like "Kéntacá" to "Quién está acá" (Who's here). There were many instances in which I was surprised that I could understand given the speed of their speech. Finally, after 2 months, I am truly catching on...

As some random information about the culture here, I am not really fond of their food. True I like the increased meat consumption, but one would expect their to be many different preparations of the meat with different spices common to Latin America. But instead, I find that most of their food is either fried meats (milanesas), meat with pasta in a tomato-based sauce, or meat with bread (like sandwiches, tortas, hamburguesas), or carne asado. When some people were cooking food for a group of people (including me), I found out that they were terribly intolerant to spicy foods. They made a pizza with barbeque sauce, which by all measures is not spicy to the American/Arizonan palette. But here, almost everyone complained about how it needed to be less spicy in the future. But no one can blame them especially with the typical foods they eat. I spoke with them about how life is more exciting with spicy foods like curry - and so they bought me a pack of curry. Now I'm in charge of enlightening their taste buds...

And I never realized this, but they are very conscious about being compared to Argentinians. Because Uruguay is almost always eclipsed by the culturally and linguistically similar Argentina (haha if one of my Uruguayan friends reads this, I'll probably get lectured), they really hate being associated with them. To Uruguayans, Argentina is like their ugly stepsister who thinks she's better than everyone.

On 18 de Julio (Artiga's bday and the Uruguayan Fathers Day), I had lunch with my mentor (mi padre uruguayo) and his family. Because of my improved Spanish, I am able to talk more and it was a good experience.

And the adventure continues...

At this point I have resigned from achieving perfect fluency in Spanish, I have now convinced more and more people to accept the fact that I will probably respond to them in English. At least my listening skills have increased - I can probably understand 80% of what they say. It has taken this long because my friends come from different parts of the country with their own accent. Time and time again, each of them had confessed to me that they often don't understand each other either. So at least I don't feel that bad. One thing though is that I continue to be baffled by the Latin American sense of time. It's the same old story, that their time generally runs later than ours - if I tell you to meet me at 12am, you will probably come by around 2am. As such, people generally go out past midnight. One interesting experience in the streets of Montevideo late at night was my acquaintances with the "planchas". This is the Uruguayan equivalent of "hoodlums" or less-accurately "gangsters". I was out with a couple of my friends looking for convenience stores that were still open. We were accosted by a couple young planchas who asked for money. Having had plenty of experiences with people asking me for money here, I guess I acted too approachable with them. While my friends were quick to say no, in my state, I started talking to them - stating that I was from the US, that I didn't have cash, but that I had a credit card. One of the girls in my group got uneasy. Then one of the planchas said that they could see that I had money and pointed to my jacket. I then proceeded to open up my jacket to show that I had nothing. This drove that girl crazy. So then we parted ways as if I made a new friend.  It was a good experience. I was soon told that they often carried knives or guns - that Montevideo is safe in terms of a lower percentage of homicides, but apparently just as many robberies. Fun times.

In the first picture above, this was on a Friday when two other people and me went to the Centro Geriátrico to help out old people. The Centro was located in one of the poor barrios of Montevideo, but the ward (which oddly enough reminds me of Shutter Island) was pretty clean and well-kept. We joined another charitable group who was in charge of organizing the activity. But we ended up doing nothing. We only donated clothes and then we left. Then we just enjoyed a nice merienda at La Pasiva - had some classic pizza and fainá (fried garbanzo bean paste). On Saturday was the Octafinals game between Uruguay and South Korea. When the Uruguayan team won, the streets were crazier than I had ever seen for the previous games. People crowded onto the major street downtown to dance and chant "Soy celeste, soy celeste, celeste soy yo". People were throwing down confetti from the buildings. People with beer bottles in hand were screaming and climbing on top of anything they could find. It was basically a riot. Of course, I had to join in on the fun.

Next I decided to pass my day in Piriápolis, which is about a 2 hour bus ride from Montevideo (close to where I went fishing). Near this seaside resort town was a mountain called Cerro Pan de Azúcar, one of the taller mountains in the plains of Uruguay. To get there, it actually started off with my stealing of someone else's seat. The woman from whom I took her seat ended going in the same general direction. She was a school teacher at a secondary school in the town Pan de Azúcar and was heading there from Montevideo. A very fortuitous encounter indeed. At the base of Cerro Pan de Azúcar reserve there is a small wildlife sanctuary with a couple of odd animals. But I was quick to start the hike. I thought it was going to be a relatively easy but long hike, but it turns out that it was more of a rock climbing thing. And the genius mountaineer that designed the path decided (either out of laziness or apathy) to use the trail carved by a small stream of running water. This made the climb much harder and more dangerous because of the slippery rocks. I probably should have died a couple of times, but all is well. The view from the mountain was spectacular and all you can hear was the brushing of the wind against the flora - combined with the religious icons, it was a serene divine-like experience.

At the top of the mountain is a giant cross, a testament to the regions ties with the Roman Catholic religion. To my surprise, you could actually climb into the cross and enter the arms of the cross. Having never liked heights, climbing up the cross was nerve-racking as the strong winds hit against the concrete cross. But I figured since I almost died so many times in this trek, I might as well risk the least likely (the cross collapsing due to the wind). I then spent the rest of the day in the rambla (beachside) of Piriápolis, a city designed by one man, Mr. Piria. As can be expected, this place is a lot more busy during the summer and is considered a part of the Riviera of South America. I then made my way back to Montevideo and now to prepare for a long days work tomorrow...

Success at last...

This week I finally managed to get the kind of recording that we want - the simultaneous stimulation of caudal and rostral faces of the electrocyte. On the left side of the screen the little bump represents the stimulation and the larger bump is the response - a synaptic potential. On the right side of the screen, we have stimulation of the opposite face with its synaptic response. These are the kinds of responses that we eventually want to test for a healthy cell. Hopefully there are more of these to come.

Apart from work, I continue to explore the Centro. Every Sunday there is a huge street fair in a more run-down part of town. At this feria you can buy anything from stolen license plates to gold jewelry. The whole fair spans about 4 x 4 blocks and is filled with people in the afternoon. In the busier parts of the feria there are traffic jams of people looking at clothing, books, shoelaces, whatever there is. I bet some of the vendors are homeless who find junk and attempt to sell it. At the fair I had a chorizo burger. And though this was a different day, the picture below is of a mime at la Plaza de los Treinta y Tres Orientales. She stands still if you don't give her money, but once you deposit money then she starts making strange movements towards you. In her hand is a paper flower. I don't know what the idea is behind this.

Another important event this week was that Uruguay is now officially in the octafinals for the World Cup. I watched as Uruguay destroyed South Africa 3 to 0, and as they beat Mexico 1 to 0. After the Mexico game, there were literally make shift parades in the streets. People were waving the Uruguayan flag like crazy, workers came out of the shop to cheer, people threw confetti from buildings and also started to block traffic. I have never seen so many people so excited for a sporting event. In the US we have official parades and things that are planned way in advance, but here it seemed as if the entire city (which is basically the country) formed spontaneous parades up and down la calle 18 de julio. Fue muy impresionante. And below are the people that I watched that game with:

And yet again, because of my mentor's busy schedule and because I am not quite independent of his supervision, I had a free day and I passed it with a couple new friends at the rambla (beach side). Because I am not quite photogenic I had to choose the best picture, and unfortunately it did not include the other people. Also, below is a special picture of a mountain that I had to scale. To whom it concerns, it was extremely difficult to reach the part of the mountain where I found this. When I get back to the US, I expect a gift in return.

Closer and closer to the mundial...

This weekend marks the official start of the mundial. It was a rainy weekend but spirits were high. Uruguay played France on Saturday, and a bunch of coworkers got together at Laura's house to watch the game. I was there decently early according to Uruguayan standards and had the privilege to greet everyone as they came in. Here truly is a very kissy culture. When I first came in, I greeted the parents with the cheek kiss, and then I said hi to the kids. The kids just kept looking at me, and I then realized that as the visitor I was expected to kiss them too. Well the game was somewhat disappointing. It being my first mundial, I was discouraged when it was possible for 90 minutes to elapse without anything happening.

In order to make sure I see all there is to see in Uruguay, I planned out weekly trips to places that websites says one must see. So, this weekend I went to Colonia del Sacramento, which was a Spanish colony (then Portuguese, then finally back to Spanish). In order to get there, I had to take a 3 hour bus ride to the west side of the country. I passed through many campos where it was very apparent that there is a good reason why meat here is dirt cheap. It wasn't exactly the best day to go sight seeing though... The Centro Histórico contains many original buildings as well as "refurbished" buildings. There are some restaurants as well. I did some research beforehand and decided that when I was in Colonia, that I would want to eat at a restaurant called La Pulperia de los Faroles. I ordered a chicken stuffed with ham, cheese and olives with mushroom sauce. It was pretty good. The waiters seem to have the typical Latin American waitress attitude - very welcoming, but not as attentive.

The ride back to Montevideo was just as long. It was already night by the time I got back. On the bus I noticed that there are a lot of Brazilian and Argentinian tourists. What I learned was that to people in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil are where the rich tourists come from. Also, Colonia being one of the major points of departure to Buenos Aires also makes it full of Argentinians. When I finally arrived back in Montevideo, I still decided to take the long trek home. While I walked down an alley, I passed by a large group of homeless who asked me for money. I told them "No Español" and they started laughing. Not knowing why the laughed, I started to laugh with them, which made the laugh harder. They were probably wondering why this crazy guy was laughing with them, and I was laughing at how crazy they all seemed. So we were all laughing for about 10 seconds and then the craziness stopped.

A la pehca!

I had yet another half day on June 9th due to a citywide general strike (Paro General) of all government employees. My mentor had to stay home to take care of the kids because schools are also shut down from 8am to 1pm. So as usual, I spent this time walking around, seeing the places that need to be seen. I was hoping to see some demonstrations and perhaps join in on the fun, but there was nothing but papers littered all over la Calle 18 de Julio. It is possible that I missed the commotion, and I only saw the aftermath. Otherwise, it was yet another day. The transit system was working fine and besides the papers on the floor, there was no other indication that there was a demonstration/strike. Below is a picture of the Plaza de los 33 Orientales. The number 33 is a reocurring number throughout the country - there is a city called Treinta y Tres, but I am not sure of the history behind the 33 easterners.

Recently, I've also started walking to lab and to walk around the centro rather than taking the bus everywhere. I've gotten pretty good at dodging cars and playing real-life frogger. So on the left is the obelisk that I walk by often, when I walk towards the centro. It is the entrance to a very large athletic park called Parque Batlle, and it has some other touristy attractions within. Since Montevideo has the fame of being one of the safest metropolitan areas in the entire world, I decided that I would take the shortcut through the unlit park to get to the centro. Besides the occasional homeless, there is usually no one in the park. And the good thing about walking through the park is that it I don't have to deal with traffic noise, traffic light and traffic pollution. I also learned that wine can be sold in cartons like milk - when I showed my surprise, I was told in English "Welcome to the third world".

Today, was the day that I went to fish at the Laguna del Sauce with some of the University students as well as the institute faculty. I woke up somewhat late, and still decided to walk to work. After some diversions and distractions, I finally asked for the time because I don't have a watch and I had a feeling I was going to be late. Turns out I was about 10 minutes away and had about 5 minutes to get there before 8am (the agreed upon departure time). And so I ran and got to the institute at exactly 8am. After walking around the entire institute, I didn't find anyway and thought that everyone had left. I thought to myself, of all times that I wished the Latin American laxness on time didn't apply, it would be the day that I finally got a chance to go into the field. But it turns out, nobody was there and I was actually the first one. We ended up leaving at 9:30am, after being warned many times to be on time at 8:00am...

 The Laguna is about an hour away from Montevideo and we drove there (gas is $6 per gallon!). It was a mix between an educational excursion as well as a general task to get the fish that we need to do experiments on. As they are electric fish, there is a special way of fishing for them that does no physiological damage to them. Because they live in the shallows, we walk into the water with waterproof wear and use an electrical probe to locate its position. If a fish is present, as a pulse gymnotid, Gymnotus carapo produces pulses of electrical discharges and it manifests itself as a constant battery of beeps. Once its location is confirmed, we use the large net to go under the vegetation to attempt to scoop it out. With the students, all we did was a couple of demonstrations as well as an on site dissection. But after they left... the fun was about to begin...

After the education portion of the trip, it was time to take care of the business of the Instituto. Ana, Lucia, Roxanna and I stayed behind to carry it out. Our goal was to capture 20 Gymnotus for experiments and bring it back to Montevideo. Using the techniques learned, we went to a different pond from which we would fish. The first pond where the students had the chance to fish themselves was like a kiddy pool compared to the pond we had to fish in. Whereas, the water would only go up a little past the shin in the first pond, this pond had the entire bottom half of our body submerged in water. I spent most of my time listening to them talk as we looked for fish, and I realized that there was a very good reason why it has taken so long for me to get used to their Spanish. Uruguayan Spanish oftentimes omits the "s" sound and replaces it with a quick outward breath. So, pesca (fishing) becomes peh'ca. That is fine, but the problem is that the omission of the "s" sound is apparently random, so they can choose to say it or they can choose to omit it. My Spanish wasn't that good to begin with, so this only makes it harder.

After the course of about one or two hours, we finally got our 20. Despite the freezing water, being in the pond was actually more comfortable than walking on land. The boots were a couple sizes too small, and the result was...

And now I can't feel my toes...

And it follows me here...

I learned really fast that everyone here smokes and drinks mate whenever they get the chance. I am finally getting used to drinking mate; they said adding sugar makes it better, but I need to get used to it raw. Hopefully no one here has Hepatitis B because the bombilla has to have been in many different mouths... and I learned the long way that you have to tell them that you don't want anymore mate until they will stop serving it to you. All around Uruguay you see people with a thermos of hot water and the signature mate cup, so that they can drink mate on the go. And just like Wikipedia says, there are pretty set customs regarding the mate, such as the bringer of the mate has to refill the mate cup for everyone, and offers it to people around him. It's pretty cool to see that that's true. On the left is a picture of the statue in the middle of the Plaza de la Cagancha. In practical terms, this is the place that all of the major bus routes pass by downtown.

I finally visited some of the campuses of the University of Montevideo. Apparently there is no central campus, and the different colleges are scattered around the city. I was just walking around looking at major tourist sites when I bumped into the School of Medicine and the College of Chemistry. The buildings must have looked amazing when they were just built, but they currently suffer from lack of maintenance. On the left is the College of Medicine. I didn't go in because I didn't know what there policy on visitors was.

I started off the Sunday only wanting to visit some places and go to the mall to buy a raincoat (this weekend because the malls discounted the sales tax rate (or IVA) on all purchases) - which is a whopping 22% here. And to think that in the US we complain about a 1% increase to an 8% sales tax rate. Well, I did make all of my necessary purchases and eventually walked my way to the World Trade Center and the more touristy beach where there are a lot of private boats and boats for rent. At that time, I was desperate to find something to eat because there were too many people in the food court at the mall. So I settled for the first restaurant I saw by the ocean. Too bad it was one of the more expensive restaurants here. It had a really nice view, and the complimentary bread came with paté. Two annoying things about dining in Montevideo is that water is not included and can cost about $2, and they charge a table waiting fee that is separate from tip - maybe that's just at these restaurants that I find. Well, the place is called la Casa Violeta, and it is populated with a lot of old people enjoying the seaside view. Below is a picture. I had their seafood pasta, which was pretty good, but it wasn't spectacular - nothing I couldn't order from Macaroni Grill. With tip and everything, the meal cost a little over $30 (which is in the highest tier of food costs here). My one consolation to the high cost is that at least the service was in English.

Before going back home, I chilled with some of my new friends. Apparently, they call a 1L bottle of beer a "shop" and so compramos 4 shops and hung out on the sidewalk. I'm also growing accustomed to the Uruguayan local music called "cumbia", which is kind of like mariachi music with a hip-hop twist. And I was quick to learn from other University friends that some of them are doing Biochemistry, and to my disgust, I found Lehninger in Spanish. Just when I thought I had gotten away from it, it follows me here...

A gradual change of pace...

On Thursday I did a complete dissection with supervision. Because we don't have all of the necessary materials as of now, we can't do a full electrophysiology prep until Wednesday. We also found out that the equipment that was sent from Arizona had already arrived, but was held in customs. So hopefully we will have everything and actually start the experiment very soon. One cool thing is that as I meet lab colleagues, I start putting faces to the names on papers. One thing that I was disappointed about was the fact that I will not be able to get internet access on my laptop at the lab - time will pass by a lot slower...

On Friday, because my mentor had to finish things up with the Semana de las Ciencias, I had another free day to roam the city. It's a lot colder than I expected. I was expecting a tropical winter where it was humid but not too cold, but I was mistaken. It is about 40F right now... Apart from the weather, I can use the metro system pretty much with ease and know now which ones are cheaper than the others. I just went around the Centro again, doing some touristy things and buying stuff from street vendors. I also warded off some homeless people by pretending I didn't speak Spanish. I got lost a couple times and went through some sketchy places. But I saw the Palacio Legislativo y otros...

On another note, I'm finally getting more used to Spanish - though I still cannot communicate what I am thinking as effectively as I would like, at least I now understand enough to guess correctly what people are saying. I met a couple university students and had a couple drinks with them. I talked about Arizona and the usual stuff, and it is very obvious that they are not used to seeing peoples of Asian descent down here, much less one that can speak their language. And for the first time in Uruguay, I finally had the famous drink called el mate, a communal drink that they pass around among each other. It tastes like tea, but I think they said it was somewhat narcotic. Well, I didn't feel anything so... Anyway, speaking with people my age is both easier and harder. Easier to relate to, but harder to understand because of the slang and the speed at which they speak. And to further add to the generalization that everything happens later in Latin America, they finally decided to go out at 3am. In the US, I don't think most bars are even open that late. Too bad I passed out at 2am.