she called me rubia!

It happens so regularly that I should stop being so surprised: something I think I know here in Argentina gets turned upside-down in a heartbeat.

Okay, so here’s the story. A week ago, I invited my students to get in touch with me if any of them would like to get together with me to have coffee and talk for an hour in English and an hour in Castellano. Yesterday, I had a little language exchange with one of my English students and two of her friends. Of course, it happened to be with my favorite student (and who, por casualidad, has the same name as my grandma—Ines), so I was delighted when she took me up on my offer. Anyway, she had described me to her friends as “rubia.” Well, “gringa” and “rubia,” but the “gringa” I expected!

“Rubia,” my friends, I would never have expected to be applied to me. I have dark hair and decidedly yellow-tinted skin tone. Rubia, I thought, was reserved for women with blonde hair and light skin.

Well. Turns out that Ines described me as “rubia” because of my blue eyes!

I had no idea that could happen.

change in plans

All right, change in plans. We’ve decided to head to Olympia at the end of the month—Sea-town on the 31st. So I’ll finish up at the school next Friday, Greg’s going to Buenos Aires for the weekend to visit our friend Brian from Juneau. Then we’re going to travel around a bit and head out of Santiago on the night of the 30th.

Jobs, PhD apps, bakeries…these sort of things have got us headed North. I’m already drawing up plans for Caracas☺.

Alaskans in Mendoza

Also, check this. On Monday, a new woman joined my class at school. Her name is Aimee and she’s from (drum roll please!!!)



Alaska.


She lives in Anchorage now, but was born in Kotzebue. I’ve been in Kotzebue, but only on a fly-through in bad weather.

Small world, huh?

Blockbuster in Argentina

Check this out. I went into Blockbuster to just check out the options and decided to rent a flick, not quite sure how it would work. I actually handed them my Juneau, Alaska, card…and it worked!!!

Wow. My Boston card wouldn’t work in Alaska.

Globalization, my friends; globalization. And I hate to admit I enjoyed it.

the swiss couple

So the other day, G & I were wandering around Mendoza, just kicking it, when we ran into one of the many Swiss couples we’ve met at the school. After a few minutes chit-chatting on the street, we decided to reconvene at their apartment in an hour. They are this great couple, with a super-relaxed vibe. And! A six-month-old baby. I mean, its an inspiration to see these two travel smoothly and easily with their little daughter. A reminder that traveling with kids is totally possible.

Another interesting thing: for a while, we talked about food and eating in Argentina—they’re interested in making sure the food they start their daughter on is organic. It seems that most of the veggies and meat here are, just by mode of general farming practice, but we can’t be 100% sure. Anyway, then we talked about what kinds of food they eat in Switzerland and we were all talking about efforts to eat locally (though, in Switzerland, that includes France since “you can bike there!”). Sort of exciting to realize that efforts to eat locally and organically is an international effort.