Montreal is Ugly in March

In my efforts to update more of my "Laura Leaves NH" adventures, I am describing Montreal in March even though it is June.

In a trip that had nothing to do with renewing expiring visas in the middle of the night across the Canadian border, my French partner in crime (FPIC) and I, spent two nights total going back and forth in bus and a weekend in Montreal.

Although Montreal, to our surprise, was one of the lesser attractive cities we have ever seen (ie: ugly) it didn't stop us from enjoying it immensely in our fashion.


We got off the (sleepless) overnight bus from Boston, checked into our hostel, and immediately began wandering around the city. We came across this gian hill overlooking the skyline were we spent a good hour sledding down on various bits of plywood and old shovels. The best way to enjoy a skyline if there is one.


Our hostel (Hostel Montreal Central - highly recommended) turned out to be amazing with breakfast, it's own bar, and free dinner and live music on our first night. These guys in the band ended their concert that evening by serenading me on the front step of the hostel.


The winter Olympics were held in Montreal in 1988 bringing this interesting (though still not particularly attractive) building to the skyline. We rented bikes and made our way out to see it and continue the yoga posing in cool places tradition. :D


After a spell of underground shopping, we walked out to discover a full blown pillow fight going on right in the street. There were feathers and people flying everywhere. We watched for awhile but the battle showed no signs of stopping. We have no idea how this all began but it seemed like a fun enough thing to be doing in the streets of Montreal.


And of course, no trip to Montreal is complete without a good healthy plate of poutine!! (Although I cheated and got the vegetarian kind...)

All the apartments did have these cool outside stairs.

And as a final note, the difference between Quebecois and Parisian French is slight, but amusing. In Montreal this sign means, "Danger! Ice" but to my FPIC it meant

"Danger! Ice Cubes!"
Oh Canada.

Until next time folks! :D

The Long Past Due Nicaragua Post

Sorry all for the long belated Nicaragua Post!! Between having to work the day after I returned from sunny San Juan del Sur and starting up the new semester two days after...I was really limited on time to update.

Upon arriving in Nicaragua (after a surprisingly short flight) I went through the customs line which was only made interesting by the crowd of French Canadians around me and the frequent turning off of all the power in the room leaving me and the French speakers in the dark.

I was a creeper on my flight in and took fotos of little Nicaraguan girls in matching pink jumpsuits sleeping on each other. Very Cute. :D


Landing in Managua meant a long van ride to San Juan where I spent the afternoon ogling the beautiful country. San Juan itself is particularly gorgeous with the beach on the end of the street of my home-stay. For the short time I was there I lived in an orange, green and blue hostel with Mama Sara, who was the Nicaraguan version of a Jewish mother. I swear, every time that I entered into her house she handed me a plate of food. The first morning I sat down in front of a spread that I thought was meant for every one staying in the hostel (two oranges, two bananas, a large chunk of pineapple, and half a watermelon) but actually she had made it only for me!! I saved some of the fruit to eat at lunch but was given so much for lunch that I couldn't even think about eating the fruit. I quickly learned that the best way to escape the table without having eaten enough food to last the week was to help make the meal and to serve myself. This method worked out quick well as I learned some pretty amazing recipes and was told hours worth of amazing stories by Mama Sara, who had her first son right on the kitchen table we were eating at.

Days were spent between the beach and the eye clinic. On days were I was not working I went with my house mates and host brother to swim and explore the city.
To get around we walked or thumbed rides in the back of pickup trucks. I played soccer and chalk with the neighbors, stumbled upon a free ukelele lesson in one of the local bars, and convinced my host-brother to take me on a hike to the top of a cliff that overlooks the city and the ocean.





On other days I spent up to 12 hours at a time working at an eye clinic. The clinic, which was run by eye doctors from Connecticut, was held in the the local school. Everyday people from San Juan and the surrounding areas came on foot and by bus to get a free eye exam and pair of sunglasses or prescription glasses. Each day over 800 people came through. I worked as a translator simultaneously for an eye doctor and a Berkley optometry student as they performed exams. It was amazing to witness these exams with such limited technology and space and time constraints. Sometimes translating was rewarding when explaining where the patient could go to receive their new pair of bifocals. Sometimes it was heartbreaking when explaining that the clinic had run out of a certain prescription, or that a person had cataracts and there was nothing we could do.

I have to say that I have a new found interest in optometry and a deep love for Nicaragua. The ten days that I was there felt like months and it was really sad to leave my host family. Now I have a few new aspirations for my pending public health degree. Optometry school? Nicaragua? Who knows? :D


Moms and their kids waiting
in line for their eye check-up.




People wait in line, sometimes all day, for their eye exam.

Me and my lovely assistant Roberto, the
sweetest kid ever who volunteered in the
clinic and sometimes brought us ice cream and our store of glasses!

Parting Thoughts...

I do believe that if I am going to be traveling regularly...I need to get better believing that I am leaving. I am going to the airport in two hours and the reality that this trip is happening still hasn't sunk in. This kind of thinking is not very conducive for packing. I kind of just wander around thinking, "if I were in Nicaragua, what would I wear?" and then put it all in a big pile and call it done. Not the best method. 

In fact even as I am sitting here writing, I realized I did not pack anything to sleep in. 

One very exciting packing aspect is my new bag!!  When I was backpacking around for Peru for 10 days in June I carried all my clothes in a little purple

 L.L. Bean school backpack that looked similar to this - 

I did this because 1. that's all I had and 2. I didn't know any better. Let me say that I was the only one wandering around Machu Picchu with a school bag. 

This summer however, while helping a family friend clean out her attic I found a backpacker's backpack! Like a legit one! It was her son's who has since left it behind and she offhandedly said I could keep it. I AM VERY EXCITED. So now, though for this trip I don't believe I will be doing much hiking...and though it is mostly filled with sneakers to give to people, I am traveling with my new(ish) bag. Here it it, packed (hah) and ready to go. :D

It's so lovely I might have to name it. 

My plane leaves at 5:30am this morning and my mother has graciously agreed to lug me to the airport. Which meant I had to go home. Which means we have to go back to Logan airport this morning. Which means we have to leave home at 2am. Bah. Judging by the fact that I have been working in a bar for the last 4 or so months and my shirt does not end until 2am, I doubt I will be sleeping. This is not the most logical arrangement but it does save me from having to find a way from where I have been living in Boston to the airport at 3am with a suitcase and a backpack full of shoes (and no pajamas). 

Anyway, back to my point. I have still not really wrapped my head around the fact that in about 12 hours I will be in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua...but don't judge because if you were sitting in the freezing state of NH in january, you would have a hard time imagining that too. 

Who knows what I will be thinking in 12 hours? I have no idea. (or more appropriate, no tengo ningun idea). 

Until next time...

12 Days to go...

I can not talk about preparing to go to Nicaragua without talking about my new job. To finance this trip I have been working almost full time at a Mexican Taqueria called "La Verdad". I applied there purely because of it's convenience. It is right next to Fenway Park and takes me about 7 minutes to walkthere. But now after three months, it has taken over my life and it is the job that I love to hate.

On my training day, I walked in to find that the girl who would be training me had only been working at the taqueria for two days and was one of the more clueless individuals I have met in my life. After about an hour of asking her questions to which she could not respond I left, telling t

he manager to call me when someone was working that could train me. About two weeks later I get a call asking why I have not been showing up for my shifts...

After sorting out a bit of confusion I go in again to find that I am working my first shift alone without any training. Also, everything, menu, cash register, and co-workers included, is in spanish. Thank goodness for those months in Chile because I was able to pick things up pretty quickly... My job is not hard. I take orders for take out, answer the phone, and run food to the bar.

When there are no customers I mostly focus on not dying of boredom and pry into my co-workers lives. In the back where I spend most of my time, I am the only gringa so I have been able to practice my spanish regularly. The boys in the back are mostly from El Salvador and we have bonded over mopping at the end of ten-hour shifts and listening to a mezcla of Kanye and Spanish Christian music on a repeat cycle. After two months of invitations, I agreed to go to church with them and have now been promised a bling-ed out bible for Christmas.

When there are customers, my job gets a little interesting. The only people really who want to get a burrito or taco to go between 11pm and 2am are drunk or wish they were drunk. So far I have had go find two people passed out on the bathroom floor, called 911 twice to break up serious fights , had four marriage proposals, given six people food that they were not even aware they ordered and get asked for my phone number on average about 3 times per

weekend.

Like I said, it's the job I love to hate.

I have enough money for Nicaragua and still some for next semester tuition and though I have said I am quitting about a million times, I probably wont...and that's La Verdad. :D

Getting out of the Cold

Hi all!

Back on the road again soon. This time I am heading to the lovely city, San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua!! I took a class over the semester about Nicaraguan health and politics and the end of the semester was suppose to be a trip to Nicaragua as a class. Sadly the trip was cancelled to due safety reasons. The cancellation was considered very unnecessary by some (ie: me) and so me and two other girls from my class decided to go anyway. Simmons has been quite a pain and made very clear their disapproval, but we do live in a free country so I take off on Jan 4th.

When I am there I will have the opportunity to work with optometrist students from Harvard who will be doing eye exams and need translators!! Very excited!! I also will be able to visit the battered women's shelter that was started from the money raised by Simmons performances of The Vagina Monologues (which I will be performing in, in Feb). Right now there is only funds for two women and their children but we hope to raise enough money to expand from our February shows!!

In the process of packing. I am much more relaxed than when I was packing for Chile. I will only be gone for 12 days. Pretty much all I packed was shoes and school supplies for Nicaraguan kids, two bathing suits, and my passport. I am packing so early because I am being kicked out of my dorm tomorrow for the Christmas break. I will be spending some time in Allston at my friend Shira's and working in Boston, then going to New Hampshire for the Holiday, then back to Allston, then off to San Juan, then back to Boston right in time for the spring semester. Think I need a bigger suitcase.

And most importantly, when I walked home from work the other day it took me about a half hour to defrost so I am excited to getting out of the cold.

More later!!

Cusco Peru in June

At last I have finished writing my endlessly long paper (29 pages in spanish...not doubled spaced). I did the presentation and handed in my work journal. The only thing left to do is wait for the grades but that wont come for awhile so I am free to be on summer vacation!!! We celebrated Dia de Arica on the 6th with fireworks and such and it was the perfect way to end my time in Chile.



My saint of a mother changed my plane ticket for me to stay in South America for ten days after my classes ended so I packed up a backpack and Anneliese (a friend of mine from our program) and I headed to Peru enroute to Machu Pichu!!! We have not yet gotten there but we have had quite the adventure.



We left Monday morning from Arica in a taxi to cross the border of Peru into Tacna (only about 45 minutes away). I love the border into Peru because even though there were signs everywhere saying not to bring fruits or vegetables into the country...I still brought two tomatos, a kiwi, and a lemon through without anyone saying anything. Also Anneliese had lost her Chilean visa and the border guard was just like...you shouldnt lose you visa and gave her a new one to fill out. Overall it didnt take us very long. We thought we might be late for the bus in Tacna but at the bus station we learned that we gained an hour when we went into Peru!! Had time to buy snacks and use the bathroom (very important). At ten we got onto the bus to Arriquippa. It was about a 7 hour trip but I didnt notice at all because I slept most of the way (catching up from the sleep I lost with all the festivities of the dia de arica). In Arriquippa we had four hours to kill before our next bus so we took a terrifying taxi ride into the center of the city to Plaza de Armas. I thought that drivers in Chile were scary...but it was nothing compared to this ride. It seems to be that there are no traffic laws at all!! Very funny. At one point we asked the driver if you had to drive on the left side of the road in Peru (he said yes...but we have yet to see any other evidence of this in other parts of Peru). Plaza de Armas is supercool. It feels like being in Italy or some European country with a huge church on one side and buildings all around a park with fountains. We ate dinner outside on a second story balcony (Soup, rice, vegetables, eggs and orange juice for 15 soles = $5). Got back safely to the bus station for our next bus at 9pm.



At about 7am we stopped for awhile and then the driver turned the engine off. I got out to see what was going on and there was a huge line of buses and trucks and a few cars just stopped. The driver said that there had been a landslide and no one could get through. Anneliese and I walked up to the front to see what was going on. When we got to the front there was only like a few rocks in the middle of the road and a few wooden beams and no one was doing anything to move them. It was very odd, we were like...Do they want help?? Because we can move these... I asked a woman if there were more rocks ahead and she said yes so we accepted this answer and just started walking around. We happened to be stopped in the bread capital of chile so we of course bought some bread and it was awesome. After a while Anneliese went to take a nap in the bus and I walked back up front to see what was going on. There were a lot more people this time and a man standing up on a hill speaking to all the people and kind of like rallying then together. I got the jist that they were very angry about something. I started asking around and finally this guy from Arriquippa helped me out. It wasnt a strike after all...the people who live in the campos were having strikes (paros) all over the area. They were trying to get the attention of the government to help pay for damages that destroyed a lot of places in floods in February. They would only break up and let the people by if a sufficient number of police came to break them up. In the mean time we were stuck there and a mini-riot broke out with rock throwing and everything. I got out of there pretty quick with the helpful guy (michol). We were stuck there for about 6 1/2 hours.

Finally we were able to pass and we got to Cusco but it was around 4:30pm. Still we wanted to get to Aguas Calientes to stay for the night so we could go to Machu Pichu early in the morning so we got a taxi with a nice couple from Chile that we had spent a lot of the last couple hours with to take us to the train station. The entire way there were giant boulders and trees in the roads from where people had been striking all day. We almost got to the train station when we were stopped dead again. Again, Anneliese and I went out to explore what was happening. Along the way we met a couple from England, a few people from Minnesota, and 15 roudy Canadians :) who had all been stuck in this spot for awhile. We sent one of the Minnesota boys all the way up the road to see what was going on. He came back saying it was another angry mob with about 100 meters of rock piled up behind them. Instead of waiting around for the drunken angry people to move the rock, the chilean couple and we decided to go and find a place to stay in the last little pueblo for the night. We found a place for cheap with hot shower(!) and went out for pizza where the pizza guy tried to get us to go out dancing. Instead we went to bed around 10:00pm. We were so exhausted. Got up at 2:40am and took a taxi with the same chilean couple to go to the train station to get a ticket early. Unfortunaltey...everyone who had had tickets for the day before but had not been able to get to the train station due to the strikes were given first priority and we couldnt get a train until 10:10am!!! We wandered around and got breakfast (I asked for an egg sandwich but instead got chicken and tomatoes and lettuce sandwich...a bit odd at 6am...and i am a vegetarian but i ate it anyway). Finally got on the bus to go to the train...got on the train without flaws and then AT LAST got to aguas calientes more the 24 hours later than planned. Got a bus up to Machu Pichu and everything was all worth it. It was incredible. We literally could not take enough pictures...It was the coolest. I am very very very glad it all worked out. Taking a break from being on the road for a bit and spending some time in Agua Calientes.

Until next time...Laura