Traveling Oddities and Fun
This will be an ongoing post. I hope it amuses you as much as it does me.
31May23
- My Spanish/Castilian is horribly bad. But funny. Today I told a pharmacist I needed something to deal with the "bloody and dried monkeys in my nose." I meant boogers.
Mono = Monkey; Moco = Booger.
Yes, I did know both words a priori...honestly!
Thankfully, the monkeys have been dealt with. And the nose specificmonkeycidesalve with aloe works. Those were some nasty and crusty monkeys. I'm glad to be rid of them.
I realized this 12 hours after the fact. No wonder they looked confused.
[Added 01Jun23. Today at breakfast I tried to recount the episode to the manager as we ate breakfast.
I literally said "Yesterday, I 'am telling' the (using the wrong gendered article) pharmacist (horribly mispronounced) ..."
Tenses are a gaping hole...everything is in the present. Even that gets bungled frequently.] - Re the monkeys that fly from my butt, please read: https://www.vagabondjim.com/2023/05/my-policy-on-errors-omissions-and.html
- I also meant to tell the cabbie I fought with my ex-wife before our divorce but not after. I think he assumed I beat her from his reaction. Gotta find better words for "fighting" than "boxing." I have never struck a woman. Or a man for that matter.
- Traveling in a place where the official currency is the US Dollar is strange:
- I keep trying to figure out the exchange rates in my head. Dollars to dollars is one to one!
- The value of some things is really absurd:
- $6.50 for 360ml of Listerine seems high
- $5.00 for a 30 minute cab ride seems amazing
- $0.35 for a bus ride is amazing (I believe public goods should be priced at their marginal cost, I bet this is close.)
- <$5.00 for a filling meal is wonderful. So is $3.50 for a magnificent crepe (banana, strawberries, blackberry sauce, and 'crema'), or a really good roast pork sandwich (dinner.)
Comments
I will eventually write a post about dollarization and the "Big Mac" index. The foreshadowing has been evident in some of my posts.
Today I saw a child with a Happy Meal box that inspired me to think about it. If I stoop to entering a McDonald's (first I have to find one!), it will only be to look at the prices.
Digressive story telling follows.....read at your own peril.
In Uruguay I once felt compelled to try a Quarter Pounder (con queso) and was not very happy with it. That mistake will not be repeated.
In my defense, I was MASSIVELY hungover.
It was 13Jun2010. Yes, I remember it very specifically because of the day before.
The day after:
* my 45th birthday,
* the US tied England in the World Cup,
* 3 of us consumed at least 9 bottles of wine over a day of watching soccer.
Some memorable vomiting occurred during the night. I had beet ravioli for dinner. The bathroom looked like a murder scene. Truly.
Ask SilicicAcid, she'll verify.
None of that stretch or 36-48 hours will be re-lived. It lives in infamy with the survivors.
In spite of those memories, Montevideo is the leading contender to claim me as an ex-pat in LatAM. I love it.