[Remote Year] Week 1 Review
For a very detailed account of and pictures from the first 60 hours here, read my post on my initial impressions of Montevideo and Remote Year.
TL;DR:
- Portions are huge, meat is popular, dinner is eaten late
- Dave and Jason (our RY2 Battuta dedicated staff) are great, fellow RYers are interesting and nice people
- Montevideo take Summer Sundays seriously: nothing is open and the city is empty
- Uruguayans love mate (tea)
You can also follow along on my instagram, where I’m posting at least 1 picture a day.
Back to the first week’s recap, aiming to make it more brief and write other posts about any specifics that I want to go into more detail about… but mostly I can’t help but give a lot of context and backstory.
Last week passed both crazy quickly but also felt like a month. In my unofficial opinion, this is because our brains are in overdrive:
“Whoa, every day has as many new things as you usually get in a week! What is happening?! Time is relative!!!”
In addition to making my perception of time totally out of whack, I’m impossibly thirsty and hungry all the time. I’ve also noticed this when living in a foreign country and trying to stumble through thinking and conversations in a second language. When our brains are working that hard, apparently they literally just use more energy and therefore you need more food. So… I’m hungry.
Wednesday had an interesting work development come up first thing, but that’s not worth going into at the moment. When I signed up for Remote Year, I knew I’d be looking for additional freelance/contract work outside of my current gig, so it’s not really a dramatic change. But it switched up my workflow for the time being and is requiring me to adapt as I go.
While it’s not exactly ideal to be figuring out new work opportunities at the beginning of a year-long adventure, I’m also reassessing what I want to focus on professionally and see how to do passion projects sustainably while I travel with Remote Year. TBD, more to come! Wish me luck :)
On the other hand, I’ve been working with a friend (my high school boyfriend, once upon a time) on writing an ebook. He’s had a ridiculous amount of well-earned success and attention over the past year thanks to his over-the-top viral video ads for his personal law firm. Sunday night, he was in two Taco Bell Super Bowl commercials: a local and national one, so we both got a lot of texts as family and friends saw him appear on national television.
I’d been home for a couple weeks prepping for Remote Year, and had met up with him and his corgi puppy, Muffins, to catch up. When we were talking about his third video going viral and all the press and interviews he’d gotten, I told him that he really needed to write an ebook. So we decided to work on one together about how he got to this point in his life and how he made the videos.
Although he IS a rowdy person, the videos are much more thought out than probably anyone realizes (even me, prior to our 20+ hours of interviews). More on all this to come as we get it prepped for release, but it’s been a great project for me to work on. Plus I’m really excited about doing more paid writing work.
One of my favorite activities thus far on RY: tango! On Wednesdays, there’s a free tango lesson. If I read this info site correctly, the teachers are from La Callejera. The lesson was in Spanish, but they talk pretty slowly and clearly and use a microphone, so if I watched closely and filled in the gaps between words I knew, I was able to follow along. And as a woman, I mostly have to focus on trying to follow, not having to actually know exactly what’s going on. One of the things I love about partner dances and activities like these is that you rotate through different partners and it’s just a casual, fun thing to do — no expectation of hooking up or anything beyond enjoying a dance together.
I tangoed with an older Frenchman first, and we spoke a mix of broken French, Spanish, and English while stepping on each other’s toes and bumping into other couples. Then I danced two songs with a teenage Uruguayan boy who was very sweet and spoke some English — it was his fifth tango lesson. Next was an Argentinian who was quite bashful and on his second lesson. Then I switched in to dance with Curtis, one of the guys on our program, and when we asked the lady teacher for help on the turn steps, she ended up taking me and holding my shoulders before telling me that the trick with tango is to be very stiff and close to your partner so you can feel small movements. I took a break for a bit and then an older man left his family/friends to ask me to dance, and we spoke Spanish-Italian-English together and danced for three songs. He was the most experienced dancer that I danced with, which was very fun because I got to feel like I was actually tangoing for a few songs.
After tango, we were all quite hungry. Some of the RY spectators had made friends with a woman and her son, so I asked her where they recommended we go eat. They suggested the Mercado de la Abundancia, which was fortuitously located two blocks from our hotel, so we set off to find it. Like the Mercado del Puerto last weekend, this was a big indoor space with a few restaurants that specialized in different things. I think 7 of 9 of us ordered a salad with chicken — all meat all the time is getting a bit tiring for those of us that are more veg more often.
I got up on Thursday to meet a friend for a jog, but she slept in, so I ended up going for a nice 30 min jog at 7:45. I ran through the streets from the hotel to the Plaza Independencia and then down to La Rambla (beachwalk), out to an old pillar in the ocean and back to the hotel. It was pretty sunny and hot, so I was a lovely shade of red and soaked.
One reason I wanted a fitbit was to track all my walking while traveling, but I also wanted to be able to go for a run without a phone or anything. So it was great to just go with a key and my fitbit and explore the city and find my way back. Freedom! Off the grid! (aka normal life pre-2008 and the advent of smart phones)
One thing we’ve all noticed throughout Montevideo is how much street art is everywhere. Some of it is beautiful, some looks more like graffiti, some clearly has complicated backstory, some is playful, some is inappropriate.
I think it’s such an interesting form of expression, and I definitely want to do some more research and do a street art walking tour before I leave. I think it will be a common theme in many cities we visit as it tends to be an art form in cities in transition — that metamorphosis galvanizes artists to express themselves on the city itself.
Remote Year has set up Spanish language lessons for us with Pitu, a native Uruguayan who actually teaches English classes to locals. She’s great and is doing 3 levels for us twice a week each, so we’re hoping to make progress with speaking Spanish for the four months we’re in South America (and the only countries most of us hope to be able to pick up any language skills).
Friday I had a late morning and went directly to lunch with Tarryn and Emily to Mandarina Ana Duran — or the white cafe, as we call it. It’s all white inside — tables, chairs, peeling painted doors, ornate old light fixtures — and it just has a wonderful airy, clean feeling.
Ana Duran has been there when I’ve gone in, and she speaks English and is very friendly. As she told me, she wants to make delicious, healthy, affordable food for people in a nice environment. I think she accomplishes it splendidly, and the constant stream of lunchtime visitors of noticeably more upper class Uruguayans is a testament to her success.
Since it was our first Friday together AND Carnaval, Dave organized dinner at Cafe La Ronda, so we all showed up en masse to sit 75 RY Battuta members plus visiting Remote Year staff in their outdoor seating. We had some delicious sandwiches and then spent a couple hours mingling and drinking. A couple girls brought face paint and glitter, so we all got a little glam in lieu of costumes.
Then everyone split off into smaller groups to go explore Montevideo’s Carnaval. I walked over with a group to attempt to see the parade. The crowds were by no means unruly and relatively few people appeared to be drinking at all, but the streets around the parade route were clogged with people, making it hard to see the performers dancing down the street.
We passed back and forth across the parade route (you just squeeze through people to a gate and walk across in between performance groups) and managed to see enough of it to feel fairly satisfied, so we decided to head back. As we were walking, we saw drums and people with sequined costumes sparkling against small fires (burning egg cartons) in the street.
We had stumbled upon the staging area for one of the groups — Las Panteras de Bengal (I think). They were very friendly — several guys showed us how to play their drums and laughed at us when we were utterly incapable of imitating their rhythms, the female dancers let us pose in pictures with them, and I spent five minutes explaining Remote Year (in mangled Spanish) to a group of 4 couples dressed as old people (La Mama Vieja / The “Old Mother” and El Gramillero / “Medicine Man”).
This was a wonderful random encounter that made my Carnaval experience unique and special in a way that spectating alone can’t compare to.
Saturday morning was our official Remote Year orientation, which deserves its own post for those who want to know more about the actual program, our staff, the group values, and Dave’s amazing speech at the end — he recited Oh The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss, which is always a soft spot for me since I grew up with it and then Dad gave it to me with a handwritten note on the inside cover for my college graduation gift. *all the feels*
Dave made mention of all the goals we had for our Remote Year and that to gain new experiences and growth, we would have to be uncomfortable, to pursue what is different and unusual, to accept change, to try things on our own. Then he finished the last lines of Oh The Places You’ll Go while subbing in some of our names. We loved it.
After some down time, we got together in small groups for dinner — my foursome ended up at a random restaurant when our intended destination was still closed (not open for dinner until 8:30) Dolce Tokyo for some delicious sushi in a nice environment.
Then we went to the Charleston Bar for our welcome party. The bartenders poured some incredibly strong drinks and I begged the DJ for Justin Bieber, so after a couple hours, we were having a fantastic dance party. We may not all remember the details of the night, but I know we had a great time and got closer as a group.
Sunday morning, a little worse for the wear, we grabbed taxis over to a park across town where Jason and Dave had organized a game of Bubble Ball — i.e.: soccer played by people in giant inflatable plastic balls. It’s quite hot to be wedged inside, and you can barely see where you’re going, but it is hilarious to watch giant balls with tiny human legs running around the field, knocking into each other and bouncing across the dusty field.
Hangovers and heat ended that activity after a few rounds, and then a large group played regular soccer while others spectated. I got with a handful of people to pepper a volleyball back and forth (training to do some recreational beach volleyball if I can).
We left around 5 pm to head back to the hotels, and I had a late lunch with Rebecca, who I hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk to before. Our work worlds actually overlapped quite a bit, which made for some interesting conversation. It has been nice to get some one-on-one conversations with people after so many large group activities and meals.
After that, I got a much needed shower and clean clothes, did some work, and then headed out at 11 pm to have an ice cream cone alone in the park (with many families around) and ate a hamburger to go alone in bed while FaceTiming my sister and friend back home during the Super Bowl.
Thus ended my first week with Remote Year! While week 1 of 52 may seem like a drop in the bucket to some, I feel very aware of how quickly time passes.
Since I started traveling full time in June 2014, I can tell you almost exactly the date I did something because no period of my life has passed in a blur since then. It’s all been short term visits and I know that any event that happened in a place was within a finite set of dates. Interview with Remote Year? Done via Skype from my hotel in Hanoi, so between June 19–26, probably the 21. Only first date I’ve been on in the US while traveling? August 22 because I left on the 25th for Seattle for my birthday. Last time I saw my dad? December 28 when he took me to the airport after Christmas. And so on, for everything. It’s a strange way to see life and time when they’re always tied to an itinerary.
The past 20 months have passed in a way that is so different from the rest of life because it’s all short term visits during which I’m hyper attentive to where I am and what I’m doing.
So while a year stretches out in front of me, holding 11 months of unknown experiences in foreign lands with new friends and yet unfamiliar faces, I know that it will pass in the blink of an eye, and I will be sitting in SE Asia reflecting back on this experience all too soon.
