More Argentina.

I cannot believe in my fervor of write about drugstores in Argentina I totally forgot to mention one of the highlights, posted above. This is a very large picture and I was quite unaware of that until now. Anyway. I did not take that picture, but I am pretty sure I have it somewhere on my computer. Which is kind of stupid, now that I think about it, because this is supposed to be my travel blog, with my pictures and stuff. But I realized that when I post pictures a lot of the time they are even bigger than this one. Which is sort of alarming. Anyway. Here is a picture of Eva Perón's grave. She and her whole family are buried here. She has a rather interesting story, though I am not entirely well versed on the political side of her life. She grew up very poor and moved to Buenos Aires for an acting career, and she eventually turned out to be a pretty big deal. So big of a deal, apparently, that she caught the eye of the president, Juan Perón, and they hit it off. She apparently was very scandolosa during his presidency, because she wore pants and they lived together and weren't married, not to mention she was about 20 years younger than him. Which, in my personal opinion, is gross. Anyway, all that hanging out with Juan Peron paid off, because she was the first female president of Argentina who fought for labor rights and women's sufferage. But right as she was moving into her prime, she got cancer and her health declined rapidly, so she had to step down from the presidency. She had a movie made out of her, where the famous song "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" was created. In Spanish, it's called "No Llores por Mi Argentina", and I found a beautiful version of it by Paloma in my Spanish conversational class, and I have been listening to it nonstop.
It's beautiful. When I was there, I felt it necessary to honor her memory by singing the song at her grave. The Latina and I sang it in front of her grave, with Australian tourists looking on and saying that Evita would be rolling in her grave if she saw us. Well you know what, Australia? She didn't even write the song, it was written for her, and, since we heard it, we are singing it to her. So, she is getting double the credit even though the only reason she had an in with the president was because he was famous. And thought she was a babe. We are honoring her, and so is the song. So she is getting all sorts of undeserved attention. Which she would have loved, since apparently she loved any sort of publicity and she was starved for attention for a while. Kind of like a middle child.

We are now back in Uruguay and it is rather strange. A lot of the newness has worn off and that is kind of cool, yet frustrating at the same time. It's cool because I am not afraid to take buses all over the city and get what I need at places and stuff like that, and make friends and talk to people, but it has just dawned on me that I am here until May. And that is a long time. A very, very long time. The Lackey has been counting, which I do not understand why, but she has, and we have 82 days left or something. Which seems like a lot, but I know it will fly by when we are finished. I also feel like I am getting to the point where I am actually getting attached to people because of this experience. I mean, when we got here, I thought that everyone was cool, and I liked them a lot, but I feel like I am starting to genuinely like everyone on a deeper level. And it scares me because I know that when this is over it is going to absolutely rip me apart. Not only leaving everyone here, but leaving Uruguay. I feel like right now is the do or die moment; do I push everyone away, quit being vulnerable, quit getting to know everyone, convince myself that I have learned all the Spanish there is to know and know everything about Uruguay that there is to know, and take away what I have from it now? Or, knowing what I know, that I am falling in love with Uruguay and these people I'm living with, and continue to invest everything I have in them to leave with a much richer experience? I belive that the answer is obvious. But acting it out is the tough part. I am in love.

I miss this though: