Five Bad Signs

Last time I discussed five indicators that lead me to believe my talents as a traveler are improving. Now, it´s time to take a look at my reminders that prove I have not achieved a pro status.

My Spanish is still atrocious

After full submersion in Spanish speaking cultures for the past four months, you´d think I´d have a grasp on the language. Surprise! I don´t. I´d call it more of a weak tickle. Yes, that´s it. I´ve made a feeble attempts to tickle Spanish and in turn, Spanish tends to deliver a slap in the face. But there is hope for me yet. Recently I had my first dream in which I spoke a few words of Spanish. Score one for me. Fear not, for I will get this language dialed in before it´s all said and done.

Unfortunate encounters with foreign objects

It has come to my attention that there are a few items that they use regularly here, but I haven´t quite got the hang of them yet. Example: I mentioned the emergence of butt-cleaning bidets in my life somewhere in a past post. Well for some reason we are no longer on a friendly level. I really don´t want to talk about how this happened, but one day a bidet decided to squirt me in the eyes. Not my brown eye. We aren´t talking about a small spritzing either. It was a total eye enema. A full on ocular douche. I was leaking juicy bidet tears for the next hour. Also hurt was my pride. It´s no fun getting blasted in the eyes with water that is meant for your bum bum.

I haven´t gotten robbed........yet

What is this all about? There is no such thing as a self-respecting world traveler who hasn´t gotten stuff stolen. I would consider myself a failure if I can traipse around South America for months without getting robbed. Im not worried about it though. There is still plenty of time for the criminals to come through. Until then, I´ll just have to rely on myself to continue losing my own stuff.

Tried to take a knife on a plane

As it turns out, the Argentines also frown upon attempts to bring weapons on their planes. In my defense, I had completely forgotten it was in my carry-on and I was running on a nights sleep of about 30 minutes. So I was pretty confused when they pulled me aside after going through the X-ray security check point. They said, ¨Hey buddy! What are you trying to pull here? Javier! It looks like we´ve got a terrorist on our hands.¨ Well, looking back that´s probably what they said, but at the time I had no clue what their Spanish words meant. I did understand the word I know in Spanish as ¨pen¨ but they were unamused when I whipped that out of the bag. They failed to use the word I know for ¨knife¨ but after some time I remembered that there was definitely one in there. Needless to say, they took that from me, but I was just happy/mildly surprised I didn´t get detained as a terrorist.

I miss you all

Boom! This just got sentimental. So I figure the best world travelers can go for years at a time without returning home and that can only be because they don´t miss it enough to go back. This is one attribute I´m not sure I will ever develop and I´m perfectly happy with that. Friends and family back home, you are thought of frequently and are definitely missed. Friends that I´ve met on my trip, you are already missed as well and I look forward to they day our paths cross again.

There you have it. These are the subtle hints I´ve received that indicate that I´m not quite a professional globetrotter.

Next up: The End Of The World!

Much love