La Noche de la Nostalgia = Head Cold for Rachel

I'm sitting here alone of my bed drinking tea with honey and sniffling all day. It seems that making new friends the Uruguayan way (aka: staying out until 6:30 morning in the middle of winter) gives you a head cold. I've found that sometimes I need 'English siestas': time spent thinking, dreaming, and planning, time spent reading travel blogs and planning what's coming up, and also time spent catching up with family and friends.  Family and friends keep me motivated and then I can use this time to plan cool things, which then I will later (hopefully) do. I'm working on a photography project, planning a trip to Buenos Aires, and finding an internship/funding for the Uruguayan summer.

Today is the one month anniversary of my arrival here: August 25, 2009. It's also Uruguay's Independence Day. Last night was a huge Uruguayan holiday: The Night of Nostalgia. It's a holiday created about 30 years ago and that involved EVERYONE, including people in their 60s or older, going out and listening to oldies music and dancing.

I went out with my new Uruguayan friends: Vicky, Noelia, Sylvana, and Valentina. We went to a concert of Los Auténticos Decadentes. The concert was in an outdoor park named The Prado. Evidently, it is a famous barrio (neighborhood) in Montevideo.  In a classic usage of time in Uruguay, we got there for the last 30 minutes because we spent an hour waiting for the ómnibus. Wasting time isn't worth being frustrated over—because although I may have a head cold today, I spent an hour talking with four Uruguayan girls in Spanish.  

After the concert ended about 2, we spent the rest of night dancing in one of the two dance floors in the concert hall.  One floor played Kumbia while the other played English-language music. There seems to be two general trends in music tastes here. First, anything related to Kumbia or with a Kumbia beat; I've heard songs by Beyonce or Sean Paul remixed to have a Kumbia beat. The second trend is English-language music produced in the 70s and early 80s. The music played ranges from Pink Floyd & Led Zeppelin to Madonna to Foreigner & Boston to the techno 80s songs in same genre of Whip It! If it is in English and has a cheesy techno or hard rock feel, Uruguayans will like it.

Here is the press coverage about the concert I went to. Unfortunately, it is in Spanish, so most of ya'll can't read it. (http://www.elpais.com.uy/090822/pespec-437243/espectaculos/una-noche-para-desempolvar-nostalgia)

I left early at 6 in the morning. When I left, more than 500 people were still in the park dancing. The dance floors were so crowded that it was impossible to do anything more than sway back and forth and shake your hips—a little. Too much hip movement would involve knocking down the people next to you. That was on the English floor; it was even more crowded on the Kumbia floor. Rafa, Laura's 27 year old son who lives here, came back this afternoon at 1. Most people left around 8 or 9 in the morning.

What's coming up? School, private lessons in Spanish, and finding a place to volunteer. I'll let ya'll know how that is coming later on in the week.