aiiiight

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have you ever woken up in the morning to what sounds like a bunch of monkeys banging on metal sheets with hammers? I've always wondered what my reaction would be and now I can tell you, with out hesitation, what I do whenever that happens...... I take my shoe and beat it against the wall until I'm pretty sure the monkeys know I mean business. Something I've always wanted to see, even now, even since I was so rudely awoken this morning: I've always wanted to open a door and see a bunch of monkeys typing away at type writers. They have cigars in their mouths and green hats on, and they would be typing scripts for movies/ instruction manuals/ fortune cookie sayings. I can always dream.
A little bit of news right now. It's official, I'm going to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for Carnival. Tomorrow, I'm getting a visa at the brazilian consulate, and then there will be no more bumps, just smooth sailing until Feb. 15. For those of you who don't know what the celebration is about, picture Mardi Gras, which is basically the same thing. The dates are chosen by what day of the year Easter Sunday is on. Forty days before this, Lent starts. This means people are supposed to choose something to give up for 40 days until Easter. Fat tuesday, which is the largest celebration comes 41 days before Easter Sunday and Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. Many years ago, this tradition started in Italy by the Catholic religion. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.”
In New Orleans, at the stroke of midnight on Fat Tuesday, every shop and every business closes. Two Mardi Gras ago, I was on Bourbon Street when this happened. Sure enough, at the stroke of midnight, every bar closed it's doors, and street cleaners came to clean, not only the cups and hot dog wrappers that had been thrown on the streets, but to also let everyone know that Ash Wednesday had arrived. People describe this event as an annual celebration of life found in many countries of the world and by learning more about carnival we can learn more about ourselves and a lot about accepting and understanding other cultures.
So now that you know what Carnival is all about, the way I stumbled upon being able to go goes hand in hand with what this celebration is all about. On my way to Mendoza, I ran into a fellow english speaker. He was from Sweden but he had just resigned from his job in New York City to take some time to travel. He was headed to Mendoza, then was continuing on to "Tierra Del Fuego" which was the southern most tip of South America (in english this area is called the land of fire). He explained that he was planning on going to Carnival, but his 2 buddies who were going to meet him there had just cancelled and were't going to be there. He had booked one of the last rooms on Copacabana beach about half a year ago at one of the last hotels with vacancy. Since then I've talked to some people who are going, last minute, staying at a hostel in a bad neighborhood and are paying about the same amount as this hotel. I had always talked about going, but never knew it entailed alot of planning. I just wanted to show up and see what it was about.
So, after hanging out in Mendoza (see pictures of familia zuccardi winery) and a trip to bariloche (also see pictures), we parted ways, me and chris both with a plane ticket to brazil on feb 15 and headed back to buenos aires, him heading down to tierra del fuego.
Tomorrow, I go to get my Visa, thursday, I go to Iguazu falls for a tour of the falls at midnight for the full moon....

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