Dona E. Bowens

It’s the start of Day 3 in Montevideo and I’ve finally powered up the laptop and I’m going to see how far I can get with this blog post before the battery goes kaput. I can’t be chuffed to dig out the charger and adapter.

Nevermind…I dug out the adapter and believe me, if my laptop doesn’t catch fire, I’ll be thrilled. But at least now I can babble on this blog until my heart’s content without worrying about battery usage. That was the most boring start to a blog post ever. My apologies, I’m blogging weed-free which hardly ever happens.

Because I’m a millionaire in pesos now, I’m telling myself Yes! for everything. Yes! to the upgrade to first class! Yes! to steak for my last meal in America, and hook Wendy up, too. It’s the least I can do since you have to honor those friends who are willing to drive you to the airport. And at the airport, the skycap asked, “Are you Delta Plus?” Why Yes! I am. And he whisked away my tons of luggage so fast that I got confused in the whirlwind of it all and tried to give Wendy a handshake goodbye instead of the hug that friends get. At the check-in counter I said Yes! to checking what I hoped would pass as a carry-on. Yes! to $200 more to get all my shit down to Uruguay. I’m not going to be a millionaire in pesos for too much longer at this rate, my friends, but damn it if I’m not having a good time.

When they called first class to board I behaved just as I always told myself I would if I ever got to 1st class. I hunkered down in my big ole seat and stared dead-eyed at the peasants as they boarded and I sat sipping on a ginger ale. I had a shit-eating grin on my face that I hope transmitted to the peasants that I’m a goddamn millionaire in pesos. My fellow first-classers and I struggled with where to put on the free shit. My complimentary water bottle collided with my ass and rolled under the seat in front of me. Oh how we laughed when the rich gentleman in front of me handed back the bottle to me saying, “I thought it was mine. What am I going to do with more ,” he asked. Yes! darling. Whatever will we do with more, more, MORE!

Landing in ATL toppled me right off my high horse. We were late and I had to hustle to make the connection. Now, you know that one of my motivations for leaving the country, apart from the obvious, is that for 3 years Amerikkka has been trying to kill me with that sedentary lifestyle of driving everywhere and fresh veggies being more expensive than McDonald’s. I estimate I’ve gained 50 lbs and even short strolls have my hips and lower back screaming in pain. I can’t wait to get back to walkable neighborhoods and cheap veggies…where staying mobile is built into daily life. Well, now I had to run through the ATL airport to get to that life. And so it began.

I made it to the gate sweating like a whore in church. But I gotta tell you, first class for this international leg of the journey wasn’t worth my pesos. The seats weren’t much bigger than the peasant class and the hot towels didn’t make up for it. At least my seat mate was cool. I never got her name, but she was going to spend her 40th birthday with her birth family in Chile. “I’m one of those stolen children from the 80’s,” she told me. What? How’d I miss the stolen children phenomenon? Apparently, with the assistance of the Catholic Church (surprise, not surprise) infants were stolen from Chilean hospitals and adopted out to American families. Her birth parents were told that she’d died and they believed it although they were never given a body. This woman grew up in San Antonio, Texas knowing she was adopted but it wasn’t until she took a DNA test that she found out that she’d been stolen. So, now she flies to Chile a few times per year to make up for time lost thanks to religion. Wow.

I said goodbye to the stolen woman in Santiago, Chile and walked, walked, and walked some more to my connecting flight to Montevideo. I soothed myself by thinking that soon walking won’t be a chore anymore but a stress relief. Keep pushing. I said No! to hiring one of those dudes to push me to my gate in a wheelchair. Not spending my pesos that way. No first class was available for this last 90 minute leg to Montevideo and we were packed like sardines. I didn’t accept the complimentary drinks. Want to know why? Because I’ve gotten so fat that I can’t lower the tray past my ample belly in peasant class. That’s some embarrassing shit. I only tell you because I know it’s only some temporary shit. I’m going to remedy this real quick. I blame Amerikkka, refusing to acknowledge my role in my growth spurt, but it’s baffling to me how in one location you can just live and stay relatively healthy, while in another location, you can just live and nearly die unless you find hours each week just to fight back the fat.

Anyway, upon landing in Montevideo I hear my name over the PA system like I’m famous. They must know I’m a millionaire—a millionaire without luggage apparently. That’s what they wanted to tell me. I did all that running through ATL and my luggage did not. I wasn’t surprised or angry. I was happy to be speaking Spanish and arranging the return of my things to the hotel.

I was also happy that I’d arranged for a driver to take me to that hotel. A driver named Mauricio. I say Yes! to Mauricio. I didn’t know they make them like that in Uruguay. More on his luscious ass soon.

I have to go out and walk now. So, I’m going to leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger because it’s my last night in Ciudad Vieja and I haven’t seen the half of it. More , more, MORE soon…