Traveling Oddities and Fun

This will be an ongoing post.  I hope it amuses you as much as it does me. 

31May23

  • My Spanish/Castilian is horribly bad.  But funny.  Today I told a pharmacist I needed something to deal with the "bloody and dried monkeys in my nose."  I meant boogers. 

    Mono = Monkey; Moco = Booger. 

    Yes, I did know both words a priori...honestly! 

    Thankfully, the monkeys have been dealt with.  And the nose specific monkeycide salve with aloe works.  Those were some nasty and crusty monkeys.  I'm glad to be rid of them.

    I realized this 12 hours after the fact.  No wonder they looked confused.

    [Added 01Jun23.  Today at breakfast I tried to recount the episode to the manager as we ate breakfast. 

    I literally said "Yesterday, I 'am telling' the (using the wrong gendered article) pharmacist (horribly mispronounced) ..." 

    Tenses are a gaping hole...everything is in the present.  Even that gets bungled frequently.]

  • Re the monkeys that fly from my butt, please read: https://www.vagabondjim.com/2023/05/my-policy-on-errors-omissions-and.html

  • I also meant to tell the cabbie I fought with my ex-wife before our divorce but not after.  I think he assumed I beat her from his reaction.  Gotta find better words for "fighting" than "boxing."  I have never struck a woman.  Or a man for that matter.

  • Traveling in a place where the official currency is the US Dollar is strange:
    • I keep trying to figure out the exchange rates in my head.  Dollars to dollars is one to one!
    • The value of some things is really absurd:
      • $6.50 for 360ml of Listerine seems high
      • $5.00 for a 30 minute cab ride seems amazing
      • $0.35 for a bus ride is amazing (I believe public goods should be priced at their marginal cost, I bet this is close.)
      • <$5.00 for a filling meal is wonderful.  So is $3.50 for a magnificent crepe (banana, strawberries, blackberry sauce, and 'crema'), or a really good roast pork sandwich (dinner.)

Comments

dkearns72 said…
I like those good prices
May 31, 2023 at 5:45 PM
dkearns72 said…
“Food prices”*
May 31, 2023 at 7:53 PM
VagabondJim said…
I think both are fitting.

I will eventually write a post about dollarization and the "Big Mac" index. The foreshadowing has been evident in some of my posts.

Today I saw a child with a Happy Meal box that inspired me to think about it. If I stoop to entering a McDonald's (first I have to find one!), it will only be to look at the prices.


Digressive story telling follows.....read at your own peril.

In Uruguay I once felt compelled to try a Quarter Pounder (con queso) and was not very happy with it. That mistake will not be repeated.

In my defense, I was MASSIVELY hungover.

It was 13Jun2010. Yes, I remember it very specifically because of the day before.

The day after:
* my 45th birthday,
* the US tied England in the World Cup,
* 3 of us consumed at least 9 bottles of wine over a day of watching soccer.

Some memorable vomiting occurred during the night. I had beet ravioli for dinner. The bathroom looked like a murder scene. Truly.

Ask SilicicAcid, she'll verify.

None of that stretch or 36-48 hours will be re-lived. It lives in infamy with the survivors.

In spite of those memories, Montevideo is the leading contender to claim me as an ex-pat in LatAM. I love it.
June 1, 2023 at 6:21 PM
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