Saturday, 09.24.2011 - 9:32 pm.
It's been almost a week since I returned from Uruguay, and I've sucked at finishing the recap of the trip. I wrote the first part in the hotel the night before traveling back home and I wanted to do the other part as soon as we returned. But I got sick, I assume from all the temperature changes the last few days, and kept putting it off.
Wednesday 14th
It was another day to explore the city and the sea port, and we did some souvenir shopping (and book shopping!). It wasn't as an active day as the day before, though. Andrew still had to work on his presentations at the congress. We had burritos for lunch and he worked there, while I read "Ask Alice", my book of choice for the trip.
I didn't sleep at all that night, and when I finally did, I had a nightmare. It was a string of absurd, desperating things, and in the end I knew I was dreaming and said I'd get Andrew to help me out of the dream. I'd seen him in the images, he refused to take me seriously about a threat (flying buildings, acid rain, etc) but I knew that wasn't him. Finally, I found myself waking up, conscious in the hostel bed next to Andrew, but unable to open my eyes, and my cat Marla was next to me, I was petting her. Then she stuck her claws in my hand while a horrible, deformed green face appeared grinning in a window. I started to scream and I opened my eyes: I was whimpering and Andrew was holding me, saying "I'm here, it's ok, I'm here".
Thursday 15th
It dawned on me the trend that since we'd left home, I had not slept well a single night. It was either bad dreams, or ideas that seemed to be fixated in my mind without me being able to think of anything else. And if it wasn't the content of the dream (the Joseph dream was, in the end, benign), I'd wake up constantly on and off throughout the night. I thought the hostel had a "bad vibe" but I couldn't sleep well at the Holiday Inn either. I suspected it was "Ask Alice", it is pretty disturbing, you know?
At noon, Andrew and I headed to the congress and spent the afternoon there. We found our friend Tamara (my friend/thesis supervisor), who was also going to give a presentation. The congress was on educational psychology and it didn't engage me, it isn't my area and the topics weren't that appealing to me.
In the evening, the three of us went for pizza and to hang out in the city; we had a wonderful time. When we walked Tamara to her hotel, Andrew and I were jealous. We'd agreed we'd find another place to stay and when we saw where Tamara and her mom were staying, we decided it had to be there. It wasn't expensive and it was so beautiful and warm and comfortable. It was very bitter for me having to go back to the hostel that night, I didn't want to stay there.
Friday 16th
In the morning we moved into a hotel, but the one where Tamara was staying. That one had no vacancies. Two doors down the street there was another hotel. It wasn't as good and the people running it were quite rude for someone who makes a living out of attending people...but it was still better than the hostel, more comfortable and private, with our own bathroom.
Andrew was falling sick but had another presentation at the congress in the afternoon. We showed up only for it and then we left. Trying to save money, we took a bus instead of a cab back to the hotel, but we got off at the wrong stop and had to walk for about 45 minutes. Also, the sunny, windy days were over, and instead it was a bit more cold, windy and cloudy.
It was Tamara's birthday the next day and she wanted to ring it in at midnight. We went out with her and her mother for pizza, again. Her mom seemed nice, but then I didn't like her that much, she's very judgemental. On a lighter side, she's a "witch", cleans houses and the like, and tried to interpret my nightmare, but I didn't tell her much (but I told her I saw my dad in coma, and she said seeing that means the opposite, that a big milestone is approaching...well, my dad turns 75 next week and tomorrow there's a big celebration back home).
Back at her hotel, with the nicest man at the counter, we had cake and champagne, while watching Classic Project videos. She blew the candles and opened our present at midnight and we hung out for another hour. She seemed very happy and thankful for the small but meaningful celebration.
When we returned to our hotel, Andrew and I made love, which we hadn't even felt like doing at the hostel (we fooled around, but the walls were so thin and the place was a bit icky in that sense). Even though I still had trouble sleeping, it was less than the previous nights.
Saturday 17th
I woke up here and there during the night, but this time from feeling my poor Andrew burning alive with fever. Ever since wednesday, we'd agreed on going to Punta del Este on saturday if we got our diplomas early at the congress. We got our diplomas since we signed up, so we had prepared our trip. Saturday morning, though, found him with a high temperature, barely able to move. We stayed. Also, the weather wasn't favorable at all.
But staying and resting was also very welcome by the two of us. All the walking from the previous days had taken a toll and I myself was feeling exhausted. We only went out at noon for lunch, to buy our last souvenirs and a shirt for me (I packed one shirt less than I should have) and stopped by a supermarket to buy a few things.
There was a beautiful Pitbull sitting outside, it seemed stray but it also seemed like she was waiting for someone. I was waiting near her while Andrew did the shopping, because we were carrying bags and we didn't want to rent a locker to leave them in as required. I thought I'd go in after he came out, I'd leave him the bags and I'd buy the dog a packet of food. But when he walked out of the register, he handed me a packet; he'd noticed her too and figured I'd want to feed her. And we did feed her.
I can't express how grateful I felt for him at that moment, I nearly cried! That meant the world to me and I'll never forget it. It's also very representative of how he is with me. He is that thoughtful and that sensitive towards the things he knows that are important to me. I love him so much.
We spent most of the day at the hotel, resting and watching TV. It was nice, too. I went out later to get dinner at the same supermarket: lasagna, doughnuts and orange juice. We drank a lot of orange juice those three days.
Tamara showed up at 10 pm to check on us and we arranged details for the trip back home the next day. She wanted to go to a souvenir fair the next morning and we'd try to make some time for it before catching the plane past noon.
Sunday 18th
Luckily, Andrew was feeling much better. We left the hotel at 10 am and the two of us, Tamara and her mom shared a cab to the airport. We arrived too early, though, mostly because I was sticking to the schedule provided by the airline. In my defense, we left that early also because we'd thought about going to the airport by bus and not by taxi, and that was going to take longer.
Long story short: we travelled almost all day. From Montevideo to Santiago, from Santiago to here. Luckily, no turbulences, no delays, and aside from the Montevideo airport, good weather. We arrived home at 8 pm with lots of loot! It was Chile's Independence Day and we barely caught some fireworks.
I think I had a bad dream that night, too, waking up Andrew again and having him holding me. But from then on, the bad dreams stopped. It's very rare that I have ugly dreams, let alone nightmares.
I came home to a lot of things to catch up with, but on monday I woke up with the same sickness that had brought down Andrew on saturday. I didn't move, couldn't move from the bed. I felt I was going to die. I got back to life the next day, tuesday, but even today I'm still coughing.
Today we went shopping for our home and did some improvements, one of them is that we framed and hung a beautiful painting and a postcard of a photograpther in a Spiderman costume, both bought in Uruguay. And as I finish writing this, I'll watch a movie while Andrew and a friend have their boys' night in and play their night away.
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