I need a visit to Vienna

Liebe Österreich,

I would like to thank you for being so kind to my dad and sister who came all the way to Vienna this past weekend. You showed your best side (culture and beauty) and your true side (gray slight rain). As my dad said on the metro before we diverged - you can tell that it's been a long time since we met because we've been interrupting each other all the time...

One of the benefits in Vienna is that you really have a lot to show your guests. My sister and I got our clothes impregnated by smoke in some cozy bars on the Friday before my dad arrived, and then we spent all of Saturday and Sunday exploring the treasures. It was fun to realise how extremely well we actually do this - but I guess ~15 years of getting to know the world together has shaped our travel style after each other. We know each other better than anyone else, and this is what we do best.

It was such an energy boost, to be with people who know me, that I don't have to explain things to. That I can speak Swedish to, even though my dad found it funny that I use direct English translations ("ha en öl") and my sister mixes with Norwegian words, as she's been living in Norway for a while now. To feel excited and making an effort, wanting to make sure they had a good time, but convinced that I would succeed.

Thoughts on purpose and career

"`Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!"

Dear Austria,

Thank you for challenging me so much. I have a lot to learn through you, through living slightly outside my comfort zone and reconsider my values and choices.

This Tuesday was just not a very good day. In order to maintain a direction, I feel like I should have something scheduled, something structured. Otherwise I end up thinking "why should I do this now, I can just as well do it in an hour/tonight/tomorrow". But just having one lecture, or something that pushes me just a little, it makes me feel like I'm doing something reasonable. This Tuesday I felt completely meaningless. I was supposed to study for an exam but I was very unmotivated because there really wasn't much to learn (and certainly nothing interesting), and how much can you learn with only 3 ECTS anyway?

This escalated a bit in my head and I ended up thinking that my life is meaningless. Which obviously it pretty much is, in existential terms, but for it to be fun I want to feel that I'm doing something for a purpose. I believe that everyone has a different purpose in their life that we find for ourselves, and as for now, my goal and what drives me is the dream to work with water resources, to be able to contribute to a sound environment and improved living conditions for vulnerable people. When that feels very far away, I get frustrated. I want this for myself, and I struggle so hard to get to it, and when the road isn't very straight or people point it out to me that I'm doing it the wrong way (in their opinion), it can really get me down. Especially now, when I'm approaching the end of one phase (the studying), and dreading the transfer to the next - the work.

Of course I want other things for myself and I have other purposes too. Some day my purpose will be to be a good mum (high standards set by my own one), I also want to write a book some day, and other things. But the reason I came to Austria was none of those, it was for the purpose of my master degree. And then only having one or two lectures a week for the first month is really frustrating.

But, this week I started a new course, which is mainly for engineers but  think I'll manage. If I could do both climate physics and economical theory last year, then why not some engineering too? I might be the most interdisciplinary student of the decade, and I guess I will soon find out whether that is an advantage or not on the job market... Some think I'm smart and will be an asset to the one who hires me, and others say I'm stupid not to focus on one thing and do it very well. But maybe this is what I do very well - connect the dots and create links between fields.

The longer you run...

Perhaps the difference between "spending time somewhere" and actually consider yourself living there has something to do with routines. Not just waking up, but those you spend a little effort on.

One of mine is running. It's not fundamental, but it just makes life so much better. However, when you move into the center of a city with 2 million inhabitants, it can be challenging to find a place to run. Perhaps it's the same for people who want to find a gym.

I was out biking a while ago and suddenly realised I'd found my spot. It's not too far from where I live, just a few minutes by bike. It's flat, no intersecting roads (i.e. no red lights), has a little bit of nature. Donaukanal, here we go. The first stretch has quite a lot of people, also other runners. After 25% I pass Kraftwerk Wien which is a very iconic landmark, and then there is less people. But here is where you meet the people who actually like running, and don't just go because they feel they should. You no longer see people who seriously need someone to teach then how to run because they are in danger of hurting themselves, but instead you meet those sweating, persistent, adrenaline-borne runners who occasionally meet your eyes and share that smile, the one that says "good job, I'm also enjoying this".

After 50%, I cross the bridge and run back on the other side. Here is where the amazing grafitti is, on the supporting poles under the highways (downside of my track is air pollution). I enjoy it most at the hour around sunset, there's something magical with that time of transformation, and being so vividly aware of your own body through it.

Usually, my run is 8 km and I like to head out twice per week. Yesterday I extended it with another maybe 2 km, to clear my head. Whatever bad mood I'm in, it's always at least slightly better afterwards. It takes anger away. I notice when I'm better as I let go of the angry/upset/sad spinning thoughts, and start daydreaming. I've always daydreamed, for as long as I can remember. Much less now than when I was a child, but this is still my time to myself. To allow for any creativity, and scenario to take place. Let go of the boundaries of reality.

I'm playing with the thought of training for a half marathon. Not that there's a race I actually want to participate in, I just want a goal and a plan. We'll see. For now, I'm happy beating the Donaukanal with the soles of my shoes.

New chapter - Moving east

Dear Austria,

I would like to thank you for the very warm welcome you have given me since my arrival here three weeks ago. Yet again you have proven that time indeed is relative, as experienced in new relationships.

I came here to study, but that has so far not really been taking up a lot of my time. I would like to study more, but I only have a few classes per week and no course literature. My university claims to be "flexible", although all international students know that it's just a nice way to say "completely unorganised". It's quite funny actually.

So since I got here, I've spent a lot of time with my new flatmate, Stefan. I'm trying to make friends, but it really takes time and effort, as anyone moving to a new place knows. My efforts may not have been as intense as they could have, but honestly I just miss my old friends. So I've spent more time skyping and emailing with people as well, which is a great, and I'm receiving a lot of love! And being able to give my loved ones some well-deserved attention.

But to be honest, I've been up to quite a lot here. I've been to a festival and saw the local band A basement in bloom (yay!) and went to the museum night, bought furniture and brought it to my place (took a wardrobe and later on a chair on the metro), built an IKEA bed on my own, biked out to the surrounding forest (Wienerwald), visited the garden of Schönbrunn, had a few nights out with Nathalie and Stefan, went to a couchsurfing meeting in a boardgame bar, joined a bookclub and went to a meeting, read 3 novels and watched quite a lot of a TV serie with Stefan...

 Nathalie is helping me move a closet!

 Sunset from our apartment

And that is not even including this weekend, when Stefan took me to his parents' farm in upper Austria where we were helping out with the cows, and hiked up a mountain. The excursion started early in the morning and was by far the most challenging one I've done, passing on the ridge of a mountain and using hands and feet to get by. I admit I was pretty scared, but it was well worth it! Both for the view and the fun and adrenaline-induced experience of pushing my boundaries.

 

Then it's also all the small things of finding my way around a new place. I've found a place to go running (not so easy in a big city), a market to buy food, places to go dumpster diving, which way to bike to university... It has all been so much nicer thanks to the excellent weather, allowing me and Nathalie to have a coffee outdoors in the sun after class. Warm welcome in a double meaning, that is.

Prayer for the weekend

“And what is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?”

This weekend was much, much needed and actually my first weekend without a visitor, except from my first crazy weekend...

The plan was to go to Amsterdam and witness the famous pride festival with my dear friend Therese, but as the weekend got closer I got more and more physical indications telling me to stay at home and rest. One of my many weaknesses is that I have a hard time saying no to fun stuff, which means that I have been constantly active ever since I got here. Which has been totally awesome, but the stress is starting to manifest itself in my body and demanding some rest. Hand eczema,  fatigue, loosing focus, bad mood, loss of appetite... So I decided to stay at home and isolate myself for the weekend.

Friday evening I spent some time with my very sweet housemate and had beer, cheese and chocolate for dinner. It was fab.

Saturday I decided to finally go to Delft, which is only a few kilometers away by bike. That town is stupidly beautiful! Very very Dutch, very much canals and brick houses and market and I was strolling around on my own until I ended up with an ice cream and my book on the town square, listening to some not so good bands playing at a pop festival that the city had decided to arrange that day. This country seems to be an ongoing festival indeed. In the evening I closed my windows not to hear what was going on outside and entered into the world described on the pages of my book. Escapism at its best.

Sunday I started with a long run and an avocado sandwich, before trying to take control over my housing situation in Vienna. Actually, when Nikos left this Tuesday, I was determined to dedicate the rest of the week to finding a place, and it seems to be paying off - I think I have a nice place on the hook, fingers crossed... So after some struggling with that and other boring stuff, I headed out for a second long bike ride which took me to oostduinen, an area of overgrown sand dunes just north of Den Haag. Pedaling away and then sitting alone in the sand, again with my book, having an afternoon nap in the sun... This was just the weekend I needed. But honestly, I'm not motivated at all to go back to the office tomorrow - I need a proper summer holiday! Can't wait to go to Greece in less than 2 weeks....

Balance and visit from another life

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.” 

As summer is proceeding, I am trying (and succeeding) in making my time here feel as much as possible as a summer holiday. I'm a little surprised at this myself, as I thought I would go all-in for my internship, but I am really getting the benefits from a more balanced life. I guess I didn't expect very much at all from DH, but its really showing off its best side, prominently on the people side as I'm constantly surrounded by  funny, clever and warmhearted people. I am really grateful to all of them for sharing as much as they do. In a long-term perspective, I also believe that going to Vienna in October will be much better if I'm filled up with summer and energy (and beer...).

Regarding the internship, I am happy with it, albeit the feeling that I haven't really gotten in to it yet. A lot of my time is spent doing market research, which is time consuming and a bit boring, and the outcome doesn't really show yet. But instead of getting frustrated, I hope for more interesting tasks in the future and enjoy the fact that I'm the least stressed person in the office. The benefit of being an intern is that after all (at least in my case), you have no responsibility.

Last week, I was very happy to recieve my first visitor, Andres from Argentina!! Who would have thought? We met in Ecuador in 2011, and now he had decided to "cruzar el charcho" (cross the puddle) and come to Europe, and he was in the Netherlands for a little while. A lifetime ago, yet it is very near in some senses. It was really great to catch up and interesting to see what happened to us after our roads diverged - we lived basically the same life for a month when we traveled together, then I went home and back to my studies in Sweden whereas he continued to Mexico and the Caribbean where he has been working in bars and random places, even as a musician (although he said he was not very good at it). It is fascinating to imagine that I could have done that too, in a different life, but I chose this route and I am definitely happy where I am.

Starting a new chapter

“How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!” 

Monday evening at 10 pm I disembarked the bus, after having spent 14 hours on the road. The journey started in Copenhagen and ended in The Hague, my new home for the next 3 months. I managed to orient myself, and after a short walk I found the house where I was welcomed as the new flatmate. More to come about that!

The following morning I got dressed and went to the office where I will spend most of my time for these next few months. Since I am transferring universities this year (just finished the first year of my master in Copenhagen, the next one will start in Vienna in October), I ended up with a long summer holiday. Nice and all, but since I really want to find a satisfactory job when I'm done with my degree (next June, hopefully), I figured it would be great if I could get some experience from the field I want to work in. Therefore, I managed to find a place willing to have me for a while - kind of outside the system, most announced internships are 6 months with a minimum salary, but mine is categorised as volunteering, so no salary and no rules, basically. Anyways, I'm at a place called IWA, the international water association, which aims to create a platform for different stakeholders in the water sector to network and exchange knowledge. Honestly, I couldn't have found a better place. This impression was enhanced when I came into the office and met the people working in my department (communications and engagement) - everyone is so nice! Humble, witty and clever people who immediately made me feel very welcome.

The week in the office has been extremely intense. I managed to arrive in the beginning of their "international staff week", which means that people from all offices (London, Nairobi, Beijing, Bucharest, Singapore and Bangkok) have been here. It was actually a great introduction, I now know a lot about the work they are doing and had a great chance to get to know the staff better at the social activity, the dinner and karaoke night! Quite crazy, I must say. I've also had the time to get to know the army of interns there, about 10 in our office, who are really sweet and as it turns out, there is another Swedish girl that I have friends in common with from before! All of this has of course been great, but also quite overwhelming. Yet, it has exceeded my expectations and I'm looking forward to a very interesting summer.

As for my house and the flatmates, it seriously couldn't be better. I live with Joost, a local, Anik, originally from India, Kelvin from Sierra Leone/Canada and Charlotte from France/Germany. And they are all really great people! We have already spent a lot of time together, endless conversations over beers or tea, and gone out for adventures together, watching football games in bars, dancing both in clubs and concerts and laughed all the time. I am so happy and grateful to be in this house, with a great community spirit. Here I know I will never be alone or bored!

There is so much more to be said, but I think it is better to stop here and continue with the reflections (an pictures!) at a later point. This chapter of my life will indeed be quite different from the Bolivia one (the last episode I blogged about), but I think I've found a different (rainier) kind of Wonderland here.

From Rurrenabaque with love

“You would have to be half mad to dream me up.”

It is the morning of our last full day in Rurre, tomorrow we’re taking a flight back to La Paz again. Our stay is much overdue but I’m not at all ready to leave. Met so many amazing friends, saw so many beautiful things, dreamt so much, got drunk, danced, cried, laughed.

I will write a separate entry for the two excursions we did, one was to the pampas as I already mentioned and the other one was to the jungle. Mesmerising.

In Rurre, we have as I’ve written earlier spent a lot of time writing on our thesis. So much that all out friends and acquaintances are commenting on it – but you are working so hard! You cannot work all the time! We have spent much time at the hostel, but also at a restaurant called Casa del Campo, where the owner has become like a second mum to us. Delicious food, but slow cooking!

We have of course also spent time with Miguel, the couchsurfer, almost everyday (Rurre is so small you are bound to run into each other at least once per day). We were also excited guests at his sister’s birthday party, when she turned eleven last week! A lovely experience, and interesting to see the differences from a Swedish celebration. First of all, all guests arrived (as expected) two hours late… and the TV was on all the time, since there are no games, just dance. And the dance is performed to the latest hits, which are in Latin America quite often performed by a man surrounded by women in bikini. Interesting, as in Bolivia the women will wear clothes even to go swimming, and we are often stared at for wearing a swim suit. On the contrary, any mother will breastfeed her child in public at any time! Confusing…

The last two days we have spent with Elin and Pontus! Pontus is a friend of mine from Sweden that I see maybe once every year together with his cousin Marcus, who is one of my closer friends. And now they are on the road, apssing by Rurre! We’ve had a really good time here although the weather turned from 30 degrees and sticky sweat to icy rain… We’ve been eating out a lot, and laughing a lot as we share the same cultural sense of humour. And Elin and Pontus are really funny – they are a perfect match! We wish you all the best for the rest of your trip, and we hope to get invited to your wedding so we can give you a chocolate fondue machine!

More friends who had a big impact on us were Sami, a French guy living with energetic Edwin. Both had such a lovely energy, cannot help but smile when around them! And our jungle guide, Leoncito, a really special person. As well as Cheo, the young artisan that is so passionate about life and nature.

This is such a special place. I think the strongest reason for that is the intense presence of the wild nature – the Pachamama, as mother earth is called in Latin America. You have to be senseless not to feel anything here, which is why I’m secretly planning my return to get a longer stay in the jungle. Maybe next year…

L'chaim

A very, very sensitive topic indeed. I don't know yet if I will publish this entry, well, time will tell.

Israeli travelers are abundant in South America. From what I have been told, everyone has to do military service - men do three years, women get away with only two. Thereafter, the "trend" is to work an let's call them unqualified jobs, as a waiter, and then go travelling the world.

Israeli travelers are not popular in South America. They are infamous for traveling in large groups, often 5-8 people, only speaking Hebrew, being very loud, doing lots of drugs, bargaining on everything and always going for the cheapest option. Were I lived in Colombia, there were two Israeli hostels which led me to the conclusion that they really like rave music, at all times of the day, and that their parties are rather exclusive. They are not known for their great social skills. Various hostels and guides simply refuse to deal with Israelis. However, everyone who has met a single Israeli (myself included) always has to add that it seems to be the group behaviour which is so irritating, not the individual.

Arriving in Rurre, we realised that this is an Israeli hotspot. We were told that it is so because an Israeli was kidnapped here a long time ago, wrote a book about it and therefore all Israeli want to go here now (I consider that logic dubious, but I guess also logic can be relative and cultural). And honesly, we got quite fed up with the masses. Waking up to an overdosing Israeli vomiting violently outside our hut in the wetlands was not fun. Worse was to have a group of ten sitting outside our door at the hostel, smoking weed, listening to horrible music and shouting in hebrew. We ended up having to go to another hostel to get some peace.

And why? Why are they so loud? Why do they almost always travel in large groups? Why are they not behaving like normal people?

Tess and I guessed that the loudness comes from the military training. Running around in large groups preparing yourself for war, I can see how shouting becomes a normal way of communicating. Well, it's a theory.

Then two days ago as we were walking home from the river, we stop outside a restaurant where I'm looking for a friend. Then three guys shout at us - come and have coffee with us! - why not, we thought and joined them. I got a beer instead of a coffee and then we were soon engaged in conversations with these Israeli kids. I can't remember everything we talked of, but I remember the strange feeling of enjoying the company, yet feeling very distant from the guys. And of course, we touched the topic of politics. Ouch. But it taught me something very important. One of these young men, when he started talking about how Arabs attack Israel, there was such a brutal frustration and anger within him, and I thought to myself - this is what keeps wars going, this deep hatred. Then I understood something even more important.

I will never understand this man.

I will never understand why he is feeling such hatred. I will never understand what it feels like to come from a country that has been disrupted by conflicts for thousands of years, under constant attack and criticized by every other country. I cannot possibly imagine what is like to belong to a group that has been persecuted for generations, dispersed over the continent. There is no way I can grasp the horrors of the holocaust and what effects it had, the aftermath that has shaped and divided the world. It is not even in my collective memory, because swedes don't know what war is. We haven't had a war of our own in almost 200 years.

I will never understand where this man comes from. So who am I to judge him? The only thing I feel I can do right now is thank him, for opening my eyes, and try to be somewhat more humble to other's reality.

Arriving in Rurre

“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Oh, Bolivia.

A week ago we left La Paz in a little propeller plane, which was by far the most beautiful flight of my life (and I’ve done quite a few…). Since the plane was so small, we flew between the snow-covered mountains and then down towards the lowlands, the green hills, the rivers.

When we arrived at the airport of Rurrenabaque, which was basically just a house next to a field, we were greeted with the phrase “wellcom to paradais!” (imagine a Spanish intonation here), and he was so right. This is so incredibly beautiful, it’s like living and breathing a documentary from national geographic. The landscapes I barely dared to dream of are now surrounding me.

So we got into town and called our couchsurfer. In this remote (yet touristic) village, there is only one couchsurfer, who of course gets heaps of requests. However, after 3 years in the CS community and this being my 40th time surfing, I have some practice in writing requests by now and know how to make people understand that I'm genuinely interested in meeting them and not just want to stay for free at someone's house. Miguel, or Lechu as he is nicknamed, picked us up and then drove us to his grandparents place, where he picked a coconut from the garden and served me. In the afternoon Tess was feeling a bit ill, so Lechu and I did a little excursion to a remote beach to go swimming in the river. Lechu and I get along so well, he is fun to hang out with and we have a special kind of humor largely based on teasing each other. He is not at all the typical Bolivian, since he lived in Venezuela for five years and has travelled a lot. At some point, I think travellers merge into a people who have more in common with each other that their countrymen – we are in a certain way a different species, with our own variety of course. And yet, after a while, you can pick out distinct types of travellers so easily... will return to this topic later!

Couchsurfers and a shared piece of beach art!

CBBA - LA PAZ - RURRENABAQUE

“Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.'Where do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.

At the airport in El Alto, just outside La Paz, having breakfast and checking emails. We left CBBA yesterday morning, to take a bus to La Paz. It was a great example of "hora Boliviana", Bolivian time conception, as we arrived at the bus station at 8:40 and managed to catch a bus leaving at 8. After a sweaty 8 hour ride without air-conditioner in the blazing sun, we reached La Paz. 

"Malmö, go fuck yourself" my travel partner said as we woke up this morning. Malmö with its maximum altitude of what, 4 metres?, has nothing on La Paz with its 3650 metres and stunning views. It is not flat anywhere, and the landscape somehow reminds me of the moon. When we arrived we met up with my friend, the crazy painter Gabriel, who took us to his little flat in Alto Obrajes where we stayed the night. And now, we already left again - we are heading to the jungle!! 

Sadly, I have a headache from the altitude here, but that just makes us even more eager to head down to the Yungas. I wanted to go there the first time I was in Bolivia, over two years ago, but it was rain season and thus flooded. So now, finally I will get there! I want to couchsurf, breathe fresh air and see animals...

Bring me cuteness!

Ten cuidado siempre...

“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” 

After a total of eleven months in Latin America and daily warnings of the thieves here, it finally happened to me. I got robbed!

I was walking down a kind of messy/crowded street with my backpack on, and as I was reaching the end of the street, I automatically reached back to check that the little pocket on it was closed. It wasn't, and my phone and wallet was gone from it. Fuck fuck fuck, I thought, pulled of  my backpack and started looking through it, but nothing else was gone.

Honestly, that was not so bad. I lost an old cellphone (thank you Ewa for giving it to me, I'm sorry I can't return it), about 50-100 SEK, a USB stick and my master card. A bit annoying to loose the card, but my mum <3 helped me to block it immediately so no damage done! Interestingly, I was carrying a macbook, our passports, my camera and 700 SEK as well, and left in the opened outer pocket was our dictaphone, a cable to it and my swiss knife.

So I guess sometimes you are lucky. I didn't get a gun pointed to my head, I didn't even notice it. It means as much to me as if the things had fallen out of my back, because I know it was my fault. I know it is way too easy to open that pocket and take whatever is in there, but I guess I had to learn to not do it by failing. I want to emphasize that Bolivia, or the other South American countries I have been to, are not more dangerous than other places. I am sure there are an equal amount of robberies, rapes and murders in NYC or Barcelona or Paris, but there is more poverty here. Poverty which drives people to the edge of human dignity, when you have nothing more to loose. People here are far, so far from "evil". They are just incredibly poor.

And why are they poor? Because of a world system that makes people in the western world rich on the expense of people in Latin America, Africa and Asia. That is why there are entire populations in poverty, and some of those, out of despair, end up pickpocketing. So who am I to blame them?

My life in songs

“In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.” 

I think about how absorbed I am by my unconditional love for this continent and the life I have lived here.  Hence, if I were to describe myself with two songs, I would pick these:

The lyrics, the images. I feel them, I feel the Andes being my backbone and my veins as the rivers of the Amazon. A fairly good translation can be found HERE

And then Shakira, Gypsy. But the Spanish lyrics are of course better.
About being free, in constant motion and learning from experiences.

Don't try to tie me down, nor dominate me. I'm the one to decide how to commit mistakes (...)

Take me and let's go, life is a pleasure. It's normal to fear what you don't know 
- I want to see you fly.

How to write an essay in CBBA

“It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole...and yet...and yet...” 

It's pretty hard to get efficient here. Things take so much more time than you expect them to! It would be easy to complain about this, but hey, this is what makes you realise how privileged we are back home. 

We were promised an office space with wifi, which we thought would be a great place to write. Well, it wasn't. Wifi does not work, people are running in and out, the street outside is heavily trafficked, and the table is way too high for the chairs. Then our room has only one electric outlet, and if we sit for too long on our bed, our bums starts to hurt because it is so hard. We do have one chair, but no table. This is not meant to whine, just describe our reality and the reasons why writing a thesis in Sweden is much more convenient. So what do we do? Well, we have found some places that have wifi. This is a Mexican restaurant: 

And this is Tess, as a great coffee place where we hang out with the other foreigners who like western style places:

Back at our place, I built a table in the courtyard to be able to sit outside to write and read. But I'm afraid it will fall over if I make it any higher, so when I write, I have to bend over until literally have my chest against my thighs. But then I also like having my face pretty close to the notebook when I write.

On the other hand... we have around 25 degrees all the time, which is the perfect temperature even for my picky body. We are surrounded by the most helpful people I could ever imagine (more on that another day). I get to speak my favourite language all the day. We learn new things all the time. Being here is such a great process of self-development  getting to know different sides of myself, getting a lot of new ideas and having to deal with myself. We are honestly not that distracted by our surroundings, since we don't have that many friends here, boyfriend is far, not much going on in this city anyway... We are living our essay and I honestly do believe we will finish it on time, even if many other students who get this scholarship do the writing after they get home. And we are so rich here that we can afford paying someone else to transcribe our interviews, which saves incredible amounts of time and work!

In total, doing a field study is inconvenient, but it rocks. Actually, my life in general is generally not that convenient, but it rocks.

Mornings in CBBA

"I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different."

If anyone ever wondered what Bolivian Folklore sounds like, this is it:

And this is VERY popular, especially at the primary school next to our home. So we are usually woken up to the sounds of the roosters out neighbour keep in our garden, then we are reminded of the traffic of the big road outside our patio, and then when school starts, this song is often played. NOISE.

But the mornings are nice.We wake up early, usually around seven, since the sun shines in. Sometimes I write my diary, or read the novel I'm currently captured by (The Wind Up Bird Chronicle). Then Tess wakes up, and we look out the windows to observe the mountains which look slightly different every day, depending on the light and clouds. We crawl out of our sleeping bags (Thank you dad and Ewa for that Christmas present!) and go down to have breakfast - a huge bowl of fruit from the market around the block.

And by the way, there is this song, who was once stolen from another Bolivian band (Los Kjarkas) and made world famous. This is the original....