Tourist Season Has Arrived

Before I talk about our trip to Rocha, which was an amazing way to end our semester, I have a few etcetera things to say about this past weekend.

On Saturday, several of us got up and went shopping for all our last minute souvenirs for ourselves as well as our friends/family. We took a bus to Ciudad Vieja and just started walking back to Casa, shopping throughout downtown all the way back through the busy street of 18 de Julio. When we first got off our bus and started walking through the Old City, we noticed that there were a lot more people walking around than usual. Also, the more we walked around, the more we noticed that the majority of these people were speaking English. It was so weird! Since it was the first weekend of December, [which is Summer here, in case you forgot] it was also the first weekend marking Tourist Season. It felt so strange to be able to understand everything people were saying around me.


So, I have an addition for my "Things I Will Miss" list -
The Language Barrier - I know, that sounds strange, but it has been nice to be able to completely tune other people out if they are not talking to you. If I want to understand what people are saying, I need to concentrate on every word. Then, once I figure out what that person is saying and successfully communicate back to them, I feel so accomplished. It is such a great feeling right after you have a successful conversation with someone entirely in Spanish.

Some other things I have realized from this particular experience, as well as just from thinking aloud with others:
When we first arrived in Montevideo, I thought everyone was so quiet. We would be around huge groups of people and it would feel like we were one of the only groups of people there. Now, I do not feel that way at all. The streets don't seem loud to me, but they no longer seem quiet either. Which makes me wonder... when we get back to the States, am I going to be completely overwhelmed the noise level? We have all been talking about this here a bit, and I think we all agree that we will probably experience sensory overload. Not only will people probably be a lot louder than we are used to, but we will also be able to understand what everyone around us is saying. Which brings me to my next thought...

I am so glad I came here this semester. True, next semester's group will get to experience Carnival, which is a HUGE celebration here and will be so awesome, but all those tourists were annoying. Which made me realize another thing. While we were walking downtown on Saturday, I almost started to comment on how all the English-speaking tourists were getting on my nerves and had to stop myself with the reminder that they can understand me. We have gotten used to being able to talk about people who are right beside us, knowing they cannot understand what we are saying in English. Once we're back at the States, looking over to tell a friend, "that guy is totally being a creeper" or, "check out that girl's shoes" while standing right beside them probably won't go over too well. We're going to have to start analyzing people in Spanish once we get back... although living in Texas, people will probably still be able to understand us!

Lastly, I have come to realize that talking to strangers once we get back to the States is going to be so much easier than before I left to study abroad. Before coming here, I hated calling people I did not know or talking to random strangers if I needed something from them, but now? piece of cake. I have had to try and do these things for four months without even knowing the language. Countless times I have formed phrases in my head, approached someone, and asked my question, hoping that somehow I would be able to understand their answer. Now it doesn't seem like a big deal at all to talk to people I don't know. Especially once I'm back in a country that speaks English.


All in all, this has been such an amazing semester. I'm going to update this again here pretty soon and talk about the past few days, because they are definitely worth mentioning. But first, I have quite a bit more packing to do.

Oh and PS - you know my comment about the exchange rate in my last post? yeah, it's now up to 24.25 URU pesos to every USD. heck.yes.