The freedom of two wheels, two legs, and two lungs; using your own body to get you places.

       In Massachusetts, I live in the suburbs. In Vermont, I live in a small city. Buenos Aires is an enormous city. These three places are listed in order of increasing convenience in regard to human-powered transportation in comparison to public or private carbon-fueled transportation.

       If I were to take the Subte (metro) to the IES center, it would take me ten minutes to walk to the train station, 25 minutes to ride the train to the center, and ten more minutes to arrive at IES on foot. I would be underground for most of the time, crammed into a train-car, and out of the dynamic city streets that crisscross Argentina’s capital. Arriving by colectivo (bus) takes around 45 minutes as well, and you have to deal with traffic and stoplights. Boring. Taxis cost a fortune, and you have to deal with traffic. Not fun.

       It takes 25 minutes to bike from my apartment to the IES center if I take my sweet time. 18 minutes if I get lucky with the lights and hustle a bit. It’s 4.32 miles…not that far. I also burn more calories (more food I get to eat), and get to see the city from a whole different perspective. I’m neither a car nor a pedestrian. I can run red lights (always look both ways before running a red light), hop up onto sidewalks, squeeze between cars and buses, and stop and start whenever I need to.

       I’ve been told that I’m out of my mind for biking in Buenos Aires. That’s totally not the case. I do seem to tolerate a higher level of uncertainty than most, but that’s only what it looks like on the surface. I don’t just hop on a bike and start meandering down the street. I cycle at home, and I biked throughout Madrid every day last spring. If you didn’t know how to drive, would driving be dangerous? If you didn’t know how to ski, would bombing down a black diamond be dangerous? Yes! Absolutely! The same goes for cycling. Even though I’m surrounded by big metal objects and very hard pavement as opposed to being inside a big metal object or moving on top of snow, it’s all about reacting quickly, avoiding bad situations, and assuming that no one is ever going to adhere to the traffic laws (are there any traffic laws?). You don’t have to be faster than the cars; you just have to accelerate quicker than they do, and understand that the lines on the road and traffic lights mean oh so very little.

       Until recently, I hadn’t fallen at all. This past week, avoiding a pedestrian who decided to walk into the middle of the road, I swerved, went flying, and ate some pavement. The problem is that people don’t look for bikes, and at that they’re easier to miss. Luckily, I just have a bit of road rash on my arms, legs, and back, and was indeed wearing a helmet.

       The last time I rode in a car, bus, or train was about a month ago. I can get everywhere I need to go with my own human-power, and I’m not contributing to the pollution that Buenos Aires donates to good ol’ mother earth. It bewilders me that people drive such short distances, or at that, drive to the gym to run on the treadmill or ride a stationary bike.

       Something interesting about Buenos Aires and most other parts of South America is that property rights are poorly defined. What do I mean be that? People steal stuff. People steal everything, bikes included. When you ride somewhere, you either take your bike inside, or leave it at a parking garage for 1 peso or so ($.20 US) per hour. I use a ~10 lb kryptonite chain to deter hoodlums, gang members, and the like.

       For something that’s such an important part of my life, I didn’t want to skimp on quality, and have a pedal fall off while I’m bombing down an avenue. I spent a good amount of money on a nice mountain bike, but things down here hold their value much better than they do in the states; I’ll be selling it before I head back to Vermont.

       I have a bit more than a month left down here. Though navigating the streets has gotten easier, I can’t let myself get comfortable with it. When you drop your guard, that’s when things go wrong. My parents don’t want me coming home in body bag. That would put a damper on things. Though riding with traffic is exhilarating, getting hit by a bus is not; whenever I can, I stick to the bike paths. Just because I can ride with traffic, doesn’t mean that I should. It only takes one more awful driver that I don’t see to really ruin my semester. That being said, a bike provides freedom, and freedom is what we like most.

       Buses and trains have set routes, taxis are expensive, and walking takes forever. Having a bicycle lifts those travel restrictions, and for me is the difference between walking normally and essentially being on crutches. Time is always of the essence (cliché, I know), and as the world spins madly on (yep, Weepies), looking up and becoming a part of what’s going on around you can turn into one of life’s great but simple pleasures.

Classes in Buenos Aires etc.

           Last Spring in Madrid, I took IES area-study courses.  To make up for the challenge that the language barrier presented us with, the content wasn’t always very in-depth.  In one course, entitled, “Spanish Language Usage for Business,” my friend Laura and I frequently found ourselves hitting our heads against the wall to escape the mundane busy-work and mind-numbing class dynamic. On the other side of the spectrum, “Latin American Literature” was interesting, stimulating, and incredibly relevant.  The class gave me a great appreciation for Hispanic literature, and literature in general.  The professor truly cared about what he was teaching, and my writing improved greatly with his help.

            This semester, in order to fulfill UVM’s International Business requirements, I’m taking three business courses at Universidad Torcuato di Tella.  UTDT has a small-school dynamic, with amiable professors who defy the Argentine-university stereotype.  They’re reachable, respond to emails and any and all questions, and make a visible effort to involve students in the course material.

            Each of the UTDT courses is worth 4 credits; the same is true for my IES Spanish course. 

            Business Organization Theory is taught by Daniel Serrot, a former Shell employee and managerial consultant.  He’s personable and the course reflects his professional experience.  Classes, texts, and readings are all given in Spanish.  Very little flies over my head.  Weekly group projects take up a good amount of time, but apply directly to the class content.

            Marketing Management has been interesting.  I had been reading the online, supplemental material, which was considerably more convoluted that the in-class lectures.  Soon before the exam, I found out that it was legitimately supplemental material, and would not be on the test.  I finished the 2-hour exam in 30 minutes.  Group sessions in Marketing consist of market research for a “Tool-kit for women.”  Of all the possible inventions, they had to assign us that.  It’s certainly not unreasonable, but it’s not a grand ol’ time by any means.  At least the lectures are always good.

            Jacqueline Pels teaches “Emerging Topics in Marketing.”  I couldn’t have asked for a better class.  Catering to the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid, service dominant logic, and network marketing are several topics we’ve encountered.  A group of Argentines and I are working on a social-network marketing campaign for Sony Argentina.  I’ve proved to be surprisingly useful given my overuse of facebook and YouTube.  I was complimented on my Flickr research, and re-wrote the survey questions after they were deemed “useless and far too broad.”  I apparently understand what people want and pay attention to in terms of advertisements and brand fan-pages.  Whenever I take a written exam, I hardly ever feel as if I’ve written enough, regardless of whether I end up with a 95 or a 75.  After keeping up with the material all semester long, I wrote everything I needed to say in a timely manner, and finished on time.

            From what I’ve written here, it may seem like my classes are easy.  Not so.  Now that I’m taking business courses with titles that don’t contain “accounting,” I immerse myself in my studies and I like it. 

I ran 80 miles during exam week, finishing my aerobic base-phase with a 16-mile long-run and 542 miles in 10 weeks.  With two and a half more years of school left, I’m finally learning how to manage my time.  Living by myself helps, however lonely it may be.  I may not be getting the full cultural-experience that I would find via going out more often, but life is full of tradeoffs.

When I say tradeoffs, I don’t mean sacrifices.  However hard it is to run, swim, listen to NPR while I cook, study, and sleep, I like it.  Is it what I should be doing while I’m in Buenos Aires?  To be honest, it’s working out pretty well.  I’m not skimping on experiencing the world around me, and I’ve been thinking so much more than ever before…about everything, really.

I’ve found a strong correlation between running and good grades.  The more I run, the better I perform in school.  A solid athletic schedule helps me manage my time.  The hard part about training for Pentathlon, however, is that I’m never finished.  It’s like life, perhaps (deep thought, eh?).

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

The east wind

       When I arrived in Buenos Aires at the beginning of February, it was the middle of summer. Literally. A month and a half after their summer solstice, it was hot. I biked to class with my shirt in my backpack, wearing jean shorts and blue sunglasses. I came back from long-runs at 9 o’clock at night, dripping in sweat. It was awesome.
        It’s fall now. The trees are dropping their leaves, and I actually wear more than one piece of clothing when I run. Autumn welcomes fond memories of cross-country races in high school, fall crops from the farms, and Vermont’s brisk morning air that rushes into your nostrils as you greet the day.
        I’m skipping spring this year, interestingly enough. I will not experience a vernal equinox in 2012. I’ll have lived through fall three times in a row, and while I’m not complaining in the least, something is missing. I can’t plant tomatoes. For a year, the days will neither progress toward being warmer nor longer.
        When the east wind sweeps into Buenos Aires, the heavy air lifts and breathing returns as a gratifying simplicity. It’s a sea breeze without the salt air, and it’s much like New England.
        Smell, sight, and the rest of our senses are what give us our memories. Though seasons are relatively long periods of time, after twenty cycles of winter-spring-summer-fall, I’m finding myself stuck in my ways. Can you blame me?

        Studying for midterms while everyone else is cramming for finals, and finishing my base and racing 8ks while the other runners are finishing their track seasons and starting their time off detaches me from the northern hemisphere. In an age so connected via facebook, twitter, email, and what have you, being the exception gives me time to think for myself. A lot. I take what I may from the rest of society, but I process it differently than I did before. Nothing is really as it seems at first glance, and I’ve gotten a lot better at stepping back, and thinking before I start, say, or write something. Re-living autumn gives me a chance to re-live a semester, in a sense. While I experience the new, I also jump over that which comes closer to being normal…that which I would have emerged from as a completely different person.

        In August of 2012, when I start another fall semester, it will be #3, and my last as an undergraduate. Three leaves in a row I’ll have turned over. That’s a lot of leaves to turn over in eighteen months, considering that these are catalpa leaves of sorts (they’re big). At the end of these four years, I’ll feel a lot older than I did in September of 2009. Seize the day once, and there you have it. Seize the day always, and you write your future.

        People say that college flies by like an amazing summer. It most certainly does, but the speed with which it flies is completely under your control. If you fill your time with great memories, good people, and life-changing experiences, that first day of freshman year will seem a lot farther away than it would otherwise. If I were given the chance to tip off my 18-year-old self…to give him advice, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Eurus greets my door,
this autumn morning.
“On with it!” he sings.
I pay heed, but what for?

Stop to ponder and wonder but gain no moss as you roll
alone and in good company differ they do not,
for you
are but a sole part
of their existence
as they are of yours.

Slip the cracks, he tells me.
Grab my hand but let me go,
for fall we will, as one...
windswept, wild, weathered, and free.

Am I living it right?

So it’s Saturday night, and after running ten miles this evening, I went food shopping, cooked dinner, and in between reading, writing blog posts, and listening to Crosby, Stills, & Nash, I felt old.

You see, while many people my age are out partying, I’m studying, reading and running. Isn’t that what 40 year olds do?

Jill put this in an interesting way:

Parties, specifically college parties, revolve around getting as drunk as possible, so you don’t remember anything, and think you had a good time.

That seems accurate. It’s funny that people call alcohol “liquid courage.” Sure, having a beer and chatting with friends is and should be socially acceptable, but I think it ludicrous that people can maintain the illusion that alcohol makes them more interesting. To be honest, I think it just makes them talk about non-interesting things, and have non-meaningful conversations, that are perceived to be profound. It’s almost like it provides a way towards a lower form of socialization. I stopped by a house party last night after trying some (bad as usual) Buenos Aires Mexican food, and found myself engaging conversations about nothing, with people whose perception of when to start or stop talking about a subject was distorted. Go figure. To be honest, I don’t dislike parties. I like socializing with good people. I just think that people should take advantage of a lot more social outlets than they do.

I’d much rather have a legitimate conversation with someone over dinner, or at a potluck than talk about next to nothing with someone I’ve just met (or someone I know who happens to be inebriated).

My point is that my generation’s socialization norms are flawed. We dismiss getting to know people via common interest, and think that friendships are made through alcohol. This of course doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s unfortunately ever so common. I just wish people would spend time playing Frisbee, or having lunch during the day with other good people, as opposed to doing school work all day Saturday in order to go out that night.

Is this coming from some straight-edge athlete who thinks he has all of the answers? I hope not. But to be honest, I view this point (that I’ve pretty much exhausted) as a sign of immaturity. This is partially what’s making me feel old (and odd). I feel older than my peers sometimes, which is a first. I’ve always been the goofy kid that didn’t care what other people thought of me, but now people are coming to me with questions about life. They’re surprised at the fact that I cook, and at my independence. Why is this? It feels strange, to be honest.

The great thing is that I have amazing friends at home that I learn from every day, and I meet people all the time who have great things to say. It’s just that when I talk to people who don’t have anything to say (due to alcohol or what have you), it’s not fun. The worst is when people becomes less interesting with alcohol…especially friends.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone with long hair and an attempt at a distance-runner mustache. I know it’s me staring back, but it’s a different me. It love who I am, but growing so much in so little time, and realizing it at that, can be strange. I fill my time with as much as I can for a reason. The new changes me for the better, and helps me figure out who I am. I’ve said that so many times. But what if…what if…my glass is full for the time being? What if I need to step back, stop looking for things to reflect about, and just…be me? What if I’m living it all too fast, and those guys and girls who are going out at night are doing it right? I’m sure it’s not polarized like that. I know that there’s a happy medium somewhere. One of the people I look up to most in this world, Troy Woods, told me a few months ago that I’m was doing it right…that I am doing it right. For the time being, I’ll stick with that.

Bolivia

So after almost missing the bus to Jujuy, Argentina from Buenos Aires because I was busy buying bananas, I set out on the 20 hour lift to the north of the country.

Jujuy was a good first step in leaving the developed world. After doing a case study on Unilever’s detergent for “Emerging Topics in Marketing,” seeing people wash their clothes in the river lent some verisimilitude to my perceptions of the situation. On my morning run before leaving for Bolivia, I had to yell at a few dogs while running through the slums. Little did I know that while Northern Argentina is poor, Bolivia is a whole different world.

The night I spent in Jujuy was fine…I ran along the river, and had dinner with some Dutchmen who had been working on an organic farm in the area. They were paid $350 pesos per week, fed three meals per day and housed for the whole time. Not a bad option if you’re looking for something to do. I would try that for a stint or two if I had the time.

I walked across the Argentina-Bolivia border from La Quiaca to Villazon, paid US $135 (in perfect bills) for my Bolivian visa, and caught a bus to Tupiza. I had dinner with more Dutchmen, a Spaniard, and a Canadian who I met in the hostel. Here I started to not drink the water.



The next morning, I hopped on a bus to Uyuni, Bolivia. Dirt roads, cows, farms and other livestock lined the route. At one point we had to fill in a stream with rocks so the bus could move along. I can’t imagine trying to make my way across Bolivia in mud season.



“Big sky” is an understatement on the altiplano. With so little light pollution, you can see everything. I only knew one southern constellation that the time, but nonetheless it was very impressive. In Uyuni that night, my run to the train graveyard upped my tolerance of dodgy places. Lo interesante is that if something happens, there’s no one to help you but yourself. All of the police are beyond corrupt, and you can’t just leave such a geographically-isolated place.

I took a one-day tour of the salt flats. Totally sufficient. We stopped in at the train graveyard on the way. It’s probably coolest at sunrise, but c’est la vie.



I was hoping to buy a hand-woven alpaca sweater, but everything was machine made, and of reasonably poor-quality. I picked out a purple hooded sweater. The armpits are already ripping, but I can sew them back together.

The expanse of white was mind blowing. You have to be there to really get it, but hopefully this will help:




It’s like standing in the middle of a frozen lake, except that you’re on the bottom of the lake, and all of the water has dried up. In some places, there is in fact water under a meter or so of salt. It flows subterraneously and bubbles up in the “Eyes of the Salar.”



From Uyuni was the eight-hour bus to Potosi. My iPod saved me on this one. Music that you share so many feelings with helps with being alone. I travel alone for a reason, as it’s hard to find people who would be tolerant of moving along at the brisk pace I take. It has its advantages, but being the only American in the midst of people who I tell that I’m from Canada, and having to be constantly alert is mentally exhausting. Traveling through Bolivia let me take another step in being travel-savvy, to say the least.

Potosi is famous for once being the richest city in the world. The Spanish extracted “enough silver to build a bridge from South America to Spain,” and the city is still known for its mine. There are daily tours, which I opted out of. Asbestos dust, arsenic gas, and dynamite in a MINE in BOLIVIA with ceiling held up by wood are not appealing to me in the least. Everyone was all psyched about the mine, but after asking people who came back if they would do it again, and receiving a firm “no” for an answer from everyone, I’m happy with my choice to not go.

Meat market in Potosi:

If this grosses you out, just imagine the smell.


I slept surprisingly well at 14,000 feet. No problems.

So other than the mine and an old national mint museum, Potosi doesn’t have much. I continued on to Sucre, which was a landfill, and caught a bus from there to Samaipata.

Places like Sucre seem to be one step up from Haiti. Foreign direct investment and selling to the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid is a must here. Argentina’s private recycling firms would serve the region well. I’m not informed enough to comment on the economic situation further. That will come in time.

The 14 hour bus ride to Samaipata was… Yeah. I’ll leave the details to a good imagination. Sitting in a bus seat for 14 hours, on a winding, bumpy, mountainous dirt road was the flip side of the highlight of my trip. The best part was not stopping for 6 hours to use the bathroom. An actual plus was eating 15 bananas along the way.

Arriving in Samaipata at 0300 was…good? At least I wasn’t on the bus anymore. With very little sleep, and delirium setting in, I finally found a hostel after walking around the town alone for a good hour.

In Samaipata, the food… With an extensive organic farming community, and bananas at 60¢ per dozen, things go well. The exchange rate doesn’t hurt either. Paying the equivalent of $7 for a pitcher of starfruit juice and a large chef salad is something no one should ever complain about. This was also at the most expensive restaurant in town; at other meals I opted for the $2 chicken and French fries off the street, or just bananas for next to nothing.

It's a quaint little place:


Six miles outside of Samaipata is the pre-Incan site, “El Fuerte” (The Fort). Very impressive, all of it.



About a mile outside of town is a rehabilitation center for injured animals. As they say, many choose not to leave, and it’s a very interactive zoo. Upon entering, Simon the spider monkey climbed up onto my shoulders. We spent some quality time monkeying (I’m sorry I had to) around.



Another (howler) monkey whose name I didn’t get (she wouldn’t tell me) took a nap on my lap. I suppose other primates enjoy contact with other beings just as much as humans do.



That night I caught a taxi (40 Bolivianos = less than six dollars) to Santa Cruz. There I spent time catching up on my reading for school, and eating lots of salad. After not eating fresh vegetables (washed in non-potable tap) for about five days, greens, reds and purples were where it was at. Santa Cruz is completely different than the rest of Bolivia. Hollister and Abercrombie are common, and one third (fact check me) of Bolivia’s tax revenue comes from the city. Prices are higher, and Bolivian yuppies speed around town in their SUVs and Mustangs. People beg on the streets in Quechua, and franchises are common.

I arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday evening, in need of some social-contact and a good door.

I’m now a completely different person than I was two weeks ago. It’s not about running around on giant beds of salt or playing with monkeys; it’s about getting there, and reflecting on the life you lead, and your own moral fiber. Originally, my parents weren’t keen on me going to Bolivia. It made them very uncomfortable, but after sending a book of emails on how everything would turn out all right, and that I was competent enough to go by myself, I got the go-ahead. One thing I thought I was ready for was the uncertainty or “sketchiness” of Bolivia. It required that I develop a whole new level of awareness very, very quickly. Let’s just say my peripheral vision and barometer of place-you-should-not-be risk are a whole lot better than they were in January, and March (last month) for that matter. It’s going to be very strange to return to UVM, and not have worry about leaving my laptop around in Kalkin or the living room.

Meandering through a third world country makes you call into question everything you care about, and thus love it all that much more. Pentathlon, school, family, friends, and the life ahead of me now hold a new level of clarity…or at least they will for a little while. Was it because I spent a week thinking? Was it one continuous long-run, or was I living in a dream? -Not a dream in the Madrid sense (lack of weather and thus lack of feeling), but a dream in that things could change so quickly, with every decision seeming so critical in the short term. Everyone I’d met that had traveled through Bolivia said “go to Bolivia.” I took their word for it. What I came back with however, was something completely different than I expected, and all things considered, I won’t soon give it back.

Meat vs. Vegetarianism: a short discussion.

So if I were to raise one cow in my own pasture, and fed it only grass, my meat-related carbon footprint would be very small compared to that from buying the equivalent about of feedlot beef from a supermarket. It wouldn't be as low as if I just grew tomatoes and vegetables, but looking at it from a calorie standpoint, it's a pretty good investment:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081220234733AAfe5zj

Say a standard cow contains about 500,000 calories. *More in my situation considering I would eat (or feed to my dog) the parts of the cow that most people don't eat (heart, liver, intestine etc.)* That's 1370 calories per day for a year in ONLY meat (and I would never eat red meat -and meat in general- every day). Say the cow feeds three people (not three of me, just three people). That's 440 calories from an animal per day. Totally reasonable, considering where the meat comes from, and how it's raised.

Say I raise two cows. The marginal cost of raising a second is much less than that of initially buying a first. In addition, besides vet bills, the opportunity cost of time, and the energy I would have to use to freeze the meat or turn it into jerky, this would be a money-saving operation.

So, which is more economical:

a. growing your own vegetables (that you have to freeze or preserve for the winter as well)

or

b. growing your own animal?

Being a vegetarian is great and all, but if you're doing it for environmental reasons, how valid is it? Extremely valid if you don't have the means to hunt animals or raise them for food, but less valid if all you say is "Oh me oh my! The cattle industry produces so much greenhouse gas!" (Solution: don't buy unsustainable meat).

SO:
Know what you eat, and where it comes from.
Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
Know where your meat comes from, if you eat meat.
Make reasonable decisions and weigh out all of your options in regard to your diet.

Road Racing in Buenos Aires

This past week was a great 45 mile week (mileage is going up slowly, and I like it).

Monday I had planned a day off as usual, but ran home in my underwear in order to get to class on time.

This was my Facebook status that day:

So after giving myself two hours to find a specific bank-like establishment, I found myself out of luck with 45 minutes left until my first class. I was a 30 minute walk from home, and school is a 25 minute walk from my apartment. I was pretty gross, so I had to shower, get my things together etc. I think to myself, "If I run, can I get there in time? Of course. The problem was, I was wearing jean shorts and a cotton t-shirt. Who runs in cotton? The solution was the synthetic boxers I was wearing. They're not that much different from running shorts (longer, in fact). Today I went for a run in my underwear, down the streets of Buenos Aires. Has anyone else ever done this, or am I THAT strange?

I think that sums it up. I got whistled at by women, which was an interesting experience.

Tuesday and Wednesday were back to back 8 milers at night on the golf course, followed by descending 1000's and 600's in the park on thursday. Friday was meant to be a 10 miler, but I ended up incredibly dehydrated so I ran home for 8 again. Listening to your body FTW. Saturday night was four miles around the race course as a pre-race shake out with strides. Apparently at night there are prostitutes that line the streets where racecourse is during the day. They hiss at me and say things that only prostitutes would say. Go figure. I stay away from them. I think that's the epitome of sketchy, no? The strange thing was that there were families walking around the park as well.

On Sunday, I raced a 7k. I had never raced a 7k before. It was either going to be a 5k with 2k of extra pain added on, or a shortened 10k. Since I'm not trying to peak right now (I'm trying to not peak right now), I'm not going to hammer anything. I thus opted for a good competitive tempo run. It was nice. I like tempo. VERY humid. They told me wearing the race t-Shirt was obligatory (most everyone else wore it), so I wore it too, only to find out that singlets and going shirtless is completely acceptable. That was the only bad part. "Suns out, guns out" is 100% preferable.

Before the gun went off, everyone was dancing up a storm, while I was warming up, doing drills etc. They treated a 7k like a marathon! The races attract so many people, that they have to make them all a big deal. There must have been 600 people in this race, all wearing blue shirts. Talk about not being able to stick out in a crowd. I think I still managed to though.

The race was a fundraiser for UNICEF, which is an NGO that provides humanitarian aid to children and mothers in developing countries...this race was specifically for education. It's always good to run for a cause, and I'm not just saying that. I cycled 192 miles for Dana Farber in 2009 across Massachusetts. The kids on the side of the road with signs saying "I'm alive because of you" really made me think about what I was doing and why.

Anyway, I finished 25th out of 3,768, which was second in my age group, running about 6 min pace. It was the shirt! It was totally the shirt! I'm going shirtless next time even if they try to arrest me. Lots of fun for a good cause: Buenos Aires edition.