Camino de Sanitago Part 1

 Pre-Camino Travels | Camino Part 1 | Camino Part 2 | Camino Part 3 | Camino Part 4 | Camino Part 5

Here begins the first installment of emails written to my friends back home while hiking El Camino de Santiago. To see my Pre-Camino journey through France, read the previous blog post here.

The first day of the Camino de Santiago, Pyrenees Mountains

In the footsteps of St. Francis of Assisi, Charlamagne, Paulo Choelo and...Shirley MacLaine, I have begun my 500 mile walk, the Camino de Santiago, across Spain. The popularity of the Camino Frances has grown in the past few decades in part from some well known authors writing about it. It also helped that Martin Sheen made a super cheesy (but I secretly like it) B grade movie called The Way and I imagine Post-Franco Spain is probably a little bit more stable for the adventurous middle-aged mom from California trying to find herself.
Medieval pilgrims took such a risk and made such a sacrifice to take the pilgrimage to Santiago that they would often make arrangements in the event that they never returned home. But don't worry! I've got an excellent team coordinating the watering of my plants in my apartment and the bandits under the bridge only want to sell you stale bocadillos and wifi service in their cafe, a snake oil of sorts perhaps, but one that will allow me to eventually see home and loved ones again.

Day 0: St. Jean de Pied de Port, France

Steep inclines with full backpack, Camino de Santiago, Spain

Pilgrim's Passport for the Camino de Santiago

Day 1: St. Jean to Roncesvalles, Population 30

Day 0: St. Jean de Pied de Port, France
From Bordeaux, I managed to get on a train without a heart attack. I switched at Bayonne to a little train that took me and mostly other Pilgrims to the traditional start of the Camino Frances. (There are many pilgrim routes that all lead to Santiago. This one is probably the most popular.) The little medieval town of St. Jean was picturesque. I found my way to the sweetest little Pilgrim albergue (hostel) called Gite Ultreia. Everything in this area is written in French and Basque and sometimes Spanish. I strained at every word on the street constantly changing gears and saying Bonjour and Gracias in the same sentence. As soon as I got into the albergue, I immediately felt the difference in attitude and tone of the camino. As I would later hear from another pilgrim, "you smell peace."

So far on day 0, I had no friends. I went on my own to the restaurant across the tiny street. The restaurant's back terrace butts up against the medieval city walls. It is where footman soldiers would pace looking out. It is now a restored tourist footpath. The walkers passed overhead while I dutifully completed the vegetarian pilgrim menu (omelette, potato, and salad.)
Natalie, the host at this pilgrim hostel, sold me my Pilgrim Passport, the credential, for 2 euros, and I received my first stamp from her. I think they are like getting stickers when you are a kid. Pure joy.

After slowly walking around and looking at everything-I mean everything in the entire town- for several hours, I went back to fall asleep in Gite Ultreia.
Marco, the Italian, had a different idea. He came stumbling in right at pilgrim curfew (you have to be in by 10 so you don't disturb the other pilgrims) and fell asleep in the next bed snoring like I've never heard someone snore. It was like Darth Vader slurping peach cobbler through a straw. I thought I wasn't the type to need earplugs but Marco Vader taught me otherwise.

You are never along on the Camino.

Day 1: St. Jean to Roncesvalles, Population 30
25.1km-Crossing the Pyrenees
I started the Camino with a fairly awkward breakfast with the host and a father and son from Oregon sitting in the small guest kitchen. Starting somewhat late at 7:30am--thanks Marco Vader--I walked to the corner cafe and bought a sandwich and liter of water and well...I started walking...passing through the famous pilgrim archway out of the old city. Within minutes I was climbing a steep road sweating and out of breath. I stopped at the top of one hill looking at little houses and albergues and thinking:  "WHAT THE (*&*# IS THIS?" This totally sucks. Then I just started belly laughing at how hard it already was by myself climbing steep incline after steep incline. Within the first hour of walking, and after passing a few slow walkers, I made pace with a young Swede, named Camilla. We soon forgot we were struggling up hills and we started talking about how we were going to help each other find vegetarian options at the next stop. Camilla is a Swedish language and Religious Studies high school teacher switching to being a school librarian. (Teaching is a tough gig...even in Sweden.) She had done a practice hike across the first 3 days of the Camino with her sister last year in preparation.
During that first day, we bought cheese at the top of the mountains from a local. It is the best cheese I've ever had. He even stamped my credencial for reaching his cheese stand. There were the most beautiful views in all directions and I can tell you that things look even more beautiful when you work for them.
 The sun was getting hotter, inclines getting steeper, and somehow I was stepping over the French border into Spain (or Navarra depending on who you are talking to.) The descent in the mid-day heat was a hobble of penguin steps down slippery rocks. 
The first day's destination is in Roncesvalles. All that is there is a monastery, a beautiful 13th century building that runs a very organized operation taking in hundreds of pilgrims everyday. I bunked in a little section with a Korean woman underneath my bunk and a Spanish mother and daughter who were sending their packs along ahead of them each day. That felt like cheating to me so I am not tempted to pay for that service. I'm gonna stick with the heat rash on my back where my huge pack sits. 
Camilla was one section over in the bunks. Our unspoken rule was that we were doing everything together now.
After the best shower of my life, we "barhopped" over to the two bars on the one street town, eating french fries and "Claras" (light beer and lemon soda) at the first one and pasta and wine at the second. The Pilgrim menu at the monastery was not vegetarian friendly so we went the a la carte option happily replenishing our electrolytes and losing them at the same time with alcohol.

The Pilgrim Purge

As sort of planned, I got rid of a few items of clothing I had been wearing in Paris. One pair of jeans, a pair of running shorts I've probably run a few thousand miles in, a pair of old socks, and a notebook with my used pages torn out of it. I carried those things over the Pyrenees and now I was so proud to get rid of them. There are donation piles where pilgrims leave things they don't need and other pilgrims can take something they might want. Is there a local Spaniard rocking my running shorts somewhere?! 

"This is not Spain" Hiking Basque Country, Camino de Santiago

Day 2: Roncesvalles to Zubiri, Population 200

Border between France and Spain, Camino de Santiago, Pyrenees Mountains 

Day 2: Roncesvalles, pop. 30-Zubiri-population 200
21.9km
I've decided that starting the Camino is a bit like the first day of school. You don't know who to talk to, you don't have any friends yet, you are constantly checking the signs to make sure you're walking the right way, and you are not sure which pilgrim is in which group yet.
The second day included quite a lot of inclines again and the heat was unbearable in the last few miles. 
It's nice to have upbeat Camilla the Swede to quote Pippi Lonstocking when your feet start to ache in the heat. She talked about how Pippi would always look on the bright side of things. "Our muscles are sore but at least we have muscles." Camilla also taught me a mountain climbing song in Sweden. I have it recorded and it entertains me to no end to sing in a foreign language.
I thought I was a really light packer but for some reason I have become the girl that walks with everything on the Camino. My mochilla, the backpack and I, have had to get to know each other really well. After a few kilometers in on the second day, I pulled a few straps tighter and I think I started floating on the trail. Wearing a pack is all about pulling the right strings. Your backpack is like your horse and you have to learn how to balance weights and where to pull in the reigns...but now that I think about it, are you your backpack's horse?

Our second day's accommodations were in a teeny tiny town and we opted for the cheapest "albergue municipal." I would soon learn that most albergues have coed bathrooms...at this municipal hostel they had separate showers for men and women but there were no shower doors. "I want to take you to the Yyyyyy-M-C-A!" Leave your modesty at home everybody!

After another adventurous shower, Camilla and I joined a German girl, Sylvia, at the river. I mentioned I knew yoga and I began my first international class of yoga by the river with Camilla and Sylvia.

Day 3: Zubiri to Pamplona, Population 200, 000

Day 3: Zubiri-Pamplona-population 200,000
20.9km
We continued through the hills of Navarra passing some industrial buildings that jolted us out of the rustic medieval pilgrim path. There is an option to follow the green dotted lines in our guide book for the scenic routes so we opted to take the one towards an 11th century church run by an order of friendly nuns. After climbing an extremely steep hill, sure enough, Camilla and I were greeted by a grinning nun sporting sensible sandals and slacks. She offered us water and a photocopied pilgrim prayer in our language. Sitting on the little steps outside the tiny church, panting and reading the prayer, she invited us in to view the 16th century retablo behind the altar. What impressed me most though was her folder system with laminated explanations of the history of the church in over 30 languages. They were neatly collated alphabetically by language across the back church pew. That is some organized lamination to impress any teacher.

The "Om" of the West

Beginning the Camino de Santiago, just 790 kilometers to go

We were then invited to climb to the top of the church spire and ring the bell, just once, for our prayers, waiting 30 seconds between each of our bells to let it ring out. An Italian couple (whose identity you will learn later!) joined us in the bell tower and we each stood and witnessed each other's bell ringing. It was really special. It's the "om" of Western of civilization.
When we entered the outskirts of Pamplona, I was not only shocked by people walking by without a large backpack on, but how many buildings there were in close proximity. I was gone for 3 days from big towns and I was already out of it. The sign outside la farmacia displayed the temperature at 34 degrees Celsius, aka a million Fahrenheit.

The albergue in Pamplona is where I met the very American KathyJo from Minnesota. She is a pediatric nurse in her 50s doing the Camino for the 3rd time and here this time to train to be a hospitalera. These are the people who volunteer to run the albergues for the pilgrims. Within 5 minutes of knowing her, we were putting our clothes in the same washing machine. We had detailed conversations about how our packs get lighter because we start getting rid of things we don't need. I started bragging about the pair of jeans and what not I left in Roncesvalles. She just shook her head and said she wished she was seeing my pack in Santiago. I was now called heavy pack girl.

She also had a rosary she was carrying to be dipped in holy water in every church along the Camino for her sick mother at home. She had me in tears in front of the washing machines within 8 minutes of knowing her.
Camilla, KathyJo, Sylvia from Germany, and I all went for pinchos (pinxos)-the tapas of the North- in happenin' Pamplona. We were not there in time to see the running of the bulls (that happens July 6), which is opposite of the "Camino feeling" but we did see the barricades going up around the city hall building and through the streets where spectators hide or look out from. I love how people buy drinks and pinxos and sit on the ground in the middle of the street in circles. The street is the Pamplona living room.

Bell tower, Camino de Santiago, Spain

Day 4: Pamplona to Puente La Reina

Day 4: Pamplona to Puente La Reina
23.8km
I had already spent 72 continuous hours with Camilla, sleeping, eating, and walking within a few feet of each other the whole time. I had not only learned a Swedish folk song but I also learned the detailed working conditions for teachers in Sweden. We also talked at length about linguistics. Her English and Spanish are way better than mine. I could not identify animals in English that she was pointing out to me.
I will say when we went to dinner in Puente La Reina with a table full of Spanish pilgrims, I made a really great joke in Spanish. So there.

The walks also get really intense in the last couple of hours when the heat sets in and our water gets low. The public fountains are sometimes abundant along the Camino, but -magically- a refreshment truck will appear on the side of the road just when you think you cannot go on. Those trucks are taking all my euros in exchange for blue powerades and bananas.
Rosa, from Barcelona, joined Camilla and I on our walk today and she taught us Catalonian Songs. We were now the singing girls. During this day's walk we reached the top of the mountain called "Alto de Perdon" with amazing views of Pamplona in the background and hydroelectric windmills dotting the hills all around. 
Rosa is a great dancer and I taught her to samba on the Puente (the bridge) of the Puente La Reina.
We were just out to view the historic bridge but stumbled upon live gypsy music (100 percent natural Navarra...they were not shipped up from the South) playing in the street and I think the whole village came out to watch.
In one of the churches, there was a chapel dedicated to a priest from the town who was recently given sainthood for being martyred in the 1930s. Rosa told me to look up what side of Franco he was on. I will do so and get back to you.

Coffee break, Camino de Santiago, Spain

Day 5: Puenta La Reina to Estella

Day 5: Puenta La Reina-Estella
21.9 km
This was the first day of my Camino without walking with Camilla since she left at 4:30am to start walking. She wanted to tbeat the heat. I wanted to sleep while it was still dark out. I walked with Rosa for most of the day through more beautiful countryside and little villages. Rosa is walking the Camino for the 4th time and was giving lots of insider Spanish information about the upcoming national elections and commentary on the local graffiti reminding us that Navarra is not Spain. Everybody wants to represent themselves. Even on the Camino, while not using Internet for an entire week, I got word of Britain leaving the EU. It was some good craic hearing what the Irish pilgrims were going to do now that the British pound was plummeting.

Footcare is key

Secret Hiking Weapon: Diaper Cream, applied twice daily.

But this is the point where foot talk gets real. Bring on the diaper cream, everybody! Keep those chapped toes dry! Upon reaching Esterra I came to grips with the fact that I did indeed develop teeny blisters on my pinky toes. It also just so happened that the snoring Marco Vader had reserved a spot next to my bed at the same albergue that day. (Pilgrims run into each other day after day from town to town.) I take back every bad thought I had about Marco because he happily took a needle and thread to my toes (with antiseptic). The thread is to help drain the blisters. I walked to dinner with thread hanging out of my toes. I wore compeed (second skin) the next day with some extra bandaids on those toes.  If anyone is into blister popping videos, I have a great one, narrated with Italian. Just ask. I do realize that some of you who subscribed to this email were not signing up for exclusive blister-draining footage. So it's not included here but it is so tantalizing to watch. Foot care solutions are 40% of what we talk about. There is another 40% about food options and the rest is about why you are walking the Camino. I offered to buy Marco Vader a copa de vino for his blister assistance but he was very happy to just hear my story of "El Diente de Sarah"- The Tooth of Sarah-in Spanish instead. 
Another reason to like Marco Vader: When I reintroduced myself as Jean como Blue Jeans, as I usually do to clarify pronunciation, he responded, "no, you are Jean like Gin-Tonic." 

I have had a good amount of time in the evening to work on some of my drawing series. When people ask me why I am doing the Camino, I now tell them I came to draw. It is my walking artist residency. That seems to satisfy most people, including myself. 

Travel Sketchbook and iPad on the Camino de Santiago.

Day 6: Estella to Los Arcos

Day 6: Estella - Los Arcos
21.5 km
In my continued effort to lighten my load without paying ridiculous sums to ship things ahead to Santiago, at 6:30am, I tried to give away my purse to a Spanish girl on the Camino. She agreed to stow it in her bag and send it ahead in a taxi. I think she just got a new purse and doesn't know it yet. I also tossed out another pair of pants I didn't really need. Pilgrims talk about how many ounces objects weigh and those were some hefty ounces to unload. So liberating!

Wine and Hiking Come Together at last!

Free wine for Pilgrims on the Camino

It was a first in my 5 day routine to set off on my own without Camilla or Rosa. I soon found Dourmid from Dublin (I'm not spelling his ridiculous Irish spelling right and I can't be bothered to fix it.) It is strange to walk several miles with people you just met but we got along just fine and shared the experience of filling our water bottles from the well known Fuente de Vino in Irache. The 10th century monastery connected to it is now vacated, but the winemakers remain and let pilgrims drink free wine from 7-9am. Free wine is almost always delicious but this was extra delightful. Wine before coffee...never been...toffee? Laugh-y? Kadafi?

We continued through beautiful countryside and because of my amazing blister remedies, was practically skipping into the next town. It is now Sunday and I'm checking emails for the first time in a week in the kitchen of the albergue municipal, drinking the rest of the wine from Irache from my water bottle, watching the familiar faces from the Camino trickle into town, and awaiting a foot massage from a Brazilian who drives in from the next town over to give pilgrims foot massages everyday. 
This is my last night in Navarra before heading to the Logroño region tomorrow. Rosa and I have plans to taste the liquor local to the region. 

Yours truly, Heavy Pack Girl Jean-Tonic

Daily Laundry Ritual on the Camino

Follow to Part 2 of  the next stages of the Camino...Pre-Camino Travels | Camino Part 1 | Camino Part 2 | Camino Part 3 | Camino Part 4 | Camino Part 5

"My Teacher Has Corrupted Me"

I had the privilege of accompanying over 30 teen artists to an air-conditioned space. Lucky for us, that space was the Art Institute of Chicago. During our hours wandering the galleries, I made the impromptu decision to record the casual conversations sprouting in front of artwork. There were sassy voices, thoughtful voices, and brave whispered voices barely trickling into the microphone of my iphone. This collage of conversations has been whittled down to 9 minutes from almost 2 hours of chatting. Each conversation in the video is accompanied by the original artwork we were looking at when we were talking. Just like any good teacher, in order to really listen to the students, you have to lean in close and stay there.  So turn up the volume on your computer and lean in.

Turtles and Dutch People are Awesome...and other scary tales of learning Spanish

I've been trying to complete a little sculpture about fear and learning. The sculpture began taking form on my trip in Mexico. As much of my thinking happens, it is taking shape by writing about it, tearing up the writing, and then gluing it back together. After my time in Latin America, I have thought a lot about what it means to be foreign, in every sense of the word, and to be different and try to learn.
Prior to this trip, I had spent two years of grad school thinking and practicing to be an art teacher-straddling the worlds of "teacher" and "student" and thinking about power and privilege and access to information. Going to Mexico put me firmly back in the role of student, in an unknown territory, with many privileges voluntarily stripped from me. I lived the paradox of having the means and privilege to travel across borders but to also be totally paralyzed and infantilized by the newness around me and a language I didn't speak. How do I wash my clothes? How do I ask for medicine at the drug store? How do I explain who I am and what I'm doing there? To be a learner is to be a foreigner and it requires courage, patience, the ability to be alone for a long time, and self-love.
My goal -to learn Spanish- was met largely through one-one-one intensive courses with tutors who only spoke Spanish with me.  As I've recounted before, learning a new language can be magical: the new sounds coming out of my mouth, the strangers who became friends in a new language with me, or hearing a new common phrase click in my head as I walked down the road. But learning, of course, can be excruciatingly painful and lonely. I recall towards the end of my trip, I was really trying to blast through the Intermediate Spanish plateau that so many learners struggle to surpass. So much information was coming at me during one class and instead of seeing it as a fault of the teacher, or for speaking up for myself or asking to change course, I started blaming myself. That abyss between student knowledge and teacher understanding of their student is amplified in a language learning setting. An easy example: The teacher explains in Spanish what homework I should do, then I go and do something else and return with the wrong assignment. I really thought I understood. How many times do we think someone is not listening to us when really it was just interpreted differently? During one class, I felt so upset with myself that I hadn't figured out a conjugation and, according to my own goals, I was way behind. I fought back tears while the teacher talked even more loudly at me trying to shout the pronunciations and concepts into my skull. (Increased volume does not increase clarity and understanding, just my adrenaline.) Despite being an adult who chose to be in that room and was paying for it, I felt like a 13 year old who wanted to cuss him out and leave the room. I felt this strange hostility bubbling up when he asked me questions I couldn't answer. Stop exposing my ignorance, maestro! In that moment, I learned to be a more compassionate teacher and swore to never forget that feeling of being lost and isolated. I try to imagine that feeling when the power reverses and someone else "just isn't getting it" when I explain something seventeen times over. That's the feeling of being lost at sea without touching and seeing the bottom of the ocean but laughing at the turtle under your belly....that is the feeling I'm trying to  squeeze into the little boxes of my sculpture so I never forget.

I say all this not because I want you to know how brave I am or how well I can take money out of an ATM machine in a foreign country. I say this because it has become more and more clear to me that we live in a culture of fear and taking a step out of our country, our comfort zones, our language, our circles, our expected "career paths" is a radical counter-action to fear. It is an attempt at love and imagination. When I think about my unplanned trip to Mexico with no return ticket, the word trust keeps coming up...and imagination. I couldn't have done this trip without imagination. I joked with others, "Am I crazy for doing this?" because intense use of your imagination feels unsound, unreasonable. It was unreasonable because I didn't need reason; I needed imagination. And curiosity. And trust. There was no reason to trust the taxi driver who made the sign of the cross and kissed his hand before accelerating wildly out of the airport and into the tangle of Mexico City. There was no reason to trust the chef on the street and follow him home on the subway. (Okay, that was a little crazy.) There was no reason to trust my naive, Anglo-brain, riding into the mountains without proper footwear and not nearly enough Dramamine. There was no reason to trust that my backpack stowed under the bus would be there in the morning. There was no reason that I should jump out of a boat in the ocean, a mile off shore with a turtle and a man I met on the beach. (I did trust the advice of a few Dutch people about which building to stamp my passport at the Guatemalan border. Now that was reasonable.) To leave the familiar and to move somewhere by yourself requires imagination...which is why I think artists are always traveling. We tend to imagine another way and another world. It's a feminist act as well. When men or women go outside of our usual network, our usually defenses, I believe we're actually respecting our hardy individual strengths and trusting our intuitive feminist selves.
So many people have asked me, "Weren't you scared traveling alone?" They usually are referencing sensational crime stories they hear on the news or have distorted notions of foreigners as all being dangerous criminals preying on young American women. I also think what they're really saying is "I'm afraid of doing that myself." I try to respond: Life is just as scary when you stay in one place, in one confined box, and don't use your imagination. Or I make a less eloquent response exaggerating the crime rates in Rogers Park. Whatever you take away from this, turtles and Dutch people are awesome and Rogers Park is a perfectly fine place to live.

New More City Curriculum

While at the National Art Education Association Conference in New York City last week, something didn't feel right. Maybe it's because I've spent the better part of this past year traveling and working solo and too many familiar faces in one place felt foreign.
Many sessions felt like how a professor at the University of Michigan once described modern lectures: "a pointless loop of information moving from one computer to another without it ever passing through anyone's brain." This wasn't always the case, of course, but I found my curriculum (so to speak) elsewhere, often just riding the subway and getting lost. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love public transportation. That, along with public libraries, is the reason I still believe in humanity. Museums are pretty okay, too. I found my curriculum when I left the claustrophobic conference and walked from Times Square, through Central Park, and finally to The Met. There, I was greeted by a 500 year old Bishop holding a book and looking eerily understanding of my predicament. He totally gets it.
The week in NYC allowed me time to visit the MoMA to see 'good' but probably overrated Cindy Sherman hoopla and then I was able to see what I'm sensing is an overwhelmingly UNDERrated retrospective of another (!) woman artist showing at the same time: Sanja Ivecovic's "Sweet Violence." How timely for International Women's Day. Both women have been making work about gender since the 1970s and I regret to inform you that it is still "fresh."
I finally visited Printed Matter and even 192 Books across the street in Chelsea. And then I visited the Center for Book Arts. All places were inspiring us to hold objects in our hands and think about other human beings.

Aaron Cohick/New Lights Press, The New Manifesto of the New Lights Press, 2009, showing at Center for the Book Arts.

 What was not inspiring us to think about others was the hyper-commercialized convention I was supposed to be at that encouraged me to make a free Mehndi Art Glove. Ta-da! You understand Indian Art and its relation to latex! If, as an outsider to the field, I picked up the cover of the convention booklet and read this, I would want to cut art education from schools, too.

 

I did get to see hidden gems of thoughtfulness at the conference (however achingly under-attended), and presented a bit on my own work with other great researchers and educators. I learned about Task Parties from artist Oliver Herring and got to visit with a former teacher, Doug Beube, at his studio in Brooklyn. His new book is a must for anyone interested in books and art.

Phew, that was a lot of reading. Now, let's all return to our respective screens.

Spirit-"less" Airlines

Like Water for Chocolate, Like Exactly.

Mural on the exterior of a Zapatista school.

How do I sum up a 4 month trip to Latin America and what it's like to be back? Maybe it's like Water for Chocolate, Like Exactly.

 I had some of the best chocolate while traveling in Mexico but I will take Chicago tap water any day over all the chocolate in the world. "What's it like to be back?", I'm asked. I just stammer: "Water, I like water. I drink water here, lots of water...man, it's all about water...the American bathroom experience is an incredible privilege. Water, water everywhere."
I felt the polar extremes of traveling (and incidentally, life) in these past few months. When you're traveling:

-You're either on top of the world (or a mountain) or you want to hide under a bed as far away from the world as possible.
-You either want to use all your new vocabulary words or don't want to say a word.
-You want to know everything about the people around you or want to run away...or at least blend into the crowd and disappear. 
-You can feel terribly lonely or you can desperately crave time to yourself again or both at the same time.
-You can have the best meal of all time and the worst meal of all time.
-You can not think of home for days, swallowed up by another world, or wish you were around anything familiar. Anything...like peanut butter...like that one sweater you didn't pack, or that one friend you couldn't fit in your bag either...or someone who really understands your jokes.
-You can see it all or see absolutely nothing in a damp noisy hostel, sick with Montezuma.
-You can see the kindest most generous side of people or the sickest and coldest side of humanity.
-You can have the best night's sleep looking out at stars in the jungle or you could sleep in an upright bus seat for 18 hours fearing to open your eyes because the Argentinian orthodontist sitting next to you will take it as permission to start talking to you again.
-You could wake up in Guatemala with half your face swollen or...you could not.
-You can feel like an old lady wishing the 20 year old Australians would take the party elsewhere or you could feel 3 years old and not know how to ask for toilet paper.
-You can attend a Mexican wedding on the beach one week, be in a Zapatista community in the mountains of Chiapas the next, and days later be in the Cancun airport tipping with American dollars for a Caesar salad.
 - You can feel completely independent and liberated or you can feel tied down and dependent on strangers and guide books.
Here is some excerpts of writing from my last days in Mexico:
"..After 15+ hours in the autobus from San Cristobal to Chetumal, I finally made it to the town, near the Belize border at 2am.  During the bus ride, I took lifesaving Dramamine for motion sickness and contemplated the stars and palm trees lit by the moon out the window. In my Dramamine-induced state, I tried etching into my mind the grand thoughts and poetic moments that can only happen on a bus in the middle of Mexico doped up on Dramamine. But like my eyeglasses and my sun hat, the transcendent thoughts disappeared into the abyss. I would have gotten too sick trying to write it down on those roads..."

Bus survival pose with mustard yellow hoodie.

"I ate practically nothing except leftover lime-flavored peanuts, corn nuts, and Mexican cookies the whole ride...mostly because of the lack of meat-less options at the bus stops. A few hours in, the bus got some sort of rock or debris stuck in the back wheel. We didn't move for hours while it was repaired, since we were hours from any other bus to pick us up. I didn't bother to look at the time. I just stared at the moon or closed my eyes. At some points, military officials shined flashlights in our eyes while marching down the bus aisle with guns strapped to their chests. I think this happened a couple times at various checkpoints. Things blur..."
"...I got to Chetumal so late, I assumed I would not see my friend I was planning to meet. As I usually do when I get to a foreign town without a plan, I ran into some Dutch travellers. I shared a cab with the family going to a nice hotel. By nice, I mean the bed had bed sheets! The hotel where my friend was staying the next night was either not accepting guests at that hour or did not have any vacancies. I just understood “no, you can’t now” in the receptionist’s Spanish. My blasted Spanish. I’m not sure I’d do better in English at that hour though. I went to the other hotel with the Dutch family and I paid for a rather expensive room. It was easy to rationalize the expense considering that in the week before I had been living for nothing while sleeping in a cinema...I crashed immediately in my new fancy room with a mini fridge and hair dryer and television I would never use. I had not had anything to eat. Sometimes sleeping is easier than finding food..." 
"...the next morning I got a hold of my friend using the correct string of mysterious numbers to make a Skype connection to a Mexican cell phone. I walked around the block to her hotel room. Exhausted but happy to see a familiar face, we walked towards the water, to see the Atlantic side of things, later the duty free zone at the Belizan border, and then I was off to an overnight bus again to catch a morning flight out of Cancun..."
My last exhausting days of the trip made my arrival in Chicago that much sweeter.
The first person I talked to in the United States was, of course, a customs agent. Our conversation went something like this:

Customs Agent: [Looking incredulously at my list of countries I've visited] What were you doing in Guatemala?
Me: [Envisioning insects biting my face] Umm, beh, uhhh, well, traveling?
-Customs: [Furling his brow] So how long were you in Mexico?
-Me: Since September.
-Customs: [Furling brow more dramatically] What were you doing?
Me: [Private panic about what I've been doing with my life.] Well, just, uh, studying Spanish.
Customs: [Eyebrows relax] Oh, you're a student. So what brings you here today?
Me: Well, I have a connecting flight to Chicago. I'm going home.
Customs: Yeah, but why today?
Me: [Existential crisis...yes, why am I back today? Why not next week or tomorrow?] Well, umm, I have to work now.
Customs: [Eyebrows start furling again] but you said you were a student.
Me: Well, I was but now I have to work. I'm finished being a student. And it's time to work.

This is a google image for "furled brow" but also resembles the customs agent.

Customs: [Stares incredulously again for a long moment with my passport and looks tired] Welcome home.

So here I am at home. My Chicago accent is back in full force and people laugh at my jokes again. And yes, it's definitely time to work...and visit friends...and absentmindedly eavesdrop on Spanish conversations in the grocery store...and eat peanut butter...and take hot showers...and listen to Pandora...and drink large glasses of sweet, delicious Chicago tap water.