100 años de soledad.

I'm positing that the human brain has almost unlimited potential to absorb and assimilate changes in environment, but that it requires sleep in order to do it.  I'll test that hypothesis as soon as I write this.

Yeah, I'm here.  I'm here!  But it was a weird day!  But it was a good day.  I want to assiduously avoid making this into an itinerary-based traveblogue, but I might include a lot of boring details today just because I feel like I need to desahogar.  What a great word from Spanish: undrown myself.  I've just gotta unload, vent: undrown myself.  

Here's my first point of advice: don't ever travel alone when you can travel with someone you love, or even like.  That option wasn't really available, so I'm trying the lone wolf thing.  I thought I would love it.  And I don't, or at least not yet.  I recognize that the main component of any place's meaning is the people in it, but if I were better at creating connections with strangers, this would be a lot more fun.  I should just learn to do that, huh?

Okay, let me step back and mold these scatterlings and orphanages into some semblance of narrative.  Brief semblance of narrative.  I slept a bunch on the plane, spent most of the day getting into my hostel and buying maps and a phone, then looking up more permanent housing situations on the internet.  I know I've told you a million times how much I love big cities, and I do, but man they can alienate you if you're not careful.  I know I mentioned this above, but I feel like my brain has just been overloaded with more input than it can take without one night of sleep to process everything and put it somewhere.  I have a hard enough time molding my life into a directional narrative in Provo, Utah, the most familiar town in the entire world.  And suddenly I've pulled a switch on my brain, altering every environmental variable possible.  Of course it's going to freak out.  It felt a little bit like the first day of my mission, with less magnitude: culture shock lite.  I wasn't expecting that.  But really, I never really had the chance to get used to the particular iteration of Argentine culture I'm immersed in now, since my mission was all in the less densely populated, more neighborhoodsy suburbs.  So today, the crowds and the buildings and the solo lunch of empanadas at a Chinese-run buffet restaurant and the administrative tasks of Just Living, I kind of saw them through lenses the color of existential ennui.  I felt, a few times, like all these people were incomprehensible to me, and they cared about different things than I do, and what if anything do I really care about anyway, and real connection with these people or anyone was just a pie in the sky.  And the rational part of my brain is able to recognize that this feeling always passes and is replaced once again with exultant, glorious joy at God's creation.  But today felt weird.

There more things to tell you about, but I'm literally falling asleep at the keyboard and I literally promised to try and make this brief.  I'll wrap up with 3 tender mercies, connexions from my old life to the current one which which put a dab of hope onto my angsty existential oatmeal.

• Church.  My search for an apartment took longer than expected, but at the end of the day on my way to the last apartment appointment, I was surprised to find myself walking past a Mormon chapel with a guy about to go in.  So I yelled him down and told him how great it was to just see a mormon; turns out he's the institute director, and I thought to myself, Institute!  That'll be great!  (this is the only time I've ever thought that).  Kind guy.
• University.  The Belgrano institute is in the neighborhood of Universidad de Belgrano, so I ducked in and spent about a half hour just reveling in the warmth of those books.  I bought a replica of a first-edition 100 años de soledad and saw a lot of South American books I recognized or had heard about.  So that felt great. College bookstores are always going to feel comforting.
• People.  Specifically, the lady showing me this flat.  It's her own flat, and the rooms are a little pitiful.  But she, Angelica, is great.  72 years old, which she never gets tired of reminding me.  She just welcomed me in and sat me down and started talking to me.  I heard about her time living in La Jolla, California, and about what made her decide to be a teacher.  She had a lot to say, but you could tell when this lady was in her prime she was a really irresistible fireball.  She was a real sweetheart to me, even walking me to the train station on my way back to the hostel.  I wish I could tell you more about her, you would like her.

I've read that in scary or stressful times our brain lays down more densely packed memories and that's why time seems to pass more slowly.  Well let me tell you my brain was just packing them in  today.  It felt like about three days.