Overseas Briefing

Author: Jessica Weiss

URUGUAY - After a brief hour of sleep my alarm sounds Yankee Doodle. Just about sunset. Perfect. Time to wake up. My tired body aches as I fall out of my bed onto the cold wood floor. I carefully calculate: three pair of underwear, one pair of pants, and then I throw a random assortment of articles into my $3.00 backpack that I bought from a street vendor the other day. A quick shower and a few hours later laughter fills the living room.

Thursday night and the girls are deep into their gossip. The Spanish rolls off their tongues with such speed and fluidity that I rely on my class of medio y medio to try to slow it down, but the speech and time continue.

I look at the clock on the wall, focusing on the fuzzy numbers. 23:15. I run to my room and grab my overstuffed, knockoff backpack. I squeeze my passport and ticket into my pocket as I throw my belongings over my shoulder. Running out the door of my apartment I can hear the laughter fade into a warm winter night in Montevideo.

I ride shotgun in the taxi across the city to the bus terminal where four Americans and a five hour ride await me. We climb aboard a bus headed northwest to Paysandú, the third largest city in Uruguay, but we could be on our way to Peru as nobody cares enough to check the ticket. It is past midnight and for the first few minutes we fill the otherwise silent bus with laughter and frantic exchanges of Spanish stories from the two months since orientation, the excitement elevated by sueño and the lasting effects of the champagne and white wine concoction. In the darkness we become silent as the countryside passes us by. The cows are asleep, but my day is not half over.

We reach the terminal in Paysandú and fighting to keep our eyes open find a taxi to guide us through the dark and unfamiliar streets.

Five of us, with all of our belongings and the driver stuff into a car reminiscent of the metal toys my brother used to play with. A weird mixture of Latin pop, salsa and Tom Petty is drowned out by our laughter.

As we head for the border our body heat fogs up the windows. But the temperature is warm, and we roll down the windows to realize that we have headed into a fog so dense that we brace ourselves for a crash or the appearance of the headless horseman.

No headless horseman but a rather portly customs agent reluctant to put down his mate greets us from the fog. We present our passports but some lack the immigration form that was given to us two months ago. In the most authoritative voice possible he says he can't let us into Argentina. We turn pale and burst into laughter. Funny joke at 5 o'clock in the morning.

After convincing him that we are not terrorists and almost an hour later we reach Colón, Argentina. The final destination. We are just in time to watch the colorful progression of the sunrise and its reflection in el Río Uruguay. I take it in and prepare to start my day again. For the next few days I will take a break from my backwards Uruguayan world, because here, the day starts at sunrise.