Ah, must´ve forgot to pack it in my carry-on...

You know how it goes. You´re bored at work, staring at the floor and/or scanning perezhilton.com for ´news´ when you realize that if you had to choose between another year of Google surfing or 365 days in a foreign country whose language you don´t speak, laboring in a profession you´ve never experienced...well, easy. You choose the latter. Now the problem is, you never fully decide if this sojourn abroad is a vacation or a job and therefore packing becomes a bit of an issue. And by packing, I mean what kind of principles you should take with you. Things like good judgment, discretion, and um...all the rest. It´s not like I left them ALL at home, but I´ve yet to conclude if the old rules need not apply to my new country, or whether I´m just a foreign idiot in a strange, strange land. Allow me to explain...

Weeks ago, I found myself engaged in conversation with a highly attractive German traveler who was en route to Montevideo. We´d been speaking for roughly 45 minutes when he proposed that I meet him in Uruguay the following weekend. Instead of laughing uproariously and disappearing to make fun of him with my friends for the rest of the night, I nodded rapidly in earnest agreement. Sure! I exclaimed. I would love to! I shouted. After all, wasn´t Uruguay on my to-do list, and wouldn´t it be better to have a seasoned veteran show me the ropes instead of emptily promising myself that I would go see it at some point? Now, before I give my mother a heart attack, allow me to confirm that I did not go to Uruguay. In fact, I never saw the German again. But the point of all this is that albeit however briefly, there was a moment where I actually considered going to meet this person in Uruguay. Things like his age, (he was a good ten years older than I,) his occupation (questionable) and his status as a mentally stable, non-perverse human being (unconfirmed, I never got his last name) were hastily shoved off the table of necessities to make room for my cup of ¨oh, i´m so cool and laidback i´ll just go to montevideo for the weekend¨nonchalance. In retrospect, only one word comes to mind. Why?

I could chalk it up to a brief lapse in judgment, and the fact that I was won over by his good looks and affable charm. Or I could admit to being completely careless and irresponsible for not only talking to complete strangers, but blindly agreeing to accompany them to foreign countries. Or, I could shrug my shoulders and offer the following line with a sheepish grin: ¨I´m from out of town.¨ It must´ve happened on the flight down here. Somewhere between Miami and Lima, I developed an involutary reaction to my own mis-behavior. I´m much more forgiving of my stupidity than I used to be. Say I cut three people off in line trying to buy peanuts. ¨They´ll get over it,¨ I reassure myself amidst the screaming. ¨I don´t live here all the time.¨ ¨Forget to look twice before crossing the street? ¨Where I´m from, Pedestrians have the right away.¨ And my new favorite, as I´m sprinting to my classroom 45 seconds before it´s supposed to start- ¨What are they gonna do, fire me?¨ (Consider the above documentation of my foolishness, not advocacy.)

They say acceptance of what is is one of the first signs of the slow and painful adjustment into a new culture. Is it acceptable that I no longer feel guilty for pointing at menu items when I don´t know how to pronounce their name? Sure. Is it acceptable that I often say ¨yes, please, or thank you¨ to all questions for which I know no other way to respond? Why not? And is it acceptable to validate questionable behavior with ¨this doesn´t count because it´s not in my language?¨ Maybe not. Good luck with your packing.