Needles and Costumes

This week was basically the end of my work for my classes ... now I just have to go and get a few papers signed and have a few despedida (going away) parties in class. I ate my last lucky gnocchi of my Argentine experience and got a few more things done on my checklist.

I had been curious about acupuncture for a while and stumbled upon a place next door to my University. I last week to just ask some information and ended up getting an interview about ¨who I am¨ and what is unbalanced in my life or my body ... they are difficult questions to answer in general ... non the less with a suppressed Spanish vocabulary... but I managed. I explained my situation of my pain in my feet and the bittersweet situation of running to get out stress but not being able to run sometimes because of the pain. I left with approval that if I wanted treatment I could receive it. I had my appointment this week. It was very interesting. I got a second interview about who I am and how my mind body spirit connection is and the condition of body. She pressed a few spots on my feet and I told her where it hurt. Then she started looking in my ears and started telling me all of these things about myself that are not obvious by just looking at ears:

"You think a lot and struggle to let your brain fully relax"

"You are obsessive about certain things" (Ya, I like things clean I guess)

"Your diet is healthy" (That makes sense ... I`m a vegetarian)

"You drink plenty of fluids" (Yup, liter and a half that morning)

"Overall your body is fairly well-balanced"

Then she proceeded by putting 10 needles in my ears with my breathing. She taught me the form of breathing for the 20-30 minute therapy session and left the room with dimmed lights. I breathed and started relaxing and would occasionally have chills go throughout my body and about once every 10 minutes my left leg would twitch; eventually I reached a state of relaxation I haven´t had my whole time in BA. She came back in the room and asked if I saw a color (I was so relaxed I didn't remember) and then took out the needles with my breaths. She analyzed my ears some more and said the most imbalance lies in my pancreas which is caused by my obsessiveness; I need to work on accepting the grey in life because things are almost never black or white. She went on with more profound analytical phrases and suggestions for improvement. I left in a state of complete relaxation that I practically floated home in my own world. Everything just happened around me. I feel like my body is in more harmony and some of the pain is gone. Very neat feeling.

For Halloween I dressed up as a blackberry ... the fruit. I somehow managed to create my costume by stopping by each specialized store to gather supplies to make my costume on the stormy Saturday day of Halloween. I thought my blackberry outfit would be the perfect defense mechanism against the Argentine men ... I was wrong. I think I attracted more attention with my balloons than if I were to decide to be a sexy whatever. I started with 50 balloons .. after the first hour at this Colombian Halloween dance party I had about 45 ... then we went to another dance club called Rumi ... my balloons vanished in minutes. I had people coming up to me all night arms outreaching to grab my balloons and pop them. Once again I am affirmed that Argentine men know the key to my heart ... I have never been more repulsed by men since my stay here. All I wanted was to dance and have a good time with my roommates ... which happened once my balloons were popped.

Today Analia and I went to the Lujan Zoo, which is about an hour and a half outside of BA. We take a bus to get there and he drops us off at the side of a highway off ramp and points us in the direction of the zoo. All we can see is grass and highway and some back country roads ... middle of nowhere. We find the zoo and are greeted by an outdoor Tractor Museum ... showing the evolution of tractors. The zoo is just a field with random cages and pits ... no pathways or sidewalks; It had been raining the past few days so it was a mud pit to every new animal. There were ducks, geese, hens and others of the sort wandering around the mud pit hissing if we got to close trying to dodge the swamps of the walk paths. Since it was after lots of rain ... the crowd was scarce. We started of petting some full grown lions and tigers sitting right next to them. Then played with some lion cubs. We fed dead fish to some sea lions. Fed milk to pigs and goats. Rode and fed a camel. Rode an elephant that was not obeying ... I felt like I could end up with a fatal injury falling off a stubborn elephant in the swamp of South America. It if happened it would have at least been an adventurous story. I just clung on for dear life. It was great ... not a huge variety of animals ... but when else can you touch with tigers, lions and see bears ... oh my ... best zoo ever despite the lack of safety prevention.

In festivities of Halloween ... some zombie street art.

Love.