So I’m writing this post retroactively while still waiting in the airport in Uruguay. My last day in Paraguay was glorious—I went nearly all out on my third world spending. Highlight: a one hour massage at a fancy spa for $10!!!! Oh my gosh it was marvelous! I was thinking if I’m posted abroad as a diplomat one day that I would get three massages a week. I am going to be back in Paraguay for a week in August with my bro so I will have to be sure to line up massages for the both of us. Let me reiterate: oh my gosh!!!! So good! Last time I was in Paraguay I would get two a week at our neighborhood salon for $5, but unfortunately they don’t offer massages anymore so I “had” to pay the $10.
Before getting the massage, I worked up the need to “de-stress” by doing a nice bit of shopping at one of my favorite places in Paraguay, Shopping Mariscal Lopez. This place is amazing. Basically you step right into the luxury mall and it’s like you’re back in the US—lots of shops in English, super nice, and anything you’d need. But it comes with two bonuses: 1) full of Latinos (yeah!) and 2) most things are super cheap! I knew I’d be coming here for a while so I purposely didn’t buy any new clothes for several months in DC. Before I was here in 2005, I swear I hated clothes shopping. But after my host sisters showed me Mariscal Lopez I changed my mind. Now it’s fun (in limited amounts)! So I cleaned up – new Puma track jacket, workout pants, new pair of jeans (the sizes here fit me way better, since people are thinner), and a new sweatshirt. Now I’m set!
A store in the Mall "Uptitude" - can you believe this?
With Celeste. Notice the Nike in the background.
I also stocked up on my yerba mate (more on maté in future entries). Then Celeste showed me her collection of Paraguayan herbs. It was pretty hard to not laugh. Okay I admit I laughed—a lot! In addition to having the regular maté you can put in either dried or fresh herbs such as mint, chamomile, and more. It’s really tasty and quite good for the digestion.
I also purchased this cool adapter to be able to use the power outlets here. Originally I thought I would need a converter to use my laptop here. After nearly overheating my converter which could only handle devices up to 50 watts, I decided that probably wasn’t a good idea and was over the capacity of my basic converter. So I went to Radioshack—yes they have them here. I think it’s hard to escape from globalization nowadays—and it turns out that laptops are built to handle a voltage range of 110 (US) to 220 (Europe/much of Latin America). Sweet! All I needed was this little $1 plastic piece that lets me plug a 3 prong adapter into the 2-prong socket.
