Strange things we see here
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2008
1
15
Trip End
Dec 02, 2008
Rosario,
Litoral,
Argentina
Monday, November 24, 2008
1. We were sitting at the Bajo Cero (literally translated, ¨below zero¨) ice cream place. We eat a lot of ice cream here. We were sitting outside, basking in the sun, enjoying our ice cream, and chatting about the busy day we´d had. I was facing away from the street and telling MY adventures to Sammie, who was facing the street. She stopped me in mid-sentence about halfway through my story, said, ¨Melanie, I´m listening to you, and I want to hear your story, but please turn around and look at that.¨ I proceeded to turn around and saw what I can only describe as a Disney cartoon that had come to life. (Some background: Every half-block or so, Rosario has a dumpster along the side of the street. Throughout the day, various people go picking through the dumpsters to find stuff in the trash-- yeah, just a bit sad, right? Apparently they bundle together the recovered treasures and set them to the side of the dumpster. Later in the day, they come around and pick up all the picked-through trash.) Just across the road from us, there was a 1980´s-era 4-door sedan running, but stopped next to the dumpster. A man was going over to the dumpster to pick something up and add to the car. Not seen in many places in Michigan, so somewhat strange. What was STRANGER was the fact that they were taking the bundle on their back, climbing to the top of the absolute mountain of bundled trash on top of the car, and strapping it on. Mountain?-- you might wonder. Never in my days have I ever wanted a camera more. Neither of us had our camera, and if Sammie hadn´t been with me, I wouldn´t have believed my own eyes, and definitely wouldn´t be telling this story, as it´s impossible to believe. Imagine a 4-door sedan, standard size, piled with bundles of items so that it´s as tall as, oh, I´d say a semi or a double-decker bus. Imagine something from a Disney cartoon-- you know, where the family´s getting ready to move across the country, and they pack up everything they own on top of their car and start driving? And they end up packing a load that´s 3x as big as the entire car itself? That´s what we saw. Something I can only describe by drawing. And I´ll give you Sammie´s phone number...we are NOT exaggerating here. Check out this website. This would give you the best visual aid... not lying. Anyway, all this stuff was piled on top of this car, and people were climbing on top of it to boot. I don´t think that the roof of a car is made to support all that weight. All in all, it was weird.
2. As much as I hate to start this story like this, Sammie and I were sitting at the ice cream place, eating ice cream. We had ordered the deluxe that day, and she was eating the wafer cookie off of her ice cream. As she was doing so, a crumb landed in my ice cream. I assumed it had come from her wafer, and so I picked it out and continued to eat my ice cream. Another crumb fell, this time-- with no plausible source. I looked around, didn´t see anything, and continued with my ice cream. Keep in mind that we were sitting at a table on the sidewalk in front of the building, with nothing above us-- no balconies or anything. I asked her if she´d seen it, and she hadn´t, and she told me I was crazy. We both continued on with our ice cream, and within a couple minutes, half a loaf of stale French bread fell on our table. We both looked up this time, and saw nothing. In the next couple minutes, two whole HARD stale loaves of bread dropped down on our table. Was it a sign from God? Was He sending bread from heaven to remind us that we shouldn´t actually be at the ice cream store? Maybe. Maybe it was bread from heaven. The bread, from what we could see, came from nowhere. All in all, it was weird.
3. Sammie and I were walking to the ice cream place. We had stopped to look through the window of a shop, and so were stopped on the sidewalk next to a dumpster (somehow we find ourselves next to the dumpster) 4 cars parallel-parked behind it. We stood in the sidewalk talking, and all of a sudden, this man walked over to the car parked just behind the dumpster, and got in and started the car. We looked over, decided that he wouldn´t actually have room to get out, because he was only about a half-foot in front of the car behind him, and only about a half-foot behind the dumpster in front of him. He got out, looked at the dumpster, looked at the other car, and got back in his car. He put it in reverse and backed up so that his car hit the car behind him. That car, in turn, was pushed so that it hit the car behind itself. He drove his car forward, hit the dumpster, then drove backward so that he hit the car behind him once more, decided he still didn´t have enough room, then got out of his car again. He walked to the 3rd car back, pushed it back till it hit the 4th car back (all the cars here are stick-shifts, obviously, and so all left in neutral when parked). Once the 3rd car was as far back as it could go, he pushed the 2nd car (the one behind him) back so that it hit the 3rd car, and then he got in his car, put it in reverse, reversed the car until it hit the 2nd car. All the while, Sammie and I just sat there watching him, never having seen anything like this before. He noticed us, rolled down his passenger-side window, looked at us and said (in Spanish), ¨I drink milk!¨ and drove away. All in all, it was weird.
4.This is a short one. I was by myself for this one, actually, and I was walking to the internet cafe here in the city-- about 5 blocks from school. Keep in mind, it was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit. As I was walking down the sidewalk, I got hit on the head by a block of ice. Not an ice cube, but an odd, misshapen block of ice. And there was no explanation. All in all, it was weird.
5.This is the weirdest one-- and for those of you with a sensitive stomach, I suggest you stop reading here. Sammie and I were walking through the San Martin Plaza (a popular spot for young high school-age couples to sit on their lunch hour and play kissy-face, or for people to walk their dogs. It´s basically just a block taken up by a big grassy park filled with giant palm trees, a statue of General San Martin (a legendary hero in Argentine history) and a big cement X sidewalk through the plaza, with each corner of the X ending at each street corner on the block. Sammie and I always take this plaza to go to eat lunch on the days we have school. One day last week, we were walking through the park and talking. I looked down, stopped, grabbed Sammie, and told her to look as well. We saw, for a few seconds, what can only be described as an actual severed human ear, finger, and toe lying on the pavement. We then looked around for some kind of hidden camera, saw none, screamed, and ran away. All in all, it was weird.
Comments
ummm....
Melanie? I think the heat is getting to you! I heard you were sick recently. Did you 'see' all of this whilst ill? I'm concerned.