Todays a little more on the meditations and less on the drunken escapades, but don't worry, the next entry will more than make up for it.
I came home with the intense urge to leave. Nothing against my host mom, but I was feeling particularly restless for numerous reasons which can go unexplained for now.
Luckily, I came back to get a message from another trip member inviting me to La Bomba, an already famous drum show someone across town.
Do I hear adventure calling?
I was running late and set off on a sprint to the girl’s apartment. For some reason, I find myself a faster urban or trail runner than on a track. I bounded down the streets, flew over the sidewalk, barely breaking a sweat or losing my breath in the biting cold. I dodged families, circled already familiar streets and finally stopped when I realized I had ran in the direction of the show, not her apartment
I made a less than glorious walk back.
I reretraced my path and we found ourselves in what was by far the shaddiest district of the city that I had seen yet. Catcalls in unknown slangs were thrown at my female friends. I puffed out my chest and laughed again at the image of me as “protector”.
We went to a corner store near the show, bought bottles of Quilmes, and drank them in brown paper bags outside of the show. So far, definitely fitting into the neighborhood.
I made it to the front door of the show, at the edge of what was apparently a vacant lot and abandoned warehouse and was surprised to see it run by Ticketmaster’s Argentine cousin. Security was posted all around the entrance.
We got in and found ourselves at a Yuppified rave.
I ran into a familiar face, one of the guys from the bar crawl the week before. He offered for me to ride along with him to the bar crawl after. I agreed, against any sense of better judgment or time of course.
We made our way to the open warehouse and were greeted by one of the most exuberant, upbeat concerts that I have ever seen. The percussionists were spontaneously jamming on the stage as an accordionist wove around them. The whole crowd swayed to the rhythm, pulsating from the drums of a hundred countries. The show was so “safe” that the set ended at 10. Pub crawl guy had already left. Whatever.
The next night was an old fashioned spend the whole night at one bar; it happened to have an Irish theme that was far from authentic. Having Guinness Draft and Celtic symbols with one jig played all night counts as Irish down here. So does a Philly Cheese Chicken at a food court restaurant described as an American grill. It makes you wonder if General Tsao/Gao really was known for spicy chicken.
Perhaps it’s because the specter of Borges seems to haunt every street corner, the fact that I visited an exhibition on his life earlier today, or I’m attempting the task of reading the entirety of his work in Spanish, but this city has proven really conductive to introspective thought.
Everyone owes it to themselves to become familiar with Jorge Luis Borges. So far I have only pieced together loose snippets of his biography so far and treaded loosely in his shadow through the spots of the city of his life. However, slowly his thoughts have been reaching me.
His belief in the power of words is something I identify with incredibly.
His beliefs on death provide me incredible comfort.
His belief in the influence of genealogy aligns with one of my aims down here.
His self-awareness of his reputation mixed with humility and a touch of self-deprecation provide a model for me.
His beliefs on fate and love, while I don’t know them yet, I am sure will prove equally insightful.
I don’t plan on reading a biography on him; rather I plan on experiencing his life through these five months through random chance encounters. By learning his story through learning Buenos Aires, hopefully I will reach even a miniscule portion of his insight.
We go through our lives, assuming that we have all the answers. We know how our lives should be lived and exactly how to reach it, but in reality, we are all flying through it blind. To assume we know what lies over the next horizon is incredibly ignorant. The past is subject to after-thought, the future subject to chance, but the present is completely determined by us.
People are unpredictable and the actions of one I have never met can cause rippling shockwaves that effect me in ways little and big that I might never realize. All one can do is be completely open to these merry coincidences of life and be ready for them by knowing oneself. Too often, I have seen things and people as patterns, things to be manipulated and understood. Only by instinct and action can one find a path.
I saw college as a happy, almost pre-set path. Down here, any street corner can lead to a new road. I plan on going down these streets, seeing the city, always waking up and assaulting the day head on just to see what it brings.
Borges was blind, but he saw more than any of us. The only shadows and doubt are the ones that we refuse to see through.
Thursday 30 July 2009
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Special Weekend Edition!
Sometimes you see and experience so much that the cliché, “words can’t describe it” becomes all too appropriate. My first weekend in Buenos Aires has been such a moment, but I’ll do my best to cover all I’ve seen and done over the weekend. It’s difficult to keep up with the rate that I set for myself, so just try and stick with me. I’ll do my best to post regularly.
Also, stick with me; this is gonna be a bit of a longer one.
After the drunken escapades (probably ill-advised but at least well-supervised) across Palermo, a few of us decided to revisit some of our favorite spots in a better state of mind. We started at an ultra-trendy bar called Limbo. How do I know it’s trendy? Well they had a DJ playing on the front porch…where no one was sitting.
They served a stereotypical fusion menu comprised of things like French fries in Argentine wasabi sauce, chimichurri calamari, and probably something along the lines of falafel empanadas or some other food dish fitting the formula of Argentine Food+American/European Form of Serving+Asian/Middle-Eastern Ingredients. It’s pretty much if the Iron Chefs were bored one night in Kitchen Stadium and figured to put together the most random crap possible.
My Mojito also had a mint branch sticking out of it that was taller than the cup that it sat in. But somehow they served Dark & Stormys. I had to come around 6000 miles to find a bar that served my favorite drink. Go Figure.
Once the pretentiousness became too overwhelming, we set off to find the hookah bar from the night before. After some random shots down streets, we finally asked a cop (after each of us in the group insisted that someone else laid their Spanish on the cop) and found our way.
It was packed, with two other groups of kids from my trip who also liked it from the night before. After waiting about twenty minutes, with numerous glances from me to the owner, due to me being convinced that I have magic-bar mojo after figuring out how to be liked at the Monkey Bar, we got seated.
We ordered a hookah, but I was paranoid due to the other two group’s hookahs not hitting well. I used my pseudo-mcgyver hookah science and stamped the setup with my seal of approval. Hookah paranoia will sit in after leaving a house with five hookahs circulating and spending most summer nights smoking hookah. I used to think hookah paranoia was the domain of the weird and the wags, me being someone who set a hookah up last summer with a candy wrapper, lake water, a paperclip, and a pipe cleaner.
It hit well. The beer came in cheap liter bottles (which is so much classier and better than a 40), and the beer was Stella Artois, a higher end import in the States but as common as Coors Light down here.
Either the same band or a different one from the night before was playing. They were joined for a few songs by a girl who was the embodiment of stereotypical Argentine smoking-hotness.
The band finished its set with Vertigo, me being a U2 fan and probably drunk, singing along obnoxiously to, getting too excited when Bono’s random interjections of Spanish pop up in the song. You see here, Hola and Como estas are the parts of the song that everyone understands. Granted, no one can still explain why Bono counts uno, dos, tres, 14.
Towards the end of the night, someone from the table next to mine called me over. It was my Argentine songbird. She barely spoke a lick of English, but she was able to squeeze out the phrase, “Fly me to Miami to buy an iphone.” I told her that we’d talk when she got a record contract.
The place was almost empty and we were served complimentary pizza as the singer tried to win over two other Americans with me. We entertained it because we loved the idea of befriending a hot Argentine. Plus, she had her mom with her, how dangerous could she be (don’t worry she was 20).
Long story short, we promised to come to her show the next Monday night.
We didn’t.
But as I was leaving, the owner slipped me his card and told me to call next time I was coming through, he’d have a table waiting. Magic Bar Mojo Power!
The next day, my wanderlust kicked in and I found myself setting across the city for points unknown. Jerusalem is a city of cats. Cats everywhere. A cat was eating my friend’s sandwich once, he tried to take it back, it attacked him. I stayed at a hostel where kitties were literally falling out of trees. You know how I know Buenos Aires is a dog city?
Dog shit everywhere.
I made it to their Congress building, almost like ours but with a European twist, and came just in time to catch the tail end of a flea market being put on by the Madres, an activist group. I watched the stereotypical scene of two men intensely arguing over more often than making moves, during a game of chess. A huge crowd around them was swapping bets. I’ve always been told I should learn how to play chess. Wasn’t gonna do it here.
I made my way to Café Tortoni, a famous café in the city which was frequented by Borges and numerous other luminaries of the city.
I came there with my book of Borges and didn’t find any of the eminent writers disciples. I found Joe and Jane American tourist, albeit with a larger budget than the typical American slob. I found this city’s version of the Carnegie Deli or Union Oyster House or any other number of once great eateries that while they still turn out a good product, solely exist to provide a photo-op and a mini museum dedicated to the restaurant’s own sense of importance.
I was attacked by pigeons in the Plaza de Mayo (the center of the city in front of the Casa Rosada). Enough said about that.
I made my way to their version of the Pentagon and witnessed a hysterical scene. I noticed a man watching me from across the building’s front lawn. A few minutes later I witnessed him running down the block. A horribly obese man was chasing him. A wallet lay on the ground between them. The thief was running backwards, taunting his attempted prey like the Roadrunner to the Coyote. The fat man was wheezing heavily, almost collapsed, then gave up as the robber took a taxi away. I might’ve helped if I wasn’t too busy laughing.
I then took a picture for a few British girls in front of the Falkland Islands War memorial. I wonder if they knew the irony of their photo-op. (Brutal pointless war between two stupid regimes during which Britain trounced the Argentines).
I met up with a few friends and continued the sightseeing, making my way up to the Albasto, a famous indoor market place that was once full of intrigue and passionate tango singers, entertaining the stall-owners for a handout of a few centavos.
Today it is full of Gap, Juicy, Hoyt’s Cinema, several other chains (both Argentine and American), a Kosher McDonald’s?, and an amusement park called Neverland.
I rode the roller coaster.
We ended the night at a cute little café near my house where we got a cheap, but good meal of cerviche (a raw Italian fish dish) and a bottle of Malbec. Sitting there, I found myself having a deep conversation about god knows how many deeply held personal beliefs , concerns, and goals with people I met less than a week ago.
It was either the Malbec or the fact that jumping into such a state of uncertainty with others tends to facilitate and create the need for trust. Humans are naturally desperate for personal contact, both causal and intimate. To not be able to engage in fun activities and share in adventure with others is to not have people to remember your experiences with after they fade away. To not share what lies deep in you, leads to whatever you’re carrying with you to create something in you that eventually collapses on its weight if it’s not released. To not have those you can trust is to be forever in a state of travel, never knowing where it’s safe to land.
We will always reach out to others in order to feel some part whole. That’s how I found myself engaging in such a conversation with such fresh faces. And we were all in a sense alone. Alone in a city, lost in communication, needing the ability to feel some semblance of normalcy, anchors if you would. Because all others that we saw were still foreign and still far.
We then went to an ice-cream place where we got a Pirate Ship made out of three scoops of ice-cream, wafer cookies, fruit, whipped cream, and hot fudge. It was essentially a big Fuck You to Friendly’s Clown Face Sundae. Needless to say, it cleansed our palate.
I spent most of the next day soaking in the sun (I think it was in the high 60s and people were wearing winter coats as opposed to my t-shirt). I sat on the bank of a pond, at the edge of a rose garden, reading my Borges, listening to the laughs of paddle boating families and the strumming of a stringed quartet.
A week ago, I was somewhere above the Amazon rainforest or Andes mountains, farther away then I could have ever imagined, but always dreamed of. Reading in the park, taking in the day, you know what? I think I felt a bit at home.
Also, stick with me; this is gonna be a bit of a longer one.
After the drunken escapades (probably ill-advised but at least well-supervised) across Palermo, a few of us decided to revisit some of our favorite spots in a better state of mind. We started at an ultra-trendy bar called Limbo. How do I know it’s trendy? Well they had a DJ playing on the front porch…where no one was sitting.
They served a stereotypical fusion menu comprised of things like French fries in Argentine wasabi sauce, chimichurri calamari, and probably something along the lines of falafel empanadas or some other food dish fitting the formula of Argentine Food+American/European Form of Serving+Asian/Middle-Eastern Ingredients. It’s pretty much if the Iron Chefs were bored one night in Kitchen Stadium and figured to put together the most random crap possible.
My Mojito also had a mint branch sticking out of it that was taller than the cup that it sat in. But somehow they served Dark & Stormys. I had to come around 6000 miles to find a bar that served my favorite drink. Go Figure.
Once the pretentiousness became too overwhelming, we set off to find the hookah bar from the night before. After some random shots down streets, we finally asked a cop (after each of us in the group insisted that someone else laid their Spanish on the cop) and found our way.
It was packed, with two other groups of kids from my trip who also liked it from the night before. After waiting about twenty minutes, with numerous glances from me to the owner, due to me being convinced that I have magic-bar mojo after figuring out how to be liked at the Monkey Bar, we got seated.
We ordered a hookah, but I was paranoid due to the other two group’s hookahs not hitting well. I used my pseudo-mcgyver hookah science and stamped the setup with my seal of approval. Hookah paranoia will sit in after leaving a house with five hookahs circulating and spending most summer nights smoking hookah. I used to think hookah paranoia was the domain of the weird and the wags, me being someone who set a hookah up last summer with a candy wrapper, lake water, a paperclip, and a pipe cleaner.
It hit well. The beer came in cheap liter bottles (which is so much classier and better than a 40), and the beer was Stella Artois, a higher end import in the States but as common as Coors Light down here.
Either the same band or a different one from the night before was playing. They were joined for a few songs by a girl who was the embodiment of stereotypical Argentine smoking-hotness.
The band finished its set with Vertigo, me being a U2 fan and probably drunk, singing along obnoxiously to, getting too excited when Bono’s random interjections of Spanish pop up in the song. You see here, Hola and Como estas are the parts of the song that everyone understands. Granted, no one can still explain why Bono counts uno, dos, tres, 14.
Towards the end of the night, someone from the table next to mine called me over. It was my Argentine songbird. She barely spoke a lick of English, but she was able to squeeze out the phrase, “Fly me to Miami to buy an iphone.” I told her that we’d talk when she got a record contract.
The place was almost empty and we were served complimentary pizza as the singer tried to win over two other Americans with me. We entertained it because we loved the idea of befriending a hot Argentine. Plus, she had her mom with her, how dangerous could she be (don’t worry she was 20).
Long story short, we promised to come to her show the next Monday night.
We didn’t.
But as I was leaving, the owner slipped me his card and told me to call next time I was coming through, he’d have a table waiting. Magic Bar Mojo Power!
The next day, my wanderlust kicked in and I found myself setting across the city for points unknown. Jerusalem is a city of cats. Cats everywhere. A cat was eating my friend’s sandwich once, he tried to take it back, it attacked him. I stayed at a hostel where kitties were literally falling out of trees. You know how I know Buenos Aires is a dog city?
Dog shit everywhere.
I made it to their Congress building, almost like ours but with a European twist, and came just in time to catch the tail end of a flea market being put on by the Madres, an activist group. I watched the stereotypical scene of two men intensely arguing over more often than making moves, during a game of chess. A huge crowd around them was swapping bets. I’ve always been told I should learn how to play chess. Wasn’t gonna do it here.
I made my way to Café Tortoni, a famous café in the city which was frequented by Borges and numerous other luminaries of the city.
I came there with my book of Borges and didn’t find any of the eminent writers disciples. I found Joe and Jane American tourist, albeit with a larger budget than the typical American slob. I found this city’s version of the Carnegie Deli or Union Oyster House or any other number of once great eateries that while they still turn out a good product, solely exist to provide a photo-op and a mini museum dedicated to the restaurant’s own sense of importance.
I was attacked by pigeons in the Plaza de Mayo (the center of the city in front of the Casa Rosada). Enough said about that.
I made my way to their version of the Pentagon and witnessed a hysterical scene. I noticed a man watching me from across the building’s front lawn. A few minutes later I witnessed him running down the block. A horribly obese man was chasing him. A wallet lay on the ground between them. The thief was running backwards, taunting his attempted prey like the Roadrunner to the Coyote. The fat man was wheezing heavily, almost collapsed, then gave up as the robber took a taxi away. I might’ve helped if I wasn’t too busy laughing.
I then took a picture for a few British girls in front of the Falkland Islands War memorial. I wonder if they knew the irony of their photo-op. (Brutal pointless war between two stupid regimes during which Britain trounced the Argentines).
I met up with a few friends and continued the sightseeing, making my way up to the Albasto, a famous indoor market place that was once full of intrigue and passionate tango singers, entertaining the stall-owners for a handout of a few centavos.
Today it is full of Gap, Juicy, Hoyt’s Cinema, several other chains (both Argentine and American), a Kosher McDonald’s?, and an amusement park called Neverland.
I rode the roller coaster.
We ended the night at a cute little café near my house where we got a cheap, but good meal of cerviche (a raw Italian fish dish) and a bottle of Malbec. Sitting there, I found myself having a deep conversation about god knows how many deeply held personal beliefs , concerns, and goals with people I met less than a week ago.
It was either the Malbec or the fact that jumping into such a state of uncertainty with others tends to facilitate and create the need for trust. Humans are naturally desperate for personal contact, both causal and intimate. To not be able to engage in fun activities and share in adventure with others is to not have people to remember your experiences with after they fade away. To not share what lies deep in you, leads to whatever you’re carrying with you to create something in you that eventually collapses on its weight if it’s not released. To not have those you can trust is to be forever in a state of travel, never knowing where it’s safe to land.
We will always reach out to others in order to feel some part whole. That’s how I found myself engaging in such a conversation with such fresh faces. And we were all in a sense alone. Alone in a city, lost in communication, needing the ability to feel some semblance of normalcy, anchors if you would. Because all others that we saw were still foreign and still far.
We then went to an ice-cream place where we got a Pirate Ship made out of three scoops of ice-cream, wafer cookies, fruit, whipped cream, and hot fudge. It was essentially a big Fuck You to Friendly’s Clown Face Sundae. Needless to say, it cleansed our palate.
I spent most of the next day soaking in the sun (I think it was in the high 60s and people were wearing winter coats as opposed to my t-shirt). I sat on the bank of a pond, at the edge of a rose garden, reading my Borges, listening to the laughs of paddle boating families and the strumming of a stringed quartet.
A week ago, I was somewhere above the Amazon rainforest or Andes mountains, farther away then I could have ever imagined, but always dreamed of. Reading in the park, taking in the day, you know what? I think I felt a bit at home.
Sunday 26 July 2009
Thirsty Thurdays in the Southern Hemisphere
There’s a scene in Batman Begins, right after when Bruce Wayne gets threatened by a powerful mobster. After ditching his designer coat, he stands in the city’s shipyards and stares off into the distance and the sweeping overture of the movie kicks in, and he’s off. Circling the world and gaining experience through a set of montages.
For some reason the scene holds a power over me. Not because I’m about to start kicking ass in my own Batsuit, but because I have often stood deep in thought, trying to grasp the incomprehensibly large world that lies in my future. Half aware of the tides of adventure about to come my way.
Last night was quite an adventure, and hopefully a bit indicative of perhaps not exactly what, but perhaps similar to what the future holds.
I organized a large group of people to go on a pub crawl through a Buenos Aires neighborhood, practically half of the people on my trip. We started with beer, wine, and pizza in the freezing cold, and then began crawling.
First bar we hit up, the 50 of us traveling absolutely took over the place. The drink special was two for one aka two rum and cokes for one aka two full size glasses aka I might have ordered two rum and cokes aka four rum and cokes.
I looked around and everyone was having an absolute blast. Our college drinking sensibilities meeting foreign drinking ages in our first real night out.
On the way from this bar to the next, I somehow started chatting with a group of people from the suburbs of Buenos Aires. I was able to switch into drunken foreign language skill set (anyone in college language knows what this is) and started having a conversation about the Celtics. Only in Argentina could sport illiterate me sound like a pro, even if that only means repeating Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Larry Bird over and over again and repeating opinions about them in Spanish.
Second bar was a cozy hookah bar with a live act performing. Right when we got in, they jumped into a string of Chili Peppers hits, covering them pretty well. However, we definitely through the place over capacity and broke a few fire laws in the progress so I found myself crawling over stumbling college students, drunk on foreign freedom.
The next bar was incredibly trendy and a little bit hazy.
On the way to the final bar, an enormous club, I met up with my Celtics fans again except things were reversed with their rudimentary English celebrating Boca Junior (one of the city’s major soccer teams).
Frankly, I found out last night that I’m simply not a club fan. The place was impressive, goes without saying. It was jampacked wall to wall, yet it was still easy to navigate. The hip hop hits of five years past blasted down at us as people on the dance floor repeated a scene seen in the states at overcrowded frat parties.
Made my way out sometime around 5:30, hailed a cab, and went straight home.
Granted, this experience is almost typical of any study abroad. However, it felt like a real beginning to Porteno (someone from Buenos Aires) life. And of course, now 50 people on my program knew me as the guy who set up the awesome pub crawl night.
However, walking back from class today, I felt a new kind of travel awareness. While searching for a book of Jorge Luis Borges (yes, very tourist of me) at a theater converted into a bookstore, I stumbled upon a copy of the book Harlot’s Ghost in Spanish misplaced in the Borges section.
The book, by Norman Mailer, is a 1300 page tome about the CIA during the Cold War, told through the story of one agent. The man begins his travels and postings right out of college as a young man and finds himself rapidly maturing through his assimilation into daily habits in the countries he works in. A third of the book details his second posting in Montevideo, Uruguay, just across the river from me right now.
Walking down Santa Fe, I felt like the protagonist. Emerging onto the global scene as someone with a little more awareness, someone a little more observant, someone a little more independent.
Granted I’m not down here toppling Communist regimes or sparring with KGB pencil pushers (the book is a realistic look at the bureaucracy and tedium involved in real spying) but I am here on a few missions.
I am finding my long lost relatives. Family of my great grandmother’s sister.
I am going to read the entire cannon of Borges.
I am going to write an incredible research paper that ties together all of the themes that I have been touching on in college.
I am going to become fluent in Spanish.
PS: Argentinean Thief Ingenuity Update
Supposebly several Argentinians sat in on one of my lectures today and through a mix of acting, diversion, and improve, stole the program director’s project from literally behind his back as our session emptied out. Now the directors now buffoon, we’re all convinced he’s the Argentinean Sean Connery, mostly due to his stylish way of dressing, overall demeanor, and resemblance to Sean Connery.
All this means that I am going to be even more cautious. And don’t worry mom, the pub crawl was highly chaperoned and I was surrounded by people from the trip. And I stopped when I reached my limit.
For some reason the scene holds a power over me. Not because I’m about to start kicking ass in my own Batsuit, but because I have often stood deep in thought, trying to grasp the incomprehensibly large world that lies in my future. Half aware of the tides of adventure about to come my way.
Last night was quite an adventure, and hopefully a bit indicative of perhaps not exactly what, but perhaps similar to what the future holds.
I organized a large group of people to go on a pub crawl through a Buenos Aires neighborhood, practically half of the people on my trip. We started with beer, wine, and pizza in the freezing cold, and then began crawling.
First bar we hit up, the 50 of us traveling absolutely took over the place. The drink special was two for one aka two rum and cokes for one aka two full size glasses aka I might have ordered two rum and cokes aka four rum and cokes.
I looked around and everyone was having an absolute blast. Our college drinking sensibilities meeting foreign drinking ages in our first real night out.
On the way from this bar to the next, I somehow started chatting with a group of people from the suburbs of Buenos Aires. I was able to switch into drunken foreign language skill set (anyone in college language knows what this is) and started having a conversation about the Celtics. Only in Argentina could sport illiterate me sound like a pro, even if that only means repeating Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Larry Bird over and over again and repeating opinions about them in Spanish.
Second bar was a cozy hookah bar with a live act performing. Right when we got in, they jumped into a string of Chili Peppers hits, covering them pretty well. However, we definitely through the place over capacity and broke a few fire laws in the progress so I found myself crawling over stumbling college students, drunk on foreign freedom.
The next bar was incredibly trendy and a little bit hazy.
On the way to the final bar, an enormous club, I met up with my Celtics fans again except things were reversed with their rudimentary English celebrating Boca Junior (one of the city’s major soccer teams).
Frankly, I found out last night that I’m simply not a club fan. The place was impressive, goes without saying. It was jampacked wall to wall, yet it was still easy to navigate. The hip hop hits of five years past blasted down at us as people on the dance floor repeated a scene seen in the states at overcrowded frat parties.
Made my way out sometime around 5:30, hailed a cab, and went straight home.
Granted, this experience is almost typical of any study abroad. However, it felt like a real beginning to Porteno (someone from Buenos Aires) life. And of course, now 50 people on my program knew me as the guy who set up the awesome pub crawl night.
However, walking back from class today, I felt a new kind of travel awareness. While searching for a book of Jorge Luis Borges (yes, very tourist of me) at a theater converted into a bookstore, I stumbled upon a copy of the book Harlot’s Ghost in Spanish misplaced in the Borges section.
The book, by Norman Mailer, is a 1300 page tome about the CIA during the Cold War, told through the story of one agent. The man begins his travels and postings right out of college as a young man and finds himself rapidly maturing through his assimilation into daily habits in the countries he works in. A third of the book details his second posting in Montevideo, Uruguay, just across the river from me right now.
Walking down Santa Fe, I felt like the protagonist. Emerging onto the global scene as someone with a little more awareness, someone a little more observant, someone a little more independent.
Granted I’m not down here toppling Communist regimes or sparring with KGB pencil pushers (the book is a realistic look at the bureaucracy and tedium involved in real spying) but I am here on a few missions.
I am finding my long lost relatives. Family of my great grandmother’s sister.
I am going to read the entire cannon of Borges.
I am going to write an incredible research paper that ties together all of the themes that I have been touching on in college.
I am going to become fluent in Spanish.
PS: Argentinean Thief Ingenuity Update
Supposebly several Argentinians sat in on one of my lectures today and through a mix of acting, diversion, and improve, stole the program director’s project from literally behind his back as our session emptied out. Now the directors now buffoon, we’re all convinced he’s the Argentinean Sean Connery, mostly due to his stylish way of dressing, overall demeanor, and resemblance to Sean Connery.
All this means that I am going to be even more cautious. And don’t worry mom, the pub crawl was highly chaperoned and I was surrounded by people from the trip. And I stopped when I reached my limit.
Friday 24 July 2009
I present the following in the spirit of absolutely truthful travel journalism
You know the feeling that you get after you’ve had a few drinks at a bar and really have to piss but it seems like nowhere is open/cops are watching every alleyway or place where you can otherwise safely loosen your fly and not be registered as a sex offender/all stores have a sign that bathrooms are for customers only? Imagine that times a thousand.
After orientation today, a group of us hit Santa Fe Ave. (a huge shopping street, like the Newbury St or Madison Ave of Buenos), looking for somewhere to take advantage of Argentina being one of many countries with a more reasonable drinking age than the US.
We found a trendy place that was a mix of café and nightclub and after the insistence of someone in our group that the upstairs (smoking section) was more trendy and cool, we went up there.
It was pretty trendy and cool. Our tables were a bunch of low coffee tables on a raised platform, with soft cushioned ottoman like stools on one side and a big booth on the other. A couple next to me was busy SUBA diving down each other’s throats. Interesting how others just view it as normal here.
Anyways, Happy Hour came along and the liter of Stella that I was sharing with a girl next to me became two for one Quilmes, Quilmes being the cheap beer that I got a few days ago at Argentinian Fried Chicken.
Before we left, me being the stingy bastard that I am, I had downed the rest of the remaining second Quilmes, didn’t want to waste it.
We got to the Subte, or subway, and waited as it passed us by several times. Imagine the Green Line after the Fourth in Boston or going into Kenmore during a Sox game, now imagine that train combined with rush hour traffic, combined with whatever the New York equivalent of a packed subway car is. Now divide the size of the car by two. Divide it by the fact that it was so crowded that people couldn’t even get off at their stop. This all equals us intimidated beyond belief and me getting a new understanding why this country has the third worse Swine Flu epidemic in the world.
My paranoia had died down by this point, because how the hell would a thief even escape? Then I felt a growing tingling sensation, and not a good tingling.
Got off the Subte and dashed to the street. The beer had worked its way through my system faster than, honestly I just ran through about ten different metaphors in my head in an attempt to be clever, but I’ll spare you the pretentiousness. I’ll just put it this way, I really had to pee.
I started running, but couldn’t deal with the pressure. Every single store said “Banos por patrones solamente” aka if I wasn’t buying something, not relieving my pain there. I counted my money, only had a few coins, which are necessary for the buses and are almost in no circulation. Earlier in the day, several newspaper men refused to make change so I could get coins. Ironically, the opposite of the penny here.
In Amherst, I have a tucked away corner, behind some fencing that blocks an electric box and the back entrance to a pizza shop, where I can run in case of emergency. No such place here. Last thing I wanted was to be deported for peeing in public.
The pain was getting worse. I spotted a hospital near my house, than the site of a new condo development on my street, and damned the pain, I started running. I ran, I had nothing on my mind except the lyrics of “Shelter From the Storm” repeating through my head. Might have started singing too.
I then passed my street, doubled back, went through the lobby, rode the elevator up, and found myself confronted with my arch nemesis, putting my key into the lock.
Argentinean locks look like old timey medieval keys with wide prongs on each side instead of the sharp profile of an American key. There are no tumblers. You have to navigate the key through several different holes, adjusting its position in each along the way in order to align the key right. Only then can you receive entry.
It goes without saying that I suck at opening doors down here. Keys don’t open doors here; they’re only the gateway to horrible frustration.
Time was running out and I could literally feel the urine thrusting it’s way up my vas deferens, or whatever the actual channels called.
The door opened, I dashed down the hall, luckily Susana wasn’t home to witness this horrible spectacle, and made it.
Now I am confident enough in myself to say that I am not sure what happened in those few minutes. When I made it to the toilet, I started before my pants were fully down, so it goes to say that I might have pissed myself.
Earlier in the day I walked to orientation, passing through the dental district (tooth brush stores, dentists, and orthodontists in every storefront), took a tour of a posh neighborhood, had a successful Spanish oral exam, and a few other things that I would have written more about if I didn’t have this demeaning yet ridiculously funny interlude.
After orientation today, a group of us hit Santa Fe Ave. (a huge shopping street, like the Newbury St or Madison Ave of Buenos), looking for somewhere to take advantage of Argentina being one of many countries with a more reasonable drinking age than the US.
We found a trendy place that was a mix of café and nightclub and after the insistence of someone in our group that the upstairs (smoking section) was more trendy and cool, we went up there.
It was pretty trendy and cool. Our tables were a bunch of low coffee tables on a raised platform, with soft cushioned ottoman like stools on one side and a big booth on the other. A couple next to me was busy SUBA diving down each other’s throats. Interesting how others just view it as normal here.
Anyways, Happy Hour came along and the liter of Stella that I was sharing with a girl next to me became two for one Quilmes, Quilmes being the cheap beer that I got a few days ago at Argentinian Fried Chicken.
Before we left, me being the stingy bastard that I am, I had downed the rest of the remaining second Quilmes, didn’t want to waste it.
We got to the Subte, or subway, and waited as it passed us by several times. Imagine the Green Line after the Fourth in Boston or going into Kenmore during a Sox game, now imagine that train combined with rush hour traffic, combined with whatever the New York equivalent of a packed subway car is. Now divide the size of the car by two. Divide it by the fact that it was so crowded that people couldn’t even get off at their stop. This all equals us intimidated beyond belief and me getting a new understanding why this country has the third worse Swine Flu epidemic in the world.
My paranoia had died down by this point, because how the hell would a thief even escape? Then I felt a growing tingling sensation, and not a good tingling.
Got off the Subte and dashed to the street. The beer had worked its way through my system faster than, honestly I just ran through about ten different metaphors in my head in an attempt to be clever, but I’ll spare you the pretentiousness. I’ll just put it this way, I really had to pee.
I started running, but couldn’t deal with the pressure. Every single store said “Banos por patrones solamente” aka if I wasn’t buying something, not relieving my pain there. I counted my money, only had a few coins, which are necessary for the buses and are almost in no circulation. Earlier in the day, several newspaper men refused to make change so I could get coins. Ironically, the opposite of the penny here.
In Amherst, I have a tucked away corner, behind some fencing that blocks an electric box and the back entrance to a pizza shop, where I can run in case of emergency. No such place here. Last thing I wanted was to be deported for peeing in public.
The pain was getting worse. I spotted a hospital near my house, than the site of a new condo development on my street, and damned the pain, I started running. I ran, I had nothing on my mind except the lyrics of “Shelter From the Storm” repeating through my head. Might have started singing too.
I then passed my street, doubled back, went through the lobby, rode the elevator up, and found myself confronted with my arch nemesis, putting my key into the lock.
Argentinean locks look like old timey medieval keys with wide prongs on each side instead of the sharp profile of an American key. There are no tumblers. You have to navigate the key through several different holes, adjusting its position in each along the way in order to align the key right. Only then can you receive entry.
It goes without saying that I suck at opening doors down here. Keys don’t open doors here; they’re only the gateway to horrible frustration.
Time was running out and I could literally feel the urine thrusting it’s way up my vas deferens, or whatever the actual channels called.
The door opened, I dashed down the hall, luckily Susana wasn’t home to witness this horrible spectacle, and made it.
Now I am confident enough in myself to say that I am not sure what happened in those few minutes. When I made it to the toilet, I started before my pants were fully down, so it goes to say that I might have pissed myself.
Earlier in the day I walked to orientation, passing through the dental district (tooth brush stores, dentists, and orthodontists in every storefront), took a tour of a posh neighborhood, had a successful Spanish oral exam, and a few other things that I would have written more about if I didn’t have this demeaning yet ridiculously funny interlude.
Wednesday 22 July 2009
Stormy Weather
I am now aware that my mom and dad are keeping up on this blog, but I did say that everythings gonna be honest, so i guess all I can say is enjoy mom and dad...
Waking up in a city on the other side of the world was a lot disorientating than I expected. Besides a thunder storm that seemed to both shake the apartment and my perception of this city as some sort of Latin American paradise, I woke up alright.
My host mother (Susana) led me down the few blocks to the bus, or comunalista (not be confused with comunista or I guess the word for bus in spanish that I learned, autopista).
She threw a few coins into some strange machine, said some words to the driver, and continued to give me explicit instructions on how the buses work and what way to get home. I turned into default, smiling and nodding with a few affirmations in Spanish thrown in for good measure.
At this point I noticed a disturbing habit that I was developing. I looked on every person on the bus, anyone who I moved close to, with utter suspicion. I felt that my status as a foreigner stuck out ridiculously and robbers were circling me from all sides to take advantage of the easy mark.
We got to our stop and she dropped me off in the lobby of an impressive old mansion where the program was holding its orientation. I looked around as all the other students said their farewells to their own diminutive little old ladies and found some vaguely familiar faces from the flight down.
4 Lessons from Part 1 of Orientation:
1. Train Stations in Buenos Aries are full of prostitutes, gang members, robbers, drug dealers, sith lords, evil wizards, satan himself, al capone and the rest of the Chicago mob, with osama bin laden thrown in for good measure
(no really, supposedly any area near train stations in the city are strictly no go)
2. If you have a stain on your shirt and someone offers to help you out, shout no, run away, because it’s never a man helping his fellow man, it’s part of an elaborate mugging scheme that seems to be repeated ad nauseam across the city 100 times a minute
(ironically every travel guide I read and every one of the hundreds of safety warnings my mom read warned about this trick. You think people would start to catch on)
3. If you are ever in your apartment and see smoke or water leaking under the door it’s not a flood, or a fire, its you guessed it! Someone trying to trick you into opening your door and then robbing you blind
(no explanation needed, exactly how it sounds)
4. If the people of this city devoted their ingenuity in mugging to something productive, the Chinese aren’t overtaking the United States in this century, it’s the Argentines
(and that this nation needs more security near train stations, don’t millions of people use them everyday?)
I had lunch at what appeared to be the Argentinean version of KFC, except that it had a sit down section, served beer (less than a dollar per can of something that tastes much better than PBR) and tasted good.
Then I set out to solve my greatest problem yet in this country. I had no cell phone! How was I supposed to get through classes without text-flirting, not to mention 18-bit phone games, and most of all communicate at all.
I found a sketchy little place that reminded me of those electronic stores near Times Square run by foreigners, but of course, now I was the foreigner. I decided against a phone from the Argentine version of Best Buy due to price. In this country, the dollar is worth about 4 Argentine pesos and rapidly gaining ground. I’d be more willing to drop 30 bucks on a scam than have to hold onto something that costs like 70 American. It’s worth it to take the risk.
I bought it, even though I kept getting text messages from someone already? My ego was a bit busted when the owner turned to his friend to run the exchange in English as opposed to my stilted Spanish. I think it’s because I asked for an automovil (car). Easy mistake, movil, sounds like mobile, etc.
The final part of orientation was a lesson on the autcomounialistas/buses in Spanish. They have approximately 500 bus routes that run through this city which require a mini guide book and god knows how much orienteering to figure out how to get a few blocks. I guess there’s still a place for cartography majors in this world. Or at least my Orienteering Merit Badge from Boy Scouts.
On the bus ride home, I sat with a few people who couldn’t help but laugh all day at my wide-eyed love for “adventure” (aka walking a few blocks to buy a phone). I thought to myself though and realized that I wasn’t overplaying anything. Why shouldn’t buying a phone in a foreign country be an adventure?
My dinner conversation included an explanation of American life in a bubble. From suburbia where you know none of your neighbors, drive anywhere, center life around the television living life vicariously through one’s boobtube poison of choice. Life on a campus, while an extension of the circle, still a restriction on one’s life to a lala land (which is the same in any college city or suburb because let’s face it, most people have a leg up from families and if you don’t, I truly admire you because you’ve got much more ability to handle this world than me so far).
But here I am now, while still having a leg up from my family (which I am of course thankful for), my life now rests on my own independence and ability to be able to deal with simple life issues turned completely upside down because everything familiar is in actuality far from that.
In every way I am now out of the bubble and completely free, in a city, with independence, thousands of miles from most commitments. But everywhere I find myself held back, feeling like a child when trying to undertake the simplest transactions, afraid of not evil robbers lurking on every stoop, bus, and street corner, but my own abilities or lack thereof.
On the bus ride, I touched on some of these themes and found out the girls riding the bus with me shared similar goals on this trip. Forgive me if this is the first time of many that I am going to repeat this, You have no idea what you are truly made of until you throw yourself completely off balance. Only then will you be able to find your true nature and bring your greatest attributes to the surface.
Waking up in a city on the other side of the world was a lot disorientating than I expected. Besides a thunder storm that seemed to both shake the apartment and my perception of this city as some sort of Latin American paradise, I woke up alright.
My host mother (Susana) led me down the few blocks to the bus, or comunalista (not be confused with comunista or I guess the word for bus in spanish that I learned, autopista).
She threw a few coins into some strange machine, said some words to the driver, and continued to give me explicit instructions on how the buses work and what way to get home. I turned into default, smiling and nodding with a few affirmations in Spanish thrown in for good measure.
At this point I noticed a disturbing habit that I was developing. I looked on every person on the bus, anyone who I moved close to, with utter suspicion. I felt that my status as a foreigner stuck out ridiculously and robbers were circling me from all sides to take advantage of the easy mark.
We got to our stop and she dropped me off in the lobby of an impressive old mansion where the program was holding its orientation. I looked around as all the other students said their farewells to their own diminutive little old ladies and found some vaguely familiar faces from the flight down.
4 Lessons from Part 1 of Orientation:
1. Train Stations in Buenos Aries are full of prostitutes, gang members, robbers, drug dealers, sith lords, evil wizards, satan himself, al capone and the rest of the Chicago mob, with osama bin laden thrown in for good measure
(no really, supposedly any area near train stations in the city are strictly no go)
2. If you have a stain on your shirt and someone offers to help you out, shout no, run away, because it’s never a man helping his fellow man, it’s part of an elaborate mugging scheme that seems to be repeated ad nauseam across the city 100 times a minute
(ironically every travel guide I read and every one of the hundreds of safety warnings my mom read warned about this trick. You think people would start to catch on)
3. If you are ever in your apartment and see smoke or water leaking under the door it’s not a flood, or a fire, its you guessed it! Someone trying to trick you into opening your door and then robbing you blind
(no explanation needed, exactly how it sounds)
4. If the people of this city devoted their ingenuity in mugging to something productive, the Chinese aren’t overtaking the United States in this century, it’s the Argentines
(and that this nation needs more security near train stations, don’t millions of people use them everyday?)
I had lunch at what appeared to be the Argentinean version of KFC, except that it had a sit down section, served beer (less than a dollar per can of something that tastes much better than PBR) and tasted good.
Then I set out to solve my greatest problem yet in this country. I had no cell phone! How was I supposed to get through classes without text-flirting, not to mention 18-bit phone games, and most of all communicate at all.
I found a sketchy little place that reminded me of those electronic stores near Times Square run by foreigners, but of course, now I was the foreigner. I decided against a phone from the Argentine version of Best Buy due to price. In this country, the dollar is worth about 4 Argentine pesos and rapidly gaining ground. I’d be more willing to drop 30 bucks on a scam than have to hold onto something that costs like 70 American. It’s worth it to take the risk.
I bought it, even though I kept getting text messages from someone already? My ego was a bit busted when the owner turned to his friend to run the exchange in English as opposed to my stilted Spanish. I think it’s because I asked for an automovil (car). Easy mistake, movil, sounds like mobile, etc.
The final part of orientation was a lesson on the autcomounialistas/buses in Spanish. They have approximately 500 bus routes that run through this city which require a mini guide book and god knows how much orienteering to figure out how to get a few blocks. I guess there’s still a place for cartography majors in this world. Or at least my Orienteering Merit Badge from Boy Scouts.
On the bus ride home, I sat with a few people who couldn’t help but laugh all day at my wide-eyed love for “adventure” (aka walking a few blocks to buy a phone). I thought to myself though and realized that I wasn’t overplaying anything. Why shouldn’t buying a phone in a foreign country be an adventure?
My dinner conversation included an explanation of American life in a bubble. From suburbia where you know none of your neighbors, drive anywhere, center life around the television living life vicariously through one’s boobtube poison of choice. Life on a campus, while an extension of the circle, still a restriction on one’s life to a lala land (which is the same in any college city or suburb because let’s face it, most people have a leg up from families and if you don’t, I truly admire you because you’ve got much more ability to handle this world than me so far).
But here I am now, while still having a leg up from my family (which I am of course thankful for), my life now rests on my own independence and ability to be able to deal with simple life issues turned completely upside down because everything familiar is in actuality far from that.
In every way I am now out of the bubble and completely free, in a city, with independence, thousands of miles from most commitments. But everywhere I find myself held back, feeling like a child when trying to undertake the simplest transactions, afraid of not evil robbers lurking on every stoop, bus, and street corner, but my own abilities or lack thereof.
On the bus ride, I touched on some of these themes and found out the girls riding the bus with me shared similar goals on this trip. Forgive me if this is the first time of many that I am going to repeat this, You have no idea what you are truly made of until you throw yourself completely off balance. Only then will you be able to find your true nature and bring your greatest attributes to the surface.
Tuesday 21 July 2009
Arrival
It is incredibly overwhelming to board a taxi when you’re going to somewhere you’ve never been, to meet up with someone you’ve never seen, in a foreign country, where your eight years of education in the language is exposed as horribly inadequate.
The taxi ride into Buenos Aires, as the sun was rising stands as a giddy, fearful, but somehow settling experience. As my cab driver wheezed away, hopefully not swine flu, I stared out the windows at a completely alien terrain. Even the way the highway was built seemed completely different then home. As opposed to the sprawling mega structure of the Eisenhower interstate, this was simply a highway.
Billboards in Spanish assaulted my vision on each side of the road as people on the radio babbled away far beyond my comprehension.
Slowly the shanty slums on the edge of the city gave way to towering apartments, back down to a condensed urban hodgepodge, and then finally into the city limits proper.
Everything seemed so familiar yet completely alien. Street cleaners were at work, but the streets seemed designed to more make car travel an option, rather than the only way to move.
The cab driver dropped me off and I thanked him and wished that he would feel better in a rudimentary Spanish phrase that I spent the entirety of the ride composing.
I rang the bell for my host mothers apartment, didn’t hear a reply.
I tried again, and got through, but the door wasn’t unlocked.
Was she coming down?
I stood outside of the apartment building, hating to appear like some rude foreigner, just wishing to boss her around with no patience. I’ve come thousands of miles in twenty-four hours and stopped by a locked door.
Fuck it. I tried again and went up.
My “host mother” is a 67 year old with a sufficiently grandmotherly air. Probably due to her being an Italian mother (similar in many habits to the familiar to me Jewish mother). One interesting thing was she mentioned several times one of her sons who died in a climbing accident.
When I enter, she assaults me with a barrage of Spanish, but I feign fluster from the flight and we start off in English. It doesn’t last long, and even though I hate to strain myself with Spanish, I know it’s for the better.
When forced to conduct your entire life in a language other than your own for the first time, it feels almost like surrendering part of oneself while simultaneously being thrown completely off balance. Simple communication needs forethought. No longer can I just instinctively say what comes to mind without feeling like a ritard who simply spouts one word answers, malo, bueno, caliente, frio, si, etc., etc.
All that needs to be said about Spanish keyboards is that they hurt. Making room for the “n-yay” and other signature Spanish letters completely changes the layout of the keyboard and I felt myself straining my fingers in unaccustomed ways to type, nothing to be said of many inadvertent typos.
Googles also automatically searching Argentine results. Not only are they in Spanish, I just can’t find the results I want.
Going on my own, down several blocks on the same street, to change my cash feels like a real beginning of a grand adventure. Here I am setting off through a foreign country, on the other side of the world, something I’ve always dreamed of doing, somewhere where everything is unfamiliar and captivating and new and worth attention, even on this simple errand of going to the bank.
Banks are the same everywhere, except all the tellers here are young and the girl tellers were hot.
I didn’t have my passport, couldn’t exchange money there, so I continued to a major shopping street a block down to change cash.
Out of curiosity I dropped into an electronics shop to just scout out cell phones, and again simple tasks and phrases became a struggle. It’s so much easier to tell off pushy floor employees politely in your own language.
I leave and pass by someone who stops me and asks if I go to UMass. She remembers me from a political theory class first semester freshman year that she transferred out of. Ironically, four weeks prior in Boston someone else who I didn’t know at all recognized me from that same class. The less said about that class and its bizarrely persisting impact, the better.
I asked the basic details that anyone would want from someone vaguely familiar about a city that isn’t familiar at all. She arrived yesterday. Exchange names, to be found on facebook later.
I return to the bank, now with my passport, but five minutes after the time they stop cash changes. No exceptions. Banks are the same everywhere.
I continued to kill time and go to a high end mall back on the shopping street and through rough, and incredibly inaccurate math, determine that all of the designer clothes being sold there is ridiculously affordable. The UMass girl did say we’re loaded here. Meanwhile, mall crowds are the same here, but seemingly more stylish and hotter. This whole hot preconception is defiantly influenced by a hype that people have given me about Argentinean girls before coming.
Return to the apartment. Find internet to squat off of, and guess what? No matter what country I’m in, I know how to make a complete waste of myself by checking the same seven webpages over and over. I tell myself that further exploring will be better done with actual currency.
Dinners late and I continue the awkward efforts at smalltalk in another language. I squeeze it out. It definitely makes it difficult when there’s no one else eating at the table to carry the conversation. All the pressure is on you. It’s difficult enough to carry on a conversation when you have absolutely nothing to say. Imagine it when constantly worry whether your conjugating your subjunctive whatevers.
It’s funny though. I find myself typing here and at times, Spanish is creeping into my thoughts of what to type and words that I write. The conflict of languages feels like my mind is split in two and each side is racing to my mouth or hands, trying to be the first one out while fighting and pulling the other one back.
I’ve come to Argentina to throw myself completely off balance, because only then will I know what I am made of, what I am capable of, and what parts of me deserve to shine through the most. This shit’s not gonna be easy, but I can attest to one thing. It’s definitely going to lead me somewhere. Where? Somewhere great.
The taxi ride into Buenos Aires, as the sun was rising stands as a giddy, fearful, but somehow settling experience. As my cab driver wheezed away, hopefully not swine flu, I stared out the windows at a completely alien terrain. Even the way the highway was built seemed completely different then home. As opposed to the sprawling mega structure of the Eisenhower interstate, this was simply a highway.
Billboards in Spanish assaulted my vision on each side of the road as people on the radio babbled away far beyond my comprehension.
Slowly the shanty slums on the edge of the city gave way to towering apartments, back down to a condensed urban hodgepodge, and then finally into the city limits proper.
Everything seemed so familiar yet completely alien. Street cleaners were at work, but the streets seemed designed to more make car travel an option, rather than the only way to move.
The cab driver dropped me off and I thanked him and wished that he would feel better in a rudimentary Spanish phrase that I spent the entirety of the ride composing.
I rang the bell for my host mothers apartment, didn’t hear a reply.
I tried again, and got through, but the door wasn’t unlocked.
Was she coming down?
I stood outside of the apartment building, hating to appear like some rude foreigner, just wishing to boss her around with no patience. I’ve come thousands of miles in twenty-four hours and stopped by a locked door.
Fuck it. I tried again and went up.
My “host mother” is a 67 year old with a sufficiently grandmotherly air. Probably due to her being an Italian mother (similar in many habits to the familiar to me Jewish mother). One interesting thing was she mentioned several times one of her sons who died in a climbing accident.
When I enter, she assaults me with a barrage of Spanish, but I feign fluster from the flight and we start off in English. It doesn’t last long, and even though I hate to strain myself with Spanish, I know it’s for the better.
When forced to conduct your entire life in a language other than your own for the first time, it feels almost like surrendering part of oneself while simultaneously being thrown completely off balance. Simple communication needs forethought. No longer can I just instinctively say what comes to mind without feeling like a ritard who simply spouts one word answers, malo, bueno, caliente, frio, si, etc., etc.
All that needs to be said about Spanish keyboards is that they hurt. Making room for the “n-yay” and other signature Spanish letters completely changes the layout of the keyboard and I felt myself straining my fingers in unaccustomed ways to type, nothing to be said of many inadvertent typos.
Googles also automatically searching Argentine results. Not only are they in Spanish, I just can’t find the results I want.
Going on my own, down several blocks on the same street, to change my cash feels like a real beginning of a grand adventure. Here I am setting off through a foreign country, on the other side of the world, something I’ve always dreamed of doing, somewhere where everything is unfamiliar and captivating and new and worth attention, even on this simple errand of going to the bank.
Banks are the same everywhere, except all the tellers here are young and the girl tellers were hot.
I didn’t have my passport, couldn’t exchange money there, so I continued to a major shopping street a block down to change cash.
Out of curiosity I dropped into an electronics shop to just scout out cell phones, and again simple tasks and phrases became a struggle. It’s so much easier to tell off pushy floor employees politely in your own language.
I leave and pass by someone who stops me and asks if I go to UMass. She remembers me from a political theory class first semester freshman year that she transferred out of. Ironically, four weeks prior in Boston someone else who I didn’t know at all recognized me from that same class. The less said about that class and its bizarrely persisting impact, the better.
I asked the basic details that anyone would want from someone vaguely familiar about a city that isn’t familiar at all. She arrived yesterday. Exchange names, to be found on facebook later.
I return to the bank, now with my passport, but five minutes after the time they stop cash changes. No exceptions. Banks are the same everywhere.
I continued to kill time and go to a high end mall back on the shopping street and through rough, and incredibly inaccurate math, determine that all of the designer clothes being sold there is ridiculously affordable. The UMass girl did say we’re loaded here. Meanwhile, mall crowds are the same here, but seemingly more stylish and hotter. This whole hot preconception is defiantly influenced by a hype that people have given me about Argentinean girls before coming.
Return to the apartment. Find internet to squat off of, and guess what? No matter what country I’m in, I know how to make a complete waste of myself by checking the same seven webpages over and over. I tell myself that further exploring will be better done with actual currency.
Dinners late and I continue the awkward efforts at smalltalk in another language. I squeeze it out. It definitely makes it difficult when there’s no one else eating at the table to carry the conversation. All the pressure is on you. It’s difficult enough to carry on a conversation when you have absolutely nothing to say. Imagine it when constantly worry whether your conjugating your subjunctive whatevers.
It’s funny though. I find myself typing here and at times, Spanish is creeping into my thoughts of what to type and words that I write. The conflict of languages feels like my mind is split in two and each side is racing to my mouth or hands, trying to be the first one out while fighting and pulling the other one back.
I’ve come to Argentina to throw myself completely off balance, because only then will I know what I am made of, what I am capable of, and what parts of me deserve to shine through the most. This shit’s not gonna be easy, but I can attest to one thing. It’s definitely going to lead me somewhere. Where? Somewhere great.
Monday 20 July 2009
Introduction
I figure this will be a really easy way to keep in touch with everyone who cares how my trip is going. As for everyone who doesn't care, feel free to stop reading.
I plan to write about pretty much everything; events, culture, people, personal thoughts, rambles, trivial shit, etc.
Hopefully I write entertaining enough to make it all good.
If I don't feel free to let me know.
Enjoy and please comment back.
I plan to write about pretty much everything; events, culture, people, personal thoughts, rambles, trivial shit, etc.
Hopefully I write entertaining enough to make it all good.
If I don't feel free to let me know.
Enjoy and please comment back.
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