El Gimnasio

A couple days after I arrived in Buenos Aires, I joined a local gym. The place looked very nice, and I paid 85 bucks for a three-month membership (two one-month memberships were more expensive). The gym is called Megatlon. There are a bunch of different cardio and musculacion machines. It also comes with a semi-personal trainer. Mine is a quite large man whose name is Ricardo. He's argentinian, but he might as well be German due to his uncanny resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenger. There is no question that Ricardo could kill me with one punch. Since he's my trainer, he tells me what to do. And since he's so intimidating, when he tells me what to do, I do it. Even things I would think that I wouldn't be able to do – just because he tells me so.

The gym also offers a bunch of free activities. Pilades, yoga, and a bunch of sports. The pilades and other move to music classes are relatively similar to the music video call on me, minus the fact that there are also a bunch of dudes doing the stuff. The sports are played on a mini-basketball court, which is actually the size of a volleyball court.

Recently, Ricardo told me to attend the basketball class one evening. So I came. I thought that since Ricardo said class, we would be doing drills and learning stuff. But we just played basketball. Half of the players take after Manu Ginobli and furiously slash to the net at any chance they get, often drawing a falta. Not an incredible amount of passing. I would say that I'm pretty average. It's especially tough for me because I feel as though I excel on a full court, where I can exploit my speed. So the short court kinda cramps my style. But basketball was fun.

I went to my first volleyball class a couple days ago. This was ridiculously fun. For some reason, volleyball is very popular in Argentina. Obviously, I'm not very good at jumping at spiking, but I would call myself an above average defensive specialist. I had a couple nice strings of serving as well, so that was nice. I think I will go back and play volleyball tonight. It's a good time.

Seguridad

For the most part, during the few weeks that I've spent in Buenos Aires, I have felt very safe. I have not felt as though I was in any danger walking around the city by myself. Well, some things have happened in the last week to jolt me from feeling so secure.

1) Monday was a holiday in Argentina, So people had a three-day weekend and most didn't go into work on this day. Well, I had class because my program only takes days off for the really important holidays. Scott, one of the directors of my program, informed me that Argentina has many holidays — one about every three weeks. So if they celebrated every holiday, it would be a bit excessive and overly-lazy. So I got out of class at one in the afternoon and walked a few blocks the the bus stop. On the way there, some dude who was standing on a stoop talking to this woman decided to step out onto the sidewalk and stop me. He was speaking really quickly in Spanish. I could tell that he wanted something from me. Seemed like money. So I told him in Spanish that I didn't understand anything that he was saying and stepped to the side so I could walk away. Well, he also stepped to the side to block me from walking away. Keep in mind, this is all taking place in the middle of the day, in broad daylight. Anyway, I was pretty scared when he stepped to the side. I mentally prepared myself to fight him if he were to throw a punch at me. So I stepped to the side again, and was able to walk away.

2) As I mentioned in the previous post, my neighbor Enrique informed me that there are many theives around this neighborhood. So that was comforting.

3) I've walked by many paso a niveles in the past week. Apparently, sketchy ass people who will rob you hang out by the train tracks. So I have to be very careful when I'm walking across train tracks, which for some reason seems to have been very often lately.

4) Yesterday, I met with my grandfather's sister-in-law's cousin, Matilde, who lives in Argentina. An extremely pleasant woman. Anyway, she was giving me a ride home from her place yesterday. I looked out the window at one point, and witnessed a mugging. Two guys on a moto (motorcycle) fought the purse away form a woman. She was still holding onto the purse as the guys drove away and as she could not hold on any longer, she fell to the ground really hard. This sad image is burned into my memory. She they proceeded to get up and run after the guys on the motorcyle, to no avail of course. The crazy thing about this was that Matilde did not even bat an eye. She told me that it happens all the time, undistracted from her driving.

Cerrar la Puerta

Yesterday, I did some hardcore shopping for the first time I've been there. I've made many purchases here or there, but yesterday I went buckwild. I bought two pairs of jeans, two sweaters, and a pair of shoes for 250 pesos — which comes out to a little more than 80 bucks. Not bad.

I carried three bags of my stuff home. When I arrived home, I was surprised to find that my key would not open the door. I worked at it for a minute of so before ringing the doorbell in the hopes that someone would be home. Luckily, Maria, our cleaning lady (not really sure why we have a cleaning lady) was home. I was able to tell her that the lock to the door was broken. She opened the window to the door, like the ones in those cars where you can open the window to the trunk and not open the door at the same time. I was able to squeeze through a cubby-sized hole to enter our place. But the lock was still broken.

Neither Maria nor I knew what to do about fixing the lock, so I went across the street to the Parilla (which luckily was open because they have the weirdest hours — usually closed from around 6-9) and talked to this guy I know, Beto. He came over and looked at the lock and said that it was really broken and that he would call a cerrajeria, or locksmith. A minute later, this old man, Enrique, showed up at our doorstep. He started to inspect the lock and figured out what we had to do to fix it. Enrique then took off to go get his toolbox. In the meantime, I asked Maria where Enrique had come from. I assumed he was a locksmith. Maria informed me that he was our neighbor. Enrique later told me that he lived above the parrilla. I always wondered what was up those stairs.

Enrique came back with his tool box and removed as much of the lock as he could. Then he went to the hardware store to buy the necessary replacement screws while I tried to remove the rest of the lock. I was able to remove the rest of it by the time Enrique returned. Enrique tried to reinstall the lock for the next five minutes, but we both soon realized that he had purchased the wrong-sized screws. So he returned to the hardware store once again. When he got back, it was pretty dark outside, and I held a candle for Enrique as he worked to put the lock back. Finally, he was able to get it.

The lock now worked better than it had before (did I mention that the lock was already very fidgety). He told me that in order for the lock to work a little more smoothly, I should return tomorrow and scrub a part of the inside of the door (te part that makes the holes for the lock on the door-side) with a toothbrush — at least I think that's what he said. He also informed me that our lock was very old — which is why is was now broken — and that we should consider replacing it. Especially because there are muchos ladrones (thiefs) in our neighborhood. And now our door works, again.

El Colectivo

The public transportation system in Buenos Aires is fantastic. I think I've discussed the system in a previous blog post. Anyway, the majority of my experience with the system is through the colectivo, aka the bus. The colectivo is awesome. Riding it is a ton of fun. I take the 106 to class every day.

The fare is ochenta pesos, which comes out to roughly 25 US cents. Not bad, especially because it's possible to ride a route for more than an hour. Each line of buses in Buenos Aires is unique because the buses are privately owned. Therefore, the buses all look different because the companies will paint the buses different colors. For example, the 106 is painted white, red, and green. And there is also a drawing of a rose on the side of the bus. Apparently, back in the 70's, the bus companies would paint the buses crazy colors, like hot pink, to make their buses stand out in hopes of attracting more customers. My guess is that most people don't choose what bus they ride based on the how the bus looks.

The buses are usually very crowded, sometimes so much so that you have to wait for the next bus to board. Open seats are very rare. On the occasions when I am lucky enough to get a seat, I usually end up getting up after one or two stops because it is good etiquette here to give your seat to an elderly woman or man.

The routes that the buses take are very confusing. I bought a little guide book for the bus system. It is ridiculously complicated. In a typical route, a bus will travel on twenty different streets. So following the routes on a map takes a lot of time.

The bus drivers here are very experienced. They know what they're doing. They always drive the buses extremely fast, I would say recklessly fast. I used to wonder how these buses never got into accidents. Yesterday, I stopped wondering because the bus I was on hit a cab. Just grazed it basically, though it made a loud thud. The bus driver was visibly upset and made a gesture with his hands indicating that the cab had just cut in front of him without any warning. So we had to stop and wait for five minutes or so while the bus driver talked with the taxi driver. And then we were back on our way. Luckily, no one was hurt in the accident. And I don't think the cab should have any trouble finding a mechanic in Buenos Aires who can fix the dent in his car. Seriously, there are probably 200 different mechanic shops within a one mile radius of me.

Argentina vs. Serbia-Montenegro

This morning at ten, my teacher, Danielle, and I took a break from my studies to watch the Argentina v. Serbia-Montenegro game. We headed over to a local cafe along with Scott and Silvia, the two people who run the language school.

When Argentina scored five minutes into game, it was pretty obvious that this game was going to be no contest. Argentina continued to rattle off five more goals. This experience was much different than watching to Argentina v. Ivory Coast game the week before because I watched that game at an expat bar. The cafe this morning was nearly all Argentinian, which made the game so much more fun. The celebration during a goal is ridiculously fun. Everyone is SO happy. It's almost impossible not to laugh when they score a goal because people are really just incredibly joyous — making sounds that people do not normally make, moving in funny ways, hitting high notes that you would not expect old men to hit. Just so much fun. And you would think that throughout the six goals, the celebration would simmer down a little bit. But no. Every goal seemed to evoke more excitement than the last, even though each subsequent goal was less and less important.

Another highlight of the match was the food. I had a tostada, which is simply a toasted sandwich made of ham and cheese. Delicious. And I washed that down with a Pepsi. And while I enjoyed my meal, I think I should have ordered what Scott and Danielle got — cafe con leche con tres medialunas (croissants). The croissants tasted like heaven. They do this thing here where they sprinkle sugar on the outside of the croissant. Incredible. I don't know why they don't think to do that in the US.

Guardopolvo

On my first afternoon in Buenos Aires, I was walking around and noticed that almost every child of schooling age was wearing a white coat, just like the ones that medical students wear. This seemed kind off odd to me. It didn't exactly seem like a school uniform. I couldn't figure out what the deal was. And I was definitely a little upset that all of these kids were running around in white coats. I take pride in my white coat. It makes me feel special. And then, I come to a city where every kid, even the really little ones, are running around in these same white coats. If I were to don my white coats(which I didn't bring I promise) in Buenos Aires, people wouldn't even give me a second look. I would blend in. So what's the deal. Is every kid a medical student?

My teacher, Danielle, cleared up the confusion. Apparently, these white coats are called guardopolvos. Every child who is in public school in Buenos Aires must wear one to class. The reasons for these white coats are two-fold: (1) so that the kids have a jacket to wear over their normal clothes — so that their normal clothes don't get dirty, and (2) to make the kids feel special and kinda professional, as if they were little doctors, which is in fact what they are called when they're wearing their guardopolvos ( doctores chiquitas en espanol). Where the enyay on this computer?

La Copa Mundial

So obviously the World Cup is a pretty big deal in Argentina. I watched the game at a bar that was about half Argentians and half expats (mostly British and American I think) with a friend of a friend — Emily. We sat at the bar for the whole game. It was fun — pretty much what I would expect. Argentina beat the Ivory Coast pretty soundly, though a goal late in the the game by the Ivory Coast did give la seleccion Argentina a bit of a scare.

What was more interesting was that for the couple days which followed the game, I must have seen the replays of the three goals scored in the game about fifty times. I guess that's what's funny about highlights — there are so few of them. But the game was sweet. The whole city kinda shut down for two hours during the game, which was cool.

Watching the US game was a different story. The game started at 1 here, and I finish class at 1, so I ran over to a restaurant near where my class is to watch it. I was probably the only American in the restaurant. When I got there, it was already nine minutes into the game, and the Czechs were up 1-0. Great. Things only got worse, obviously. The US sucked — they just looked like they couldn't get anything going. I thought that when you were in the top five of the world rankings, you were supposed to at least look like you could compete with any team in the world. Clearly not the case. My frustration was exacerbated by the fact that all of the patrons and waiters at the restaurant seemed to get a huge kick out of the US sucking. Damn. The game was also kinda boring — I had to order another coca-cola just to stay awake. Like Zack said in the EF#1 blog, things are looking very bleak for the US. Guess I'll have to start rooting for Argentina.

some photos from Sunday

view of a hollowed car from the balcony of mi pieza.

street merchants at el circulo de Serrano.




at first i thought this was just normal garbage, but upon second glance, i realized that it was in fact steaming garbage.



Some grafiti near my place.






Corrientes! the main drag by where I live


about the billionth piece of dogshit i've seen on the street


evidence that Gefilte Fish does exist!

Title of Blog

My Spanish still sucks, so I may be wrong about this. The title of the blog is intended to mean, when I arrive, I gave myself a kiss. It's meant to accentuate the fact that I am solo en Argentina. Comprendes?

Gefilte Fish

Last night, I had one of those experiences where, in the moment, I felt as though I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Let me set the scene for you. I went to a parrilla/cafe called Delu on Corrientes, which is the main drag around here. After I checked out the menu, I decided on a matambre of pizza with a side of batatas fritas (yam fries) along with an agua sin gas. When my dish came, the yam fries looked delicious, and they were. The pizza, however, looked kinda weird. The crust looked like something that I'd never seen before. So I dug in. Turns out the crust was the matambre, which means a cut of meat from a cow. It was okay — I definitely would have prefered a bread crust, but it was edible. Since I got a little sick of the matambre toward the end, I decided to indulge in two deserts. Flan and fruit salad. Pretty good except there were seeds in the grapes. Not awesome.

Anyway, now that the scene is set — a woman who was eating with a group of people came over and started talking to me. In my broken Spanish, I was able to tell her that I was not Argentinian (I'm telling you, honestly, people assume I'm agentinian — there a ton of white people and Jews here and I really look like I fit right in). As far as the EF#1 bloggers go, I would say that Zack and Ethan and Craig could pass as native portenos. Ben, Ian, and Jon have an offchance of passing as one. Anyway, I told her where I was from and she invited me to sit with them for the upcoming show (?). I declined since I was doing my homework at the restaurant and felt a little uncomfortable joining them. So I stayed at my table toward the back of the restaurant. Soon, klezmer music began to play from some speakers in the front of the restaurant. Interesting. Eventually, the main act, Gefilte Fish, which consisted of one middle-aged woman and one middle-aged man, come out on stage and started singing the top hits from Hebrew School. Shalom Aloehem, Havanagila, Dayenu, and some others that I forget. They were very good. It's funny to travel so far away from home and find something so familiar. Oh, and it seems that the woman who spoke with me is in tight with Gefilte Fish because they gave me, the international traveler a shout-out, during their show. So that was a hoot. The audience consisted of twenty or so middle-aged jewish restaurant-goers, exactly who I would expect to be the target demographic of Gefilte Fish. It's funny that Gefilte Fish translates to Spanish too. I would expect it to be pescado de Gefilte. Oh well. More good times solo en Argentina.

Firsts (and probably not lasts)

- Ate asado — which I think is fillet mignon still on the bone and grilled. It was good — but a lot of work to eat. Also, what made it harder to eat was the dog that was standing next to me while I ate — it was just waiting for me to give it a piece I think. The dog eventually went away. Still, it’s pretty scary when you arm is the only think that stands between a dog(whose owner, if it has an owner, you can’t locate) and a steak is your arm.

- Stepped in dog poop on the sidewalk.

- Drank apple-flavored Gatorade. Tasted weird. Though I finished it in less than a minute.

- Lost to an Argentinian in pool. Though I call bullshit on this one. The guy I was playing against, Juan, and I were tied at one game a piece. He proceeded to sink the eight ball on the last shot, but also sank the cue ball. I think he was telling me that since the eight ball went in first, I lost. I don’t exactly have the Spanish skills to argue with that, so I simply gave him dos pesos (about 70 cents) and made plans to play with him again tomorrow.

- Ate dulce de leche ice cream.

- Was shot at by my next door neighbor’s children – with a play-gun of course.

- Drank by myself. Shit. It was only a small bottle of wine though.

- Was told I look Argentinian. You may think that I’m just flattering myself, but I’m starting to think that this really is true, especially because yesterday I saw an Argentinian man who looked just like me. Also, I’ve had to disappoint two Argentinian people so far who’ve asked me for directions. On a sidenote, I haven’t been around so many white people ever except for Camp Nebagamon. There’s no question that Lafayette had more people of color than this country. I’ve seen one black guy since I’ve been here. Yes, I guess that the average white person here has darker skin than the average whitey in American. But still, there are a fair amount of white, pale, white people here. I guess that’s why I fit it. Also a lot of Jews so I guess that helps my cause as well. Oh yeah, and I spotted my first Manu Ginoblli lookalike today.

- Saw a kid, must have been six or seven, smoking a cigarette as he was walking with looked to be his mother and his sister.

5 embarrassing moments

1. I order noquis or gnocchi at a restaurant today. The waiter brought a dish that I thought looked vaguely like gnocchi. The dish was two bites big, and I finished eating it in approximately fifteen seconds. I was under the impression that this was my main course, so I reached for the menu and started looking for something else to order. I motioned to the waiter, and when he came over, I asked him a poorly-worded question about the types of ravioli they offer. After thirty seconds of not being able to understand my question, he realized that I was trying to order another dish, puzzled because the noquis had not yet come. He explained to me that that little dish I had in the beginning was fried cauliflower or something like that — that it was nothing — and proceeded to laugh at me as he walked away. I also was chuckling because I was such a fool!

2. I was playing pool or billares today(by myself — isn't that sad), which by the high volume of places to play pool in the city makes me think that pool is the second national sport of Argentina behind futbol. Anyway, I scratched on a shot, and the cue ball never came into it's little hole. I had to inform guy behind the bar in my broken Spanish that I had lost the white ball or el pelota blanco. Then some guy came over and reached his hand in one of the pockets and grabbed the ball. I guess that one's not all that embarrassing.

3. I was walking in the street by myself in Buenos Aires for the first time last night. According to my host, Marianna, the streets of the city are very safe, even at night. Didn't really matter to me. I was scared shitless. There are dogs who belong to no one running around. There is poop all over the sidewalk. There are areas where there is a lot of pedestrian traffic and areas where there is very little. There are cars careening through the streets. Let's just say that I was on edge. My breaking point came as I was walking by a storefront, and something coming out of the door but behind a wall so I couldn't see it scared the snot out of me, and I jumped. Turns out it was a child on a tricycle.

4. Today I signed up for a gym membership. The woman who was instructing me on how to fill out the membership form told me to fill in the telephone number. She then asked me to for an emergency telephone number. Didn't have that either. She was baffled. I actually do have an emergency number — the number of my host — I just didn't have it on me at the moment. Anyway, that's kinda crazy to think about. Mom, do you think they'll make an international call in case of an emergency?

5. Apparently we have a housekeeper, Maria. She was cleaning up our place from noon to 9 today. Nice woman as far as I can tell. And she likes me too, I think. She was telling my hostess today that she thinks I'm guapo. Esta bien.

Intro

I'm here in Buenos Aires for the summer with the hope of learning a little bit of Spanish. I've only been here for two days, but the amount of bloggable material I have so far is out of control. I don't have much to do at this point, so unless that changes, expect a quality and quantity of posting that will make Down in the Domo look like a piece of garbage.