Twenty-three minutes ago I beat both my high score and that of the single friend who ranked above me points-wise on "Scramble," a ridiculously addicting Facebook game application to which my mother dearest introduced me via an online "Scramble Challenge" one insignificant Sunday evening. The game consists of unscrambling letters given to you at random in either a 4x4 or 5x5 square. You are to spell as many words of at least three letters' length as you can in the given three-minute time period. More points given for words with more letters, and all the letters in the word have to be attached.
As if not addicting enough owing to the game's sheer nature (fans of Scrabble, Boggle, and those who find themselves infuriated upon finding the "Word Games" section of complementary magazines on airplanes already completed, in permanent ink, before getting a chance to attempt them for themselves, will relate), Facebook's application has an added feature which allows you to see the high scores of all your fellow Scramble-addicted Facebook friends. As your score updates in real time, so do notifications alerting you as to which of your friends' high scores you have recently surpassed. This cursed and genius feature fuels my competitive nature, and alas, I have had my eyes long set on surpassing David Kuperstein, king of my "Facebook Friends' Highest Scores" hierarchy,'s high score of 161 points, and resultantly vowed not to quit playing Scramble until I had secured that position for myself.. Needless to say, tonight when the last seconds of the three-minute time period evaporated and I found myself with a high score of 163, effectively placing me as new Alpha of the Facebook Scramble Hierarchy after a month of almost nightly sessions, I felt elated. Victorious. Unstoppable.
And then I reminded myself I was playing Scramble. The name itself is nerdy and ugly, and when I say it out loud to myself (try it. Scramble. Scrraaaamble), I feel my pride assume the size and form of one of those shrunken, dried-up worms that litter the sidewalk after a rainy day. I reminded myself that I have a week (ONE WEEK) left in Buenos Aires, and asked myself what I was doing (other than taking advantage of the unusually strong Internet connection) on my computer, isolated in the dark kitchen, wasting away three-minute chunks of time with an online word game.
I decided to resolve my disappointment in myself by walking to the corner kiosk to buy a chocolate bar.
Turns out that the corner kiosk was closed (it was only 11:45pm, what are things in this city doing closed at such an early hour?), so I walked six extra blocks to the 24-hour kiosk on a busier street corner. During the ten-minute escapade, I was whistled at by two men on a street corner, eyed down for an uncomfortably long time by a man on an ice cream delivery moped, and told in Spanish by a little 12-year-old punk at the kiosk that I was the most beautiful woman in the world and would I like him to accompany me home? Luckily, it's not too difficult to pull off the "foreigner who doesn't understand Spanish" look, which I utilized, hard, at that moment, but Dear Lord. It never stops. And I'll remind my reading audience that these compliments and whistles and creeper stares are never founded in anything. Tonight, I was three hours post salsa dancing lesson, hair still frizzy and body not yet cleaned of layers of then dried sweat, and in the act of voraciously stuffing a chocolate bar in my face, yet the catcalls persisted. Perhaps they knew that I was a recentlycrowned Scramble champion.
A part of me will probably miss the attention, as undesirable as its producers may be, upon returning to UCLA, land of the severely overpopulated gorgeous girl breed. But for now, it sends shudders up my spine and makes me want to regurgitate and spit into the face of the catcallers whatever food item I most recently masticated and swallowed.
Prior to embarking on this journey I envisioned, as many do, meeting the love of my life overseas and calling home to Mom and Dad at the last minute and informing them that I would actually not be coming home for Christmas, sorry, but I wouldn't mind so much if you still shipped to me abroad whatever presents you bought me, because I've fallen in love with a tall, dark and handsome Argentine man who speaks to me only in Spanish and I don't understand half of what he says but it doesn't matter because we have such a profound connection and incredible chemistry that words don't matter, but nevertheless he is trying to learn English via the Rosetta Stone audio program he bought because he is planning on proposing to me in a year's time, probably while I'm in the middle of my shift busing tables on the second level of a local restaurant, and wants to impress me and my family and the entire neighborhood who has followed him on his quest to find me in the very the restaurant where I am working with his recently learned, adorably accented and jumbled English. And so what if that last part was stolen from Love Actually? Movies, albeit embellished, are based on real-life experiences, right??? Please???
In reality, the love life I had pre-imagined has been a complete and total failure. While I have been on a handful of dates while in Argentina, none of them amount to the fantasy I had carefully planned out in my head before coming. Perhaps that is why they tell you precisely not to plan out your life before you live it.
But as I count down my days left in this city, and effectively find myself filled with mounting nostalgia as I bid farewell to every store vendor, park bench, and uneven patch of sidewalk I have become very well acquainted with in the last 5 and 1/2 months, I am almost grateful for not having to say one more difficult goodbye (although, in my fantasy, a "goodbye" was not in the picture...it ended with a white dress and Brazilian honeymoon). I will be boarding a plane to the southernmost city in the world in exactly 7 days and 3 hours, and although I am excited to spend two weeks exploring the Argentine and Chilean Patagonia, I have become so attached to Buenos Aires and the thought of leaving kills me. I cannot help but wonder about what the return home will be like. Anxiety is mounting, and I am expecting reverse culture shock to hit me hard. My thoughts are a jumbled mess. But perhaps for this very reason, my nightly Scramble training has not been a complete waste of time. If I have proven my ability to derive coherent 3-letter-plus words from mixes of random letters, I surely will be able to apply this to real life and find some semblance of balance and continuity in my world that is about to experience a massive jumbling. Right?
Monday, November 23, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
What my textbooks didn't teach me
I think sitting in cafes has defined a good 85% of my experience in Buenos Aires. Classes officially ended a week ago today, and although "complete joke" defined the grand majority, they were somewhat mentality stimulating, and that is a feeling for which my brain still yearns now that the semester is over. Alas, I park myself in street-side cafes with a Spanish book (Twilight--as equally unbearable in Spanish as in English, but good for learning vocabulary and how to be overly-descriptive about unimportant details), my grammar book whose pages and already-completed exercises I still pore over and review, or whatever random publicity flier happened to make its way into my hands during the walk to the cafe, be it for a gym membership or organic restaurant featuring whole wheat (shocker! in this city) products. Anything and everything I will take and study to widen my vocabulary. I will read a sentence from whatever reading material I have in hand, commit it to memory, repeat it in my head twice, say it out loud three times, and try not to let the inquisitive and confused looks of other cafe-frequenters, who surely take me for a crazy, get to me.
Instead of taking off for Machu Picchu or Rio de Janeiro like the majority of my friends once classes ended, I decided to leave myself three weeks in Buenos Aires to further explore the city and focus on developing my Spanish. The original goal was to isolate myself from any other English speakers and immerse myself as much as possible in Spanish in a last-hurrah effort to master the language, but alas, I have been unable to stay true to this goal. I have no problems whatsoever doing activities independently- I am perfectly content sitting on a bus by myself, allowing the words of the conversation of two nearby elderly women to filter into my thoughts and translate themselves with the assistance of my mental Spanish dictionary (which still has many pages a-missing), or spending a night out with a group of Argentine friends whose first language is not my own, but whose company I can enjoy, although it kills me that I can not keep up with their humor or wit. However, at the end of the day, I need just an hour to share and relate stories with at least one other English-speaker (not all my friends have taken off for Machu Picchu), so that we can laugh and exchange sympathy and wonder about all the crazy joys and curiosities of being foreigners in a country of seemingly endless idiosyncrasies and cultural obscurities. We usually elect to do this over a cup of cafe con leche, in whatever cute corner cafe caught the attention of one of us earlier in the day.
Regardless of my betrayal of my personal goal of complete Spanish immersion (impossible considering the quantity of English-learning Spanish-speakers who try to impress you with their knowledge of your language, and also irrational considering how much fun I would be forgoing and positive attention not getting from, oh say, groups of incredibly gorgeous Italian men, who seem to so naturally flock to my group of physically-endowed group of girlfriends from California and thus to me as well), I have noticed remarkable developments in my comprehension of the language. It occurred to me tonight, as I was eating dinner with my host family, just how many different forms of communication, beyond that learned in the classroom at UCLA, I have been exposed to since being here. This realization hit me as my two host-sisters broke out into argument at the table over the cause of Heath Ledger's death, over which they espoused differing ideas. I surprised myself in my ability to:
a.) identify, in accordance with their altered tones of voices and selection of vocabulary, that the dinner conversation was quickly turning away from peaceful, ordinary talk about movies featuring species of especially attractive actors, into a heated sisterly debate regarding whose reason for Heath Ledger's sudden death was correct, and accordingly who reigned the supreme knower-of-star-related-factoids and resultantly smarter progeny;
b.) adjust my previous state as contributor of awkward, attempt-at-comic-relief laughter into silent, non-partial observer as the friendly banter became less friendly and, at one point, slightly violent;
c.) recognize insults such as, "Oh, so you suddenly think you're the queen of E! Weekly" and, "Why can't you recognize a joke? Lighten up" and then downright, "You're such a bitch."
That's when my other roommate from the US and I decided to make ourselves look busy and began clearing the table.
Later, from inside my bedroom, I heard my host-mom assume the role of mediator and call the girls to the kitchen to discuss what had earlier unfolded at the dinner table. Of course, I tip-toed to my closed bedroom door and pressed my ear eagerly against it as so to better hear the business that was not mine to hear, and was able to distinguish the defense statements made by each of the girls in raised voices, laden with too many inappropriate words to transcribe in this here blog entry considering my viewing audience. Hey Grams and Gramps!
We never went over the chapter on "dinner table arguments" in Spanish 1-5 at UCLA. We also apparently skipped over the units on "effectively deflecting and avoiding flirtation tactics of unappealing men in bars," and "deciphering the muffled and mumbled dialogue of your host-sister's inarticulate boyfriend." Songs, store transactions, telling jokes, ordering off menus, discipline/punishment, and eavesdropping were also apparently left out of the curriculum. This makes me wonder what, in fact, we actually learned in class, because the aforementioned items collectively constitute a huge percentage of daily life and survival. It is amazing how good at Spanish I thought I was prior to coming to Argentina, and how quickly and abruptly my perception of my own knowledge was changed upon first taking seat in the airport terminal among a crowd of Argentines destined for Buenos Aires so many months ago. I was in for a rude awakening. I have learned a lot, but am left with an even farther way to go. The two weeks I have left in the city before embarking on a two-week trip to the Patagonian South and subsequent trip up the Atlantic coast of the country will prove nowhere sufficient to master the amount of language I desire. But I have found a preoccupation and passion for something that I plan on carrying with me for the rest of my academic (and life-long) career long after I return home from Buenos Aires, and one which leaves me with a very good reason for continuing frequenting those beloved sidewalk cafes.
Instead of taking off for Machu Picchu or Rio de Janeiro like the majority of my friends once classes ended, I decided to leave myself three weeks in Buenos Aires to further explore the city and focus on developing my Spanish. The original goal was to isolate myself from any other English speakers and immerse myself as much as possible in Spanish in a last-hurrah effort to master the language, but alas, I have been unable to stay true to this goal. I have no problems whatsoever doing activities independently- I am perfectly content sitting on a bus by myself, allowing the words of the conversation of two nearby elderly women to filter into my thoughts and translate themselves with the assistance of my mental Spanish dictionary (which still has many pages a-missing), or spending a night out with a group of Argentine friends whose first language is not my own, but whose company I can enjoy, although it kills me that I can not keep up with their humor or wit. However, at the end of the day, I need just an hour to share and relate stories with at least one other English-speaker (not all my friends have taken off for Machu Picchu), so that we can laugh and exchange sympathy and wonder about all the crazy joys and curiosities of being foreigners in a country of seemingly endless idiosyncrasies and cultural obscurities. We usually elect to do this over a cup of cafe con leche, in whatever cute corner cafe caught the attention of one of us earlier in the day.
Regardless of my betrayal of my personal goal of complete Spanish immersion (impossible considering the quantity of English-learning Spanish-speakers who try to impress you with their knowledge of your language, and also irrational considering how much fun I would be forgoing and positive attention not getting from, oh say, groups of incredibly gorgeous Italian men, who seem to so naturally flock to my group of physically-endowed group of girlfriends from California and thus to me as well), I have noticed remarkable developments in my comprehension of the language. It occurred to me tonight, as I was eating dinner with my host family, just how many different forms of communication, beyond that learned in the classroom at UCLA, I have been exposed to since being here. This realization hit me as my two host-sisters broke out into argument at the table over the cause of Heath Ledger's death, over which they espoused differing ideas. I surprised myself in my ability to:
a.) identify, in accordance with their altered tones of voices and selection of vocabulary, that the dinner conversation was quickly turning away from peaceful, ordinary talk about movies featuring species of especially attractive actors, into a heated sisterly debate regarding whose reason for Heath Ledger's sudden death was correct, and accordingly who reigned the supreme knower-of-star-related-factoids and resultantly smarter progeny;
b.) adjust my previous state as contributor of awkward, attempt-at-comic-relief laughter into silent, non-partial observer as the friendly banter became less friendly and, at one point, slightly violent;
c.) recognize insults such as, "Oh, so you suddenly think you're the queen of E! Weekly" and, "Why can't you recognize a joke? Lighten up" and then downright, "You're such a bitch."
That's when my other roommate from the US and I decided to make ourselves look busy and began clearing the table.
Later, from inside my bedroom, I heard my host-mom assume the role of mediator and call the girls to the kitchen to discuss what had earlier unfolded at the dinner table. Of course, I tip-toed to my closed bedroom door and pressed my ear eagerly against it as so to better hear the business that was not mine to hear, and was able to distinguish the defense statements made by each of the girls in raised voices, laden with too many inappropriate words to transcribe in this here blog entry considering my viewing audience. Hey Grams and Gramps!
We never went over the chapter on "dinner table arguments" in Spanish 1-5 at UCLA. We also apparently skipped over the units on "effectively deflecting and avoiding flirtation tactics of unappealing men in bars," and "deciphering the muffled and mumbled dialogue of your host-sister's inarticulate boyfriend." Songs, store transactions, telling jokes, ordering off menus, discipline/punishment, and eavesdropping were also apparently left out of the curriculum. This makes me wonder what, in fact, we actually learned in class, because the aforementioned items collectively constitute a huge percentage of daily life and survival. It is amazing how good at Spanish I thought I was prior to coming to Argentina, and how quickly and abruptly my perception of my own knowledge was changed upon first taking seat in the airport terminal among a crowd of Argentines destined for Buenos Aires so many months ago. I was in for a rude awakening. I have learned a lot, but am left with an even farther way to go. The two weeks I have left in the city before embarking on a two-week trip to the Patagonian South and subsequent trip up the Atlantic coast of the country will prove nowhere sufficient to master the amount of language I desire. But I have found a preoccupation and passion for something that I plan on carrying with me for the rest of my academic (and life-long) career long after I return home from Buenos Aires, and one which leaves me with a very good reason for continuing frequenting those beloved sidewalk cafes.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Lice update: I'm clean
Ok, I'm officially de-loused. At least for the time being. Just so those of you who read (if anyone even actually does read this thing, slash care about the sometimes too-intimate details of my personal life and in this case hygiene?) the previous post don't continue thinking that I'm running around Buenos Aires spreading my licey-ness and being all gross and stuff with critters and eggs in my hair. My host mom is a gift from the gods and spent nearly a half hour combing the little boogers from each individual strand. My comb, hair clips, etc. have undergone water boil therapy and are sterile and ready to be used once again. Bedding and towels have been changed, and all the clothes I have worn recently are awaiting their own hot water therapy as well. And pleasantly surprising, the killer cream I had to put in my hair has an agreeable aroma. Off to bed...on my clean and lice-egg-free pillow case!
Piojos..?!?!?!?
Sooo I have head lice. FML. And terrible lower-back pain, because my body suddenly decides to go loco on me since coming to Argentina and bless me with a monthly cycle that actually occurs way more frequently than on the month, and with accompanying cramps of off-the-scale pain that I had not experienced before switching hemispheres. I have my recently-purchased box of "Nervocalm" (obscure Argentine herbal muscle relaxers that I acquired at a health food store on the way to boarding my bus for Iguazu Falls, in preparation for the 12-hour trip that was to ensue) open and next to me in hopes of assuaging my pain, both physical and mental, because in addition to the cursed menstrual pain, I am now thinking with dread about what's currently going on at the microscopic level in my hair and scalp. Sorry if this blog is TMI ("Too Much Info" for those of you on the outskirts of the lingo of my generation); brace yourselves.
Acting upon my intuition this morning that something wasn't right with the quantity of itching and scratching I was inflicting upon my scalp, I decided to step into a random hair salon after my evening classes and ask the receptionists as charmingly as possible if someone might be available to sneak a peak at what I believed to be a louse-infested head. Luckily the salon was empty of other customers, because an embarrassing display of charades (had never before attempted to act out a louse) ensued before I could extract my dictionary from the depths of my backpack (which had turned into a forest of chocolate chip cookie crumbs after the plastic package I had just bought decided to turn over and empty itself unto my unorganized collection of hardly-utilized notebooks and daily planners. In case I haven't made myself clear, school here is a joke and there is only a very small need for daily planners considering the amount of responsibility I don't have.) Anyway, a middle-aged, slightly greasy-looking, gold-chain adorned man obliged, and after poking around with a comb in my hair for a bit (me, meanwhile, suppressing screams of pain...I have a fragile head), and a a mis-diagnosis that I was "probably just agitated from the recently-come heat," "lamented to tell me" that I did, indeed, have "piojos," and proceeded to show me a strand of my own precious head hair which, indeed, exhibited a firmly-attached, tiny little clearish-white louse egg. Repulsive. I have never had lice in my life, and thought I was in the clear after having already surpassed the age range where contagion is most common (among kids ages 3-10). I'm pretty sure it's from working in the orphanage. I should have taken as a sign one of the "moms" at the orphanage combing the lice-killing-cream-saturated-hair of one of the toddlers, to actually consider the advice I had been previously given about going to the orphanage with my hair covered with a preventative spray. But at the time I didn't think that the cost of funky-smelling hair would outweigh the benefit of not getting head lice. How mistaken I now realize I was.
Moving on. I went to the nearest Farmacity drugstore after the man at the hair salon wrote down the name of the shampoo and cream I needed to buy. The employee at the store obviously did not realize I had just received awful news and, resultantly, undergone severe psychological damage, because she was not in the least bit helpful or sympathetic toward my cause. Luckily, a kind, 20-something woman wearing overly-large headphones approached me (apparently my body language, as I stared at the millions of louse-killing hair products with Spanish instructions before my eyes, indicated confusion) and asked me if she might help me with something. I jumped on her offer and 10 minutes later I left Farmacity with the same products she had used as a kid to rid her own self of lice, and also with a box of tampons. Not an embarrassing combination of goods in the least. And of course the cashier was a young, attractive, potentially date-able male. I had my story all worked out in my head, should he inquire, as to why I was buying these specific goods. Luckily I was not the recipient of any awkward questions, because the story about my younger brother who had contracted head lice and my younger sister who had just started her period and was too embarrassed to buy tampons in public was not well-crafted anyway.
On the way home from Farmacity, I thought of nothing but all the little critters that were (and still are) probably making their homes in my hair, and the exponentially growing quantity of those gross little white eggs attached to the root of each strand. I nearly tripped on the uneven sidewalk in my transit home in efforts to avoid a man walking his especially evil-looking, probably lice-carrying dog, and later, once safely inside my apartment, was startled and angered again by another dog-related incident as I was ascending the staircase to my floor and the loudest bark ever echoed off the tile walls and caused my heartbeat to race up to 3x the normal average and for me to brace the cold wall for support, which I later realized had some mysterious cleaning substance on it which dirtied my white blouse...but considering I'm going to have to wash it for 20 minutes anyway in scalding hot water to kill all the little louse eggs, I guess it shouldn't matter. All the way home I was also debating whether or not to tell my host mom about my "condition," fearing that she would decide to either give me the boot or quarantine me in my room for the rest of my stay in Argentina. Ultimately decided to tell her, largely because the only suitable excuse I could think of for having to later ask her to change my sheets and towels and wash all my clothes in hot water would have been more embarrassing than the actual truth (was going to somehow relate it to current female issues...) Also, didn't think to consider that she has 5 daughters, and is probably an expert in the area of louse-removal.
Anyway, I'm currently waiting anxiously and hungrily for dinner to be served (seeing as it's currently 8:40pm, I probably have at least a good hour to go...again, my body will never adjust to the schedule here) so that Maria can be done with all the cooking and household chores and fulfill her promise to help me with the de-lousal process. I'm feeling a little calmer about the whole thing now (perhaps due to the Nervocalm), although I'll admit that I was freeeeaking out earlier. All my friends in Argentina get mugged or robbed, end up breaking their computers or water damaging their cameras, yet I get HEAD LICE. That's like, 1000 times worse than any other misfortune. BECAUSE CREATURES ARE MAKING THEIR BEDS IN MY HEAD!!! At least I'm learning some new vocabulary...? Updates to follow....
Acting upon my intuition this morning that something wasn't right with the quantity of itching and scratching I was inflicting upon my scalp, I decided to step into a random hair salon after my evening classes and ask the receptionists as charmingly as possible if someone might be available to sneak a peak at what I believed to be a louse-infested head. Luckily the salon was empty of other customers, because an embarrassing display of charades (had never before attempted to act out a louse) ensued before I could extract my dictionary from the depths of my backpack (which had turned into a forest of chocolate chip cookie crumbs after the plastic package I had just bought decided to turn over and empty itself unto my unorganized collection of hardly-utilized notebooks and daily planners. In case I haven't made myself clear, school here is a joke and there is only a very small need for daily planners considering the amount of responsibility I don't have.) Anyway, a middle-aged, slightly greasy-looking, gold-chain adorned man obliged, and after poking around with a comb in my hair for a bit (me, meanwhile, suppressing screams of pain...I have a fragile head), and a a mis-diagnosis that I was "probably just agitated from the recently-come heat," "lamented to tell me" that I did, indeed, have "piojos," and proceeded to show me a strand of my own precious head hair which, indeed, exhibited a firmly-attached, tiny little clearish-white louse egg. Repulsive. I have never had lice in my life, and thought I was in the clear after having already surpassed the age range where contagion is most common (among kids ages 3-10). I'm pretty sure it's from working in the orphanage. I should have taken as a sign one of the "moms" at the orphanage combing the lice-killing-cream-saturated-hair of one of the toddlers, to actually consider the advice I had been previously given about going to the orphanage with my hair covered with a preventative spray. But at the time I didn't think that the cost of funky-smelling hair would outweigh the benefit of not getting head lice. How mistaken I now realize I was.
Moving on. I went to the nearest Farmacity drugstore after the man at the hair salon wrote down the name of the shampoo and cream I needed to buy. The employee at the store obviously did not realize I had just received awful news and, resultantly, undergone severe psychological damage, because she was not in the least bit helpful or sympathetic toward my cause. Luckily, a kind, 20-something woman wearing overly-large headphones approached me (apparently my body language, as I stared at the millions of louse-killing hair products with Spanish instructions before my eyes, indicated confusion) and asked me if she might help me with something. I jumped on her offer and 10 minutes later I left Farmacity with the same products she had used as a kid to rid her own self of lice, and also with a box of tampons. Not an embarrassing combination of goods in the least. And of course the cashier was a young, attractive, potentially date-able male. I had my story all worked out in my head, should he inquire, as to why I was buying these specific goods. Luckily I was not the recipient of any awkward questions, because the story about my younger brother who had contracted head lice and my younger sister who had just started her period and was too embarrassed to buy tampons in public was not well-crafted anyway.
On the way home from Farmacity, I thought of nothing but all the little critters that were (and still are) probably making their homes in my hair, and the exponentially growing quantity of those gross little white eggs attached to the root of each strand. I nearly tripped on the uneven sidewalk in my transit home in efforts to avoid a man walking his especially evil-looking, probably lice-carrying dog, and later, once safely inside my apartment, was startled and angered again by another dog-related incident as I was ascending the staircase to my floor and the loudest bark ever echoed off the tile walls and caused my heartbeat to race up to 3x the normal average and for me to brace the cold wall for support, which I later realized had some mysterious cleaning substance on it which dirtied my white blouse...but considering I'm going to have to wash it for 20 minutes anyway in scalding hot water to kill all the little louse eggs, I guess it shouldn't matter. All the way home I was also debating whether or not to tell my host mom about my "condition," fearing that she would decide to either give me the boot or quarantine me in my room for the rest of my stay in Argentina. Ultimately decided to tell her, largely because the only suitable excuse I could think of for having to later ask her to change my sheets and towels and wash all my clothes in hot water would have been more embarrassing than the actual truth (was going to somehow relate it to current female issues...) Also, didn't think to consider that she has 5 daughters, and is probably an expert in the area of louse-removal.
Anyway, I'm currently waiting anxiously and hungrily for dinner to be served (seeing as it's currently 8:40pm, I probably have at least a good hour to go...again, my body will never adjust to the schedule here) so that Maria can be done with all the cooking and household chores and fulfill her promise to help me with the de-lousal process. I'm feeling a little calmer about the whole thing now (perhaps due to the Nervocalm), although I'll admit that I was freeeeaking out earlier. All my friends in Argentina get mugged or robbed, end up breaking their computers or water damaging their cameras, yet I get HEAD LICE. That's like, 1000 times worse than any other misfortune. BECAUSE CREATURES ARE MAKING THEIR BEDS IN MY HEAD!!! At least I'm learning some new vocabulary...? Updates to follow....
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I've been in Argentina too long when...
I've now been in Argentina for 3 months, 1 week, and 6 days. That's a long time. How do I know this? Because of the following:
1. I'm up writing this blog entry at 2:49am but don't think twice about it because I'm used to going to bed at 8am. In fact, I've begun to associate the first bird chirps of morning, a sound which should signal the start of a new day for a diurnal animal in any normal part of the world, with bedtime. This is due to the absurd nightlife here, to which I have yet to accustom myself. Empty dance floors greet you if you show up to a boliche (club) before 2am, and if you return home anytime before 5am, you are sure to be asked what was wrong with whatever club you went to.
2. I have come to consider monedas (coins) more valuable than gold, and guard them with my life. The mystery of the missing monedas has yet to be solved in Buenos Aires, but without them you can consider yourself stranded, as they are the only form of payment accepted in the complex network of collectivos (buses) that interconnects the entire city. Any Argentine knows that if asked for exact change by a store attendant, the correct answer is a shrug of the shoulders and a facial expression that implies "If only," meanwhile jingling in your pocket the coins you actually do have in your possession. I have on several occasions left tips at restaurants in the amount of 2-peso notes, when a tip 1/4 the value would have served just fine, but would have meant leaving behind a far-more-precious 50-centavo coin.
3. My hair is so long and dead at the ends that my own friends have mistaken me for an Argentine girl.
4. I have learned to effectively avoid the minefield of dog poop that is the streets of the city. In fact, I do a double-take if I see someone pick up their dog's fecal matter off the sidewalk with a plastic bag and dispose of it properly.
5. I fail to be surprised when I see men on the streets walking anywhere between 8 and 12+ dogs simultaneously, effectively maintaining untangled the individual leashes of each and avoiding what seems to be a recipe for a massive doggie brawl.
6. I take at least three forms of public transportation a day. Including, but not limited to: collectivo (bus), subte (subway), tren (train), buquebus (big cruise-like ship...but ok, only took this one time: to Uruguay and back), taxi (does this count? If shared with other friends, at least?), and micro (nicer bus for long trips to outlying provinces, often complete with fully-reclining beds, hot meals, and bottles of wine). I consider it completely unnecessary to own a car, and have forgotten completely how to drive one. I have considered the possibility of re-enrolling in drivers ed before tackling the 405 upon return to LA.
7. I no longer find it odd if I see freshly-poured, poorly-blockaded concrete on the sidewalks. I also forget about the risks posed by other sidewalk-related phenomena, including: construction ladders placed right smack in the middle of walking traffic; sparks falling from the 2nd and 3rd-story floors of buildings undergoing construction by operators of loud, electric metal tools; and loose tiles underfoot that threaten to fatally twist any unprepared ankle. Note: handicapped persons do not stand a chance in this city.
8. I suddenly think it is weird to wear flip flops and sandals, although I hail from a college campus in Southern California. On the other hand, I no longer find weird what I previously considered the biggest fashion faux pas of all: tennis shoes with jeans and a pea coat. I also think it weird to dress appropriately for the weather, and don't think twice about wearing pants and multiple, dull-colored layers on a day that clearly calls for springy, floral-print sun dresses. My legs feel extremely self-conscious when exposed to sun and beg me to cover them with pants or leggings should I commit the error of wearing anything less.
9. I have learned to contort my face in a look of utter disgust to effectively convey my shared hatred of "Cristina" any time a porteno makes mention of the current female president.
10. I am beginning to find attractive the hairstyles of the male youth that I previously considered appalling. Yes, this means that partial-mullets, solitary dreadlocks, and far-too-long-to-be-considered-sanitary rat-tails now turn me on. (Let's be clear: that's not to say that I ever considered rat tails of shorter length sanitary.)
11. There is a serious lack of vegetables in my diet. I have also given up any hope of integrating whole-wheat products into my daily carbohydrate intake (which also now far exceeds the recommended amount).
12. I observe a small group of kids my age from the US board the subway in costume (dressed as the Village People) with a look of surprise and almost disdain that matches the look of fellow onlookers (middle-aged, drably-dressed Argentine women) across the subway aisle from me, despite the fact that I spent 80% of my last summer in costume working at Bruin Woods (UCLA summer camp) where I considered it abnormal not to go anywhere armed with at least one sequined or rainbow-colored clothing item. (However, I then approach the kids and jealously ask them where they are going, and briefly consider re-working my plans for the night when they tell me they are headed to a pre-Halloween-costume-karaoke-party.) I begin to yearn for themed frat party debauchery, and scorn the Argentine youth for not having realized the beauty of such ridiculousness.
13. I am no longer surprised by the presence of, but rather expect to see, some combination of fried egg, ham, and cheese on food items that would not normally contain such a mix of ingredients, including lasagna and hamburgers. Also, I have given up completely on the time being of abstaining from consumption of red meat.
14. I am immune to the cat calls of 60-year-old+ men on the streets.
15. I have forgotten the pin number of my debit card, and do not remember where in my room I put my credit card. (Plastic payment not preferred here). I instead know how to identify fake money, and have learned to keep large bills folded and either carefully stored in either my boot or bra in anticipation of the ever-common street muggings.
16. "Che...boludo!" is my preferred greeting-of-choice. (= Hey you, stupid! But in a friendly sense.)
---
All this said, I will never be a true Argentine because I actually eat the little cookies that they bring you when you order coffee (and seriously consider stealing the untouched pastries left behind by occupants of nearby tables...oh wait, I've actually done that...cough, Lianna?), and I like to eat food instead of cigarettes for lunch.
As of even a month ago, I didn't think I would experience reverse culture shock upon return to the US, but I think it is a certain possibility after having lived for so long (and 2 months still remain!) in a land of so many locuras.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Hermosa Mendoza
Pretty plaza in the city of Mendoza, Argentina
Recently returned home from the province of Mendoza, where I spent 5 beautiful days with other kids from my program and half of UCLA (was the token foreigner travel-to-Mendoza weekend). I have now survived two more 16 hour+ bus rides. There exists a ladder of "bus luxury level" here in Argentina, and on the way to Mendoza, Kristin and I elected to travel via the top-rung option ("cama suite"), in which our seats reclined into full-bed position (they laid completely flat, I kid you not) and we were served food and wine of relative luxury. We foolishly opted to save money on the way back to BsAs from Mendoza, and in doing so traveled via the bottom-rung option. Let's just say that we afterward regretted not having coughed up the additional 25 US dollars it would have cost to save ourselves 16 hours of back pain and awful action/ninja combat movies that not even earplugs and eye masks would make go away. This is how we spent the much-awaited first day of spring, September 21st, in the southern hemisphere: completely imprisoned from 8am-11pm inside a bus, while the beautiful shining sun beckoned us from the other side of our scratched and blurry, single paned windows that did absolutely nothing for temperature control and made me regret having chosen to wear black fleece sweatpants. But this is the end of our trip...the beginning and middle are more exciting, I promise.
Readers Digest version:
We rode horses (I galloped! and didn't die!); went on a (bike!) wine tour; ate at a wannabe-Mediterranean food restaurant (hummus=disappointment), ate at a wannabe Mexican food restaurant (guacamole=disappointment...6 parts tomato to every 1 part avocado, really, Argentina?); met really cool friends from England; discovered 1/2 way into the trip that we shared the bathroom wall of our hostel room with the room next-door to us, and that this wall stopped about 5 inches short of the ceiling, such that the fortunate inhabitants of the room next-door had probably heard all of the goings-on in the bathroom of us 4 loud and crazy girls, including group bathing suit showers; went to a natural hot springs water park where we met a group of Argie high school students who taught us what was probably THE most complicated and impossible card game in the history of the world, and a very poor option considering translation challenges...although in hindsight perhaps it is the translation challenge that made it so impossible...but they gave us mate to drink (with sugar, of course, lest it be unbearably bitter!) and were very nice so we had fun, slash I'm pretty sure I could've gotten the Argentine novio I've been looking for in the form of a 16-year-old boy with dreadlocks and an all-too-eager, gap-toothed grin had I given him the time of day...); experienced first-hand the clash between "civility" and "barbarism" that we have been discussing in my literature class between the capital of Buenos Aires and the outlying provinces as we tried to board a bus back to our hostel from the water park and nearly died in the process, given that nearly 200 people were trying to get onto one bus and the concept of "We were standing at the front of the line so we get on first" doesn't seem to exist there...apparently since the bus backed up from where we were originally waiting, the people waiting 20 spots behind us were now the first in line, and we gringos deserved our spots at the very end of the line (Southwest Airlines' boarding system that I once considered anal-retentive and far too stringent I now look at as a miraculous work of God); enjoyed exploring the beautiful, tranquil town of Mendoza (if I could compare it to anywhere in CA, it would be Davis); and didn't even once fall into the irrigation ditches located on the sides of all the roads that are far too deep, wide, and unprotected to be legal anywhere in the US because, as Kristin suggested, someone's dog would probably fall in and break its leg and result in a huge and unnecessary lawsuit. Phew!
Reader's Digest Way-More-Fun Version (aka, Photos)
My horsie---his name currently slips my mind, and I feel super bad and guilty about it because he was so good to me and got me home alive, despite our guide's not having taught us anything about riding beforehand, nor having made us sign release waivers should we break an arm or lose a life. It's the Argentine way...
Yummy Middle Eastern food (note: hummus not worthy of occupying the foreground of the picture...eating hummus was our original motive for choosing to dine at this restaurant, and we felt let down, betrayed, and even a little bit angry that it did not taste as good as it looked on other guests' tables before we ordered. Mom: I am requesting that there be a huge container of hummus awaiting me when I return home...roasted red pepper flavor, please! And a box of Wheat Thins to go with it! Thanks.) Luckily, we very much enjoyed the tabule, pita bread, baklava, wine, etc. of our meal...
Confused faces: LA girls just wanting REAL Mexican food for once, or at least something with a little spice! Note: neither to be found anywhere in Argentina. Is it not an indication of poor Mexican-food-quality when the chicken enchiladas taste about the same as a beef burrito? Or when avocados are not the primary ingredient in guacamole? Hmmm. Mom: think you can infer the other dish I will be wanting when I get home...
Well ain't that sweet. One of the 5 main plazas in Mendoza.
Irrigation ditches that would be tooootally illegal in the US. Especially safe alongside the strip of bars and clubs in Mendoza, where drunken wanderers abound until the wee hours of morning.
Oh whatup, Andes?
Wine bike tour: No helmets, main roads, mild-heavy intoxication from wine and liqueur samples. Gooood idea.
Inside a beautiful bodega (winery). Like, as in, BODEGA BAY! get it? I never did!!!
The beautiful bottles aligning the shelves of a liqueur factory we toured. It's not pictured, but one of these bottles was absinthe, which I tried! (Did not result in me chopping off my ear, like van Gogh)
Kristin and me: glass number....3? 4? 8?
Chau for now!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Jajajaja (Hahahaha)
I feel more and more proficient in Spanish every day, a capacity which I usually measure by the amount of conversation I am able to understand at the dinner table with my host family each evening, and also by the number of times I don't snooze off in my literature classes due to lack of ability in understanding my professor's lectures, which are boring to begin with. I recently, however, discovered a new (and slightly disheartening?) indicator of language proficiency.
This came in the form of a stand-up comedy show, which I went to a few days ago with a couple girlfriends. These girls and I had met a comedian in our hostel in Bariloche, who coincidentally lives in our same neighborhood here in la capital, and so he sent us the info for one of his upcoming shows and suggested we check it out. I was a little apprehensive about going to the show at first, owing to a.) my fear that it would be pointless because we probably wouldn't be able to understand much anyway, and b.) that night, the little chocolates I had bought in Bariloche seemed to be beckoning me from inside their little red box in my room, along with an Argentine film I had just borrowed from the ISA office, along with my really cozy bed and comfy sweatpants...I'm truly an abuela at heart and the temptation to stay in at night is intensified by the freezing cold weather here that creeps in especially at night and will NOT GO AWAY! I used to think I could totally live in like Minnesota or some other freezing state for a while so I could experience an actual winter and white Christmases as portrayed in the movies, but I think seasonal affect disorder would be a serious problem for me, as would the impossibility of being able to wear flip flops for more than 300 days out of the year. But I digress.
We went to the show, which was in an adorable little theater in a cute plaza off the main street of the theater district here. There was a cluster of cute coffee shops, bars, theaters, and music venues in this plaza, which seemed almost magical with its labyrinth of cobblestone sidewalks and windy staircases and twinkly light-adorned trees. I stepped inside a cafe while awaiting the arrival of my two friends, Sarah and Helen, and was able to watch the depressing final of the Argentina-Paraguay futbol game before the start of the show.
(Not my photo...but to give you an idea of where we were...found on Google Images...)
(Again, not my photo...I tend to not ever have my camera with me...)
The show consisted of 25 comics who were allotted 3 minutes each of stage time. We had expected the show to be difficult to understand, but I'm not sure that we had thoroughly considered the fact that each of the comics would be talking at rates of incredible speed in order to fit in all their punchlines within the given short time period. Twenty seconds into the act of the first comedian, Sarah, Helen, and I exchanged identical glances from across our table with the same thought in mind: that we may have as well not been in Argentina for the past 2 1/2 months, or have learned any of the language before coming here, because it was as if we spoke not a word of Spanish. Luckily, that guy ended up being an exception to the rule and the remaining comics were easier to understand. Kind of.
I'm really glad that I ended up going to the show. It made me realize two things in reference to Spanish language ability: how far I've come, and how far I have left to go. I have a lot of vocabulary to learn. Especially and if I intend on going back to a stand-up show, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on sex and drug-themed vocab because such topics constituted (I think) a large portion of their acts. Also, while I realized before that conversation in the classroom and with my host family here is significantly altered with the non-native speaker in mind (significantly slowed, words higher than 5th grade vocab level eliminated), the show solidified this realization. Although I realize the progress I've made since being here, it made me feel like my three months will be in no way sufficient to meet my language proficiency goals. But I think I also have to bear in mind that my goals increase at a rate equal to that of my improvement...aka, there will always be more to learn.
Of the jokes I did catch and understand, it was a very cool realization that I understood them not just because of literal language translation, but because I understood the culture of Buenos Aires as well. Aka, even if I already spoke Spanish, the jokes would not have been funny without having lived here for a significant amount of time. One man joked about why in the heck would Santa Clause visit the southern hemisphere in the middle of summer, with his ridiculous heavy red suit and full beard that makes him look like one of the red candied apples covered with popcorn sold on the street corners here. Another man joked about the lack of monedas (coins) in the city, which is a problem and pain felt by all because coins are necessary to buy tickets to ride the collectivos (buses) that people depend on for transportation. No one knows why there is such a lack of coins---it's truly a mystery. People hoard them when they have them. If you buy something at a store that costs $7.60, store vendors will shave off the 60 cents so they don't have to give you 40 cents worth of precious coins. Many comics touched on the differences between the different neighborhoods here, each of which has its own distinctive personality, and the type of people that hail from each. Again, wouldn't have been funny without having explored many of them or having been familiar with the layout of the city and the different street names to which they referenced.
When I understood these jokes, I couldn't help smiling to myself and feeling kinda like a true porteno.
This came in the form of a stand-up comedy show, which I went to a few days ago with a couple girlfriends. These girls and I had met a comedian in our hostel in Bariloche, who coincidentally lives in our same neighborhood here in la capital, and so he sent us the info for one of his upcoming shows and suggested we check it out. I was a little apprehensive about going to the show at first, owing to a.) my fear that it would be pointless because we probably wouldn't be able to understand much anyway, and b.) that night, the little chocolates I had bought in Bariloche seemed to be beckoning me from inside their little red box in my room, along with an Argentine film I had just borrowed from the ISA office, along with my really cozy bed and comfy sweatpants...I'm truly an abuela at heart and the temptation to stay in at night is intensified by the freezing cold weather here that creeps in especially at night and will NOT GO AWAY! I used to think I could totally live in like Minnesota or some other freezing state for a while so I could experience an actual winter and white Christmases as portrayed in the movies, but I think seasonal affect disorder would be a serious problem for me, as would the impossibility of being able to wear flip flops for more than 300 days out of the year. But I digress.
We went to the show, which was in an adorable little theater in a cute plaza off the main street of the theater district here. There was a cluster of cute coffee shops, bars, theaters, and music venues in this plaza, which seemed almost magical with its labyrinth of cobblestone sidewalks and windy staircases and twinkly light-adorned trees. I stepped inside a cafe while awaiting the arrival of my two friends, Sarah and Helen, and was able to watch the depressing final of the Argentina-Paraguay futbol game before the start of the show.
(Not my photo...but to give you an idea of where we were...found on Google Images...)
(Again, not my photo...I tend to not ever have my camera with me...)
The show consisted of 25 comics who were allotted 3 minutes each of stage time. We had expected the show to be difficult to understand, but I'm not sure that we had thoroughly considered the fact that each of the comics would be talking at rates of incredible speed in order to fit in all their punchlines within the given short time period. Twenty seconds into the act of the first comedian, Sarah, Helen, and I exchanged identical glances from across our table with the same thought in mind: that we may have as well not been in Argentina for the past 2 1/2 months, or have learned any of the language before coming here, because it was as if we spoke not a word of Spanish. Luckily, that guy ended up being an exception to the rule and the remaining comics were easier to understand. Kind of.
I'm really glad that I ended up going to the show. It made me realize two things in reference to Spanish language ability: how far I've come, and how far I have left to go. I have a lot of vocabulary to learn. Especially and if I intend on going back to a stand-up show, it would probably be a good idea to brush up on sex and drug-themed vocab because such topics constituted (I think) a large portion of their acts. Also, while I realized before that conversation in the classroom and with my host family here is significantly altered with the non-native speaker in mind (significantly slowed, words higher than 5th grade vocab level eliminated), the show solidified this realization. Although I realize the progress I've made since being here, it made me feel like my three months will be in no way sufficient to meet my language proficiency goals. But I think I also have to bear in mind that my goals increase at a rate equal to that of my improvement...aka, there will always be more to learn.
Of the jokes I did catch and understand, it was a very cool realization that I understood them not just because of literal language translation, but because I understood the culture of Buenos Aires as well. Aka, even if I already spoke Spanish, the jokes would not have been funny without having lived here for a significant amount of time. One man joked about why in the heck would Santa Clause visit the southern hemisphere in the middle of summer, with his ridiculous heavy red suit and full beard that makes him look like one of the red candied apples covered with popcorn sold on the street corners here. Another man joked about the lack of monedas (coins) in the city, which is a problem and pain felt by all because coins are necessary to buy tickets to ride the collectivos (buses) that people depend on for transportation. No one knows why there is such a lack of coins---it's truly a mystery. People hoard them when they have them. If you buy something at a store that costs $7.60, store vendors will shave off the 60 cents so they don't have to give you 40 cents worth of precious coins. Many comics touched on the differences between the different neighborhoods here, each of which has its own distinctive personality, and the type of people that hail from each. Again, wouldn't have been funny without having explored many of them or having been familiar with the layout of the city and the different street names to which they referenced.
When I understood these jokes, I couldn't help smiling to myself and feeling kinda like a true porteno.
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