1 Month
2013 October 11
Today marks about 1 month for when I have to (where are my manners, get to…) return to the states. And not to break your heart USA, but I half devised a plan on staying in Argentina. I was going to teach English here and not come back until December, so I sent out emails to a bunch of language schools around Buenos Aires and got an interview. I went to the interview, and they said that if I wanted to work with them, I would have to stay for years, not just until the end of December. And even if they would have hired me, they would’ve had to pay me enough to change my flight and survive in Buenos Aires. And enough that skipping out at work back home would have been worth it. And enough to help pay for my next semester at school. Of course it was never going to work out from the start, but a man can dream…
Here’s something funny about the Spanish of Argentina. Here the word for “you” isn’t “tú” like most Spanish-speaking countries. It’s “vos”. Because of this difference, if you want to say something like “you should come” instead of saying “tú debes venir”, you say “vos debés venir” (slightly different pronunciation). (Don’t fall asleep yet, it gets more interesting). Because of this, commands are different as well. “Come here” is “vení acá” instead of “ven aquí”. Mostly this is fine until you come to this:
This is a tube of Colgate toothpaste. Or, in Argentine Spanish, a tube of “hang yourself” toothpaste. The verb “colgar” means “to hang” in Spanish, and usually you say “cuélgate” in other countries (when using the informal singular form of commands, like when your talking to a close friend – on a sidenote, I hope you’re not telling a close friend to hang himself). However, anytime you walk down the dental aisle here, you get death threats left and right from toothpaste containers. The weird thing is, Colgate seems to be the only toothpaste brand around here, so they don’t seem to be hurt by this unfortunate wording choice. Props to Armando Morales for pointing this out to me.
In case you’re wondering what’s up with my life rather than the toothpaste brand I’m using, I guess I can post about that too.
Such as what food I’m buying.
Sandwich stuff!! I feel so grown up buying my own food… and storing it… and eating it… And not so grown up when I bought “processed cheese” thinking it was yogurt.
If you look closely, it says “queso procesado”. If you look closer, you can see my hopelessness.
Speaking of food, I set a goal at the beginning of this trip to never go to an American fast food chain until I actually go back to the states. Going to McDonald’s every other day in Spain really wasn’t the best way to get the Spanish experience, but other people in our group, who we’ll call “Mom” and “Dad”, didn’t appreciate salted ham as much as I did. Anyway, I’m proud to say that I’ve only ever walked into McDonald’s to take advantage of their WiFi and/or bathrooms.
One lazy Sunday, must have been September 22, I decided to copy the rest of the world and get the iOS update on my iPhone. And it has not changed my life one bit. But I noticed that Facetime was now its own separate app, so I opened it for the hell of it. “Hmm, this probably won’t work, but I’ll try calling… Ryan, why not?”
Well what’dya know? There’s Ryan at his fraternity house playing Grand Theft Auto V. We caught up on old times, talked about Argentina, Canada, and some states that are united in one way or another. Anyone that knows us knows that most of our “conversation” consists of one of us trying to outweird the other and messing with people as often as possible. I met one of his fraternity brothers and endowed the nickname “mierda” as soon as I saw him. He thought it sounded cool.
Also, with this iOS update, I finally have panorama mode on my camera.
So you can expect a couple more of these. This would be my room in the house. Expect a video tour before I leave.
And here’s an alternate view of my room. It was made during one very boring, rainy night in which the planets aligned and no one in Buenos Aires wanted to go out. It’s not quite M.C. Escher, but a man can try…
To express to you the boredom I felt that night, I’ll talk about calluses. So, in the summer, I do construction with my dad, and over the course of working, my hands get pretty callused, swinging hammers, carrying 2×4’s, etc. However, now I can tell that it’s been a while, but not a very long time, since I last worked. The calluses have mostly disappeared, meaning my palms are a little softer than before but still somewhat rough, like a stale, neglected sponge left to dry on a sink, but by a window on a rainy day, softening the sponge somewhat to the point where it can be compressed, but after some effort to compress it is taken. Yeah that’s how my hands feel. And yeah that’s how bored I was. But no worries, because, of course, we went out later that week.
This is my current phone background.
One thing that I miss in the states is jazz music, which is kind of a weird thing to miss in the states because when was the last time you heard jazz music? Which is why I was excited when Amy, Kerry, and I went to listen to some jazz one night downtown.
What jazz mural isn’t complete without the thing from Aliens?
I’d like to point out that the piano player looked like Hugh Laurie (Dr. House). You can even kind of see it from this angle.
And of course, giraffes are an essential part of jazz history (hi, Lindsey).
It’s funny hearing a bunch of Spanish and then random English names in a sentence. “Vamos a tocar una canción popularizada por Loo-ees Arm-strown en Nu Or-leens en los años 30.”
Amy, JJ, and I went to a museum.
It had something to do with tunnels and smuggling (goods, not slaves). And I think I learned that, although I like history, I’m beginning to despise museums. It’s like they take the most interesting parts of history and present them in the most boring way possible.
After the tunnel part though, we walked through a church.
I’ve seen surprisingly few of these places considering I’m in the country where the current pope is from. But this one looks like it could fit right into any city in Spain.
You know what else there are surprisingly few of here. Mexican restaurants!! Once you think about it, it makes sense that the states have more Mexican restaurants considering how much closer it is to Mexico than Argentina. Also, there is a disappointing lack of spicy food, which is why I was more than happy to go to La Fábrica del Taco with some Argentine friends.
(The food still wasn’t that spicy)
And, as per request by many, I finally paid someone to cut off a bunch of me and throw it away aka I got a haircut. I’ve heard some horror stories about getting haircuts in foreign countries (such as “those damn Argentines gave me a mullet”) but luckily I stayed mullet-free. All I did was show them this picture of myself from the beginning of my trip.
And now I look… well kind of like this:
I know I’ve posted this before, but…
I finally encountered another Evita peso, and it’s all mine. Todo mío. All US$12.50 (as of October 11, 2013) of it. And next year I’ll still probably have all US$6.25 of it!!
Last Friday, I went to an asado (grillout) put on by my Italian friend, Matteo Castronovo. It’s always fun going to his place and meeting his roommates from Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, etc. No pictures from that night, but I assure you it was fun.
Saturday, we acquired a new housemate in the casa de los locos. John Rockwell, hailing from Rhode Island. Crystal and I went to the feria de la Plaza Serrano and I bought a couple things to take home to friends and family (it’s a surprise). And we ran into a juicer store that had opened last Tuesday. The owners were a married couple; the man was from Denmark and the woman was from Venezuela. Apparently they lived in Venezuela for awhile to try and open an English school, but at some point armed robbers came into their home, without masks or anything, and took everything of value possible before leaving. They eventually decided against the school after talking to some people who said something along the lines of, “I don’t see why you’re so concerned. It’s not going to happen every day.” So if “getting robbed less than every day” is a good standard in Venezuela, I can understand wanting to move somewhere else (aren’t you glad I picked Argentina now, Mom?)
Sunday was the day of the big fútbol game between River and La Boca, two big Buenos Aires teams. To celebrate this, we in the house went to the ecological nature reserve to kick around a soccer ballfootball for a while and later watched the game at a bar/restaurant downtown.
Kristen, Crystal, Esther, John, and me during the first time I’ve worn shorts all year.
This isn’t the nature reserve yet, if you were wondering.
There’s Adán, our friend from México.
Here’s my mom being an old person.
And Tuesday night, our program took us to a tango show. Which had the best tango dance I’ve ever seen (video to be uploaded).
Also, when I requested some Astor Piazzolla, they actually played Adios Noniño.
http://home/spencer/dontcryformeusa.com/public.youtube.com/watch?v=wqSxwWgpE6A <–(skip to 2:50 for the melody of the song if you’re running short on time or just absolutely loathe the piano)
Well that’s about all I have for now folks. I have to get up early tomorrow for Mar del Plata. This Monday is “National Day of for Some Reason” in Argentina so might as well spend the weekend travelling.
Something I forgot to mention. I got done with reading 1984. I was actually a little disappointed with it. I’m not sure why though. However, an interested thing I noticed about the story was that although it was somewhat depressing to a normal person’s point of view, if that book was released in 1984’s society, it would be a story with mischievous beginnings but a happy ending. Also, although the book was obviously anti-communist as was George Orwell’s life, you could interpret it as a coming-of-age novel where the protagonist rebels against what everyone told him as a kid but eventually the “adults” and the world beats their ideals into him and he eventually conforms, because there is no other way to survive. Sorry if I’m “spoiling” a book that was written when the year 1984 was considered the distant future, but if you were going to read it, you would have read it by now. Or not. It’s a good book. Why don’t you try it?
And I present you some miscellaneous pictures.
At the Forrest Gump Café. The Travolta was a little too greasy.
The Australian embassy again, which I’m sure is nothing like the DMV.
This shirt is surprisingly popular. I’m pretty sure they all know it’s an English swear word, but they don’t grasp how high up the word is on the swear scale. So in a way, it’s the same as that person you know with the tribal tattoo/Asian symbol inked into their skin (but that’s permanent, like the internet).
This dog is cooler than you.
Wish me luck that my backpack doesn’t get stolen in Mar del Plata. Happy birthdays to my sister and my mom.