At UB, Profesora Julia told us to go to the Buenos Aires site to look for activities to do. When I visited the Internet cafe, I went to said site and saw a list of things, including tango. Sore about missing the show last Friday night, I went for the tango tab. A dialog box popped up saying this was an adult site and hence blocked. Now I realize that the tango practically oozes sexuality, but the site was a .gov, ¡por amor de Dios!
I then went looking for a nice cafe to have chocolate con churros. The first time I heard about this treat was Spanish 101. Our professor was of Cuban descent and had a sense of humor that´s weirder than mine. Would that my other professors were like that.
Our first project was to partner up and do a presentation on something dealing with the Spanish-speaking world. I´ve always been irritated by American laws. It wasn´t seven months ago that I could legally order Irish coffee for dessert. And it doesn´t matter how old I get, I´ll never be able to go to Cuba just for the hell of it, not short of renouncing my American citizenship. And don´t anyone dare tell me that if I don´t like it, I don´t have to stay in the United States. Why should I leave my country just because I disagree with its policies? I want to see progress in the United States because I love the United States. Patriotism is not blind acceptance of every policy.
Anyway, as Cuba was forbidden fruit, I got very interested in that country, although after learning about tourism apartheid, maybe not so much anymore. I asked the girl who looked like she´d get along best with me if she was up for doing Cuba, and so we looked for pictures of truly Cuban things to put in our powerpoint. I found a picture of a very Cuban dessert - chocolate con churros. Churros would be like sticks of those things you find in chichi bakeries, I believe they´re called palmiers. You dip those in the hot cocoa, or I did anyway, in the Cafe Virrey. Virrey is Spanish for viceroy, FYI. It was fantastic.
I had a few hours until Julieta came home, so I decided to get a pedicure for 34 pesos, or about 12 USD. I can think of any number of things - getting a tattoo, a full facial waxing, threading even - that are less painful than what I endured then. The lady dug and dug into my cuticles, and my Spanish wasn´t good enough for me to shriek, ¨What in God´s name are you doing to my toenails, woman?!¨ I was doused in sweat until we got to the nail color part (crimson, to hide the blood). I then tipped her 2 pesos. Why am I such a masochist?
Monday, July 7, 2008
Sunday, July 6, 2008
fernet!
Now anyone who knows me knows I´m a sucker for anything regional or seasonal, especially flora and fauna, seasonal produce and of course, drinks. I´d already tried the mate, although I can no more claim that than an American who´s only ordered chai lattes from Starbucks can claim he´s tried chai. Besides the yerba mate tea, a very Argentine drink is the Fernet-cola. Fernet is this liquor that´s really bitter. I´ve been antsy for it for a very long time. Well that night at the Van Gogh cafe, I finally ordered it. It came with an endless supply of complimentary peanuts, chips and what looked like farsaan (sp?). Our waitress poured a bit of the liquor in a Collins glass and gave me a longneck of Coca-Cola.
At college frat parties, kids always tilt their glasses to avoid getting too much head in the beer, but I heard that head with truly good beer is a good thing (not a word from you, you know who you are). Well I didn´t bother tilting my glass or pouring slowly. Growing up, the head was my favorite part of coke, and I always like my cup of coke foaming. I believe I threw a temper tantrum because I didn´t get to my cup in time before the fizz was gone. My glass spewed like some sort of cocktail volcano and I desperately tried to clean up the mess with the little napkins on the table. I call them napkins, but I ought to call them oil-absorbing sheets. Rather than paying a pretty penny for fancy oil-absorbing sheets in The Body Shop or even CVS or Target, I think I´ll just jack a bunch of those napkins and bring them back to America with me. I wanted to use them on my face, but the mattifying oil-free moisturizer I bought here, OMS brand, 20 pesos, was doing too good a job. Anyway, as I drank my Fernet-cola, I realized in a trice why it came with all that food.
I came home to Julieta and Susana watching Erin Brockovich, subtitled, not dubbed. None of the four-letter words Julia Roberts uses got properly translated. It´s a bit like watching a movie on Fox. Then I watched Finding Nemo dubbed in Spanish. There were much fewer commercial breaks. I must say, as far as the Disney channel goes, I like it way better here than in the States, where all you see is Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls and teeny bopper and jock go to the beach and sing and dance.
At college frat parties, kids always tilt their glasses to avoid getting too much head in the beer, but I heard that head with truly good beer is a good thing (not a word from you, you know who you are). Well I didn´t bother tilting my glass or pouring slowly. Growing up, the head was my favorite part of coke, and I always like my cup of coke foaming. I believe I threw a temper tantrum because I didn´t get to my cup in time before the fizz was gone. My glass spewed like some sort of cocktail volcano and I desperately tried to clean up the mess with the little napkins on the table. I call them napkins, but I ought to call them oil-absorbing sheets. Rather than paying a pretty penny for fancy oil-absorbing sheets in The Body Shop or even CVS or Target, I think I´ll just jack a bunch of those napkins and bring them back to America with me. I wanted to use them on my face, but the mattifying oil-free moisturizer I bought here, OMS brand, 20 pesos, was doing too good a job. Anyway, as I drank my Fernet-cola, I realized in a trice why it came with all that food.
I came home to Julieta and Susana watching Erin Brockovich, subtitled, not dubbed. None of the four-letter words Julia Roberts uses got properly translated. It´s a bit like watching a movie on Fox. Then I watched Finding Nemo dubbed in Spanish. There were much fewer commercial breaks. I must say, as far as the Disney channel goes, I like it way better here than in the States, where all you see is Hannah Montana and the Cheetah Girls and teeny bopper and jock go to the beach and sing and dance.
on tombs and machismo
One time just for shits and giggles, I checked out the Not for Tourists Guide to DC from the library. It´s part of a series of books that help people that have to spend lots of time in some place. I believe there are editions for Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, LA, Philly, San Fran and Seattle. NB, Amy: I highly recommend getting the NFT Guide to Seattle. I really wish there were one for international cities, and I wish one of them could be Buenos Aires, and I wish I´d have that one in my hands.
Our GMU group took the subte to the Recoleta artisans´fair. I had left with 76 pesos, and after buying a purse, a coin purse, earrings and a necklace, I was left with 23. Then I went to the front of the cemetery, where we were meeting at a certain time. I looked around, took a few photographs, and realized all we needed was a man pushing a cart screaming, ¨Kulfeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyeh!¨ and we´d recreate Thana. It´s just got to be Buenos Aires´sister city.
As this excursion was a GMU event, lunch was covered, so I naturally went for the most expensive items on the menu. We met Alejandro´s fiancee, Natalia, and we got to taling about flirting and boys and stuff, and I told them about my argentino friend who hit on me at my least attractive. I said, ¨I learned that the less you obsess about being found sexy, the sexier you´ll be found,¨in English, because I can´t say that in Spanish. Well, Natalia probably couldn´t translate that thought in Spanish into English, so Alejandro translated, and Natalia replied, ¨¡Claro!¨ (¨Obviously!¨)
We found Evita´s tomb, surrounded by tourists, of course. One boy in our group remarked that it´s a bit like the Arlington cemetery. The desecration via tourism is the same, at any rate. Arlington is nowhere near as grand as Recoleta though. Evita is buried with the rest of the Duarte family. Actually, Evita had a hard time getting the last name Duarte. Her mom´s name was Ibarguren, her dad´s name was Duarte, and Evita was an illegitimate child.
Evita´s destractors say she didn´t so much help the poor as hate the rich. I´m reminded of a South Park episode showing Bono walking through a village in Africa, gladhanding and going, ¨Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!¨I have that same impression of Angelina Jolie, actually. But as far as hating the rich goes, I kind of don´t blame Evita for that. She had the hardest time growing up just because she had the misfortune to be sired by a stupid manwhore. Stories like this give me a rush of affection for my own father and of gratitude for the relative lack of machismo in our household.
Oh, and I met a Brazilian woman and got to use some Portuguese I learned this past semester.
But getting back to machismo:
Machismo is when the sex shop doesn´t stock the I Rub My Duckie vibrator (looks like a rubber duckie and can function as one too), nor does it stock the Screaming Octopus (a little bullet sheathed in a silicone covering shaped like a mauve octopus) nor anything else that´s actually designed for women´s pleasure (You mean such a thing exists?!), but instead favoring handcuffs and videos with names like ¨Anal Violation Part Sixty-Nine¨ and other items that make me cross my legs and the knees and ankles. It really upsets me that so many men exist in this world that are turned on by this shit that it actually sells. And instead of a sweet, non-threatening lady running the shop, it was a lecherous-looking man. Brenda and I got the hell out of there. We were on a quest for the bank anyway. She was, at any rate.
We got directions from a man who asked if either of us spoke French (perhaps we gave ourselves away as non Hispanic), and I piped up, ¨Moi, je parle français!¨ He wasn´t a native speaker, he was Argentine but had studied in Paris in his youth, and he butchered French Argentine-style. Thing is, even when Argentine´s are butchering cultures, they sound classy. I daresay I had an easier time understanding him than I ever did trying to catch what was said in Le journal. And their most ridiculous of dances, like these few songs they played at the dance hall, even those, looked better than our own electric slide, macarena, what have you. The francophone Argentine man led us to the bank and it worked out just fine.
Our GMU group took the subte to the Recoleta artisans´fair. I had left with 76 pesos, and after buying a purse, a coin purse, earrings and a necklace, I was left with 23. Then I went to the front of the cemetery, where we were meeting at a certain time. I looked around, took a few photographs, and realized all we needed was a man pushing a cart screaming, ¨Kulfeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyeh!¨ and we´d recreate Thana. It´s just got to be Buenos Aires´sister city.
As this excursion was a GMU event, lunch was covered, so I naturally went for the most expensive items on the menu. We met Alejandro´s fiancee, Natalia, and we got to taling about flirting and boys and stuff, and I told them about my argentino friend who hit on me at my least attractive. I said, ¨I learned that the less you obsess about being found sexy, the sexier you´ll be found,¨in English, because I can´t say that in Spanish. Well, Natalia probably couldn´t translate that thought in Spanish into English, so Alejandro translated, and Natalia replied, ¨¡Claro!¨ (¨Obviously!¨)
We found Evita´s tomb, surrounded by tourists, of course. One boy in our group remarked that it´s a bit like the Arlington cemetery. The desecration via tourism is the same, at any rate. Arlington is nowhere near as grand as Recoleta though. Evita is buried with the rest of the Duarte family. Actually, Evita had a hard time getting the last name Duarte. Her mom´s name was Ibarguren, her dad´s name was Duarte, and Evita was an illegitimate child.
Evita´s destractors say she didn´t so much help the poor as hate the rich. I´m reminded of a South Park episode showing Bono walking through a village in Africa, gladhanding and going, ¨Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!¨I have that same impression of Angelina Jolie, actually. But as far as hating the rich goes, I kind of don´t blame Evita for that. She had the hardest time growing up just because she had the misfortune to be sired by a stupid manwhore. Stories like this give me a rush of affection for my own father and of gratitude for the relative lack of machismo in our household.
Oh, and I met a Brazilian woman and got to use some Portuguese I learned this past semester.
But getting back to machismo:
Machismo is when the sex shop doesn´t stock the I Rub My Duckie vibrator (looks like a rubber duckie and can function as one too), nor does it stock the Screaming Octopus (a little bullet sheathed in a silicone covering shaped like a mauve octopus) nor anything else that´s actually designed for women´s pleasure (You mean such a thing exists?!), but instead favoring handcuffs and videos with names like ¨Anal Violation Part Sixty-Nine¨ and other items that make me cross my legs and the knees and ankles. It really upsets me that so many men exist in this world that are turned on by this shit that it actually sells. And instead of a sweet, non-threatening lady running the shop, it was a lecherous-looking man. Brenda and I got the hell out of there. We were on a quest for the bank anyway. She was, at any rate.
We got directions from a man who asked if either of us spoke French (perhaps we gave ourselves away as non Hispanic), and I piped up, ¨Moi, je parle français!¨ He wasn´t a native speaker, he was Argentine but had studied in Paris in his youth, and he butchered French Argentine-style. Thing is, even when Argentine´s are butchering cultures, they sound classy. I daresay I had an easier time understanding him than I ever did trying to catch what was said in Le journal. And their most ridiculous of dances, like these few songs they played at the dance hall, even those, looked better than our own electric slide, macarena, what have you. The francophone Argentine man led us to the bank and it worked out just fine.
Friday, 4 July part 3
The plan was a salsa lesson followed by a tango lesson, followed by an 11:30 show. Turns out the show was at 1 a.m., Latin American time. Tango is exciting to learn, but it was the show I was most looking forward to. Were the 13 pesos I spent that didn´t end up in a tango show worth it? Well, during the tango lessons, I managed to partner with a German boy who looked like he belonged on the cover of one of those teeny bopper magazines that girls secretly masturbate to. He worked for the Chamber of Commerce, so he may well have been rich as one of those guys too. I could kick myself for not moving aside to one of the tables to talk some more with him. I´d have an excuse too, because for the life of me, I cannot talk and dance complicated dances like tango and salsa, much less in foreign tongues. So I suppose the 13 pesos were worth it.
The 7 I spent on a pot of what was ostensibly red tea, i.e., rooibos, but actually just plain old black tea, was not. Beware of false advertising, folks. And note to self: if it doesn´t say rooibos, assume it´s not.
The 7 I spent on a pot of what was ostensibly red tea, i.e., rooibos, but actually just plain old black tea, was not. Beware of false advertising, folks. And note to self: if it doesn´t say rooibos, assume it´s not.
Friday, 4 July part 2
I greeted Julieta´s sister and Susana´s daughter, Maria de la Paz, who spent some time in the United States and was absolutely enchanted by our country. She is very eager to learn English, and to celebrate American holidays. Perhaps I´ll send her turkey this November, although I don´t know how that will work out, as we don´t eat turkey. Pumpkin pie, maybe. Anyway, she told me she had a huge American flag displayed in her place. I´m reminded of a British exchange student with whom I´ve interacted once, back in September at an 80´s party, who spent this last academic year at UVA. We had a model UN trip to Montreal at the end of January, and at least once every hour, he´d exclaim, ¨America, fuck yeah!¨ Paz is classier than that, I think. And mellower. Like a true American, she´s not a fan of fruits or vegetables, but loves most other things. It´s always fun talking to her.
I got ready for the night´s tango lessons with the sexiest attire and make-up I had on hand and met the group on the subte. The subte has a flat entrance rate, and the light goes red once it´s read your card and accepted it. If it´s green, it means no entrance, you need to swipe. I wonder if likewise, fire alarm sounds like elevator music. I finally miss the United States. Well, no. I´ve been on the underground in Chicago, Montreal and New York City. It´s Washington, D.C. that I miss. It took me a few swipes of my card to realize that I was good to go, and with each swipe, a certain amount was deducted. It´s a flat fee paid upon entrance. This is rather inferior to the DC metro system, in my humble opinion. To those of you who´ve never ridden the metro in DC, you pay upon exiting, not entering, and your card is simply scanned when you enter, so the number of stops you ride on can get properly calculated. That way you can´t get overcharged, and you don´t have to pay the same going one stop over as going ten stops over. Also, it´s a closed gate, and when you swipe your card, the gate opens. And the DC metro is far cleaner. And I realize that it´s in decline right now, but even so, it´s the best I´ve seen so far. I just wish the elitist snobs in the Tyson´s Corner area would stop filibustering the process of expanding the orange line so it will reach out to us Reston and Herndonites. Imagine, instead of parking at Herndon Monroe Park and Ride to take a bus to get to the metro station, that place could be my metro stop. Not that I´m bitter.
One interaction I´m sorry I had left me reminiscing about fourth grade in St. Luke´s elementary. One girl in my class was beautiful and stylish and rich, so she had all sorts of beautiful and stylish things too. And the American Girls collection of books, dolls and everything else was very much in vogue. (To this day, I´m a big fan of the books, which touch on all sorts of issues, like staying fair-minded in times of war, sexism, racism, class-ism, the works, although the merchandise, which is extortionately priced, not so much.) Well all I ever did was try to be friends with this girl, but even at the tender age of nine, she had learned how to ooze elitism. Suffice it to say, as far as she was concerned, I was her social inferior.
She was the kind of girl who´d demand all five American Girl dolls (in 1995, there was only Felicity, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha and Molly, and the Josefina got added, then Kit, then Kaya, and most recently, Julie. Right now, Kit´s movie is in theatres in the US, and it´s all about coping with the Great Depression, and it will probably hit home, and I hope it´s still playing when I get back.). She was the kind of girl who´d get them all, but then treat Addy like crap. Addy is the girl who grows up during the Civil War. Meet Addy is about Addy´s family´s escape from slavery in her cruel master´s plantation, going north to freedom. Yeah, Addy´s black. I don´t think fourth-grade-beauty-queen actually read any of the books in the collection, or if she did, I don´t think any of the stuff they touched on got through to her.
But let´s get back to happy thoughts, shall we?
I got ready for the night´s tango lessons with the sexiest attire and make-up I had on hand and met the group on the subte. The subte has a flat entrance rate, and the light goes red once it´s read your card and accepted it. If it´s green, it means no entrance, you need to swipe. I wonder if likewise, fire alarm sounds like elevator music. I finally miss the United States. Well, no. I´ve been on the underground in Chicago, Montreal and New York City. It´s Washington, D.C. that I miss. It took me a few swipes of my card to realize that I was good to go, and with each swipe, a certain amount was deducted. It´s a flat fee paid upon entrance. This is rather inferior to the DC metro system, in my humble opinion. To those of you who´ve never ridden the metro in DC, you pay upon exiting, not entering, and your card is simply scanned when you enter, so the number of stops you ride on can get properly calculated. That way you can´t get overcharged, and you don´t have to pay the same going one stop over as going ten stops over. Also, it´s a closed gate, and when you swipe your card, the gate opens. And the DC metro is far cleaner. And I realize that it´s in decline right now, but even so, it´s the best I´ve seen so far. I just wish the elitist snobs in the Tyson´s Corner area would stop filibustering the process of expanding the orange line so it will reach out to us Reston and Herndonites. Imagine, instead of parking at Herndon Monroe Park and Ride to take a bus to get to the metro station, that place could be my metro stop. Not that I´m bitter.
One interaction I´m sorry I had left me reminiscing about fourth grade in St. Luke´s elementary. One girl in my class was beautiful and stylish and rich, so she had all sorts of beautiful and stylish things too. And the American Girls collection of books, dolls and everything else was very much in vogue. (To this day, I´m a big fan of the books, which touch on all sorts of issues, like staying fair-minded in times of war, sexism, racism, class-ism, the works, although the merchandise, which is extortionately priced, not so much.) Well all I ever did was try to be friends with this girl, but even at the tender age of nine, she had learned how to ooze elitism. Suffice it to say, as far as she was concerned, I was her social inferior.
She was the kind of girl who´d demand all five American Girl dolls (in 1995, there was only Felicity, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha and Molly, and the Josefina got added, then Kit, then Kaya, and most recently, Julie. Right now, Kit´s movie is in theatres in the US, and it´s all about coping with the Great Depression, and it will probably hit home, and I hope it´s still playing when I get back.). She was the kind of girl who´d get them all, but then treat Addy like crap. Addy is the girl who grows up during the Civil War. Meet Addy is about Addy´s family´s escape from slavery in her cruel master´s plantation, going north to freedom. Yeah, Addy´s black. I don´t think fourth-grade-beauty-queen actually read any of the books in the collection, or if she did, I don´t think any of the stuff they touched on got through to her.
But let´s get back to happy thoughts, shall we?
Friday, July 4, 2008
Friday, 4 July
I had a proper shower with nice body lotion and fresh clothes for the first time this week. Julieta left before me and left a few pieces of toast and orange marmalade. I didn´t have much time, so I wolfed down two of the three pieces. I was locked inside for a good minute before I figured out that I need the key to let myself out as well as in.
At least something in Argentina makes me miss something about the USA. The prospect of never getting out terrifies me infinitely worse than that of any break-in. This is why most people´s flats in India make me uneasy. And the latrines are a downright nightmare, not because of the stench or the uncomfortable positioning, but because of the latch on the outside that anyone can use to lock you in. I did that once to my cousin as a prank. I´m pretty sure the punishment given to me is a repressed memory. This is why locks in the US are no longer made like that, not after one abusive husband imprisoned his wife that way. To be fair, he also disconnected the phone lines.
And I´m now looking forward to dressing up to learn the tango tonight. Yay. We´re now current.
At least something in Argentina makes me miss something about the USA. The prospect of never getting out terrifies me infinitely worse than that of any break-in. This is why most people´s flats in India make me uneasy. And the latrines are a downright nightmare, not because of the stench or the uncomfortable positioning, but because of the latch on the outside that anyone can use to lock you in. I did that once to my cousin as a prank. I´m pretty sure the punishment given to me is a repressed memory. This is why locks in the US are no longer made like that, not after one abusive husband imprisoned his wife that way. To be fair, he also disconnected the phone lines.
And I´m now looking forward to dressing up to learn the tango tonight. Yay. We´re now current.
Friday, 3 July part 2
The elevators were just like lifts in flats in India. You pull doors open and shut yourself. I reunited with Susana and met one of her seven daughters (there are two sons and thirty-something grandkids between the nine kids), Maria la Paz, or Paz for short. I unpacked my suitcase and found a lot of stuff sopping wet, but at least it was all there. I finally met Julieta, and she´s every bit as nice as her mom. She also has a dog named Canela, for her cinnamon colored fur. She´s a guard dog. Her first action was to growl and bark at me. Terrified, I kept saying her name, which was what Susana had told me to do when I saw her. Susana then added that I need to say it lovingly, not panicked, so I tried to inject as much affection as I could into it. The dog was still hyper active, but her tail was wagging. What she really wants was hugs and whatnot. She sidled up to me like a drunken coed at a frat party, and I was the frat boy.
The four of us ate a dinner of gnocchi and soy milanesa together while Canela tried to get past Julieta to partake in it. Afterward, we broke out the Ghiradelli chocolate I´d brought with me in that suitcase.
I watched some TV with Julieta, mostly Argentine equivalents of American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, etc. Then we watched the last bit of Cinderella III. Back in America at one point this summer, Cinderella 3 was a Toon Disney Big Movie Show one evening, and my cousin Manali and I began to watch it over ice cream. Unfortunately, Mom came home and demanded to know why I was watching kid´s shows. I had bitten back the urge to answer that it was because she wouldn´t let me watch adult shows.
Fast forward to Thursday night. Cinderella III was dubbed in Spanish and her name was now Cenicienta. Part III has been updated from the original Cinderella to suit the feminist sensibilities of girls like me. Cinderella/Cenicienta kicked some ass and Anastasia, one of the two ugly stepsisters, was a sympathetic character. I understood the dialogue way better than La belle et la bete, or Harry Potter et le prisonnier dÁzkaban.
The four of us ate a dinner of gnocchi and soy milanesa together while Canela tried to get past Julieta to partake in it. Afterward, we broke out the Ghiradelli chocolate I´d brought with me in that suitcase.
I watched some TV with Julieta, mostly Argentine equivalents of American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, etc. Then we watched the last bit of Cinderella III. Back in America at one point this summer, Cinderella 3 was a Toon Disney Big Movie Show one evening, and my cousin Manali and I began to watch it over ice cream. Unfortunately, Mom came home and demanded to know why I was watching kid´s shows. I had bitten back the urge to answer that it was because she wouldn´t let me watch adult shows.
Fast forward to Thursday night. Cinderella III was dubbed in Spanish and her name was now Cenicienta. Part III has been updated from the original Cinderella to suit the feminist sensibilities of girls like me. Cinderella/Cenicienta kicked some ass and Anastasia, one of the two ugly stepsisters, was a sympathetic character. I understood the dialogue way better than La belle et la bete, or Harry Potter et le prisonnier dÁzkaban.
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