Glaciar

Turns out glaciers are pretty awesome.

Next time you get a chance to visit them, do not pass.

I realize Halloween, Soda Stereo and Creamfields (all headliners in their own right) happened since my last post, but at this point, my glaciers trip eclipses anything short of me fathering a goat-boy. Nevertheless, I’ll give you a ten-second download of the three.

Just like I planned on November 2nd, 2006, I was a Green Army Man for this Halloween. The costume was a great success. Especially when you consider Pocahontas did not hesitate to turn my full, green face-paint into her own smeared-on, clown smile during a more enjoyable revival of that Disney classic (does that make me Juan Smith?).

I don’t suppose most of you appreciate the grandeur that a reunion tour like Soda Stereo’s implies, so I’ll just put it this way: hearing Cerati’s opening guitar riff for “De música ligera” during the first encore, followed by me joining 64,999 other euphoric fans in “…nada nos libra, nada mas que dar…” was definitely worth losing my second cell phone in as many weeks.

Creamfields was less of an ecstatic mass sing-a-long and more of a learning experience. For example, I learned that LCD Soundsystem is inexplicably underappreciated in Argentina and that Carl Cox is a fat, black, British man who loves to say “Ohhhh yesss, Booaynose Ariessss” like a boxing announcer drunk on J&B Whiskey. I also learned that just because 70% of the crowd that night is also wearing white-framed Dolce&Gabana knock-offs does not mean you don’t look like a tool. Overall, I’d say Chemical Brothers, 2 Many DJs and LCD Soundsystem made the AR$ 110 (US$ 35) worth it, but unless Daft Punk and/or Justice were playing next year, I wouldn’t make it to the reprise. No matter how funny watching an on-acid version of Chazz Michales bounce around like a wounded duck and pretend it’s “dancing” is.

Which brings us to the main event, El Calafate.

Last Friday was the launch date of a trip that ultimately made me feel like a cross between Marco Polo and Jim, the runaway slave from Huckleberry Finn: explorative and audacious but mostly out to have the best time at any cost.

I flew out Friday morning. The one 15-minute highlight of the flight came courtesy of the 30-year-old American couple that sat next to me in Row 8. After reboarding the plane during our layover at Uhuaia, the boyfriend/husband?, Frank, threw his leather jacket at his girlfriend/wife, Estelle, before sitting down. This classic beginning of any promising nothing-fight eventually led to this exchange between the two.

Estelle – Is something wrong?
Frank – Noooo, everything is just fucking peachy.
- What’s wrong?

(During the following 15 minutes, while struggling for syntax construction and expletives. With pauses for dry heaves and anger-sobs) - You’re just too fucking controlling! You treat me like I’m a baby!! I can’t do anything without you questioning, doubting or judging it!!! (In his best 6th grader mock voice) “Why didn’t you bring your brown jacket instead?”, “I think you should wait until we get on the plane to go to the bathroom,” “Are you sure you want that much ketchup with your French Fries”!!!! (Notice the increasing exclamation points). You act like I’m gonna whip out my dick and start peeing on the first 5 rows unless you tell me not to!!!!!

(At this point, I’m doing my best to pretend not to understand what they’re saying so as to not laugh, lest I hamper the fight’s impetus.)

- I’m sick and tired of you treating me like I’m incapable of performing socially while unsupervised. I’m not your alcoholic mother, you know!!!!!!
- Well, why don’t you bring this up whenever it happens?
- Cause then we would have this fight every 20 minutes!!!!!!

End scene.

Employing the surprise low-blow as the climax of his rant I found was particularly succulent. However, this left me in a situation most nothing-fight spectators are all too familiar with: I could either blow my oblivious-bystander cover and start laughing uncontrollably, potentially triggering collateral damage my way or opt for a constrained smile and slow-nod whilst waiting to relish in the spoils of spectacle in the form of a narrative later. Like Kenneth Starr did in his day, I decided to tantric-ly prolong gratification until public divulgence of this intimate exchange showered me with emotional riches.

Once in Calafate, the activity for that Friday was a 90-minute climb in a 4x4 up a hill to a lookout point overseeing the Calafate town and the Lago Argentino that surrounds it. Easily the most spectacular part of the day was the sheer color of the lake water. Think more turquoise than the brightest Carribbean water. The ride served as a perfect preamble for what awaited the following day: Big Ice.

The weekend’s pièce of résistance, Big Ice, was a 9-hour, 13-km hike on top of the Perito Moreno Glacier. A bus picked me up at my hostel at 7 and drove me and 16 other hikers to the Los Glaciares National Park where we took a boat to the park refuge. At this point I had befriended two girls, Weesie and Cory, partly because setting up photo ops with a 6-inch tripod takes too long but mostly because 9 hours is too long a time to spend making sarcastic remarks to yourself.

A 45-minute hike up the side of the glacier brought us to set-up camp, where we were handed our gear: a harness and clampers (sweet-ass claws an inch and a half long you tie to your feet for ice walking). Immediately after we started our ascent on the glacier I understood what my favorite part of the experience was. Glaciers are awe-inspiring by sheer size like a humpback whale and aesthetically breathtaking like a Monet, and yet you can still claw your way inside them and ultimately even have lunch on them. This rare combination of uniqueness, massiveness and splendor was an inimitable combination. It’s one of those feelings you can’t understand until you experience yourself, like barreling a wave on a surfboard, or bungee jumping or having an orgasm.

We made our way up and down spine-like hills towards the heart of the glacier. An hour into it we realized that unlike our much-needed clampers, our harnesses had been of less use than abstinence flyers at a pro-choice rally.

Cory stepped up and asked Matt, our guide from New Zealand, about it.

Matt – “Well, I don’t think it’s really necessary, but it’s always better to have one than not.”

Always???

“Bob, the IPO presentation was moved up to 9, so make sure the report cover and annexes are ready by then. And, why are you wearing a harness?”
“Well, it’s always better to have one than not.”

“Bailiff, bring forward the next witness. And, would you please tell me why you are wearing a harness?”
“Well, your honor, it’s always better to have one than not.”

I guess Matt was right, it is always better to have a harness than not.

To wrap up an already long enough rant I’ll do my best to summarize the rest of the trip in the next paragraph. We had our box lunches at the farthest point in our hike protected from the wind by a 30-foot ice wall. We refilled our water bottles at the glacier lake in front of us and headed back. By the way, Bobby Bouché was right, glacier water is “some high-quality H20.” On our way back we stopped by what would be the highlight of the hike. We crawled down the side of the glacier into a 10-meter deep ice-cave. At the very end was a 3-story-high vertical tunnel of melting ice that led to the surface of the glacier some 50 yards away from were we came in. After 9 hours and 12 kilometers, the hike was close to over, yet as I looked back at the glacier its splendor had not worn off and had still not ceased to amaze me.

Sunday was a 6-hour boat ride, Todos Glaciares, around the lake to see the other 6 glaciers but nothing I can say will provide more insight.

And so, my excursion to the Southern tip of the Americas was over. It was quite easily the most memorable trip of my life. Like I said, glaciers are pretty awesome.

Gracias totales,

grego

Oktubre

Lads and ladies,

October can so far be summarized in the following events: I attended the Boca Juniors vs. River Plate soccer clásico (derby), I visited Bariloche and turned 21, in that order.

First, the so-called “Super Clásico,” (a nickname I resent considering the only “super” of clásicos is played in Spain between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid). We got to River’s stadium at around 7 in the morning to wait in line for tickets Thursday before the game, date set by the club when tickets to non-members would be sold. Much to my demise, the Argentine I was told would accompany my two friends and I was replaced by a posse of 7 Americans in The North Face jackets. It was the first time I’ve been heckled in Spanish for being German.

So much for blending in. We could have been wearing fuccia astronaut suits and not stick out as much. Nonetheless, 3 hours and 2 ignored police officers later we got our tickets for Sunday.

The game itself was everything we had hoped for, right down to a sore Boca fan-base ripping out their seats and throwing them down to the River fans below them. La 12 (the Boca fans) were let out 30 minutes before anybody else to avoid altercations (police language for street brawls with home-made weapons that may or may not have been taken from the set of Oz).

Two weeks later I was in Bariloche, ski-town de jure. Bariloche has one huge lake with countless “arms” that slide between snow-capped mountains forming a water network they nickname the Big Octopus. It is known as much for it’s skiing facilities as for being the destination by excellence of all high-school graduation trips. The aforementioned facilities are easy to spot. Not to be outdone, these teenagers sport matching graduation jackets with colors as blinding as their hedonistic goals for the weekend.

The 140 of us that embodied the trip where all together for only one occasion: a picnic and hike near a lake front. Much to the surprise of the handful of locals that expected a tranquil Sunday afternoon, keeping that many foreign exchange students under control is no small task.

Arguably the funniest thing yet this semester happened that afternoon; it involved one 6-year-old Argentinean playing fetch with a golden retriever and one collegiate American playing ultimate Frisbee with his friends. Both are essentially the same activity: one is interspecies, the other one is not.

Much like the aforementioned canine and its fetching stick, the exchange student was running around chasing flying objects before they hit the ground. On one of these runs the American stepped right in front of the kid’s throwing line. Determined not to let a tourist ruin a good wind-up, he threw the stick anyway. In flawless Shakespearean irony he nailed the American right in the snout – I mean, nose – knocking him straight to the ground. The only thing that could’ve made it better was if the dog had caught the Frisbee instead.

4 days later, yours truly became a citizen of the worldwide (legally) drinking community.
Plan was pre-gaming at Dan’s apartment with Zack before attending the Diplo show at 9. None of the elements an ideal 21st birthday were spared. Tequila toasts were shouted. Music was blasted. Laughs were hollered. Inhibitions, dignities, sunglasses and cell phones all were lost. The headlining act DJ’ed a mind-blowing, 2-hour set of fist-pumping electro. All three members of our entourage successfully overcame the elusive Argentine-barrier at least once. It was the kind of night that makes you believe in Santa Claus again.

Cheers,

Gregorio

P.S. My host family thinks I have a drinking problem. I know this because they told me so. But, that’s a story for a different night.

Anecdotal Haiku

slipped on shit today
caused me to drop my cell phone
at least not in shit.

Nuestro capitán sin navío

Por segunda vez en el año se me muere un abuelo cuando estoy en el extranjero. Sobra decir que no es más fácil la segunda.

Hoy se murió mi abuelo, tata de mi tata. Murió dormido por un deterioro en los pulmones.

Aquí, sentado y medio aturdido en el hemisferio sur, son inesperadas las cosas que sé que nunca me olvidaré de él.

Recuerdo como inmortalizó a sus pastores alemanes (uno de las cuales, si mal no recuerdo, guiado por su olfato llegaba hasta la carnicería) al bautizar su disco duro como Diabla. La primera vez que usé esa iMac entendí la magnífica sutileza que hay en un buen nombre. Cabe mencionar que sigo sin escuchar un mejor nombre para perro.

Igual de inesperado que su habilidad para bautizar bien era su singular estilo.

Contaba con un enigmático talento para lograr que una gorra de capitán – siempre ligeramente torcida – no fuera fuente de ridículo sino símbolo de una envidiable personalidad. Lucía las medias por encima de los pantalones cuando jugaba golf y usaba un espantoso finish para tandear a los Muchachones del Country.

Su carruaje por excelencia fueron los pick-ups y, para mí, tuvo pick-ups antes que tener pick-ups fuera cool.

De él aprendí que hay que pelear por las cosas que valen la pena y olvidar las que no. (Recientemente aprendí que compartimos la certeza que ponerle nombre a la calles pertenece al primer grupo.) Verlo con Ata también me enseñó que no hay convicción como la de una mujer determinada y que a veces es más fácil hacerles caso.

Pero su más importante legado para nosotros sus nietos será un impecable apellido. Eso sólo una vida como la de Tata lo puede heredar.

Fue Negro para unos, Doctor para otros, Tata para mí, pero inolvidable para todos.

Un beso y un abrazo, Tata.

4th Meal

Geese and ganders,

Two house-cleaning items:

First, if it weren’t for Halloween, I’d wish killer fire ants decimated all pumpkins.

They taste like emu stool samples.

This of course means my host family loves them. Luckily, they always serve it in the form of cannelloni and because they are prepared in the early afternoon they are easy to spot and allow a convenient escape to dinner elsewhere.

Second, it has come to my attention that there is a rumor going around that I will have four-day weekends all semester. This is not true. This will only continue until Mid-November at which point school will be out and I will have either 7-day-weekends or non-stop holidays, I haven’t decided.

Recently there seems to be an unusual recurring theme: the ride/walk home after going out every Saturday has proven more of a story than the night itself.

Two weeks ago I went out with two gringo friends, one male, the other female. As the vodka tonics and Quilmeses poured down, the night went from “Friends Night Out” to “Him, Her and a Third Wheel.” Thanks to my newly appointed wingman status, I came to terms with the fact I was taking a cab by myself. There was no way I was walking 35 blocks, in the pouring rain at 5 a.m. home. There was no way except for the fact that I had no money.

20 blocks of walking added hunger to my list of ailments. I walked into the first restaurant and ordered a milanesa and a tomato salad. I thought: I’m hungry from walking, I shall eat a meal. The six emo kids in the booth opposite me thought: this 20-year-old kid in soaked, pin-striped coat jacket is clumsily carving into a full tomato at 6 in the morning by himself, and my dad calls me socially incompetent.

After Gerardo, my 65-year-old waiter, had told me his fifth tip as to ‘how to juggle simultaneous ‘relationships’ with a 28-year-old, a 50-year-old, and a 28-year-old’s mother’, I headed on my way.

I still had 15 blocks and very little patience left. I sprinted down the major six-lane avenue, wearing a drenched sport jacket and shoes that are a soft-sole away from being slippers. I made it home, but not before I face-planted and skidded four feet on my stomach down the dirty sidewalk. Everybody thought it was hilarious. I thought it was a drag.

The following Saturday I was once again hungry after being dropped off. This time my hunger had a name and a face: Big Mac and fries. Fortunately, McDonald’s is on a 24 hr system; their lunch policy, however, is not. Apparently, 6 am is “breakfast-only” time. “I cannot serve you a Big Mac and fries,” cashier lady Mabel said. I was determined to get both. The following exchange ensued:

- Listen, Mabel, I really want this meal. Could you help me out?
- No.
- Please?
- No.
- Ok forget the Big Mac, just give me the fries. You gotta give me fries.
- No.
- Pretty please?
- No.
- I will give you 20 pesos (roughly 400% what they cost) if you make me fries. It’ll be our secret.
- No.
- 30.
- No.
- 40.
- I will give you 50 pesos if you make me a batch of fries. I can see them from here. All you have to do is dip them in delicious frying grease.
- No.
- 50 pesos for a dip!? Why not?
- Angrily Either you order a breakfast meal or I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.

The guy behind me: I’ll double his offer (read: morning bribe). You’ll make $100 pesos if you make us a batch of French fries.
- Angrily, Insulted-ly, but not tempted. NO!
- Fine, I’ll have a breakfast sandwich.

The sandwich was great but not filling. I had to go order another one.
- I’ll have a Big Mac and fries, please.
- Security!!
- One breakfast sandwich and an orange juice to go, please?

Always pack a snack on Saturdays. Write that down.

‘Tis all for now,

Grego

P.S. Would you rather be a super hero or a super villain?

P.P.S. For anybody who ever went to a quinceaños in Central America, I am paying 40 pesos to listen “Sigue Bailando” live on Saturday.

iPod Chronicles

During my brief absence – which I will not elaborate on – my iPod died. Two separate apple.com-recommended repair centers said so: “Sorry, the frowney face on your iPod screen means the hard drive is broken. Sadly, Apple stopped making replacements for it. There is nothing we can do.” Two years of taking runs with my iPod had finally taken its toll, or so they said.

It took all of the following week for me to realize that a decade of TV-parenting by MacGyver was not in vain. Like the girl who kicks the car tire to make the steam coming out of the hood stop, I decided to shift the casing around and hope for the best. It worked; he’s back.

At this point, a self-congratulatory diatribe would be both in order and to be expected but there is a bigger issue at hand: how am I to believe in any technician henceforth?

A brief analogy might help explain.

Imagine you take your six-year-old son, Crunk, to the hospital because he won’t wake up. The whiskey you gave him for his toothache put him into an alcohol-induced coma. Just play along.

He is pronounced dead on the spot. They don’t even check his pulse. Just dead. You take him for a second opinion. After all, he did have some of your Blue Label, the little ingrate better wake up to thank you.

The second opinion: “prognosis negative, Jerry.”

So you take him home. You spread the tragic news and you mourn in the silence of your home (and on the bus, and in the gym, and when pretending to listen to music even though it’s off to avoid conversation when you go with somebody else to the library). A week later, you decide if Doogie Houser can do it, it can’t be that hard. Keep in mind he was on after Family Matters and bad boy Steve Urkel. You do what Neil Patrick Harris would do: you ask for a few cc’s of something ending in –phine, crack a joke about being blackout drunk, and smack him upside the head like a tetherball.

He wakes up.

Now, he may not function as well during cardiovascular activities or perform at his best during cocktail parties, but at least he’s awake and will have to do until Steve Jobs holds the next product launch.

In other news, UCA journalism juniors are about as ready to perform professionally as Josh McRoberts. During my Taller de Revista class, we were budgeting stories for next month’s print issue of the school's magazine. A girl pitched a story on blood transfusions but refused to include the recent discrimination scandal at the blood bank because “I don’t like discussing homosexuality.” Really?

Listen, Cupcake, nobody cares if you’re homophobic or not. This isn’t dinner with the inlaws, you don’t avoid a topic because you find it controversial. Put down USWeekly and pick up something that doesn't kill neurons but you can handle– like a coloring book. Do kids in organic chemistry ask if heart atriums are like kidneys where you can donate one because you have a second?

Serenity now.

Play nice,

Gregorio.

I'm gonna act like I don't give a make love.

New Crank.

Today I learned about hair extensions.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with hair extensions, they are what the justice system and the DEA refer to as “hard drugs.”

A subject – most likely female – has mild self-esteem issues, looking for a change in her rut-stuck life and is considering cutting her hair as the remedy to all her woes. This despite the fact that, to this day, there is no record of any woman – elderly, adult, teenage or unborn – ever being truly satisfied by a haircut. She wanders into a specialized shop.

Those who work this shop are not certified psychologists, guidance counselors or know anything about her, but do sport flashy clothes and eccentric hair-do’s. To her impressionable eyes they seem perfectly qualified to advise. Not surprisingly, their advice perpetuates the dream of the fix-all-haircut. Moreover, it just so happens that this silver-tongued con man can execute said haircut for a very small fee. After all, he is a trained hairdresser.

She agrees to the haircut.

Needless to say, the haircut is about as satisfying as a kick in the balls.

This sends her into a downward spiral of poor self-image and incessant complaining. The nagging about said haircut alienates her from her friends, which in turn, only increases the self-pity and distress.

Oddly, however, the hairdresser receives none of the blame but rather has inexplicably become sole confidant. As such, he recommends a more powerful antidote to low self-esteem: extensions. He doesn’t deal (with) extensions personally but knows a trustworthy hairdresser who does. (This extension hairdresser just so happens to work in the same shop. What a fortunate coincidence for the shop owner).

And so she reaches enters the world of hair extensions. (Please understand these are somebody else’s replacement for the very thing she wanted cut off in the first place.) She is told that price of these is about 8-fold that of the haircut it is hoping to replace. Suddenly struck with the financial implications of the mess she’s gotten into, she seems hesitant.

However, this extensions hairdresser did not get to where is by allowing common sense to get in the way of a transaction. He assures her this is “high-quality, fully natural, human grown” hair and that his “provider always comes through with quality products.” The deal is closed.

And so she spends US$700 on a product that in less than a football season will have become utterly useless because her own body will have grown the exact same thing. It is not many a product your body can produce for you and save you US$700.

At this point, if you feel this story sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because it’s the plot for the movie Traffic and every season of The Wire. They may call “gateway drugs” “haircuts,” use “hairdresser” instead of “dealer” and say “extensions” instead of “hard drugs,” but I know an illicit trade circle when I see one.

buen día,

grego.

I give these MCs hell like they all atheists.

Wherefore art thou, Hollywood?

Esses and señoritas,

Highlights from the nights out during the week are scarce. Thursday night we (the same 2 gringas, the same gringo and I) went to the same bar we had been to before, Pekados. Things were peachy until Kelsey ordered herself and I a shot of Tequila Nacional each. Let me tell you a little something about Tequila Nacional. You know that blue pill in the Matrix? The one Neo doesn’t take? It’s made of Tequila Nacional. Fortunately, not everyone in the group ingested this concoction of liquid Alzheimer’s and alcohol and they were able to relocate Kelsey and I to our respective abodes.

After going out 4 of the week’s first 5 nights, I decided that a calmer night was in order. This was probably a good thing, if I got home again at 6 in the morning my señora would have killed me. I know this because she told me so before I went out last night.

Saturday night the 2 girls and I went to see the Argentine film XXY at Village Recoletta, a building consisting of 4 stories of small theatres and a food court. In case your Movie Title cognitive ability is about as acute is mine, XXY was about a hermaphrodite. Despite what the critics, Canne’s Film Festival and my fellow movie-goers may say, do not watch this movie unless you feel like you do not deserve to be as happy as you are. This movie makes Schindler’s List look like an Olsen twins’ Christmas special. If I wanted to be this depressed when I go out, I’d go to WNBA games.

Because we hadn’t had our share of foreign films, we decided to watch Yesterday Again. It’s basically Mr. and Mrs. Smith if Pitt and Joley were Asian and filthy rich in the movie. However, we got there late and had to settle for Flandres (which I’m convinced is French for “91 minutes you could’ve spent watching competitive Tic-Tac-Toe”). The movie’s director describes it in a pamphlet I wish I'd read before the movie started. And I quote: “Demester, a young farmer from Flandres, is dating Barbe, but seems unable to commit or articulate his emotions. The night before he leaves for the war, she, in an act of anger, sleeps with his friend Blondel, whom has also been drafted…”

Fortunately, I am now fully versed in Incompetent French Directoria and can translate for you.

It’s the age-old story of boy and girl that are born in Hickville, rural France. Girl becomes crazy after she has sex with 3 premature-ejaculators who know each other through their sexual malfunction support group – I made that last part up. Boy and fellow idiot leave for war. Idiot dies. Girl is pregnant by idiot. Boy cries. Audience wishes French directors could be bitch-slapped over the Internet.

I will say the movie had two parts that captured my attention. The first was a close-up of a plowing tractor’s six, shiny, 4-foot guillotines set in spiral formation. The second came after aforementioned Idiot shares the news of his relatively new girlfriend’s unplanned pregnancy with his fellow troops and gets called “the quickest gun in the west.” Zing.

Rest assured the next movie I watch will feature girls whose breasts cost more than their cars and explosions that would make Wile E. Coyote blush. Where are James Bond and John McClane when you need them?

'Tis all for now.

More to come,

grego

P.S. The Rap lyric of the week is "Bounce like you got hydraulics in your G-string."

Me "Gustar Presente" Baires

Chicos y chicas,

Orientation's new highlight came with a splash of sweet irony. Program Director Mario Cantarini intended to dissuade us from settling on using mediocre Spanish when in fact – as a native speaker – it made me want to speak worse. During yesterday's lecture on Spanish he told us about a 60-year-old student he had while he was teaching Spanish in Britain. This old Brit decided that even though learning Spanish was a sound business decision, his time was too valuable to be wasted on something as meaningless as verb-tenses. Instead, he would learn the infinitives and work and take it from there. Allow me to explain his new dialect of Spanish-express: "Ayer 'beber pasado' whiskey y hoy yo 'sentir presente' mal." Good job, ol' chap. I could learn a lot from this man. I may have never met him, but something tells me we would get along.

The rest of orientation thus far has been fairly dull. Attached are the notes I took exclusively – mind you – during the aforementioned Lecture on Spanish (don't adjust your screen, that was not a typo). Today I had to survey 3 Argentinians to practice my communication skills in Spanish. Fan-tas-ti-coe. But that was not until after we had a lecture on culture shock. They tell me it was good. I told them so was my nap.

Between a Guatemalan called Daniel and I, we've been trying to tag team this situation and try to get out of the mandatory Spanish classes throughout the semester. (Now, let the record show that this gentleman's Comilla-ness is yet to be determined. He has several symptoms that make me doubt him, particularly his use of 'umm' instead of the 'emm' when speaking Spanish. More on that later.) He talked to a lady at Butler University, Cantarini's boss's boss, who said if we scored well enough on the written exam we had last week we could be exempt from the course. She also mentioned it had never happened. Sounds like chasing rainbows to me. We never get to see for ourselves how well we did and 'well enough' is a rather discretionary term. The whole thing is moot anyway because the COPA people said that it's out of the question. Rules are rules was the explanation they provided; how very 3rd-world-country of them. Way to keep it real.

So I guess on that front, the forecast is looking grim: partially cloudy with scattered shit-storms.

Nonetheless, Baires continues to impress. I went to MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de BA) on Sunday with Paula and a gringa Kelsey. This activity was good; the one that followed was not. I got duped into having lunch at the mall nearby with them. At 5 pm, the prospects of having the day's first meal clouded my judgement and made me ignore most mall's main attraction: stores. Lots and lots and lots of stores. The whole ordeal was very disorienting. From what I gather, every single locale in all 4 stories sold clothing and accessories for girls in their early twenties. I must say, however, Paula did buy me ice cream after. Score.

In closing, I give the gentlemen reading this the following situations which require interpretation of guy code, and ask you to email me your answer. I had an argument last night at an allegedly Irish pub called Shamrock which remains unsettled (which reminds me if you are ever in a situation where you can order a drink called Ferment, pass.).

First, if you walk into a bathroom to pee and there's five urinals (all unoccupied) which one do you use, #1 being the one closest to the door and #5 being the one against the back wall?

Situation number 2. You walk into a bathroom to pee and there's 2 urinals and 2 stalls. One of the urinals is occupied, where do you go?

'Tis all for now.

Zip it up and zip it out,

grego

First email

Needless to say this has the makings of a fantastic semester.

Despite a total travel time from SJO to BAs of 22 hrs, the flight down went pretty well, the city is beautiful, yada yada yada... Franky, pull up the highlight reel.

Wednesday night i went out to this club called "museum" with a blonde/blue-eyed 6 from Maine. I had no intention of scoring with her but would have not regretted it had it happened. I've hooked up with American girls in CH, I was now on recon patrol. After paying a A$20 cover (US$6.50) we walk into what a really small mall would look like if it got abandoned and taken over by Smirnoff Vodka and techno djs: a main dance floor with 3 floors of surrounding balconies above it. bars, flashing lights, soap bubbles and sleazy Argentine guys and girls everywhere. Just beautiful. Immediately she goes apeshit. Picture a 6-year-old walking into Santa's workshop. "You don't understand, I'm from Maine. In high school, we threw parties in the woods," she explains. Understood. Being the gentleman I am, I tell her, "be careful, guys here are pretty aggressive." "What do you mean, aggressive how?"
Kindly, a string of 30-year-old guys in their best happy hour clothes explained for me by: ass and shoulder – yes shoulder – pinching and grabbing, pouncing (literally pouncing, as in bouncing of a couch and grabbing her be her shoulders – I can't thank them enough for the opportunity to use such a pun), slurred Spanish pick up lines literally translated into drunken English and more physical invasion of her private space and verbal harassment. She was a sport and laughed it off. I too laughed... mockingly, but just as well... a good night, all around.

Orientation, on the other hand, has been less than appealing. It has been keynoted by a written Spanish exam.
Please REPRODUCE a 200 word op-ed piece on the true value of using celebrities endorsements in advertising. Then write a 200-word description of an object that symbolizes your country.
- Ms. Casey, if we finish early can we leave for recess?
I clocked in at 14 mins and 29 seconds which included a 30 second pen-change pit stop.
There has also been the use of scare tactics to dissuade against walking in dark alleys and proper etiquette with our host families. Very engaging.

Thursday night I attended an open-house/party at the military circle. Rest assured this isn't the name of a trendy club or a euphemism for somebody's totalitarian-like host family. It is a social club for members of the Argentine military forces. it is roughly the equivalent of the Pentagon having a palace built in French academia architecture for all the people who work for them to have a place to socialize. I need only tell you that after WWI the richest and most aristocratic family built it as their mansion modeled after the most popular Parisian trends of the time and imported every single brick and roof tile for it. It was like being at Beast's techno-party. It happens once a month and I will be attending every time.

Friday night i went out to a place called Pekados with two gringas and a gringo. Good times were had all the way into the 6th hour of the morning. Coupled with the extra patience for gringo spanish vodka tonics apparently fortify me with, the night was a great success thanks in no small part to getting my first digitos and having her friend give me and one of the aforementioned gringas a ride home.

tis all for now.

more to come,

grego

Prototipo

These are the first 2 emails I sent out:

Gente,

Mucho ha pasado y viene largo éste.

Acabo de cumplir mi primera semana hábil en Baires. La semana ha sido dominada por nuestro calendario de orientación. Los highlights incluyen:

1. Examen escrito: leean una columna de opinión y REPRODUZCAN los argumentos del autor en 200 palabras usando 7 clausulas de una lista de 10 -- para que, no obstante, sin embargo, por más que, aunque, por lo tanto. Se podrán imaginar que el resultado fue una estupidez. No se puede escribir 200 palabras sobre el verdadero efecto del uso de celebridades en la publicidad usando 7 estúpidas clausulas. Tienen 90 minutos. Después una carta de 200 palabras describiendo un objeto representativo de su país. (Ms. López, si terminamos antes nos podemos ir a Snack?). Clocked in at 14 minutes 30 segundos that included a pit stop for pen-change. Boo-yah

2. Examen oral: Discusión uno a uno sobre temas que incluyeron la necesidad (or lack thereof) de una visa para los argentinos en EE.UU.

3. Un sinnúmero de: "pour favour, low see and tow, uhmmm, y comb owe say dee say"s. Es un poco desesperante más allá de lo obvio. Además, como su español es tan básico, no se puede hablar de temas de verdad o usar palabras trisilábicas.

4. Tuvimos dos excursiones con guías profesionales muy interesantes. En cuestión de cuadras el panorama cambia de académico francés, a bohemio, a colonial y de vuelta a francés.

Pero buenos Buenos Aires sin lugar ha duda ha a ser facinante. La ciudad tiene acento Catalán. Yo creo que de las últimas tres ciudades (porque Chapel Hill está out of the question) en la es que he vivido en los últimos 18 meses, Baires es en la que más me puedo imaginar viviendo. El tema de seguridad me preocupa un poco pero estoy seguro q es producto de la excesiva charla de seguridad dirigida a gringos impulsada por scare tactics. Es interesante porque en la ciudad hay consumismo pero no se siente el rat race de NY. La gente window shop (mucho) como hobbie a todas horas y camino a donde sea q vayan: a la oficina, después del almuerzo, a casa.

Aquí termino este mail pq si sigo me voy a omitir cosas por cansado. Si hay algo que no conté y quieren saber preguntenmelo y se lo contesto independientemente.

Ciao,

Grego

***** Mis números: Cel: 15-3-1716-241. Casa: 4813-2913

Varios avisos. Para poder mandar un sólo mail a un público tan heterogéneo como los es esta lista, los emails que me mando durante mi estadia en Baires van a tener errores gramaticales, ortográficos, anglicismos, frases y palabras en inglés, spanglish e inventadas, argentinismos, malas (y peores) palabras y demás. Si les resulta conflictivo, pueden corregir el mail y reenviarlo al grupo de forma constructiva o dejar de leerlos.En resumen voy a redactar estos mails de la forma que me requiera menos esfuerzo, sean más coloquiales y más claros para la mayoría de los recipients.

Segundo, si se topan con alguna estupidez y no la entienden, déjenla ir. Es probable que sea un inside joke y no me pidan explicarselos. Está la posibilidad de que los termine escribiendo en su totalidad en inglés dependiendo de la demanda por ello de parte de mis amigos de UNC. En vista que el inglés de todos ustedes tienen mejor inglés que el español de ellos, suck it up. Todo esto es para promover que escriba mails lo más frecuente posible. Por último, si están recibiendo el mail y no quieren, o me avisan o salados. Por otro lado, si saben de alguien que querria estar recibiendolos y no lo ven en la lista de direcciones, denle forward.