Toes in the Water

Well it looks like Argentina has rubbed off on the United States, from what I hear. The protests about the new security measures at airports rings of a manifestación Buenos Aires-style. Take that, TSA. I don’t think there is a word for big body scanner in porteño Spanish- I walked through the metal detector with half a spaceship in my pocket and I got a big smile and a ‘have a nice trip’. I could have been smuggling raw Argentine beef and all I would have got was a ‘what kind of cut?’ question thrown my way. Add that to my immigration officer who found it more efficient to be texting while stamping a friend’s passport as I waited next in line, and you’ve got a water-tight system. Officer Juan then got up to fill up his water bottle and continue texting, leaving about 10 of us stranded there in line as we watched him successfully not fill up his bottle and just stand feet away from his desk staring at his phone. Power trip 101.

Our ferry captain seemed to think that going faster than a sloth eating a banana is against the law, so our trip that could have taken about an hour wound up taking 3. I spent the hours crossing the Rio de la Plata on the top deck catching up with friends and not feeling sorry for everyone dealing with sub-50 degree temperatures back north. Once there, as we walked up the tree-lined driveway to Mario’s place on the outskirts of town, the semester-long debate over Mario’s source of income resurfaced. Phantom multi-national corporation? Smuggling business? Secret President of Argentina? His house in Colonia doubles as a bed and breakfast, but I would really call it a private estate. It has a lemon orchard, pool, pond, mansion of a house, and enough land on which to build the Field of Dreams.

We had a Thanksgiving southern hemisphere-style, with turkey and yams mixed with fruit, hummus, pumpkin spread and cranberry sauce on steroids in 90-degree heat. Someone had the ingenuity to bring along a football as well. After making my case to be the niners' QB, I had to answer the call of the beach. We wandered down a dirt road, with no end in sight (I seem to have a knack for walking down dirt roads with no end in the middle of no where) but eventually stumbled across a beach fit for a postcard, dilapidated boat on the sand and all.

Food was the farthest thing on my mind as the sun started to set behind the black hole of smog hovering over Buenos Aires. But there I was, eating dinner outside on a clear, warm summer night with the rio de la plata a few hundred feet away. If I really have to, I'll suffer through it.

After walking out of my posada the next morning, in which every angel painting, picture, or figurine known to man graces every surface (the name of the place is posada del angel - I don't know if they needed to get so literal) in the place, I wandered up the coast to find a beach to call home for the day. Turn on 'Toes' by the Zac Brown Band and you'll get an idea of my daylight hours. The big questions, those really difficult ones, were how big the frisbee field should be, if I should go in the water or not and if I wanted a choripan or chivito for lunch. I took hours deliberating. After those many hours we passed away the night after an all-program dinner by a fire on the beach watching the thunderstorms across the river over Buenos Aires.

We just couldn't get the beach out of our system in one day, so we all piled into probably the only 4 taxis in town and headed to a spit of sand a few km outside of the city. We were the only people there, which might have been due to the perfect storm bearing down on the coast. The sun was non-existant, winds were high and whipping sand around like Roger Federer makes any opponent run. It was painful. We weren't alone on the beach though - we shared our hurricane with a herd of cattle. If I were a cow in Uruguay I'd for sure hit the beach. We went up to them and all I could think of was running back the other way with 15 angry cows behind me. Who needs San Fermin when you can do it on the beach in Uruguay? I think they were too busy eating sand to care, so we skipped rocks and made faces at them and only got a face-full of cowpies in return. They know who's king of the beach.

We could only take so much of the Sahara Sandstorm, so after a few hours we packed up and retreated back to the cobblestone streets and 1960s cars of Colonia. The taxi service sent one too few, so what do you know but three of us were walking down a dirt road with no end in sight until it showed up. I rounded out my Uruguayan food adventures back in Colonia with a chivito, which is essentially the best steak sandwich you've ever had. Throw in a little sand for crunch, and there's nothing better. Ice cream sounded like a good idea to balance out the protein, so a couple of us decided to walk up the street to an ice-cream store. It looked great. We were literally standing across the street when probably the entire elementary school population of Colonia walked into the ice cream store. We just looked at each other and laughed. It was a sign. We settled for kiosk ice cream and popsicle sticks instead of cones. A little lawn-chair time next to the posada's pool and five different angel statues rounded out the day before jumping on another three-hour ferry back to Uruguay's big brother across the river.

So how was your Thanksgiving?

So You Want to Take a Final

STOMP is good no matter where or when you see it. I took a few friends who had never seen it before to the traveling show when it made a stop here in BA last weekend, and they walked out of there tapping handrails and making a bad attempt at beat boxing. It was a phenomenal show; they did a great routine with some stereotypical folding chairs, along with the traditional brooms, lighters and trash can lids. They had the entire place mic'd up, and when they seriously got rocking (like during the sign wall picture above, or during the trash can lid part) the whole theater was vibrating. The 8 year old behind us uttered several no me gusta!'s (I don't like it!) as it seemed as if the whole place was about to come down. I thought it was awesome. Every single parent who took their kids to the show I know will regret it for the next week, with forks finding every surface and sound during dinner each night.

Sunday saw me browsing through the markets scattered around the city. While browsing through the countless different items for sale (some of them real head scratchers; they left such an impression on me that I can't even remember what they are) I enjoyed some music and watched some tango dancers do their thing. One guy's product was a little device that makes a chicken noise if you pull a string. It sounded so similar to a chicken that, yeah, I bought one. Impulse buy if there ever was one. For $1.25, I think the bank account can handle it. Now I can annoy just about everyone near me with a constant chicken clucking. In the middle of class, in the middle of dinner, on the bus, behind a random person on the street- I'll be my own traveling comedy show. If the next post talks about me looking for new housing/exploring hostel options/getting deported, you'll know why.

The interesting thing about the markets, though, is how suddenly I was thrown back into the middle of tourist central here in Buenos Aires. Over the last few months I feel like I've integrated pretty well into the BsAs lifestyle. I wouldn't call myself a local by any means, but I think I've definitely reached a sort of half-way point between absolute tourist who gets nailed by two old ladies and bird poop (that fun fact and only that fun fact made it into the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn's daily newspaper, the other day) and porteño maestro. Hearing people talking about basic spanish language points or just watching tourists be blatant tourists made me want to get out of there.

None of those tourists have to take finals, unlike yours truly. I'll take having four of them spread out over about three and a half weeks, with one of them being a paper though. Taking a final is normally a very straightforward pursuit. You study, you come to class, you sit down, you write your final, and you go home and remember you have a life. Here, on the other hand, things work a little differently. You'd think by now I'd have learned that things don't happen as expected in this country, but oh no. Taking a final at UCA was quite the experience.

First, you have to register for the final. A little odd, seeing as I was already registered for the class and I figured that the finals came with the entrée, but hey this isn't a buy-one-get-one-free country. I rolled with it - no problem. All signed up, I get to UCA at 8:40 or so for a 9:00 final, because the study abroad program staff recommended that we double-check which room the final is in. That is of course not an easy process (or I just don't know what I'm doing, since I went to several wrong places before running into a classmate who I followed to the right place) but eventually found that my final was in a different room from my regular lecture classroom.

I finally made it to the classroom, with a few minutes to spare. As I looked around, I noticed that absolutely everyone looked like they were going to a wedding. Suits, ties, well-put-together chicas, the works. UCA students dress well normally, but this was a whole other level. And there of course was yours truly in jeans, a T-shirt and shoes the farthest thing from dress shoes not called flip-flops. Fitting in is for suckers, right?

The two professors didn't show up until about 10:30 because they were finishing another final. It was nice to get a little extra study time in, for sure. But that extra study time turned into about 6 hours. I sat in that room waiting for my turn (they were oral finals which were done in front of everyone, believe it or not) for 6 whole hours. I was the very last one to go. The benefit to that though, was that I found out my grade quickly - no several week waiting period like back at Penn, which was nice.

I could be spoiled by Penn/YIS testing techniques, but 6 hours for 18 or so oral exams seems a little excessive. I'll bring my chicken to my next final to keep me occupied, just in case.

The Big Dance

The parks in this city are easily some of my favorite places. The people you meet, the things you see; I know I've said it before, but if you want to get to know a city, go to the parks. Last Friday I met up with some friends to toss a frisbee around, and we did it in the only open space we could find in the park we went to- a hard-top volleyball court. We weren't bothered for at least an hour, but eventually some guys showed up wanting to use the court to play. We said fine; we were reasonably tired as it was. We got to chatting with these sub 6ft. volleyball players, and stayed to watch them play. Now volleyball is a generous definition of what we watched. What it really was was a method to figure out who buys the beer for the night. Guys were playing with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths and basically just throwing the ball back and forth over the net as opposed to hitting it. Add to the fact that each team tried to cheat the other in typical Argentine-sports-fashion, and you've got an extremely entertaining match. We were going to jump in and play but judging by how long the first game was taking we wouldn't have gotten into a game until midnight.

It's a good thing that I didn't play volleyball until midnight, as I had some very serious work to do the next afternoon. I found my way with some friends to the Gran Premio del Bicentenario, the grand daddy of Argentine horse races- the Kentucky Derby of Argentina, if you will. It wasn't as flashy or as much of a big-time event as its counterpart in the northern hemisphere, and no one dresses up pretty much at all, but it was still a great time. The hard-core betters reading their magazines that take a PhD to understand were out in force amongst a few thousand casual fans like us. We watched 5 races or so, and placed some bets of course. If you ever want to pick the 4th place horse in a race, drop me a note because I'm extremely good at it. I picked the 4th place horse 4 out of 5 times - needless to say I didn't come out ahead on the day. However, hearing the rapid-fire race announcer relaying the race combined with the intense, quasi-throw-your-program-at-the-track crowd cheering on their horses was pretty comical and made up for any lack of luck. Spanish is a passionate language, but that crowd took it to a whole other level.

It wound up being a tight race - although not a photo finish, but close enough to make it interesting. We had a great view of the awards area, and as soon as the winner crossed the finish line there was the owner jumping around as happy as can be. It was really pretty cool to see a major horse race - I definitely want to get to the Kentucky Derby eventually. We watched one more race after the awards ceremony in which about 50 trophies were handed out before calling it good.

That night I headed out to La Noche de los Museos with Laura and some of her friends. This is an event put on by the city that really every city should do- for one night, just about every museum in the city has free entry. As we're in Argentina, when I say for one night I mean until 3am (officially, but there were still lines out the door beyond 3). The buses provide free service as well for the night - all in all a great deal, and the city really took advantage of it.

After getting home as daylight started creeping across the sky, the next day saw me put the finishing touches on an essay (yes I do do work) before leaving to go watch Matias my host-brother perform in a play. It was a play targeting children, as it was a comedy based on the traditional prince-princess plot with the usual jester and evil magician. He and the other two actors got the crowd involved, and it was a great atmosphere and from what I could tell a hit. The theater itself was stark but still had a lot of character- it was a one-room place with a stage, walls covered with locals' art and open space filled with plastic chairs for seating. Not quite Carnegie, but no matter - a stage is a stage, and I (and the rest of the crowd) thought Matias did really well as good ol' Prince Charming. Next up for the future oscar-winner is a part in a movie (his first) with apparently a reasonably famous french actress. His career seems to be off to a good start!

As for my career picking the right horse, I'm in a serious slump and there's no end in sight. Jake Plummer took up handball - maybe I'll give volleyball a try.