My shadow tells me...

I have a pretty good sense of direction, and rarely ever get lost.  I haven’t gotten lost here in Buenos Aires either (lost lost, though I have missed street signs and made errors in navigation), but something has been nagging me since I came here.

It has been very subtle… and it’s taken me a long time to figure out exactly what it was that was bothering me.

Subconsciously, my shadow tells me which direction I’m walking.  I don’t look up in the sky at the sun nearly as much as I look to the ground, and my shadow is a little piece of information that I process without even knowing it.  

In the US, when I’m walking north, my shadow is in front of me--- at least a little bit.  When I walk south, it’s behind.  Here it’s switched around, and it’s such an obvious thing now that I have thought about it, but it really screwed with my head for a while.

Stopping to smell the flowers

The Floralis Generica is in Recoleta, not more than a 10 min. walk from my apartment. It’s huge, and at night, the petals close up like a real flower.

I like real flowers too.

18 more days

I have 18 more days here, and already I want to come back.

I told myself before I came that no matter how much I liked Buenos Aires, that after my month here, I would go somewhere else after the holidays.  The only thing that I’m limited by, in choices of destinations, is access to high-speed internet.  So, there were a lot of places on my list of possibilities…

But now, I think that I want to stay here…

El Castellano comienza

I finally started my Spanish classes.  

Initially I was going to take classes from a school called Verbum, pero on Monday I walked there and discovered that it was too far away… it took me almost an hour to get there, and I didn’t really want to take a taxi every day to school.  So I started looking for other schools that were closer to me (with my newfound knowledge of the city)… I finally found a private instructor that will tutor me for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week.

My first meeting with her was today, and I’ve already learned a lot.  One of the most important things that I learned is that the “y” and “ll” sounds in Argentina are very different from Spain, and most of Latin America.  This is part of the reason why I have been having such a difficult time understanding what people are saying.

For example:  In Spanish, “Yo” means I.  It’s pronounced how it looks to an American.  In Argentina, “Yo” is pronounced “zho”.  In Spanish, “ella” means she.  It’s pronounced “A-ya”.  In Argentina, it’s pronounced “A-sha”.

It might not seem like that big of a difference, but when you’re struggling with a limited vocabulary to begin with, it is HUGE.  One of my cross-streets is Ayacucho--- when I’ve heard people say “Ashacucho” I’ve had no idea what they were talking about.

I’m glad that I’ve finally started classes.  My instructor seems very good, and the one-to-one lessons allows me to learn off of tangents, rather than in linear-style which I’m not that fond of.

Purple Trees

This picture is near the Plaza San Martin.

I don’t know what kind of trees these are…. they are all over the city though. I even asked the taxi driver, on the way from the airport, what they were… but the language barrier prevented me from learning their name.

I’ve probably taken a least 50 pictures of them over the past week. They are definitely something that I will never forget about Buenos Aires.

Recoleta Cemetary

I included a picture of Recoleta Cemetary in my last post, but I didn’t have time to talk about it.  It’s the oldest cemetery in Buenos Aires, established in 1822, and covered over 4 square blocks of area.  It’s filled with over 6400 mausoleums, and literally, is a mini-city of the dead.

The tombs are really packed tightly together in some places… some alleys weren’t wide enough to walk more than single-file through, and at times I felt sort of claustrophobic surrounded by tombs.  

It’s really beautiful though.  Some of Argentina’s most famous (and richest) people are buried here…. Presidents, generals, and other aristocrats… I recognized a lot of the names on the tombs, just because of the street names that I’ve been walking around on and passing.

Eva Peron is buried here also (Evita).  Her tomb was the only one where there was a constant crowd around--- people taking pictures and leaving flowers.

There are about 75 stray cats that live in the cemetery, and they were my favorite.  There is a group of women that feed and take care of them, so they must be the happiest cats in the world.  The whole place is a perfect cat playground--- and they hop and slink around and on top of the tombs.  

Photomerge

Before I left for Buenos Aires, my parents gave me a digital camera as an early Christmas present. It's an awesome camera, and I'm really having a lot of fun playing with it.

The other day, I even recorded a 2:30 minute movie of a tango demonstration. The quality is amazing, and I wish that the file was small enough to share here (280 Mb is a little unwieldy).

I'm planning on posting a bunch of pictures here though, and I'm just starting the process of sorting and cropping and optimizing them for the web.

I'm using Adobe Photoshop CS2, and have just learned how to use the "Photomerge" tool.... it might be the coolest thing that I've ever seen. It seems like I am often unable to fit a whole scene into my camera's field of view when I'm composing a shot, but with Photomerge, it doesn't matter. It automatically merges two pictures into each other, and even fixes the differences in perspective. So I can just take a bunch of pictures, each containing a small portion of what I want to capture, and it will automatically put them all together for me.

I'm in awe. I've never been much of a photographer--- but with this camera and this software, it's amazing what I can do.

Here is an example of something I shot in the Recoleta cemetary. It was orginally three pictures, because the tomb was so large (I've deliberately not-cropped it, in order to show the perspective edits):

Mi amigo nuevo, Fred

I met a guy named Fred the other day.


I was sitting in a small park near the Obelisco at the corner of Cerrito y Sarmiento at about 5pm, eating some empanadas that I had just bought.  Fred was weaving and wobbling around on the curb, sometimes almost falling into the traffic, and when he tripped over the small black iron fence around the park, I thought that he surely was going to crack his head open on the tiled walkway.  He was holding a small crumpled plastic grocery bag in his hand, and occasionally sucking in and out of it.

He sat down on the bench right next to me, and I moved over a little to give him more room.

He told me his name was Fred, and that he was from Argentina.  I introduced myself and shook his hand.  I continued to eat my empanadas as I talked to my new friend.

The crumpled up plastic bag was actually three plastic bags, triply-bagged.  There was an opaque-white substance in the innermost bag, and when he exhaled he smelled like burnt rubber.

I asked him what was in his bag, and he offered me some.  I politely declined, and he thought that was really funny.  “Nunca, nunca, eh?  Ha Ha Ha!”  We talked a little about empanadas.  Me gustan las empanadas.

Fred didn’t look too good.  He was wearing cut-off jean shorts (which is kind of rare here in Argentina-- shorts, that is) and each of his knees and elbows were just one complete scab.  Also, he had quite a few scrapes on his hands and chin.

Despite all his wounds, he seemed to be feeling just fine.

I'm my ISP's bitch...

The internet was down for the last 24 hours.

Of course, it happened the day that I got my new monitor, and was ready to start working.

When the internet is down--- I can't work, I can't use the telephone (VoIP), I can't communicate at all... I can't find things, like addresses and maps (I wasn't able to go to Verbum and sign up for spanish classes yesterday)... I'm completely dependent on and at the mercy of the internet.

And, I never realized how theraputic calling customer service is... I couldn't call customer service and complain--- I don't even know how to complain in spanish. It's been a frustrating 24 hours.

A drunk gets viciously bounced and I make a $100 mistake

On Wednesday night, I was on a mission to find a bar.  My Lonely Planet Buenos Aires guide listed an Irish bar called “The Shamrock” that was in my neighborhood, so I left my apartment at about midnight in search of Guinness.

After wandering around for about an hour, I had worked up an appetite and stopped at a restaurant for some pizza.  They had two choices of sizes--- grande y chica.  The “chica” was obviously smaller, so that’s what I ordered, although it didn’t make me feel muy masculino (“chica” does mean little girl, yes?).  I ordered una cerveza to try to make up for it.  Though, I felt even less masculino when I was only able to eat ¾ of the pie.

I was lost, and had given up on finding the Shamrock until I saw it on my way back home.  The bar is actually pretty cool--- the bartenders understand English, and the patrons are a mix of about 25% foreigners and 75% locals.

So, I was drinking at the bar when this really drunk British guy appeared and started talking to a guy from Manchester that I had briefly met a few minutes before.  The bartenders yelled at him for something (I think he had brought in a bottle of liquor and was drinking it) and everything was cool for a few minutes until there was a loud crash against the window about 10 feet away.  Then a pretty Argentinean girl hurried out of the bar with her hand holding her head, and every one was trying to figure out what had happened.  The bartender even asked me “Que paso?!?” and I said “I don’t know! No se!”.  

Fairly quickly, the staff figured out that the drunk Brit had thrown a bottle that bounced off of the window, and the bouncer came over and grabbed him and forcefully had to take him out of the bar.  But that wasn’t the end of it.  The drunk Brit wasn’t happy about leaving, and he and the bouncer scuffled outside, while a lot of the people in the bar pressed up against the window to watch.  

The bouncer and the drunk were separated, and people returned to drinking, when the Brit came back and threw a punch at the bouncer.  Right in front of the window--- and the bouncer, who was just a small scrappy little guy, punched him a couple of times, knocked him down, and then just started kicking the crap out of him…. he must have kicked him six or seven times before another person who worked at the bar pulled him away.  The drunk guy was all bloody and someone helped him up and down the street.

So that was kind of exciting.

I stayed at the bar for a couple more hours, mainly talking to an Argentinean guy that I had met, Alvaro.  The bar closed at about 5am, and Alvaro and I walked back together for about 6 blocks until our paths diverged.

So then, I was just at the door of my apartment building, when this guy came up and told me about this bar that was open that was just next door called “What’s Up?” and gave me a little promotional card and led me inside.

This is kind of where alcohol started clouding some of my decisions.  The bar was nice and modern looking, and I didn’t really notice that most of the people there were women.  Of course, I noticed that there were a lot of pretty women, I just didn’t notice that there was only about a 1:5 man-to-woman ratio.  I ordered a gin and tonic, and a girl sat down on my left and started talking to me.  The bartender gave me the drink and told me “Treinta pesos.”  Treinta pesos is about U$S 10 dollars--- so, not overly expensive for a drink in NYC or San Francisco, but crazy expensive in Buenos Aires.  The Shamrock was expensive, and Sapphire tonics were only 8 pesos!

I said “Treinta pesos!?!”, and paid her, but left no tip.  I made a silent resolution to drink my drink and leave as quickly as possible.  Another girl sat down on my right, and they wondered if I might like to sit at a comfy booth with them (all of this in a very broken English/Spanish dialogue).

I began to realize where I was.

So I talked to the girls for a bit at the booth while trying to finish my drink, with both of them hanging off either arm, which made it more difficult for me to drink quickly.  The bartender came over twice and asked if I would like to buy drinks for them, and what could I say?  So in the course of only 20 minutes, they both had 2 drinks.  They also let me know that I could have sex with them for $150 each, $300 for both of them (about U$S 100 total).

It was actually a very good deal.  In Las Vegas, you can’t even get a massage with a happy ending for less that $100 (I don’t know these figures from personal experience, seriously, it’s just general knowledge that you acquire when you work the casinos), and these were two beautiful young Argentinean women (20 and 26 years old) offering full service.

Now-- the male fantasy of having a threesome with two women is sooo cliché, BUT, it’s just one of those things.  I have to admit that, theoretically, it sounds pretty good.  However, I’m always reminded by a scene from Seinfeld, where, given the opportunity, Jerry turns the offer down.

"I can't. I'm not an orgy guy."
"Are you crazy? This is like discovering Plutonium ... by accident."
"Don't you know what it means to become an orgy guy? It changes everything. I'd have to dress different. I'd have to act different. I'd have to grow a moustache and get all kinds of robes and lotions and I'd need a new bedspread and new curtains I'd have to get thick carpeting and weirdo lighting. I'd have to get new friends. I'd have to get orgy friends. ... Naw, I'm not ready for it."
"If only something like that could happen to me."
"Oh, shut up you couldn't do it either."
"I know."
        - George and Jerry, "The Switch"

I feel the same way.  It seems like a fairly big life decision.

There are some important questions to ask, for which I have no answers.  Are orgy clothes comfortable?  Are they dry-clean only?  What kind of people are orgy friends?  Can you trust them around your girlfriend/wife?

BUT, being a prostitute-guy!!! I can’t even imagine all the complications… and all the anxiety afterwards--- I’d probably check myself into a hospital and think I was dying from some STD at the first sign of a cold.

So no--- my U$S 100 mistake wasn’t purchasing the services of these two girls.  I had to decline.

I always feel bad when I say no to a prostitute though.  I mean, there were prostitutes in Oakland, San Francisco, Las Vegas-- now Buenos Aires-- that I’ve said no to.  So I should be getting used to it.  I always feel bad though-- like I have to apologize.  “Oh, you’re both so pretty, but…” “You’re very sweet, and I appreciate the offer, but…”…

I don’t know.  Maybe it would be easier to be a prostitute-guy….  especially with a legal brothel next door to my apartment.

Oh… so my U$S 100 mistake--- I was charged $200 for the girls drinks, plus my $30 drink, plus they all wanted tips (bartender included), and I already felt bad about turning them down and just kind of wanted to get out of there, so I didn’t object.  Total cost, around $300, or approximately U$S 100.

What I find ironic is that these girls were selling themselves, and I’m the one that is left feeling used.

  

"I spent most of this afternoon writing a new introduction for my autobiography."

It’s only been 12 days since I packed up and left Las Vegas.  The drive back to Michigan took only two days, and so I had a little time to rest and prepare for my trip to Buenos Aires.  

I arrived in Buenos Aires on Tuesday morning with no problemas.  The apartment that I have rented for a month was just as promised, and I’m very impressed with the rental company (www.apartmentsba.com).  I know that I’m paying a lot more than a local would, but considering the convenience of flexible dates (anything over a min. of 3 nights stay), and that everything I need is already set-up for me-- furnishings, high-speed internet, utilities-- plus a once a week maid service (I’ve never had a maid before, it’s not something that I’m used to yet), it actually seems like a pretty good deal.  The apartment is in a great area as well-- I overlook the Recoleta cemetery.

All in all, I feel pretty lucky to have found the apartment, and my cost is no more than what my total monthly bills were in Las Vegas.

Tomorrow, I’m picking up a new computer monitor, and will be able to start working again.  The whole computer monitor buying experience hasn’t been very easy.  It’s very difficult to find a monitor that fits my needs (a minimum of 1600x1200 resolution), and there isn’t much of a market for large monitors in Argentina.  Plus, the language-barrier makes shopping for anything a challenge.

I’m also going to get a Spanish-language tutor tomorrow (Verbum).  I think that I might start out with 2 hours of class a day, 5 days a week.  I’m not totally without language skills, as I’ve been listening to Pimsleur audio lessons for the last few months, but I want to learn as quickly as possible.

For a first post, I know that this is pretty dull and bland…. but I’m finding it difficult to get started.  Hopefully it’ll get easier as I go on.  Hey, they can’t all be winners!  Come on!  It’s an introductory post, and introductions are always boring… most of the time, I don’t even read introductions, because I figure that if I read everything else, I’ll know what the introduction said anyway (sometimes though, this backfires… After reading everything else, I realize that by reading the introduction, I would have saved myself a lot of wasted time)…

This blog-thing might not have been a good idea… though it seemed like a good idea before I actually started typing… an easy way for my friends and family to follow my life… even more importantly--- a way for me to follow my life… but now, I have performance anxiety…

It’s too much pressure.  I hate you all.

--- The quote in the title is by June Foray, probably best known for being the voice for the cartoon character Rocky in Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.