Argentina

This probably isn't true but one of the exchange students told me they were watching Fox News, the guardian of fair and balanced news, and it said "Obama + Biden = Osama bin Laden, Coincidence?" And then, John McCain chose the Sarah something the governor from Alaska as VP. Let's be honest for a second, the republican party isn't altruistically trying to advance women empowerment. They are trying to piggy back on the success of Hilary Clinton to possibly suck away female votes from the Democrats. It seems like the Republicans realize that in order to win the election they are going to have to pretend like they are more liberal to snatch up democratic votes. I feel like the United States was stagnant during the presidency of Gee Dub, and I fear that if we foolishly elect McCain our power will slip further. With our deficit, the war, and a rumbling economy we can't afford any slip up and China and the EU are more than willing to pick up any slack we give ...

First off, people with umbrellas are very, very reckless when they walk. They have no concern for your safety or dryness. Those little pokers on the tips of umbrellas could easily blind someone and if a umbrella merely brushes against you, you are instantly wet and offended. This has bugged me for a long time and it feels better to get if off my chest. You could take the sweetest old lady in the world, but as soon as you equip her with an umbrella she become public enemy number 4 just after texters, sway walkers, and rolly-backpackers. Also, Umbrella is a terrible terrible song. Just finished up soccer practice and I am about to go to my last basketball practice because I´ve decided soccer is better. The rest of my team, including the coach, is going to McDonalds for a healthy snack I guess. As I said before the culture surrounding McDonalds is totally diferent here, it´s more of a chic place to go with your friends as opposed to a place to sastify your addiction, obesity, and di...

So I in a totally new apartment now in Belgrano. It seems like old news to me but I realized I haven't updated the blog since Friday. The old apartment was ok, but the bario sucked, and the owner was a bruja (witch). The new apartment is the complete opposite. When we first visited the new apartment there were no desks so we told them we wanted desks and wa la, we had them. In the old apartment we didn't have heat for the first 10, and last 5 days; but the heat has worked flawlessly in the new one. In the new apartment everything is clean and works; in the old apartment when we arrived there was still garbage from the people before, you couldn't put any wieght on the bottom stair, and two of the slats in the sofas were broken so you could only sit on one side. In the new apartment when you leave the front door you are on a wide side walk with small cafe's and shops; in the old apartment when you left you looked out onto a delapidated park and walls with graffiti....

First off, if you don't speak Spanish you're going to have no clue what I'm talking about so that sucks for you I guess. Alright, I thought I'd impart some knowledge as to what I have learned in Spanish since I have been here. The first thing you'll notice when you come to Argentina is that is sounds like Italian. Argentinean Spanish is basically Spanish spoken as if it were Italian. For example, with commands like "Cállate" the accent is usually on the first "a" so it sounds like "KI-yah-tay", in Argentina it's "Calláte" or "kai-JAH-tay". This is also because the double "ll" sound which is normally a "y" sound (tortilla, quesidilla) is a "j" sound (tortijah, quesidijah). Next, is the Vos form ("bos"). Instead of using the "tu" form, they use vos. It works like this: normally tener is tengo, tienes, tiene, tenemos, tenéis, tienen. In Argentina it's te...

Against my better judgment I went out last night at 2:30 a.m. after having been awake since 6:30 am the day before. After a interesting game of Kings with three french girls and two Americans we went to a Hip Hop Club, whatever that means. The music was entirely American and the DJ's were probably the second best I've heard (first goes to the techno DJ's in Whistler). They mixed weird combinations of songs in pretty cool ways, we're talking Red Hot Chili Peppers with 50 Cent, ACDC with DMX... things of this nature. There were only 3 guys in our group and around 8 girls. I felt like the guys were the shepards and the girls were the sheep in this club because there were constantly prowling Argentinean wolves that tried to pick off sheep from the group. The three shepards had to keep the sheep together in a tight circle or else they'd get unwillingly scooped up by the wolves and it would take quite a bit of maneurvering by the shepards and sheep to get back them ...

So the title of this blog is "La Cultura", which doesn't have a direct translation in English that I can think of. About the last blog "Truths", I had fucking written gold, but for some reason it didn't publish correctly and all was lost. The information I shared will never be disclosed. Back to La Cultura: First, greetings in Argentina. I think I may have touched on this before but here's a refresher. You are expected to greet every single person in a group when you arrive/leave. If you are a girl you kiss everyone. Girls kiss girls, guys kiss girls, girls kiss guys. Guys have the option, which I like to exercise, of only kissing girls, and extending a hand to guys for a causal hand shake. Barack Obama pounds are not used. So, here's hypothetical you, you've just entered a room with many of your friends. You must greet all of them individually before you can think of doing anything else. It's rude not to. When I had to get my vi...

I just finished up doing a group project with another exchange student, the cool thing was we did the entire thing over Skype. "I have a dream, that one day, little white boys and little black girls, will be able to collaboratively do projects over the internet by streaming live desktop feeds with audio/visual support while never leaving the comfort of their living rooms. I have a dream today." But seriously, that is the future. My roommates got back from Iguazu Falls today and they recommended that when we go we should find a rogue taxi driver to take us to the Brasilian side of the waterfalls without doing customs or getting a visa because the view is simply too spectacular. But, while the view may be amazing, I don't want to get thrown into a Brasilian jail, so we'll have to think about the pro's and con's on that one. This is a pretty busy week for me, I have basketball practice Tuesday-Friday, soccer Wednesday & Friday, school Tuesday-Thursday, a...

Normally I have thought about what I want to say for my blog ahead of time so that its more interesting. Not this time, that's right I'm free styling. So watch out. Today I had basketball practice at 3:30, so I left around 2:15, it took me about an hour to get there. At 3:27, or three minutes before practice was meant to begin, I received a text message from the coach saying that practice was moved to Tuesday. Sweet, thanks coach. Thanks for the advance notice on that one. Way to look out. Maybe I deserved it though, because on Friday I arrived to practice 45 minutes late with two liters of beer in a bag with me. This can be reasonably explained however; the train from soccer practice was delayed 40 minutes and I had to buy beer before basketball practice for the party I was going to later that night because the shops would have been closed after practice. Still, showing up halfway through practice with a bag of beer never looks good even with an airtight and well rea...

I for some random reason and wondered what the most googled terms were in the world. Here are the results: the data happens to be from 2006 bebo (some kind of social networking site) myspace world cup metacafe (some kind of youtube knock off) radioblog wikipedia video rebelde (don't know) mininova(a site to illegally download things) wiki In fact, the results are not at all interesting; however, please note the close runner up's, at 12th was "free porn", 15th was "North River County 8th Grade Science Fair," and 26th was ironically "Most Googled Terms." Way to go wikipedia holding down the 6th and 10th slot. So my classes may prove to be difficult. I have three large course packs that are a collection of photocopied texts in both English and Spanish. All in all there is about a 1,000 pages of text I need to read, with two pages photocopied per page. By Tuesday (Monday is a holiday), I have to read for my Contemporary International Relation...

Alright, exactly one month has passed since I have been in Argentina and that means it's time for a little self-inspection detectional retrospection and cross-sectional reflection. Let's see, quick recap. I arrived the 12 of July and stayed in San Telmo for 3 nights, moved to the Microcentro for 4 nights, Mendoza for 4 nights, Palermo for 7 nights, and in my apartment for about 10 days now. Do I feel different? I don't know. I have a better understanding of Buenos Aires, it's layout, how to get around, how things are done, where I can buy food, how to find moneda , and how to cross the street. I can speak Castellano better than when I left, and I can understand it better but I am by no means fluent. I still haven't had that dream in Spanish I've heard so much about. I guess the biggest thing that has changed this first month is that I feel relaxed in Buenos Aires and can call it home for now. It has changed from a foreign unknown to a less foreign more k...

School "actually" starts tomorrow meaning homework, classes, participation, learning, knowledge, all the usual same old bull shit. Like I said, last week was just to pick the classes you wanted (although not really because they wouldn't let me into Operations Management), and now I have to do things. In fact, I have homework right now that I am avoiding. Just some reading, don't worry about it, I'm not. I'm sitting at about 20 hours of class a week. I could be at 13 or so but I decided to take a history of the 20th century course to expand my mind. No offense Mr. Joling but I don't think we covered everything in IB H20. Weekend, weekend, weekend... it was good. Yes, i'd say good perfectly encapsulates my weekend. It wasn't great, but then again, it wasn't bad. Good is exactly the word I need. Friday I went to soccer and basketball practice, (smashed at basketball again), and then went to a party at one of the apartments of the exchan...

So, our friendly Argentinian friend Alfreddo who told us we could have the Fire Pole/Pool Apartment, decided to change his mind last night. So we officially do not have the apartment. We are still pretty disilusionado about the whole thing because we thought that it was finalized, but apparently not. We will visit two more apartments today. The first day of class I was taken aback when class was paused while the instructor removed a stray dog from the classroom. I learned today that the stray dog`s name is Andre and he lives at the Universidad of San Andres. Everybody knows him, and I`m told he studies business. I apoligize Andre for assuming you were and uncivilized stray dog. I would also like to make note of another dog that I come in contact with each day. This dog lives at the train station and every morning he chases and barks at every incoming and outgoing train. Trains come every five minutes or so, so this dog is really has his work cut out for him. I never see him ...

I'm completely exhausted. After waking up at 6:30 am for the third time (there was no charm involved), going to class until 5:30 pm, soccer until 7:30 pm, and basketball until 9:30 pm, I can officially declare that I am tired. It's a good tired though, because you know you did something productive, but tired nonetheless. At soccer practice I could play with the Argentinians but I was by no means a stand out. They are tricky little creatures, and very clever on the ball. However, when it comes to defending my size give me a huge advantage over the hobbit-like Argentinians. I am told the team is lacking both center backs so that may end up where I am, it's my position anyway. Also, Argentinians are really lazy when it comes to defending. There's no glamour in defending I guess, so they can't be bothered with it. Two American girls wanted to play for the girls team but at the last second the practice was canceled so they came to play with the guys team as they...

I am still to terrified to attempt using the bidet that is looming in our bathroom. I'll probably never use it. I've come to realize that some of my blogging is random, off-topic, and at times weird; I do not apologize for this, but realize that it is my only English outlet. La moneda is still an issue, in fact, I have to plan my entire day around how to get more moneda (change) for the subsequent day so that I can take the bus (moneda only) in the morning. I must start the day with 1 peso. I use this peso on the bus and get 10 centavos change, I then pay for the train using exactly a two peso note plus the 10 centavos so that I get 1 peso change from the 1.10 peso fare. When I return home I repeat the process, reverse order, so that at all times I have a peso (sometimes two), so that I can return home. I also must remember to buy a bagette each day so that I have bread for breakfast and a sandwhich. If you haven't seen this video, while we're on the s...

There are some exchange programs where students are taught in English. And there are others where students are taught in the mixture of Spanish and English depending on the difficulty of the subject matter so as to ease them into the swing of things. La Universidad de San Andres is neither of these things. Full blown classes in Spanish as if I've spent the last 19 years 4 months and 7 days of my life learning, speaking, breathing Spanish. Well I haven't. No, I began my Spanish career 5 years ago in Spanish 1 at Capital High School with a German teacher who taught himself Spanish over the summer so that he wouldn't lose his job the following fall. Mr. Neunshwander. Three years of high school Spanish, 4 quarters in college, and boom, here I am. Considering this I actually did quite well; however, this is going to take some adjusting. You know how you can tune somebody out if you're not interested in what they're saying? Well it's 10x easier to tune someb...

Right, my roommates are great. We speak entirely in Spanish and very very occasionally if I don't know a super key word I'll ask Alix but other than that we Castellano ("Cast-e-jah-no"). Occasionally they will speak French to each other but that doesn't really hinder my learning Spanish. It's only bad when I hear English because then my brain switches from Spanish into English and I have to remember the switch back. It's not like I'm thinking in Spanish obviously but it affects my ability to speak it. Continuing on my quest to learn basic French while I am down here since I have two native speakers living with me and I can ask them any question, I went to the book store and purchased a begining French book written in Spanish. That may have been overambitous but I'll give it a shot. My Spanish is worst in the morning when I just wake up because I'm thinking in English and it's hard for my brain to function when I'm tired. On Frida...