Día 4: Life like a local

Hola! Life here in Buenos Aires is crazy, but I am really getting a feel for what it would be like to be a true "Porteño"- AKA, "person-from-Buenos-Aires" (literal translation = person of the port). Last night, a large group of us went out around 11:45 PM (really early for going out here...) and stayed out until about 2:30 am (still pretty early. America seems tame compared to the nightlife here!).  As we were in the plaza, we realized that Mondays are not a popular night to go out here, as we were almost the only ones out, with the exception of like 4 locals! Haha! We went to a very cool, chic bar, Tazz, and I'm pretty sure the bartenders kept the bar open just for our group. After we left, I realized the workers started to clean up and shut things down...oops! But I'm sure they enjoyed our American business.

Tazz

 

Tazz

This morning I had my first class at the University. It starts at 9:30 am and ends at 2:30 pm, with 2 short breaks in between. I have two professors, Josefina and Cecilia. Today was Josefina's teaching day (they switch back and forth), and I love her! She is very fun, young, and easy to understand. Already, I have learned a lot. For instance, we learned some more "Argentina specific" vocab words today, which is a little tricky, because a lot of the words I have learned in school in the US, are not used here.

My other real "local Argentinian" experience today was using the post office. My friends and I wanted to buy a sube pass, which is just a re-loadable transit card to use on the subways and buses. However, sube passes can only be bought at the post office, and being foreigners, we had to have our passports and host home addresses to buy one. The post offices here make me very thankful and grateful for the US! We were told to be prepared to wait "all day" when going to the post office, which was true. The post office here handles many things, and you need to take a number and sit in the waiting area until your number is called. We stood for a while, and after some seats cleared out, I grabbed a chair next to a man who had fallen asleep from waiting so long!After we waited for a little over an hour, the workers informed us we could not buy a sube pass at that particular office. Ahh! We are still unsure of why, but need to figure out how to actually get one of these things. At that point, we were all exhausted, called it a day, and departed for our host homes.

My other unique experience of the day was in the subway station. I on my way back from the University to my apartment this afternoon, but was unsure if the subway was headed towards or away from where I needed to go. I attempted to ask a nice looking lady in order to double check, but as I politely asked, "perdon, perdon" (excuse me, excuse me), she just stared straight ahead, totally ignoring me. I felt embarrassed, and a little rejected, however, it is not that people here are rude, they just are cautious. When others ask for help here, or try to talk to strangers, the locals always assume it is a pickpocketing scam and ignore everything. I learned in the culture orientation on day 2 that although our intentions are innocent, the locals here are not going to take a risk and let us "distract" them. Ay! I felt bad this poor lady probably thought I wanted to rob her. :(

My Subway Stop!

Besides that, Freddy cooked dinner tonight, which was served at 9PM. He made the classic dish of Empanadas; Freddy's empanadas were filled with meat and eggs I believe. They are a little similar to a hot pocket, but better, of course! Haha. We also had a salad of tomato chunks and lettuce, which was topped with olive oil and salt. I believe this was my first encounter of vegetables here, with exception of the arugula on my pizza the other day. Apparently, vegetables are harder to get here; fruit also is not injected with the preserves that American grocery stores use, so fruit is bought and eaten very quickly here. During dinner, the water was served, once again, out of the vodka bottle.

Buen Provecho!

I'm pretty exhausted still, and will probably go to bed soon, even though that is probably super lame for the culture here! I still need to get used to all these changes though, as my body is still kind of on the American routine. I just finished watching one of Freddy's dvds, "Frida", a movie about artist Frida Khalo's life. It starred Selma Heyek, and was very interesting.

Película noche!

Well, it is "buenos noches in Buenos Aires" for me now! Tomorrow is another day of classes, adventures, and possibly a trip to buy tickets to the National Soccer Team! Viva Argentina!