My Weeks Thus Far (I'm kind of late, but whatever man)

This is a compilation of Emails i've been sending to the professor who is grading my internship for credits...enjoy!

Week three:

what i´ve been doing -

This was the week that I really started to get to know the city. All the other cities that I had ever lived in in central america didn't have this complex of a subway and bus system, and here in Buenos Aires it is extremely easily to get lost if you don't know exactly know where you are going. Even people from Buenos Aires get lost in the subte and are frequently asking where this train goes, which stops are where, and in the station which side of the tracks to get on. I prefer the subway over the metro because the subway is simpler to navigate. There are 4 parallel lines under the city, with one line that connects all of them near the center. I live in front of the center station of the connecting line, so i essentially live in the “time square” of buenos aires, where all the trains come together. My office is at the end of one of the connecting lines, so I can actually walk to where my internship is but I enjoy taking the train because... I like trains.

my spanish -

still slightly struggling with the ch´s instead of ll and y, as well as the vos and sos thing. Its not that i don’t understand it just takes me a second longer to think about what “vos sos” means instead of “tu eres”. I can also tell that a lot of people dont understand me that well because I speak with a central American accent. I usually get through though, leaving most people bewildered because I speak like i´m from the caribbean and i´m 6’3 and white. the look on people´s faces is priceless.

Week four: Went to Uruguay! God what a boring country. I had two expectations when going to Uruguay, which was good because i wasn't expecting too much, but they were 1) to get a new stamp in my passport 2) to get American dollars out of the ATM.  In argentina there is an embargo on American dollars, so there is a huge black market for American dollars, so they call the exchange rate the “Blue Dollar Rate” because the 100 note Argentinian peso is Blue in color. Since there is an Embargo on american bills, when you go to the ATM in buenos aires it spits out pesos instead of american dollars, charging your account 1 USD for every 5.23 ARP...however if you go to uruguay, the ATM´s give USD in the touristic towns. So the name of the tourist town I went to was Colonia, and it was a small vilage, with a lot of ruins and not much else. Pretty beaches that weren't so pretty because it was winter, and a lot of people there for the sole purpose of getting American dollars. I went to the ATM and took out 600 USD, and brought them back to BA and exchanged them for the blue dollar rate, , getting 8.5 ARP for 1 USD. The whole weekend in Uruguay including travel cost me about 100 USD, so about 523 pesos. However, if i look at it in a profit perspective i actually made money. say i had taken 600 dollars out of the atm here in BA, i would have gotten 3138 ARP. However, since i sold my dollars on the black market, i got 5100 ARP...minus the 523 it took to get them, i actually got 4577 pesos, so on my vacation i made money, 1439 pesos, or at the international rate, around 275 dollars! This by no means makes me an international criminal, traveling throughout south america laundering dollars and exṕloiting the currency exchange rate for my own profit. In Fact it is so safe, and so common in Buenos Aires, that in the area where the blue dollar exchange occurs, there are police everywhere, not to prevent you from illegally exchanging embargoed american dollars for a higher rate, but to prevent you from getting robbed in the process.

my spanish -

People in Uruguay speak the same as in Argentina, but they're a lot more used to foreigners messing up their language. I learned the phrase “estoy con resaca” which means i'm hungover, whereas in Panama i would say “Tengo una goma”.

Week five: The house I was living in gets broken into and robbed. Really ecstatic about that. The format of the house that I live in is a 6 floor edificio, my floor being the 2nd floor which is basically a boarding house. One night while we were all out at a club or a “boliche”, someone cut the power to our floor so the cameras stopped filming. They climbed up the side of the building to the balcony where the bathroom is, and broken into our floor. The take everything that had anything to do with technology. Which included my laptop, and about 6 other laptops in the house, 2 tablets, all the cords, and our computer bags. When we got home, everything was gone, and I was seconds away from getting on the next plane to the US. I lived in Panama in an apartment similiar to this one, and nothing ever happened. There was nothing that our housing coordinators could do, and making a police report was useless. At least they didnt get my passport, and no one was home when they broke in, that could have been a whole different story..

Week six: I went to Iguazu Falls! Most amazing thing i've ever been to in my entire life. Puerto Iguazu is a small town in the far north of Argentina, very little to do except go to the cataratas. The bus ride is about 18 hours from Buenos Aires, so naturally, I rode in style. I bought the full cama overnight bus, which cost around 1000 pesos, which was pretty cheap considering everything i got..which included dinner, late night snack, and breakfast, a fully reclining comfortable seat, tv in the back of every seat, and all the alcohol a man could ever need. I slept for about 16 hours of the ride because i was so comfortable. We arrived at around 4 in the afternoon, had dinner then slept. At about 9 the next day we caught the 30 minute bus to the cataratas and as soon as we pulled up my wallet started emptying. 170 pesos just to get in, and 360 pesos for the all inclusive tour which was 100 percent worth every dime. I loved every second of it, the cataratas were incredible, and we covered every square foot of the park. we paid for a boat tour which brought us directly underneath the garganta del diablo, i got soaked, and loved it. the whole trip was worth every cent. We also illegally snuck into Brazil by paying a villager with a boat to bring us across the river, just to say i stood in Brazil and didnt have to pay the outrageous 300 dollar reciprocal fee..I got to strand in the tripoints of argentina, paraguay, and brazil all at the same time. that was my favorite trip.

Week seven. Got a job at a hostel, never coming back. Just kidding, but really. I briefly worked at a bar below a hostel while living in Panama, and always felt like it was a pretty fun job. They were looking for someone who was bilingual and was willing to work the night shift, and anyone who knows me can tell you that I have absolutely the worst sleep schedule ever. So I got a job working the night shift at the hostel, 12-8. The pay is awful, but i get free lodging for the rest of my trip, and living in the hostel is a perfect way for me to practice my people skills and meet tons of people. I speak the best english of everyone working at the hostel, which makes it really useful on the night shift when wasted americans want everything. I get to move out of the house that got robbed, and the work at the hostel is really easy. i enjoy it alot

week eight. Got robbed again. This time it wasnt so funny. I went out with a bunch of my Argentinian friends celebrating a birthday, and we were out really late. Argentinians dont usually go to the bars until 2 or 3, which is also very typical of europe. So I was out until around 6, where i decided to take the bus home, I knew exactly where i was going and the route and bus number to take. But i fell asleep, which was the biggest mistake ive ever made while I was abroad. I was rudely awakened by someone on the bus, who pulled me off while I was still half sleeping, and pushed me up against a wall, simultaneously pulling a pistol out of his pants and placing it against my temple. He took everything out of my pockets, which included my cell phone, my wallet, my keys, and my subway card. He then got back on the bus which waited for him, since this all took about 20 seconds, then left me there, stranded, with nothing. I ended up in la boca, the most dangerous part of buenos aires, where all the metros go to park at the end of their route. I had no choice but to just stay there. I waited for like 2 hours until a police car pulled up and asked me what the hell i was doing in the ghetto. I told them I had been robbed, I had no money, and no way to get home. Instead of helping me and making sure I was alright, they gave me 2 pesos, which was enough to ride the bus back to my house. I learned the hard way, and that is what I get for falling asleep on the bus. However what I had were just material things, a cell phone and maybe like 50 dollars cash. They didnt get my passport, and they didnt kill me, and thats what is most important.

Week nine. Despite the robbing, ive managed to keep my attitude high. Life goes on. The best part about this week is there is a congressional meeting for some university in the north, and they're all staying in the hostel, so they are a lot of fun. What a sight to see. none speak English, and they drink everything. Also, this week is the fourth of july, where me and my other american friends plan on throwing an enormous house party, rock music, red white and blue, budweiser, the whole nine yards. Every time i've ever celebrated the 4th of july abroad, it was always the best time, and i´m really excited.

my spanish -

By now my spanish has gotten almost back to the way it was when I was in Panama except i´m getting really confused with words. The spanish is pronounced a lot differently, it is a lot lighter, unlike in Panama where everyone speaks lower, with a more definite tone. I am caught between the two and it is effecting my accent. They also say phrases like “todo bien” instead of “como ´tas” when greating someone, they say “boludo” at the end of every sentence where i would say “awebao” and instead of “dime” they say “decime”, “teneis” instead of “tienes”, and “venis” instead of “ven” or “venga”...girls are called “minas” instead of “mujeres” and men are referred to as “tipo” instead of just “este man” in Panama. When you say gracias to someone, they say “no, a vos, or no, de la nada” instead of “esta bien, or igual”. Other argentinian words i learned are “kilombo” which is a mess, “boliche” which is a club, the phrase “zarpado”, and them saying “che” instead of “oye”. at the store they say “bolsa te doy?” instead of “necesitas la bolsa?”...they also say things in a different order, like “que tu vas a hacer hoy” they say “que haras hoy vos”, their spanish is more complex and i need to translate in my mind more instead of responding automatically....the other thing i noticed about their communication style is the use of their hands, which is clearly an influence of the italian culture. Not just like anyone would use their hands, but so typically italian, shaking their knuckles while their fingers are at a point, which seems to be the gesture for everything, whereas in central america, they would scrunch their nose and cheeks when they asked a question. they also say phrases like “asi es la cuestion che”, before starting a sentence completely irrelevant, and call people “chabon” instead of “pelao”. i'm starting to read my old books again from translation and conversation as well as the advanced grammar class i took a while back, so that in this last month before i go home i can really sew my spanish together and get it to where i want it.