Monday, April 19, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
La bomba del tiempo
Friday night I arrived home from my buddy Josh´s house at 6 AM, went to sleep, and woke up at 10AM because of ridiculous construction always happening outside of my room. I tried to go back to sleep but my mind wandered to all of the work I have to do this week and the small amount of time I have to do it. So, I jumped out of bed, made myself a coffee, ate some Ser cookies (delicious), and started reading. With a short break to make some rice for myself, I read from 10ish to 4PM, 6 whole hours, and got roughly 30 pages done. The articles I am currently having to read for my UBA class are so heavily theoretical, so based in abstract notions with no tie to reality whatsoever, and so highly technical, that even if they were translated to English, I would probably shrug them off and not even try to understand them. However, this coming Saturday, the 24th, I have a midterm exam on this material, and if I want to pass it (and I do, considering that if I don´t, they boot me from the class, midway through the semester), I have to get at least a 4 out of 10 on their grading scale (1,2 and 3 are failing grades). My reading continues today, although I cannot start until I return from the asado that I am attending (asado means barbecue) with Roberto and his entire extended family. I am expecting a lot of small talk in Spanish with a lot of people. It should be exhausting haha.
Last night, on a different note, I went to dinner, a bar, and then a super high energy drum show at a cultural center called Konex. First, about 12-14 American friends of mine met up at a restaurant in the ultra chic Palermo to celebrate Adam´s birthday. I had pork ribs, not quite sure what to expect, and they came exactly as they would in the US, barbecues, slathered in barbecue sauce, with a side of french fries. Very funny. The only difference - they don´t bring you napkins, a wet nap, or a plate to put your bones on (c´mon Argentina, get it together).
We then headed over to an expat bar where we enjoyed a few 7 peso drinks (that is, just under 2 dollars for mixed drinks and pints of beer) before heading to la bomba.
La bomba del tiempo is a concert that takes place every monday and sells out, from what I am told, every monday. It is held in a cultural center downtown, basically a giant refurbished warehouse with a stage, that is filled up with dirty hippies, choked with cigarette and marijuana smoke, sweat, 1 litre plastic cups of beer, and awesome awesome high energy drumming. It was fun, I got to get my hippie dancing on, something I only really get to fulfill at music festivals. The concert ended around 3:45 and then I headed home to try and get a few hours of sleep before heading to this Asado.
I am off to try and get some reading done while Roberto makes some salads. More coming soon!
Last night, on a different note, I went to dinner, a bar, and then a super high energy drum show at a cultural center called Konex. First, about 12-14 American friends of mine met up at a restaurant in the ultra chic Palermo to celebrate Adam´s birthday. I had pork ribs, not quite sure what to expect, and they came exactly as they would in the US, barbecues, slathered in barbecue sauce, with a side of french fries. Very funny. The only difference - they don´t bring you napkins, a wet nap, or a plate to put your bones on (c´mon Argentina, get it together).
We then headed over to an expat bar where we enjoyed a few 7 peso drinks (that is, just under 2 dollars for mixed drinks and pints of beer) before heading to la bomba.
La bomba del tiempo is a concert that takes place every monday and sells out, from what I am told, every monday. It is held in a cultural center downtown, basically a giant refurbished warehouse with a stage, that is filled up with dirty hippies, choked with cigarette and marijuana smoke, sweat, 1 litre plastic cups of beer, and awesome awesome high energy drumming. It was fun, I got to get my hippie dancing on, something I only really get to fulfill at music festivals. The concert ended around 3:45 and then I headed home to try and get a few hours of sleep before heading to this Asado.
I am off to try and get some reading done while Roberto makes some salads. More coming soon!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tango, Bureacracy
I am going to try and get back into posting here with some regularity now that life is getting somewhat back to normal and now that I have far more free time (time that was previously spent watching TV shows on my laptop like Dexter, watching rerun clips of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, or just link surfing on wikipedia learning about all kind of new things. Roberto´s computer doesn´t allow me to do that because it is far too slow to watch any type of video and his chair is too uncomfortable to have the desire to sit here for hours link surfing.)
I had my second Tango class last night. I am always super nervous to go to it and every bit of me tells me to just skip it and stay home. But, once I get there I always end up enjoying it quite a bit. The fact of the matter, that I am just going to have to accept, is that I am very very tall and most girls here are very very short. My strides will always be about twice as long as theirs and therefore gracefullness will continually allude me.
Yesterday I went to the immigration headquarters to try and figure out my visa process. I went with my required passport, photocopies of every page of passport, 4 passport photos, and 300 pesos cash. I had to skip a class to keep my appointment (that Flacso made for me). I head down to the port where the immigration building is, find a newsstand that sells books, buy Dan Brown´s new thriller, The Lost Symbol (or that is the Spanish name at least, El Símbolo Perdido, I don´t know what it is in English) to read while I wait around, and headed in. The Flacso staff was there to greet us and show up what had to be done. I went into the building, got in line, got my fingerprints taken, my photos scanned. I then got hustled into another room with Juan, one of the coordinators, where I sat down with an employee at a computer, who typed my name into a computer and promptly told me that, because I went to Uruguay 2 weeks ago, during Semana Santa, the company that we traveled with, Buquebus, still hadn´t entered into their computer system that I was back in the country. So, according to Argentine immigration I am not in Argentina legally and in fact am still in Uruguay. I told the guy to look at my passport, that I have a stamp saying that I legally re-entered Argentina on the 5th of April. He knew that I had but said that I have to wait 10 days and return to see if they had updated the computers. Flacso is taking care of it, but, what a pain. Now I will have to miss more classes. If the process had worked properly, I would have had to wait about 5 hours in the immigration building while they filed the paperwork and printed out a temporary citizen card to be used until the real citizen card is issued in a few weeks. So, I will be going back twice. Hello Argentine Bureaucracy, I have heard that you are EXTREMELY inefficient. But I suppose that is the nature of bureacracy in general. Doing the same process in the US would be far far worst, I imagine.
My host dad, Roberto, and I are going tomorrow morning to puruse a few local pawn shops where "used, aka, stolen goods" are sold back to the public. Wouldn´t it be wild to come across some of our stolen stuff. I would immediately front the money to get my laptop back if I found it.
I just hope they wouldn´t charge too much.
I went looking for new digital cameras yesterday while walking around the city with a couple of friends just to look at the prices. Because of the 21 percent sales tax, I am guessing, there is no such thing as a cheap digital camera. A basic, no frills, digital starts at around 200 dollars and goes up from there. If I am not mistaken, you can buy a cheap, no frills digital in the US for about 60 dollars...yep, just checked amazon, 54 dollars actually. It would be ridiculous to spend that much. So, I guess I shall go without a camera. Unless, of course, I find a nice used one that was stolen from some other unaware gringo and sold to a pawn shop. They might be quite cheap.
This weekend is my friend Adam´s birthday and we are going to go out to a nice dinner at a restaurant in Palermo called Las Cabras, then to a bar to pound down a few, and then to a concert called La Bomba del Tiempo, a high energy latin drum group that plays weekly and still manages to pack about 1000 people into this cultural center to dance. Should be a great time.
On another good note, a new supergroup in the US has formed and has called themself the Overtone Quartet, or something like that. Chris Potter on tenor sax, Dave Holland on bass, Jason Moran on Piano, and Eric Harland on drums. I have seen all of these guys separately and they are all amazing. I can´t even imagine how awesome they are going to be together. I am psyched. Late may they take the stage with Kurt Rosenwinkle Trio, another amazing and famous guitarist. Furthermore, they are playing in the newly renovated Teatro Colon, a famous and gorgeous theater in the heart of Buenos Aires. I am buying my tickets this weekend. I cannot wait!
Well, I am off to do some studying for my UBA class. I have a partial exam, that is, midterm, this coming saturday and if I dont do well on it they kick me out of the class. So, I have to be pretty well prepared for this one. Luckily, I got a tutor to help me out in the class and she is doing all of the reading we have to do for the exam and on Monday will tell us what we really need to focus on. It should be a huge help.
On a side note, if anybody ever gets a chance to try sweetened tomato jelly on toast, do it, it is delicious.
I had my second Tango class last night. I am always super nervous to go to it and every bit of me tells me to just skip it and stay home. But, once I get there I always end up enjoying it quite a bit. The fact of the matter, that I am just going to have to accept, is that I am very very tall and most girls here are very very short. My strides will always be about twice as long as theirs and therefore gracefullness will continually allude me.
Yesterday I went to the immigration headquarters to try and figure out my visa process. I went with my required passport, photocopies of every page of passport, 4 passport photos, and 300 pesos cash. I had to skip a class to keep my appointment (that Flacso made for me). I head down to the port where the immigration building is, find a newsstand that sells books, buy Dan Brown´s new thriller, The Lost Symbol (or that is the Spanish name at least, El Símbolo Perdido, I don´t know what it is in English) to read while I wait around, and headed in. The Flacso staff was there to greet us and show up what had to be done. I went into the building, got in line, got my fingerprints taken, my photos scanned. I then got hustled into another room with Juan, one of the coordinators, where I sat down with an employee at a computer, who typed my name into a computer and promptly told me that, because I went to Uruguay 2 weeks ago, during Semana Santa, the company that we traveled with, Buquebus, still hadn´t entered into their computer system that I was back in the country. So, according to Argentine immigration I am not in Argentina legally and in fact am still in Uruguay. I told the guy to look at my passport, that I have a stamp saying that I legally re-entered Argentina on the 5th of April. He knew that I had but said that I have to wait 10 days and return to see if they had updated the computers. Flacso is taking care of it, but, what a pain. Now I will have to miss more classes. If the process had worked properly, I would have had to wait about 5 hours in the immigration building while they filed the paperwork and printed out a temporary citizen card to be used until the real citizen card is issued in a few weeks. So, I will be going back twice. Hello Argentine Bureaucracy, I have heard that you are EXTREMELY inefficient. But I suppose that is the nature of bureacracy in general. Doing the same process in the US would be far far worst, I imagine.
My host dad, Roberto, and I are going tomorrow morning to puruse a few local pawn shops where "used, aka, stolen goods" are sold back to the public. Wouldn´t it be wild to come across some of our stolen stuff. I would immediately front the money to get my laptop back if I found it.
I just hope they wouldn´t charge too much.
I went looking for new digital cameras yesterday while walking around the city with a couple of friends just to look at the prices. Because of the 21 percent sales tax, I am guessing, there is no such thing as a cheap digital camera. A basic, no frills, digital starts at around 200 dollars and goes up from there. If I am not mistaken, you can buy a cheap, no frills digital in the US for about 60 dollars...yep, just checked amazon, 54 dollars actually. It would be ridiculous to spend that much. So, I guess I shall go without a camera. Unless, of course, I find a nice used one that was stolen from some other unaware gringo and sold to a pawn shop. They might be quite cheap.
This weekend is my friend Adam´s birthday and we are going to go out to a nice dinner at a restaurant in Palermo called Las Cabras, then to a bar to pound down a few, and then to a concert called La Bomba del Tiempo, a high energy latin drum group that plays weekly and still manages to pack about 1000 people into this cultural center to dance. Should be a great time.
On another good note, a new supergroup in the US has formed and has called themself the Overtone Quartet, or something like that. Chris Potter on tenor sax, Dave Holland on bass, Jason Moran on Piano, and Eric Harland on drums. I have seen all of these guys separately and they are all amazing. I can´t even imagine how awesome they are going to be together. I am psyched. Late may they take the stage with Kurt Rosenwinkle Trio, another amazing and famous guitarist. Furthermore, they are playing in the newly renovated Teatro Colon, a famous and gorgeous theater in the heart of Buenos Aires. I am buying my tickets this weekend. I cannot wait!
Well, I am off to do some studying for my UBA class. I have a partial exam, that is, midterm, this coming saturday and if I dont do well on it they kick me out of the class. So, I have to be pretty well prepared for this one. Luckily, I got a tutor to help me out in the class and she is doing all of the reading we have to do for the exam and on Monday will tell us what we really need to focus on. It should be a huge help.
On a side note, if anybody ever gets a chance to try sweetened tomato jelly on toast, do it, it is delicious.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Robbed
So, was about to post my blog about the trip to Cabo Polonio but have lost it all.
Yesterday, sometime between130 and 2 oclock, somebody used a massive crowbar to break into our apartment (Robertos door is locked with 2 deadbolts and reinforced with steel) and stole about 1500 pesos of Robertos, a gold watch and some gold pens. They entered my room and took my laptop, case, charger, digital camera, iPod, headphones, blackberry, charger, all electronic cords, and cash from my wallet. On the way out they stole Robertos new stereo. So, I am currently without any of the few comforts from home that I enjoy so much. I am also now without the majority of music I have been saving for the last 10 year sof my life, all of my worddocuments, some 2300 emails that I had saved on my computer, papers, and all the photos I have taken in my life...i ncluding the pictures I have taken over the last month or so here that I had no only not backed up but had not posted anywhere. Its a shame. They even took my new leather shoes that I bought before coming to Buenos Aires. Now I only have a pair of tennis sneakers.
On their way out, they trashed the apartment, strewing roberto´s stuff all over his bed and floor.
This one is going to take a while to get over.
Yesterday, sometime between130 and 2 oclock, somebody used a massive crowbar to break into our apartment (Robertos door is locked with 2 deadbolts and reinforced with steel) and stole about 1500 pesos of Robertos, a gold watch and some gold pens. They entered my room and took my laptop, case, charger, digital camera, iPod, headphones, blackberry, charger, all electronic cords, and cash from my wallet. On the way out they stole Robertos new stereo. So, I am currently without any of the few comforts from home that I enjoy so much. I am also now without the majority of music I have been saving for the last 10 year sof my life, all of my worddocuments, some 2300 emails that I had saved on my computer, papers, and all the photos I have taken in my life...i ncluding the pictures I have taken over the last month or so here that I had no only not backed up but had not posted anywhere. Its a shame. They even took my new leather shoes that I bought before coming to Buenos Aires. Now I only have a pair of tennis sneakers.
On their way out, they trashed the apartment, strewing roberto´s stuff all over his bed and floor.
This one is going to take a while to get over.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Next Life
One of the greatest quotes ever, by Woody Allen, the genius:
In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and
get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in an old people's home feeling better every day.
You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then
when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day.
You work for 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy
your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous,
then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you
become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby
until you are born.
And then you spend your last 9 months floating in
luxurious spa like conditions with central heating and room service on tap,
larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!
I rest my case.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Illness
Just as I get over my cold, it turns out that I might have bronchitis. The feeling I experience upon climbing a flight of stairs is what I imagine it would be like for a 350 lb smoking, asthmatic, diabetic. When I get to the top of the stairs I have to stop, sit down, and catch my breath. Probably not a good sign.
It looks like "Hello Argentine Health System" for me. Actually, if I still can't breath tomorrow and my lungs continue to feel like an angry Porteño punched me repeatedly in the chest, I will be going to the Italian Hospital with Roberto, a rather charming and secluded gem of a hospital just 3 blocks from my house.
The huge downside of all this...I might not be able to go to Cabo Polonio this week/weekend. Wednesday is right around the corner. Bummer. I already paid for boat/bus/hostel. What a waste of money and a waste of a hell of a good time. Oh well, at least I am not a 350 lb diabetic!
Whenever I am feeling down, I just watch my favorite Monty Python Sketch
Lyrics:
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.
And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...
For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath
Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.
And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Glen Roger's
In a last ditch effort to cure my incessant cough, Roberto gets the bottle of Glen Roger's Scotch Whiskey and pours me a liberal glassful. Not sure if it will help. Not sure if alcohol is even good for me at this point. But, hell, you only live once! Viva Argentina!
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