Out of some stubbornness and insistance on using my own computer, I have neglected to write since I arrived early early Sunday morning.
Another factor has been an equally stubborn sinus infection, which, much to my dismay on this first Friday night, still persists. If I wake up tomorrow disappointed, I will be seeing a doctor for some antibiotics.
A lot has happened, and even in this first week I have seen a lot, heard a lot, and gotten a good feel for this country and how it differs from my home. I am using Spanish all the time, and it still baffles me that this set of sounds can elicit responses in other people, even though they barely make sense to me.
But, I am about to go dine with a student of mine and his family, and I am weary. My head is too full of mucuous to have much else in it right now.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Photos of Buenos Aires #2
A corner.
A view of apartments.
International House, where I take Spanish classes.
"You don't think it twice."
Eraser + EvaSunday, July 19, 2009
I have received my assignment: I will be teaching at the Instituto Babel, in Monte Maiz.
Here is a map:
View Larger Map
I don't know much about the place, information comes piecemeal here. Bridges are never crossed before they are come to.
When I was applying for the program, I was perturbed by the fact that there were no papers or contracts or signings, simply the word of mouth. One more cultural difference to go on the list.
Another is the universal greeting here: a kiss on the cheek, which, as an American, took some getting used to. I was very surprised by Maria's greeting when she picked me up at the airport. However, I'm starting to appreciate it. Being so close to someone when you first meet them breaks down barriers that a handshake cannot.
Today, I went to Maria's family home in the suburbs to celebrate her father's birthday (feliz cumpleanos), but ended up spending most of my time napping. Hostel life is not very hospitable, so I am looking forward a great deal to getting a real bed and a real room and quiet, sweet quiet, that rambunctious internationals devoted to a good time cannot.
Regardless, I ate some good lasagna, coffee, cake, and was able to listen in on plenty of conversation en castellano (the term for the Spanish language here). I am getting better all the time.
Here is a map:
View Larger Map
I don't know much about the place, information comes piecemeal here. Bridges are never crossed before they are come to.
When I was applying for the program, I was perturbed by the fact that there were no papers or contracts or signings, simply the word of mouth. One more cultural difference to go on the list.
Another is the universal greeting here: a kiss on the cheek, which, as an American, took some getting used to. I was very surprised by Maria's greeting when she picked me up at the airport. However, I'm starting to appreciate it. Being so close to someone when you first meet them breaks down barriers that a handshake cannot.
Today, I went to Maria's family home in the suburbs to celebrate her father's birthday (feliz cumpleanos), but ended up spending most of my time napping. Hostel life is not very hospitable, so I am looking forward a great deal to getting a real bed and a real room and quiet, sweet quiet, that rambunctious internationals devoted to a good time cannot.
Regardless, I ate some good lasagna, coffee, cake, and was able to listen in on plenty of conversation en castellano (the term for the Spanish language here). I am getting better all the time.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Volume
I can, however, always be as loud as I want to. With no repercussions or scoldings. So I let the noise rock play.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
-Phones, Anglo- and Latino-
English is not totally absent from here, especially here in the hostel. In fact, English is the lingua franca amongst peoples not just from South America, but Europe too. Still, there is a subtle difference between the way I speak and the speech of an Australian. I am staying with a dozen Americans, but our conversation is devoted to this new world we are in and the huge differences that surround us.
The effect is mind-numbing. The range of my English is contracting, and the expansion of my Spanish (which is spoken at least fifty percent of the time) cannot keep up. I am starved for dialogue. But change never comes without discomfort; there must always be a period of transition, when one thing yields to another, and the gap that remains in the meantime stretches and adapts to the shape of the new thing.
The novelty of this place keeps me alert, though:
Asado is delicious. It is meat, pork ribs and cow belly and blood sausage, slowly grilled over coals, leaving it crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. Argentines think the way Americans grill, with the flames licking the meat, is silly. I am tempted to agree, but I know I would be just as thankful for an American hamburger off a Weber grill.
Argentines despise breaking bills. They are almost unfailingly offended by the idea, so don't try to break a hundred-peso note (which is the smallest denomination ATMs give out) without buying something.
There are no free refills here. When you pay six pesos for a Coca Cola, that is all you will get, unless, of course, you pay for more. Even water costs money, so saying "Yo quiero agua" will not save you any money. Even at McDonald's. Yes, I ate there; it was pretty much the same, except for slight differences in the menu (there are a lot of ads for the "Big Tasty Bacon" around the city), and it was even more depressing, because McDonald's is actually more expensive than many other restaurants. Anyways, I gather that the free-refill phenomenon is actually unique to the U. S. and Canada.
Ah, such are the ways in which our lives differ. But they are toys, playthings, shiny objects that will, with time, inevitably lose their luster. They are filler, until a more substantial familiarity with the culture and the language comes to take their place.
The effect is mind-numbing. The range of my English is contracting, and the expansion of my Spanish (which is spoken at least fifty percent of the time) cannot keep up. I am starved for dialogue. But change never comes without discomfort; there must always be a period of transition, when one thing yields to another, and the gap that remains in the meantime stretches and adapts to the shape of the new thing.
The novelty of this place keeps me alert, though:
Asado is delicious. It is meat, pork ribs and cow belly and blood sausage, slowly grilled over coals, leaving it crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. Argentines think the way Americans grill, with the flames licking the meat, is silly. I am tempted to agree, but I know I would be just as thankful for an American hamburger off a Weber grill.
Argentines despise breaking bills. They are almost unfailingly offended by the idea, so don't try to break a hundred-peso note (which is the smallest denomination ATMs give out) without buying something.
There are no free refills here. When you pay six pesos for a Coca Cola, that is all you will get, unless, of course, you pay for more. Even water costs money, so saying "Yo quiero agua" will not save you any money. Even at McDonald's. Yes, I ate there; it was pretty much the same, except for slight differences in the menu (there are a lot of ads for the "Big Tasty Bacon" around the city), and it was even more depressing, because McDonald's is actually more expensive than many other restaurants. Anyways, I gather that the free-refill phenomenon is actually unique to the U. S. and Canada.
Ah, such are the ways in which our lives differ. But they are toys, playthings, shiny objects that will, with time, inevitably lose their luster. They are filler, until a more substantial familiarity with the culture and the language comes to take their place.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Photos of Buenos Aires #1
Some graffiti found in an alley.
Look closely at the top of the building, as Maria told me: "That is a house built by a crazy architect who wanted his home on the highest point in Buenos Aires." This view is from the plaza in July 9th Avenue (Argentina's Independence Day).
Giant neon coke advertisement on July 9th Avenue.
More photos will come once I purchase a memory card for my camera and master its cheap-ness.
This country is showing me the variety of material things.
Buenos Aires is huge. Once I left the airport, with the help of Maria, so gracious, we took a bus deep into the city. The journey down the highway was a good introduction: elevated over the city, we passed, one after another, huge apartment buildings ("monoblocks"), festooned with signs and clothes and air conditioning units. They tower twenty-five stories over everything else, and everything else is infinite in its shapes (architecture we would never dare to use in America) and density.
This city is filled with so many nooks and crannies, all of which tease and pull at my imagination. Every building here looks old, aged, and used as efficiently as possible. A building is never too old, no matter how many decades and renovations have passed, never too ugly, no matter how much the plaster has crumbled and the graffiti has accumulated. All those corners and little spaces, who knows what dust and debris and histories they hold?
Street level is no different, apart from the view. Now every building you pass is home to the little spaces: a basement bar beneath the hostel, a five by eight bedroom on the roof, tiny shops packed beneath apartment buildings, ten feet wide, with a specificity of wares that America has forgotten.
Best of all, balconies are everywhere, to my pleasure. Here, everyone is entitled to look out over the whole mess that no one has ever had the time to clean up, even me, in my hostel.
Buenos Aires is huge. Once I left the airport, with the help of Maria, so gracious, we took a bus deep into the city. The journey down the highway was a good introduction: elevated over the city, we passed, one after another, huge apartment buildings ("monoblocks"), festooned with signs and clothes and air conditioning units. They tower twenty-five stories over everything else, and everything else is infinite in its shapes (architecture we would never dare to use in America) and density.
This city is filled with so many nooks and crannies, all of which tease and pull at my imagination. Every building here looks old, aged, and used as efficiently as possible. A building is never too old, no matter how many decades and renovations have passed, never too ugly, no matter how much the plaster has crumbled and the graffiti has accumulated. All those corners and little spaces, who knows what dust and debris and histories they hold?
Street level is no different, apart from the view. Now every building you pass is home to the little spaces: a basement bar beneath the hostel, a five by eight bedroom on the roof, tiny shops packed beneath apartment buildings, ten feet wide, with a specificity of wares that America has forgotten.
Best of all, balconies are everywhere, to my pleasure. Here, everyone is entitled to look out over the whole mess that no one has ever had the time to clean up, even me, in my hostel.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
I have come to the conclusion that airports are alien worlds. Things do not work here like they do elsewhere. Everything is linear, and the stores and furniture and signs repeat themselves, like a broken record. People interact differently here, they are hurried, concerned, taxed, all of them little fortresses too occupied with being bombarded to worry about much else.
Washington-Dulles is not a very attractive airport, it is rather cramped, and its age is beginning to show. Even so, it is still an airport, and so it is a monument to the art of moving people. People make such big things devoted to relatively simply tasks, like moving people, or making electricity, or paper, I am in awe of them. They are things not defined by aesthetics or comfort or spirituality, but more modern ideas, like efficiency. Still, this produces an aesthetic all its own, and a very interesting one that challenges us as humans.
---------
I keep alternating between waves of fear and excitement: fear, that I am going to another country, where not only do I know no one, but I also no nothing of the culture or language, so I have to learn what is right and wrong and acceptable all over again; excitement, that I will be seeing a place unlike any I have ever seen before, with people who see the world in a different way from me. It will be challenging and uncomfortable, and it is my biggest fear that I will find I prefer the comfort of home. But I do not think this will happen. Challenges are always rewarded, even if its rewards are intangible or even indescribable.
In three hours, I will board my plane, and be on my way to the other half of the world. I won't just see a different culture, and a different language, but a different sky! New stars in the night-time, constellations I have never learned in school, Polaris will be out of sight! New plants and animals, new geographies! I can't wait.
Washington-Dulles is not a very attractive airport, it is rather cramped, and its age is beginning to show. Even so, it is still an airport, and so it is a monument to the art of moving people. People make such big things devoted to relatively simply tasks, like moving people, or making electricity, or paper, I am in awe of them. They are things not defined by aesthetics or comfort or spirituality, but more modern ideas, like efficiency. Still, this produces an aesthetic all its own, and a very interesting one that challenges us as humans.
---------
I keep alternating between waves of fear and excitement: fear, that I am going to another country, where not only do I know no one, but I also no nothing of the culture or language, so I have to learn what is right and wrong and acceptable all over again; excitement, that I will be seeing a place unlike any I have ever seen before, with people who see the world in a different way from me. It will be challenging and uncomfortable, and it is my biggest fear that I will find I prefer the comfort of home. But I do not think this will happen. Challenges are always rewarded, even if its rewards are intangible or even indescribable.
In three hours, I will board my plane, and be on my way to the other half of the world. I won't just see a different culture, and a different language, but a different sky! New stars in the night-time, constellations I have never learned in school, Polaris will be out of sight! New plants and animals, new geographies! I can't wait.
(Written July 9, 2007, 11:50 AM)
I am sitting in the T Concourse of the Atlanta airport. I made it through check-in and security without incident; I am now 'in the system,' and will be for the next seventeen hours. Twelve hours in the air, ten on the ground.
Of course, the hard thing about being in any closed system is that, after you have signed the papers and given them your money, you are at their mercy, and will have to pay whatever extortionary price for whatever service they see fit. Ten dollars for a sandwich and a coke, eight for wireless access. That is why this will not be posted until later.
Airports are a lot like theme parks: expensive food, and fun rides. Except these rides last for hours and are a lot more fun, I think. How often are you five miles in the air, and how often do you get that sort of view? I love it. I love the lands and the seas and the skies, and I love being able to see their big picture. The Moon Shot is comparable, though I don't know of one near the coast. Probably Atlantic City.
The moment my feet touch Argentine soil is getting closer every minute now, where before it only came closer in days. Still, it seems impossible. I doubt I will be aware of the possibility before it is actually realized.
I am sitting on a bench with an Asian man, and he will not stop pounding on it. Please stop pounding on this bench, Asian man. I love percussion, but not necessarily percussions.
Speaking of music, did you know that the airport in Brussels plays Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" 24/7? Already I love airports, but that is one I must visit.
Enough ruminations, soon I will board my first flight, and be on my way to strange lands.
I am sitting in the T Concourse of the Atlanta airport. I made it through check-in and security without incident; I am now 'in the system,' and will be for the next seventeen hours. Twelve hours in the air, ten on the ground.
Of course, the hard thing about being in any closed system is that, after you have signed the papers and given them your money, you are at their mercy, and will have to pay whatever extortionary price for whatever service they see fit. Ten dollars for a sandwich and a coke, eight for wireless access. That is why this will not be posted until later.
Airports are a lot like theme parks: expensive food, and fun rides. Except these rides last for hours and are a lot more fun, I think. How often are you five miles in the air, and how often do you get that sort of view? I love it. I love the lands and the seas and the skies, and I love being able to see their big picture. The Moon Shot is comparable, though I don't know of one near the coast. Probably Atlantic City.
The moment my feet touch Argentine soil is getting closer every minute now, where before it only came closer in days. Still, it seems impossible. I doubt I will be aware of the possibility before it is actually realized.
I am sitting on a bench with an Asian man, and he will not stop pounding on it. Please stop pounding on this bench, Asian man. I love percussion, but not necessarily percussions.
Speaking of music, did you know that the airport in Brussels plays Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" 24/7? Already I love airports, but that is one I must visit.
Enough ruminations, soon I will board my first flight, and be on my way to strange lands.
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