Surviving in BA with no money

So I STILL haven't gotten my debit card back, but this experience has been teaching me a lesson in money management. So what do you do when you are broke in a big city?

#1 - do not eat out. This is definitely the biggest point. An empanada here, a coffe there...those things add up. Luckily I can just eat at home off of what my host mom buys, which is literally just eggs and bread. Which brings me to..
# 2 - learn to cook a lot of different things using only eggs and bread. So far I've made scrambled eggs, fried eggs, omelettes, egg sandwhiches, and french toast. This is a really great way to save money, the only downside is that I'm starting to seriously hate eggs.
#3 - Walk, walk, walk. Taxis are not even a word in my vocabulary right now. Things are actually a lot closer than you expect them to be, and usually a brisk walk isn't too bad. When you absolutely cannot walk, public transportation is pretty cheap too, though not as cheap as free.
#4 - Occupy your time with free activities. Basically so far for me this means going to the gym and watching tv, but theoretically there are a lot of museums and parks and stuff to go to.
#5 - Borrow money. yeah it's a cop out, but there are some things i just can't miss out on...world cup qualifyer game? delicious chinese lunch? going into debt was definitely worth it, and anyway, it's the american way right?

Trip to Chile

I just got back this morning from a series of bus rides from Chile, where I was viting my friend Liz in Valparaiso. Valpo is a town on the coast of Chile, and though I thought it would be small and have a beachy feel to it, it is a lot more like a city than I expected. My friends on the program Steffi and Danny came with me, which made the long trip over more bearable and a lot more fun. And although we spent basically a whole day getting in and out of busses (25 hours each way), the 5 hours through the Andes is so beautiful it felt like that was the reason we came over ...and if natural beauty isn't your thing, they also give you lots of food, play bingo for prizes, and show movies. Here's an idea of what we were drivng through:





We spent a night in Santiago before finally heading to Valpo on Thursday; Liz was a really great tour guide and had a bunch of stuff for us planned out already. We met her host family, who is really cute and funny and super friendly, and then got to know her city for this semester.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of graffiti, and not just words or random tags, but beautiful murals and artistic designs. Here are a few:



We also took a boat ride and saw all the Navy ships and the view from the water, which was really cool. The day was a little cloudy though, so I'm told I missed out on the truly breathtaking sights. We explored nearby Viña del Mar, which had a more upper class feel than Valpo, went to a couple museums, and saw one of Pablo Neruda's houses.

I also got to see Maggie and Alex again, which was exciting considering I hadn't seen them since our South American travels took us in different directions at the end of February.

All in all the trip was a great success, except for the one little hiccup where my wallet got stolen out of my friend's bag. While I was in Valpo with Liz, Steffi was still in Santiago and had a thief slit her purse open and steal my wallet out of it. Even though it completely wasn't her fault at all she felt really awful about it and paid me the money that was in my wallet, so I didn't end up losing anything really besides the old wallet, my debit card, and driver's license. Now I just have to wait for my new debit card to get mailed to Buenos Aires, so my next blog post might be about how I survived in BA for a week on $15...

Reflection

Today I realized I had no idea what the date was. Not just the day of the month; no, I didn't even know what day of the week it was. Instead of being alarmed or upset at the total disregard I gave to matters such as date and time, I realized it was a sign of just how much I have adapted to the culture. At home, we live our lives on a strict schedule of appointments and deadlines. Here, schedules are just a rough guideline of when things can be expected to start, and nobody takes them too seriously. Somebody here once told me that the only things that start on time in Argentina are soccer games and movies, and I have yet to prove him wrong. The flexibility with which Argentines seem to live their lives is one of my favorite things about the culture - in a city of 3 million people, not a single person is in a hurry. You will never see an Argentine sprint for a departing subway or running for the bus. They'll catch the next one. It was hard at first slowing my pace down to match theirs, but once I did, I found it intoxicating. I've learned to enjoy the time I spend on public transportation, walking to school, or waiting in line. As an American, my instinct tells me I am losing time with these purposeless activities. As an Argentine, I've been able to see that it's not time wasted at all; in fact it's time very well spent, noticing things I might otherwise overlook and just generally finding some time to myself in this huge, busy city. Living at this more relaxed pace I have been able to more fully appreciate my surroundings and my abroad experience in general; I hope to keep it up once i get back to the US so I can see what I've been missing all these years.

Today

...I was accidentally in a parade. I'm working on figuring out what it was for, but it was very, very confusing.

Insomnia

I don't need sleep. Why would I need sleep? Besides the fact that I haven't been sleeping, and tonight is a great opportunity for me to do just that...but apparently my body thinks instead 6am is a really great time to be awake. So I am awake. But my loss is your gain, because I guess I'll do something productive (my homework? no.) and update you all of what I've been up to.

In reference to my last post, I actually am not in the UBA class anymore, and have instead elected to take a much more challenging course: Technique of Tango. Tango is the national dance here, and most of the other Argentines in my class have natural dance abilities, or because I'm taking it at the national institute of movement arts (IUNA), have honed their craft for the past 10 years. I figured 4 years in high school taking an elective that included modern dance (read: rolling around the floor) qualified me to study at their level. I'll let you know how I compare in a few weeks.

The really exciting thing I recently did was go to a World Cup qualifier game between Argentina and Venezuela (4-0 woo!). I almost didn't get tickets, because by the time I showed up to buy them, the cheapest section was already sold out, and the line extended for 6 long blocks to buy the remaining tickets. Luckily though, some other students on my program were basically at the front of the line and saw me walking, and offered to buy me a ticket. Awesome. The crowd was insane, Maradonna was the coach, Messi played incredibly...basically one of the best experiences ever. Here's what it looked like:

(The group of people I went with. Thanks to the three on the far left, back row, we all got tickets)

(Playing the national anthems of each country before starting the game)

Besides that it's been pretty much the usual, playing soccer and hanging out at night with friends. Oh I also found out that girls playing soccer in Argentina has the same stereotype as girls playing softball in the US, which I found pretty funny. But also very enlightening of how people at my gym must percieve me - a girl wearing shorts and a t-shirt (men's attire), generally the t-shirt bearing some sort of soccer reference. Cool.

My mom, Sara (my sister), and our family friend+daughter flew in on Saturday, so this next week should be pretty busy with me playing tour guide. If only I could get some sleep beforehand...

Boring Academic post mostly so I remember what happened...

March 17th...my first actual class since early December. Besides being a little bit nervous about directly enrolling in Argentine classes with Argentine students speaking and learning in Spanish that I may or may not totally understand, I wasn't totally sure my brain would even function at an academic level after such a long break. So how was my first day of school, you might ask? Well....

I arrive to the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) for my Social Sciences and the Environment class, which I am actually still on the waitlist for, with about 30 minutes to kill. Luckily Sarah is in my class, so as we walk in the front door, I am only slightly less overwhelmed than I might have been had I been alone. Posting the classroom numbers online would be silly and chaotic obviously, so instead somebody at UBA has elected to make a posterboard at the front with a long list written in tiny font directing us to our class. The halls are packed with students in semi-hippie-ish clothes, handing out flyers and pamphlets about workers rights or student bus fares or whatever they are passionate about. It is a club fair for a cause, and I feel like I am in the 60s protesting Vietnam or fighting for civil rights...except it is 2009, I am in South America's #1 ranked university, and of course it's all happening in Spanish so I don't quite understand what it going on.

We finally get to our class, which only has more graffitti and political posters, spray painted philosophical messages etc, on the walls. The professor comes in about 10 min late and we get started, a nice appropriately sized class of about 10-15 people for the space we have, I think to myself. I am wrong. As the class begins and the professor introduces himself, students trickle in late one by one. Now, in the US, if you are 20 minutes late for a class, you slip in and sit down quietly. In Argentina apparently, you walk across the room to your friends, kiss them each on the cheek to say hello, exchange a few words, and then sit down. The professor does not even bat an eye, and this continues to happen over the course of the next hour. There are now about 30 people cramped in this room.

And then, disaster: he tells us we are all going around the room to introduce ourselves, tell everyone our experience with environmental studies and say why we wanted to take this class. Ahhhh! Um...I took this class because it made me have no classes Thursdays or Fridays, and I know nothing about the environment except there's this thing called global warming happening? I can tell this will be the wrong answer, so I prepare something else in my head and no joke practice it at least 20 times, making sure I have conjugated the verbs rights and used vocabulary that does not make me sound like a 4th grader (and conveys a little more interest in the class). I present myself to the class, and phew now that that's over, I can relax. The professor begins lecturing, and to my dismay (and every other American in the classroom, about 6 total), I don't understand a word that comes out of his mouth. Well. Instead, I take the reamining 2.5 hours left of class to observe my surrounding. A couple differences between UBA and Gtown:

1. Mate. This is a type of tea Argentines drink literally everywhere, and they carry it around in these special cups and pass it around amongst their friends. It's everywhere, sortof the way everyone has nalgenes. As one student is talking to the professor her neighbors are passing mate in front of her face to the next student over, whispering over her voice and completely disregarding the fact that the teacher is trying to talk to this girl. This doesn't phase anyone in the class, so I guess Mate>Professor.

2. The amount of graffitti on the wall, I know I just mentioned it, but everything was seriously covered, stenciled rats next to ideological messages, mobilizing calls of action urging fellow students to unite for a rally on May 29th, and painted signs taped to the blackboard, which nobody takes down nad I assume we will just learn to live with. Halfway through the class there is a knock on the door, and a group of 5 students come in, give a speech about workers rights and how they need our money (I think thats what they said), and just walked around the class with a collection box. The crazy thing is, almost everyone put something in, and bills too not just spare change.

Despite my not understanding anything that happened, I really liked the class and the prof was really nice

My other class at the Universidad Catolica de Argentina (UCA) was a lot closer to a class I might take at Georgetown, and I definitely understood a good 90% of it (yes!!). There's a good amount of reading for both classes, and I'm still trying to figure out how much of it I really need to do (unfortunately, I think it's all of it if I want to understand what's going on in the class).

Other than classes, I've been busy traveling a little bit. We went to Mar del Plata last week, and yesterday three of us took a trip to el Tigre, a nice nature-y suburb of BA, just for the day. We had some steaks and just relaxed, which was definitely very nice.

Today I might dedicate to Wikipediaing everything I didn't know about Argentine history, so I can follow a little more easily. I also think I might look into getting a tutor, offered for free through the program, because people have said it really helps. We'll seee...

Ciao!

Like anything and anywhere, there are good and bad things about Buenos Aires, and I am slowly discovering both of them. As a service to both myself and anyone curious about this city, I will list the things that I am learning:

GOOD:
- There are a multitude of things to do; famous musicians come through (Manu Chao a few hours ago, it was great!), fun circuses, fairs, and museum exhibitions to visit, and celebrities (although only Argentine ones) around every corner

- Delicious restaurants to try

- Exposure to the Spanish language (obviously), thus making it easier for me to learn it. This including watching Watchmen here in BA, an interesting experience (I give it a 6/10...feel free to let me know what you thought of it in the US)

- Cheaper than the US

- Behavior on the subte (subway). Although usually it is literally as packed as possible, there is still room for the subway staple: the person trying to make money by whatever means possible. The people who entertained me today were particularly good; on the first ride an 8 year old girl juggled on the moving car wile holding a small child ( she received a standing ovation), and my connecting subte had these African drummers/saxaphonists who managed to rouse people to their feet to dance before they both got off at their their stop. They didn't even ask for money. This would never happen in New York, where not only would we never deign to look these people in the eye, we would also never stand up out of our valuable seats and applaud.

BAD:
- Many people on my program have been robbed or pick-pocketed. One girl has been held up at gunpoint, a few have been robbed multiple times, a couple have been threatened by knife, and while some have run away successfully, most have been successfully robbed. Tonight at Manu Chao, three girls with purses (luckily I do not carry a purse) got their bags slashed, and then through the slash in the purse offenders stole whatever he/she could reach. I actually just realized I have a few small, almost unnoticeable cuts in my palm, I'm sure because of jumping up and down next to somebody holding some sort of purse slashing tool (.....a knife.) It is a dangerous city, though not so bad if one exercises street sense and caution.

- A lot of ham, on everything (which is clearly bad for me). Description of a hamburger: meat, bun, ham and cheese (jamon y queso), if you want to pay extra you can get lettuce and tomato. This also happens to be the description of everything: most sandwhiches come with jamon y queso, as do many of their pastas and empanadas, pizzas, and meat dishes like steak (yeah, they put ham on steak. what!?)

- 24 hour delay on episodes of Lost and The Office

-No laundry machine in my building, I need to walk two blocks to the laundromat to pay to get it sone


I like BA a lot...but I'm not sure if this list of Good vs. Bad works out in my favor?