A couple things on cars

One of the things you hear from tourists and guidebooks (not sure if Lonely Planet is guilty) is that drivers don't have respect for pedestrians. As with anything you hear about a culture, it is not immediately or readily obvious. But today marks my two week mark in Buenos Aires and I'd have to say that, yeah, drivers are less wary of drivers here. But only when the driver has the light. If you're across a street with no light, the drivers yield just fine. But if the driver has the light and you're thinking you can beat him, he might even speed up just to make you think twice (not really kidding here...). They're pretty much like "It's my light, and I'll run you over if I want to." So, do drivers have less respect for pedestrians here than in, say, Branson, Missouri? Yeah, but, like I said, only when they've got the light. Can't really blame 'em for trying to make you dirty your underdelicates.

I measure the wealth of a people/country in any number of ways, but certainly by a very obvious standard: the cars. They're everywhere and come in many varieties. For example, when I was in Switzerland, if felt very rich because all the cabs are Mercedes-Benz. (But that may also be because the market demands it). But the cars there were typically very nice. Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, some Hondas. Here, and I mean no offense by this, it's fairly middle class, maybe a touch above. I've seen plenty of Renault and Hondas. Some Alfa Romeos (I dig the grills on the new Alfas, btw. See below.) But what is noticeable is the lack of luxury cars, like Mercedes and BMW. I'm not sure how expensive Alfa is. Maybe it has something to do with imports or how weak the Argentine peso is to the dollar. No idea. But in general the cars here are nice, well-maintained. No complaints.

I know the post is titled "A couple things on cars" but here's one more half-thing. You do, very rarely, see some old school American muscle here. An old, restored Chevy or Ford. Pretty sweet.

I'm sure the grill is polarizing, but I dig it.

FOOD! (Updated)

So, you've had Argentine food, have you? GOOD FOR FUCKING YOU. JERK. Ruining my things. You, thing ruiner, you! Lana. Lana. LANA. LLLLLLAAAANNNNNNAAAA! WHAT?!

Anyways, quickly, some foods I find commonly here and thoughts on them. They may not be distinctly Argentine* but, you know, fuck off.

• McDonalds - honestly, if you said "vaya a la mierda" to me after reading that, thinking I was serious, I get it. No offense taken. But Mickey D's is the shiz, so back the shiz up.
• Empanadas - yeah, yeah, I know, you can get them in Chile. I get it. Cool. Nah, but they're pretty good here. Not sure what my expectation was, but they're cheap, too! Usually about $6 or $7 pesos, a dollar-ish**. 2 or 3 make for a good lunch, depending on if you're hungry or a fatass. I usually opt for 3 or 2 and a desk of Cheez-its. Oh, and I suppose I should explain what they are. They're little pies. Like meat pies or vegetarian pies. You take dough, put stuff on it, and fold the dough over top and seal it with your hands and bake that. They are commonly filled with carne (beef), jamon y queso (ham and cheese), pollo (chicken), and love (crack).
• Parillas and parilladas - parilla is the word for grill and a parillada is a dish of meat basically (sure, you can get a side if you want, you dick). All kinds of meat. Beef. Sausage. Intestines (NOT KIDDING, I TRIED IT). It's really good. Usually split by 2 or 4 people. Can't do it solo often, unfortunately, but I have seen it. Remember, meat is a way of life here. They fucking LOVE meat here. And, yeah, you don't see many vegetables on plates...
• Alfajores - AL - FA - HOR - ES. Yep. They're a dessert/treat (un postre). Imagine two kind of thick, crumbly wafers with dulce de leche or chocolate or something smeared in between, and then that whole concoction is dipped in a sauce, or sometimes it's sans sauce. Not bad. For those back in the US of States, it's similar to a moonpie, 'cept it's not marshmallow in between, it's something else.
• Ugh, what else...oh yeah, dulce de leche! It means, obvisauce, "sweet of milk". It's basically the sweet, sticky, caramel-like substance. Delicious and terrible for you. You can eat with a spoon, put it on toast, throw it at tourists...whatev.
• Um, I know I've got more but I'mma go enjoy the day. Oh, I'll talk about street peanuts and jugo de naranja when I get back!

*I confuse when to use Argentine and Argentinian. If you know the difference, see the second sentence of this post.

**Honestly, the exchange rate for pesos and USD is stupid.

Update 1 (2013-09-26):

• To go along with the parallida, there is choripan con chimichuri (spellcheck please). You can get this at a parilla but it's so good it deserves it's own entry. So, quickly, choripan is sausage. It's the word chorizo (sausage) and pan (bread) put together. So, it's a sausage sandwich (gigiddy). And it's FUCKING DELICIOUS. And it's cheap! You can get choripan con fritas for $18 pesos, so maybe $3 USD. So good. Oh, and, chimichurri. Every parilla makes their own. It's oil that they put spices in and you put that on the meat. It's hit or miss. I prefer real BBQ sauce.
• Ok, street peanuts. On plenty of street corners, you can get peanuts that have dipped in what I assume is just melted sugar but I'm sure there's other stuff in here. So just sweet-coated peanuts. A normal-sized bag for $5 pesos, a big one for $8. Very cheap. Apparently the story is, the guy who started it, tried it first here in Argentina. No one liked it. So he took it to New York. Once it became popular there, the Argentinians wanted it. Funny how that works. Though I can't recall ever seeing them in New York...
• Jugo de naranja - I'm sure you can figure this one out

Update 2 (2013-10-01):

• Medialunas - for you Spanish scholars out there, I'm sure by now you have figured out that "medialuna" means "half-moon". So what is a medialuna, one of the instalments in a series of idiotic books about vampires, werewolves, a stupid girl, and a vampire government? That'd be a neat piece of food. But no. It's a glazed croissant, or just a sweet croissant. Tastes like it's glazed in honey. It's very good, very tasty. Not as flaky as a croissant and the dough is denser but the shape is pretty much the same. Medialunas are typically a little smaller, maybe 2/3 the size. Oh, and think, what does croissant mean in French? I'm a lazy American so I will guess "crescent"...like aaaaaa? What kids? Half-moon.
• A further explanation on jugo de naranja...very popular here in restaurants, it is worth mentioning that street vendors sell it. Like, fresh. Like, fresh fresh. Like Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Like who got the freshy freshy, who got the only sweetest thing in the world. The pull oranges out of a big, cut them in half right there on the spot and juice 'em. De-lish.

Update 3 (2013-10-10):

So yeah, pretty sure I've confirmed that milanesas can be either pork or chicken. Wait, I haven't written about milanesas yet?! They're like one of the best things here! Shit. To be continued...

Update 4 (2013-10-28):

Ok, it's finally time to talk about milanesas. Milanesas, as you may have guessed by the name, are an Italian-inspired food. Buenos Aires/Argentina itself has a good deal of Italian influence. Probably has something to do with the 2 million immigrants that moved here in the 1800s. Anywho, a milanesa is much like a German schnitzel. It is a flattened piece of meat (I've seen chicken, pork, beef, and fish...chicken is the best and I imagine fish is the worst) that takes up the whole plate that is breaded and then baked or fried. I've seen it served as such with just a lemon to spritz with flavor and I've also seen it then covered with a sauce, such as barbacoa (semi-sweet barbeque sauce) or a white sauce or a marinara. Barbacoa is the best. They put bacon on top of that. And shit's delicious.

Buenos Aires has a chain here called El Club de la Milanesa. They serve different types of meat, different sizes, and different sauces. And they serve french fries or mashed potatoes with the milanesa. I'm sure you could get a salad, too (dick). They also serve bread at first with this really good butter/mayonnaise that's also good for dipping your fries in. This place rocks. I really want to open one in Atlanta.

Anyways, love you all,
B

Cop Cars (Updated with COP CAR PHOTOS!!)

No, this is not a post on the police. From what I can tell the police are quite nice here. But I don't really know. Haven't interacted with them at all yet. But I have seen one sign in a park and then a sign at a protest (Yes, Argentinians protest. Something the Chinese can't do. FYI.) that said something to the effect "I knew that the policed killed [someone]." Anyways, I don't have much to say on the cops.

But the cop CARS. Man, they look like they're in line to be the next Transformers. They're normal four door sedans (Fiat, maybe), really probably not any bigger than a Corolla, but they have big ass bumpers on the front and back and then guards on all four doors. It's weird. What are they protecting themselves from/ramming into? (Go ahead and give him a warning ram. An inside joke with myself and El Canadian.) Maybe it's for the protests. Or they're just overly prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

Also, everywhere the cops, on official business or not, they drive around with their lights on. It's not such a bad thing, I think. It makes them very obvious and I imagine helps deter crime. Crime isn't bad here, btw.

Anyways, outskies.

Love,
B

Update 1 (2013-11-29)

See the crazy bumpers all around the cars? No?? Look again!

And if you're wondering why the shots of the cop cars are so bad, I didn't want to seem too obvious since that invites trouble of its own, so I was standing back/away from the cars and not trying to seem obvious.

Eine kleine Nachtmusik

For those inbred cows among us who don't recognize the title of this post, it's German for "A Little Night Music". You know, by Mozart. You monkey. Anyway, this post is about nightlife! Yay for anyone who got it before my exposition.

Buenos Aires nightlife. Oh man. The stories you hear about it. First, let me address the one thing everyone fucking points out. Yes, nights start and end later there. Dinner at 11:30 at night! Oh my stars! GET OVER IT ALREADY. In my experience, nights do start later, dinner is later, whatever. In general, not just nights you go out. Some people do eat as early as 7 (sorry, you blue-plate-specialers) but 9 is more common. 11:30 does happen, but on nights out that's a bit late. Gotta let your food settle! Allow you time so that you can drink more. Claro.

So, but, on nights out, you go out probably somewhere between 12 and 2:30 AM (you read that right, 2:30 AM) and end no earlier than 4 and as late as, well, when do the afterparty of the afterparty end? But people do start drinking at like 10, just pregaming (longer pregaming!) unti they go out. Drinking could start at 8,or 8 AM. DON'T JUDGE ME!

There are, of course, any number of bars in BA. It's BA, a huge city. No different than any other city. Last night (it's Sunday. September whatever, like I said, don't judge me) we (myself and three very lovely German people) hit "Asia de Cuba". I do, fortunately, have a great list of the best clubs in the city (shoutout, Tiff!), and this is, of course, on the list. We got free tickets from the hostel (no cover! which I think was like $25 USD (steeeeppp!!)) so that was great. It was a very good club, as far as clubs go. Good music (lots of music popular in America and of course occasionally a Spanish song, many of which I knew). The constant strobe light that made it look like everyone was the best dancer in the world was kind of annoying. The mixed drinks were $60 pesos, which I thought was expensive but apparently that's pretty reasonable. It kind of is, too, when you think that's maybe $10-11 USD and that's what you'd pay at any club in the US. So, yeah. Oh, and apparently $80 pesos is the more standard/more outrageous-er price. Yeesh. I see why people pregame so long! So yeah, we had a great time, we danced, and got home at 5? 5:30? I went to sleep finally at 7:02. We stayed up at the hostel a bit.

Anyways, a taste of the nightlife here. More to come later, I'm sure.

The Chili Bomba (Updated)

Another short post, I suppose. Look at me, breaking the generational habit of being a windbag long-winded.

So, in Argentina, and probably elsewhere in South America, but I am not sure, there's a drink called "The Chili Bomba" (feel free to correct my spelling if you know better). What do you think when you hear this name? Pornstar name? Carlos Danger? I'll tell you what I think: a hot drink. Chili Bomba. A chili bomb in drink form. Yay? And, well, the truth is not far from it.

The Chili Bomba, outside of just being a fun name to say, is just vodka and energy drink. Literally, that's it. You fill a big glass half-full with energy drink and drop a shot of vodka in the middle and drink it like a normal cocktail thenceforth (henceforth, heretowith, fortnight). But you say "But, Brennan, in the second paragraph, you implied the drink would be hot! You tricked me! Dick!"* Well, it is hot! Picante hot, not caliente hot. Or, as idiots would say, "Eeeezzz spicy!"

It's true. I don't get it. I haven't tried the energy drink independently of a CB, of which I've tried two. The energy drink is called "Speed" with "Unlimited" written underneath it. Might as well read "Too Fast, Too Furious". Way to go, marketing guys. And I don't want to try it. If it mixes with vodka and results in a spicy, awful drink, no. Makes me think it's made of smushed-up radioactive ants. A spicy energy drink! Honestly, it's not mine! I will try it I suppose one day...but seriously, you made a drink by switching the type of energy drink?? Otherwise it's a vodka Red Bull!

And that's all she wrote.

*Come on, be honest. Every time you think of me, you first think "That guy is a dick."

P.S. The Chili Bomba makes me think of "The Chili Bomber", like, someone who makes bombs of chili. Maybe drops them on unsuspecting children waiting at the bus stop from the limbs above of a nearby tree. Or "The Chile Bomber" which is exponentially worse than dropping a meat soup on grade schoolers like a bored Batman. The hero we need right now, indeed. And also "Chili Palmer" cuz I fucking love John Travolta.

Update 1 (2013-10-01)

Well, I'm an idiot. Why do I say things you already know? Because I'm an idiot. And I make mistakes. But I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong. Also, this is a blog no one will care about until I'm running for the South Dakota State Treasurer/Wig Consultant to the Governor in 14 years (Wheeler 2027!) so I'll be okay until then.

Let me go ahead and give you the reason for the above paragraph now: The Chili Bomba (capitalized here to show respect) is not hot due to the energy drink. It's because of the vodka. This is ordinary vodka...when it comes through the doors of the bar. But then the bartenders put a chile in the vodka! And it makes it super hot! Cray! I think it was last Friday, 2013-09-28, that my German friend Sebastian (shout out!) pointed out this fact to me. I saw the chile in the vodka when they were pouring us our 3rd CB.

So, the vodka ordinarily is not hot but with the chile, very spicy. I tried the energy drink independently and it tastes like the urine of someone who drinks nothing but Mountain Dew, so it's pretty good. Seriously, it's not bad. I'm sure it, too, would grow on me, as the CB has.

And that is something interesting about the CB. It does grow on you. At first I was all "A spicy vodka energy drink shot! Get out of my mouth!" But then, with the persuasion of Sebastian, I tried another. Then I wanted another. And another. There must be crack in it. Or it's made by Chick Fil A. It's pretty good in the end.

Anyways, love to you all. Out like a trout.

More On Dogs

Ok, I know I already wrote a post on dogs, but still, more, man they love their dogs here. The owners are loving and adorable. I don't know if I just notice them more for no reason, but there seem to be a lot of golden retrievers here. And some little dogs, like poodle looking types.

Anyways, just had to say it. I typically run by the dog park north of my hostel and usually there's 2-4 dogs always tussling. It's adorable.

Anyways, dogs. Good job, porteños.

Mate

Hola! Soy Brennan! (like "Soy Dora!" from "Dora The Explorer. My nephew loves it, shut it.) Anyway, thought I'd write a post on mate. No mate, like, goodday mate, but mah-te. Two syllables.

Mate is a very popular drink here. It's tea, tastes like green tea, but the porteños (people from BA) will carry around a cup (pictured below) with the tea grounds and a metal straw and then separately a thermos of hot water (or of course at work/home/wherever they use their kettles). You obviously just pour the hot water in when you want some more. They'll use the same grounds all day and will just drink it as they please all day.

From what I've heard, if you are asked for or offered mate, you shouldn't refuse (i.e., it's rude). You should share or take some. It's neat. You see people everywhere carrying the thermos and cup with straw. Seems like a lot to carry around but if you like it...wish I could carry a hookah everywhere.

So there you have it. The local custom of mate in Buenos Aires.

 

Money and Dogs

Well, I distinctly remember doing a post, or perhaps separate posts, on money and dogs on my "A White Boy in India" blog. So figured I'd talk about the same things here.

Dogs

Doggies first. Cuz doggies are way cuter. I am happy to report that Argentinians LOVE their dogs. Or at least Buenos Airens (??). San Dee-eh-GANS. Seems like I see lots of people out walking dogs. Dogs on leashes. It's a good thing (said in the voice of Martha Stewart). Of course, I'm sure I just notice it more so I'm not really sure the percentage of families that own a dog versus don't. Who cares, they're adorable. I saw this big dog park thing yesterday (twice) with tons of doggies. This one golden...makes me miss Charles. Anywho, yeah! It's very good. I've only seen a handful of strays. One thing that people (touristy websites) is there's lot of dog poop on the sidewalks...eh, not really. Just watch out for it. But back to people and their dogs, they do seem to genuinely love their pets. It's cold here now (in the 40s and 50s) and I have seen several dogs wearing what amount to blankets. Now that's love. Tough it out, Charlie. And I've seen a couple of pet stores, at least with pet food. I hate to say this is a sign of civilization, but isn't it? Having domesticated animals. BTW, I didn't go looking, but I saw 0 pet stores in India.

Money

Ah, the root of all evil. And the thing that will eventually buy me a Rolex. And happiness. Here, there aren't many problems with money, compared to India anyway. They have banks, what seems like plenty of ATMs, change. I think only one person has gotten a little ticked at me for not having smaller bills, but I'm new here, what did you expect. And plenty of places, pretty much all take cards! Visa, MasterCard, AmEx (sorry Discover)! Again, I'm always comparing this to my India experience as that was my first real experience outside the US and this is my second, but with money, the experience is more favorable here.

El Subte

Today, I took the subway for the first time. Here the signs say "Subte" for "subterraneo". I'm sure you get it. I took it to a DHL location to the northwest of my location. DHL, you say? But Brennan, why? I'll tell you why. They handle the to/from shipping service for my passport. Don't know the rest of my passport story? Too bad. I'm not retelling it. Or go back and read my previous posts. Which post? I'M NOT TELLIN FIGURE IT OUT. So, I had to go there to tell them where to send my passport, which will be my new hostel. Turnaround time is 15 business days (per the embassy, not DHL). When the lady told me the shipping costs, I misunderstood her. I thought she said $700 pesos (maybe $100 USD). She said $70 pesos. WHEW. So that's pretty cheap, really.

So then I pretty much spent the rest of my day searching for this hookah place Google/Foursquare/others said existed. No dice. Dicks. Guess I should learn to use a phone. Did I mention it was raining the entire time. I was out in the rain probably for 4-5 hours. I did stop twice, once for lunch and once for coffee (cuz I was fah-ree-zing). For lunch I had a jamon y queso empanada, a carne empanada, and an alfajor! For the uninitiated, an alfajor a sweet, not sure if it's meant for dessert or not, and resembles a moonpie in the US. Imagine two crumbly wafers and in between something that tastes like nutella, or another option is chocolate, and then that whole contraption is coated with a film of vanilla. It's not bad. I kind of expected better, just because, everything different should be better, but that's not an insult. Good to try new things.

And it was neat just wandering around looking for this hookah place. I'm sure I'm seeing a lot more than I would otherwise if I knew exactly where I was going. Besides, what else am I doing? Not like I have an agenda.

Oh, and the subway. Guess I should talk about that. A one-way ticket is $2.50 pesos, so, depending on the day, half a dollar to well under half a dollar. Not bad. And the service is great and trains are quite clean. Good experience. Then again, I have no idea if the trains were on time because I didn't care. But definitely a great way to get around the city.

Rain, rain, you suck

I'll keep this post short. Didn't do a whole lot Sunday. It was raining. It had been raining a lot since I got to BA and rained until today (Tuesday, September 17th). I went on my first run and it started raining on me during the run. Yayyyyy. So I did a little bit of exploring but otherwise hung inside. I was sick of the rain.

Fine, fine, I'M BACK!

So a lot of you (ok, like two people) have been asking when I'm going to write another post. WHEN I FEEL LIKE IT. Is the answer. Nah, I kid. I should write this down. Cuz we all know I'm gonna forget this stuff. Cuz, alcohol.

Anyways, I last wrote on Saturday, September 14th. Today is Tuesday, September 17th. So let's recap Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Saturday, September 14th

THE TIDE WON. THAT'S IT. Nah, I kid. So I went to La Boca. La Boca means "The Mouth", like Boca Raton, which means "Mouth of the Rat". Still wanna live there, old folks? I bet you don't care. Anyways, it's in, what is to me, kind of the southeast part of the city. The map the hostel gives you actually advises you to not go there at night. So why would I want to go there?? Cuz I can. And people told me to. And eff the man. So I went and it was cool. It apparently has some of the best art museums/galleries in the city. Which I'll agree with. But museums bore the piss out of me and I never learn/remember anything from them. So I didn't go in them. I'll check out Michelangelo's David and that's about it.

But, there was plenty of art outside. Graffiti, but really well done graffiti. It just expresses the neighborhood, the culture, the feeling down there. Very nice. And I didn't find that part of the city dangerous. But I didn't stick around for nightfall, either. One thing down there that is famous is "El Caminito". No, Spencer, not the Jewpacabra. El Caminito means the little street, of course. It's famous because the buildings on both sides of this stretch of street are painted wildly. Loud, bright colors. And there are restaurants and street vendors crowding the street. It's neat. I was looking for it and walked down it and figured out what it is. I don't think it's marked but I could have missed it.

Oh! And I saw the stadium called La Bombonera. It's for CABJ, or Club Atletico Boca Juniors. I didn't go to a match. Cuz, just no.

Then I came back to the hostel and der Trevenbro gave me the play by play of the Bama game. Did I mention we won? Then later that night a couple of my roommates invited me to join them and three other people at a German bar called Unterturkheim. Good stuff. Ok, enough on Saturday...

La Embajada de Los Estados Unidos y mas

Where to begin...so yesterday (I'm writing this on the morning of 9/14) I went to the US embassy here in BA because I am almost of places to put stamps on my passport. Dear Americans, if you don't understand what an advantage it is to be American, FIGURE. IT. OUT. I had an appointment and am a US citizen so I skipped the lines and walked straight in. I could either get a book added to my passport that day (cost of $82) or renew my passport and get it back in 3 weeks (for a cost of $110). I chose the later. The whole trip took me maybe 2-ish hours but was still a good experience. The State Department does a really good job of taking care of its citizens outside our borders. God Bless America (#nosarcasm, #nofilter).

I cabbed there but walked back. I think it was almost 9 km (get a calculator if you want to put this into miles). On the way I stopped for a breakfast of breads, sweet things (imagine two small cookies with nutella between them), jugo de naranja, y café. It was wonderful. I swear, everyone who goes to Europe and is a pretentious dick is like "Oh em geeeee you could just stop at any café anywhere and get the best bread and coffee eveeeerrrr HASHTAGYOLO." Well, yeah, I'm being that dick here now. F*******!!!! It really was delightful, though. Oh, and I also don't have a job so I was in no rush. So that help.

I walked back and charged my phone briefly and met this girl Sarah from Australia. We went and got some food (see the tango photo on Facebook) and walked back. Nice girl, very nice meeting her. Hooray hostels! She has been like most people I've met here: we meet and they leave. She was headed to Peru.

I then went and bought a new charger and cord for my camera cuz I forgot them in America. F. It was a total ripoff but the guy was nice and he also changed the rest of my US money for 7 pesos to 1 USD. I don't understand this. Yesterday, Google said the exchange was 5.7 pesos to 1 USD. Why did he pay a premium? Fuck it. It's also like when I applied for my new passport. When I did, I needed a new photo. The lady at the embassy told me that there was someone who did photos across the street in the park. Sure enough, they were in a white van, a daughter and father. They said I could pay $10 USD or 90 pesos. So, to me, $10 USD is 57 pesos. So I paid in dollars. Then they offered me change in USD or pesos because I gave them a $20 bill. So I gave them $20 USD and in my mind received almost $16 in change. I don't get it. Whatever. I don't consider myself dishonest because I think I'm missing something.

So, finally, camera in hand, I went out last night to try to my first empanadas and see some more of the city. I tried carne, carne picante, y jamon y queso. The carne picante was not picante. Dicks. But they were good. And I had my first beer. A whole liter in fact for about $2.50. Awesome. Check Facebook for the amazing pick I got soon.

New words I learned recently and still remember: balanceo, embajada, serpiente, propina (tip on a bill), centavos (Argentine cents), estacionar, estacionmente (I think that'd right), aprovechar, basura, contendor (??), elastico, humida (I had learned this before and forgot it), prohibido (obvious)...I'm sure there are others...

First Impressions in Buenos Aires - Primeras Impresiones de Good Airs

Hola desde Buenos Aires!

What up peeps?

So, Buenos Aires, day one, first impressions. I'll try not to bore you. Something something Batman is here on sabbatical. But here they call him Bathombre. Or sometimes Mercialagohombre. I kid. No, but, this city is beautiful. Reminds me of Europe a bit, a little bit of Hong Kong, a little bit of NYC. NYC but with less brick, really. It's great. Long, long streets, and given how narrow they are, they have tons of one-ways. No choice, really. But they got it on lockdown. ATLANTA, TAKE NOTE.

I am finding tons of cute restaurants to go to. All small but delicious. Plenty of pizza and empanadas. I am EXTREMELY pleased with the number of markets available. You can run into 2 or 3 in 5 minutes of walking. Having lived in India where they are much more scarce, this is wonderful. Especially when I don't have a car. Haven't seen a Walmart yet but have seen Shell and Hess.

But I'll keep this short. The city is marvelous. Time to make some friends and hit the town. Not tonight. But soon.

Oh! One more thing. I've found so many Spanish words that I DO NOT KNOW. Easter egg: here, they use the word "tickets" to mean tickets. No joke. Just straight English. I didn't even realize it at first. I saw a sign for Black Sabbath playing here, their one and only time ever in BA, sign said tickets and everything else was in Spanish. And when leaving the airport, the sign when leaving the parking lot said "pagados tickets" for "paid tickets". Didn't realize at first it was in two languages.

Now for this Spanish. This is gonna be tough.

Que pasaaaaaaa, peeps? (amigos, mi gente, pares) (oh slang...)

Pues, Buenos Airs, dia uno, primeras impresiones. Voy a tratar a no aburrirlos. Algo algo Mercialagohombre esta aqui en su año sabatico. Pero aqui se llaman Bathombre. O aveces Mercialagohombre. (That really is the word for bat in Spansih, btw. Look it up. Mercialago.) Bromeo. No, pero, esta ciudad es bonita. Me recuerda de Europa un poco, un poquito de Hong Kong (yeah, I'm not looking that up), un poquito de Nueva York. NYC pero con menos ladrillo, en verdad. Es muy buena. Calles larga, muy larga, y

Finishing later...

I'm gonna try blogging in both English and Spanish

Hey e'erbody,

So I can practice some extra Spanish, I am going to blog in both English and Spanish. But not Spanglish. I don't dig half-bloods (I kid, Hermione, I love you). Anyways, feel free to follow along, and if I make a mistake, let me know. But don't do it all pretentiously. I'm lookin at you, Spencer.

Hola e'erbody,

Para puedo practicar un poco de Espanol (no tengo enie!), voy a escribar en este blog (yeah, I don't how to say "blog" in Spanish, deal with it) en los dos ingles y espanol. De todos modos, sigue mis palabras en espanol, and si hago un error (which I won't ever/will constantly), dime. Pero, no corrijas pretenciosamente. Te estoy mirando, El Canadian.

Love to all,
B

He Llegado en Buenos Aires!

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to get the blog up and running and send out a link. Made it BA fine, 9 hr and 42 min direct flight.

I took a bus for 80 pesos (beware: when you're taking money out at the ATM, they use the regular dollar sign ($) to represent their currency, so when it asks "Do you want to take out $100,00, it means 100 pesos, not 100 dollars. Oops.) to the city center. Currently it's 5.something pesos to a dollar so we're talking maybe $15. Pretty sweet. The trip from the airport to the hostel, according to GMaps is like 30.8 km. So I walked the remaining 3.4 km to the hostel. Yerp.

Walking was great. The streets are wide if you consider them one-lane roads, so that's good for traffic, pedestrians, and when cars need to stop to deliver something. The sidewalks aren't superwide but are more than serviceable. Not that badly built. Really true of what I've seen of the city so far. Older buildings but very well kept-up. No more standing water than what you'd find in NYC. Not everyone is "beautiful" per se, which isn't an insult, just saying, not everyone is drop-dead gorgeous. Feels somewhat European. Well-dressed men with styled-hair and maybe some facial hair. Women with dark hair and European faces (big cheap bones, round chins).

It's very nice. Speaking some Spanish. Gonna go get some café shortly. I like not being in a rush.

Love to all,
B