Return to Chile: side walk traffic

It has been a smooth move from the economically collapsing arg, to the much more organized chilito. It was only a matter of time until my cynical side of Chile came out, but alas, it has emerged.

I suppose it might be coming from a big city (the entire population of Chile fits into the greater Buenos Aires) that people have a tendency to walk faster, perhaps they have a meeting, or may miss the subway, regardless of the circumstances, I would say as a rule people tend to walk briskly. Brisk is the last word I would use to describe the average Chilean walker. You can call me high strung, which I am,  but there is no excuse to walk at the pace of a small child learning how to walk unless you are a small child learning how to walk, disabled or over the age of 70.

Not only do Chileans tend to be slow walkers, they are surly slow walkers. About on a daily basis, I get a middle aged woman, coming out of some unknown door, pretty much knocking into me, telling me ‘muevete gringa’ (move gringa). This is annoying. At first I felt somewhat bad, kind of repentant as if I had done something wrong but wait. YOU ARE ENTERING THE SIDEWALK TRAFFIC NOT ME. So now, when I hear the snide ‘muevete gringa’ I reply with ‘esperate weona’(wait asshole) of which tends to evoke a quite adverse reaction. Latinas.

Another sidewalk disrupter are the chains of preteen girls in their uniformed miniskirts coming to or from school. Maybe I just didn’t have enough girlfriends to make my own daisy chain that takes up the entire sidewalk, or maybe I did, but I didn’t because some people don’t want to walk at the pace of the above mentioned toddler and then have to contend with the redrover looking formation ahead. If you want to link arms with one of your friends, that is reasonable, girls like arm linkage. However, if you want to link arms with twenty of your friends, forcing people to swerve into the side of the road, perhaps rethink, maybe put that buddy system into action.

(mutiply these three by three and you get school girl chains in Chile) 

The third obstacle that I’ve run into are the sudden stop maker-outers. So say you make it it through several blocks without having to contend with pre-teen daisy chains, large groups of people walking as if they are on the brink of death, or frank mean middle aged woman, you will enevitably make it to some university building where you will have to beware of the newly smitten (or not so newly) couples. Okay, so everyone likes making out, I won’t exclude myself from this group but if I’m going to choose to make out on the street I do no stop suddenly to have a romantic moment, maybe a long stare followed by the impending kiss. Congratulations couple, you have now made yourself into a human roadblock, or at the very least a human median. And what’s more, you CAN kiss and walk at the same time, I know it’s a strange concept, but try it and simultaneously become much less of a burden to your fellow pedestrians.

You might think that it is all romantic as it looks in this picture but trust me, it isn't. 

Bus Anxiety

I suppose to end my time in Argentina, I will write about one on going issue, that from day one to day 365 still tends to haunt me on a daily basis: Bus Anxiety.

I have come to learn that Argentina has a way of doing things, that most porteños have grown up with some kind of system of how the bus works, that is to say, when to get up, when to sit down, how much money to put on your sube, which lines to not tell where you are going and which to simply glide by on the cheapest fare possible. When I arrived to Argentina, they just simply did not give me the complete guide to bus etiquette. I will proceed to explain the entire bus rundown.

The bus stop: For a new comer, even finding the bus stop can be a challenge because Argentine bus stops resemble post-it notes on a pole. The post-it note on the pole is a luxury because it is likely that someone has decided to gift themselves the post-it note on a pole, one inebriated night, and now the bus stop is tape, with unreadable handwriting on the side of a speed limit sign. It reminds me a bit of Easter egg hunting, in the most frustrating sense of the idea. To get an idea of what this looks like, I will provide a visual.

Payment:However, say you do manage to find your correct post it note, you can now find your way to the bus, you will now have to pay. Great, that seems simple. Wrong. If you don't have a sube card, you have to pay with coins. Simple enough? Wrong. There is a coin shortage in Buenos Aires, complete with various conspiracy theories to accompany, regardless, coming up with that 3 pesos in change is going to be a challenge at best. You will then notice that everyone has this lovely purple card that not only you can swipe (and go into debt up to seven pesos!) it is also HALF the price of the three pesos you would have muster up. So just where do you get this little gem of a card? Where else? The post office! But wait.. not every post office has them, and they frequently change locations and not only that, you have to wait in the endless line at the post office, so unless you have unlimited time, and patience, that gem of a purple card is going to take you an entire day to obtain. Obnoxious? I would agree. 

The pregnant and the elderly: Okay, so you have now made it onto the bus, whether your sube worked or you had to sacrifice those sacred coins, you are on. Not only are you on this bus, there is a seat that you can sit in! So you sit in the seat right? Logical. Then you start seeing the entire bus dynamics changing as younger people get up for older people and 50 year old ladies get up for the pregnant lady and all of the sudden, there you are, surrounded by senior citizens and pregnant ladies. At this point, all you can do is hope that an enormously pregnant woman comes along, because then you must give up your seat and no one gets offended. But say you don't, and you end up with the border line senior citizen approaching the bus. Anxiety should now implode. You are on the brink of offending a man that is 65 because by giving him your seat you are essentially saying, you look ancient. So do you give up your seat? Offer? Either way, be prepared to be hit with an utterly offended middle aged person because your age guessing skills are absolutely impotent or with kindness because you hit the mark and the 65 year old just got a hip replacement. 

The crowded bus: The worst, is probably when you manage to make it on an overly crowded bus. I have learned that the proper way of getting on this bus is not to mingle in the general standing area on the first floor but to go straight up the stairs to the upper level of the bus, where let me be clear there is no door. If you don't know where you are going, this is an absolute nightmare and you can pretty much just expect to end up in some unknown part of the city because you missed your stop. So, say you don't go to the upper end of the door, you have one of three options. You can a) stand by the door which means the door opens and closes ONTO you. B) You can stand in what would be about equivalent to the mosh pit at some concert whereby you are bound to fall because there is nothing to hold onto, and reap the wrath of an Argentine whatsapping. C) you sit on the handicap bars and just really hope that no one in a wheelchair gets on anytime soon. Option C is the best, but still not great. 

In conclusion, I will be happy to never get on a bus again in Argentina. Chau Buenos Aires. 

What not to wear: the soul patch

Before I even begin my sarcastic commentary on trending patterns in Argentina, I will begin by saying that this blog is not intended to offend. Off we go.

I will start by making it clear that I am a big fan of facial hair, and I even feel bad for my poor male compadres who really honestly can not so much grow as peach fuzz above their top lip. I can state with clarity that theres nothing much more sexy than a little gruff, a little shag. Argentines picked the long straw in this department which means that they are a hairy bunch, that could, if they wanted, do all kinds of creative things with that facial canvas. My boss as of recent, has decided to use his canvas as a way to express his emotions, which is to say that he is sporting what I would coin as the crisis mustache. I find mustaches, when worn appropriately extremely bemusing. This mustache does not fall under this category, it falls under the crisis category.

Anyways, back to the trending facial hair in Argentina, the soul patch (which I'm pretty sure has been trending for about 50 years now, and really has never trended anywhere else like it trends here) is the terribly  chosen choice of the masses. For those of you who don't know what a soul patch is I will provide you a visual.

If I had to make an educated guess I would say at least 70 percent of the male population is modeling this gem of a look. The baffling part of this is not really how they could do it, but why would anyone want this patch, or tuft if you will. The soul patch for female would be as though you forgot to shave your knees. I sometimes get this insatiable urge to go up to the random Argentine man, who has chose the less burly version of the soul tuft and kindly remark that he missed a spot just below his bottom lip. 

I guess I could go at this issue from an anthropological perspective, the soul patch represents the Argentine culture as a whole because they take the patch so fucking seriously. Argentines themselves do not take their personal appearances as a laughing matter, and the snide remark about the soul patch is taken with stern offense. I propose perhaps that we have 'choose your soul patch day: thick or thin, all accepted' as a new Argentine holiday, considering that they have a plethora of useless national and celebratory days. Take yourselves a bit less serious Argentina, you are taking all of the soul out of that small tuft of hair below your bottom lip.

Argentina is like men, never asking but always knowing: The directions saga.

I would consider myself probably a pretty knowledgeable person, that is to say I know my way around the place that I live. I happen to live in the centre of Palermo, and work in the centre of Palermo, which also is home to one of the touristy hotspots in BA as it is an encalve of bars, restaruants, clubs the works. I feel pretty confident in my ability to direct someone who is not from Palermo in the right direction. Here comes the massive cultural difference: If I am in microcentro, which I know absolutely nothing about, and a place which kind of stresses me out, I would not tell someone who politely asks me where they are in Microcentro, some direction that I honestly had no idea the location. Perhaps it is pride, or just plain snarky behavior, but Argentines will never tell you that they dont know where they are, much less where you are. In fact it by sheer miracle that I have not ended up on one of these:

So back to microcentro *the area that I despise*. Let me be clear about microcentro, it is tourist haven, home to the president's house, the congress, as well as the finacial district, oh yeah, it also kind of backs up onto retiro, and tends to host some pretty sketchy characters.  So you get a mix to say the very least. But were I to ask someone how do I get to the congress building, the said character, who you will later find out is from Tierra del Fuego, will route you through Monserrat, down calle Florida, to Plaza San Martin, and you will end up at your final destination, Retiro, the extremely dodgy bus station. At the very least you can get yourself a new pair of undies and any knock off things that you could possibly dream of. Luis viton, and Nike toe shoes are a specialty. This also has been known to happen in Retiro:

Granted, I've been robbed oooo  three times now in BA, and at this point it is pretty much a chiste, so hello retiro, fuck you tierra del fuego, you got me robbed. 

This leads me to my next point with directions. Argentina might be the most near sighted country I have ever encountered or perhaps they just have a terrible maths cirriuculum because when I was coming along, two blocks meant TWO, in Argentina, two blocks means seven. I'll give an example. From my office, I was told to go to Puerreydon. Dont worry, it will take you ten minutes it's on the corner of Puerrydon and Paragauy my boss tells me, three blocks nomas. David, is that a joke? Let's take a look at the map. 

The final destination A) doesn't even fit on the map. B) Three blocks gets me only a third of the way so if I was going for any type of time management, that idea pretty much disappears, because 10 minutes will get me to Gallo, 30, will get me to said destination. Lets use our maths jefe, don't be such a boludo, if nothing else, get a calculator, 3 mas 6 = 9. 

Subways, Electricity and Other Non-functioning Appliances

I was reflecting today on the icebox I work in, as I bunkered down in a sweat shirt and pants and typed away. Let me be clear however, I live in a place that is hot. Buenos Aires could certainly give North Carolina a run for its money, and you are banking on 105 (40somthingdegrees) degree heat, no aircon (at least in this departamento) and a lot of humidity. That being said, Argentines love their aircon, the icy tundra office environment is crucial and apparently I didn't get the memo until someone decided to cut my power. I'll back up. Argentina this summer has been going through a series of power shortages, ones that seem to be random, that leave you in the pitch black for hours on end with no idea when it might be coming back on. That isn't the end of the world, blackouts happen and there is nothing we can do about it. Leave it to Argentina however we can! This is Christina, my least favorite player in the game as of recent.

Hi Christina. Anyways, little known, whilst none of us get any warning about the power on our block, Christina sits in her pink house and systematically shuts off our power so that we can all have an equal amount of aircon. Okay, fine, if you want aircon that is fine, but there is this idea called respect. When you plan on shutting off the power in my block TELL ME. I can think of little worse than being in on the edge of my seat, watching a movie when Christina decides it is time to shut things down. Black out. Point being, it is obnoxious.

Speaking of obnoxious, it brings me to my next point, huelgas. Huelgas, for all of you non spanish speakers is what we call a strike. In my past few months in Argentina, there have been several with the subte. Now don't get me wrong, I am all in favor of protesting for higher wages when you are getting shitty pay. You deserve better, but union leaders organize yourselves! The subte only takes you so far and then you get busses, and I hate to say it subte strikers, the bus system is just simply better than the subte and you will never get what you want. Take that with a grain of salt and try and convince your friends that the bus AND the subtes should strike together.

So speaking of strikes that never get anywhere and simply just end, it brings me to a story that Katita Rica once told me which i will now tell to you. Katita works downtown, in the bustling centre of Buenos Aires. This one particular day, the subtes had decided to strike for god knows why, and it just happened to be a day where it was raining. By raining I mean pouring and pouring would be a euphamism for the kind of rain she was in. SO she was happily riding the bus when she heard of the nube toxica that had overtaken Buenos Aires. A nube toxica is a toxic cloud because someone fucked up and ran into a massive ship full of pesticides. It looked something like this.

Like a responsible city decided to do, they decided to evacuate the entire southern half of the city, because the nube is just that, toxic. So one runs into a small logistical issue if they are trying to get from the south of the city to the north. The subways are on strike and in this time of evacuation crisis no one has even hinted that they may be able to get a slight raise so that they can at the very least EVACUATE. The buses are overloaded and so poor Katita Rica was stuck in the nube toxica, unable to get a bus, with many a frantic evacuees in a monsoon. Long story short, I came home and Katita looked something like this on our couch. 

I'll finish this with a suggestion to both the unions and to Christina. Chris, if you are going to be a total bitch and turn off my power at very inopportune moments, leave me a message telling me not to watch my favorite TV show at that time. Subway strikers, if you're going to strike during a nube toxica, risking peoples lives, at least get something out of the deal, give me some passion at the very least.

Communal BBQ First Dates and Other Confusing Dating Tactics

My current humble abode at the moment consists of two single ladies. Two single ladies could also just be another way of saying I live in Gossip Girl aka Thames 2349, where all we do is talk about clothes and boys. I wish that I could deny that last statement but sadly, this is what my life has resorted to. Unlike most, we mostly just talk about how utterly confusing Argentine men are with their dating, or lack thereof, skills. 

I dont want to be vain, but we get a lot of attention, and this is not because we are beauty queens, but more so because we are different. I'll provide an example. We were recently asked if we were Croatian. This was a friendly way for the said Argentine to ask us where the fuck we were from because we most certainly were not from this continent. A typical Argentine woman looks something like this: 

Yes, that is, she is tan, tall, big busted, thin and sassy. The only thing that Argentine women and I have in common might be the sass, but I would consider them more hysterical, than sassy. In comparison, meet myself and Katita Rica. 

The difference is stark. We are not tall, not big busted, not particularly thin but most certainly sassy. And in this country Croatian, a nice way of saying aliens. 

I wont try and pretend that even though we both have had our share of time in South America, that it doesn't surprise us the tact that men go about using to try and woo their ladies. I'll finish this by providing some solid examples for all of you future South American female go getters, or perhaps the prowling european/american gent.  

Exhibit A. The idea of communal dating. If I had to make a guess, I would probably predict that 85 percent of first dates in Argentina are dates to an asado. An asado, for all of you non spanish speakers, is a fancy way of saying BBQ. The whole concept of an asado as a date is confusing because it is communal. There is no one- on-one time at an asado and so whilst you might arrive with your said date, you will essentially end up dating everyone at the communal bbq because speaking to only one person at a social gathering is rude, no matter the culture. One might ask themselves how anyone ever gets anywhere with the asado dating life because you always end up going home solo. I will give them props, that its kind of like speed dating. Pull it together Argentina, put some social lubricant in there, ask for a drink, because whislt you might think it is sexy to man the grill, it is not sexy to watch you stuff your face with chorizo. 

Exhibit B. The whatsapp approach for asking for numbers. So for a country that considers themselves super macho, the men sure are pussies when it comes to asking for someones number. If you like someone it is normal to ask for their number. It means you might want to go out with them. Argentina missed this mark, and decided to take a stroll around the park. About 90 percent of the time, a man will ask for your whatsapp. Now, for anyone who doen't have whatsapp, you must put the person's phone number in your address book in order for this to work. By asking for a whatsapp you are asking for their number. I'm sure all the Argentine men think they are stealthy with this little trick, but sorry buddy you are the fourth person this week to ''do you have whatsapp?'' me. Grow some balls and ask for my number. 

Exhibit C. Drowning compliments and overambitious PDA. Anyone looking for an ego boost should just up and move to South America because Argentine men will literally put their dignity on the line to let you know that if you tried, you too could be the next Kate Moss. They will drown you in compliments about even your most hidious features. Got cankles? Not to worry he might say, they look like the tree trunks of the tree of life. Double chin? Big nose? If all else fails, plastic surgery is cheap in South America and he might try and woo you into paying for it. You could be the barbie you always dreamed about! Speaking of dignity, I do like to preserve mine, cultural differences have their PDA limits. It is perfectly acceptable to grope your partner on public transport, and stradle them in what might be considered soft core porn. I am not looking for internet stardom, so behind closed doors will be fine thanks. In fact, Argentina has telos *hourly hotels* for all you love birds that can just not wait to get off the bus before those pants come off. I try and shield my eyes in these circumstances. 

I could probably go on for hours about cultural differences in dating but for now I am destined to be single, in this world of latin infidelity and debauchery. I'll take a nice german boy, one, who when I am fat, will tell me that its fine, it will come off in time, rather than liken me to be beauty of a whale gliding through the atlantic. 

Correo Argentina: your one stop for any and everything you ever need to get done.

I have been inspired recently to write by the sheer inefficiancy of certain things in Latin America. All of you anthropologists out there can tell me that I´m being culturally insensitive, and what not, that just because it isn´t our system, that it works here. A haiku comes to mind.

post office waiting
three hour pause in the same chair
no work day for me


That is fine, I´m not complaining because the slowness of certain things, as it provides me a massive gap in my work day, allowing me to get nothing done. I´ll go for a more positive approach: it´s kind of like organized procrasination, thus really everything I´m not too inclined to get finished anyways can be easily passed off as a ´sorry boss, I had to go to the post office today´. Your boss will then respond, ´ah yes, the post office´and saunter away, accepting your excuse for being absent from the office for 3 hours.  In case you haven´t caught on by now, the post office is going to be my subject of choice for todays blog.

This my friends, is the Correo Argentina:

For all of you non Spanish speakers out there correo means mail. Argentina´s mail service got a little overambitious and not only can you send all of your packages (no guarentees that it will ever make it out of the country) you can also pay all of you bills. Furthermore, it is the only place you can apply for a transport card and whilst the person in front of you is having a colossal break down because their payment cannot be accepted, or the phone bill was too high, their electricity got cut off or the water is brown, you my good sir or madam, can signup at the booth in the corner for your very own credit card, one that not only has a high credit maximum but also accepts anyone, regardless of past credit disasters. I frequently ponder the idea, though as I am not Argentine, I would most likely be rejected. 

Now, you might think to yourself, what a great idea, one can get everything done in one place. What a great idea it is however, the woman who is running the post office is an expert in one thing. Mail. This is why it is called Mail Argentina. So, you can guess what happens when someone is upset about the amount of voltage being used in their apartment, and they go up, aproach the mail expert about electricity. The whole system then begins to break down. The woman becomes nervous, because she, like most people, has no idea why the voltage in the said person´s apartment was huge this month. And then begins the phone calls to the electrical company, so that the poor expert in mail, becomes the middle man between the angry customer and clueless electrical company. Your wait, at this point, is going to be between and hour and an hour an a half. You have number 56 and on the counter we are only at number 42. Guess what your odds are that you will have at least one more person, in a similar position. I would guess about 100 percent. 

So in conclusion, way to take one for the team Correo Argentina, you have officially become Argentina´s scapegoat, doomed to deal with angry customers, not upset about mail, but about transport, or bills.