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. 

Window Shopping: The Most Annoying Argentine Pastime

If there is one thing that I have learned about Argentina, working next to one of the swankiest malls in BA, Alto Palermo, is that Argentines love to shop. Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying that I too do not enjoy spending money I don´t have but Argentines tend to do shopping in a somewhat different manner than I have seen stateside or Europe. Window shopping in Argentina is the preferred shopping manner, the whole idea of stepping foot inside the store seems to rarely cross the middle aged Argentine woman´s mind. I accredit this to following reasons. 

1) It is shocking I know, but there is a method behind NOT putting the overly priced shoe´s actual price gleaming in the store window. This is because the idea is that the customer will not sprint away from the 600 peso platform Birkenstock that you are advertising. The 600 peso sign is more daunting then the idea that you might be 4 inches taller in a matter of minutes. One then simply puts the whole idea of even trying-on the shoe, and heaven forbid buying the shoe out of mind. Instead they gaze longingly at what might have been, had the price tag not been sitting beside those jewels of unique sandals. (For those of you not up-to-date with Argentine fashion, these beauties come in every neon color imaginable for a mere $120USD and resemble these:) 

2) It is a way of setting goals. There is nothing more inspiring than someone allocating their money to something that they genuinely want and have saved for. Since as I mentioned previously, there is no hiding the price of anything in Argentina, window shopping is a way for them gradually gather money, passing by their goal, day after day, until they muster the courage, 600 pesos in hand, to go in, try on and carry out those dreamy trainers. Besides, no one likes a tease, and trying on something that you´re never going to buy, is rude to the store manager. Argentina absolutely does not cater to customer service. If anything,  you are a burden and trying on shoes that you aren´t going to buy is obnoxious. They will have no problem letting you know this. 

Now this whole rant is leading up to why I decided to write this in the first place. Window shopping, reasonable or not, is annoying to all other pedestrians in the vicinity. There is nothing more that irks me, when I am running late to work, and am briskly walking to be abruptly stopped by someone who at the last second has noticed a 50 percent off sign. Let me be clear, like moving traffic on a street, there are rules to the way that pedestrian traffic should run. It means that you walk on the side walk, stop at the crosswalks and leave the side walk without being too pushy to leave the sidewalk traffic. The whole flow of traffic is utterly destroyed when there are window shoppers. If you were driving a car and you saw something that you were interested in on the scenery alongside the highway, you would not come to a complete stop in the middle of the motorway would you? The same goes for window shopping, you either exit the sidewalk to get an up close view or you continue with traffic because like cars, and people, things in motion tend to stay in motion: widow shopping causes human crashing. Unlike cars, people do not have blinkers or brake lights. There is no way for the person behind you to know that you are planning to stop to look at the newest fashion, or clatily scad mannequins. It is not only irritating for the shopper to be bumped into but it is even more irritating for the person behind to be the bumper. 

Were Christina open to any kind of suggestions, considering she puts a new sketchy law into place without warning on the regular, I would suggest tinted windows for all retail stores.