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many geographical hotspots have their own motto. for example, belize's is "you better belize it!" connecticut's is "connecticut:we're full of surprises." the united states is apparently the "land of the free," whoever
that's supposed to be referring to.
argentina's is "argentina: un pais, en serio!" which translates roughly to "argentina: seriously, we're a country!"
in our three weeks in this "country," we have come up with a few more...how should i say this...
appropriate mottos. here's one:
Argentina: Your Unreliable Friend
because here's the thing. everyone has that unreliable friend, right? you know who i'm talking about. he says he'll be there at 8, but you call at 10 and he says he's not coming. she borrows a cd and only after you've forgotten you ever owned it does she return it, if ever. or, say, he's a country that does not follow the "hours of operation" sign on his own storefront. which brings us to our next motto:
Argentina: Open from 9 AM - 1 PM and from 5 PM - 9 PM. Maybe.
there's this thing called siesta, perhaps you've heard of it? the mid-afternoon nap? sounds nice right? you get a food coma after consuming one of the holy trinity of argentine foods (pizza/pasta/steak...more on that later) so you take a nap before resuming work. well, this is all well and good, presuming you were ever working in the first place and/or had plans to continue working after siesta. neither of these are the case in argentina. i'm beginning to think that all the strikes i see everyday are just because people don't feel like going to work. i'm pretty sure the strikes take a break for siesta. restaurants, if they do decide to open, do so at 8 PM, at the absolute earliest. speaking of restaurants:
Argentina: Menus for Most of You
here's what you may not know about argentina. there are only three dishes you can order here, with slight variation: pizzas, pastas, and steak. now don't get me wrong, they do all these dishes
really well. it's just...am i crazy here? i mean, EVERY restaurant in the ENTIRE country serves this food. there is nothing. else. to. order. which is why, i think, when you enter a restaurant, the waiter will (maybe) come over to you and then get the most surprised look on his face when you ask for a menu. he will begrudgingly oblige, but i think there is some sort of complex argentine math problem that our puny minds can't comprehend, because...he will always bring one less menu than there are people. at first, kyle and i thought this was just because there were two of us and well maybe they had a menu shortage, because they would only bring one. but then we went out with one other person--two menus. and then two other people--three menus. baffling. here's something else baffling:
Argentina: Really God-Awful Haircuts
once upon a time, i had a friend who lived in argentina for 3 years. let's call "him" ... "zatie." when zatie returned from argentina in 2004, he had the weirdest, most awful haircut this side of the mullet. i was baffled. why? was this a change in aesthetic sensibilities, or was it somehow argentina's fault? i know the answer now. it is argentina. like the fierce loyalty to the steak/pizza/pasta trinity, argentina just will not let go of the mullet and its many variations. men and women sport it. the male look can be blamed, apparently, on a soccer player named maradona who won the world cup for argentina in...you guessed it...1982. he had a mullet, and they just can't get enough of the short in front, long and scraggly in back, even 24 years later. i don't know who's responsible for the she-mullet. what is usually involved is long hair, cut into shelf-like layers...the first being at the crown of the head. so you have long hair with short tufts. then they have 3 or 4 other layers, culminating in the final, nasty, straggly layer that reaches down to the middle of their back. sometimes there's a stray dreadlock if you're lucky. the short she-mullet has misplaced fringe, long bits where there should be short bits, and some haphazard bangs. it's almost enough to make you want to donate hairdressers to the cause.
so argentina, if you're tuning in to this dispatch, get to work, open the store, make some more menus (and while you're at it, why not try, oh i don't know, cooking with vegetables? or rice, for example?), and get a haircut, you hippie, and
then we can talk about you being "un pais, en serio". entiendes?
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drae j namaste-rose
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unreliable friends
so, where are the pictures in this entry?