Blogs from Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, South America - page 256

Last week my Dad and stepmom came to visit me for about a week. We spent several days in Buenos Aires and also took a trip to the northwest of the country. We visted three states: Tucuman, Jujuy, and Salta. Tucuman is where the Argentine Declaration of Independence was signed and it's a smally city in a pretty lush-green part of the country. All around the city are rolling hills and lots of flowers, and it seemed like a really nice place to vacation. Our guide on our trip to the NW was an Argentine friend and former coworker of my Dad, Conrado, who is from Tucuman and now lives there with his family. We basically drove north from Tucuman (through Jujuy and Salta) to the Argentine/Bolivia border and back again. North of Tucuman is ... read more

Natalie Worst Spanish translation: Somehow I confused the words for "cork" and a vulgar female anatomy term, so I botched up my attempt to sound intelligent and environmentally aware about the effects of the high price of natural cork...luckily I was only speaking to one person. Have you sampled free beer at the Alamo?: Yes, yes, and the "Cerveza-Gratis Para Chicas" sign landed me in a room full of American rugby players who (with incredible harmony) serenaded me with "You've Lost that Loving Feeling." Has your acohol tolerance risen while the number of hours you sleep per night fallen since moving to Argentina?: I think I was primed for the Argentina lifestyle from prior life experience.... Weirdest apartment quirk: Virtually anything related to energy (I'm thinking about the acrobatics I need to do to light my ... read more

My Non-Existent History with Soccer: As of one month ago, this was (as far as I can remember) the only conversation that the Mesle family has ever had about Soccer. Mark: So how was your weekend? Sarah (my wonderful older sister): It was really great I got recruited to play a game of intramural soccer with some of my friends. Mark: How did it go? Sarah: It was so much fun, you just get to run around and look for things. Mark: You mean like the ball? Sarah: Yeah, I like looking for it. Mark: Well, that’s…um,….that’s great Sarah. Sarah later clarified that on numerous occasions she did in fact “find” the ball, however when she found it she was not exactly sure what to do with it. During the 2002 World Cup, I was vaguely ... read more

And now it is 4am and Erica has just left in a shared taxi with the people who were living in my apartment. One of the last things she whispered with her face pressed to mine was "I don´t want to sit in the back of the car with their poopy suitcases" (they had drug their suitcases through big piles of poo.) I have only walked around a little, here in the apartment, since her departure. And already I am finding her. The stencil she made, yellow spray paint, her handwritting scribbled on bits of paper. I tried to thank her everyday. It became a joke. She will never know how much it meant that she came Or how I can never stop saying thank you. ....thank you.... As they slipped down the streets I said ... read more

One of the very wonderful things about Buenos Aires is that old women, young children and mothers to be are never allowed to stand for more than 10 seconds on the bus or subway. I think that this is a wonderful aspect of the culture, as I love it when people make a collective decision to make kindness a priority. (I think that Argentines do this in many different ways.) However this subject is a little tricky for me because when these individuals with their osteoportothisis, sippy cups, and life sustaining wombs come on to a subway or bus, its is me and my kind who are expected to hop up and offer up our seats to anyone and everyone in need. By my kind, I mean a man under thirty with four working limbs ... read more