How did this week fill an entire week?

South America » Argentina » Buenos Aires
November 18th 2008

Published: November 18th 2008

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t written now in over a week. This is behavior that really can’t continue if I hope to reach my goal of 1000 views before all this is over (we’re at about 750 right now). I suppose if I don’t I could just keep writing after I get back about my life back at Reed, which is even more absurd than all this I assure you. And I’d bet 500 uruguayan pesos that at least some of you would continue to read it.

Enough procrastination, however. My excuse for not writing is twofold- the first fold being that I’ve been really tired lately (lack of sleep can do that to you), the second that before the period of time in which I was really tired it hadn’t been a week yet. Oh and there’s a third: we’ve been in the midst of an ungodly heat here (there’s a sequia in Santa Fe) and that has made me even more indolent than usual.

So why do I write now, you might ask. Well, besides the obvious factor of guilt from a sense of failed obligation and unfulfilled duty, the heat problem has been temporarily solved by a fresh patagonian wind, and although I still remain fairly exhausted, I saw a doctor today so perhaps the hope that my problems may be at an end has given me new energy and iniciative. That and that today was overall pretty cool.

You might also ask when I’m going to get to the real entry. Okay well the meta-entry ends here. Vamos.

Before talking about the recent past, which is all that I’ll talk about in detail, I’ll just review the time since my vuelto de Mendoza. Basically a lot of it has been empty, or at least empty of pre-scheduled activities. It was the first time I’ve learned what it’s like to actually live here with the schedule that I have, without filling my time with travel. I would have travelled more, but I’ve developed this strange dedication to my tango/argentine dance class. As the class itself is Monday and there are two “tutorias,” Wednesday and Friday, a true dedication that depends that one come to the class in every one of it’s manifestations obviously precludes extended travel. The reason I’ve been telling myself that I ought to be going is that we ‘re going to be doing some sort of tango performance at the closing dinner of the program, now just under two weeks away. Jesus I can’t believe what I just typed, but it’s true. But anyway the truth is that I’m not really nervous about that, although I probably should be as my dancing seems to me pretty abysmal most of the time. But in spite of that, I think honestly I’m just coming to really enjoy it. It could be because of the occasional rare times in which I feel that my dancing is not totally abysmal and that I’m actually reaching a state where I can truthfully say: “I know how to dance the tango,” or it could be because of a desire to please Gerardo, the male half of our two professors who exhibits a self-conscious and modest passion that is really quite endearing. Probably it’s a little bit of both, not to mention my love of the tango music itself. Anyway so that along with my yoga classes has kept me from travelling the past two weekends without filling up enough of my time. With the result that this now hot, dusty, carbon-monoxide-filled spread of gorgeous parks, cafeterías, delicious ice-cream, and parillas is my oyster for hours and hours of every day, the pleasures of which I can partake to the extent that my cheapness, insomnia, and my built-in decadence-guilt feedback systems will allow.

An example of my pursuits in this regard, although not a very good one, is the Friday before last when I resolved to take advantage of the necessity to take the subte to a different part of the city to return a film (on which I later wrote a feverish essay), to go to a nearby park that I hadn’t seen before and read the newspaper while eating ice-cream. A perfect afternoon, right? Well as the park was hermoso and the ice-cream utterly scrumptious (although I finished it before I actually arrived at the park, I’ll admit), it would have been perfect had it not been missing the newspaper, its final and essential element. Now there are newstands absolutely everywhere. I had every right to expect not to have to think about the possibility of not being able to purchase one. I mean, true, it’s not as if they grow on trees, but nevertheless there are newsstands absolutely everywhere, I repeat. But what I didn’t count on was that it would be the newsstand-owner’s holiday- that is, the one day of the year on which all the newsstand owners decide to take the day off. So in my utter ignorance of this off I staggered, losing myself in the desert-like streets of Friday afternoon Villa Crespo. I thirsted profusely, and deluded myself repeatedly with mirages of similarly-colored flower kiosks and newsstands which quickly revealed themselves to be obstinately shut and locked. Before too long it became obvious that what I was observing had crossed the bounds from individual caprice to cultural fact- that if all these people had decided not to sell newspapers at this particular time, then no one would be expecting to buy them, and therefore there would be no reason for anyone else to be trying to sell them. But I kept myself going for a good bit longer, feeding myself on uncertainy and distant possibility. After an hour or so I accepted the truth, although it was hard to resign myself to the fact that I had actually failed in so simple a venture as that of purchasing a newspaper. But I realized that it really wasn’t a big deal, because it was kind of cool actually, the neighborhood I had been inadvertently exploring. So after strolling leisurely about for a while longer I whipped out my trusty guia “T” and directed myself to the nearest subte station, two stops up from where I had initially gotten off.

-The next day was a regatta (my second and last here) in Tigre, against the ITBA (Instituto Technologico de Buenos Aires) and the Universidad de San Andres. It was pretty cool, as my thirst to row at Tigre was finally quenched. It was very winding and high traffic, but the traffic wasn’t too big a deal because it included awesome swans and the national selection (who could be recognized by their argentine-flag oar-blades). In the race in which I rowed we did pretty well- maintaining 2nd a pesar de that my double’s partner spent most of the 500 M cursing and trying to put his seat back onto the slide. The mixed double was more satisfying, even though I was merely coxswain. Luckily for me the race was short enough that I just barely avoided exhausting my supply of hoarsely screamed spanish motivation (ex: ¡dame todo!, ¡casi llegamos! ¡Solo nos quedan __
kilometros! Or when my inspiration utterly failed me, simply “¡VAMOS!”). Afterwards all the UCA people went to the mcdonald’s in Tigre, and I enjoyed my first big mac. The only other thing of note I did that day was go to the newly opened 2nd starbucks in buenos aires, in order to begin my final essay for my argentine cine class in a nostalgic and comforting environment I suppose. It wasn’t bad, except that they DIDN’T HAVE COFFEE! Obviously that’s an exaggeration- they had an unending supply of espresso of course, which is what these people think of when they hear the word coffee, but in spite of it’s being on the menu they didn’t actually have (yet, I hope) the drip coffee that I longed for. So I contented myself with an iced americano instead. So, though I never thought I’d say these words, McDonalds continues to be my sole drip coffee resource. And even there I have to practically threaten them with physical violence to keep them from sneakily adding milk to it against my will.

How did this week fill an entire week?

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