You Know You're Living in Buenos Aires When...
Everybody knows Buenos Aires is a late-night party city, that beef is plentiful, and that everything is cheap. Any fool with a Lonely Planet guidebook can figure that out. But there may be a few things you don't know about this city. So, here's a quick checklist of some things you might find if you stay here longer than a week or two.
You know you're living in Buenos Aires when...
...you eat for breakfast some food that is at least 75% sugar and could just as easily be served as a desert. This could be anything such as dulce de leche (caramel), an alfajor (a little dulce de leche cookie), or a glazed media-luna (croissant) which more resembles a doughnut in its consistency.
...you face the imminent threat of electrocution whenever you plug in an electrical appliance, assuming you even have the correct adapter. It is a leap of faith. Sometimes you hear a sizzle, sometimes it's a little blue bolt and a "pop" sound, but there is usually some kind of report to let you know you've made contact with electric circuitry. I'm not sure if its just faulty wiring, or a general state of disrepair. And the international "adapters" don't help the situation much. They are these curiously-bulky, white plastic boxes that fit precariously into the sockets and have capacity for at least three different types of plug, all of which you may need if you come here. One tip: don't mess around trying to find an electric socket in the dark, for you're taking your life into your own hands...
...you find yourself sprinting across an 18-lane avenue, trying to reach the other side before the walk signal disappears. Crossing Avenida 9 de Julio is a project that could take you all afternoon if you don't time it correctly. You bolt out into the fray, only to find yourself caught like a rabbit in headlights as up to eight rows of roaring metal face you head on... If you're lucky, you can make it back to the partition. If you aren't, you'll be just another sad statistic. Buena suerte....
...you buy a phone card, but it doesn't let you call the U.S.; you buy one that can call the U.S., but it doesn't let you call U.S. cellphones; you buy one that lets you call U.S. cellphones, but it doesn't work on your cellphone. The Argentine phone system continues to confound me, to the point where I don't even use my cell anymore. Perhaps I'm just ignorant and impatient. Perhaps. But after dialing a phone number 27 different ways and hearing the same recorded message spit back to me, I feel like wedging my cell behind a door hinge and shutting it...hard. The prefix system for cellphones requires you to dial either a 11 or a 15 before the number. Either one. Take your pick. And sometimes, even from a land phone, in someone's house, you need a special phone card to dial to cellular phones. And other times (and this is what really get's me) you buy a new phone card for your cell phone and, due to some ludicrous hidden fees, a $20 peso phone card only enables you to make a 15 second phone call. And God forbid you should receive a foreign call on your cell, you may have time enough to get one syllable of the word "Hello" out of your mouth before the phone shuts off.
...you see an 80+ year old man whistle at a woman on the street. Here, they are unabashed about their sexuality...the men are at least. In the U.S., public displays of horniness are usually confined to construction workers and, well, Latin Americans. But here, almost all men, of all ages oogle and catcall women without reservation. Business men in suits will turn in unison to watch a buxom young woman stroll by, drivers will beep their horns when women pass in the cross walks, construction workers will neglect a two ton load of bricks suspended one foot above their heads just to make kissing sounds at some chica that passes by, etc., etc., etc. I even once saw a man kneeling down buttoning the coat of his daughter, who couldn´t have been more than four, craning his neck to get a better look at the rear-end of a woman who couldn´t have been more than 20. As much as the Western world may have advanced in the past 40 years, this is still a very macho culture, and everybody still seems to be getting along just fine...
...you ask someone if they're American and they look at you as if you've just told them to "go f**k themselves." Sometimes the Argentines, specifically the ones who live in Buenos Aires, look just like well-dressed Americans. In a line-up, you almost could not tell the difference. It makes sense; in both countries there's a lot of European anscestry. Sometimes, somehow, you can see someone who you could swear is a fellow gringo, and even convince yourself you overheard them speaking English. But if you approach them, and you guess wrong, as I have at least twice, prepare yourself for a look of hatred. Not that they particularly dislike us or anything, but it's just not something they are used to hearing, and it doesn't hit their ears well. Kind of like if a foreigner came up to you and asked, in another language, "Are you a Nazi?"
...there is an equal chance you will either sweat, freeze, and/or inhale smoke or volcanic ash on any given day. Maybe it's just been a peculiar autumn, but the past six weeks have seen some strange weather patterns in Buenos Aires (No, I'm not going to into some kind of Apocalyptic Rant about climate change (though the end of the world is, in fact, upon us)). I arrived here in the midst of the infamous "smoke haze." Then came the volcanic ash from Chile. All of this in front of a backdrop of temperatures that can fluctuate more than 10 degrees Celsius* from day to day, even from morning to afternoon. This is highly confusing from a sartorial perspective; you just can't know how to dress for the weather. Therefore, I haven't been able to rid myself of a perpetual head-cold long enough to battle my Fall allergies (which I'm getting a double dose of this year). I walk around in a stupor most of the time, sneezing all over everything, and the only Spanish word I'm going to learn here is "salud."
Just as a Note: For anyone, Argentine or not, who may misinterpret all of this as thinking that I don´t like this place, you couldn´t be further from the truth.
*Don't think I'm being pretentious with the whole metric system thing. I just really don't know the equivalent in Fahrenheit because they don't always report it. Though, since the rest of the known world uses the metric system, it has occurred to me to start getting familiar with it.
You know you're living in Buenos Aires when...
...you eat for breakfast some food that is at least 75% sugar and could just as easily be served as a desert. This could be anything such as dulce de leche (caramel), an alfajor (a little dulce de leche cookie), or a glazed media-luna (croissant) which more resembles a doughnut in its consistency.
...you face the imminent threat of electrocution whenever you plug in an electrical appliance, assuming you even have the correct adapter. It is a leap of faith. Sometimes you hear a sizzle, sometimes it's a little blue bolt and a "pop" sound, but there is usually some kind of report to let you know you've made contact with electric circuitry. I'm not sure if its just faulty wiring, or a general state of disrepair. And the international "adapters" don't help the situation much. They are these curiously-bulky, white plastic boxes that fit precariously into the sockets and have capacity for at least three different types of plug, all of which you may need if you come here. One tip: don't mess around trying to find an electric socket in the dark, for you're taking your life into your own hands...
...you find yourself sprinting across an 18-lane avenue, trying to reach the other side before the walk signal disappears. Crossing Avenida 9 de Julio is a project that could take you all afternoon if you don't time it correctly. You bolt out into the fray, only to find yourself caught like a rabbit in headlights as up to eight rows of roaring metal face you head on... If you're lucky, you can make it back to the partition. If you aren't, you'll be just another sad statistic. Buena suerte....
...you buy a phone card, but it doesn't let you call the U.S.; you buy one that can call the U.S., but it doesn't let you call U.S. cellphones; you buy one that lets you call U.S. cellphones, but it doesn't work on your cellphone. The Argentine phone system continues to confound me, to the point where I don't even use my cell anymore. Perhaps I'm just ignorant and impatient. Perhaps. But after dialing a phone number 27 different ways and hearing the same recorded message spit back to me, I feel like wedging my cell behind a door hinge and shutting it...hard. The prefix system for cellphones requires you to dial either a 11 or a 15 before the number. Either one. Take your pick. And sometimes, even from a land phone, in someone's house, you need a special phone card to dial to cellular phones. And other times (and this is what really get's me) you buy a new phone card for your cell phone and, due to some ludicrous hidden fees, a $20 peso phone card only enables you to make a 15 second phone call. And God forbid you should receive a foreign call on your cell, you may have time enough to get one syllable of the word "Hello" out of your mouth before the phone shuts off.
...you see an 80+ year old man whistle at a woman on the street. Here, they are unabashed about their sexuality...the men are at least. In the U.S., public displays of horniness are usually confined to construction workers and, well, Latin Americans. But here, almost all men, of all ages oogle and catcall women without reservation. Business men in suits will turn in unison to watch a buxom young woman stroll by, drivers will beep their horns when women pass in the cross walks, construction workers will neglect a two ton load of bricks suspended one foot above their heads just to make kissing sounds at some chica that passes by, etc., etc., etc. I even once saw a man kneeling down buttoning the coat of his daughter, who couldn´t have been more than four, craning his neck to get a better look at the rear-end of a woman who couldn´t have been more than 20. As much as the Western world may have advanced in the past 40 years, this is still a very macho culture, and everybody still seems to be getting along just fine...
...you ask someone if they're American and they look at you as if you've just told them to "go f**k themselves." Sometimes the Argentines, specifically the ones who live in Buenos Aires, look just like well-dressed Americans. In a line-up, you almost could not tell the difference. It makes sense; in both countries there's a lot of European anscestry. Sometimes, somehow, you can see someone who you could swear is a fellow gringo, and even convince yourself you overheard them speaking English. But if you approach them, and you guess wrong, as I have at least twice, prepare yourself for a look of hatred. Not that they particularly dislike us or anything, but it's just not something they are used to hearing, and it doesn't hit their ears well. Kind of like if a foreigner came up to you and asked, in another language, "Are you a Nazi?"
...there is an equal chance you will either sweat, freeze, and/or inhale smoke or volcanic ash on any given day. Maybe it's just been a peculiar autumn, but the past six weeks have seen some strange weather patterns in Buenos Aires (No, I'm not going to into some kind of Apocalyptic Rant about climate change (though the end of the world is, in fact, upon us)). I arrived here in the midst of the infamous "smoke haze." Then came the volcanic ash from Chile. All of this in front of a backdrop of temperatures that can fluctuate more than 10 degrees Celsius* from day to day, even from morning to afternoon. This is highly confusing from a sartorial perspective; you just can't know how to dress for the weather. Therefore, I haven't been able to rid myself of a perpetual head-cold long enough to battle my Fall allergies (which I'm getting a double dose of this year). I walk around in a stupor most of the time, sneezing all over everything, and the only Spanish word I'm going to learn here is "salud."
Just as a Note: For anyone, Argentine or not, who may misinterpret all of this as thinking that I don´t like this place, you couldn´t be further from the truth.
*Don't think I'm being pretentious with the whole metric system thing. I just really don't know the equivalent in Fahrenheit because they don't always report it. Though, since the rest of the known world uses the metric system, it has occurred to me to start getting familiar with it.
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