pasosportenos

[pasosportenos]

Now that I'm back home in Minnesota, this seems appropriate.

Summer in Minnesota, por Eric Haugen.

[pasosportenos]

La espera me agotó no sé nada de vos dejaste tanto en mí

Crimen - Gustavo Cerati  (via soymariangelita)

[pasosportenos]

Lágrimas

My host mom and I were both crying when I left, and I was chatting with the taxi driver for a while until he asked me, "That was your mom?" I answered, "No, she was my host mom from my study abroad program." It occurred to me he thought I was Argentine. He said, "Oh, you're American? You speak Spanish really well." I was so happy for a minute I almost forgot to be sad. What a perfect way to end the semester. Then he said, "Well she"- meaning my host mom- "loves you very much." And I said, "Yes." And then I cried forever.

[pasosportenos]

Ya fue

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

- Thomas Meeha

Like all good things, my time here in Buenos Aires must come to an end. When I think back to the first few days here in Argentina, and how little I knew, how different I felt, how unbelievably lost I was in this giant city, I can't believe five months have passed. It's a cliché, but it honestly feels like I got here yesterday.

Out of my friends who studied abroad this year, which is almost all of them, many of them went to English-speaking countries, most of them went on the same program as a good friend or at least someone they know well, and almost all of them took their classes in English. I, of course, chose a Spanish speaking country, came here without knowing a soul, on my program or otherwise, took none of my classes in English, at a very large, difficult university, with professors who speak fast, heavily accented Spanish. 

Upon realizing this in the first few days of Orientation, I remember thinking, I am such an idiot. I could have chosen a multitude of other study abroad programs that would have been a hundred times easier, a million times less confusing. I could have CHILLED. I could have gone somewhere with one of my best friends and had an amazing time. I could at the very least, chosen one of the other universities in Buenos Aires (DiTella or USAL), that are way more accustomed to dealing with foreign students, and a hell of a lot less of a quilombo than the giant public monstrosity that is la UBA. 

But now as I look back, I can't imagine having been anywhere else for these last few months. I feel so unbelievably lucky to have ended up where I am, and have met the people that I met, Argentines and Americans alike. And although it was all over way too quickly, and saying goodbye to everyone has been THE WORST, I now have new amazing friends at Pomona, and friends from all over the world that I'm sure I will see again. 

Every single little piece of this experience, the good, the bad, the embarrassing, the frustrating, the hilarious, and the downright awful, has made Buenos Aires everything it was to me. Although I could've gone without some of the all nighters reading horrendously boring film theory, struggling to understand my film history professor that never stops talking, the often very inappropriate comments from men on the street, and waits for the bus of 45+ minutes at three in the morning, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Although I've never really believed in the phrase "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," the tough things about Buenos Aires were as much a part of the experience as the good things, and they made the great parts that much greater. Perhaps they even built a little character. (One can hope). Not to mention the language issue - in that case, the struggle does actually make you a better listener/speaker/writer/reader, and you come out the other side with a whole new set of tools and capabilities. Although I admit it will be nice to be back in my native language, not having to worry about missing something that was lost in translation, or struggling to communicate with la gente, I really will miss speaking in Spanish, and I hope I don't lose everything I've learned here. I'll go back to the US where most of the Spanish speakers will be using ll and y like actual y sounds and "tú" instead of vos, and I'll probably sound like a crazy person, but I don't care. I can't imagine Spanish any other way now. VIVA EL VOS.

Bueno, Argentina, te despido. Chau to spending my days wandering around las caSHes, nose stuck in my Guia T, (and chau to my eternal love-hate relationship with the Guia T), chau to my unhealthy addiction to dulce de leche and Fernet con Coca, chau to tripping on the uneven and torn apart sidewalks  everyday, chau to getting lapped running in my beloved Parque Centenario, chau to getting empanadas literally whenever I wanted, chau to all the viajes, and the billion pictures of mountains I took in Salta, Jujuy, Bariolche, and Mendoza, chau to el "che" and todos los boludos de los boliches, chau to wandering in between the billion rooms at Terrazas del Este, chau to the 141 my bus (yes, MINE) which literally took me everywhere I needed to go, chau to the taxistas porteños, the creepy ones and the adorable ones alike, chau to the pigeons that flew around the classrooms at UBA-Filo, chau to calabaza (pumpkin), the ingredient that makes literally any food better, chau to waiting an hour + for my lecturas that I probably wasn't going to read anyways, chau to whole milk that tastes like the heavens, chau to fake laughing at my professor's jokes that I didn't understand, chau to my host mom's idea of dessert - apples and my host mom's idea of breakfast - cookies, chau to very hypocritically hating American study abroad students, chau to every colectivo experience that was a total quilombo, which was many of them, chau to wandering around Palermo at 5 in the morning on a Wednesday trying to find a bar that's open, chau to los chicos de la villas that we taught English to, chau to the grand avenidas and the little alleyways, chau to playing the dumb American card (or just BEING the dumb American) como si fuera mi trabajo, chau to intersections sans stoplights or stop signs, chau to crude but incredibly effective hand-drawn maps copied from Mapa Interactivo (aka the website that saved my life), chau to 15 peso bottles of Malbec and 10 peso liters of Quilmes, chau to forcing people who wanted to "practice their English" with me to speak to me en casteSHano, chau to the not one but two SUBE cards I lost, chau to the most unhealthy sleep schedule I've ever been on (and for me, that's saying something), chau to llama sweaters por todas partes, chau to counting down the minutes until the end of my four-hour teóricos, chau to the red octopus, chau to the best flavors of ice cream ever made, Tramontana and Banana Split, as well as the heavenly combo of the two, chau to all the couples makin' out on the colectivo, chau to the fugazzetta and the asado, the two things I never mastered the ability to eat without eating so much I felt like vomiting, chau to cheap travel aka 25 hour bus rides and freezing-cold hostels, chau to my perrito loco Gaspar and the demon gata gordísima Tota (or as my host sister affectionately called her, Gordita), chau to Cristina, la presidenta, all of her plastic surgery, and all of the shit she got from the porteños, chau to watching subtitled NCIS/CSI/Criminal Minds or a dubbed Adam Sandler movie with dinner literally everyday, chau to saying "re buena onda," "ya fue," "quilombo," "cheta," "mira vos," and/or "boludo" every five seconds and having everyone actually understand me, chau to deciding how expensive something is by figuring out "how many panes rellenos I could get for that," chau to walking home as the sun is rising, chau a todos mis amigos míos que conocí acá en Argentina y que nunca voy a olvidar. Chau a vos, Buenos Aires, mi querido. Te voy a extrañar. Chau, nos vemos, suerte. <3

[pasosportenos]

Mi Buenos Aires querido - Carlos Gardel

[pasosportenos]

Los últimos días en la Capital

Cool things I did over the last few weeks that deserve a shout out:

The Yayoi Kusama exhibit at MALBA, Obsesión infinita (Infinite Obsession) 

This is Yayoi Kusama. As you can tell, she is a MF boss. She has an exhibit at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericana de Buenos Aires (MALBA), which, every time I've been (three times, although the first time I didn't actually make it inside), has a line going all the way down the block just to get in the museum. 

Kusama is a Japanese artist who was really famous during the sixties and seventies (a friend of Andy Warhol), who made her mark by criticizing institutional art and hosting crazy shit like "body festivals." 

This is the part of the exhibit called The Obliteration Room, in which all museum-goers put the stickers they received at the beginning of the exhibit wherever they want all over the room.

These are her most recent paintings, which she does in a mental institution in Japan.

As you can probably tell, Kusama has an obsession with polka dots. 

Kusama quote: “Polka dots can't stay alone. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots we become part of the unity of our environments.”

This is a letter she wrote to Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War. Amazing.

Like, who is cooler than Kusama. (no one).

Carmen at Teatro Colón

Me and six friends decided to really splurge and buy some absolute nosebleed/blocked vision seats for the ballet Carmen, that was showing at the Teatro Colón. 

In our usual fashion, a few people showed up late (for once not me), and thus we were threatened to not be let in at all (I guess the ballet is the only thing that starts on time in Argentina), and then quickly ushered to our seats which were not actually our seats... but we were late so they basically told us, deal with it. Ethan, Aparna, and I managed to squeeze in to some empty seats, watching the whole ballet leaning over the edge of the balcony to be able to see about 3/4 of the stage (not the most comfortable), while Sofi and Alexandra stood a few rows away, and Mili and Cora coming so late they were taken to the standing only section. A little bit of a mess on our part but the ballet was really cool to see. Unfortunately none of us knew the story like at all so we didn't really know what was going on (I looked it up later), but that's what's nice about ballet, it's pretty anyways. And luckily Carmen is super short (no intermission), so the most uncomfortable sitting position of my life didn't last too long. The real novelty of going to a show at the Teatro Colón is just that it's the Teatro Colón because it's GORGE. ous.

Curtain call for Carmen

In the last few days after getting back from Salta, Aparna and I have basically been planning our days around what food we had left to try, and making it our mission to go there no matter how out of the way. If you ever go to Buenos Aires, I have some gr8 restaurant recommendations.

Also, our program coordinator María Marta invited us to come talk to the new crop of Middlebury study abroad chicos at their Orientation which started last Thursday. We kind of didn't think she would really care to have us there, but Aparna happened to run into her on the street and she begged us to come, so we went and I'm actually really glad we did. Alexandra, Aparna, and I blabbed for about an hour and a half, a mixture of Spanish and English, about our experiences and giving them lots of advice about buses, school, boliches, etc. Nothing has made me feel better about my level of knowledge about the city and about my Spanish than chatting with a bunch of n00bs; I can't believe I was just like them only 5 months ago!

One of them, a girl named Nina from Tulane, also moved into my home stay house, so for the past few days the house has been 50% estadounidense. The poor girl's flight got delayed, meaning she showed up a day later than intended, the actual day of orientation, and the airline lost her luggage, so she was wearing the same outfit for about three days. Her bag finally showed up yesterday, so all is well.

Other than stuffing myself to the point of exploding and sharing my knowledge with the new extranjeros, I have been saying goodbye to all my best friends in Buenos Aires. Goodbyes are the absolute worst, especially since I don't know if/when I'll see these people again (except the Pomonans). 

Today Aparna's roommate and I sent her off in the taxi to the airport, both of us standing on the street crying like idiots. Two seconds later, the box of wine I was holding fell apart and crashed to the ground, shattering to pieces a bottle of awesome wine I had bought for my parents in Cafayate. The people around me all stared at the wine, then me, crying, I'm sure looking as if I was crying ABOUT the broken wine bottle lolllll. Luckily the other, more expensive bottle of wine was fine. Hopefully it doesn't break in my suitcase and destroy all my clothing. 

After crying on the bus all the way home, I've spent the rest of the day eating my feelings, napping my feelings, and attempting to pack. Also had the last supper with my host mom and Nina. Weep weep.

Tomorrow, my last day in BsAs, I'm having lunch with Maru to say goodbye, probably buying a boatload of alfajores, and I'll attempt to fit five months of my life into three bags. One last Pasos Porteños blog post to come. <3

[pasosportenos]

El Norteeeee

My second to last week in Argentina: a week long trip with my friend Aparna and her (now our) friend Maru in the provinces of Salta, Jujuy, and Tucuman. 

Last Monday we took a 22 hour long bus ride from Buenos Aires -> Salta (the capital of the Salta, the province), but it actually seemed to pass really quickly because we sort of slept the whole way. Thanks, not even halfway done 15 page paper for keeping me up all night Sunday, and thus super tired Monday night!

After arriving in Salta we met up with Aparna's friend Maru, who is a 24-year old psychology student on her winter break. Aparna and Maru met in their tela class, which is that thing when people wrap themselves up in fabric hanging from the ceiling and do cool tricks. In other words, I was the least cool one there. 

We were faced with two more bus rides, two hours to San Salvador de Jujuy, the capital of the Jujuy province (which everyone says sucks so we were tryna roll out of there), and then an hour and a half to Purmamarca (there are no direct buses to Purmamarca, that would be way too easy.) 

We arrived in Purmamarca at 11:30ish pm, after about 27 hours of straight travel, with no map and no hostel reservations. (I think I mentioned on the last post were kinda wingin it?) 

Luckily, the tiny pueblo is only about 10 blocks long, so we wandered around and went to about a hundred different hostels. We were totally chill with walking around on such a nice night in the cute little town, until it seemed like every hostel in Purmamarca was completely full (it's winter vacation, thus kind of a busy travel time). We started to get nervous.

After asking a million people on the street for directions and recommendations, we finally found one that had vacancy... A room with two beds! But whatever, we were desperate. The super buena onda hotel guy grabbed another mattress, plopped it down between the two beds, and ya está. 

After having slept so much on the bus, we opted to find somewhere to hang out for a while, so we hit up a local peña (basically just a restaurant with local music) and enjoyed some live guitar and charango (from Bolivia, like a mini guitar but with more strings than a ukelele) which was incredible. 

Then it was folk dancing time (La Chacarera) which is super nice to watch, but of course we got pleaded and begged and persuaded to join in, though none of us know a step. Which is sometimes fine if the guy knows what he's doing, but I lucked out with the super drunk guy with wine teeth (who had nearly been thrown out of the bar like twenty minutes earlier). Quilombooooo. 

After getting back to the hostel we climbed up to the terraza and onto the roof and watched the stars while slowly freezing. The stars here are unreal, especially compared to Buenos Aires, and the view of the lit up little town with the background of the just-visible, towering mountains was literally perfect. One of those moments that you want to live in forever. The next day we woke up with the purpose of finding a cheaper hostel, which, after again visiting about five hundred, we found - half the price and three whole beds! 

Then we got in a strangers car to take us to the Salinas Grandes, the big salt flats. Just kidding it was a remise. (But still a stranger). Don't worry though, we paid him ten dollars each so it seemed legit. 

Along the way, we stopped in the crazy beautiful mountains (very reminiscent of Arizona) and saw some ice (weird), some llamas (awesome), and all around great views.

Then we headed down the mountain to the salt flats, which is basically just a giant expanse of land covered in salt, surrounded by mountains. 

We took our time snacking and taking dumb pictures ("I'm gonna do a one-handed cartwheel on the salt!" - me) and it was kind of the most fun. Like nothing I've ever seen before, that's for sure.

Back in the pueblo, we hit up the local market, in which literally every vendor has some variation of the exact same things, but most of them are llama related so I was down (many a llama sweater were tried on).

Just before sunset, we climbed the hill right behind our hostel and ver-ed la vista. Purmamarca is famous for el Cerro de los Siete Colores, or the hill of the seven colors, because its a hill.. That has seven colors... You're welcome. Pretty awesome always, but especially at sunset.

That night we went to a local bar with live music (everywhere you go in Salta there is live music), and I fell in love with the singer/guitar player who was adorable and had the most beautiful voice in the world. I'll come back for you someday, Pablo!

After dinner, we tried sampling the other local bars/peñas which we soon discovered all have live music of the exact same quality and genre, which was already getting old. 

Out of ideas, we re-climbed the hill behind the hostel, this time in the dark and not exactly completely sober (we value safety), and for the second night in a row, we watched the stars and slowly froze until climbing back down and into our beds.

Thursday morning we had brunch (DULCE DE LECHE CREPES - in caps because important) and did a quick hike up the Cerro de los Siete Colores before heading off to Tilcara, another Jujuy pueblito, for the day. 

In Tilcara, we opted for a car-ride-up-hike-down-the-mountain instead of all hiking, which was well worth the whatever amount of pesos it was, seeing as I was pretty dead by the end of the day.

We checked out a waterfall called Garganta del Diablo, which was pretty cool, but any waterfall post-Iguazu falls is rather anti-climactic. The hike back down, however, was really beautiful.

Not wanting to spend the time/money to spend the night in Tilcara, we booked bus tickets at 2:20 am to Salta, and then another at 6 am from Salta to Cafayate. Thus, we had some time to kill after the hike. After shopping around for more llama-decorated items, we hung out at another peña and listened to the same song for three hours (at least how it sounded to me), and spent the rest of the night doing everything humanly possible to avoid live music (harder than it sounds). If I heard La Chacarera one more time I might have set the town on fire.

Substantially wine-happy and ready to sleep the bus ride away, we made our way to the bus station at 2 am. The happiness slowly faded as we waited an hour and a half in the freezing winter desert cold (the bus was a little late). I entertained the ladies and the few other poor souls waiting for the bus with my ballet skillz, mostly just to warm myself up, but the FlechaBus (my eternal nemesis) finally rolled in around 3:40, to our complaints and caras duras. The bus driver was not giving no fucks, responding with "Calm down." Thanks bro.

By some miracle we were early for our next bus, which did actually come on time. After not being able to sleep very well on the first bus, I was completely ready to PTFO, but unfortunately the demons that run FlechaBus decided it would be a good idea to play a dubbed movie about surfing (aka intense ocean sounds) at the loudest volume possible- at 6 in the morning. So loud the speakers were making that fuzzy noise they do when they can't deal with that much sound. WHY THO FLECHABUS.

After a total of about 3 hours of sleep (maybe, I don’t even know tbh), we arrived in Cafayate and followed a random guy with a flyer to his hostel (we're all about planning ahead and researching our options, if you hadn't noticed).

Luckily, the hostel was full of really awesome people, one of my favorite parts of the trip as a whole.

After a much-needed shower and lunch, we spotted three hammocks with our names on them and napped hardcore (necessary after the hellish bus rides).

Cafayate is known for wine and bodegas are everywhere, so we wandered through a few in the afternoon for free tours and sometimes-free wine tastings. Fun fact: Argentina has a type of grape that doesn’t grow anywhere else in the world, which makes the very unique white wine, Torrontés. Quite tasty. 

After an all-hostel asado (noms), Maru and Aparna went out while I read Game of Thrones and fell asleep (sorry I’m sew kewl), and we all (just kidding, just me) woke up refreshed and ready for a morning horse ride through the desert.

Unfortunately it was a crazy windy, and therefore, very dusty day (all my belongings I brought to Salta/Jujuy are covered in dust), which not only made it hard to see the cool views (the mountains), but also was not ideal for the whole getting dust alllll up in your eyes/nose/mouth.

Still, it was fun to get back on a horse (brought back some great Horse Camp memz), and Aparna’s first horse ride ever. Life changing, I’m sure.

We had considered doing an afternoon bike ride to another bodega, but after horse back riding, our butts were not really in condition for that.

We opted instead for wine ice cream (a Cafayate specialty), which is exactly what it sounds like. However, I had more expected an ice cream that kinda tastes like wine – not so much. It literally is exactly like drinking wine, only in ice cream form. Like eating wine, perhaps? 

That night I finished my paper for my internship, meaning I completed all school work for my semester in Argentina, which was the greatest feeling ever.

We ate with some of the other hostel-ers that night, which led to card games- an awesome one called Chancho that I must bring to the US, and then Mafia because we are apparently a bunch of 12 year old girls at a sleepover.

The night ended at the world’s worst boliche with the worst of the hostel-ers, but all was not lost because I didn’t pay for a single drink, nor the club cover. I love being a girl.

Although before leaving for Salta we had planned togo to Tafi de Valle, we heard from a fellow hostel-stayer in Cafayte that it was incredibly cold and a bit pricey, with not much to do, so we decided against that. We had also been hearing great things about La Quebrada (means "ravine"), and although having no clue what it was (like everything in Argentina, every description of it started and ended with, “es lindo.” Super informative). We obviously missed our 7:30 am alarm for the 8:00 bus to La Quebrada, so opted for a later bus, but still running late, we didn’t have to time to rent bikes. Riding the bus and biking back into the town, stopping along the way to take pictures, etc, is kind of the thing to do, so we were pretty bummed, but once we got up there, I was thanking baby Jesus we did not rent bikes because it was absolutely FREEZING and we were not at all dressed for the weather/biking in gale force winds.

We wandered around one of Argentina’s many Garganta del Diablo’s - every interesting natural phenomenon is called that, I swear- this one not a waterfall but a rock formation... that's kind of hard to describe. See picture below. (Yes, I'm too lazy to copy and paste it up here).

Getting up there required lots of rock-scrambling on not so easy to climb rocks, meaning by the time we made it, I had slid down an entire sheet of rock (kinda painful), and my hands were red and scraped up. Also a good deal of butt sliding on the way down.  However, it vale-d la pena because we and three other of our fellow hostel-stayers had a chill time up there by ourselves for a long while (I guess not everyone is into bare skin sliding down rocks).

After the bikers went on their way, we started walking down the road and came upon the Anfiteatro, which is similar to the Garganta de Diablo, but in more of an amphitheater way- in the sense that it’s still a cool rock formation but also it amplifies sound. And big surprise- there was live music inside it (even out in the middle of nowhere, you can’t escape La Chacarera).

On the point of freezing (especially Maru, as she has no body fat), we opted for the bus back, getting some world-class views of La Quebrada, which is unbelieivably beautiful – maybe the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen? The pictures don’t exactly do it justice. We finally found out what the Quebrada actually is- hella mountains and rock formations that form the craziest, most varied array of beautifulness ever. I'm really glad we stayed one more day for that. 

While our hostel friends biked 50 kilometers back in the windy awful cold, we hit up a restaurant in town to eat some of the local cuisine- locro, which is stew with corn and meat and a bunch of other stuff, goat stew, and empanadas. RICOOO. Then we chilled at the hostel and sipped on our dessert wine we had bought from the organic bodega Nanni. Also RICOOOOO.

Then our luck sort of ran out. We got on our bus for Tucuman, which was supposed to arrive around midnight Sunday night. From there we planned to see our friend Tomás from UBA, who is tucumano, and then take another million hour bus ride to Buenos Aires. Not exactly how it worked out.

The bus from Cafayate had to stop in Tafi de Valle, which was always the plan, but then the bus stopped in the middle of the road for about 20 minutes, which was when I awoke from my half–asleepness and realized there was SNOW on the ground. 

My mind went something like, “what is that white stuff? Is that-? No, it can’t be. Is that snow? No, that’s not snow. Yes that’s definitely snow.”

Had not at all expected to see snow on this trip, or really at all in Argentina (I mean I know it snows in Patagonia, but this is way farther north), and apparently neither did anyone in Tucuman (we’re in the Tucuman province now), because they cut off the road, the only way out of the mountains, meaning we had to go BACK to Tafi de Valle and hang out there… forever. Not understanding why we were sitting in a bus station for 2 hours at midnight, when we were supposed to have already arrived in Tucuman, we asked the girl across the aisle what was going on, and she told us we would leave at around 6 am. Another solid night’s sleep on the bus. 

When I woke up, we were still in the bus station. It was now 10 am. Luckily the station was now open, meaning we could eat breakfast and derp around not on a bus. 

At least Tafi de Valle is pretty. Around 11:30, since we knew we were going nowhere fast, we decided to walk around and take pictures, but knowing how cold it was we suited up like we were preparing to trek through the North Pole- two pairs of paints, leg warmers, two shirts, two sweatshirts, a coat, a scarf, and a hat later, we were ready for Tafi de Valle. I think the 10 pictures I took were worth the effort. 

The road was still closed until 1 pm on Monday, meaning we were on that god damn bus going nowhere in Tafi de Valle for 13 hours. Live laugh love. 

We finally made it to Tucuman around 4 pm, wandered around buying alfajores with our friend Tomás for a little while, and then made our way to the bus station, to do more of my new favorite activity- be on a bus for so long I feel like I’m dying by the end of it. 

Our plan to get back to BsAs Monday night to see our friend Mili before she left for Serbia sadly did not at all pan out, but we did finally arrive safely in our homes Tuesday night, looking like absolute hell and probably smelling about the same (from Sunday at 6 pm to Tuesday night around 8 pm, it was about 50 hours of travel, with the same outfit on).

I love getting out of the city for a while, because it’s always such a treat to come back and realize how much you missed it. I’ve never been so happy to see my one true love, the 141 bus (no matter how many times it makes me wait 45 minutes at 3 in the morning or passes me without stopping when I am the most late, I will never let it go).

In my remaining days in Buenos Aires, I’ve been trying to quell the anxiety of feeling like I didn’t do everything I ever POSSIBLY COULD HAVE, stuffing my face with the food that I never got around to trying, or that I did get around to trying and needed to eat on last time, and the worst part, saying goodbye to lots of people. But I’ll get to that next time around.

Besos.

  The hill of 7 colors. Count em! 7!

Just before sunset in Purmamarca. 

Aparna in the great salt flats

The view from the hike in Tilcara.

Horse back riding in the Dust Bowl.

La Quebrada.

Las tres amigas, Maru, Api, y Cati en la Garganta del diablo, en La Quebrada.

La Quebrada.

Tafi de Valle is pretty, but I will forever hate it for forcing me to sleep in an unmoving bus and lose a day in BAires.

[pasosportenos]

The Stages of Learning a Foreign Language (Spanish version)

This is me shamelessly ripping off the Buzzfeed format for something I often think about. Disclaimer: very subjective to my personal experiences.

1. The basics. Hello, please, thank you, how are you. You know nothing and know you know nothing and you're okay with it.

Chillin' with no knowledge.

2. You start to learn real things like verb conjugations, and once you learn past and future tense you can basically talk about everything, right? You pretty much think you're fluent and can have real conversations in Spanish.

3. You go to a Spanish-speaking country and realize this:

4. After a short bit of time, become accustomed to conversing in Spanish, and start to understand a little bit more. You become very proud of yourself anytime you conjugate a verb correctly, or use a slightly less common vocab word.

Sacapuntas!!!!

4. You begin to learn real grammar and it's actually a lot more confusing than you thought. Uh oh, here comes conditional, past subjunctive, and the impersonal se. 

System overload.

5. You start reading things that were not written for "Spanish class," like real literature, actually written by you know, Spanish speakers. You realize you are basically illiterate.

85% of the time reading these works will be spent looking up words on Google Translate, or Word Reference, if you're really feeling intellectual.

6. After gaining some vocabulary via reading and pretty good writing skills via writing a bunch of papers in Spanish, you are probably what they would call "proficient," like, you can throw that shit on your resume and have conversations with the dining hall staff.

7. With this false confidence, you move to a Spanish-speaking country. Within the first few hours, realize you may be in over your head. 

Spanish is everywhere, and there are sooooo many words you don't know.

8. But after a while, you start to pick up useful phrases, local accent, and slang words that are helpful to understand the young'ns (and everyone). 1 week, 1 month, 2 months pass, and you're improving, HELLA.

Also, get excessively proud of yourself when you hard conjugations like the past subjunctive, or any variation of "should have" "would have" "could have" correctly.

"Quería que vinieras" bitches.

Start picking up a not-completely-yanqui accent, and get a few compliments on your Spanish.

There is no greater compliment.

9. Hang out with a lot of native speakers and contribute nothing, as if you were a piece of furniture.  Feel sad about your lack of communication skills and ability to connect with other humans. You have no personality, you just repeating the same key words and phrases to feel like you're a part of something (ex: Sí!, gracias!, qué bueno!, etc.) 

10. Have a lot to drink, lose inhibitions, and speak to everyone as if you've been speaking Spanish your whole life.

Liquid courage, anyone?

Get lots of compliments on how well you speak Spanish (mostly from guys that are trying to hit on you).

Become absolutely convinced for like 3 beautiful, drunk hours that you're fluent.

11. Wake up the next day, say two words to someone, who does not understand you even after repeating the words 5 times in the best accent you could have ever mustered up in your life. 

Realize you are not fluent.

12. But, after talking with people and immersing yourself in an all-Spanish-always environment (shout out to Middlebury Program's Language Pledge), you find yourself picking up things people say on the street without even realizing you were listening, and saying things your didnt even know you knew/remembered how to say.

Think back to what your Spanish was like before you moved to aforementioned Spanish speaking country, and realize your spanish has improved un montón

And when people try talk to you in English, you're like:

Hablamos en castellano.

13. Then something happens, perhaps you have an interaction with a local that is a complete disaster, perhaps a guest speaker comes to your history of Argentine film class and talks for four hours and YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD (this is completely hypothetical of course.....). And you think to yourself, "I've been here for months, WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?"

Continue to make obvious errors in important emails and conversations, 5 months in. Feel like giving up. 

Let me go back to the English-speaking world! Where I'm a real functioning member of society!

14. Realize there will always be something more to learn.

I'll never be good enough, weep weep.

15. Finally, like the last stage of grief, acceptance. Accept that you will never speak like a native Spanish speaker, and that's okay. You already have English going for you on that front. You've put yourself out there, learned something (a lot) and can carry on with your life, an almost-fluent Spanish speaker! 

Good enough for me.

[pasosportenos]

10 things I've learned from teaching English to Spanish speakers for 3-ish months

I'm back from Salta, and I'll get to that later, but I found this in my drafts from a few weeks ago and realized I never posted it.

Disclaimer: I don't actually know how to teach English. This internship was basically plopped in my lap and I just rolled with it. That being said, I've picked up a few things in the process. 

Here's what I've gathered so far:

1. English is stupid. Languages like Spanish have letters and combination of letters that always make the same sound. Soooo not the case in English. The word "daughter:? Cue classroom freakout. Really fun explaining to 8-year olds that all four letters, "augh" just sounds like "a". 

2. Teach a small Spanish-speaking child the word "thirteen." Guarantee they will say back, "fur-cheen." "Th" is rough, man.

3. The English curriculum here is absolutely ridiculous. Every time the kids bring in homework, it's about three years above their level. The other day, the assignment was to write full sentences of what classes they had each day during the week, choosing the correct word out of sentences, etc. The kids knew maybe 2 words on the entire worksheet. How in the world are they supposed to do that activity? Other example: the kid that had an entire homework assignment about race car pit stops. That is the most useless vocabulary I have ever seen (ie nozzle, pit stop man, gas tank, etc), especially when this kid did not know the word hand. I literally don't know what these kids do for their English homework when we're not telling them what every word in their assignment means.

4. The English curriculum here is absolutely ridiculous, Part 2. Instead of learning "have," like most normal English-speaking humans say, all of their homework translates "tener," to "have got." Example: "I have got brown eyes." "Have you got a pen?" "What color eyes has your father got?" NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT. Other example: "It's half-past three." Yes, people say that, but rarely. Just teach them 3:30, I mean come on. 

5. Games are a hit at almost any age. Pulling from my high school Spanish education, ya'll remember the fly swatter game? That shit WORKS.

6. Phrasal verbs, am I right? (go up, turn on, get off, etc.) English is hard. 

7. Argentines (and perhaps many other non-native English speakers) love to show off what they know, even if it is quite little. Example: the girl in our class that counted (shouting) to 10 about a hundred times, skipping 5, 6, and 8 about every time. Also basically everyone that you meet ever. ("You have boyfriend?"). Now I understand why mostly everyone here, that supposedly has been learning English since elementary school, is so bad at English; because the stuff they learn is ridiculous. But they are determined to let you know that they do, in fact, "know" English (some people for real do. but most people no). No me hables en inglés, por favooooooooor.

8. I know nothing about my own language's grammar/syntax. When you get older kids that ask you things like, "Why does the verb go here in the sentence?" That is OUTTA MY LEAGUE. This is where a TESOL certification, etc, would be helpful. The verb just goes there because that's how it is! Duh. (I'm the worst English teacher ever).

9. Keeping kids entertained/under control is normally harder than the actual teaching of English. Sure, I would love to stand there and conjugate "to be" in every possible tense, but that shit does not fly with 6 year olds NOR 12 year olds. We will be reading Captain Pajamas, singing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, and playing "translate the thing your drew in your notebook," thank you very much.

10. Kids retain nothing. OK that's not true. But everything you hear about learning a language when you're young helping you learn/remember it better... I'm just not sure I believe it. It could just be that we're not teaching it correctly, but, you can literally sit there and force kids to repeat a word back at you 5 times, and you can ask them the same word maybe 2 minutes later? They will not remember it. Absolutely no way. 

Meh, we try.

[pasosportenos]

currently sitting in a locutorio in Retiro

aka the seventh circle of hell. I hate locutorios and I hate Retiro, the train station, maybe more than any other place in the world.

But I´m here for a good reason, because I´m going to Salta!  In about an hour!  Salta is one of the northwestern provinces of Argentina, where there are pretty mountains, cute little towns, etc (using etc in this instance because I honestly don´t really know much else. This was a very last minute, unplanned trip)

I´m going with my friend Aparna, and the trip starts off with a cool 20 hour bus ride, but luckily since we each slept one hour last night (pulled an all nighter, well, almost all nighter, together in my room to write our 15 page Internship paper that was due today), we shall most likely be PTFOed for most of it.

Then the plan is to hit up Purmamarca, while there take a day excursion to the giant salt flats, possibly spend an afternoon in Tilcara, head back south down to Cafayate, maaaaaybe hit up some vineyards? Then finish out the trip in Tafi de Valle, returning home through Tucuman, where one of our UBA friends lives.

That is the most we have planned so wish us luck.

But right now nothing can get me down because we just got done with UBA Filo FOREVERRRRR. A group project interviewing Luis Puenzo, director of The Official Story, one of the most important movies in Argentine history, got us a 7 which equals B plus which equals NO FINAL!

which means I will not be taking any finals in my stay in Argentina.

WHAT UPPP

sorry this is such a mess trying to get it all out before my 15 minutes are up.

To Salta!

[pasosportenos]

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Club Universitario de Buenos Aires. (por JFSebastian)

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Happy 4th of July from Argentina! 

[pasosportenos]

despedidas

It's been a while since I've posted anything of substance on here, but tonight I said goodbye to one of my favorite people on my program and I am feeling appropriately emotional/awake.

My friend Cora left tonight (well, technically this morning) to begin her very brave travels to Colombia and Mexico. She was definitely not the first person from our program to leave, but the first out of my group of friends here, and saying goodbye was weird. And depressing.

It's not only sad, not only that I love Cora and I will miss her and her absurd quirkiness and freaking beautiful face (seriously, sometimes she sucks to hang out with because she's so cool and I'm so not, cough jealousy, cough), it's that this is the beginning of the end for us (I really tried to think of a way to make that sound less dramatic and couldn't, just go with it). Everyone is going to start leaving, and eventually even I'M going to leave.

...which I can't deal with.

Anyone that I've talked to in the past few weeks knows that I've been homesick; as final papers and exams started to pile up, I freaked out a little bit and thought that sitting by the pool in good old MN sounded pretty great. And it still does, but the thought of leaving this amazing city literally makes my heart hurt.

This whole experience has been unbelievable- literally in that some of the things that I did and that have happened here, I can hardly believe they happened. It mostly has to do with the awesome people I've met here; some Argentines, obviously, but mostly just my friends on the program. They're some super legit people that I never would have met had I not chosen this city and this program, and the thought of that is cray. Even Ethan and Aparna, who go to Pomona, were basically strangers until this semester.

Sometimes it feels like a dream; like I'll wake up one day and it will never have happened. I feel like I'm on this six-month break from real life. Yes, I'm going to school and learning and blah blah blah, but I'm in Buenos Aires, and I'm living and hanging out with my friends and going to museums and meeting people and being present and I am doing things that make me happy. The whole world and life in the US feels so distant and so long ago.

If you know me at all, you'll know that I cry a lot and very easily, for instance I once cried watching a Wal-Mart commercial (I was really homesick and it was about Thanksgiving, OKAY). But after just pondering for a minute or so, I literally cannot remember the last time I cried (other than a little bit like 3 hours ago when saying goodbye to Cora). Considering 6 months ago, an average of 3 cries a day was a pretty accurate estimate, I feel like something has really changed for me here. And I'm into it.

There have been very few times in my life that I literally plead with time to move slower; that I want to extend this part of my life as long as possible, and never move on to the next thing. So much of my life has been spent waiting, anticipating, getting through. Waiting for class to end, for the weekend, for the next vacation, for summer, whatever. But being here, I'm not waiting. I'm pulling time back as far as I can, and cringing and each day I see pass on the calendar. Obviously there's things I look forward to, and things I prefer to do more than others. But as a whole, I am for once in my life content where I am and I don't even WANT to think about the future. The idea I had last semester of moving to Hollywood after graduating to become an assistant (and you know, eventually something better) now sounds so foreign and mundane. It is of course, very possible that I'll still do that, but I'm starting to wonder why I would do that when there are so many other opportunities. When there is so much of the world left to see. When there are so many places just like Buenos Aires to fall in love with and be perfectly content with.

I have now gone on a sleep-deprived 6 am probably too-real rant, and for those that still read this ish, I apologize. for those that skipped to the end, moral of the story is I changed my mind about homesick, I wanna stay. Forever. (not really).

That is of course not to say that I don't miss my family and friends. I love you and miss you and I thoroughly enjoy our skype/Facebook/twitter/snapchat/etc interactions. But the thing is now, that as much as I have a life back in the US, I feel like I have a life here too. My internship started so late that I feel like I just got the hang of teaching English, like we just started new classes in the other villa and started getting to know the kids that live there, like I just got the hang of UBA (but lol I'm so done with school), like I'm still finding out so many things I want to see and do here (I haven't been to all the puerta cerradas!! I mean really), like I can never spend enough time with my friends, just chatting and sharing stories. Sometimes I'm jealous of my friends who decided to study here for a year; they have such a good understanding of the city and obviously the language, with real Argentine friends, and a place to really call home. I have no idea how they could ever leave.

Basically, this is my love letter to Buenos Aires. Yes, I still have time here, but not enough. It's time to really aprovechar the few weeks I have left here, because I know I will miss it like crazy.

Night ya'll.

[pasosportenos]

Street Art, Buenos Aires

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Dying at this.