toothless smiles

So a funny thing happened last week. On wednesday night or so, my roommate Eric and I went out to a bar in Palermo called El Alamo. It was a smoky bar with a Bostonian bartender and nothing but American hits playing over the speakers, full of Americans and other tourists: I met tons of Americans, some Mexicans, Irish, a Spaniard and some Peruvians. I left a little early (around 330) before realizing that I'd spent all my small bills on the cover, and managed to scrounge together enough coins to take the bus.

The next day, however, I didn't see Eric all day. Around 5pm, I asked Adriana if she'd seen him, and she worriedly informed me that he was at the dentist. "What happened?", I asked. In a flurry of Spanish she told me that something had happened last night and he'd broken a tooth, that he'd gotten in a barfight and/or gotten beaten in the face with a pistol by a mugger, and/or gotten robbed. In my head, his toothless smile would be the result of my stupidly, selfishly leaving his drunk ass at a bar in a strange city. She told me that when he'd come to her early that morning with his tooth/teeth in hand, she'd wanted to die of fright.

There was no response to my calls or text messages, and so I began to worry. Adriana, upset that we stupid Americans weren't taking the appropriate precautions and were getting in fights and/or getting mugged, told me that maybe Eric wouldn't be coming back and that she was going to speak to the program director. Worried for his future, I timidly wolfed down my dinner and halfheartedly listened to her ranting.

Then, about 9:30 in the evening, Eric returned, with a fully restored smile and yesterday's clothes. I asked him what happened and he told me that no, he hadn't gotten in a fight and no, he hadn't gotten mugged, but rather had slipped while trying to grab a stone ledge for balance on the way home and knocked his face on it. 

Adriana nearly died from relief, and so we all laughed it out over tea and alfajores. But next time Eric loses a tooth, we'll make sure he at least gets to kick the other guy's ass first.

postdeluvian revelations

On some days, Buenos Aires is the Atlantis of Latin America. Most of it was built in the ages before storm drains were popular; as a result, when it rains, the streets become moats that surround the blocks and guard them from my approaching steps. Tuesday was one of those days, and I spent it leaping over these moats, trying (unsuccessfully) to avoid water in my boots at the same time as I avoided the deluge pouring forth from the sky. It has thus become clear that I need not only bigger boots, but also a gondola for traversing the canals.

In other news, internet access in Buenos Aires is slow, unreliable and sporadic at best. Yesterday I went to an e-cafe in the evening in an attempt to upload some pictures, and halfway through the power went out. I sat in the dark for about 15 minutes speaking in broken spanish to a middle-aged woman who was there with her 13-year old daughter. The daughter, after learning that me and Eric were americans, tried practicing her English with Eric, and I tried to talk politics with her mom. The political experience of most of the people from her generation is striking: having watched their economy be plundered by international bankers and executives, she saw the government as little more than a hood robin state stealing from the public. I asked her if she thought there were other counter-forces in Argentina and she professed her faith in the intellectuals of this fair city, hopefully either a force of change in some form or another. 

But then again, my Spanish still sucks so I probably missed a lot that she said....

¡Ya estoy aquí!

Before I left Newark, I was thinking that a 3.5-hour layover in Miami was more than overkill.My flight was to board at 4:45 and arrive at 8 in Miami, then depart again at 1130 for a 9am arrival. However, instead of boarding at 445, the flight was delayed till 7. and then again. and again. finally, at 7:30, the flight arrived, debarked and we began to board. Then we had to wait 45 minutes for other travelers to sort their tickets out. THEN we were 17th in line for takeoff.

Long story short, we didn't leave Newark until 8:15.

I sat it out between two other girls who were sweating missing their flights; a Rachael who was headed for Rio de Janeiro, and another girl headed for New Orleans. By the time our plane touched down at 11:20, I was the only one whose flight had not left... and mine had minutes to spare.

So after climbing over half the seats between me and the front and "por favor"-ing my way past Cuban mothers and daughters, I sprinted to the adjacent gate where my flight was (thank god) waiting... with its own delay. The fates smiled upon me--here I was cursing our 17th-in-line takeoff for costing me the crucial minutes that would have cost me my flight, and here was my plane, waiting an extra hour, not for me, but for a busted toilet.

But I digress.

After a near-sleepless flight to Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires, Kirsten (a fellow ISA student on my flight) and I arrived exhausted but excited. There was no airport tax, no customs duty, just a funny health form asking about my flu symptoms in the last week and a mask-wearing health worker observing our temperatures for signs of that good ol' H1N1 swine flu virus. We met with about thirty other ISA estudiantes in the airport, where we were then herded onto what was probably the comfiest, most luxurious bus I've ever seen. 

Muy lejos, our bus arrived at Universidad de Belgrano, where I met with my host mother Adriana, and my American housemate, Eric. The apartment is tiny; it has three bedrooms and two pint-size bathrooms; but it has a sick view facing south towards downtown from the tenth floor that continues to stoke my appetite for adventure. Adriana's cooking, although quite simple and what one might consider traditional Argentine cuisine, has continued to sate both my and Eric's appetite without fail. 

Mas aventuras después.

¡Vamos!

Queridos amores, 

Tomorrow the adventure begins. My flight leaves from Newark, New Jersey after a four-hour drive from Ithaca. I'll then be sitting in Miami for about 3 hours, my last hours in the states before a 12-hour overnight flight into Buenos Aires. I'll then be picked up at the airport, along with about 30 other cohorts in my same program, and shipped off to meet my host family and/or take a tour of the city. With a little luck, I'll be out in Buenos Aires by about 1pm on Saturday.

This is about how I feel right about now:

more soon.