(Safe) Sex & The City

So remember that time when I said I would talk about going to La Rural? Yeah well I’m not going to do that. It happened like two weeks ago and there’s not much to say other than I saw some of Old McDonald’s farm animals and they smelled not unlike the dog crap that lines every sidewalk of this city, and which I manage to only step in about once a day (I’m so good at walking).

If you wanna see more pics of me at la rural and at other places and you’re not friends with me on facebook you can follow the link at the bottom of the page (HA now you hafta read the rest of my post cause you don’t know how scrolling works).

Mmmkay so this program that I’m doing is through this organization called the Institute for Study Abroad which is this really expensive thing that sets the whole shebang up for me and holds my hand while I’m living here if I want them to (hope they don’t have coodies, y’all). I’m also doing this Gender and Minority Studies concentration through them (because INSTITUTIONS, MAAAN) which means I take a class related to human rights and then they set me up with this internship thing. Argentina just passed an equal marriage law last month so I thought it’d be pretty kool to work with a GLBT organization. So yeah. That’s what I’m doing.

Bueno. Y’all wanna hear about my first week of classes? ‘Course you do, duh. Even though I was aloud to take classes at four different universidades, I’m taking all of them at la Universidad de Buenos Aires, the state university which apparently, along with some universidad in this country called México¹, is considered the best in Latin America, even though it’s completely free.² Now, whenever “la UBA” was my answer to the question “¿grrrrrrl whut school u go 2?”, I would always get looks as if to say “oh, I’m sorry.” Because here’s the thing: the school is a chaotic heap of red tape barely contained by it’s dilapidated walls. And while it’s frustratingly disorganized, I can tell this is going to be one of the most interesting aspects of my time here. It has an extremely activist-oriented student body, with political posters on every wall, people handing out flyers of upcoming demonstrations, and ubiquitous Marxist graffiti. So yeah, who wants to live with me in Carrboro when I get back?

Anyways, my first class was last Monday and because I had heard that the school is wont to be like “hey your class isn’t in this building it’s in a different neighborhood you ever taken a bus before?”, I got there like a half hour before my class was supposed to start. Which was totes awesome because of course I was in the right place and of course I forgot that NOTHING starts on time in Argentina. Like the professor got there fifteen minutes late, put his things down, and left the room to get some coffee. Anyway, the class was supposed to be a seminar on the social aspects of AIDS. En realidad, the first clase was basically just “hey these are the ways you can not get AIDS, let me show you with real live condoms, wooden penises, and graphic drawings of people having sex the right and wrong ways.” So yeah I was a lil taken aback. Let’s just say I learned a lot of new vocabulary that day.

My second class was part of the concentration thing I was talking about earlier and there’s not really much to say sobre esto other than the fact that I found afterwards that the women that taught it that day is a really big deal and anyone who’s familiar with Latin American academia would have been like “whaaaaaa Dora Barrancos came to talk to 15 americanos who barely understood what she was talking about?”

Nothing really happened in my next class, although lots of things were probably supposed to happen, I just didn’t understand anything. Like we divided into groups and the argentinos in my group basically gave up tryna ax me questions because I couldn’t understand them when they said “féfwnfЍЖpfdá fá návó͠zz f ¡ fdsòáضعـf Ÿ¿きぜゆこ?”³ So yeah totes droppin that class.

For my last class of the week, UBA was so kind as to do the thing where they move the class to another building on the other side of town and then act like it’s Argentina’s best kept secret. By the time mis amigos and I got to the right building we were fifty minutes late but that didn’t matter because oh yeah, they changed the time of the class as well. So we went to wait at a café where I was berated by the waitress for ordering both fries and coffee at the same time.⁴ The class was worth the wait and me committing that gastronomical faux pas though because OH SHIT I FOUND OUT THE PROFESSOR IS A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER. It’s a seminar se llama “culture for peace and human rights” and the first lecture was as uplifting and inspiring as that one time Ira Glass came and spoke to us, like 4realzies that’s what it reminded me of. So yeah think I’mma try and stay in that.

In unrelated news I lost mi celular at a dance club this weekend because I was just dancing so hard and my phone was like “look I can’t chill with you if you’re dancing so hard” so it just left. And apparently stores here are never open on weekends or Días del Libertado José de San Martín which is today so I can’t get a new celular until tomorrow so that makes me really sad and this is a run-on sentence now.

Also, you might be wondering: hey Hoosteen, have you been participating in culture and sights and tourism and other things that you are putting yourself in student debt to EXPERIENCE? And I will tell you, yeah a lil bit I think. Pictures of those things will prolly be on my facebook in a sec or if you’re an old person you can go here instead.

Al fin, I promise to try and do this thang at least once a week (that’s not really happening).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹ Sidenote: México is also considered the safest country in Latin America. ~~~*>THE MORE YOU KNOW<*~~~

² Effin socialists. Who do they think they are, investing money in education instead of in killing people in other countries?

³ DON’T THEY KNOW THAT’S NOT SPANISH? Silly argentinos.

⁴ Hey food snob friends shut up that’s what I wanted.

On Beef, Bars, and maybe some other things that start with B idk

Sorry I haven't been up on my blogging game, y'all. Just way too busy being a like really cool cosmo/metro politan student n doing things n other languages n stuff. Feel like i no what it means 2b a human. Feel like i'm having experiences that make me different n special n better than ne1 elze. Everythings just so MEANINGFULCORE that I just want 2 move down here and ride this chill wave (it's winter here blaaahhhhhh) the rest of my lyfe.

NAH BUT ENSERIO. What I’m actually doing right now is sitting in my bedroom, typing this blog poast on my Apple computer with a Facebook window open, while eating Goldfish. I just got done listening to American hip-hop (that’s this kind of music a lot of young people listen to nowadays, mom and dad) with my Japanese-made head-phones and later, when/if I leave my apartment today, I’ll put on my Old Navy pea coat and probably buy some pizza.

This is all just to say that, even though I’m living in Latin America, I’ve found it pretty hard to integrate so far. When you come here with a program full of other americanos, it takes some effort to not make it a party in the (kinda) USA. Which, honestly, for now it’s cool and all, since I’ve had little opportunity to meet some people to speak not English to, but eventually, ya know, I’m tryna meet some more porteños. Whatevs. Introspection complete.

ANYWAYS, I guess a few things have happened since my last post. I’ve figured out how to properly use my phone and even more, IT STAYS ON FOR A WEEK WITHOUT RECHARGING IT. I’ve also managed to use public transportation, go out to bars, and continue my daily ritual of awkward dinner conversilences for an impressive period of time.

In regards to public transportation here, it is both terribly awesome and awesomely terrible. The two options that I can feign understanding of are the Subte (what they llamar the metro system here) and the colectivos (public busses). Both are fairly ubiquitous around the city, which is great, but also not great because that’s how everyone gets around. This means that during rush hours, if you are even able to get on, you will be so closely Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box THAT THE BREATHING OF THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU SOUNDS THIS LOUD IN YOUR EAR HOLEZ.

As for going to bars, well I do that sometimes. I’ll give you a brief recap of what I did a couple days ago to fingerpaint a picture of what maybe normally happens mmmkay? On Saturday nights we don’t get dinner from our host mamas so we went to dinner at this parilla, which is I think how you say steak house in shpaynish. Regrettably, it turns out that I couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate name for my blog: I had been in Argentina for a week and 6 days sans beef,¹ so needless to say, I was pretty ready to eat some delicious cow meat (SORRY ANNA MORRIS, BUT ALSO NOT SORRY BECAUSE TWITTER TOLD ME YOU ATE CRAB MEATS). In the interest of brevity, let’s just say I went overboard and spent 70 pesos on dinner. It’s cool though, because that bought a steak with ham, onions, peppers, and a fried egg on top; fries; wine; and the best effin ice cream ever with a Trix-flavored wafer.² The after-party of the parilla was basically we were going to hang out with these Argentine bros then go to bars/dance clubs called boliches. What this means is around ten to fifteen americanos wandering through the skreets of BA and speakin in English about theories about Inception, what we did earlier in the week, Inception, la rural, and Inception. Eventually around 3 or so?³, we ended up at a bar that was playing a good deal of música americana, including quite a few 90s power pop ballads. So clearly that meant we had to form a rotating ring of jumping/moshing people (two parts fun, one part “damn I look like a stupid American right now”). You might even say we were bar hopping HAHA SEE WHAT I DID THERE? After the bar there was the after-party and after the after-party was the after-after party aka my colectivo home. Then was the after-after-after party aka me being in bed and realizing I was getting sick and probably should have not come home at 7 in the morning. Then I went to the after-after-after-after party with Tracy Jordan.

Right-O, then. I was going to talk about this thing I went to a few days ago called La Rural but I’m realizing this is getting kind of long so I’m going to cut it short. So, you know, stay tuned cause next time you’ll get to see some pictures of cows n goats n stuff, along with me saying y'all a lot. Also, prolly pictures of whatever I do this week since I don’t have any responsibilities until next Monday.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹Apparently the people who grow the cows and then kill them for you so you can eat them have been feudin with the government for a few years so it’s a lot more expensive than it used to be to eat beef. This is all according to mi host madre, which also means it is reliant upon my understanding of her explanation.

² All decisions related to cereal flavoUr were made only after a general consensus of those seated at the table was reached.

³ Schedules here are the craziest. Like, take the time you would do any activity in the US (unfortunately, except wake up) and add about three hours to it and that’s what time people do it here.