La concha del arquero!! World Cup madness and life in Argentina

I have been absolutely terrible about updating this blog lately which I am sure that I will end up regretting because this has EASILY been the most fun segment of my trip. Some nights michelle, Eliana and I will cry because we think about how much leaving eachother is going to suck but they are always brief and mixed with actual laughter because we realize how ridiculous it is to waste our time here with tears.

So what's been going on these last few weeks? Emily's parents came last week and took the girls out to Pizza Bacci (Oh that savory deep crusted spinache pizza is like anything else I have ever tasted) and it was a strange little connection back to charlottesville/american culture. They were very sweet and enjoyed hearing our perspective on Argentine culture after being introduced to it themselves.

BEING HERE DURING THE WORLD CUP IS THE COOLEST THING EVER!!! There is so much excitement and argentine paraphenalia all over the place and the city literally shuts down when a game is going on. Last Sunday for the Greece game we went over to Yami's house to watch with the entire extended family and were slightly late (Argentime does not apply to soccer...). Isidro requested that we bring his soccer ball, so we were dribbling through a lifeless la plata on the way. Argentine spanish is already very intensely expressive and when you add in emotionally charged soccer games to that you have a recipe for some very colorful expressions. My host family is just as fun to watch as Maradona is on the sidelines. Michelle and I left about an hour after the game had finished to go do work in Oliverio's (our favorite cafe...the waitresses now all talk to us like friends) and still the streets were ALIVE with excitement, blue and white, and lots of car horns.

This Friday night was a pretty laid back one, we came home from class at around 830 pm (Don't even get me started on how painful that class is...we would die if it werent for the 15 minute break in between) to find the table filled with snacks, beer and family. It actually rather fondly reminded me of a Doyle family gathering :-) We all hung out for a long time and I have a particularly funny strand of pictures taken by or at the insistance of Francisca to remind me of the night.

We didn't get to bed till late despite not actually going out anywhere so we naturally spent half of saturday sleeping. Michelle opted to stay home from dinner and eat leftovers as they were having a seafood bake at Yami's house and she doesnt like seafood. That was her loss, it was DELICIOUS, and I even tried kalimari for the first time. A couple that they were friends with was there so naturally I spent alot of time playing with their kids. One of them was a tiny child who couldn't have been more than 1 and a half and could still sort of sing the K'naan world cup song, it was one of the most adorable things I've seen in a long time.

Saturday night was a BLAST thanks to David's planning. Me chrissy michelle and david met up at Eliana's house, drank a cafe irlandes to warm us up from the cold weather (Chrissy was a bartender in England so knows the right proportions for everything), we split a taxi to Alexia's (an awesome french exchange student) where everyone was meeting to hang out before the birthday party. David had brought Fernet Menta (a mint variety of this herbal liquor that's so popular here) so we mixed that with sprite and the night was off to a phenomenal start. A pair of other french exchange students and argentines came to meet up with us in our efforts to safely imbibe before the night of dancing, of course.

Around 3 we got a text from Alvaro's friend that said the bar was already filling up so we had better hurry (we later found out that was code for- it's a little empty here and I want the rest of my friends to come). But we left alexia's around 3 and walked the few rainy blocks to the boliche. Since david had already got us our entradas we didn't have to wait in the line or pay the cover charge and went straight to the dance floor. Going out in Argentina is quite an experience...the drinks are cheap, the music is loud and highly danceable but the gender dynamics are very different than what I'm used to. I'm not sure if it's a function of being in a city or being in a foreign city but there tends to be large groups of guys that all come together and large groups of girls without much intermingling except for explicit romantic/sexual intentions. We were one of the few truly co-ed groups there i noticed, but as most of us were paired up within or outside of the group it wasnt that noticeable. We have learned that Argentine males don't appreciate subtle rejection and as soon as they hear you speak and realize that you are foreign you are going to have to forget being tactful unless you want to invite their chamuyendo (sweet talking...haha). At first we would talk to almost anyone just because it seemed like the nice and respectful thing to do, but now we'll pretty much respond to advances with. "Gracias, me voy con mis amigos, no te quiero hablar mas...chau" Within the cultural context if they are going to be aggressive with their advances it is only fitting to provide an equally decisive response!

That is not to put any judgement on what seems to be a culturally ingrained way of gender interactions. We've had the luck of meeting great Argentine boys who treat us with all the respect in the world. There just seems to be a more direct way of approaching things which is pretty refreshing. While we were watching the world cup game on Sunday (everything in this post seems to relate to the world cup!!) after our night out with the Bacci clan I was joking with michelle about a text that she got saying- SOS HERMOSA (you're beautiful!) and our 5 year old cousin chimes back- "No mas que vos!!" (no more than you!!). We died of laughter...they truly are socialized to know how to flirt since birth it seems. I don't think I have felt so stereotypically argentine as when I was holding a mate and cheering for Tevez' goal after just having eaten asado.

I love my life in Argentina so much!!! I miss and love my family and friends from the US. HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY to my older brother Kevin who turned 23 yesterday, Love you!

Green Mango Gatorade

I was going to go for Blue Ice Gatorade. It would have been a safe and familiar choice like a chai latte after a bikram class. I found myself being impulsively and chemically drawn to the green mango gatorade instead. I paid my 4 pesos and cracked it open on the walk back home. It was brighter than any liquid I've ever consumed without medicinal intent. Bold. Expressive. Maybe it isn't the type of gatorade I would drink every day of my life, but today it presented a fascinating new experience that wont be available to me for the rest of my life.

I think I have settled for being bright bold and expressive on an aesthetic level for fear of incorporating those ideals into my being at an internal level. It is easier to take a tequila shot, wear blindingly bright colors and bitch to your friends about how true love, peace and happiness cannot exist in a world so close minded than it is to OPEN your mind to the possibility that they may actually exist.

For all that I try to generalize about the 'culture' of argentina for descriptive purposes, my real inspiration has come from the individuals. Anyone can get lost in the system, the collective, the politics. I have been inspired by trivial details and large feats alike: a woman who has had a child due to a wartime rape, a friend who is still as in love as the day his boyfriend moved to the opposite hemisphere, a disillusioned band who offers us pot instead of coffee and hopes to change the establishment with lyrics of love and simplicity, a tango teacher with an affinity for profane cartoons who moved to argentina without speaking spanish, a little pudgy cousin who claims, "manana no existe mami", a woman who believes in free love, lace stockings and acyrillic paint and militant peronism who is not willing to mute herself to appease anyone else, a pair of sisters that don't call themselves such, but are better feminists than anyone I have met, a roomate pursuing her dream of international development in guatemala despite being constantly berated by a conservative family, a friend who is not shrinking back from the redefinition of love exploding his safety bubble, a woman who's brother was taken from her and finds the courage to lead unintentionally ignorant american children past his monument, a refreshingly respectful boy who openly treats women better than the machismo framework of his society, a grandfather with wrinkles of joy despite fleeing his fatherland for years and putting his family's life over his pride.

I am constantly challenged and inspired by the bright, bold and expressive individuals around me. Don't be afraid to drink it in today.

Diversion, divertirse, de-vertere, to turn ones' self away from
etymology poses eternal mysieries
I dont want a distraction. evasion. hiding place.
I want abond. an attraction. a yoke.
with myself and my wind stained silver converse
with the schoolgirl holding her mothers hand out of love or fear
with the old vixen in the bright pink pants who puffs her cigarette like she's 20
with the bearded man serving as the collective tail of 3 dog. the aimless follower.
with the graffiti. the plants on the patio. the crosswalks.
with this microcosm of reality

5 months is way too short for a study abroad experience. You can only spend so long living in the moment before you realize the depth of the bonds you created. It is the little things I will miss about this place: making fun of Eliana's random affinity for the black eyed peas, how our maid seems to think michelle owns no shoes and puts all of hers in my closet, passing the artesenia on the way to class, sitting on the floor of the loft listening to charly garcia blogging when I should be doing work...

I didnt realize how much I loved it here until this weekend. I have phenomenal friends and families in two separate hemispheres. For every creepy similarity there is between my two lives there is a contradicting irony. It's like a flash sideways out of LOST.