Took a picture from my friend's balcony last night. Sorry for not posting in a while. Been pretty lazy lately.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Saturday
Went to a working class disco last night called Palermo Club. No tourists in there, haha. It was pretty interesting. You have to be patted down by the police when you go in. Other than that it was just a normal club full of Portenos. I still cant figure out how to type accent marks on this computer. There's suppose to be a squigly line over the N in Portenos. Anyone have any tips?
Oh my Spanish teacher gave me five pesos in coins my last lesson. Score! She said "I'm giving you gold, you know?" She also told me how people sell the coins for more than they are worth or something like that. I didn't understand her completely. Basically some type of corrupt activity. There's lots of corruption here I think. It's rumored that the bad Swine Flu numbers were made up here. People would die in a car wreck but they had Swine Flu and they would count it as a Swine Flu death. It makes sense because all those bad reports came out right before the election. I'm not sure if I should feel better or worse about that. Also all city construction seemed to stop right after the election too. Good for me, no more jackhammers. My apartment is still noisy though. Whenever a bus comes by it sounds like the smoke monster from Lost. I never moved to a different apartment mostly because I'm lazy and I figured I would get used to the buses, which I have.
Yes my maid does a very good job of cleaning my apartment, Mom. She also does all my dishes too. I usually feel bad though and do most of them the day before. I feel kinda weird when she's here too, so I go out and run errands. Not sure if that's normal. Ya Summer, I can't believe it either, the internet is a crazy thing! And yes there are a bunch of players down here, there is even a Tuesday night dinner at a different restaurant each week. Hi Carol! Thanks for making my followers an even ten. My blog is an internet sensation!
Oh my Spanish teacher gave me five pesos in coins my last lesson. Score! She said "I'm giving you gold, you know?" She also told me how people sell the coins for more than they are worth or something like that. I didn't understand her completely. Basically some type of corrupt activity. There's lots of corruption here I think. It's rumored that the bad Swine Flu numbers were made up here. People would die in a car wreck but they had Swine Flu and they would count it as a Swine Flu death. It makes sense because all those bad reports came out right before the election. I'm not sure if I should feel better or worse about that. Also all city construction seemed to stop right after the election too. Good for me, no more jackhammers. My apartment is still noisy though. Whenever a bus comes by it sounds like the smoke monster from Lost. I never moved to a different apartment mostly because I'm lazy and I figured I would get used to the buses, which I have.
Yes my maid does a very good job of cleaning my apartment, Mom. She also does all my dishes too. I usually feel bad though and do most of them the day before. I feel kinda weird when she's here too, so I go out and run errands. Not sure if that's normal. Ya Summer, I can't believe it either, the internet is a crazy thing! And yes there are a bunch of players down here, there is even a Tuesday night dinner at a different restaurant each week. Hi Carol! Thanks for making my followers an even ten. My blog is an internet sensation!
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Coins are valuable!
When I first got here I didn't understand how important coins were. They are good for all kinds of things like buses, subways and not making the vendors mad. There is like a coin shortage here. Someone is stealing all the coins! I would kill for a peso coin right now. It makes life so much more enjoyable when you have a pocket full of coins here. It's like Christmas morning when the vendor sees you have perfect change. Or when you can quickly pay for your bus/subway trip across town. When I first got here I had a dish full of coins because I would just pay with bills and decline giving the vendors perfect change. I don't go to that store anymore. My maid must have thought I was super rich with all the coins I had. Now I try to help out the vendors because I know they struggle to keep enough change. I was wrong to think however that my supply was endless and now all I have is about twenty of the 10 centavos coins left! Literally people will steal change from tables at restaurants and leave more money in bill form instead.
I can write about mafias, supermarkets and political corruption here if you want. Or at least what I have heard about them in my next post. If anyone is interested comment because I don't want to type unless there is a demand for it. Sorry for the coin rant but I think it's weird and I want to know where they are all going!
I can write about mafias, supermarkets and political corruption here if you want. Or at least what I have heard about them in my next post. If anyone is interested comment because I don't want to type unless there is a demand for it. Sorry for the coin rant but I think it's weird and I want to know where they are all going!
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Part 2
Sorry, I haven't really felt like blogging in a while. I really have been busy studying Spanish a lot recently. I hate it when I can't understand people here. They talk so damn fast and the dialect is called Castellano. It is much different than what they speak in Mexico and Spain. All the double L's and Y's are said like shh and the tu form is replaced with the vos form complete with all different conjugations. It sounds like Italian actually or so I've been told. Couple times I was confused today actually. Once when the lady at the grocery store check out was trying to explain that I needed to have a bar code on my oranges. So that took a while. And the other when the lady who washes my clothes was trying to explain I was missing a sock. Yes, she takes her job seriously and obviously it's laying on my floor somewhere in my apartment.
As for the rest of my day goes. I usually watch Friends at 1 or take a siesta after lunch if I'm tired. In the afternoon/early evening I work online playing poker. I don't consider myself a professional but more just someone who can make a living from it and hasn't been ready to get another job yet. It does have it's perks though such as work only when I want and pay-checks in American dollars. However I wouldn't recommend anyone to take up poker now. There are too many good players now as opposed to when I started and it's just so much harder.
At night I get together with friends that I've met through poker or through expat forums and have dinner or go out. I have a few local friends too but not many. I really would like to meet more becuase talking with them you learn Spanish so much faster. Anyway dinner is at about 10ish and if I go out it's after 12 usually. The bars don't close here and the locals can stay out well past sunrise so nothing gets going until after 1am at least. I probably went out too much last month, I have been trying to curb that habit recently. Thanks for reading, I'll try to post my next blog sooner!
As for the rest of my day goes. I usually watch Friends at 1 or take a siesta after lunch if I'm tired. In the afternoon/early evening I work online playing poker. I don't consider myself a professional but more just someone who can make a living from it and hasn't been ready to get another job yet. It does have it's perks though such as work only when I want and pay-checks in American dollars. However I wouldn't recommend anyone to take up poker now. There are too many good players now as opposed to when I started and it's just so much harder.
At night I get together with friends that I've met through poker or through expat forums and have dinner or go out. I have a few local friends too but not many. I really would like to meet more becuase talking with them you learn Spanish so much faster. Anyway dinner is at about 10ish and if I go out it's after 12 usually. The bars don't close here and the locals can stay out well past sunrise so nothing gets going until after 1am at least. I probably went out too much last month, I have been trying to curb that habit recently. Thanks for reading, I'll try to post my next blog sooner!
Friday, July 10, 2009
My boring days! Part 1
I'm about to head to a restaurant called Green Bamboo. Looks pretty good, but that menu looks intimidating. More often than not at a fancy restaurant I just try to make an educated guess. Probably a bad practice for someone with food allergies.
Played some pool last night then went to a disco and DANCED! Rare for me, I'm the worst haha. I made my first Argentine guy friend as well. He's a cool guy but a horrible pool player. He was telling me that girls like foreign accents here. My eagerness to learn Spanish has been renewed! I am actually making a ton of progress in speaking or so my Spanish teacher tells me. I don't ever feel like I am getting better.
Ok typical day for Summer.
If it's one of the days I have Spanish class then it's up and at em at 8AM. Oh noes early! Eat some yogurt, cereal and make some coffee. I actually like having to get up early a few times each week and go somewhere. I take the subway with the rest of Buenos Aires to my Spanish tutor's house which is kinda far away. However recently there have been less people on the subway I'm guessing becuase of the swine flu or Gripe A they call it here. I could get another tutor closer but she's really nice and we get a long well. On the way home I usually stop to get something to eat at a cafe or go to the grocery store if I need to since it's on the way home. To be continued.....(going to dinner)
Played some pool last night then went to a disco and DANCED! Rare for me, I'm the worst haha. I made my first Argentine guy friend as well. He's a cool guy but a horrible pool player. He was telling me that girls like foreign accents here. My eagerness to learn Spanish has been renewed! I am actually making a ton of progress in speaking or so my Spanish teacher tells me. I don't ever feel like I am getting better.
Ok typical day for Summer.
If it's one of the days I have Spanish class then it's up and at em at 8AM. Oh noes early! Eat some yogurt, cereal and make some coffee. I actually like having to get up early a few times each week and go somewhere. I take the subway with the rest of Buenos Aires to my Spanish tutor's house which is kinda far away. However recently there have been less people on the subway I'm guessing becuase of the swine flu or Gripe A they call it here. I could get another tutor closer but she's really nice and we get a long well. On the way home I usually stop to get something to eat at a cafe or go to the grocery store if I need to since it's on the way home. To be continued.....(going to dinner)
Sunday, July 5, 2009
July 4th
Went to El Alamo last night for July 4th. I had to go there because its the most American place here. I thought I was going to go this year without fireworks but they actually set some off on the roof. They were pretty cool but the ash got in my hair. I guess that's just the price I had to pay. There was a thunderstorm earlier today. Weird winter rain shower.
Oh, I don't have swine flu yet, which is good. I have an idea about why it is bad here. Everyone loves kissing each other here, sort of like in the US when you shake someones hand, here they kiss instead. I mean really it's flu season, maybe they should take a break with all the kissing for a month or two. I was explaining this to someone last night and they agreed. We kissed good bye though, so I don't think my talk was very effective in changing things.
Oh, I don't have swine flu yet, which is good. I have an idea about why it is bad here. Everyone loves kissing each other here, sort of like in the US when you shake someones hand, here they kiss instead. I mean really it's flu season, maybe they should take a break with all the kissing for a month or two. I was explaining this to someone last night and they agreed. We kissed good bye though, so I don't think my talk was very effective in changing things.
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