Quite why I haven’t written a blog for such a long time is a bit of a mystery to me. When speaking to a good friend of mine on skype the other day I put it down to the fact that my life here in Argentina is just not as random, bizarre and diverse as it was in Brazil. A promise I made to myself before I started the blog was that if I reached the point where my posts were in danger of reading like the script from that youtube clip ‘gap yah’ then I would stop writing until I had something vaguely interesting to say. However I quickly found that blogs are a bit like reverse Pringles, to the extent that once I stopped I found it very difficult to pop again.
So then why write one now, so close to the end of my time here in Buenos Aires? I think the answer lies in the combination of desperate attempt to put off my 4,000 word year abroad essay at all costs, a last minute bid to do something vaguely productive with my time here and to try to convince the girl that works next to me that I am doing something vaguely productive with my time here and a way for me to reflect on my Buenos Aires adventure, without looking back through all my facebook photos from the last 3 and a half months.
So given that I have such a long period of time to cover, I have decided to split my life into several key areas, which conveniently makes me sound a lot more productive than I actually am. So here goes;
Work
The fact that I am writing this from my desk at work tells you all you need to know about how vital a cog I am in the machine that is Cooper insurance brokers Argentina. I was lucky enough to find the job through a family friend, having previously spent months in a fruitless job search. By a job search I do of course mean occasionally typing ‘job argentina’ into google and then feigning surprise when ‘paid 5 month internship in sports section of Buenos Aires newspaper, no degree or relevant qualifications required’ didn’t come up as a hit. So as soon as a tangible offer came my way I of course snapped it up, and whilst I am not paid, I am working in a beautiful office (with balcony et al) in a great part of the city, with a really nice bunch of argentines with whom I speak entirely in Spanish. There is also a great drinks fridge with a range of beverages, currently including a bottle of champagne which I am rather optimistically hoping is for a surprise party for me when I leave for good at the end of next week.
As for my actual role within the organization, I have already alluded to the fact that I am not inundated with jobs or tasks. When I arrived I had a chat with one of the big names in the firm, and he told me that I would be moving around every two weeks and seeing what each department does. At the time I thought ‘what he actually means is I’m going to become the office bitch’. However if indeed that is my current job description then I have stumbled across the best place to be the run-around boy, because no one drinks any coffee, or if they do they seem perfectly happy to make it themselves, and there is no filing to be done because the motto seems to be ‘we’ll just put it on top of that big pile of other stuff’. So what does the run-around do if there is no running around to be done I hear you ask. Twenty years ago, my day would have probably involved a lot of thumb twiddling and elastic band flicking, but thanks to the wonders of the internet my day is spent exploring Facebook and working through a wide array of news sites, starting off my morning with the high brow articles off the BBC site, and ending the day with something more like ‘David Cameron wore thong to sixth form summer ball’ in the daily star.
I have also allocated myself more flexible working hours recently, because to be honest with you my 11-4 days get a bit much sometimes. This flexibility became obvious to me from an early stage when, having returned rather sheepishly from an hour and a half lunch with a friend I was told ‘you didn’t have to rush back’. As a result I am generally here from 11.30 until 2.45 including an hour for lunch. Short of my desk being a Jacuzzi, it couldn’t really be more relaxed here.
Mi casa y mi barrio
As you will know if you read my last post, I sent my friend Ben out here a week early to scout us out a place to live. Having read over what I said just after arriving, I can’t help but feel I did Almagro, my barrio (or endz) a great disservice. For a start, there has been none of the drug related turf wars I predicted, and in fact the only drugs I have seen are those smoked by the bearded men who work in the computer repair shop next door to us. I use the word ‘work’ in its loosest sense because they never seem to have any customers. This may be because their record of fixing computers isn’t great, for example Eva, the lady that owns my apartment, gave her computer in to be fixed and she still hasn’t had it returned. That was just short of two years ago.
In truth though Almagro has proved to be a quiet, friendly little area, with a cluster of really nice shops, bars, restaurants and cafes on the street adjacent to our own and the fact that we are pretty much the only non-argentines in the area means that we have built up quite a rapport with many of the waiters and shopkeepers. Special mention must go to Alejandro who works in the Parillita, the little steakhouse around the corner which combines a great steak sandwich with a subscription to ESPN. Alejandro loves to chat a bit of football, and we have been able to shed a few tears together of late as the form of Arsenal and his beloved River plate have both gone down the toilet recently. He also got it into his head at some point that Ben was a Man U fan, and rather than correct him at an early stage, Ben has now got to the point where he has to pretend to be elated every time they win.
The house itself is a bit of a beaut as well. The terrace served us really well for three months, and played host to a good few barbecues, but the arrival of May and a distinct lack of hats coats and scarves has meant that the alfresco dining has been put on hold. The house dynamic is a lot of fun as well and whilst my love/hate relationship with our foot licking dog pippin continues, the rest of us get on well. Sadly our German housemate Lukas returned home in April, although Ben maintains his daily renditions of ‘two world wars and one world cup do da do da’ had nothing to do with it. He has, however, been replaced by Malcolm, a 6”5 college basketball star from Philadelphia who is an absolute hero and well on his way to becoming a Michelin starred chef. If only he was able to light the gas himself. Rocio, who studies law at the University of Buenos Aires, is an ideal housemate and her range of animal impressions is second to none. In terms of cleanliness, Ben and I have made massive steps forward and we have finally got to grips with what Eva expects from us. Saying that she does still call me a ‘desastre’ from time to time and tells me my room looks like Bin Laden’s hide out, but I guess you can’t have it all.
Extra curricular activities
Buenos Aires unlike Florianopolis could be described as ‘brimming with culture’ and whilst I never planned to go traipsing around galleries every weekend, I feel that I have seen a lot of interesting stuff. I find it always helps having friends to visit, because that pushes you to get up of the sofa (got one in my room, and what?) and have a wander into the markets like the ones in San Telmo and La Boca, or go along to the zoo. The Buenos Aires zoo is actually pretty cool and well worth a visit if you’re in the area. There is an interesting system in place by which the animals are allocated space on the basis of how badass they are considered. For example the Siberian white tiger has a huge area, complete with an aesthetically pleasing water feature, whereas the poor meerkats were shoved into a tiny box. They must be crossing their little fingers that the whole ‘compare the meerkat.com’ goes global.
In my mind, cultural activities also extend to things like cinema, theatre and shows. We have been to the cinema a couple of times, hit a tango show and went to a performance of the ‘teatro ciego’ or ‘blind theatre’. The blind theatre was probably the most unusual thing that I have experienced here. Firstly I must make it clear that you do not have to be blind to go, as the poor man in front of me in the ticket queue found out too late having already bought a long white stick and a guide dog. No, the blind theatre is given its name because it is conducted in complete pitch black and aims to target your other senses. It really was a cool, although I can only imagine what sort of chaos would ensue if ever there was a fire.
On the sporting front, Saturday mornings have often been spent playing for a local football team who play in a Saturday league. Unfortunately the regular Friday night rain has put pay to several fixtures but we are currently unbeaten in the league, and apart from anything else it’s a really nice group of guys we play with. However since my three week expedition to Patagonia and Brazil I have found my return to the fold less like a Van Persie returning from an injury and more like an Eboue returning from the African cup of nations. But that’s life I guess.
I do intend to write a little bit about my time with my family and my grand return to Brazil, but I think I will spare you that for now as this post is already essay length. I have sadly just discovered that the packaging of the delicious sandwich I have just eaten contains the strap line ‘France in your mouth’. I might just nip and brush my teeth
Until next time….
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
I'm not dead....just lazy
I know that i haven't blogged in a long time, but i can confirm that rumours of my untimely death at the hands of a Brazilian drug lord are completely unfounded. No instead, as i sit on the roof terrace of my new appartment in Buenos Aires with a glass of Quilmes in one hand (its actually on the table so i can type but the hand image works a lot better in my head) I can reflect on two great months of rest and relaxation, of extravagance and excess but most importantly....of zero work.
When i last posted I was returning to Floripa from Rio. The major disadvantage of writing so long after the event is that all my memories have become absorbed into one of two groups. 'Beach' or 'after the beach.' When trying to remember amusing things that happened 'after the beach' two events sprung to mind, the first of which involved us trying to sell our other friend chloe for 20 reais (8 quid) after a night out because some Brazilians confused her for Pamela Anderson, and we needed money for a cab.
The second is yet more ridiculous as, having missed the last bus and with no cabs in sight, we accepted a lift from a crazy middle aged Italian woman. The rest of the story needs to be told from two angles, firstly what me, nick and Simao II saw as none of us speak Italian. We got in the car and our friend Giv was happily chatting away in Italian with the woman and we began to set off towards home. While her driving was irratic to say the least, we were prepared to overlook this fact as we were apparently getting a free lift home. It was only after about 15 minutes when the woman turned around and screamed 'f**k you guys' at us that we began to realise the arrangment may not be going that well. Then Giv said something else to her in Italian, we drove on a bit, and then he said something else and she dropped us by the side of the road within walking distance from home.
What actually happened as we found out from Giv on the walk home, is that the only reason we had got a lift is because Giv had promised this woman that we were having a massive party and that she could come if she drove us. After 15 mins Giv then admitted that there was no party, hence her strong reaction. Giv then told her there was actually a party (when she started driving again) an then finally that no, there definitely was no party (at which point she chucked us out the car). Its only through writing this down that i can appreciate exactly how mental the whole thing was. I feel i've learnt my lesson though......don't trust italians
As the end of my time in Floripa approached and with many of my friends in the midst of exams, I decided to shun the 'gap year' stereotype and went travelling for two weeks to a little known place called Peru. Bungee jumping, the inca trail to Machu Pichu, the Best cooked brekkie of my life, i had two incredible weeks shared with an awesome group of people. If anyone is to blame for the puns that follow its Dan and Mikey, two Aussies who were with me for the whole trip, which happily coincided with the ashes.
I then returned to Floripa for a week to pack my things and say my goodbyes. I had really good leaving drinks at a bar called chopp de Gus, which misleadingly doesn't have a shop or a goose. An American would sue you for less. Then it was back to England for some cracking 21sts, including a great trip to Barcelona christmas with the fam and two great visits to Bristol.
Whilst i was undoubtedly keen to get started with the second half of my year i will admit i was really enjoying being back in the UK and so i booked my flight for 2nd of Feb. This meant that Ben, a good mate of mine from Bristol who i had (begrudgingly) agreed to live with, had to find us a flat by himself.
One of the main things that i expressed to Ben via skype whilst he was busily flat hunting was that the location of the accomodation was vitally important. We had agreed that Palermo probably be the best area to be, and so I was a little concerned when i heard that the place Ben had found for us was in Almagro, not least because it sounds a bit like someone with a speech impediment saying 'i'll mug you.' However, my fears were instantly allayed on arrival, when i saw that on the building across the road from our flat, someone had graffitied the words 'Almagro de mi vida, de las drogas, mi preferida.' I was able to loosely translate the message as 'Almagro is my life, its full of drugs and thats how i like it. Whilst the threat of turf wars and general gang violence is an obvious downside of being in an area renowned for drugs, i was able to take two positive things out of the situation.
1) my spanish isn't as bad as i thought it was.
2) Having drugs so readily available close by means that i don't have to cross town (which would have exposed me to the threat of being robbed, run over or ridiculed in some way) in order to service the unfortunate penchant for crack i seem to have picked up in Brazil.
In any case Ben did really well for us as the flat itself is an absolute 'petardo', which giv has informed me is the literal spanish translation of 'banger'. Iv got a really nice room but the roof terrace is the undoubted highlight with a distinctly moroccan soukh vibe in one corner. Im sure we have a lot of fez-tivities to come up there. We also have a house dog called pippin who has some strange habbits including poking me while im sleeping and licking my feet. As well as Ben and pippin, i am sharing the flat with Eva, Rocio and Lukas; two argentines and a german respectively. We get on really well (i did mention the war once but i think i got away with it) and we speak in spanish which is after all what im here to do. We had a 'family' barbecue on my second night where i performed the crucial role of that guy that stands there and blows on the flames every now and then. I won't lie, i did it pretty well.
As you may remember i visited here last semester, and loved it. If you combined the nightlife, culture and cuisine of Paris with the cheapness of Peru you'd get somewhere close to B.A. Imagine, if you will, enjoying a meal of red wine and steak frites....served by a llama. Welcome to Buenos.Aires.
As my job starts on monday (at the ungodly hour of 11 i might add) and so i have had a fair amount of time to relax and enjoy myself. We've been out a couple of nights and i have managed to cross bit off of my to-do list. I have always found its better to aim low with a to-do list because then you can be a massive underacheiver, but still have that great feeling of crossing something off. Some of the things i have crossed off so far include;
charge my phone
unpack
eat some steak
see if pippin can fly by lobbing him off the balcony (Ben's addition)
put credit on my phone
brush my teeth
you get the picture...
However i have managed to finish the 2000 word essay i had to write in portuguese for Bristol. Its fair to say i was stuck in a bit of a vicious circle where my essay was ruining my year abroad and my year abroad was ruining my essay. Anyway I was pretty happy with this acheivment, not only because i managed to fit it inbetween charging my phone and brushing my teeth, but also because trying to speak spanish whilst writing an essay in portuguese is bloody impossible. The closest comparison i can draw, apart from repeating the same situation but with two different languages, is to imagine if that woman from the m&s adverts started moonlighting at Mcdonalds. Linguistic overlap is impossible to avoid, and some poor customer would get 'this is not just a chicken nugget, this is a battery farmed, oil soaked, 3 week old chicken nugget'. Im not sure the analogy works perfectly but you get the point.
Overall I feel like i am settling into Argentinian life as well, and i dont feel like as much of a standout gringo as i did when i first arrived in Brazil. However my time here has not been without the occasional moment of cultural misunderstanding. Like the time i didn't realise that the man who casually dropped a pack of tissues onto my lap on the tube was expecting some form of payment for them, and was not just a friendly individual, acutely aware of the problems caused by the hayfever season. As i innocently went to put said packet into my bag, the man returned and started shouting at me in unintelligable spanish. So i gave him the tissues back.
I only thought later that i should have accompanied it with 'if you've got an issue, here's a tissue' but i probably wouldn't have conveyed the sense of the phrase in Spanish. Anyway, considering the size of the guy i was happy just to have made a KLEENEXcape with my health intact.
Although work starts soon, I am pretty damn psyched for the months ahead.
Anyway, I hopefully should be back to once a week upadates, and I promise the next blog won't have any more crappy puns
Hasta la vista
When i last posted I was returning to Floripa from Rio. The major disadvantage of writing so long after the event is that all my memories have become absorbed into one of two groups. 'Beach' or 'after the beach.' When trying to remember amusing things that happened 'after the beach' two events sprung to mind, the first of which involved us trying to sell our other friend chloe for 20 reais (8 quid) after a night out because some Brazilians confused her for Pamela Anderson, and we needed money for a cab.
The second is yet more ridiculous as, having missed the last bus and with no cabs in sight, we accepted a lift from a crazy middle aged Italian woman. The rest of the story needs to be told from two angles, firstly what me, nick and Simao II saw as none of us speak Italian. We got in the car and our friend Giv was happily chatting away in Italian with the woman and we began to set off towards home. While her driving was irratic to say the least, we were prepared to overlook this fact as we were apparently getting a free lift home. It was only after about 15 minutes when the woman turned around and screamed 'f**k you guys' at us that we began to realise the arrangment may not be going that well. Then Giv said something else to her in Italian, we drove on a bit, and then he said something else and she dropped us by the side of the road within walking distance from home.
What actually happened as we found out from Giv on the walk home, is that the only reason we had got a lift is because Giv had promised this woman that we were having a massive party and that she could come if she drove us. After 15 mins Giv then admitted that there was no party, hence her strong reaction. Giv then told her there was actually a party (when she started driving again) an then finally that no, there definitely was no party (at which point she chucked us out the car). Its only through writing this down that i can appreciate exactly how mental the whole thing was. I feel i've learnt my lesson though......don't trust italians
As the end of my time in Floripa approached and with many of my friends in the midst of exams, I decided to shun the 'gap year' stereotype and went travelling for two weeks to a little known place called Peru. Bungee jumping, the inca trail to Machu Pichu, the Best cooked brekkie of my life, i had two incredible weeks shared with an awesome group of people. If anyone is to blame for the puns that follow its Dan and Mikey, two Aussies who were with me for the whole trip, which happily coincided with the ashes.
I then returned to Floripa for a week to pack my things and say my goodbyes. I had really good leaving drinks at a bar called chopp de Gus, which misleadingly doesn't have a shop or a goose. An American would sue you for less. Then it was back to England for some cracking 21sts, including a great trip to Barcelona christmas with the fam and two great visits to Bristol.
Whilst i was undoubtedly keen to get started with the second half of my year i will admit i was really enjoying being back in the UK and so i booked my flight for 2nd of Feb. This meant that Ben, a good mate of mine from Bristol who i had (begrudgingly) agreed to live with, had to find us a flat by himself.
One of the main things that i expressed to Ben via skype whilst he was busily flat hunting was that the location of the accomodation was vitally important. We had agreed that Palermo probably be the best area to be, and so I was a little concerned when i heard that the place Ben had found for us was in Almagro, not least because it sounds a bit like someone with a speech impediment saying 'i'll mug you.' However, my fears were instantly allayed on arrival, when i saw that on the building across the road from our flat, someone had graffitied the words 'Almagro de mi vida, de las drogas, mi preferida.' I was able to loosely translate the message as 'Almagro is my life, its full of drugs and thats how i like it. Whilst the threat of turf wars and general gang violence is an obvious downside of being in an area renowned for drugs, i was able to take two positive things out of the situation.
1) my spanish isn't as bad as i thought it was.
2) Having drugs so readily available close by means that i don't have to cross town (which would have exposed me to the threat of being robbed, run over or ridiculed in some way) in order to service the unfortunate penchant for crack i seem to have picked up in Brazil.
In any case Ben did really well for us as the flat itself is an absolute 'petardo', which giv has informed me is the literal spanish translation of 'banger'. Iv got a really nice room but the roof terrace is the undoubted highlight with a distinctly moroccan soukh vibe in one corner. Im sure we have a lot of fez-tivities to come up there. We also have a house dog called pippin who has some strange habbits including poking me while im sleeping and licking my feet. As well as Ben and pippin, i am sharing the flat with Eva, Rocio and Lukas; two argentines and a german respectively. We get on really well (i did mention the war once but i think i got away with it) and we speak in spanish which is after all what im here to do. We had a 'family' barbecue on my second night where i performed the crucial role of that guy that stands there and blows on the flames every now and then. I won't lie, i did it pretty well.
As you may remember i visited here last semester, and loved it. If you combined the nightlife, culture and cuisine of Paris with the cheapness of Peru you'd get somewhere close to B.A. Imagine, if you will, enjoying a meal of red wine and steak frites....served by a llama. Welcome to Buenos.Aires.
As my job starts on monday (at the ungodly hour of 11 i might add) and so i have had a fair amount of time to relax and enjoy myself. We've been out a couple of nights and i have managed to cross bit off of my to-do list. I have always found its better to aim low with a to-do list because then you can be a massive underacheiver, but still have that great feeling of crossing something off. Some of the things i have crossed off so far include;
charge my phone
unpack
eat some steak
see if pippin can fly by lobbing him off the balcony (Ben's addition)
put credit on my phone
brush my teeth
you get the picture...
However i have managed to finish the 2000 word essay i had to write in portuguese for Bristol. Its fair to say i was stuck in a bit of a vicious circle where my essay was ruining my year abroad and my year abroad was ruining my essay. Anyway I was pretty happy with this acheivment, not only because i managed to fit it inbetween charging my phone and brushing my teeth, but also because trying to speak spanish whilst writing an essay in portuguese is bloody impossible. The closest comparison i can draw, apart from repeating the same situation but with two different languages, is to imagine if that woman from the m&s adverts started moonlighting at Mcdonalds. Linguistic overlap is impossible to avoid, and some poor customer would get 'this is not just a chicken nugget, this is a battery farmed, oil soaked, 3 week old chicken nugget'. Im not sure the analogy works perfectly but you get the point.
Overall I feel like i am settling into Argentinian life as well, and i dont feel like as much of a standout gringo as i did when i first arrived in Brazil. However my time here has not been without the occasional moment of cultural misunderstanding. Like the time i didn't realise that the man who casually dropped a pack of tissues onto my lap on the tube was expecting some form of payment for them, and was not just a friendly individual, acutely aware of the problems caused by the hayfever season. As i innocently went to put said packet into my bag, the man returned and started shouting at me in unintelligable spanish. So i gave him the tissues back.
I only thought later that i should have accompanied it with 'if you've got an issue, here's a tissue' but i probably wouldn't have conveyed the sense of the phrase in Spanish. Anyway, considering the size of the guy i was happy just to have made a KLEENEXcape with my health intact.
Although work starts soon, I am pretty damn psyched for the months ahead.
Anyway, I hopefully should be back to once a week upadates, and I promise the next blog won't have any more crappy puns
Hasta la vista
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