Two weekends ago, as a fun excursion, our school scheduled a basketball game against a city team in Greater Buenos Aires, called the Quilmes Atletico Club. When they scheduled the game against a group of Americans I'm sure the QAC was expecting some really strong competition. After all, we invented the sport. We drove an hour in our van, listened to some inspirational music, and then entered the gym. Anyone who knows me probably already realizes I'm terrible at basketball. I rarely hold my own in pickup games. But the Argentines are small people so I thought I'd be able to at least do alright. During warmups 4 out of the 5 starters threw down tomohawk dunks. One-sided wasn't even a good way to describe the game. They destroyed us. We kept up a lot better than I thought we would, we made some baskets, rebounded, I committed a near flagrant foul, did some heavy duty trash talking, the usual. Afterwards we hung around for a little, made some conversation, and ate empanadas with the team.
Last weekend, for my host-brother Augustin's 36th birthday, me and the roommates headed out to his house in Santa Barbara, outside the city, for an Asado (BBQ). It could have literally been anytown USA. Big houses, wide open winding streets, kids riding bikes and playing around. My first taste of Argentine suburbia. His house would have fit in anywhere in America too except he had a parilla (grill) enclave built into the outside of his house. The asado is just like an American barbecue, but way way more serious. We use gas on a little grill or possibly charcoal; these guys specifically burn down logs and then use the ashes as the coals because it gives off a more even, slower heat. And it's not like they just throw hamburgers on the grill. What do I see when I head over to the grill but a pig's head staring back at me. On closer inspection I also find it's entire body, cut right down the middle and spread over the grill. It is absolutely brutal, and I keep explaining to these guys how much harder it's going to be to eat an animal that's staring back at me. Augustin just keeps going on about how good the neck fat tastes.
It turns out these guys may be better than us at asados, but they're just rookies as well. The real pro eventually arrives. This guy brought his own extra sharp asado knife, in a leather sheath. He sets up shop and everyone clears out of the way. The asadadero has arrived.
The first thing he starts telling me is how to make blood sausage. He gives a super-graphic representation of putting a pig on a table, slitting its throat, and then draining the blood from the jugular vein into a bucket so you can later stuff it into a sausage. It's absolutely horrifying, and my host-mom looks horrified, but I play along and try and act interested. I even go so far as to ask him a question. He had just told me that the pigs make all kinds of noises when they die, so I go for the follow up question. Unfortunately, the problem with the word pig, is that one little mistake really screws things up. Pig in spanish is el chancho. But I get the word slightly wrong, and my question comes out "Entonces la concha hace mucho ruido cuando la matas?" Literally translated, this means "so the vagina makes a lot of noise when you kill it?" (kill it here is slang for sex). This guy looks at me for a second with the most confounded look I've ever seen, and then starts hysterically laughing. He's about to correct me but I've already realized my mistake and have turned a deep shade of red.
We sat down for food, and I don't know why but the conversation immediately turned to women. From there of course it arrived on my other host-brother Ivan's girlfriend situation. Here's the background: Ivan is 29, he lives at home but he never eats here and he occasionally sleeps out on weekends. Everyone at the asado started questioning him on whether he had a girlfriend or not, but he absolutely refused to come clean. I was confused what the big deal was, but then someone explained to me that before Augustin got married he hadn't even told our mom that he was dating a woman. He just came home one day and told her he was engaged. I like this style, so Mom, expect a surprise when I come home... or maybe not.
Everything else besides that was a lot of fun. The family was wonderfully fun and really friendly with us. After the asado was over and the meat was gone the asadero got a standing ovation. That just doesn't happen in America. We traded off some cheek-kisses and then we left.
And now for an update from 5 minutes ago. Our mom has been a little sick lately (I know a bunch of people are gonna connect the roast pig and the sickness, but no, it's not swine flu). She had to get a monitor on her arm for a couple of days to make sure her heart is beating normally. She just walked into my room and asked if I was indeed Jewish. I said yes, and then she pulled open her shirt to reveal a package with a bunch of wires leading out of it strapped to her chest, and yelled "Yo soy un talibano ahora." I laughed for about 5 straight minutes. That's not even the most ridiculous thing she's done in the past week. 3 days ago she bribed me to do her english class homework by feeding me cake and pecan pralines, and then agreed to look over one of my spanish essays for me. She looked over it, made all the connections necessary, and I just got it back and got an 83% on it. I'm real confused.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Spring Break
I've been out of town for the last week, traveling Argentina. It's incredible how big this country is, and just how much I still have to see. But I tried to at least make a dent in it. The plan was to set out to Bariloche, check out the Alps, cross them into Chile, and then bus up to Santiago. It went more or less according to plan.
First thing, we head over to the airport. It's a 10 minute cab ride on the highway. But in the tollbooth line to enter the highway, because our cab driver is listening to his radio too loud, the battery drains, and the car dies. It won't start back up. My friend and I are sitting there, dumbfounded, but nowhere near as dumbfounded as the cab driver. After 10 seconds, with nobody saying anything, I finally ask him if he needs us to push the car so he can pop the clutch and get it started again. He starts laughing sheepishly, turns around, and admits that that is what he needs. So we get out, in the tollbooth line, and start pushing the cab. But he's not popping the clutch right, or we're not going fast enough, so it's not working. Now he gets out of the cab and starts pushing with us. Still no luck. I tell him he's not doing it right, and to let me try. He says no, he knows what he's doing, but I tell him I don't wanna push anymore unless he let's me try. He still won't budge, so I go back to pushing. Finally, with a police officer yelling at us, and cars whizzing past us, the car re-starts. We get back in and drive to the airport. When we arrive he apologizes to us, but still charges us the full rate. I made a comment about how we pushed a good distance so maybe we could get a discount, but he just laughs it off. Whatever, off to Bariloche. Funny note. On the plane, I'm sitting next to an older Argentine couple, and get to talking with them. Since Argentina just got spanked 5-1 by Bolivia, I make a comment about the team. This sets this guy off. He starts throwing out excuse after excuse. His two best excuses were that all cocaine that Maradona snorted made him crazy, and that the air is a lot thinner in La Paz and since the Bolivians are used to the thin air they played a lot better. I said all his excuses were pretty weak, and he finally gave in and admitted that the Maradona era may not be going so well.
Bariloche is absolutely beautiful. It's on a lake, surrounded by lakes, surrounded by the Andes. It's raining constantly but it's OK, because it sort of adds to the ambience. The next day we went on an 8 hour hike up one of the mountains. We started in sort of a desert, moved into a tropical rainforest with bamboo, and then climbed up the mountain until it was snowing on us. We finally arrived at the cabin at the top, had lunch, and got ready to head back down. But in the hour that we took to eat lunch, a blizzard has started. We're wearing tennis shoes, there's 5 inches of snow on the ground, and we have to cross a raging river. We somehow made it back down, our shoes soaking wet, and covered in sweat, but it was one of the coolest hikes I've ever been on, and it was worth all the pain.
We spent a couple more days in Bariloche, doing various other things. We checked out the casino, lost some money, but since it was all in pesos our losses weren't nearly as bad as they seemed.
The next day we took a bus across the Andes to Puerto Varas. It was a 6 hour bus ride with at least an hour of waiting in customs lines.
We finally crossed the Andes, and ended up in Puerto Varas. Looking for lunch for the day, I asked a woman in a pharmacy. It turns out that she was a chef, and she took us to the hotel she worked at cooked us all their specialties, which were absolutely incredible.
We stopped at a bar on the way back to the bus-station, to pre-game for the overnight trip to Santiago, and then headed to the bus station. The problem: one of my friends has the habit of falling fast asleep if he's drunk. And he fell fast asleep. We sat there slapping him in the face, trying to wake him up, until he finally came to, but the bus driver had been watching the entire time and was convinced that he was stinking drunk. He wasn't, but we couldn't convince the bus driver, so we weren't allowed to get on the bus. They gave us tickets for the next day, and then for some reason gave us money back. The next day my friend went back to switch the times for the bus, and they gave him money back again, while upgrading him to a 1st class bus. We didn't understand why they kept giving us money but we kept on taking it.
The next day we made it up to Santiago. Santiago is a pretty city, and we spent a lot of time just bumming around the downtown, checking out the scene. The scene was nice. I can't say much more about it. We were only there during the week, and apparently the Santiago nightlife during the week is not super-impressive. We also went up on the Teleferico, a tram that goes up to the top of the highest hill in the middle of Santiago. It provided incredible sights, but I spent the entire time holding onto the handle sweating. I hate heights, and my friend kept reminding me that the safety regulations are more lax in South America. Up at the top we saw the Statue of the Virgin Mary, not quite as impressive as Christ the Redeemer in Rio, but still pretty impressive.
One thing I forgot. When we were in Santiago we were told that the signature drink of the city was called El Terremoto, and it was only served at one bar, La Piojera. This translates as the tick, and it's called that because the customers there suck down drinks like ticks suck down blood. We head over there, and it's about as "authentic" as it gets. By authentic I mean that the place is filthy, we're the only gringos there, and half the people in the bar look like they're sizing us up for our wallets. Whatever, we head over to the bar, and order 3 terremotos. But I get intercepted. This big fat guy latches onto me, tells me I'm his friend, and insists I have a drink of his drink. I don't want any. I explain that I just ordered a drink, but he says I need to try it. I tell him I'm about to try the drink in a second, so there's no need to give it a pre-try. He insists, all while hugging me, and refusing to let me go. He shakes my hand, and when I try and pull it away he just switches handshake positions. When I try to pull it away again he switches back to the original position. We keep going back and forth, like some elaborate dance. It's funny at first, but this guy is insistent, and will just not let me go. We took some pictures with him, but he would just not drop it. So I take a sip, tell him it's interesting, and then go to the bathroom and scrub my hands down. I come back out, and guess who's there? He promptly grabs my hand again and we go back into the back and forth handshake dance. He still won't let me go, but at least my drink is there, and I can sit down. Doesn't matter to him. He won't let me go. He starts in on his lifestory. It's pretty sad. He tells me that he's from a dangerous slum, and he wants to show it to me so I can understand it. I politely decline. Then he starts telling me about the paco-addicts, and the violence, and how I need to see it for myself. I feel bad, but it's not a great selling point to invite someone to your house by telling them how horribly dangerous it is. So this guy won't let me get to my drink, he's telling me his life story, and he has a death grip on my hand. It can't get any worse. Then it gets worse. He starts crying. Starts out slow, wet-eyes at first, and advances to real crying. I really don't know what to do. It's all very sad, but I'm the only gringo in some random bar in Santiago with some guy sobbing in front of me. I just wanna get out of there. I'm making rescue-me eyes at all my friends, but none of them wanna get drawn into this ridiculous scene. Finally I physically pull away from him, tell him mucho gusto (which hasn't worked before because when I shake his hand to leave he starts in on the handshake dance again) and escape to my table. I pound this drink in about 5 seconds (it was horrible: sweet white wine, fernet, pisco sour, and pineapple ice cream. Anyone who was recommended to try a terremoto? Skip it). And I run out of La Piojera as fast as I can, without stopping to look back.
So that was Spring Break. Snowcaps instead of beaches, wet weather instead of wet t-shirt contests, and Escudo instead of Budweiser. Compares favorably with the American version.
First thing, we head over to the airport. It's a 10 minute cab ride on the highway. But in the tollbooth line to enter the highway, because our cab driver is listening to his radio too loud, the battery drains, and the car dies. It won't start back up. My friend and I are sitting there, dumbfounded, but nowhere near as dumbfounded as the cab driver. After 10 seconds, with nobody saying anything, I finally ask him if he needs us to push the car so he can pop the clutch and get it started again. He starts laughing sheepishly, turns around, and admits that that is what he needs. So we get out, in the tollbooth line, and start pushing the cab. But he's not popping the clutch right, or we're not going fast enough, so it's not working. Now he gets out of the cab and starts pushing with us. Still no luck. I tell him he's not doing it right, and to let me try. He says no, he knows what he's doing, but I tell him I don't wanna push anymore unless he let's me try. He still won't budge, so I go back to pushing. Finally, with a police officer yelling at us, and cars whizzing past us, the car re-starts. We get back in and drive to the airport. When we arrive he apologizes to us, but still charges us the full rate. I made a comment about how we pushed a good distance so maybe we could get a discount, but he just laughs it off. Whatever, off to Bariloche. Funny note. On the plane, I'm sitting next to an older Argentine couple, and get to talking with them. Since Argentina just got spanked 5-1 by Bolivia, I make a comment about the team. This sets this guy off. He starts throwing out excuse after excuse. His two best excuses were that all cocaine that Maradona snorted made him crazy, and that the air is a lot thinner in La Paz and since the Bolivians are used to the thin air they played a lot better. I said all his excuses were pretty weak, and he finally gave in and admitted that the Maradona era may not be going so well.
Bariloche is absolutely beautiful. It's on a lake, surrounded by lakes, surrounded by the Andes. It's raining constantly but it's OK, because it sort of adds to the ambience. The next day we went on an 8 hour hike up one of the mountains. We started in sort of a desert, moved into a tropical rainforest with bamboo, and then climbed up the mountain until it was snowing on us. We finally arrived at the cabin at the top, had lunch, and got ready to head back down. But in the hour that we took to eat lunch, a blizzard has started. We're wearing tennis shoes, there's 5 inches of snow on the ground, and we have to cross a raging river. We somehow made it back down, our shoes soaking wet, and covered in sweat, but it was one of the coolest hikes I've ever been on, and it was worth all the pain.
We spent a couple more days in Bariloche, doing various other things. We checked out the casino, lost some money, but since it was all in pesos our losses weren't nearly as bad as they seemed.
The next day we took a bus across the Andes to Puerto Varas. It was a 6 hour bus ride with at least an hour of waiting in customs lines.
We finally crossed the Andes, and ended up in Puerto Varas. Looking for lunch for the day, I asked a woman in a pharmacy. It turns out that she was a chef, and she took us to the hotel she worked at cooked us all their specialties, which were absolutely incredible.
We stopped at a bar on the way back to the bus-station, to pre-game for the overnight trip to Santiago, and then headed to the bus station. The problem: one of my friends has the habit of falling fast asleep if he's drunk. And he fell fast asleep. We sat there slapping him in the face, trying to wake him up, until he finally came to, but the bus driver had been watching the entire time and was convinced that he was stinking drunk. He wasn't, but we couldn't convince the bus driver, so we weren't allowed to get on the bus. They gave us tickets for the next day, and then for some reason gave us money back. The next day my friend went back to switch the times for the bus, and they gave him money back again, while upgrading him to a 1st class bus. We didn't understand why they kept giving us money but we kept on taking it.
The next day we made it up to Santiago. Santiago is a pretty city, and we spent a lot of time just bumming around the downtown, checking out the scene. The scene was nice. I can't say much more about it. We were only there during the week, and apparently the Santiago nightlife during the week is not super-impressive. We also went up on the Teleferico, a tram that goes up to the top of the highest hill in the middle of Santiago. It provided incredible sights, but I spent the entire time holding onto the handle sweating. I hate heights, and my friend kept reminding me that the safety regulations are more lax in South America. Up at the top we saw the Statue of the Virgin Mary, not quite as impressive as Christ the Redeemer in Rio, but still pretty impressive.
One thing I forgot. When we were in Santiago we were told that the signature drink of the city was called El Terremoto, and it was only served at one bar, La Piojera. This translates as the tick, and it's called that because the customers there suck down drinks like ticks suck down blood. We head over there, and it's about as "authentic" as it gets. By authentic I mean that the place is filthy, we're the only gringos there, and half the people in the bar look like they're sizing us up for our wallets. Whatever, we head over to the bar, and order 3 terremotos. But I get intercepted. This big fat guy latches onto me, tells me I'm his friend, and insists I have a drink of his drink. I don't want any. I explain that I just ordered a drink, but he says I need to try it. I tell him I'm about to try the drink in a second, so there's no need to give it a pre-try. He insists, all while hugging me, and refusing to let me go. He shakes my hand, and when I try and pull it away he just switches handshake positions. When I try to pull it away again he switches back to the original position. We keep going back and forth, like some elaborate dance. It's funny at first, but this guy is insistent, and will just not let me go. We took some pictures with him, but he would just not drop it. So I take a sip, tell him it's interesting, and then go to the bathroom and scrub my hands down. I come back out, and guess who's there? He promptly grabs my hand again and we go back into the back and forth handshake dance. He still won't let me go, but at least my drink is there, and I can sit down. Doesn't matter to him. He won't let me go. He starts in on his lifestory. It's pretty sad. He tells me that he's from a dangerous slum, and he wants to show it to me so I can understand it. I politely decline. Then he starts telling me about the paco-addicts, and the violence, and how I need to see it for myself. I feel bad, but it's not a great selling point to invite someone to your house by telling them how horribly dangerous it is. So this guy won't let me get to my drink, he's telling me his life story, and he has a death grip on my hand. It can't get any worse. Then it gets worse. He starts crying. Starts out slow, wet-eyes at first, and advances to real crying. I really don't know what to do. It's all very sad, but I'm the only gringo in some random bar in Santiago with some guy sobbing in front of me. I just wanna get out of there. I'm making rescue-me eyes at all my friends, but none of them wanna get drawn into this ridiculous scene. Finally I physically pull away from him, tell him mucho gusto (which hasn't worked before because when I shake his hand to leave he starts in on the handshake dance again) and escape to my table. I pound this drink in about 5 seconds (it was horrible: sweet white wine, fernet, pisco sour, and pineapple ice cream. Anyone who was recommended to try a terremoto? Skip it). And I run out of La Piojera as fast as I can, without stopping to look back.
So that was Spring Break. Snowcaps instead of beaches, wet weather instead of wet t-shirt contests, and Escudo instead of Budweiser. Compares favorably with the American version.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
One more kick to the groin
I've obviously angered Poseidon, the God of the Sea. My sacrifice to him this year may have been too small, or perhaps it was the hubris I showed when I told everyone that I wasn't so impressed with sea-squalls anymore. Last night, he got his revenge, and I have the feeling this is going to be the start of a very long journey to avoid his wrath; an Odyssey if you will.
Last night, I vacate the bathroom for my suitemate so he can get in there. He goes in there, and when I go back in to take a shower he informs me that the toilet is clogged. Since he was the last one to use it, I suggest he plunge it. He tells me that it was probably my fault, so I should plunge it. We get to really arguing over it. Finally, because I'm a nice guy, I agree to do it, but since I don't want to, I go back one more time and press down the handle to see if we can't just clear the pipes without going to the plunger.
It doesn't clear. Not only does it not clear, the flusher gets stuck down, and starts pouring water. There's water flowing everywhere. Everywhere. Full on flood. I knock my suitemate out of the way, run into the other room where the plunger is, wade back into the bathroom and start furiously plunging the toilet, all while my suitemate just stands there with a shocked look on his face. I'm going at the plunger so hard I break it in the toilet. At this point I'm thinking it done, it's all over, I'm going to cover the entire house in toilet water. But another Greek God, perhaps Aphrodite, intervenes at this point, and miraculously clears the toilet. This is not before the toilet has completely overflowed the bathroom and has run water all the way to the kitchen. Also, I forgot to mention, this all happened at 1 AM.
My host brother wakes up, comes out, probably thinks about breaking my face, and then smiles and tells me its alright. I'm on the verge of tears, and my suitemate just keeps going "Man, at least this is both our faults right. How much would it suck if it was just one of our faults and we couldn't share the blame." I try to explain to him that I don't really want to share the blame at all, but I'm afraid if I start talking a single solitary tear will roll down my cheek. So I just grab some towels, put them down on the floor, and start trying to squeegee the water into a bucket. It's the slowest, most disgusting work possible. Ivan, the host brother, is helping too, using a mop to try and push water back into the bathroom. I'm not gonna go into details, because I'm not sure you guys could handle the details. My suitemate, when cleaning the shower, at one point started almost throwing up. I gave him a deathstare and told him that if he puked and made the whole thing worse I would end his life.
Then in an effort to make us feel better, we asked Ivan if something like this had ever happened before. He smiled at me, slapped my back, and said "Of course not, never, I've never seen anything like this." But he remained cheery the entire time, and helped us out.
So at 3 am, after one of the worst experiences of life, I get done. I finally turned the shower onto about 120 degrees, and scrubbed myself for about 30 minutes. Then I sobbed a little, and then I went to bed. Next week I continue the journey while fate continues to throw more roadblocks in my path.
Last night, I vacate the bathroom for my suitemate so he can get in there. He goes in there, and when I go back in to take a shower he informs me that the toilet is clogged. Since he was the last one to use it, I suggest he plunge it. He tells me that it was probably my fault, so I should plunge it. We get to really arguing over it. Finally, because I'm a nice guy, I agree to do it, but since I don't want to, I go back one more time and press down the handle to see if we can't just clear the pipes without going to the plunger.
It doesn't clear. Not only does it not clear, the flusher gets stuck down, and starts pouring water. There's water flowing everywhere. Everywhere. Full on flood. I knock my suitemate out of the way, run into the other room where the plunger is, wade back into the bathroom and start furiously plunging the toilet, all while my suitemate just stands there with a shocked look on his face. I'm going at the plunger so hard I break it in the toilet. At this point I'm thinking it done, it's all over, I'm going to cover the entire house in toilet water. But another Greek God, perhaps Aphrodite, intervenes at this point, and miraculously clears the toilet. This is not before the toilet has completely overflowed the bathroom and has run water all the way to the kitchen. Also, I forgot to mention, this all happened at 1 AM.
My host brother wakes up, comes out, probably thinks about breaking my face, and then smiles and tells me its alright. I'm on the verge of tears, and my suitemate just keeps going "Man, at least this is both our faults right. How much would it suck if it was just one of our faults and we couldn't share the blame." I try to explain to him that I don't really want to share the blame at all, but I'm afraid if I start talking a single solitary tear will roll down my cheek. So I just grab some towels, put them down on the floor, and start trying to squeegee the water into a bucket. It's the slowest, most disgusting work possible. Ivan, the host brother, is helping too, using a mop to try and push water back into the bathroom. I'm not gonna go into details, because I'm not sure you guys could handle the details. My suitemate, when cleaning the shower, at one point started almost throwing up. I gave him a deathstare and told him that if he puked and made the whole thing worse I would end his life.
Then in an effort to make us feel better, we asked Ivan if something like this had ever happened before. He smiled at me, slapped my back, and said "Of course not, never, I've never seen anything like this." But he remained cheery the entire time, and helped us out.
So at 3 am, after one of the worst experiences of life, I get done. I finally turned the shower onto about 120 degrees, and scrubbed myself for about 30 minutes. Then I sobbed a little, and then I went to bed. Next week I continue the journey while fate continues to throw more roadblocks in my path.
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