goals revisited

So I haven't fully met my two goals that I aimed to meet a while ago. 1. Ride the bus 2. Buy a phone

BUT...the good news is that I've ridden on the bus like 3 times now! Yaaaaay, turns out getting onto a bus, paying, sitting down, and then getting up and getting off at the appropriate stop is not so hard. Although, last night when i was using the coin machine to pay once I got on board, I managed to open the machine to expose the inner workings of the giant contraption when I thought I was turning a lever for my ticket. The big door came right open when I turned it and shocked the hell out of me, but luckily I swiftly closed it right back up, took my ticket, which came out on its own, and sat down.

The phone, unfortunately, has yet to be purchased. However, other big things have happened. haha! Some good, some bad, mostly good.

#1 - I'm moving
I am leaving my place and I haven't even shared any pictures, so, here they are. Better late than never.

My little bed & nightstand


My dresser


Bathroom


The hallway & front door. Okay, that's enough I'm tired of loading these.

I'm moving in with a very nice Columbian guy in an area of town called Caballito. I'm super excited because my new roommate is aware of how bad I want to improve my Spanish, so he'll help me immerse myself and hopefully introduce me to some of his lovely Columbian friends? Maybe he knows Shakira.

#2 - I've got a ton of teaching hours each week starting April 4
I have been patient, (haha, mostly), sent out countless resumes and emails, but finally, the company I have been working a few hours for every week has finally come through and they're giving me the hours I need to survive here, starting next week. I'm excited about getting productive again, and it's a pretty smooth schedule.

Just keep on putting one foot down in front of the other. :)

easy breezy friday

It's a 4 day weekend here in BA, not that that matters when you don't have a real people regular job. Even if I did, I will say these people sure do know how to relax.



I thought I'd share something nice and fun - a view of my laundry from the roof of my building, (better enjoy it while I can, I'm moving next week). I really love doing laundry here, carrying it all the way up to the roof for it to dry in the sun and breeze. Give me a few months and I'll be cursing like a sailor going up each step as the novelty will have worn off by then and my laziness would take over from there. For now it's great.



Also, a few weeks back I saw a free concert with a few different artists from South America. One of whom was Marcelo Pretto who I now love. He's Brazilian and brilliant. We couldn't use cameras at the show, but that didn't stop me from recording a bit of one of his songs from my purse. Just enjoy the sounds of the video matched with his elated face and have a happy Friday!

bomba del tiempo

This was a really fun concert I went to with some friends a while back. A group of drummers go nuts for like an hour and half while the crowd dances and from what I remember smelling, smoke pot openly. Lots of fun. Especially the beautiful conductor, he's somewhere in this city and I will find him...

the sounds

This is a pretty loud place. Sometimes even when I'm walking down the street with my headphones on at near-full blast I can still hear the random roars of the city around me. Here are a few things you might expect to hear here (here! here!:) -

Whistling buses - Not sure why but many of the "colectivos" or public buses that drive around the city are accompanied by a high-pitched and inexplicable whistling noise. This combined with the fact that they go very fast, making a roaring engine sound, helps to create a consistent vibrating hum on the street during the day and well into the night.

Screeching sounds of the subte - In between certain subte (subway) stations as you pass through there is a horrendous sound of metal scraping against metal. These seizure-inducing screeches are pretty bad. It's like when you have your iPod turned up loud already and then a song comes on that you downloaded, (legally or illegally?), which was recorded extra loud, (because you downloaded it legally or illegally). That moment when the song pierces your ear drum and you could drop to the sidewalk from the shock is comparable to this scraping sound on the subte.

Random music - Sometimes I hear songs that are under the radar even in the US. There are some radio stations that have a great mix of indie music and 90s and 00s. But then sometimes, you're in a cab at 2 in the morning and your middle-aged, male cab driver is playing Super Trooper by ABBA and tapping cheerily on the steering wheel.

Morena hermosa! - If you at least even resemble a woman here, chances are, you will receive cat calls. If you are not a woman and you get cat calls, I would encourage you to show your true self to these men and scare the hell out of them. If there has been one man who has succeeded in picking up a woman through cat-calling, I would love to meet him. This man would be an international hero, because 10 times out of 10 women want nothing to do with these assholes, myself included.

More sounds to come, I'm sure...

tread lightly

Before I get into the nitty gritty of the sights and sounds of this really cool city there is one thing you should know. When you're walking here, always look down.



WHOA!

This place is littered with this kind of treachery. I have yet to take a spill, but just know that it's coming. And it will be hilarious.

Apparently it's part of the culture for flirty, (or, rather, all), Argentine men to look directly into the eyes of women as they walk past them in the street. If women look away the men can normally tell they are foreign. It is customary to hold their gaze as you walk past. The flirtatiousness in this city is never-ending... for better or worse. But I don't glide with the swan-like grace of a Latin woman. My goal is always to move with the grace of a quick-moving dinosaur. I'm just trying to get to where I need to go. I look away and down so that I don't plunge to my death into the street where a bus is whizzing by or fall head-on into the crotch of the man who's giving me the opposite-of-evil eye. I don't know which of the two would lead to a more dire situation. Bus or crotch? Who knows. For now I'm just going to keep looking down and be a foreigner.

goals

You have to start small, I guess, be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was this statue I found in the city outside of el Museo Nacional de las Bellas Artes. So here are 2 small goals to be accomplished in the next two weeks:

- figure out and then take the bus (Here the bus is known to barely stop long enough for you to get on, however, I've got strong suction-cup webbed feet and hands like Spiderman, so this should not be an issue overall.)

- buy a cell phone (I hate doing this shit in the states, so doing it in another language and getting the cheapest deal possible is like that homework assignment that I keep putting off. I'd rather light a toenail on fire.)

Off I go.

my day

My day sort of started out like this Michael Jackson song/video.

I had to schlep over to a faraway place at the end of the subway line today to pick up my books for the class I begin teaching tomorrow. (yaaaay! work & money!) It's a long subway ride and then a longer walk to get to the building and it was a hot day out.

Things started out a little bad when I looked in my little booklet to retrieve the address of this building. I had taken notes on the job when I was there before and it turns out I'll be making less an hour than I originally thought. Damn my brain and it's poor attention to detail!

I entered the underground putrid sauna that is the subway system and slicked my way onto the train where I stood sandwiched next to other equally stinky people. In this city I step outside and instantly start to stink. I don't keep very well in this heat.

After I got off the subway I walked in the heat toward the building, sweating my ass off. As I walked I was reminded of yet another reason why us ladies should never shave. I was hot, itchy and uncomfortable. I would've been better off pouring fire ants into my underwear and putting on some hot pants to keep them tightly enclosed. Needless to say I took a few wide, awkward steps on my way there (for adjustment purposes).

Once I got there and they threw a few books and attendance sheets at me, I made my way back.

I stopped at a little cafe and got some coffee and a sandwich. Just so you know, the waiters & waitresses here on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being hostile/volatile and 10 being indifferent are normally at about a 5, sometimes a 3 or 4. They are usually not happy to see or help you. My waitress today was at about a 4. Also, the food here is usually pretty bland. I don't dislike it yet, but I know I will probably get bored soon. You have your choice between cheese sandwiches, or ham and cheese sandwiches, and that's kind of it. They don't even put any damn honey mustard or mayo on it. Jesus, just put some salt on 2 sheets of paper and that'll do the job just as well!

From this point on, my afternoon felt more like this Michael Jackson song

A good mood crept up on me out of nowhere just like Michael singing at the beginning of this song. **whispering** ....you make feel like, you make feel like--WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

I left the restaurant, put on my headphones and floated the rest of the way back to the subway. I'm not sure why, but I suddenly felt as happy as a fart in a windstorm. Michael Jackson was on my iPod and I was happy as fuck. I felt like dancing and skipping my way down the sidewalks lined with trash and dog shit. Everyone I looked at was smiling and I was filled with that inexplicable feeling we sometimes get for no reason when you just feel like everything is right with the world. So, to celebrate I bought a cheap shirt, (shown above in photo of me doing ta-da gesture), which will probably fall apart after I wear it twice, and then I danced my way down into the subway where not even the gruff ticket woman who I bought my subway pass from could make me feel bad.

You can't take this good mood away from me, mean lady! And no, I DON'T have change!....

Keep on with the force don't stop, don't stop til you get enough! Keep on with the force don't stop.....