Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

There's just too much to see waiting in front of me
And I know that I just can't go wrong

With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of my running and all of my cunning
If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane


Though the weather in Buenos Aires is hardly that of Margaritaville, I find that Jimmy Buffett’s infinite wisdom applies perfectly to the last couple of weeks I’ve spent here in Buenos Aires. Despite the fact that I am here to do little more than enjoy life, I have not been bored for a second—just living the dream. This post is a disorganized summary of what I’ve been up to for the past week or so.

The piso compartido where I’m living is now full, and we have a great group of people from all over the place. In addition to the original two guys, we now have girls from Brazil, France, Chile, and Austria, and another guy from France. It’s a solid mix that results in a lot of different languages flying around. We often eat together and go out at night together and have a really good time. As a group, we usually end up speaking Spanish, but with some people I speak English, and I also have gotten to practice my Portuguese with the Brazilian. Strangely, I have not had many problems at all switching from Spanish to Portuguese here, like I did speaking Spanish in Brazil.

It’s a great group of people, and I’m really lucky to live in such a fun place. I’ve spent most of the past week doing the same thing: wake up, gym, food, errands/relax/read, tango/swing/salsa, food, bars, etc. It’s a tough life. On that note, I’ve been keeping up with the dance stuff, and have now moved on to the intermediate level of tango and swing, though I’m staying in the beginner salsa class for now. All of those classes are usually fun, but often somewhat frustrating due to my impatience and total lack of body awareness. I do like a challenge though.

Last Sunday, the city of Buenos Aires had elections. Voting is mandatory and they banned the sale of alcohol after midnight on Saturday night (technically Sunday). I found all of that to be a little strange. Needless to say, nightlife was somewhat limited that night.

Since the bar closed at midnight that night, I went with a few friends to Freddo, a famous ice cream chain here (Have I mentioned that ice cream here is delicious and way better than in the US?). There was a big crowd in line and all of a sudden a full-blown fist fight broke out between two guys. It was pretty ridiculous. From now on I’ll be sure not to accidentally take someone else’s helado.

Monday night I went out to a really cool percussion concert event thing called Bomba del Tiempo (Time Bomb) that happens every Monday here. I went with Catherine and her friend Chris, who was in town for a week on vacation. Wednesday night, the three of us went to La Cabrera, which is the most famous parilla (steak house) in Buenos Aires. It was amazing, and since it’s only a couple of blocks from my place, I’ll definitely be going back another time or three.
Tuesday, I was at the gym in a classroom alone doing P90X Plyometrics with the video on my iPad. One of the trainers there saw what I was doing and came in to watch. He started asking me about it and ended up taking a seat for 45 minutes to watch me do it. It was kind of absurd, but very amusing. Later, the owner of the gym asked me where he could get those videos.

The Copa America has been going on while I´ve been here. It’s kind of like the World Cup except for only Latin American countries. It happens every four years and is a really big deal down here. This year, Argentina is the host country. I made sure to watch every Argentina game in a bar, donning the jersey I bought last year when I was here during the World Cup. Saturday they lost to Uruguay in an epic quarterfinal game that went down to penalty shots. I was pretty pissed about that loss. The rest of the country is too.

Sunday, I had the opportunity to go to La Plata, a city about an hour away, to see a game live. Through 90 minutes of regulation and two 15 minute overtime periods, Brazil and Paraguay were tied 0-0 (The American in me was begging for more scoring!). Paraguay ended up winning on penalty shots after Brazil missed all of theirs. It was crazy. Despite the lack of scoring, the game was a great cultural experience. I’m just mad because now Argentina and Brazil are out of the tournament.

Meanwhile I’ve been noticing all the bandwagon hype in the US from the Women’s World Cup, which nobody here knew was even happening. I’m proud of the US team and all, but after living in Argentina and Brazil, where everyone lives and breathes futbol, I think it’s a little ridiculous when a lot of Americans randomly pretend to care about soccer every four years or so.

After we got back from the game in La Plata, I went out with a group of friends to finally see Harry Potter (in English with subtitles). Because we were in a hurry, right before the movie began, I ended up eating McDonald’s, something of which I am not proud.