Bloggo de Steinberro: What happened to January?

Ok, so it has been a while since I have posted anything on this site. Not that the last month has been aburrido or boring, but we were locked into our daily schedule of commuting to school each day along the same route, and engaged in the same scene of international students, all of whom spoke great English.... oh how much English has been spoken! If I would have spent the time learning Spanish that I spent teaching English slang to others, my Español would be mucho further advanced. To be fair I can now say an assortment of slang phrases in other languages, especially various ways to say "cheers."

A grand development in our lives was realized on the subway. Our daily commute was made extremely mas comfortable by our decision to walk to away from our destination, to the last station on the subway line. This allowed us to grab a place to sit on the train each day, which at seven o'clock on a humid hot Buenos Aires summer morning, is a luxury I was not willing to give up for the little old ladies that boarded after us, lo siento mucho señora.

Finding a place to sit on the subte was facilitated by the fact that a very significant portion of the Porteños leave the city through out the month of January. (another opportunity to point out their bizzare business tactics, they literally close down businesses for over a month to travel away from the city.) The main destination of travel is the city of Mar Del Plata, which is located about four hours south of the city. Daily and Nightly broadcasts can be seen on television of the summer long fiesta that can be experienced at Mar Del Plata. Although we did not go, I feel as though I have seen enough coverage to understand what it is all about. (See "el tema del verano" to see for yourself)

for an explanation, check out
http://laxlim.blogspot.com/2007/01/el-tema-del-verano-commercial-creates.html

Just a quick translation of the song: This is the hit of the summer that you will sing and dance to everywhere, and yes, of course I will stick that umbrella in for you.

Just as all good things must come to end, so do the not so good. Last week we completed our pre paid ten weeks at the disorganized school known as Ibero. If you are some random reader who happened upon this site via google, beware! If you want to party, go, but if you are looking to learn Spanish, yo no lo recomiendo. However, lets focus on the partying aspect.

We met a plethora of great people from all over the western, non Spanish speaking world, except France, although we did have a profesora de Francia. I learned the importance of not sipping your drink before cheersing with Europeans (who are just looking for a reason not to like Americans) ... and always look them in the eye when doing so, along with lots of other great cultural differences. Much time was dedicated to explaining how Americans ended up in our current political situation. "How?" "How??" the question is repeated time and time again. This is a never ending conversation ................. .................................................................................................................... .................................................................................................................... ...........................................................................how?????????

The Spanish is improving though. We took a big step the other day when we took a short trip fuera de the city, and spoke only Spanish for Six hours. We met friends from our "advanced" class at Ibero, it is worth noting that three are from Brazil. This is significant because nothing confuses me more than the Spanish language spoken by Brazilians with a heavy Portuguese accent. (except our Norweigen friend Traje aka "Superman" aka "Mr T") We took the train North, roughly out of town, at least to the suburbs, to Tigre, a neighborhood on the river. Famous for its market fair, which was not open on the day we traveled there, Tigre was easily seen with a quick trip up the river in our very tranquilo booze cruise. Somewhat reminded of the lakes in MN. little houses lined the chocolate brown river with small boat houses on the shore. We were lucky enough to have been eating a meal of assorted steaks and sausages from the "parilla," when the hail storm rolled through, exiting as quickly as it had arrived. We followed it back to the train station and left feeling as though I had taken a days trip into Tijuana. Of course this bizzaro TJ was more comfortable than El Cajon, so not really.

So here I sit typing this while feeling my time in this city slip toward its expiration date. We have less than a month in Bs As, and although we have myriad adventures in South America waiting for us, I do not want to leave the city. Chances are we will be back.........
~A
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And now a little something from Sarah....
The last month went by so quickly, I didn't want to miss a minute of it typing out a lengthy blog. So here's my recap in short....

New Year's was a blast as we finally experienced the true porteño lifestyle of staying at the clubs until after the sun rises (though we were among the first to leave). It's worth mentioning that they don't just do this on New Year's eve, they seem to party like that every weekend. Needless to say, we spent the first day of 2007 en casa. But it was just as well since everything was closed and the temperature was a steamy 105 with the fuerte summer sun bearing down through the hole in the ozone layer.

After that, I spent the next three weeks hacking and sniffling with bronchitis, drinking gallons of green tea, and studying el subjuntivo. January is pretty low-key as many businesses shut down for the entire month and about half the city goes on an extended vacation. During this hiatus, we missed the grillmasters at our favorite parilla but we certainly enjoyed the slightly-less packed subte. We spent each weekend saying chau to some friend or another, and each monday making new friends (as people are constantly coming and going at íbero). Just when I got over the chest cold, I got a touch of senioritis my last week of classes. So although my certificate boasts 200 hours of instruction, I am far from being as "avanzado" as the giant bold letters claim. ¡Pero mi español es mucho mucho mejor que cuando yo llegué en Buenos Aires! Mis primeras dias, no pude decir ni entender casi nada y ahora es un poco más facil.

Though technically en febrero, a review of January wouldn't be complete without mentioning the superbowl. I imagined the event (in which the players compete by trying to burn the most millions telling us what to wear, drive, eat, drink, do with our lives with brief intervals of a strange game of tackle) wouldn't go over too well here. Considering how many people could be fed with the money spent on the supercommercial (especially here given the favorable exchange rate), you would understand the shame I thought I would feel had I watched the game with a local. But of course, we were in a bar filled with Norteamericanos/estadounidenses (except the brazillians and swedes in our party). Not to mention, the commercials were not shown. As much as I bash them, I was pretty bummed that I wouldn't get to see this year's spectacle of advertisements. Alas, while you were all chuckling at each 30-second interval of flushed fortunes, we were entertained by videos we haven't seen in decades (C and C mucic factory...¿en serio?). I think it was the first superbowl game I actually paid attention to because I didn't have kitchy appetizers and commercials to distract me. Muy interesante. My favorite part was when the swedish girl who could care less about this game than I do won the square picks two quarters in a row!
¡Chau! (you will never hear 'adios' in Buenos Aires....only the uber-european spanish take on the italian 'ciao,' while giving the elegant cheek kiss to a perfect stranger)
--S--

mira las fotos:
New Year's