Buenos Aires - The Observations Finally Begin

Okay, I said that I’d do this over a month ago, so it’s time I go ahead and give some of my Buenos Aires observations. Since I’ve been here for five weeks, there are lots of observations, so I’ll try to write on discrete topics over several posts.

Topic One: Speaking English in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is not a very English-friendly city. I haven’t been out of the city yet, but logic suggests that the further out you go into Argentina, the less English-friendly it would get. The good thing about this is that it gives me a lot of opportunities to practice all of the Spanish from my four weeks of classes. Some of my proudest moments have been on the phone with my landlord trying to negotiate through thirty-minute conversations with somebody who doesn’t speak English. Obviously, hand and body gestures don’t work over the telephone so Spanish is essential.

It would have been easy enough to visit here for a few days without speaking Spanish, but I can’t imagine living here for two months without at least a little Spanish. When I was in Europe, everybody spoke English. Even the people who didn’t speak English spoke English. If I couldn’t communicate with somebody, I’d just continue to look sad and try to get away with English until the other person would break down and admit that he spoke at least United-States-Movie-Television-Music-English and helped me out. Here, that technique doesn’t work. At least no more than 25% of the time. The good part of that, though, is that it also works out in my favor sometimes. Whenever somebody speaks to me in Spanish and it doesn’t sound like a conversation I want to get involved in, I can break out my “no hablo” and “no entiendo” and exit immediately.

Topic Two: Living Conditions

The first four weeks I was here, I lived in an apartment on Santa Fe Avenida, close to the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, which is one of the better neighborhoods of the city. Though the neighborhood is fantastic, it comes with its own problems. My apartment was shared with between one and four women (it changed from week-to-week) and only had one-and-a-half bathrooms. Needless to say, that caused issues, but those issues were easily resolved and not too painful.

The most annoying part of the apartment was the noise. Buenos Aires is the noisiest city I’ve ever been in. I couldn’t count the times that I was in my first apartment and I looked out the window to see where the plane was landing. I don’t know what type of laws they have here with respect to noise regulation for cars and motorcycles, but they’re inconsistent with those of the rest of the civilized world.

Another problem/benefit is light. It’s light outside by 5:30 in the morning. At the moment, it’s light outside until close to 8:00, and we still have about a month more of the days getting longer here. Obviously, the light in the evening isn’t a problem, but I find myself waking up early here because the apartment is full of light so early in the morning.

Last weekend, I moved into another apartment. It’s a studio apartment, but it’s all mine. It has a small kitchen and I am finally able to cook at home. Eating out isn’t a problem here because everything is so cheap, but when you can buy some of the best New York Strips on the planet at the grocery store for about $4 a pound, you realize the happiness of eating at home. Also, the apartment is on a side street, so it’s a little quieter, though it’s still far from silent.

Perhaps the best thing, however, about the new apartment is that it has a television with about 80 channels. Argentine television is awesome!!! Lots of soccer, with some American sports, lots of movie channels and lots of American television. All of the sports are in Spanish, but that’s fine. The movies and television shows are a mix of Spanish shows, English shows dubbed in Spanish and English shows with Spanish subtitles. The Spanish-dubbed shows are still a little fast for my limited comprehension capabilities but I enjoy watching shows that I’ve seen before that have been dubbed. Last week, I saw A Few Good Men for the tenth time, but the first time in Spanish. Since I already knew most of the dialogue, watching the film in Spanish was very helpful. Also, I find myself learning quite a bit from watching the English shows with Spanish subtitles.

Okay, that’s enough for this entry. I’ll write on other topics in other entries soon. Really.

Adios.