It has been one week today since I stepped off of the airplane and into the southern hemisphere, into a Latin American country with a European flavor, and into winter in Buenos Aires.
So what is there to say after a week here in BA? It's big. It is full of concrete, cement, noise, and lots of rush. So, ...basically like New York. ...And any other big city in any other country in the world, with its own quirks of individuality.
Now after my first full week, due to a solid amount of aimless wandering and sore feet, I am becoming familiar with its size (looking at point A and point B on a map and estimating the real space between can only be realized after a suficient amount of actual practice and losing and refinding oneself.) I'm getting used to the public buses here while hardly using the subway at all; traveling above land in a bus, watching through the glass as the city warps and shifts with the individuality of different neighborhoods is the best way to see and become familiar with the different areas of a city, difficult as the buses here may be to decode. After Argentina's numerous catastophic economic crisis the most pressing one now is making sure you have the change to pay for each individual bus ride with change in coins...seemingly a silly matter until you actually have to try to do it. All told, however familiar with BA's public transport I may be becoming, I cannot wait until I finally am able to buy a used bike!
I've begun regular tango lessons and just today bought myself some classy tango shoes (that I should be able to ski, swim, and mountain climb in, as well, for what they charged me) and it even looks like I'm starting to find some dancing partners. In fact, I'm hurrying through this blog entry to go meet a friend out at a milonga--or Argentine tango club--and tomorrow I am taking salsa lessons with someone I found through couch surfing because of our similar interests.
Speaking of which, I have met a truckload of fun, interesting people through couch surfing: there could not exist a better way to meet a wide range of people while traveling, and I could not have come to a better place to do it (BA has the most active couch surfing group in existence. Fact.) Through couch surfing, I have experienced more culture thus far than I could have in three months any other way, just from gaining from the knowledge of native Porteño (a Porteño is to Buenos Aires as a New Yorker is to New York) and travelers who have already learned the ropes of the city.
TRAFFIC
BA is in that unfortunate group that developed driving norms in a haphazard, lack of rules-manner. It is not bad everywhere, necessarily, and not all the time (I don´t think they can hold a candle to New Dehli) but it appears that on the frequent intersections where there are no stop signs at all it is a formal game of chicken to see who gets to go first. I was in a taxi as the driver barely lifted his foot from the petal to fly through these intersections: I'm not sure if there is a completely safe but subtle rule of the road that I'm missing...or if he just liked the exhileration of knowing that he was on top, and that if any car happened to be coming but not intending to stop there was no real way in hell he was going to be able to stop his taxi in time. And street signs are either quite clear or they are awful, stuck to the side of a building at one corner of the intersection, visible to no one but the car coming toward it...and only readable once driver is quasi mid-intersection.
HOMELESS
I do not see the streets teaming, as I've heard was true after 2001's economic crash. On a scale between New York and New Delhi, it is a good bit closer to the Big Apple. (Keep in mind, however, all noted cases are only including what is visible on the surface.) I do not see much recycling here or general awareness for doing so, and it seems that the homeless may play the role, similar to in some circumstances in India, interestingly, of the post-sorters, both making their living and giving the environment a hand by sorting bags of trash out ready to be collected.
PEOPLE
This is the first time in a while that I haven't stuck out like a sore thumb while traveling! (I could just give up and resort to traveling only in Scandanavian countries.) Argentina is a mix of a rather small percentage of indigenous Americans, Lots of Italians and Spanish, Germans, and a scattering of other, particularly European, immigrants. Compared to Asia and Mexico, I blend in much better [although I´m told that I do have some native American in me somewhere.] That's not to say that I'm getting around completely cat call-free, but I'd say it's a step up.
SPEAKING SPANISH
Going well! my Spanish is very sufficient: probably at a ¨five months in Italy¨ level. I can pretty much find a way to express anything that I want and am even getting good at understanding that Argentine accent (who knew how innapropriate a place BA was to go if I wanted to learn unaffected, universal Spanish?) My progress daily is doing a lot to get me prepared for classes to begin and after only Spanish 1, quite impressive if I may say so myself. I am sure it will continue as such...as long as I don´t revert to speaking English with other surfers (which is easy as long as their Spanish isn't worse than mine, which is, in fact, sometimes the case.)
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