Doin It

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i'm sleepy.

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What he said (literal translation): Nice headlights.

What he meant: Nice eyes.

What I thought he meant: Nice tits (as in, I can see your nipples).

What I said (literal translation): Fuck off guy.

When he looked genuinely injured, I thought it was because of my impressively quick and effective Spanish cursing abilities. It wasn't until a few days later that another local explained that this young man had been complimenting me and not in fact insulting me.....Ooops.

My first official mate

After what should have been a 10 hour trip turned into more like 30, I was exhausted, smelly, and cold. It was in this condition that I showed up at the doors of the Pigüé Textile Cooperative, trying my best to be pleasant. The Pee Wee Herman-like adventure I had getting there deserves a completely separate blog entry, but I am not far enough away from the frustration to laugh about it yet. So that will have to wait... But you can imagine that I was not in top form, already deciding that Argentina sucked and that the rumors about stuck up porteños were true.

But a couple of minutes into the tour and all of that faded away. You know what they say, nothing like the smell of industrial chemicals and the whir of spinning machines to make a girl feel good. Anyway, my guide and I stopped in the machinist's shop, filled with rusty, oily tools used to fix other rusty, oily things that break in the factory. I don't know why I like these kind of places, but I always have. And I usually dig whoever works in there too. So we stop to chat for a bit and the guys invite me to share a mate, which I did happily.

We passed around a well-worn mate cup and talked about New York, the Ramones, socialism, capitalism, Peronism, marijuana, cooperativism, Bob Dylan, and Argentinean food - pretty much in that order. It was an unforgettable moment, and worth all of the hassle (Well, maybe not all of it - I was really smelly). But definitely a highlight.

I just saw the president of Argentina...

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And she seems pretty cool. I woke up early with plans to do some adventuring, and stumbled onto a huge march stretching innumerable city blocks to the steps of Congress where Christina was talking. I didn´t really expect the porteñnos to be out marching in full effect, but surprisingly they were.

Other observations about Buenos Aires thus far:

*The city is very pretty, clean, and at moments sleek. The architecture is gorgeous and mostly everything downtown is really well-maintained.

*I am getting harrassed by more guys here than anywhere else I´ve ever travelled (even Nicaragua!). I have started saying that I am German and don´t speak Spanish. I have yet to find a common street harrasser who speaks German, so this plan is working well.

*One of the Cooperative Associations around the corner from my hotel has a bookstore and cafe with which I am in love

*People talk real funny. Everything has lots of shhhhh´s. Por ejemplo, el bus shhhheyga a las 8. Or, cual es tu appeshhhhido? Maybe I am just defensive of Central American spanish, but I´m not a big fan.

*I got hustled by a taxi driver! I am still not entirely sure how he did it, but I ended up with less money than I should have. It was the first time EVER - either travelling or in the states - that I´ve been hustled out of money like that (not including Bank of America, of course). How embarrassed to get hustled in Argentina and not in Ciudad Sandino or Bed Stuy!!! Oh well... a couple days ago in New York this middle aged man dropped a twenty dollar bill. By the time I realized it was his, he was about a block and a half away. I could have caught him, but instead I called out "hey!" (faintly) and when he didn´t answer I put the money in my pocket. This twenty dollars was part of the money I exchanged for Argentinian pesos at the airport. So I´m fairly certain that I was hoodwinked by a lame porteño taxi driver because of the bad karma I created with that Andrew Jackson. Moral of the story kids, what goes around comes around!!!!!