Wednesday, March 19

A Day in the Life

I wake up usually around 10 am sweating if I didn't put the air conditioner on high enough, freezing if I did. I stand. My bed says, "Seriously, Jeremy, seriously?" Yes I am seriously getting out of bed. I make myself an egg and cheese sandwich and drink the orange juice which my host mother has squeezed for me this morning. Its a requirement of our program that we have fresh squeezed orange juice every morning by our host mothers. I don't let her do it every morning, but she does it quite often.
After playing guitar or reading "The Uses of Hati" I'll go out on to my personal balcony and check out my penthouse view from the 9th floor. It's not very pretty. By about 12 I am feeling somewhat antsy not doing something culturally enriching to better myself as a person. So I will call my friend Chris from tufts and Elyse from yale to see if they have anything that will make me feel personally satisfied that I am not wasting my time here. Sometimes I get too caught up in trying to do that and I just need to relax and have a good time.
Getting places sucks. Instead of being built up, this city is spread out. It's huge. I decide to try and figure out the bus system today. I will take one of 700 buses to try find my friends and cultural enhancement. But first, I need moneda, coins. The buses only take coins and here there is a shortage of them. The bus company, privately run, takes coins and sells 1 peso worth to companies for 1.05. Its a real racket. It's hard out here for a pimp, or a person trying to get moneda. Stores will ask for all sorts of different bills in order not to give you moneda. I buy an empenada for 2.25 that ensures that I get moneda. I get on the bus to personal satisfaction.
When I get off, I am late, but my friends are not here either. It takes forever to get anywhere in this city. It's big. They arrive. We start walking around some neighborhood or museum or something argentine. We walk through the streets and some rain falls upon us. The sky is blue. Something you learn very fast in Buenos Aires, since there is no central air conditioning, if you feel a droplet it's probably an air conditioner pissing on you as opposed to God.
We realize we have some academic obligation and hurry off to it. On the way we see a demonstration being held for some cause which we try to discern but probably can't. We arrive at our academic orientation and sit through it while they tell us how dangerous the city is. It's not. It only is if you aren't smart.
Now its time for dinner. My friends want to go out, but the combination of me being cheap and having absolutely delicious food for me at home make me decide to go home. We have someone cook food for us and bring it to our apartment. It's dank. Being in this city and not knowing the best way to get from place to place makes me ask for directions, not something I often do. People here are nicer and more willing to help than in the States. In fact, they are too willing, they will tell you directions even if they are not quite sure the right thing to do.
I go home via the subway. In the subway a man is selling toolkits. Another boy ands me and everyone around me a bracelet and walks to the other end of the car. He returns and we hand them back to him. I see some kind sucker giving him two pesos for one. I get home. I sit down with my mother over a salad (the only dressing here is olive oil and vinaigrette). We talk about Peron or something I learned today. She is incredibly awesome and level-headed. She says that Peron was just the right person at the right time. If it wasn't him, the same thing would have happened with a different person. We talk about everything, then we warm up a potato tart and some meat cut with cheese in the microwave. They are delicious.
After dinner I feel gross and dirt from walking today. I shower but I can never get the right temperature. There are two knobs. One for hot and the other for cold. They do their respective thing with other one is not turned on, but I can't seem to combine them to get a tolerable temperature. When it is heating up I think, maybe this time will be the time that the temperature doesn't go all the way to scalding. It's not. I get out and decide that this is the day I will start growing my beard, or rather when I shaved 2 days ago was that day.
While waiting for it to be late enough in order to leave my house, I send my mom a few emails, and talk to John on skype. I talk to a few more people about what I will do tonight. If I am lucky I will get to go to a place with very few foreigners and lots of argentines. On the one hand, I am getting my cultural experience, on the other, I know close to no one. This is good in its own way, it forces me to be more outgoing and feel more comfortable in situations in which I know almost no one. A skill that will be useful throughout life. I talk to several people in spanish, trying to find the words that will make them want to keep talking to me. I manage to snag a few nice ones who seem interested. I usually don't ask for their numbers to hang out again, although I should, cos what do I have to loose.
If it is an unlucky night, I will go somewhere, to a bar, with american friends from my program. This is usually fun, but I am not improving myself as a person so I feel a little guilty. I am improving relationships though, and what more to life is there than that. I'm just not sure how much this happens at a bar. Usually it is an unlucky night.
The night ends at 4 typically. I go to bed feeling satisfied with the effort I have put out in making the most of my time here in Argentina. I feel happy with my friends, american and argentinian. I feel happy to be here. I look forward to tomorrow, where the process of bettering myself begins anew.

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