La Vida Diario

I'm finally starting to get set into a rhythm here in Argentina. A normal day starts with me speed walking the 7 blocks from my house to Circolo Italiano, where we have orientation, both because I'm usually late and because the faster I move the less piropos I get. When I arrive we have some sort of lesson where they teach us about all the ways we could die in the city, what classes to take, etc, then we have a break where I wander around the area with my friends, and then it's back for another few hours of riveting information. After orientation is over for the day I usually head home, where I hide in my room and try to make as little noise as possible so that the family wont know I'm there until dinner.

Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE my host family. They're absolutely amazing. However, I have no idea what they're saying. After dinner every night we usually sit at the table for hours and just talk and so if I was to spend too much time w/ them before dinner my neck would be sore from nodding and pretending like I understand. I am proud to say, however, that today I understood the majority of the conversation at dinner and I think I'm getting a lot better. Therefore, I've been trying to spend a little more time with them, watching tv and playing cards, because I don't want it to seem antisocial or anything (....though we all know I kind of am.)

Then, if it's a good night I'll go out with friends. Now, I've only done this once so far, and it brings up an area that I'm still not comfortable with here: Public Transportation. Since I live so close to the Circolo and that's pretty much the only place I go every day I usually don't use the taxis, subtes or collectivos. However, the majority of the bars and boliches are in Palermo. I live in Recoleta, the next barrio over, however it's definitely not a distance I would want to walk, especially at night. On Wednesday when we went out I tried to call a taxi and I was supremely unsuccessful.

Initially, after fumbling a lot trying to understand what the operator was saying and make myself understood, I was told the taxi would be there in about 10 minutes. Right on schedule, the taxista called and said he was downstairs, so I go down.... and the taxi isn't there. I tried to call the taxista back but I'm assuming he used a phone in his taxi because when I tried to call him it connected me to the company's main menu again, and I had to go through the arduous task of explaining my predicament to the operator in broken Spanish. Eventually, she connected me to the taxista and apparently he had the wrong building number, so I told him the address and his response was "we don't have any taxis in that area." Now....this seems a little odd to me, since he was presumably on the right street, just a few buildings down and, unlike most streets in the city, it's a two-way street soo I'm not sure why he couldn't just drive down to the correct building...but you know....whatever. So anyway, from there I tried to call a couple of other taxi companies and again I had difficulty understanding them and being understood, and eventually, before I could secure a taxi, my phone just stopped working.

I'm not really sure what happened, however I still haven't gotten my phone to work. I had just bought 15 pesos worth of minutes that day, so there's no way that short call to the radio taxi used up that many minutes. I tired to call the help service to get it fixed, but of course I had a bitch of a time trying to explain my problem, and then the woman just kept saying I needed to buy more minutes.

Anyway, with the help of my host family I eventually got a taxi and went out, however it's still not something i'm comfortable doing on my own (to get back home me and a friend that also lives in Recoleta had the bouncer at the bar call us a taxi)....and really it's not even possible until i get my phone fixed.

As far as the colectivos and subtes are concerned, the colectivos worry me because for one, if I've never been to an area before, how would I recognize it to know when to ask the driver to stop? Also, apparently the amount you pay depends on where you're going, but i don't really understand how that's determined. Like do you tell the driver right when you get on? And really how would the driver know if you really got off at the stop you said you were going to? I'm sure he can't monitor every person on the bus. In general, I just want to wait to use it w/ someone who has already done it (and definitely not at night) so that I don't get lost or look like a spaz or anything. The subte seems simple enough, I just haven't had cause to use it yet.

Anyway, that's pretty much the gist of mi vida diario and some problems that I have yet to conquer. Oh, and highlight of my week thus far? Walking into a couples table at the bar and knocking their glass bottle off, causing it to smash on the ground and break into a thousand pieces, ushering the entire bar into shocked silence.....closely followed by laughter.

Yeah....

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Piropos: Catcalls which are very common in latin american countries and don't really mean anything. I'm pretty sure the men just hit on women out of a sense of obligation.

Subte: subway

Colectivo: the city bus

Boliche: A club/discotheque

barrio: neighborhood