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My view to the left
My view to the right
Chena happy as a monkey’s poo flinging hand
Chena annoyed by me taking her picture all the time.
Hay gente en este mundo que prefieren que estamos miserable y tenemos la misma estado de desesperaci
Thursday: first day in apartment.
I unpack my things and decorate my fridge and shelves .. wondering if I’ll give up and return to Portland… to then have to go to Stevenson and live on my mom’s floor. I’m really that broke. The view is amazing and generally my patio has sun all day long. My bedroom window faces the park and Chena whimpers when she looks out it. I bought some groceries, the bulk of which was hamburger sadly. I figured with as broke as I am and as cheap as it was that I wouldn’t have to buy Chena any canned food which is a lot here, and I could get protien however possible for as long as possible. Its so cheap here I could literally spend $1.50 a week american and live off only ground beef, but I’ll probably puke. At least I know its from a good place.. I hate ground beef normaly, this really just tastes more like shredded beef than ground. So I guess I’m nowhere near being vegetarian anymore for now, I knew that’s what would have to happen here, so far it seems like the only protein in the country is meat and maybe lentils…I think I’ll be giving all the beef to Chena and eating lentils.
Friday: I spent the morning going from place to place trying to pay my cable bill so I can get it on by Monday. Tried 4 places before I could make it to the right place.. which ended up being the cable company itself. There are all these places you can go to pay utilities, cell phone bills, cable bills etc that scan a barcode on your statement but all I had was a number so they kept sending me away. I get an email from a guy whos involved in the Ex-Pat group down here. (expat= expatriot) I text his phone with my phone number here and he calls an hour later, hes an older man.. like 40s, and he insists I go to something called “Talk Time” .. normally where Spanish speakers speak English together but sometimes English speakers get to speak Spanish. This was an English one, there was a older woman in her late 50’s early 60’s running the thing, a crazy eccentric 45 year old guy and a 30’s girl who almost died from carbon monoxide a few years ago and lost half her memory. Apparently its common here because ever apartment and house runs on mostly gas. After there was an expat dinner with about 30 people at an armenian restaurant, still not a spicy thing on the menu, but they had hummus and other Moroccan style appetizers so I didn’t have to eat meat, I had no money and the 40 year old had to cover me.. making me feel like shit. I listened to Willy Nelson before I left.
Satuday: I feel like such a dork being in Argentina listening to Willy Nelson but thats all I want to hear right now for some reason. It’s compilation of his best songs.. most of them depressing love songs and one or 2 Highwaymen songs… if a neighbor is listening I’m sure they are disturbed haha. I’m not exactly depressed and I don’t miss someone I loved and lost.. so these songs don’t generally apply, but he sings about Whiskey a lot so maybe I just need to get drunk. Im watching Cutthroat Island.. worst pirate movie ever.
sunday: I watched another crappy pirate movie Sea Wolf; second worst pirate movie ever.
These are the books that I brought with me besides some magazines.. what does this say about me?
Walden, Animal Farm, Farenheit 451, Lord of the Flys, Under the Black Flag, Pirate’s Utopia.
I don’t know that I looove socialism.. maybe I’m just fascinated by it. I read the Marxist way when I was 12 and Nietzsche all through highschool.
I hope so…a society with free health care, a voted captain and equal shares of booty sounds much better than capitalism…
I finally found a damn place and just like I originally wanted.. its a studio 😀 So I wont have to share anything with anyone but Chena and my guests from the US or.. you know.. people who come to watch movies :D.. anyways.. no sharing. Here’s some photos of it .
You can’t even tell how huge the patio is.. almost 3/4 the size of the apartment. and no the apartment’s not huge but It’ll be fine for me and Chena and some floor surfers. The lady is bringing a bed and it has table, chairs, kitchen, bathroom, no bidet though.. now all it needs is me to decorate.. when I can afford to.
It has new paint.. tiles floors.. I need a bbq for my deck. I’m on the top floor so I can’t bother anyone and yes.. that is a picture of a HUGE park for Chena to run around in without me having to walk her 100 blocks to find trees. The place costs about as much as any shared room in a house that I looked at and my only other expense will be cable internet.. which is about 8$ a month promo and $15 a month after that. The market here is amazing. I didn’t even have to look for this place. She emailed me from my ad on craigslist that I posted yesterday. Now the problem is getting enough money to keep the apartment. I need 2 months more rent and living expenses to make it till October 12th or so when I get my student loans. This will be a challenge. Anyone know anyone who needs a dirt cheap website? 😉 I work for pesos :-p… until I’m on my feet.. then I’m back to being expensive. joke. k. wee.. must pack.
I also noticed that when I get pissed sometimes I can speak Spanish better…
The day I moved in to my tiny 11th floor studio, the first thing I did was place my little broken sushi plate that I brought all the way from the US, on the counter just so I could look at my ‘kitchen’ and feel at home. It still helps a little, but I cant afford sushi anymore. 😞
The brazilian girl has a friend over and I don’t think shes let him say one fucking thing.. she wont shut up. poor fucking guy haha.
Here’s one roll out of 12. Hopefully the worst of the bunch but still tolerable. Cheap Fred Meyers film and local cheap color lab. Once I get caught up financially I can rescue my black and white stuff at the real lab! yay!
So , I left where I was staying last night and am off to stay in a hostel today. It was just getting too weird and not in a good way. To the point where outside opinions saw its un-right-ness and helped me make it right.. by leaving. So I stayed with them last night.. forgot a few things but for some reason I still have keys. I don’t really need a guide here anyways i guess. I got hooked up with maps and tourist stuff that should help me get around.. and will hopefully tell me where not to go as a single white american girl haha. I have no idea what the hostel will be like but it’s winter here.. although its about 65 degrees average. I’m hoping it will be totally dead and ill have a room to myself. Im not much of a “communal living” person. I did get to go on an awesome ship the day before yesterday and we took a tour of all these river houses in Tigre.. every so often there was a shipwreck or a dilapidated building. Heaven to me. All the houses we passed were only accessible by boat and people in little boats with paddles went by and waved fairly often. I guess these house only sell for about $30.000 american. That’s so damned cheap. I took a ton of photos.. maybe about 3 rolls of the ride and the sunset afterwords. It took about an hour on a train to get there. We drank a bottle of wine on the train.. one on the boat.. and another on the way back. That’s a lot of wine. That’s when things went bad at that apartment. If I had a place to go I would have left that night. I really found out a lot about myself and how much different I am from how I may have been a year ago even. K. More details about my trip later.. or in person. I’m off to find a Hostel.
Argentina Current mood: stressed
Well I am finally here. It’s truly awesome here and I feel out of place. Everyone stares at me. I’m at least twice as big as all the girls here which doesn’t help me not feel like a freak. When I try to speak spanish , which is not often and usually requires alchohol.. no one understands me although when I repeat the same thing louder and slower.. they understand and repeat exactly what I said as though I had said it wrong. This accent is killing me. Even simple things like Ricotta.. which is a cheese and the same in english practically, and nublado.. which means cloudy and is almost impossible to pronounce wrong.. they still say ‘que?’.. holy pooo it makes me feel like a retard when I’m speaking clearly and they still don’t understand.. although their accents could be horrible in English and I would understand them..irony. I dont think they want to understand me, it’s probably some rude joke they play on outsiders.
Other than trying not to cry with frustration, the city is amazing..Iv’e been here 2 days after being in airports and on planes for about 20 hours. It’s basically like Europe.. and by that I mean, everyone sounds Italian, drives like maniacs, and is good looking, and there’s not a spicy food in the country. I had to pay 10 pesos for a bottle of hot sauce which I sneak into restaraunts and flavor my own food. Gardner says It’s so something a character from a book would do in another country.. my answer of course.. well.. I am a character.
I’m staying with Gardner and his girlfriend and I’m a third wheel all the time. right now they are at her fathers house for father’s day… gives me a chance to write here I guess. We’re talking about going to Bariloche.. we would have to cross the Andes to get there and it’s the equivalence of driving to LA from Portland. We also spoke of renting a sailboat and taking it out to sea one weekend although we havent been waking up till about 3pm. It gets dark at 6 here and the weather is about 50 degrees and even colder at night. I was going to go out right now and look at these boots I really want, but I cant even remember the verb to say “can I try on these boots”. I dont know if i’ll ever actually start speaking Spanish here.. especially since everyone looks at me like a retard because I learned from a Spanish guy (from spain) and argentinians have a thick accent comparable to people from Arkasas or scotland (meaning thick). They are the outcasts of south america .. especially those from Buenos Aires. They don’t even say alli for here .. they say Achi.. which to me is a totally different word and a pain in the ass to catch onto. My teachers gona hate me if i pick up on any of this. I want to go buy a coat but I’m kinda scared to walk to the mall alone. I do have a hand drawn map. hmm. Here’s some interesting things about here that I have seen so far.
They have some of the best Cheese I have ever tasted.
The toilets do not spin clockwise or counter clockwise.. they dont spin at all. It’s a design thing.
They do have bedays (sp?) the toilet like things that spray your butt haha
Toilets have buttons on the wall that you push and were invented here long long before american crafty plumers thought of it.. they also have water closets on the wall.
The water is terrible compared to Oregon.
The secret to not getting bugs in your stomach or food poisoning.. is yogurt, which, don’t even try to say here because it’s been butchered.
The architecture is like no other. modern and innovative with lots of classical mixed in.
They dress better here than any amercans
There are lots of pet dogs.. all of which shit wherever and noone cleans.. so the biggest obstacle while walking at night.. is dog poop on the sidewalks.
There is grafiti everywhere and its beautiful
Everything is filthy and its beautiful
You will get killed by cars and even more so.. busses. People dont even try to drive between the lines and all day long there is honking and the occasional crash sound though they are by far better drivers than anyone by having so few accidents in such maddness.
The legal drinking age is 18 but they never check ID
Everyone kisses cheeks. and im not very good at it and its probably insulting but I hate it.
Everyone I have met so far is either in love or at least with someone, and being that i feel like a freak here already..I’m the official 3rd wheel for three weeks now.
Cell phones, pizza, Cokeacola and chocolate with Simpsons toys.
They love the Simpsons
Someone write me damnit.
Now this is torture. I have a chance to live in Argentina in a really nice 2 bedroom apartment for $400 a month. It’s in one of the nicer areas and very near downtown, It only takes a little paperwork and a few months and your a citizen (supposedly). Also, there is a photography college about 5 blocks away. Gardner is moving back to the US for a year in August and I have this chance to take over his place. but I cant. My mom is ill and needs someone to move with her to warmer weather.. and I don’t know if I’m ready to leave my friends yet. I could learn spanish so much faster by living here but…. crapola! haha. oh well. I guess now that I know how easy it is to move here than I can always try again later.
I miss my puppy and my kitty .. and my moms kitty, and BUNNY!!!
