All the small things
As I have been planning for my mom and sister’s visit to Buenos Aires (they get here in 2 days!), I’ve been reminded a lot of little daily things can represent a lot about a place. We’re renting an apartment while they’re here, and since they speak Spanish and are comfortable city travelers, they’ll be living the way I do here. Here are a few things I noticed as I was walking around my neighborhood today.
Money is a big part of life, of course. Banks here are only open from 10 am to 3 pm, which is not a big deal as there are 24 hour ATMs but if you are stuck without coins (monedas) on a Sunday afternoon and trying to take a bus (which only takes coins) to meet your friends, you have to try to find open kiosks to sell you small items while carefully trying to maximize the change you get back. I have collected as many as I can to give them when they get here, so hopefully that won’t be stressful for them.
Transportation. Public transportation here isn’t too challenging once you get the hang of it, but I live by my battered, well-loved copy of the Guia T, which has maps of the city of Buenos Aires and the bus routes. I, and a number of other Americans, have gotten really excited when people stop to ask us for directions, only to have to take out our Guia T’s because we really have no idea where we are or where we’re going. It’s basically like taking out a purse-sized Thomas Guide in the middle of a busy sidewalk.
One thing I love is the stoplights here. This doesn’t really have much to do with life as a porteña except that it’s important to avoid getting hit by the crazy drivers here. Stoplights go from green to yellow to red, as in the United States. But then before they change to green again, the red light stays on and the yellow light comes on as well. Buses especially will start going through the intersection before the light turns green, and often before it even turns yellow. Basically, people reverse run red lights, by running them before they turn green, not right after they turn red. I am definitely going to miss the thrilling, life-flashing-before-your-eyes adventure of crossing streets when I’m back home, especially in Davidson.
One thing I’ve tried to do here is to look Argentine, but not too much so. Large groups of Americans wearing Uggs and speaking English on the subte definitely attract a bad kind of attention. But looking too much like an Argentine women gets you a lot of unwanted aggression from sleazy Argentine men on the street. The trick is to look fashionable enough but do one or two things wrong. Wearing a zip-up hoodie, for example. Not very Argentine. But paired with boots and jeans, you blend in enough so you don’t look out of place, nor do you look attractive. This has actually become a big part of my consciousness in terms of how I approach my daily life and how I feel walking around my neighborhood or around the city.
Even as I have to think a lot more about little things here than I do at home, there are bigger things that are much more relaxed here. When I went to Iguazú Falls with 5 other Americans, we made all of our travel and hostel reservations 2 days before we left. I feel like it’s so much harder to do things last minute like that in the States. People are also much more relaxed about time, which is also characteristic of all of South America. I’ve spent 3-4 hours sitting in a cafe with friends, I’ve had a professor show up an hour late to class, sometimes the subway just essentially stops running mid-route and I’m the only one nervously checking my watch.
That’s all I have time for now, but I anticipate that after this week with the fam I’ll have more tourist-y stories to tell, so I’ll put up some pictures of where I live and things like that. I’ll try to start doing some more normal blogging of what I do with my time and pretty things I’ve seen and all that.
Beso,
Elena
