Bouncing Around

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Me Encanta BA, sin emabargo...

Que tal amigos - How are you? Me, I'm good, a little hungry, disapointed in the US curling team and my legs are a little sore from a spirited game of footie (futbol(soccer)) yesterday, but other than that I'm happy. And I just found a NYC style deli place a few blocks from my apartment so actually I've rarely been better.

New occurrences in the greater Buenos Aires region: it's no longer so humid that the simple act of closing the window you opened a few minutes ago because it was so stuffy makes you sweat, which is nice, the people are finally coming back to the city making it even more crowded (I still don't understand the BsAs system for electing sidewalk widths. Some roads, usually the least busy with traffic, have the widest sidewalks, where as the most busy and bus dense, have "paths" resembling a trailway cut through a Peruvian jungle by a conquistador), and school is starting so my fellow certified teachers and I are finally hearing back from all the schools and institutes we wrote to weeks ago. All this is exciting and creates a buzzing atmosphere in the city, if only I had more time to experience it in the outside, I'm usually inside my office from 10:30 - 7, but there is certainly a sense of the real world acomin'.

I don't have much new news about my life other than my sister and Rumpza are coming to town in a week, then the following week Mr and Mrs. James Cokely - Bowman - Cloyd will be making a trip to South American Paris. I have little planned as of yet but have contacted the significant resource of the people I work with to write up a list of the must do's and see's of BA, I pretty much have the clubs and vegetable shops down but thats about it.

I have two interviews this week with English Institutes but I'm going to be at DDB for at least another month so it will be interesting to hear what they have to say, likely I will be a full time sub for people either sick or on vacay. Or of course I may move to mendoza and work on a vineyard during the winter season, all is up in the air, and all is exciting. I have yet to find that beautiful South American girlfriend so I have nothing locking me down to BA right now. Anyway I hope you guys are enjoying the last flurries of winter and looking forward to the gray mushy, dirty landscapes but pretty flowers of the spring. Much love and keep it real.

Chau

And sin embargo is a very useful word I'm sure most of you know or have learned and forgot. It means "however." -- Me gusta fiestas sin embargo no me voy a muchas porque no tengo dinero.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Great Song. Greater Video.

Check this out, humans are pretty smart I think.




Also if you like Malcolm Gladwell (Author Blink, Tipping Point, Oultiers) on his website he has all his New York Times articles archived. Reading hasn't been this informative since reading a Dan Brown book.

- I'm not always thrushed with work here, as made obvious by my reading of archived Gladwell work.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

La Clave es...

Hola amigos, como andan hoy? - Today marks my second week working at DDB Digital - Argentina. DDB just moved into a pretty awesome new building a week before I started and it has a few key aspects that make it a good place to come to. 1. My specific room where my department works has a whopper of an AC unit, could be responsible for some of the upper trophosphere freezing thats creating all that snow in Georgia, 2. Spanish is spoken everywhere here, be it when I'm talking to some peeps, some peeps are talking to me, or I'm sitting in the office writing this post and I overhear and try to understand the conversations that are going on around me between them peeps--this is a great way to learn a language people--. And 3. I take the bus into Recoleta, which is basically a little bit outside the "down town" but still has the hustle and bustle of the 10th largest city in the world, so I actually feel like I'm participating in society, it's a good feeling, for now. Except yesterday on the bus I couldn't tell if the older Portena (woman who was born and raised in Buenos Aires, it's a port - portena) had poor balance or wanted to take me out to a stake dinner by the way she was falling into me on the ridiculously overpacked collectivo (the local buses here). All good things though.

My esteemed roommate Mike went to Montevideo this past weekend and said it is a dream capital, still manages to be a business hub while maintaining that ever so necessary beach town feel. Though, like I've been saying, all the city dwellers pretty much vacate the city on the first hint of summer humidity and sun so any judgment on population density or overall city feel is slightly skewed durante el verano. But if your looking for a nice place to live and can manage to find a job in Uruguay, head towards Montevideo, buen ondas alla. (Buen onda literally means good waves; they use that term here to either describe the atmosphere of a situation (good/bad bar scene) or if a person shoots out good or bad vibes, it works i recommend it.

Lastly if anyone knows how to operate a Samsung washer/dryer that looks to be made in Soviet Era Turkmenistan please send me a detailed tutorial, preferably in a video format so I can stop all my clothes from coming out 40% dirtier than when I put them in.

Oh and La Clave is a great phrase meaning "the key." As in el clave to a good time in Buenos Aires is having US$ in your bank account instead of pesos.

Buen Dia

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Llamame

Here's team U.S. (and Peru) that in total cumulated 14 points.  In the negative.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Hey Mudarse, I really dislike you

Hola tios - which is actually slang from spain but I believe the Spanish accent is looked at here with the same aura of respect, sometimes not deserving, of a brittish accent in the states.  

Anyway, just to let you know if you ever move to Buenos Aires and are living in a studio apartment for a month then try to figure out a way better place to live, all in the span of two days, it's difficult.  (Spoiler: Mom + Dad probably shouldn't read this)  In all my unending genius I waited until yesterday and today to look for a new apartment, our move out day is Sunday.  Which of course means it's saturday because of all the necessary steps involved with pre-gamming a Superbowl.  All these darn tourists come in with Euro's, Pounds, or Dollars and jack up the prices of what would be low cost living in the western burbs of BsAs, no don't take this directly as a sting Jordan, but it hurts when you begin the transition of making bank in peseos, not those sturdy and reliable Obama greenbacks.  So the search is always inspiring when you see the three bedroom places with a pool on the roof, shared parilla (awesome huge Argentine Grill), and a spiral staircase up to your personal sauna.  Then you realize that those 400$USD are actually per day, not per month, the smile begins to fade. But this here is a big city so things must work out?

Mudarse is the reflexive verb of to move, which is exactly what I hope to be doing tomorrow.  And again the adventurous and tenacious spirit prevails, I contacted a craigslist ad hidden deep within the two day old posts and I believe Mike and I will be living with :Two Argentine Girls, 250$USD//We look for gregarious roommates!!!!:  That was the craigslist ad, word for word,  I literally couldn't have sat down at my desk for 6 hours and come up with a more desirable living situation, so I think were in the green. 

 I start work on monday so maybe soon I'll have some stories with some interest and adventure in them.  Keep it real and always remember "Peyton Manning wheres Kenney Chesney's jorts."


Here is a picture of the January 2010 Graduating class of TEFL International: Buenos Aires
Teach on Teachers

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Futbol I hardly knew ye

Hello everyone - I am able to write this entry at 11 am on a workday because I have one week free from work before I dive headfirst into the exciting world of Latin American advertising next monday, I fret only because none of the creative team I will be working with speaks english, and I am but a gringo who lived in Spain a few years ago, and then directly forgot most of my spanish. But all is not lost, because not only is this an amazing opportunity to increase my spanish fluency (baptism de fuego) but also I can hopefully have a shot at teaching my coworkers english after work. This nicely colored and embossed certificate I recently received will hopefully carry it's weight in helping my bosses determine if an afterwork class would be beneficial.

But yes, the title of this post. So I found out on sunday that even if you can contend in futbol with 12 or 14 year old argentines, as I have been attempting to do these past few weeks, you can most certainly not contended when it comes to playing argentines, brits and some fins on real grass and real goals. On sunday the first kick it for haiti event was held at a park north of the city. 32 teams of five players each, with every team donating 200 pesos- about 62 bucks, and each game lasting 10 minutes. Our team llamame (call me) consisted of all americans except for our peruvian ringer Andre. To bear your from the gruesome details I will be quick. First game I was almost decapitated in the first kick by a 1,000,000 mile an hour strike from mid field. Then that same team continued to score 8 unanswered points for an embarrassing llamame loss. Next game against a group of old timely brits, though kind in speech the acceleration of their shots spoke of a different feeling to us yanks. But again we lost quite beautifully 7-o. After those two games and the use of points scored vs. points scored on to determine which teams continue, we quickly realized that we were the worst team out of all 32 to play. But they were selling beer for cheap and some pretty tasty chorizo so all was not lost, except of course for our pride and the no longer existing pride of the american soccer movement.

It was fun stuff and I'm sure you all would have enjoyed the comradery and day drinking, but most important of all is that 85 percent of the donated money went to LIFE Argentina who directly is funding food supply to Haiti still. From what I've seen and heard, which I'm sure you all have well, Haiti is basically taken back to the stoneage with families torn apart, and so much loss of life and living. I don't know how but I hope they can rebuild a better place.

Hasta las proximas palabras
I'll have some pics to follow