I guess I just like food.
So!
Your average coffee is quite the production here. It's not the huge paper cup full of flavored syrups ordered from a long Starbucks line; it's something taken at a tiny little table with plenty of time to chat or read your Borges (also, reading Borges' writing about his city, while actually in his city, on the streets he's describing and using to describe things? AWESOME).
I order the simplest thing on the menu (cafe con leche, tres facturas) and I end up with three tiny little plates and three teensy little cups, feeling ridiculously sophisticated as I dip my croissants in my tiny-but-strong coffee and finish up with a few sips of orange juice and soda water (which they drink so their teeth aren't stained and their breath smells nice, apparently).
This all makes me super happy.
Actually, when I'm not dying of strep (new fever record for me! 104.9!) this whole city makes me super happy.
They sell underwear on the street. Literally, on the street corners, along with leather goods, comic book figures, fruit, and a surprising number of serious-looking books. And - once - the prettiest (handmade) Barbie dresses I've ever seen.
And I'm still drooling over shoes. I think I'm going to need some dancing shoes - I'm taking a tango class, which I'm really excited for, and I kind of want to learn to salsa too. I miss swing dancing - I was finally getting good back in the US, and even though this is definitely a dance-positive city, swing isn't to be found here. Back to being a beginner. Oh well!
Oh! After a month here, I find out that my host mother is Jewish. This makes so much sense, I'm really not sure how I managed to avoid figuring it out before. She's living up to basically every Jewish-mother stereotype I've ever heard. Ever.
She's quite the character, actually. She's a chain smoker who'll only watch Disney movies and romantic comedies, drinks lots of mate, demands that people stuff themselves with her generally yummy and excessive cooking while adhering to a very strange diet herself, and sings terribly and joyfully while her son, trying to study, begs her to stop. I'm a fan - although I'm fairly sure she, and her entire family, are quite mad.
I survived a sixteen-person family dinner with them last night. It took up at least half of the apartment, and all of its non-desk tables. That's how I found out they were Jewish - there were yarmulkes. And gefilte fish, chocolate-covered matzo imported from Israel, and kosher grape juice imported from New Jersey.
They're not particularly strict, though - my host father isn't Jewish, and they definitely don't keep kosher.
I spent most of the meal trying to figure out if everyone talking at once actually had any idea of anything else anyone was saying. Then there was ice cream, and I was shepherded into the corner with the English-speaking cousins and we had a round of Poke the Foreigner, during which I explained that no, Detroit is not near Montana, answered questions about how many boyfriends I've had, and actually briefly discussed atheism. Ended up being kind of fun.
I've been trying out some classes at UBA - the public university of reportedly 300,000+ students. The classes have been ridiculously hard, but I've been happy to go just to get a feel for the place. The Ciencias Sociales and Filosofia and Letras buildings (which are in entirely separate neighborhoods) are both bunker-like, covered in political graffiti, and constantly full of extremely varied students being hassled by other students handing out political pamphlets. The day I went to Ciencias Sociales it was raining torrentially and the building was full of random dripping. I bought an umbrella halfway there and still looked like a drowned rat with my shoes full of water by the time I got there - and FLACSO sent us an email warning that sometimes some neighborhoods flood when it rains, so, you know, watch out for that. Ha.
More pictures next time, I swear. I joined the photography club, so I have an excuse to wander around with a camera looking like an idiot, taking pictures of rusty cars and mate and buildings and street underwear. You know, things you all want to see!
Hasta luego! <3
No comments:
Post a Comment