Clearly, I am poking fun at the lack of foresight I applied to such an endeavour because, when you decide to take on the world and you can speak the language REALLY WELL and you don't need to worry about whether or not you are going to understand simple things like 'this amount of needless shit you are buying will cost you this amount of pesos' at which point a simple conversion of currency is necessary, YOU DON'T NEED FORESIGHT.
I'll start with one thing about Argentina - while all Spanish speaking countries throughout the world are different in their accents, regional 'dialects' and slang, Argentinean Spanish (aka Castellano and also Porteño), is such a different kettle of fish it's practically a kettle of writhing, flesh eating lizards. So I was on the plane (I think I mentioned something about chronology in my last post, but, uh.. bugger that. That's for people who have a good perception of time, and or arranging events, and or coherent blog posts) and in need of entertainment, at which point I decided, "I'll check out the movies section! Maybe there's a movie in Castellano that I can watch!"
El Secreto De Sus Ojos (The Secret of Your Eyes, roughly/literally) seemed like a great choice, being Argentinean, having won an Oscar (among others) award and having a pretty babin' lead actor (Ricardo Darín). So when I started to watch it, and it didn't have subtitles, and I couldn't understand it, I panicked and wondered if maybe this was some Eastern European version. Until I started picking up bits and pieces of Spanish in there. It was at that moment I maybe SHOULD HAVE realised the immensity of the adventure I had just embarked upon. Only, I was far too stubborn to admit this at that point. Anyway, apparently the movie is great. You should probably watch it, but only if you speak Spanish or find a version that is either dubbed or with subtitles - and then let me know. To me, I'm sure there were a few major points I missed because I was too busy panicking that THIS SHIT'S INSANE AND NOT LIKE THE SPANISH ANYONE I KNEW SPOKE.
And this leads me to life lesson number one.
If there is a guy in your Spanish class who has been speaking Spanish since birth and is good looking and you need to speak Spanish and the fact that he is good looking encourages you to ask him for help in that department - don't bloody flirt with the guy. Because he's probably (only a bit, but still significantly so) younger than you and thinks you want to shag him, which you do, but not after he drinks a reasonably good glass of wine too quickly, slurping while doing so, and starts getting naked in your kitchen while eating your face off, all in super quick succession. This is because after this occasion, you will not want to talk to him but you still need to speak Spanish and you don't want him to feel like an idiot for being so foward but you also don't want him to think he's getting another shot at whatever he was going for. Also, he is of El Salvadorean descent and knows nothing about Argentinean Spanish and your lessons will never be the same again, and the whole endeavour was pointless.
And that was months before I even left the country. Living/learning, what sort of crap is that? Anyway.
Life lesson number two.
You probably should never have believed aforementioned guy when he told you your Spanish was good. In hindsight, this is a good way to shirk responsibility for your pigheadness when you realise your Spanish is okay, but nowhere nearing being good. And there is a big different between 'okay' and 'good'. Like, 'okay' being able to order a coffee or exchange money with only a small amount of difficulty, and 'good' being able to maintain a conversation with minimal misunderstanding, or not be ripped off by smug cab drivers in plastic puffer vests. But at the time, he was saying this because you are a babe (this is my blog, and this is my truth), and he wanted to drink Oomoo Sauvignon Blanc like Sprite before probably nailing you like some sort of jackrabbit*, not because you are good at Spanish.
However, being as I am, I failed to take into account these things. I arrived to my host family's house, glad to be out of reach of people-trafficking bad guys who wanted to sell my white booty onto some terrible black market where whatever pretense of innocence I once had would be siphoned away and replaced by a crippling opiate-addiction. I still maintained the pretense I was kind of good at Spanish. So I got there, chilled out a bit, showered away the 15-hours-in-transit-scum and enjoyed a cup of tea before asking my host mother where the nearest supermarket was. I thought I understood her directions, but ended up at least seven blocks away from where she'd directed me, and found on my return journey home (which I was grateful to achieve) that the supermarket she'd actually directed me to was a mere block and a half up the road. No matter, because the Coto I ended up in was massive and gave me a false idea of what supermarkets were like in Argentina. Evidently I had stumbled upon either a 'hipermercado' or a 'maximercado' - the distinction between the two being one I have yet to make - that had TOYS and SOUND SYSTEMS and COMPUTERS and other such things dispersed between the yerba (yeah I love linking to Wikipedia, what of it?), shitty cheese and UHT milk.
Anyway. Being in a foreign land, beginning to sense you are not in fact as good as you thought you were at Spanish and also having just realised a smug cab driver in a puffy vest who was oddly generous with cigarettes ripped you off more money than you care to have been ripped off could very easily be mistaken for grounds to pick up life-destroying habits like smoking. WRONG!
Anyway, in the spirit of continuation and not giving it all away too soon (life lesson number.. something, not sure, never learnt that one), I think I have covered enough life lessons for today. Also it is Friday night, and as appealing as it sounded this afternoon when it was raining, drinking cheap but delicious red wine and blogging by myself in my house is no longer as entertaining as I had hoped. I am in one of the city that never sleeps, probably already have red-wine teeth and am determined to make something of my evening. Life lesson number three - from the streets of Buenos Aires, coming soon. Hasta luego.
*this never happened, and for my parents/prospective employers ever read this, this is simply artistic liberty and/or maybe my future contains writing erotic prose for Cosmo or some such so I am getting in some practice now.
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