No hay monedas

Today, Argentina finally got to me. I think it was a combination of things that led to it, but i finally snapped and for the first time wanted to leave the country. The funny part is, it was something incredibly stupid that made me so angry (or at least that was the main focus of my anger).

To start I think it is important that I mention all of the things little (and not so little) things that were bothering me that allowed me to reach a point where I could snap.

First, like nearly every Monday since I have been in this country, I was running on less than four hours of sleep. I don't know why this happens, but no matter what, something always conspires to make sure that I am not able to sleep those nights. Usually it is my own doing, I go out Saturday nights until 6 or 7am and then don't wake up until well into the afternoon. As I am basically incapable of going to sleep if I've been up for less than about 12 hours, those 2 or 3pm mornings make for 2 or 3am nights when I have to leave for class at 6:45am. However, there have been nights where I went to bed early (relatively) and still had things prevent me from sleeping. One time it was some girls who live above me blasting music into the central courtyard to which my window opens until 3:15am. Another time I had such a bad cough that it actually caused me to throw up, keeping me away until well after three. Last night; however, I thought I had avoided that. I was in bed by 1:15 and asleep before 1:45. The fates though, conspired against me and at 5:15 this morning I awoke for no reason in particular, and was unable to fall asleep again before I had to leave. For those keeping track at home, that puts me in at about 3 hours, 30 minutes of sleep for the night.

Second, this weekend I went to Pinamar to stay with a some friends at a house one of their families owns. This was a very fun trip, and since Pinamar is a beach town and the weather was nice, we of course took the opportunity to go and tan. Me being the northern-European decendent that I am, got burned to a crisp. Although only on my back and shoulders. As I am sure many of you know from experience, when your back is sunburned, it hurts to sit in chairs, which over the course of a day really wears on your patience.

Third, my phone decided to stop working this weekend and into today (although it miraculously turned itself on about an hour ago). I don't really use my phone a lot here for calling and texting (I have more money charged onto my phone than I have spent in my first 3 months here), I do use it as a watch and I still feel rather naked without it.

Four, I did fail my Organismos Internacionales parcial. I got a 2.5 (rounds to a 3) and needed a 4 to pass. The recuperatorio is on Thursday and I am really starting to stress about it (although apparently not enough to prevent me from taking time to study tonight to write this entry). This class is the only one that will give me credit for a class I need for my major, so it is the class that I most have to pass, yet is the one I am in the most danger of failing. This really freaks me out, especially with issues going on that I may or may not discuss here later.

Finally, one of my very closest friends in the world is going through a lot of hardship recently that was magnified by a very calamitous event last night. For her privacy I won't say more, but needless to say, I have been very concerned for her, especially since last night when I found out.

All of these things led today to my meltdown against Argentina. I have been reading a book for the last couple of weeks that I am finally close to finishing and really enjoying (Delirio by Laura Restrepo, for those of you who are interested), but due to my concerns over my pending recuperatorio, I cannot just read it for pleasure at home whenever I want. I can, however, read it on the bus on the way to and from class because, according to my rationalization, I would just be staring out the window if I weren't reading. Anyway, as such, I wanted to take the bus and not the Subte (BsAs Metro) to class tonight so I could read. Only one problem, though. I didn't have any change to pay for the bus.

Now in the United States this would hardly seem a problem, I could likely go to most any store and ask for change for a dollar, five dollars, maybe even more, and likely I would receive it with no hassle. In Argentina, though, things work a little bit differently. Although Argentina is a cash-based economy (it's almost impossible to use a credit card outside of major stores and restaurants), there is a severe lack of currency here, especially of coins. As such, I went to my local kiosco to buy chips and a soda to go with my sandwich for lunch, planning how I could make sure they would have to give me change. To do this, I had to add an alfajor onto my purchase (although that is hardly a shame) and that took my total up to A$10.30 for which I carefully selected A$12 from my pocket to pay for, guaranteeing myself A$1.70 in coins, which combined with what I already had would be enough to cover my bus fare both directions. Wrong. The man at the counter handed me back my A$2 note and told me to pay him the .30 that I owed still when I had it later. "Great," I thought, "Now I'm going to have to go to another Kiosco to get change." Which I did. Except the next kiosco didn't haven't coins either, choosing instead to just eat the difference on my Coke. One more kiosco and I had managed to finagle only .50 leaving me with .85, or .05 short of the bus fare, but with a Coke a Gatorade and a bottle of water in my backpack.

This seems like a pretty small thing to get really upset about, but with the weight of everything else, and after deal with this for more than 3 months, I guess it was just too much. I rode the Subte and then walked to school, likely with a glare that would scare little children across my face, thinking the entire time how fucking annoying it would actually be refused coins at a store. I found Vandana sitting outside reading for class and vented to hear very loudly in front of a number of Argentines who likely could understand a least some of what I was saying about how I can't wait to get back to the US, go to Starbucks get my change and put it all in the tip jar, just so I can say, "Fuck you, Argentina!"

Pretty lame, I know. Currency should not be the thing that makes me want to go home for the first time, but something I have discovered being here and in Costa Rica is that you miss the strangest things about home.

Anyway, I apologize for the length and pointlessness of this entry. I'll write a bit about Pinamar soon hopefully, although it shall be sans photos because I didn't take any.

A Rant

Another thing: I hate when they sing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch at baseball games. I love my country , but baseball games are not a platform for showing how patriotic you are. The tradition is to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" then, and that's what they should sing. They already sing the National Anthem before every single game, it's really not necessary to sing another patriotic song during the 7th inning stretch, especially when half the players on the field in a given game aren't even from the US anyway.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I am currently sitting on the couch watching game one of the World Series in Spanish on ESPN here. I have to say, it's nice to watch baseball after so many months. American sports are definitely something I miss. I like soccer, but I just don't know the teams here, so it's hard to have a strong rooting interest in the games, so it's just not as entertaining. With the World Series, I am rooting for the Phillies even though I like the Rays better. If only because I can't have the Rockies as the only expansion team from the '90s that hasn't won the World Series.

Speaking of things that I miss from the US, though, I have realized that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about things I miss about the States. A certain desire to return to the US has definitely been growing inside me for the last few weeks. This is not to say that I don't like Argentina, or that I want to leave. Merely to say that I am reaching a point where I think I will be ready to go back to the States when the time comes. I also realize that when I go back to the US there will be things that I will miss about Argentina. As such, I decided that I want to try and focus on enjoying those things while I still can, rather than thinking in vain about things that I miss from home and can't have anyway. To hopefully make this easier for myself, I am going to make a list of these things:

- alfajores
- Argentine Coke
- whatever they do to ham that makes it so much better than in the States
- clubs that play reggaeton
- dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin
- the phrase "¿qué sé yo?"
- the adjective "re"
- liters of beer that cost 85 cents
- good wine that costs less than bad wine in the US
- 30 cent public transportation
- knowing I can say pretty much anything I want if I use enough slang and speak quickly enough

I am sure there are more things that I will think of as a go along.

In other news, on Friday I am going to Pinamar for the weekend. It's a beach down that used to just be a bunch of sand dunes until some German guys decided it would be cool to plant a whole bunch of pine trees there. It's supposed to be very pretty, and I am excited to work on my tan a bit. There will certainly be photos.

Also, as I have spent most of the game writing this, I have come to the realization that as much as I conciously want the Rays to not win the World Series before the Rockies, I can't help rooting for them. So I guess I am actually pulling for the Rays.

Fútbol... and not when they lost to Chile

So the blog temporarily disappeared because of a bout of immaturity and a stupid fight, but I got over it and am bringing it back now.

On Saturday, I went to see the Argentine national team play Uruguay. A very fun experience overall, except some douchebag decided to sit in our seats and refused to give them up when we showed up. Apparently this is pretty common in Argentina. Everyone sitting around our seats just said it's what happens and the usher wouldn't do anything. So in the end we got stuck in the obstructed view seats because they were the only seats left in our section.

The game overall was very enjoyable, though. Argentina scored two early goals and then managed to hold them off through the rest of the game as things got really chippy. Surprisingly though, I think that atmosphere was better at the game in Costa Rica. It might have been because we were at the edge of one of the sections of the stadium and kind of isolated, but even as the game got pretty violent toward the end, people didn't really get terribly excited. I never would have been able to tell if was a World Cup Qualifying match if I hadn't know before. Anyway though, I got some pictures of the game. The first picture is of a free kick early in the game that led indirectly to the first goal. The second picture is the celebration of the second goal that Messi scored (he's the guy getting hugged on the left in white shorts). The third picture is a funny bounce that almost got by the Uruguayan keeper that I just happened to catch.

* * * *

In other life news, I finished my last (hopefully) midterm today, and surprisingly, already have found out that I passed. If I didn't fail my Organismos Internacionales parcial I will be done for a while and will not have to deal with a major exam again until late November, and I will be able to decide whether to write a práctico or take the final for geography. It's nice to finally have the stress of all of those exams gone. I rarely get stressed at all for tests in the US, but here you rarely know the format going in and with the language difference retaining information is much more difficult. I just have to make sure that I don't let myself fall behind in the readings again like I did before so I don't spend the days before the tests trying to make up reading rather than actually studying.

It seems really crazy to think that I'm so close to being done here that I am already planning for when I'm back, but I am. On Friday I made my schedule and applied for an internship at the OAS for next semester, and soon I will have to apply for summer internships too. At the same time though, I still have almost two months left here. It's weird how that is such a large amount and short amount of time all at once. Two months is more time than I spent in Costa Rica, and that felt like an enternity, yet two months is also only 8 weeks. When I think about things I miss about the United States (peanut butter, American milk) two months feels like a really long time, but when I think about how quickly weeks pass here (and apart from last week, the usually do), it feels like almost no time at all. I still have so much I should do while I'm here and I am realizing that I don't have as much time to do it all as I'd thought. I need to stop wasting my weekends way in bed. I can't remember the last time I woke up before noon on a weekend and I hate that. I want to go explore parks and take pictures, but I don't ever give myself the time.

P.S.
If you click on the pictures you can see them in their full size.