Argentine Exercise

There are 2 prevailing physical traits of most Argentines ..... well put together and skinny.  People are very concerned about weight here, and overweight people aren't given much sympathy at all.  So following this, you would expect a city of runners and exercisers, but that is actually almost the opposite!  To go running outside is really pretty rare - some people definitely do it, but for such a big city, you never see people running on the streets.  Maybe a couple in big parks on weekend afternoons, but that's about it.  So then you think, well, if they don't run outside, they must all be intense gym members. I mean, there are exceptions, but for the most part the gym seems to be more a place to show off your latest Nike exercise outfit then to actually sweat.  No one wears shorts, everyone always has a matching exercise ensemble, and is likely walking on the treadmill or lightly using the ellipticals.  Girls wear makeup to the gym, and their hair always looks nice.  So I don't know how they keep up their skinniness, because this definitely isn't a culture of hard exercise and fitness!  So for a girl to go running outside on the regular streets, wearing shorts and a tee-shirt (never seen anyone wear a regular cotton t-shirt, actually) definitely draws some stares! 

International students got a pretty good discount at the big chain of gyms here, Megatlon.  They're pretty nice inside, last Friday afternoon they had a live DJ, which was actually kind of strange but at least something different.  Sometimes they have little snacks out for you too.  I want to go to their spinning classes to see how they are, and learn how to spin in Spanish too!  Oh, another thing about the gyms - the city requires an EKG before you join.  I had no idea what they were doing until she printed out the little chart of heart beats; my resting heart rate was in the 50s, so that made me feel good about my in-shape-ness! 

The Moneda Problem

(For reference throughout, a moneda = a coin.)

One of the biggest annoyances here is kind of unexpected ... a shortage of monedas in their economy and way too many big bills.  People (including me) guard their monedas like gold ... it is just too difficult to get a hold of them!  To ride a bus, which I do a couple times a day at least, you have to pay in monedas, so I constantly need coins instead of small bills, except no one likes to give you change in coins!  

If you really need to ride the bus, but have no coins, one tactic is to go to a kiosk (that are on almost every block) and 1) ask very nicely if they'll change your bill into coins, which basically never happens, or 2) try to buy something strategic with a strategic bill so they're forced to give you back monedas.  Problem with option 1 is that if they refuse you the first time, they will then refuse to sell you something to get change. I have literally been refused sales because they don't want to give me coins! Problem with option 2 is now you've spent 3 pesos or so on your bus ride, instead of 1.20.  Also you have some little snack that you don't actually want, but will probably eat anyway.  Problem with both options: if you are really hurrying somewhere, it takes a lot of time to find willing kiosk owners, and you can't get on a bus without succeeding!

So it is a joyous day if someone surprises you change in coins - yesterday, I mailed a letter to Guatemala for 5 pesos, and the teller gave me 5 pesos back in coins, which is near unheard of! So that was good for the rest of my day and probably today as well, haha.

While I'm on the topic of money - I got cheated last weekend by someone, still not positive who it was, maybe a taxi driver, and got counterfeit bills back for change.  I think there's a pretty significant counterfeiting problem here, so now I'm pretty careful about it.  I tried to pay for something with my counterfeit 10 peso bills, and the guy pointed it out to me, and they were pretty clearly counterfeit ... essentially photocopies.  So that was really annoying, I lost 20 pesos on that one. 

A Casual Day Trip to ... Uruguay

So this past Sunday, I went with my two friends Amanda and Emily to Colonia, Uruguay, which is around a 3 hour boat ride from Bs.As.  It was really really fun, and definitely worth the travel time spent and the boat fare (which actually wasn't even that much).  Our boat left at 8:45 AM from Bs.As, so that meant a pretty early morning getting over to the bus terminal.  I was literally expecting a ferry-type boat, really rocky and somewhat open air ... but it turns out the BuqueBus was like an airplane kind of.  It had a couple levels, lots of seats, dining room tables, a cafe, a store, and even an open floor for tango performances.  So the 3 hr. boat ride was actually really fun! 

The weather report for that Sunday was absolutely horrible, 100% of heavy t-storms .. .but it turned out to just be rainy at sea (and somewhat rocky, but not really) and just windy and a little cold in Colonia.  So, another weather.com fail, thankfully.

Colonia is a little colonial city on the coast of Uruguay - lots of cobblestone streets, hidden cafes, cute shops, and old parks and old ruins.  We pretty much walked around the city (don't know if I can even call it a city, actually), sat down in a really cozy restaurant for lunch (where we met another American solo traveler), and shared a mate like true Uruguayans. 

After lunch, we rented go-karts to drive around the city.  This was really strange that they actually let anyone (with a driver's license) just take their gokarts and drive through Colonia with all the regular cars.  Literally their only restriction to us was "don't drive on the beaches, please!"  Haha, we even had to go to a Uruguayan gas station to top off the tank when we were done.  It was definitely a different way to explore the city, and it was really fun! Anyway, from there we got back on the BuqueBus for another three hours, and another 4 passport stamps later, were back in Argentina 14 hours later. 

Dulce de Leche ...

I don't know what I'm going to do when I come home without the dulce de leche from here! Argentines eat it with almost anything, and it is incredible delicious.   It's really just a caramel spread, but I think it tastes a little different

.  I try to eat it somewhat sparingly, seeing as it IS a dessert, but I think Argentines just consider it like another condiment ... no limits on when you can eat it.  I eat it on toast in the morning, on fruits, once I even had it inside an empanada (I wonder how many calories THAT was?).  Anway, the picture below is the kind that Mirta buys for me ... it's won 'best dulce de leche of the year' awards for 4 years in a row! Haha. 

Getting Accustomed!

(for the record, before I start, my English is deteriorating a lot...I tried to spell 'accustomed' in the subject line a couple different ways before I had to look it up. yikes.)

Well I've been absolutely horrible about updating my blog for the last 3 weeks, but I think I'm going to try now to be more regular about it.  It would be kind of impossible to try to remember everything I've done in the last 3 weeks, so I'm just kind of going to forget about them and start recently, haha.

This week classes at the Universidad Católica de Argentina started - everyone here calls it la UCA.  (We get to choose classes from 4 different universities in the city).  I registered for I think 6 classes, and ended up actually trying 5 of them this week.  It was kind of fun actually to see how the university system works here, and it was something new to do, and also new people to meet.  Not sure if I'm going to end up staying in any of my UCA classes...I couldn't understand the professor very well in one, another has a really bad schedule, another is really dull.  I do like one class a lot called Economía del Desarollo (Development Econ), and I might end up taking that one, kind of just depends on how well I like my classes at the other universities (which start next week). 

Some noticeable differences in the university system here:

- No eating in class.  We were told that to eat in class here is akin to smoking in class in the US. 

- Speaking of smoking, it's allowed in university buildings, so people before class are always lighting up, or smoking in the bathroom or whatnot.

- Classes last generally 3 hours or more, but only once a week. Yikes, my attention span (especially in another language) is not that long!

- Just in general, wayyy more disorganized.  Much much much much more disorganized.

- Less comfortable that university spaces in the US ... we all have great common spaces and student unions and cafes and things like that, but it's rare here and where a cafeteria does exist its small and uncomfortable. Also, no comfortable chairs in their libraries!