A girl from my language class threw a party.

It was only there, outside the full immersion of the classroom, that I realized everybody in the class also speaks English. English which is better than my Castellano and in some cases, perfect. I felt humbled, stupid, and perfectly stereotypical. It only got worse when I realized that they also speak Portuguese, French, and some Italian. The Russian, so I hear, speaks Russian as well.

I fumbled my way through a discussion about alternative energy sources with one of the Brazilians. He is a petroleum engineer. When I didn't know a word I would say it in English. It seemed funny that we were both struggling to communicate with each other in Spanish when we had a common tongue. Still, practice is practice. He said nothing would make him happier than clean energy, even if it meant that he was out of a job. However, he didn't think he would see the shift in his lifetime. Later, we went out on the balcony and smoked a joint that my deceptively cool professor brought. The city's skyline is very pretty at night.

The next night I went to a party at an art gallery. I was very out-cultured. It seemed like everybody I talked to had attended university in France. There were a lot of blazers and horn rimmed glasses. We danced cumbia and I couldn't tell if the girl I was with was laughing or smiling at me. Cumbia, from what I can tell, involves a lot of arm. I will investigate this further and get back to you. The music was loud and she talked fast, so I responded to everything with a nod. She got bored of the nodding American mute who couldn't dance pretty quickly. I can't imagine why.

I think some of the people here think I'm stupid. I'm not. I am busy listening and digesting, even if I am not speaking. The other day I bought Cuentos de la Selva-- basically a hundred page children's book. I bunker down with my dictionary and look up the words I don't know. It takes me about twenty minutes a page.

Still, I'm a little better each day.

Yesterday, I was looking at magazines on the street.

I was leafing through a copy of National Geographic when the man who owned the stand walked over to me, grabbed the magazine out of my hands, and slammed it down on the table where it had been. At first I was surprised, then I told him to go fuck himself. He told me to go back to North America (I guess I need to work on my accent). I mimed a blowjob. He grabbed his dick. I think I’m making friends here.

I’m not saying my infatuation with the country is gone; but it has become counterbalanced by the weight of realism. On the subway, the bus, and some streets, I have to wear my backpack on the front so nobody tries to cut it open and steal what’s inside (a sweater, a pencil, and a copy of Borges’ Labrynths, but I suppose they don’t know that). When I go running on the dirt roads, trucks pass me and kick up dust that stings my eyes. The stray dogs, which are everywhere, don’t bother you much if you pick up a rock and raise your voice. I got lost downtown on my way to language school two days ago before I had bought any minutes for my [circa 1940] cell phone. I felt very small and overwhelmed. I purchased internet access in a locutorio and Google mapped my way there—I was only thirty minutes late for my first day.

The class itself is great. I’m the youngest one there but everybody else is still in their twenties or early thirties. There’s one other American, three Brazilians, and a Russian. One of the Brazilians is cute but I think she might be taller than me. This is a problem. Guillermo, the professor, told that he still felt guilty for helping destroy a McDonalds after the economy crashed in 2001. He said it like McDonalds is something sacred to Americans. The same crash gave the country five presidents in a single week, and resulted in the plaque hanging in the hall of my school dedicated to a student who was murdered during the subsequent riots. Still, the Brazilian is cute.

Elections for governor of Buenos Aires were this last Saturday. I watched slack-jawed as Mauricio Macri danced on TV after he won, but nobody else in the restaurant seemed as amazed as I was. I guess they weren’t imagining Obama doing a salsa. Later, I visited the Basilica de Lujan and listened to the priest pontificate on Argentina’s chances in the Copa America to a two hundred person mass.

Really, this is a strange country... but the Brazilian is cute.


And here, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.