Shoga

Pronouncing all ll's and y's with the re porteno "sh" at first makes the Argentine accent difficult to understand.  Nonetheless, visitors with open hearts and artistic ears will find the sound falls on them like sweet soft rain.  

It also makes it lots of fun to say words like calle, yo, llamada (cashay, sho, shamada (yo'mutha)).  

I can't do this, but it's funny, no?

This reflection was inspired by the new yoga class I am taking twice weekly.  After just a couple of classes I can see many benefits: it's a time to stretch and relax, to mentally take myself out of the city grid and into my musings, to combat my pizza addiction, and to learn the Spanish words for all of my appendices big and small.  However, no less pleasurable is simply saying: "estoy haciendo shoga!"

You command an enormous kiss

Ultimamente my mood has been on the heavy side.  This being a generally light-hearted blog, I haven't had much fodder until yesterday when I giggled a good deal over two separate events.

One:

Have you ever eaten forati pasta?  Leah and I enjoyed this deceptively simple dish for lunch. From the outside it looks like fat spaghetti.  Look again, once cooked you learn they more closely resemble long skinny tubes of macaroni.  The tricky part was trying to slurp the long straws into our pie-holes and avoid sucking sauce into our tracheas.   I challenge you to try it.

Leah battles forati

Two:

Because Hee returned from his honeymoon, Leah has resumed teaching his English classes. Long story short, one of Hee's friends I met at his wedding asked Hee if he could get my email address (hee hee).  Leah passed it along, and while the arrangements of potential first dates is something of an awkward nature, this is too funny not to share.

The original email is quite genteel and respectful (it did come with proper accents and upsidedown question marks, but I can't figure out how to copy and paste it):

Hey Cari como estas?  tanto tiempo.

Tu amiga leah me paso tu correo muy gentilmente.

sigues en Argentina?

Me caistes muy simpatica esa noche que te conoci.

Me gustaria seguir charlando con vos.

Como van tus cosas?

Espero que sigas bien.

Te mando un beso enorme.

LUCIO

Though I caught jist, I always like to plug my Spanish correspondence into the free translation website which should be my homepage.  While it is a good resource, as you will see doesn't always make everything clear. The results:

Hey Cari as these? so much time.

Your friend leah me step your mail very kindly.  

You continue in Argentina?

Me caistes very nice that night that you conoci.  

I would like to continue chatting with vos.  How go your things?

Espero that continue well.

You command an enormous kiss.

PIKE

How very forward of me.

El Meneaito

Frank's fabulous photo of the Tango which is not the subject of this post.

The seductive tango has drawn millions of tourists to the dimly lit, steamy milongas of Buenos Aires to master the sultry moves or simply to gawk at the sexy dancers.  Tango, however is not the dance that has captured my attention.  Rather, it is the more direct, accessible, and downright adorable El Meneaito.

I was first introduced to the dance in a boliche during Easter vacation, while my friends and I were visiting the coast at Mar de Ajo.  Entranced from the start, I watched people fall into rhythm dancing el meneaito.  The second time I witnessed this phenomenon was at Hee's wedding.  Again I drooled.  Think La Macarena but infinitely cooler and with dance floors full of men who know how to shake it.

Though I vividly described the scene, complete with wiggling hips and humming the bass beats, to my friends, none had a clue as to what I was referring.  In fact, I didn't a name for this magic until last week when  I confessed my obsession to one of my coolest students, Victoria.  Within seconds, she gave me the name!

As soon as I got home I youtubed El Meneaito, sure enough, that's it: the key to my heart, a tune that gets my heart beating faster than a double espresso.  Before you follow the link, a few words of precaution:  if you are reading this while working in a middle school, a church, or Bangladesh, better save it for another time.  It's straight 80's with gratuitous flesh, gyrating, and glowing neon.  I justify linking this video because it's the original, straight from the horse's mouth.  (In this case the horse is Gaby, I suppose.)  While the dance in the video is not precisely the same as what can be seen in discos or weddings, it's hilarious nonetheless. Use your discretion and enjoy!

Of Futbol Rivalries and Outer Space

 

Sundays are particularly silent in the city and today it will be exceptionally so as everyone parks themselves in front of a TV to watch one of the biggest futbol rivalries in the world: Boca Juniors vs. River Plate.  

This being a TV-free apartment and me being unwilling to fork over the $600 (correction $1050) pesos many tourists pay to see the match live, Leah and I are once again grateful to Seba, in whose home we will watch the showdown.  I've yet to choose where my loyalties lie.  Although, a couple of weeks ago I did run into some Boca players.  Literally.  Their mammoth bus was blocking the sidewalk in front of the 5 star Intercontinental Hotel, and, consequently, my way to work.  Grumpily I took a detour around the front of the bus and who should be disembarking but a flurry of blue and yellow.  Cool. Some of my futbol fanatic students salivated over this story.

Transitionless change of topic!

There is special and senseless pleasure that can be found in baking a cake for absolutely no reason.  Sitting around and chatting about our futures: dream jobs, studies, husbands, and homes, Leah and I felt the urge to make this Purposeless Cake.   Baking in our oven is a gamble, with no way to gauge the temperature, but success was in our stars.  The excess batter poofed up out of the little pan and resulted in this beautiful moon rising on our dessert.  

Cut it in half with a layer of dulce de leche and covering with frosting, the cake accompanied our coffee and conversation delightfully.  What a lovely but foreign feeling being able to offer the occassional passersby or visitor a slice of cake!  How domestic of us!

Finally, I leave you with a picture of the artwork newly adorning our kitchen walls.  My flatmate Guille is the visionary and my other flatmate Arjun took the initiative to frame it and put it on the wall.  This masterpiece is dated 10 April, 2008 from Leah's 1/2 Birthday Celebration where we played Pictionary at Jobs, an awesome bar with not only pool and darts, but also archery and board games.  Imagine, if you will, that you are playing Pictionary and this is what you've got to go on...  Any guesses?

That's right!  2001 Space Odyssey. Priceless, Guille!

San Telmo's Graffitti Gallery: A Plaid Clad Fellow

Time for the latest installment in San Telmo's Graffiti Gallery!!!!

There is a heightened urgency to document my faves with photos because that smiley bird I introduced has been painted over!!  I am now acutely aware of my responsibility to immortalize good guerrilla art before it's too late.  These gems won't always be with us.

Yesterday I took advantage of a late cancellation of an early morning class and used my free time to walk down the San Telmo's historic streets. Yeah, it was 7 blocks out of my way, sure it was freezing (first day for the coat!), but duty was calling (not in that way).  For sentimental reasons, I took Chile- on which is located my old hostel home, Tercero del Sur, where I lived during my first month of apartment hunting.  Slowly sauntering along the cobblestones, I reveled in being so much more comfortable than when I first arrived; I'm free of the burdens of the Lonely Planet and street maps (usually).  While my mood was tan tranquila, I was hunting with a particular purpose: to snap this familiar face:

dig the plaid!

This guy's also staking out a fabulous location on his corner of Chile and Bolivar streets.  For sweet breakfast temptations, there's none better than Del Amanecer Panaderia.  At Chile 571, it's just a half block from our stylish friend.  Don't take my expatriate, rose-colored words for it, even Seba, my official native Buenos Aires opinion-giver agrees that this bakery is the bomb. After photo-taking, I treated myself to a buttery honey medialuna and coffee.  Yay for the occasional delinquent class-skipping students!  There's nothing better than old friends and sweet treats on cold mornings.

On a separate note, I know that what I'm about to write may cause to judge my musical tastes, but ever since Tonga gave us tons of music to download, I am completely Justified. It's changed my life.

Hee gets Hitched!

One of the pleasures of living in a big city is that they are often cultural melting pots in which many delicious flavors blend together.  As luck would have it, during the weekend I got to enjoy this aspect of urban life.  Friday night I went out to Plaza Serrano to enjoy the breezy weather and a cold beer with my Peruvian friend, Armando.  Sunday I went to see a cheap but classy tango show at the Teatro Empire with my (formerly Yugoslavian but now) Bosnian friend Esma (who I met in Costa Rica).   However, it was Saturday night which stole the show- Hee and Ariana's casamiento!!

Hee is one of Leah's English students.  Not only is it fun to talk about Hee, what with having a pronoun for a name; Hee is particularly generous and thoughtful, giving Leah 3 invitations and placing us at a multilingual table where guests not only spoke Korean and Spanish but also fluid English. Hee's a great guy, eh?

Even though I've waitressed 150-odd weddings in my lifetime, the magic is never lost on me.  I'm a sucker for tradition.    Culturally we were in for a two-for-one experience as Hee and Ariana are Korean-Argentinean.  Being Korean and Protestant, we thought the affiar would stay on the conservative side.  However, in the end, this is Argentina.  Thus, after the ceremony and dinner, the dance floor was packed, fine Mendozan Malbec started flowing, and round after round of tasty morsels were delivered to our tables. By 4am we were exhausted and trudged to a taxi to make our way across town to our cozy beds.  The party was still in full swing at that time; I'm sure it didn't wind down until breakfast was served at 8 in the morning. Seriously. 12 hours since vows were exchanged!

I love chopsticks

20 varieties of Korean cuisine!

Desserts- way tastier than they appear! The pastel balls with sesame peanut filling were a sweet flashback to Hong Kong.

Hee breaks it down.

Last week also marked one year since I left the States to teach in Bangladesh.  I thought it might be fun to reminisce by posting some photos of a village wedding I enjoyed about one year ago at this time.  

Please forgive the tiny photos, I had to rip them out of my Facebook albums. AND since Blogger is not in the slightest bit user-friendly I'll make a separate post instead of trying to drag and format them to come down here to the bottom of the page. Forgive me, my upstairs neighbor is blaring Tainted Love and I just don't have the patience.

Weddings here and there

Here are my tiny Bangladeshi wedding photos.  First I'm yellow from being tumeric-ked at a Gaiyer Holud festival the night before the wedding.  Then you see rice from the reception feast.  Me and my Aunt Deb in our best formal wear.  Finally, the colorfully bedecked couple.

What a difference a year makes!