on the causeway

it's almost beach weather. good thing too, it's been too long. three months, I mean.

EDIT: Recently got back from Mar Del Plata with Vickie. Can't keep me away for too long. 

I just really want to start a Camera Obscura cover band.

this is a good way to meet

Iruya

Gauchos

On the road

Not very recently, I took a trip to northern Argentina and visited the cities of Salta, Perico, Tilcara, and Jujuy. My friends and I knew we wanted to check out the northeast to see some mountains and also try to get a bit off the touristy path by going to the Festival del Virgen del Rosario in Iruya. And so, after missing my plane flight out of Buenos Aires and rescheduling a new one for the next morning, we found ourselves at a peña-folklorico one night and almost to the border of Bolivia the next. Also, for the first time in my life, I experienced what it's like traveling on my own; slipping into salteño cafes, asking taxi drivers where to buy a good empanada, and inevitably sharing a room in a hostel with a few guys from Portugal and a girl who I only saw when she was sleeping. At first, I felt pretty tense trying to get around, after being robbed just before leaving in BsAs (this really was not my week) and hearing that in general, traveling solo/sola as a female in South America is something to think twice about. But of course, I was alright. I decided it's probably safer anyway to look like I knew what I was doing instead of looking afraid and suspicious, clinging to my LeSportSac weekender bag between bus rides. 

One thing I started thinking a lot about in the north, now really having to put my Castellano to the test, was all the little phrases and words that don't really translate at all from English to Spanish or vice versa. Whenever I find a word that expresses something in Spanish but not in english, I usually think it's just funny, unneeded, or actually really useful. One word/phrase I heard a lot up there was the use of the verb aprovechar which means in English, "to make the most of." So succinct. APROVECHÁ, I say. Make the most of it. Take advantage of it while you can. It would seem that, yea, English/Spanish - the translation's not that different; "we have a way of saying that too." But really, the use of the verb aprovechar carries a certain weight to it that doesn't hold the same way in English and depends much more on context. For example, walking up the steep, oxygen-deprived hills of Iruya to our hostel room, I told the host how we'd traveled a long way for a long time but were happy to be there finally. "Sí, bueno, hay que aprovechar el día." Later, hiking with my own personal llama by my side, I was explaining how I didn't have much time left in Argentina and my friend told me, "Aprovechalo." Even my host mom, who, granted, isn't the most friendly Porteña I've met, and is actually pretty gruff, still manages to nudge me and let me know I've got to aprovechalo when it looks like I'm thinking of sitting out another night in the boliche. In vidrieras when something is on sale, you'll see a sign reading: "APROVECHÁ ahora!" Don't let this deal pass up, because obviously the price on this toaster oven is too good to pass up at this moment. When someone tells me this, especially coming from a stranger, it's a sort of blessing. It's like you and them are quietly acknowledging the fact that some things can't be repeated. They only happen once. Moments happen once, and while they last you've got to make the most of it.

I like this verb because it captures to me, what is Argentina, cómo es la Argentina. What I've been trying to convey all this time about Buenos Aires. A city that seems to live from moment to moment, reflected in its  uncontested nightlife - the fact that no one seems to see sleep as a priority, a city that drinks more coffee, smokes more cigarrettes, and takes in more sugar than I can keep up with, but for who time slows down just enough to relax during for three-hour lunch breaks, meriendas, or make-out sessions in the park. Argentina to me is a city on stilts; it's jarringly beautiful at the same time that it has its problems and dysfunctional aspects but it's this idea of aprovechandolo that holds it all up.

Also, as an update on the Spanish progress: after coming back, I felt incredibly more confident in speaking Spanish. I think before I could speak fine, but I now feel like I actually have command of the language or some hard-earned right to speak it. The best part was when I was stayed with Nati in Perico and met some of her good friends. At some point in the night, I realized that I'd completely forgot I was speaking spanish with them. I wasn't struggling with how to say something or trying to find the right words; I was already saying them.