It's called machismo, baby

Today was the first day of class. Five hours. Oh goodness it was long, but it didn’t feel as long as it could have felt I suppose. It was a good review and I picked up a few new things here and there. I think separating Spanish and Portuguese once I try to think in both will be just like I thought… almost impossible. I’m already throwing in some Spanish words when I think in Portuguese. Oh well. Hopefully when I get back to Brazil I will find some people to practice my Spanish with so I can keep the two languages going.

After class, my friend Clarissa and I had some adventures around town. First we exchanged money. There was a place with an AWESOME exchange rate that we found. It was 3.78 pesos to the dollar- what the actual exchange rate is and they didn’t even charge for their services! Crazy! Most banks, exchange bureaus and other places give around 3.2 pesos per dollar around here. Then we went on a phone hunt. I helped Clarissa buy her cell phone and unfortunately found out along the way that no matter what, my Brazilian phone, although it is the same exact make and model as the Argentinean phone all my friends have, will not work here, even if I buy a new company’s phone chip. Bummer. So I’m without a phone and regular internet access, making it hard to make plans with other people…UGH.

Clarissa got some lunch (I had already made some soup to eat for lunch. Despite the terrible heat, it’s cheap, edible and decently healthy) and then we did a bit of window shopping before chit-chatting our way home. I wanted to go to the park downtown today but we had chit-chatted our way through the whole afternoon and never quite made it. Hopefully I can at least start to get an idea of how the whole bus system works tomorrow and tackle that so I can see more of Buenos Aires.

As for an amusing story for the day, Clarissa and I were walking down the street. I was in a mid-thigh skirt and she was in a dress at about the same length. We walked past a group of guys and one of them started repeating “viento, viento, viento.” I refrained from laughing and kept walking. Clarissa asked me, “What did they just say?” And I explained that the man kept repeating “wind” because he was hoping the wind would come by and blow up our clothes. Oh goodness. It’s interesting how “macho” South American society seems to be, at least what I’ve come across in Brazil and Argentina. Guys have no problem making comments at you as you walk by. While this one was harmless and just funny, the comments can vary in strength and meaning, of course. It happens a few times every day and is accepted as part of the culture. As long as the girls make no reply to the comments, nothing happens. The joys of machismo…