The flight(s) were long, but really didn't seem to be. (Thanks to Air Canada, I've listened to k-os's new album twice through and--as much as I hate to admit it--watched He's Just Not That Into You and, less embarrassingly, The Reader. And I thank god every day for those Rocket Chips/Crackers they have. Holy fuck.) I flew over two major geographic wonders: Niagara Falls (not that I could actually see it at night) and the Andes (HOLY SHIT). What now, mothafuckaz. It was crazy flying over South America, though. I mean, I've been anticipating this trip since I was 14, and to finally get to actually see these places I've been reading about and imagining for years is a total mindfuck. This shit actually exists, man.
When I first got here I felt like I was in a time warp. For a winter that only gets as cold as 50F during the day, it sure as hell looks like winter. The trees, with their brown, crispy leaves, look dead. The landscape is a depressing gray and sickly brown color. It feels… like winter? People are wearing their blacks and grays, all bundled up. But at least the sun is still warm. It reminds me of the kind of sun when the ice finally starts melting in Montreal and the roads are covered in gray-brown slush.
I didn't expect BsAs to be so, well, BIG. It is every bit as busy, smelly, and overwhelming as New York. But it also feels distinctly Latin American. Mostly because of the poverty. I've never seen anything like it. Ok, I take that back. I've seen poverty, but not quite on this scale. The areas surrounding the Capital General de Buenos Aires (at least the parts along the highway from the airport) look like slums. And they go on for miles. The buildings are dilapidated and a lot don't have roofs. It looks like I'm in the bad section of the Hispanic barrio and can't get out. Within 2 minutes of leaving the airport I witness a guy on a moto just nearly missing being crushed between my car and a bus. Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires, supongo. But eventually we hit the Avenida 9 de julio, which is the widest street in Buenos Aires and is by far the largest street I've ever seen.
The Spanish here is nuts. Completely incomprehensible. And fucking fast.
The one thing that pisses me off most is that I keep thinking in French. FUCK YOU, MONTREAL! This city is fairly bilingual (unofficially) and it's weird that the language other than English is not French. Tabarnac!
Another thing that makes me sad is that, oddly enough, Argentina is not Spain. Go figure. I'm sure I'll come around to the whole cajshe and jshega (calle, llega) jsh jsh jshh shit eventually, the vos thing is pretty cool, but still very foreign. And fuck, everyone speaks at least a bit of English, so my desperate and pathetic attempts to speak to people are generally cut very short by their superior knowledge of my first language. Being that Argentina is not in the EU, the tourists aren't from random-ass European countries that speak a million different languages, so the most used second language is overwhelmingly English. Puta madre.
hah the part about their superior knowledge of your first language sounds like montreal exactement..
ReplyDelete