thoughts on buenos aires

• buenos aires is extremely european, in that most of its history involves immigrants from all over europe, particularly from italy. this is apparent in its people`s distinct accent and manner of speaking and behaving. also, in its moda (fashion).
• buenos aires has many mirrors within the city, and many glassy walls, for a reason. porteños (what the people here are called, due to the rìo de la plata`s location) looooooooooooove looking at themselves. they also love talking about themselves. for the looking at themselves thing, mom said to me, ¨well then you fit right in, don`t you.¨ yep, thanks mom. to sound a bit vain, it`s actually sort of nice to be able to look at myself in a mirror to fluff up my hair a little bit (hey, for like two seconds, alright? get off my back!) without feeling extremely vain, conceited, too concerned about what i look like. because chances are, the person in front of me and the person behind me are taking about two minutes to do the same thing, or longer.
• tango. the tango. yes, buenos aires is definitely the birthplace of the tango. if you all haven`t listened to much tango yet, you should start. right now.
• màte is the coolest drink in the world, and what would you know, it`s like a culture in itself here in buenos aires. i spent about four hours sharing màte with four friends that i met up with from the states (they are working here as yavs through the pc(usa)... sweet stuff), sitting in the park, doing the màte thing and talking and laughing and just enjoying ourselves. it was definitely fabulous. you guys should look up màte online and see what you find. likely there will be more on màte later.
• there are certain parts of ba culture that seem impossible at first. for instance, the realization that signs for everything is really an american thing was difficult at first. when you walk in a restaurant or a place to pick up food at a bar-ish area or somewhere similar, a foreigner almost never knows what to do. order first, pick it up, then pay, like a normal situation? or order, pay, pick it up, or pay, order, pick it up, etc etc etc... what in the world???? the spanish phrase ¨pero no hay señales¨definitely doesn`t do anyone any good. just keep that in mind.
• ba has its own language, called lunfardo. it`s like slang but an entire way of speaking, and only in this city. not so fun for foreigners. they also have their own special conjugation (actually, it`s in argentina as a whole, not just ba), called the vos form, in place of the tù form. now come on argentina, what the heck?

so... all in all... it`s pretty good stuff here. sure, it`s only been a week and a half, but i`ve picked up on quite a bit of cultural and linguistic type bits...

also, went to uruguay on saturday, and this weekend, brasil or bust. pretty sweet, huh? yeah, south america is pretty sweet.

love you all... hope everyone is well... i`ll see you all soon!