Kees Me, Baby

Today is another cultural note day. And it's NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN. Kind of like Song of Solomon. (let's see Hollywood try to make a movie version of THAT!) (actually PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NO)

Do you like to kiss? Ya know, smooch, neck, make out, do the happy lip dance?

THEN YOU WOULD TOTALLY LOVE ARGENTINA.

I have kissed, like, SO many people since I have been here. Old people, young people, medium-aged people, ladies, dudes....... are you jealous yet?

Well YOU SHOULDN'T BE, you sicko. Jeesh, did you think I was kissing them on the LIPS or something? Ugh, ew. I don't even want to think about that.

No, here we do the Latin kiss, commonly referred to as "El Beso." When you meet someone-- whether you know them or not-- it is generally expected that the two of you will lean forward and meet in the middle with a kiss on the right cheek. RIGHT CHEEK is key, 'cause if you go left and they head the other direction, you might end up somewhat more intimately acqauinted than you wanted to. (I'm saving this move for when the moment is right)

I wasn't about to go out and take pictures of people actually kissing, because that would be weird (and also I'm a bad photographer and I'd have to be right up next to them and that would be even more weird), so you'll just have to settle for the photo series below.

 Some of my friends here are very surprised that we don't do the beso in the U.S. (I thought it was a well-known thing that we're all cold and unfeeling and stuff) Some of those friends have also had traumatic experiences in the States, having forgotten that we don't, and never will, expect a greeting kiss from strangers.

I have here hired a professional model to depict this scenario:

Latin Lover

COMIN IN FOR A LANDING

 

(Unsuspecting non-Latin Beso Recipient innocently engaging in common greeting ritual)

 

 

 
If you look closely, you'll notice that the Beso Recipient is up against a wall with nowhere to run to. This is a metaphor. YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THE BESO ONCE IT LEAVES THE FIRING TUBE.

Even if you're the one giving the beso, and you see the growing look of horror in your friend's eyes, and you see them shrinking back slightly in fear, there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO. Your mind cries, "¡No! ¡No! ¡Noooooo!" but an object in motion remains in motion.... so, with time slowing down around you, you draw closer and closer until your cheek hits their cheek and you make a small *smeck* noise with your lips to indicate the beso-finale.

Then and only then can you draw back in shame and avert your eyes, having committed a horrific social faux-pas.

Some final notes on El Beso:

For Latins-- no, people from the U.S. do not kiss each other when we meet. Not even friends. (Sometimes old ladies will kiss you but I don't know if anyone really likes that). Maybe we'll wave at each other, if we're friends. But if I tried to start doing the beso in the United States, people would look at me REALLY WEIRD and think I was trying to be all "cheta" and "Argentine." It just doesn't work :(  (but if you did accidentally beso someone, it wouldn't actually be as horrible as I made it sound)

For non-Latins: WHY DON'T WE DO THE BESO, YOU GUYS????? It's so great! It displays a personal interest in each person that you greet-- it forces you to acknowledge the presence of individuals instead of just the group. PLEASE CAN WE DO ITTTTTT?????

Typically, wait staff are excluded from the beso, and you also don't necessarily need to kiss everyone in a room when you enter for only a short period of time. However, classmates are included. And you can't just beso one person and not everyone else, because that's really rude. Probably you were trying to avoid kissing an entire Acting Class full of people. You rudist. You should just go to a rudist beach and be rude there with all your friends. OH WAIT you wouldn't HAVE friends because you a) didn't kiss them or b) kissed them, but in the wrong country.

This is why these cultural notes are necessary. No one wants to end up a rudist.

Put your money where your Boca is

We're going to play a short game. I will post several photos, and you have to guess whether each one is a picture of me or a picture of the Buenos Aires neighborhood "La Boca." It may be harder than you think, for we are very alike.

1.

 

2.

 

3.

 

4.

 

5.

 

6.

ANSWER KEY:

If you picked mostly "A's," you're outgoing and trustworthy. People seek your company. Wait for Mars and Jupiter to align.

If you picked mostly "B's," you're subliminally in love with me.

If you picked mostly "C's," you would probably pass an American standardized test.

If you picked mostly "D's," you actually thought I was going to make a legitimate answer key for this dumb test. How silly of you.



PSYCH

LEGITIMATE ANSWER KEY:
Everything that is not obviously my face is La Boca. If you missed some of the questions, it's okay. We look a lot alike.


Let me explain. La Boca is the area in Buenos Aires that I would be if I died and somehow happened to reincarnate into an entire neighborhood. Well, specifically I would be the small section of La Boca called "Caminito," which is famous for its wildly colored buildings.

 

 

Here are some commonalities between me and La Boca (which, by the way, translates to "The Mouth"):

 

~We are both extremely varied in our hues, and full of oddity

THIS old man, apparently dressed up as a human ant, was sighted multiple times during the course of our adventure.

IN A DIFFERENT PLACE EVERY TIME

 

 

~We both think Pope Francis is the bomb-diggity. Also that papier-mache figurines add just the right amount of weird.

Check dat papier-Pope up on the balcony

 

"Imitation and badly-proportioned replicas are the highest form of flattery"

The one in the middle is Evita. No one cares about the others.

 

 

 

 

~Our taste in interior AND exterior design is nearly identical.

 

 

 

 Warning to hypothetical future husband: this IS what our hypothetical future house is going to look like.

 

~Neither I nor La Boca are opposed to dogs dressed as humans.

 

 

In fact I think I am all for this.

 

In conclusion, I have found a kindred spirit in the haphazard stairwells and peeling paint of Caminito. Be warned, all ye who think to enter here, that it is VERY touristy. There isn't much to do other than look at cool buildings and pretend you're going to buy souvenirs, but to me it was worth it to see once.

 

Plus it gave me some good ideas for how to decorate my future house/apartment/cardboard box. If you have any full-size statues of the Pope laying around, gimme a ring and we'll figure out a price.

 

 

 



 

Tigre: Fierce and Stuff, I Guess

Jeepers creepers pumpkin fleepers, I haven't posted in, like, FIVE days! Probably you thought I was dead or something! In fact, you probably orchestrated my death in order to collect on the insurance policy you secretly took out on me! Well, I'll have you know your plan failed miserably. I am alive and I defeated your assassin in hand-to-hand combat. You'll have to do better than that.

Last Saturday was like a metaphor for my whole entire life: I woke up not knowing what to do with myself, spontaneously decided to have an adventure without planning very well, got lost, got unlost, and had a generally very enjoyable time.

I decided spur-of-the-moment that Rachel and I were going to journey to a land called "Tigre," a place that I had heard of only in the lunatic ravings of my friend Lucas. (I'm kidding, he's not a lunatic, just Brazilian)

Before you vicariously live through me, here are a couple things about Tigre that might be factual (???).

1. Tigre is in the province of Buenos Aires, I think (maybe?). It had better be, because we're supposed to do paperwork in the international office when we leave the province and that didn't happen, sooooo. Also we probably stayed inside the boundary because Buenos Aires is enormous. It's bigger than the entire country of Uruguay.

2. Tigre has been descibed as "the Venice of Argentina." Its main tourist attraction is a series of canals in the delta of the River Plate. Many of the houses along the canals are only accessible by boat, and each home has a river-address and a particular name (as some people might name their cars).

A two-picture series entitled "Waiting for Rachel to wake up for, like, forever"

Do three chins make me look fat?

"Longing"

 

Anyway, on to the real stuff. Even though Tigre is over an hour away from the city, it can be reached by public bus. For a mere pittance (50 cents) we traveled to Rachel's future home, where she will buy a river shanty and acquire tetanus from climbing around on old ship carcasses. (Oh yeah, she's alive by the way. She should be languishing in bed, dying slowly from The Amoebs, but somehow her immune system overcame the vicious viruses she ingested at the River Plate. I, on the other hand, would never put myself at risk for something so silly like forcibly approaching stray animals to make them adore me.)

Along the river there were many little shops advertising boat cruises, but we are Real Tourists™ so we picked the first one we came to. After paying $7.50 US dollars each for a tour, we had about half an hour to wait before departure. During this time, we met someone who made me question my cat-favoritism.

 

JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS DOG IS MAKING MY HEART HAPPY AND SAD AT THE SAME TIME SHE WAS SO BEAUTIFUUUUUUUUL

 

But cats are still the best sorry bout it

 

 

On our river tour, jocular guide Jorge showed us six rivers and some of the weirdness they had to offer, like:



 

Tigre's version of public transit

Old buildings from, like, the 1920's or something

Rachel taking a selfie #shamefame

A casino converted into an art museum.

An island school, which the students are brought to by SCHOOL BOAT

Weird abandoned houses and boat carcasses

 

This house, encased completely in glass, once belonged to president Sarmiento.

There was a significant number of raised docks that protruded into the river. Many of these homes are accessible ONLY by boat. In a similar fashion, a lot of the houses were on stilts about seven feet above the ground to protect them from frequent flooding.

 

 

 

MOAR ADVENTURE:

Derring-do

"Bathing prohibited. Dangerous waters."

Dangit

 

To sum up, Tigre is so naturally beautiful that it kind of makes my heart hurt (like that dog). Though the day was chilly, it was sunny and thoroughly enjoyable. Rachel is set on returning to Tigre sometime before we go home in July.... she's sorta not joking about desperately wanting to live there. I'm pretty satisfied in the city.

 

Most important pic from the trip:

 

LOLZZZZZZZZ