mood: unsure
music: bloc party - i still remember

*just a warning. this one´s gonna be long. and the first part is going to seem unnecessarily whiny and pessimistic. i say first part, because i will undoubtedly get lazy halfway through and make this into two posts. so. yes. here we go...


at least i´ve figured it out now. i get it. my beef with buenos aires.

i was supposed to spend my entire senior year in paris, france. i was going to relive that olympianesque glory of summer 2005 - the memories of aix-en-provence still going strong and forcing me to laugh at what an incredible and incredibly ludicrous experience that was. and as one memory always leads to another, i would think of the absolutely ridiculous and most unbelievable adventures in roma and sicily with anita; the jolly good times of high tea and rogue cricket games and absinthe in oxford with bill robinson.

and certainly without fail i would have fondly remembered my first trip to paris directly following aix. how terrifying and liberating it was to be on my own in that (for lack of a better and less histronic description) magical city which has always (and very strangely) felt completely like home to me. and the excitement of finding that elise happened to be there, too. the unhurried days of meeting at random metro stops and wandering aimlessly through whichever rendissement we happened to find ourselves in. no clue as to where or how we would get from a to be -- simply trusting in the guidance of the ¨white man¨ who dictated when and in which direction we would go at each corner.

even if i had done nothing at all outside of the limits of the city it would have been intensely amazing. oh, to have perfected my mastery of the french language...it would have been lovely. and comfortingly familiar. which is precisely why i scrapped the entire plan (in addition to some family emergencies which came into play at the end of last summer). i saw that this was something which was safe for me. i wanted to push myself, to experience a culture wholly different from my own. and as such, france seemed less and less like the right choice for me in that moment.

given my interests and studies at the time, south america seemed a perfect fit for me. the only problem was that i didn´t speak any spanish. none. and buenos aires was the only program that i knew of in which i could get away with going to a place without having any discernable skills with the native language. after some careful deliberation, i thought this would be a fabulous alternative.

then came the word of mouth...buenos aires is incredible. you´ll love it there. good god i can´t believe you´re going to argentina -- it´s going to blow your mind... and then when i heard this was the paris of south america, i developed an irresistable idea of a place which blended classic european elements with the more exotic and, well, ¨sexy¨ elements we tend to believe are typical of latin american cultures. i had visions of grandeur - of streets which overflowed with culture. of new people and experiences. i imagined a tropical paradise - not in the idyllic sense which we so often see rendered in paintings or depicted in the jamaican travel agencies, but in the sense that the physical setting would at least involve a significantly larger amount of greenery than i was used to and the cultural setting would be so multifaceted and rich that every moment, nearly every breath would certainly be occupied with my attempts to take eveyrthing in.

but that is not what buenos aires is about. i know this will be almost impossible to believe, but this city is almost entirely devoid of culture with the exception of the rich culture of tango, the interesting histories of the barrios of la bocca and san telmo, and a handful of other things. porteños (those born and raised in buenos aires) spend a great deal of time chatting themselves up about how cultured they are and how much culture the city has, but fail to live up to their empty promises.

it´s terribly confusing. in the united states, the forced transculturation between slaves, european and asian immigrants, and hispanic populations (and of course others as time progressed) gave birth to a culture (and indeed an entire slew of distinct subcultures) which are peculiar to our country. argentina experienced mildly similar patterns of immigration, and yet the total opposite happened. it turns out that all of fantasies about what south america would be happen to be true in other places (especially places such as venezuela or the carribean). just not here.

turns out, in argentina´s case all of the magic is in the countryside. those porteños willing to be completely honest with me have admitted this time and time again. the charming and seductive areas near the andes mountains to the west, the sleepy and tranquil cities near the lake district to the southwest, or the simply breathtaking areas such as the waterfalls to the north or the glaciers and the (literally) end of the world in the far south. but once again, i reiterate. that is not here. and here is where i am.

unfortunately, i do not have the kind of money that some of the others in the program have access to and i have not had the ability to travel. i hear about all of these incredibly experiences people are having, and that makes me terribly jealous. i know the whole bit about being grateful to be here at all... (and i certainly hate the amount of complaining i´m indulging in at this moment -- but these are my real sentiments, my honest frustrations) but i would be lying if i said it didn´t add a touch of insult to injury when i realize that for all of my intense desire, hard work, and noble intentions (no seriously. all of that idealistic junk about wanting to experience a typically marginalized culture...you know the drill. that was me. whereas so many other people in my program have demonstrated little more than the desire to be drunk in another country and THEY are the ones who are, for lack of a better expression, having my amazing experiences) something as superficial as money is preventing me from really having an authentic argentinian experience. because if you really want to get right down to the heart of the matter -- and i know how shitty and pretentious this is going to sound -- i worked my ass off, so incredibly fucking hard, to be able to have this unforgettable experience and i truly feel like i deserve it a whole hell of a lot more than some of the other assholes here.

there. it´s been said.

so yes. there is no culture in buenos aires. those of you who have said you´re jealous -- please don´t be. you´re not missing anything. the only thing that´s different about this city is that there´s a little more spanish every once in a while.

however, lacking a true sense of culture is the only thing i can hold buenos aires accountable for. and this is only one tiny, nominal element which has made this trip so incredibly difficult for me. the rest of it comes from my own bag of tricks. my insecurities. my neuroses. my crazy. and i will own them -- own up to them. for the first time. which i can very literally equate with opening a pandora´s box of issues.


[...and this is where that aforementioned laziness kicks in.]