sounds of mating cats

The most god awful sound is outside my window at this moment making it VERY difficult for me to concentrate on my spanish class from Bueno, entonces...Mating cats in the patio making sounds that are similar to torturing babies, soulless ghosts searching for peace...it is horrible and I want to throw rocks. OK, I am a cat lover, I will not be throwing rocks, but I hate their sounds and I will never look at cats the same way again after hearing these horrible sounds of lovemaking. I am in a bit of a mood because I am tired and thoroughly drained after teaching a class today and following it with 4 hours of a private spanish class. When you really want to learn something it is incredibly draining because you put all of your attention into what is going on at the moment to try and understand the crazy words being so beautiful slurred together at you. The class 12 is pretty hilarious and right on par with my mood considering David and Jimena are both super cranky and getting frustrated and pissed with each other:
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A donde vas?

It is too cold, I am having one of those "what the f*#k" am I doing in BsAs moments when I could be stretched out on a beach in Thailand drinking cocktails, fire dancing at night, and eating incredible food?!!! AHHHH, Then I remember, when I break it all down to the real purpose, I am here to experience this incredible culture and learn to speak the beautiful spanish. I experienced a frustrating moment today when asking for direction to the art store....sometimes you think you are getting comfortable with the language and then a whole string of nonsense comes out and when it is important like directions, you are screwed. Amazingly enough my spanish class today covered these points, I am just going to watch it over and over on repeat...Lesson 11 was really helpful. AHHH, so cold in this enormous art space, I am wearing boots and my toes are still freezing...but then I think about the children you see in the streets with out shoes and I feel like a total spoiled baby with my abundance of socks, shoes, and complaints. I am going to begin working on a program with a friend to design a class to teach people how to make really simple shoes with very basic materials, often you can find them as scraps by all the leather factories, additionally the fabric stores lay out scraps. 

I have attached the lesson from Bueno, entonces... with the directions, it is helpfull:

fotos!

I love my house! I am living with such wonderful creative people. We had a photo shoot in the house by Romania, who is an incredible photographer and has a wonderful space set up to take professional pictures. I have professional "circus quality" face paint and painted everyones faces and then we dressed up and took pictures. I had a moment looking around with a heart full of happiness when I realized "this is my life". I live in BsAs, paint faces, make art, and play guitar surrounded by wonderful people. MAN, am I blessed! I will hopefully be having some of my friends from San Francisco come to visit soon and will get to show them some local spots. I am going to be heading out tonight to one of my favorite Monday night spots. After "La Bomba De Tiempo" which is a local group of amazing percussionists preforming at a cultural center every monday night to a crowd of hundreds, there is live music at a hostel called "the Clan". This is my favorite hostel in BsAs and I recommend going there if you ever come to visit. They have great live music in the upstairs bar area, there is a mixture of locals and foreigners, and cheap drinks served by wonderful, fun people. My good friend Hacho runs the place and I will be painting a mural there soon as well as preforming when ever I get my set together. My creative inspiration these days seems to be very directed toward Physical art making as opposed to musical art making, and then of course, studying spanish. I had an excellent private spanish class yesterday that was a free intro, and we ended up talking for 5 hours! It was pretty amazing, and yes, my head was definitely exploding. I am hoping between these classes and my Bueno, entonces...spanish learning program I will be comfortably speaking in no time!

what time do you masturbate?

I am becoming a collectivo master! The bus system here is wonderful and ridiculous (much like the city itself). I have tried fairly successfully to avoid using the collectivos because it is hard to figure out where they go, if you are heading the right direction, where to get off, and for that matter what street you are actually on. The drivers move at a break neck speed cutting off bike riders silly enough to brave the streets of BsAs. If you wonder why so many people have a limp around here I would guess it is due to a miscalculated bus swiping on a corner. You really have to look both ways and check the sidewalks for potential oncoming motorcyclists who find it perfectly acceptable to cruise down the side walk. Living in La Boca requires that I become bus savvy and I am proud to say I feel very local rolling around on the busses. My spanish studying is coming along in leaps, and standing frustratingly still. It is very hard to acquire another language without sufficient "book time", and I just do not feel the call to study the 'ol dictionario. So, beside my "sexo en la cuidad" TV series, and the Bueno, entonces...language program, I am picking things up in the streets and through conversations with my housemates. 

As I have mentioned before I do not like learning the numbers in spanish...I should probably stop saying that as it is my own limiting mental state I am manifesting here, but hey...I don't like em. Class 9 does a pretty fun job of teaching "time" and the numbers associated through sex and masturbation, the universal language!

vamos a tomar mate!

I have found the BEST empanadas in BsAs! Well, I make a pretty mean empanada myself...tasty fillo dough esque pastry treats, stuffed with your choice of fillings, typically: carne picante (a lie, there is nothing picante about Argentine cuisine), pollo, humita, verduras, queso azul, jamon y queso...ricisimo! I have found a stand in La Boca that sells these incredible hot from the oven empanadas for 2 pesos each (that is about 50 cents). I could eat 10 a day, with an ice cold cerveza...I better join a gym 

: ) This country is dangerous to my girlish figure. Screw it.

nothing better to follow up some empanada eating then a tasty mate. Mate is a drink (see the foolish photo of Dave above), actually the name for the container (gourd) the tea is drank from. The tea itself is called yerba and is a green woody like substance that is steeped in water and than drank through a metal straw called a bombilla. EVERYBODY drinks mate here. They even have hot water machines in some of the bus stations to refill your container so you can drink mate at all moments during the day...bus drivers cruise the street drinking mate (and yelling love promises at pretty women out the window), construction workers drink it while working, people kickin it on the street...it is one non stop mate party here (maybe this is the secrete behind the non stop libido - this has to be one country where viagra sales are in the red - old men in their 80's will whistle, smile, and look you up and down with an appreciating "que hermosa que sos!) Back to the mate... I like the taste although it takes some getting used to. I lived in a co-op in Berkeley CA with a group of international people, so I have been drinking mate for sometime, but the first taste is a bit intense. Kind of like hot, bitter, tree clippings. Ummm, tasty. Something about it grows on you though (well, it is a drug) and it has a beautiful sharing ceremony associated with it. The mate is filled with yerba and after removing the excess yerba dust (variety of techniques for this trick as well) hot water is slowly poured in so as not to saturate the entire pile of yerba. It is drank hot with the bombilla and once drained, refilled with hot water and passed to someone in the mate circle. This continues around with the same person refilling the mate with water each time. When you don't want any more the customary thing to say is "gracias" and then it will not be passed to you again. Many of my Argentine friends drink mate for breakfast instead of coffee...I wouldn't go that far, but it is a nice after coffee pre beer beverage choice. They do a great job breaking down the mate ceremony in the 8th class for Bueno, entonces...

anarchist pastry

So this is a picture of the fool David. I say that lovingly though, as I tend to call all of my close buddies fool, foolio, or some form of said fooldom. That is the feeling you get when watching Bueno, entonces...is that you definitely know this guy. If I am ever to run into him in the streets of BsAs, we will get along very well - I enjoy his humor. Class 7 is actually one of my favorite so far (do I keep saying that in the posts...no cause I slammed the last one...but I do really like class 7). They introduce alot of useful vocab such as "resaca" (hung over) and do a good job of explaining the difference between "saber and conocer". And my favorite tid bit is that facturas (Argentine breakfast pastry) have anarchist roots. Yup. Names for sweet tasty treats such as "vigilante". Clearly pretty ironic now, much like Che Guevara t shirts, but still interesting non the less. They also go into the story of mate...I love mate! If you look at the inserted photo it is the "bong esque" looking container filled with questionable green material. And yes, it is a drug - kind of like coffee but a smoother ride...

Day 2 in my art collective is wonderful. I stayed up till 2am last night making art in the wide open space with other artists, drinking said mate - and then some : ) I have been practicing a ton of spanish but also nodding convincingly even when I am only kinda sure what is going on.  Dammit, I need to kick this whole spanish thing into gear. It is hard to learn a new language, it is true. I have found a language partner to do some exchange through a program called conversation exchange on the internet. It helps people find others in their area to set up language exchanges. Unfortunately, of course, some sketch balls use it as a dating site (OK, so that wouldn't be above me I admit it...but most of the dude are super sketch!). I fortunately found a super cool girl, and we hang out, drink beer, and practice speaking in each others languages.

La Boca

I am living now in the beautiful barrio of La Boca Buenos Aires with a group of artists and musicians in a great home with a ton of art space. I am super tired today so this blog might be kinda short, been moving all day and setting up my art space, I will post photos soon, it is AMAZING! Everyone here speaks spanish (duh...I am in BsAs - but still, it is easy to make English speaking friends here) so I think this is really going to kick my spanish into high gear...or I am going to feel like quite the fool. Nothing like learning a language and actually have to use it to make you feel like a complete idiot. It is very humbling. Luckily the men here find it charming (I could sit here mute and they would find it charming I think...but if in doubt I just sing em a song on the guitar and ask for help with my spanish...works for me) I do not know HOW guys meet these Argentine women with poor language skills. The ladies here are a tough breed, having had to deal with the Argie guys for so many years, they have a real cold front sometimes (I know I am stereotyping - forgive me). I am a scientist and I tend to make broad statements based on the "observational data" I have collected and statistically grouped.
speaking of math...numbers are very hard for me in spanish and I don't ever study them. I guess that reflects on my general attitude toward money. It has never been a problem for me (not a trust fund kid) it just seems to come into my life when I need it, and disappear somewhere along the way...ANYways, learning numbers in spanish have never been too easy for me so I do appreciate the lessons in Bueno, entonces... regarding lesson 6, instruction was good BUT I found it boring. I am not sure if my brain was just too tired to deal with the lesson or what, but it was not my favorite. We will see how tomorrow goes...