El colectivo

On Saturday morning, I went and signed up for a gym membership. The gym I decided upon is only about $30 a month but I'm getting what I'm paying for I guess. The other gym I was considering is about 3 times more expensive. Treadmills and bicycles comprised most of the cardio equipment. There was one very old elliptical like machine, but either this gym hasn't bought equipment for years or ellipticals aren't as highly revered as they are in the US. While I was on this elliptical thing and a bike I watched a few episodes of Two and a Half Men with Spanish subtitles; there wasn't any sound anyway. The subtitles from English language shows is a pretty good way to pick up vocab.

Later that afternoon, I met up with two other people in my group to go to Caballito, another neighbor, so complete an assigned photo hunt project. We traveled via el colectivo, the bus. I have been taking the subte because it's faster and goes very close to where I've been needing to go for orientation. I had a good time wandering around Caballito and going to coffee. It's wonderful to know that right now we're just here to orient ourselves to the city and language, so wandering can be considered a productive activity. On our intended trip back to Belgrano, the neighborhood where we live, we apparently got on the 55 bus going in the wrong direction. After following the streets via the Guia-T, it was obvious we were going in the wrong direction. We asked the driver, but he said we could just stay on till the end of the line and then he's turn around. At least that's what we thought he said. About 20 minutes later, he told us to get off the bus and go across the street to the stop for the bus going in the other direction. Mmmm... maybe he needed his smoke break, we weren't really sure why the plan changed. In any case, we ended up in Matadores only about 15 km from the international airport around dusk. Pretty sure that's only of the places we were told to avoid. The neighborhood gets worst as you travel south and west. We just happened to end up in southwest Buenos Aires. We waited and waited for a bus, only to have the bus we needed blow by us. After asking a man at the stop why it didn't stop, we said the buses pay meter was broken. How he knew that, I haven't a clue. Transfers don't exist here, so we had to pay again, using our precious monedas. You have to pay for the buses using coins (the one peso piece is a coin), but the coins are scarce. Every time I buy something at the store, they ask if I have change to bring the difference between the cost and what I gave them closer. Doing this in the US tends to either a)confuse the cashier or b) annoy the people waiting in line. My strategy for collecting coins has been just lying and saying I don't have any. It was working pretty well, but I used 5 one peso pieces in the same day. The 3o minute trip turned into two hours, but I got a very nice tour part of town.

I went out to dinner with a group of students from my program. Saturday dinners aren't covered in our housing. We went to a place that has inexpensive steak. To celebrate this, I got chicken instead. The restaurant was busy and there was a girl who was about 10 wondering around our table, I'm sure just waiting for the loud, trusting Americans to make a mistake. The poverty and begging here present just like other big cities, but that subject is for another post.

I left with a friend Cailey, who lives about 8 blocks from me, around 12:30 to go to a bar and meet up with the people we had gone to dinner with. We took the colectivo again. The bus was so packed the dinner didn't make up pay. The diver drove past a group of 4 boys about my age waiting at a stop. We had been waiting for 30 minutes so they were angry when the driver just drove past them. A 5 block sprint/chasing of the bus followed. The bus eventually stopped to let someone off. The guys hopped on via the side door and were welcomed with cheers. There was an exchanging of word, followed by the guys getting off the bus. As was later explained, the driver told the guys to get off or he was getting off. Hopping on via the side door (rather than the front door) is illegal even if one just sprinted 300 meters on cobble stone streets.

After spending some time at the bar, we headed to a club. When we left at 6:30, we couldn't find a free tax. At least 50 passed but they all had people. I even tried calling but the companies didn't answer. Too many people going home at 7 am and not enough taxis! Cailey and I then found a bus that went to our neighborhood. I got home around 7:30 and slept till noon, with hour and a half this afternoon.

I went to the grocery store this afternoon, buying almost 100 pesos worth of food for lunches and other things like laundry detergent. I got a one peso coin in change though! I still need to find a reliable source of monedas nonetheless.

I don't need to be at orientation till 12 tomorrow, but I think I should get to sleep to make up for a few hours of sleep that were sacrificed over the weekend.