Misadventures of GringoLana in the Global South: life back in buenos aires

Ive been back in buenos aires for a little over a week now. I started Spanish clases last Wednesday, but today will mark the start of my first full week. I tested into Spanish intermediate 2, which is probably not an appropriate level to be studying abroad but fuck em. This week, ill do 3 classes of grammar, and additionally, I signed up for a one-on-one thematic intensive about argentinian politics, history, and sociology; I thought it might be better to start hearing more academic words when I can still ask questions about them, rather than when im in a large lecture.
This weekend I had plans to go Gualeguaychú and celebrate carnival in the only place in argentina that celebrates. Gualeguaychú is right on the border with Uruguay, and is about 4-5 hours north of Buenos aires. However, when I woke up on Saturday morning, I heard about the quake in chile and was too preoccupied with safety/too distraught about cate to leave BA. Also, one of my roommates is from Santiago, which is where her son and family live so I was anxious to talk to her and make sure everything was okay…and yes, everything is okay on all ends.
Later that day, I took the 12 (I am slowly mastering the colectivos) to Palermo for some typical soho shopping. It was shocking how much Palermo reminded me of soho on a beautiful spring day. The most beautiful people, lunching in outdoor resturaunts, smoking cigarettes, having parilla at 3 in the afternoon. palermo was complete overrun by Spanish and Italian tourists, but it was better than shopping alongside gringos at the market in san telmo. Sadly, the stock hadn’t changed since the last time I did a Palermo run, so I mostly people watched in plaza Serrano. At 6:30 I had plans to meet Sam, who never showed. While waiting for him, a street band started to rock out in the streets, and I struck up conversation with the girl next to me. She was originally from italy but has lived in Barcelona for 3 years and works for study abroad programs that US universities use. Nate, if youre reading this, do you use STI? She was flying from Barcelona to Santiago for a wedding, but the earthquake struck mid flight ad they were forced to land in Buenos Aires. What a tense flight that must have been? Youre in the middle of atlantic, drunk on bloody marys, when the flight attendent tells you that theres been a earthquake in your country, the airport is destroyed, and you have no chance of getting in touch with your relatives until you land! She did tell me, however, that the news has been exaggerating the damage a bit, at least in Santiago. There’s destruction, but the majority of the devastation is in Concepción, a city that cate and I spent the night in while we were switching WWOOFING farms. Its weird to know that a place that you’ve so recently visited doesn’t look, and will never again look like it did when you saw it. This girl and I ended up going for beers at my favorite bar in Palermo (I still don’t know the name of it).
In other news, last week I spent the majority of my time with some Israeli girls that I met in bariloche. Israelis are by far one of the most quirky groups of people ive encountered. 1. They’re travelling for so long that they rarely spending money on going out to dinner. Thus, they all carry these cosmetic cases of spices that they use when they cook at hostels- film canisters of oregano, and Kinder eggs of salt..its hilarious. 2. They stay in Israeli hostels…as in, the signs are in Spanish and Hebrew. There are literally so many of them, that theres an entire population of Israeli hostels..and they stay Israeli because theyre not written about in the lonely planet in English, but instead on this website that Israelis use when the travel—like tripadvisor or wikitravel in Hebrew. 3. They don’t speak Spanish. Not a word, and they have no interest in learning. If I sound judgmental, its on purpose. 4. (this is one from one story I heard, but I cant imagine that others are any different) one of the days that the girls were staying with me, I walked them to their friends hostel because it was only a couple blocks away from my school. I said, “you have to visit this museum. Its free on wednesdays. Take this colectivo. Etc….” Later that day we meet up at the house, and I say, “did you make it to the museum?”. “well lana, listen to what happened. So after waiting a very long time for the bus, it finally comes and we get on. We say, ‘we want to go to MALBA’….and then HE COMPLETELY FORGOT TO TELL US WHEN TO GET OFF.” Im not sure if im able to communicate the irony of this story. But to me, it typifies this sense of entitlement that Israelis have. He’s a bus driver, who don’t only has to maneuver the streets of Buenos aires, but is also responsible for making sure that people pay the bus fare. So for them to expect him to remember where they need to get off, and to remind them about it was hysterical to me. Don’t worry, I’ve told all of this to their face- so don’t think im bad mouthing them. They know that this is just how Israelis are.
Those are my thoughts for now.