Monday 28 January 2008

My BA with Ariane!

Yeah well the puke story wasn’t exactly that way, but I don’t want to stick to small details…but as you already noticed this city is a craze and not only in our imagination!
From the burst of mayonnaise (Plaza de Mayo), over very mean grandmas, to “ah me naked” (a menudo). I have the feeling that this was just the beginning of weird stories. Nevertheless I will never understand why Argentineans are so keen on standing in queues, why they always lust for disorganization and mayhem and why bizarre red things are dancing tango in the street. Here you can witness the transformation of a harmless bug into a dangerous bloodsucking cockroach, Mozzarella turns into Muzarella and that’s not only a typing mistake but the whole cheese gets lost in translation. Taxi drivers fall asleep at every red light or simply enjoy an extra ride around the block just to flirt a little bit longer with us (and to make us pay more, of course). Barkeepers are gay, though so fucking sexy. Stairs are there to step on someone else’s drink (mine) (note to Ariane: not to fall down) and sometimes, somehow you find yourself caught in Alfred Hitchkock’s (or Hitchcock … poor guy) “Birds” but whatever happens, there’s always a cute (Italian) guy to rescue us…so it’s simply “hhrrreniallll”!
Do you understand what I mean? … Well, to be continued…

Sandra

Sunday 27 January 2008

Sandra in Buenos Aires

Hey there,
Here a few words, just to fill you in on the present situation. Last Monday Sandra arrived in BA and scored! Saturday at 6 am in the taxi, she turned around, smiled at me drunkenly and croaked: “VENI, VIDI, VINCI” Translation for all of you: She came, saw, and puked…on my foot! Yewwww!!!!!
Well, nevertheless it was worth it and we had a great “silly-face-making-night” (see pics for all of you who have facebook)
Of course, we already had some adventures…honestly, it would be weird if we hadn’t!
First day of her staying, I decided it would be cool to introduce her to the taste of the argentine cuisine. We hailed the bus (yes you have to hail them) got in, paid the ticket and the bus broke down. Welcome to Argentina!!!
Now, how do I explain in Spanish, to the next bus driver, that we don’t wanna pay again, because it was not our fault that the other buses tyre exploded? I mumbled something, incomprehensible and, por suerte, it worked.

Speaking of my Spanish, it all goes quite well, I don’t need to get drunk anymore to speak. But unfortunately, sometimes, I still mess it up. For example, last night at the very fancy restaurant (the one with the cat, where I celebrated my birthday…remember?) I got a bit confused when the very good looking barman turned around and asked me with a big white smile what I wanted to drink.
Honestly, I was just trying to show off with my Spanish and I ended up blabbering with a perfect French accent “Tenes la carta por las tragos?” (correct sentence : “Tenes la carta PARA LOS tragos, por favor”). The guy just looked at me in surprise and started to laugh at me so hard that Cécile and Sandra joined in…hmmmm, I really loooove those moments!

Sandra, on her side, is overwhelmed by the Argentine way of standing in lines. Here, you stand in a line for everything, for the bus, for the train, for the lavatory, etc…And the lines are massive.
Man, I am speaking of a town of 12 million inhabitants…so, just imagine all those people queuing up for everything. Last time we went to the train station and there was the most impressive queue I ever saw. People where lining up, with their suitcases for hundreds and hundreds of metres. So, as we, the two girls from small-town Luxembourg, were veeery impressed, we started walking along that queue to track down its beginning. For what the hell were all those people standing there during hours? Well, what we discovered was beyond every belief, the darkest secret of Buenos Aires. They queued up for…NOTHING. The queue just stopped!!! And again, welcome to Argentina…you definitely have to visit me ;)

Meanwhile, we are having a great blast working on a “Spanish-Luxembourgish-weird-expression-dictionnairy”, that I certainly will continue with Fred (gell, du!!?!!)

So, we still have some fish to fry if we wanna have a few hundred pages.

Cheers and big sweaty hugs

S. & A.