Jaywalkers Unite!

If jaywalking were an Olympic sport, Buenos Aires is where they would train. And my friends (ahem...) think that I cross streets like a mad woman. Porteños jaywalk like it is going out of style. Except that obviously they would never subscribe to anything going out of style. Old people, young people, families with children, people with strollers, everyone jaywalks. If traffic slows to under 10 mph or the vehicle is a half a block away, the street is fair game. The other day I saw two guys blithely walk across 6 lanes of traffic. Blithely. That is not to say that BA is not a pedestrian friendly city. I can cross Avenida 9 de julio (the widest street in the world, or so they tell you here, either way, 12 lanes of traffic is impressive) and the streets that run parallel on either side in two lights. That is 18 lanes of traffic; you can barely get from the Macalester side of Snelling to the Jamba Juice without the little red man blinking a warning at you. In Buenos Aires the street is for the pedestrians, and the cars merely borrow the space.

For some bizarre reason I have always wanted to live in an apartment. I can't pinpoint exactly why, but there was just something that always seemed a little romantic about apartment living. This morning when I was awoken by the tap-tap-tap...... tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap .....tap-tap of the neighbors next door who must be doing some remodeling, romance was not in the air. Romance is also not in the air when a phone rings somewhere in the building and I wonder if I should answer it. However, at this very moment I am sitting in front of my window looking out at what is really a glorified air shaft (maybe 5 meters across) and can see (and hear) an animated dinner discussion involving much gesturing. It is set to the soundtrack of an obviously inexperienced sax, trumpet, and trombone trio practicing "Summertime and the Living is Easy" somewhere above me. At this very moment, the romance of apartment living is clear.

We are beginning the universidad portion of orientación this week which means we are touring the 4 universidades that we can choose to take classes in, and we are even registering for some. Thankfully, we have been assigned our "tutors", which happens to be a false cognate. En castellano "tutor" means something akin to academic adviser. I have been assigned to Diego. He is gorgeous in that smart, grown-up skater boy sort of way that Pan Adam seems to have mastered. He also happens to be one of the COPA staff members who is there to help students with literature questions. I foresee myself having lots of questions. There are downsides to his attractiveness though. Usually I can multi-task pretty well; for example, I can stare at someone and understand what they are saying at the same time. Apparently this is not the case when they are speaking Spanish. I missed probably 5-7 minutes of his lecture yesterday; fortunately, it was about a university I will not be attending... at least I'm guessing it was. ;-)

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I just taught my host mom the phrase "channeling surfing" complete with surf movements and everything. If she doesn't think I am crazy, the neighbors across the street probably do.

Also, the photo is from the barrio of San Telmo (where we had our steak dinner). It is just a regular pharmacy, but I think the name is marvelous. Pharmacy of the Stars. Cultural Fact: the art of sign painting originated with Sicillian immigrants and is called filete from the Italian filetto, which means a strip that separates moldings.

p.s. I just learned that Gustavo used to play professional basketball.... Seriously? Seriously?! I feel like it is entirely possible that my host mother is a figment of my imagination.