Spanglish

July 6

Now that Lindsay and I have settled in to our apartment, we've come to know its many quirks. For example, the elevator has two gates that you must open manually and then close when you get off the elevator at your floor, if you don't close the gates, the elevator won't move, so for the first few days, people below (unable to call the elevator to the ground floor because it was stuck on our floor) would yell up the stairwell to close the door. Fortunately, we now no longer need the reminders. Also, one of the two elevators doesn't move when we press our floor, so we press our floor and the one above if we ever have to take that elevator. The locks have old-school keys that take a good amount of muscle and finagling to get to unlock. More than once while entering or leaving the apartment building (you have to unlock the door whether you're coming or going), another resident has offered to unlock the door for us after watching us struggle for twenty seconds or so. The two locks on our apartment door are similarly tricky, but we pretty much have it down by now. Our shower is great: really high water pressure and it gets super hot. I have yet to run out of hot water during a shower, although I assume it's only a matter of time. I've also gotten quite used to the closet kitchen; it feels a little like being back in the little galley on a sailboat!

We stopped by a pharmacy for the first time today. Like in Spain, they are everywhere, and like in Spain, they are clearly labeled and easy to spot. But unlike Spain, where the pharmacies had just medication and maybe some face creams or other nice cosmetics, the main chain of pharmacies here, Farmacity, is a lot like a CVS, right down to the grouping of products in the aisles. 

I mentioned our preview of Spanglish, the speed dating for language practice events, in an earlier blog. Tonight, Lindsay and I went to our first night of work at Spanglish. After looking at our CVs, the event coordinator decided that I stead of being "slang slingers", people who teach slang and English expressions to Spanish-speakers at the events, that we would be great for people to practice their advanced English, especially "intelligent conversation" as she put it. So, we were set up at tables and for ten minutes at a time we would talk to one or two of the event attendees who wanted to practice something other than basic conversational English. The event lasted for two hours, and it was really fun! I got to talk to a ton of interesting people living in Buenos Aires, got some great recommendations for things to do while we're here, and Lindsay and I were even invited to coffee by an very sweet older woman who was very excited that we wanted to learn tango. We don't get paid much, but considering that we just sit and chat with locals in a bar for two hours and eat free pizza, it's a pretty good deal. If you want a little more details on Spanglish, check out their website or Facebook (Linds and I are in a post!):

https://www.facebook.com/SpanglishBuenosAires

https://www.spanglishexchange.com/