First day of school...

After about a week of completely pathetic Spanish/Castellano-spazzing, we are now taking lessons at a place called eLeBaires with a lovely team of super-friendly teachers. They are great! They have trouble not kissing their students constantly. It is really a wonder that any teaching happens at all, considering how much kissing goes on.

When the lips were finally put away, we got down to business, Jen in a class with one other person (a dude from Montreal actually), and I in a class with two others (a South Korean student, and a New Mexican writer spending most of his time in Ecuador, particularly the Galapagos).

I followed the logical aspects of todays lesson perfectly. The problem is that I don't actually know any words in Spanish. At any rate, there was a lot of good conversation, and I learned the important difference between.... that one thing... imperfecto... and the other thing. And the difference is... one is either used to describe... things... that only happen once, but are habitual... or something. So I'm basically a total expert, and I'm tempted to stop taking lessons so that I can concentrate on the very fine points of cutting-edge Spanish literature research.

Jen liked her lesson; she actually knows words, and can use them, strung together, to make her thoughts known to other humans.

In the last couple of days, we've taken in some fun things. There's a summer arts festival happening right now, put on by the municipal government of BsAs. They call themselves gobBsAs. The first night we saw an eight-piece band featuring the dulcet tones of the Theramin juxtaposed with 350-pound near-ex soprano voice wailing her fool head off. It was really cool, actually. Best described as a dog's breakfast; no rehearsal could have happened, and playing in tune, especially Theramin vs. Soprano, was very optional. And yet, in spite of all this, it was really cool.

The second show was even more hilarious. We thought we were walking only a couple of blocks to a park behind the Planetario Galileo Galilei. A couple of blocks became a 7km pilgrimage with about fifty stoner kids through a mess of parkland and highways. It was a real test of our staying power; we didn't know where we were going, how far away it was, or what music we might find once we got there. We only had the name of the guy/band to keep the hope alive: Catupecu Machu.

Our pilgrim numbers were made strong by multitudes of tributary person-flows. Then, over the horizon, the lighted temple arose. There were about 100,000 people singing along with Catupecu Machu, from young rockers and misunderstood middle-aged people to pregnant ladies. It was something else. Everyone knew what was going on but us. The closest North American analogue we could come up with was Pearl Jam; a really huge band that appealed to troubled youth about 10 years ago, but are now extremely rich and bald, and no longer have any cause to be angry (or bald).

So that was interesting... We made it back to a local bar in time to watch the last half of a very famous Argentine football rivalry in full effect: Boca Juniors vs. River Plate. As far as we could tell, this was only a summer tournament, featuring mostly drunken bums, 13-year-old future superstars, and skinny no-talent losers. River Plate beat the crap out of Boca, 3-0. The fact that the players and crowd did not erupt into any sort of violence during or after the game was the clearest indication that the game was meaningless. But it was great to watch people in the bar react to game highlights. There was much pointing and laughing at Boca fans. We weren't cheering for either team, but at one point I did gasp in amazement at a very tasty passing play executed by River, and Jen told me I should be careful.

A couple of weird things about Argentina to report:

• All four wheels on grocery carts rotate freely. Think about that...
• People don't pick up after their pooches. Or poopches, as I call them. Or crapches, as Jen calls them.
  
• Parakeets rule the streets.
• Suzuki makes telephones. We are fortunate to own a GSX-P750RR. Top speed: 272 km/h.

We went back to San Telmo and checked out the flea market. It was great! Huge. We didn't buy anything. We don't really need... uh... any crap. For example, see the photo of the thousands of tiny toys. Can you see Chewbacca's head? To be fair, there was some great art and some nice vintage watches. I am very tempted by some square-faced automatic Omega Constellations (whatever those are... but they seem cheap).

And, as bonus material, here is a picture of a Czech motorcycle for Francis, Jonny, and Paula.