Cultural Differences

When I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I was told to wait in the main terminal for a driver to bring me to my hotel. While waiting I saw a police officer dressed in full body armor. He had a large gun and multiple sticks, which I was sure he could use to beat me down in a moments notice. He walked past me in a slow stagger towards another officer of a similar height and complexion. This second officer had a tattoo on his neck and wore glasses straight out of the Matrix. As the two men neared each other, they looked at each other in a masculine way, and then all of a sudden, gave each other a kiss on the cheek.

Shocked at first by this interaction, I was soon to learn that kissing was just a way of life here. I got to my hotel, and my administrators gave me a kiss on the cheek. I got to my home a few days later and my host mom practically picked me up and launched a kiss at my cheek. A month later, I showed up for my second basketball practice, and was shocked to find a teammate sending me a kiss after I entered. This is just the way it is here. And after I got over the initial shock, it was actually a nice gesture.

This is just one of the many cultural differences that I have encountered while being here. What I’ve found to be the solution is to think with an open mind, and embrace whatever comes my way. Fighting it, and trying to stick to U.S. traditions will just make things harder.

Another cultural difference I noted the first day of school was clothing. In general, Argentines dress better than people from the U.S. On the first day, I show up with one of my friends from the program, and as we run down the steps, a security guard flags us down with a yell in our direction. As we turn around, we see a man pointing at my friend yelling, “No podés entrar sin pantelones y zapatos.” My friend who was wearing shorts and sandals was breaking a dress code we had no idea about.

Beyond these defined rules though, there was also a norm of dressing well. To this day, I’ve still never seen an Argentine wearing sweatpants. They hardly ever wear sneakers and they rarely even wear T-shirts that aren’t expensive and trendy. The average man wears designer jeans, tight button up shirts, and enough gel in their hair to appear as if there is no gel. The average woman wears tight jeans of every color, but the traditional ones, and high-top boots. After a few days dressed in the GW attire of Jeans and a T-shirt, I made the change to button ups and blazers at school. It’ll be nice to return to GW, and show up to class in shorts, sandals and a hoody.

Another cultural difference, that I’ve wrote about a little bit in past entries, is the culture of coffee and dining.  On one of our first nights in Buenos Aires, my program and I went to a restaurant with our administrator, Marcelo. We ate plate after plate of delicious meat for more than an hour and a half, and when we were all prepared to then pay the bill and go, as we would in the U.S., we were shocked to see Marcelo just sitting at the table calmly, demonstrating no signs of expecting to leave. We drank some more wine, and sat for another half hour for so, and then he asked if we wanted coffee and desert. Obviously not turning this down, I ordered a Café con Leche and a desert. In total, we sat there, for way more than three hours. I would learn that this is the norm in Argentine dining. They enjoy dining for the experience, and making a night of it. Granted, Argentina is a developed nation with McDonalds Burger Kings and TV dinners, but on average, the norm is to enjoy a long dining experience.

The coffee places follow the same logic. When you order a coffee here, it comes in a tiny cup, which you are meant to drink with friends in the café. Expecting the same type of service I get in U.S. venues, I was at first upset that I couldn’t just grab a coffee on the go. Although, Buenos Aires still has many Starbucks cafés, which can provide this service, the majority of the other places, find the practice of “café para llevar” or coffee to go, to be an odd concept.

As with the kissing and the clothing, this cultural difference was best dealt with when I embraced it as well. Once I opened my mind to the change, I started to appreciate the new way of dining. When I sit down and have a coffee with a friend, even for just five minutes, it is a much more satisfying experience, than simply grabbing a coffee on the way to work like we do in the U.S.

These are just three of the many cultural differences I’ve encountered here in Buenos Aires. Many of them, I’m definitely going to be bringing back with me to the U.S.

Top Three Local Businesses

Buenos Aires is home to many of the traditional international stores and restaurants from around the world. From McDonalds and Burger King to Starbucks and Fridays, you can find many of these institutions present. What makes the city most interesting though, are the distinctly Argentine “tiendas” that you can’t find anywhere else. When asked to name the top three of these small Porteño stores, I have a plethora of places fill my mind. Supreme amongst these three though are the local markets, the Parillas and the restaurants with live music and dancing.

The local markets of Buenos Aires are truly unparalleled by anything in the United States. These events, usually just on Sundays, are tremendous gatherings of local jewelers, artists, photographers, junk-vendors, farmers and musicians. All of them get there early in the morning, and line the tables with colored cloth and fill the sides of the wooden tables with various ropes and designs to draw people in. They then unload their product in neat, filed lines so that passerbys can see the items.

Walking down these narrow pathways, I’ve seen a lot of beautiful artfully designed products. I’ve also seen a lot of crap. I’ve seen delicately, hand crafted maté glasses and I’ve seen weak, mass-produced cups with cracking wooden sides. I’ve touched soft purses of shiny, smooth leather, and I’ve felt hanging bags of rough, fake furs. I’ve seen sparkling necklaces of silver and gold chains, and I’ve seen bulky, ugly bracelets of hideous bland rocks of plastic. It’s a peculiar mix between a wonderful artesian fair of beauty and a tacky, touristy center of junk.

One of the best of these markets is in San Telmo, the oldest, most historic part of the city. In this region of the city, there is a large center full of markets. When I first went there, the warm air was rich with the smell of sweet nuts being cooked in a sugar sauce by local vendors. It was loud, as the sound of acoustic guitar filled my ear drums. I walked toward the source of this music and found a pair of guitarists playing with a hat in front of them and a set of Tango dancers behind them. The male dancer had a thin beard traveling from his chin to the tip of his ears and he wore a fancy suit with pin stripes and a silver pocket square. His suit was finished off by a pair of fly, black shoes and a top hat.

In his hands, he twirled a woman, in a bright red dress, around his back, and she elegantly flipped back over on her feet. As the two glided across the small wooden stage, tourists flashed their cameras and vendors looked on with boredom at the everyday activity going on. As I walked past the hundreds of vendors in the area, I felt myself immersed in the wonderful stone pathways.

The food of these markets were always cheap and tasty, but they don’t compare to another set of local businesses in Buenos Aires: Las Parillas. These restaurants, which translate to steakhouses in English, are home to traditional fine dining of amazing meat. There are hundreds of these parillas in the city, and I plan to get as many of them as I can before I leave.

Last week, I went to one called “Estrebe” in Recoletta with my parents. My parents who were visiting for two weeks, were ready to try the scrumptious Argentine beef I had been telling them about for so long. We walked in, and were greeted by a waiter, dressed in the traditional Argentine outfit, with a pointed black hat. He placed us down at a sturdy, wooden table in the corner where there were tall, bright candles and three thick menus placed in front of each of our shiny, white plates. We didn’t get bread until nearly twenty minutes in, and my dad was already growing unsure of the place that took so long to deliver what Bertuccis could, in just a moment. That all changed when the meals came soon after.

The steaks were so juicy and tender, that it melted in our mouths, and the Malbec wines were amazing, neither too dry nor too sweet. When the meal was over, and we were paying the check, my parents agreed. There is nothing better than a parilla in Argentina. I have grown an addiction to red meat while being here. While in Uruguay this weekend, I visited a restaurant that oddly had no red meet, and I felt lost and confused. Unable to order a juicy lomo, the tender bife de chorizo, or even a hamburger, I ordered some fish. As I chowed it down, I started to miss the Argentine meat that has defined the past couple months that I’ve been here. It was at this moment, that I realized that I’d be in some trouble when I go home to the United States. It suddenly occurred to me that the GW Deli and FoBoGro just aren’t gonna cut it anymore once I get back. At least I will lose some weight though.

The last of the local establishments I’ve grown to love here are those that are home to live music and shows. These are all over the city, but to find the best ones, we must return back to San Telmo. While here, I’ve seen shows of Tango, Flamenco, Rock N’ Roll, and classical acoustic guitar. These shows that usually start at around 10:30 at night are meant to be background noise that you can calmly enjoy while eating food with friends and family.

The Tango show, I saw in an upscale restaurant by the old streets of San Telmo, was amazing. Four men, wearing the same classy suits matched up with four women, wearing long, red dresses and high heels. They were accompanied on stage by two older singers. Behind them were five musicians playing piano, accordian, a bass, and two violins. The music and the dancing was incredible. Then, a man with darker skin and long, black hair entered the stage. The larger man, who already had his eyes passionately closed had in his hands a small, traditional guitar, that looked like a mandolin. He peacefully strummed in violent strokes that filled the room with piercing, soothing tones. After a few minutes, another man entered the stage, holding two long whips and dressed in full Gaucho (cowboy) attire.  The whips had small, hard surfaced rocks on the bottom, and as they banged against the ground, it created a loud beat. He started to twirl the whips to his side, faster and faster, until the stage was suddenly filled with a complicated beat. As he banged them on the ground, along side six other musicians, the crowd cheered and raised their glasses.

Shows are not always this fancy, but all around the city, events like this can be found. There are restaurants with live music in the US, but they are not nearly as common and they are rarely of such traditional music as Tango or Flamenco. Not to mention, the wine is never as good!

Mar del Plata

I felt like I was lying in a pillow-coated, oven paradise. Lying on a small, white towel, I stole from the hostel, I put my head back on the soft, grainy sand, and listened to the sound of the rocking waves. I took in a deep breathe of the clean beach air, and closed my eyes, falling asleep to the sound of seagulls and men yelling “Churros!”

I awoke not too much later with redder skin, and a calmer sense of the world. I was in Mar del Plata, a wonderful beach town to the South of Buenos Aires, and I was starting to get accustomed to the pleasant lifestyle.

I left Buenos Aires at 2:00 a.m. on the Saturday of the long weekend, and didn’t look back. Five hours, three Alfajores (Argentine cookies), and one drunken passenger later, I was at Mar del Plata, and I was excited to get to the beach.

First I had to drop my bag off at the hostel. This temporary home, the Quercus Hostel, was a quaint little building in a quiet, suburban part of the town. Owned by a lovely elderly woman and her son, the hostel was home to countless international students at the nearby university, who hailed from countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia.

Nobody spoke English. Travelling alone, I was forced to communicate entirely in Spanish, and I liked it. Despite being tripped up by the occasional Mexican slang-word, or the rapid paced jabbering of the Colombians, I found my self fully capable of speaking to them, and it felt good to know I could interact with someone from another part of the world.

After a couple cups of coffee, I then jumped on a bus for the beach. Looking around on the packed bus, I realized something. I was surrounded entirely by college students and the elderly. These two groups, almost exclusively dominated the population of Mar del Plata. After thinking about it, the two seemingly different groups, actually have a relatively similar goal in life. Separated from the real stresses of life, the fortunate college student and the retired old people have relaxation and enjoyment as their top priorities. With this in mind, it suddenly made sense why these two populated such a peaceful, wonderful place.

When I got off the bus at the beach, the first thing I noticed was the elephant. Standing tall and large, the elephant was next to a giraffe, three monkeys, two cavemen, and a man on a computer. Together they made up a large ceramic statue in the center of the town. What I didn’t know was that they would later be engulfed in a blazing bonfire. More on that later.

The second thing I noticed was the large casino that stood in the center of the Miami-like boulevard that sat in front of the beautiful ocean. It would be the next day that I would enter that building to play a little roulette. Standing by my table, 100 pesos of chips in hand, I was surrounded by an interesting group of Argentines. To my left was a little old lady, who was aggressively pushing me out of the way so that she could get to the number, that she just knew would win. To my right was a tall man in a suit who was using the “place chips on every single spot technique.”

As for me, I did the same thing every single round. I would place one chip on 13 (my favorite number) and one on 31.  Each time, the ball spun around the circling wheel of fate, the entire group would watch with suspense and hope. “No más,” the man would say, and the bets would stop as the ball came to a tumbling finish. The first spin landed. “29, negro,” he yelled. The majority of the people gave out a frustrated sigh. One mischievous little old lady let out a shout, and collected her winnings, as everyone glared at her angrily.

A few rounds later though, that ball did land on 31, and I collected my first round of winnings. A few more rounds later, it hit 13. Two after that, it hit 13 again. And then 13 a third time. Soon enough, I reached in my pocket, and found 500 pesos of profit. Holding my money in hand, I felt the old ladies staring at me with resentment and anger. I collected my winnings and celebrated with an expensive bottle of wine.

Outside the casino was a large skate park where Argentines from ages 4 to 40 were skating around, doing spins off large ramps and grinding down poles. Beyond that park, was a market that lined the side of the beach. This traditional market had everything you could imagine from maté glasses to shot glasses to scarves. On the beach itself, red, leathery old ladies could be seen relaxing on beach chairs with oversized glasses over their eyes. Children could be seen running through the freezing cold ocean waves as young couples quietly laid together reading or talking. Shouts for “agua” or “Churros” could be heard from all directions as men walked through the beach with food that smelled amazing. Every where you turned, African men would jump in front of you with boxes full of crappy jewelry as shiny as they were fake. 

For three days my life was nothing but sitting on the beach and visiting the casino. On the final night, there was a holiday, dedicated to the memory of the war for the Malvinas Islands, the disputed land by Argentina, currently owned by the British. This island has been the source of a lot of anger from Argentines, who are upset with England’s possession of the oil-strong island close to the Argentine coastline. In Mar del Plata this holiday coincided with another one, which celebrated the end of all that is bad in life. This is where the elephant comes in.

To celebrate this transition away from all that is negative in life, the city gathers in the center square to join together in a unified bonfire. After watching an impressive show of fireworks, a man with a torch lit some firecrackers that headed for the statue of the before mentioned animals. Each of these statues represented something wrong with society, and as each of these symbolic manifestations of evil crumbled, people cheered in joy and sang out the Argentine national anthem. Red smoke sifted through the sky, and the bright fire filled up camera rolls from all directions. I took a picture and felt connected to the country more than I had ever felt before.

As I got onto the bus to go back to Buenos Aires the next day, I felt renewed. Calm and relaxed from my trip, I lied down on the comfy bus seat, and closed my eyes. Thoughts of that burning statue filled my mind, and I felt sure that I too would have all the bad things in my life disappear as well. With thicker pockets, a fuller stomach, and a calmer soul I drifted to sleep.