Buenos Aires (part 3)

Sat 19th: I slept early, and woke up at 6am! I blogged, then had breakfast. I had a very interesting discussion with a Argentine guy in the hostel. He was visiting the city to take an entrepreneurship course, and visit a girl who works at the hostel. We talked about relationships, a key part of any culture, in addition to being a personal interest of mine. I thought his experiences spanned the spectrum! He was hurt/negative about his previous relationship, which lasted quite a few years I recall. He felt controlled by this girlfriend, and worn down by her persistent talking. I said, bluntly, that Latin American is seen as more male-dominated on average, relative to certain other countries in the world (my guidebook describes "the often macho Latin culture"). What did he think? He thought this has been true, but is also changing. On the other side of the spectrum, his dad was violent towards him and his sibling(s). He liked the girl in the hostel because she was bubbly, a nice person, and good looking.

I walked to the address of an Adventist church I found on the internet, but there was nothing there. In the supermarket, I had what I consider my first conversation in Spanish! I was very excited and buzzed about this. A man, a fellow shopper, stopped and spoke to me after he heard my accent. I managed to convey some basic travel plans, as well as my name, age, and country; in extremely stilted and limited Spanish. He was a gifted and patient communicator, assisting me to express myself, for instance when I could recall the words for "day" and "year" but not "week" nor "month", we managed to fill in the gaps. A Bolivian woman who worked in the shop also talked to me, but this was less successful. I said I had a Bolivian in the family, but could not communicate any more details on that matter.

A Western journalist, whose name I won´t mention, arrived in the afternoon. He was tired, stressed, and smelly. He said he´d been robbed on a bus trip, had not slept, and had been walking around all morning trying to find a hostel. He said his bank would send a new card on Wednesday, and he would pay then. Pablo, a co-owner of the hostel, let him stay. We had some very interesting conversations; more on him later.

At night I hung out at the hostel with some Latins, including a guy who worked at the hostel, his very attractive friend who played drums (surprisingly!) in their band (both had superb English, and she had lived in Cambridge and almost studied there), a Chilean man with a party-type personality who spoke no English, and Nicholas. I had a great time hanging out with them, drinking the local popular beer Isenbeck. The girl´s uncle had "disappeared" (taken by the authorities) during the political dramas of the 1970s(?) After the others left, Nicholas and I kept talking. He, I understand from his limited English, fixed bikes for professional cyclists. He worked hard, 60 hours a week, and had first worked at the age of 11. He was a good bloke, despite having had a difficult life in many ways. His English deteriorated as the night went on :-), while my respect for him grew. He wanted to have a family, an interesting statement for someone 21(?) or so, and I felt humbled by his poor background.