Stage "Dos"...and some Futbol

Mi primero dia solo...

Today was my first day on my own (stage "dos" of my trip)...and it started out a bit shaky. Since I got to Buenos Aires, my law school friend Jeremy and his wife Betsy have been gracious enough to put me up and take me around. But, they had old friends coming into town (and also have a seemingly endless string of random houseguests--which I guess is what you get for being laid back and living in an exotic part of the world), so I moved to a hostel this morning...in the pouring rain.

I checked into my room and had my first sinking feeling of the trip. It was a room for four and there was someone sleeping (at about 11:45am) in there. He popped up, spoke basically no English, and didn't seem happy to see me, especially once he gathered that my Spanish is, well, limited. I'd been lucky enough to have my own room up until now, and for the first time, I thought, "I'm 30 years old; maybe this staying in hostels thing isn't going to be so sweet after all."

BUT, life steadily improved from there. First, I realized that I was pretty tired (I've already become a genuine BA resident by getting myself into a pattern of going to sleep at 3am) and my biggest concern was that I wouldn't be able to take a nap in a multi-person dorm room. That issue swept aside, I layed down and promptly took a beautiful three hour nap.

When I woke up, I got some lunch and then ended up having a 25 minute conversation entirely in Spanish with a Peruvian archeologist named Hector who laid out all the must-see spots in his home country (pais). Feeling pretty good about myself, I actually figured out how to use the phone card system here.



Are you ready for some...futbol

My luck continued when I returned to my room to find my formerly sleeping and groggy roommate Joel (not pronounced how you think) up and ready to go to his favorite team's futbol match (we had discussed this briefly earlier, but I wasn't sure if he was actually going to wait for me). He's Argentinian, but not from BA.

So, instead of watching my beloved Blue Devils get sent home from the ACC tourney by unranked NC State, I got to see River Plate (Joel's team) lose 1-0 to Caracas F.C. Despite the low score, the game was fun and even getting into the stadium was a bit of an adventure (none of the cops or door people could seem to tell us where we were supposed to enter). The "estadio" holds about 80,000 and was about 3/5 full (many of the sections were closed off, but Joel seemed to think there would have been more people if it hadn't rained all day). There was lots of singing--a tradition that we wholly lack in the good old Estados Unidos.

I forgot to take my camera to the game, so all I can offer is a couple pictures of my ticket and the team's jersey, which Joel owns. Y'all have seen a big soccer stadium on TV anyway, so you pretty much know what it looked like.













As a bonus, here are some pictures of the futbol match I saw in Antigua at a MUCH smaller "stadium." This was the second level league, so almost all of these players have other jobs.













An interesting sidenote: both my current roommate and my host father in Antigua were going to go watch the futbol matches by themselves had I not joined them. It seemed as though Edgar (host father) goes to every game and many by himself. Just seems a bit different from the U.S. where most people won't even go to a movie by themselves (although I enjoy it from time to time--and I never understood the idea of going to a movie as a way of hanging out with a friend, i.e. sitting in the dark near each other for 2 hrs and not talking, but...).


And the Spanish...


Lots of folks have been asking me how the Spanish is coming, and it's a bit complicated. I'm feeling a bit bipolar about it--susceptible to huge swings in confidence. My first day in Buenos Aires was a perfect example. Jeremy was able to get me in to his weekly turf futbol game. So, in a span of 1.5 hours, I got to meet and play futbol with 8 real Argentines. The experience left me depressed. I could barely communicate with them. In a big group setting everyone was talking so fast and I felt pressured and I was basically silent.

After the game, I went out for dinner with Jeremy, his wife Betsy, and their friends Lara (who is a JSD student at Yale) and Pablo (her longtime "novio"). The conversation was 80% in Spanish and I understood 70% of it. Of course, they were terrifically patient with me, spoke slowely, and made sure I understood (and spoke perfect English when it was clear I didn't). But, still, I was following.

Today was similar. I was depressed that I couldn't communicate with my groggy roommate; then heartened when I was able to mostly communicate with Hector the Peruvian archeologist. It turns out my roommate has a thick Argentine accent (which is why Che Guevara was called "che"), so even words I know are sometimes hard to make out...but by the end of the futbol match we were talking about our favorite music and where "las mujeres mas bonitas" are from in Argentina--according to Joel, it's Rosario, not Buenos Aires.

The moral of the story so far seems to be: a) I can basically express myself fairly effectively; b) I can follow a conversation if people are speaking very slowly and mindful of me; c) I'm not ready for prime time, i.e. normal discourse; d) I just need to stick with it and stop speaking English!


One down...


I definitely wanted to see an Argentinian futbol match. In addition, the night before I flew to BA, my friend Tess (see "Mi Vida en Antigua") told me to: Eat the perfect steak; drink the perfect glass of wine; and kiss a beautiful woman.


Got the futbol covered; now I'll get to work on those other three...

From the beginning...

First some context...

I just graduated from law school and decided to push off work for a few months to explore a new part of the world and slay a personal demon: I´ve always been terrible at languages but hate that I only speak English. I have only two major goals for this trip: learn Spanish and take a break from life.

I arrived in Guatemala in 2/13/07 and stayed in Guatemala City for one night. The next day, I headed to Antigua for language school on a crazy re-fabbed school bus known here as a ¨chicken bus¨ (see picture).

I later taught one of my Spanish instructors who is studying English to say ¨The chicken buses are pimped out.¨ Check out this short but hilarious video (of course, this is not as funny as my Spanish must sound to the locals):




For $140/week, I get 3.5 hours of language instruction Mon-Fri, three home-cooked meals a day Mon-Sat, and a room with a Guatemalan family all week...much cheaper than living at home. I've been here for two weeks now--mostly studying Spanish; hanging out with folks from Canada, Sweden, Germany, and the States; and taking weekend excursions which I'll describe in future (shorter, I promise) posts.


Now to explain the name of the blog...

The gringo part is pretty obvious. "Gallo" means rooster in Spanish; it is also the only local Guatemalan beer. Here´s a picture of el gringo y el gallo:


In addition to this happy coincidence, the following story explains why I've chosen this name for my blog:

[2/21/07] I moved houses today...because of a rooster. That's right. I had a perfectly fine setup at my second homestay (the school director had asked me to switch houses previously for an unknown reason)--my own mini-deck, etc. I wasn't crazy about the food or the company--we weren't eating with the family, the conversations amongst us students were a bit awkward; and my friend Corey raved about his set-up in another house. But, I liked being settled and I wouldn't have asked to move (especially since I was living with the co-director of the school--asking to move out could have made things awkward).

Then came the rooster. Starting on Saturday or Sunday morning at 5am I heard what I at first thought was an especially loud (muy ruidoso) and abrasive alarm clock. In definite intervals of 3-4 seconds: KA-KA...KA-KA...KA-KA. It sounded like the alarm clock was in the next room, but I knew I was the only one upstairs, so it must have been in the next house. The next morning, at 5am, off went the alarm. I was exhausted from having returned from El Volcan Pacaya [more on this later] and then foolishly going out drinking afterwards. I had class at 8am and I desperately needed sleep. I couldn't believe that some inconsiderate soul was just letting his/her alarm clock go off.

But this time, the intervals were not definite...and I quickly realized my mistake. Having grown up in the suburbs and lived in cities all my life, I'd never heard...a fucking rooster. Just like a cliche, I was being roused before dawn by a fucking rooster. I was probably the closest sleeping human to the damn bird.

By the time breakfast was served at 7am, I hadn't been back to sleep--and I was not happy. I decided to sleep in and go to school an hour late--but I hadn't paid for the week yet and I got worried that not showing up this particular day would complicate matters unnecessarily, so I couldn't sleep.

I made it to school about 15 minutes late and was exhausted all through my Spanish lesson. The next morning, the rooster struck again and that day I asked about moving houses.

I think I owe the rooster a thank-you note b/c the new family is great, the food is good (a sumptuous fruit plate of pineapple, papaya, banana and yogurt for breakfast, lots of comida tipica--more on this later); I have my own private bathroom (bano)--unheard of in these here parts; and I'm now roommates with my friends Corey (from Santa Barbara) and Carolin (Germany).

Here are Corey, Thekla (top right), and Carolin (bottom right).

And, finally, some self-indulgent philosphizing...

The whole rooster incident tapped into some thoughts I've been having about the philosophy of travel, and of life, really.

It seems to me that enjoying a trip like mine is to a large degree about striking a balance between seeking the best possible experience while remaining focused on and satisfied by the experience you're actually having. I do NOT want to spend my trip wondering if there's a better language school out there; if the house I'm not staying in has better food; if the next town has a better hostel, if the road not taken would have provided the essential, defining moments of my trip.

On the other hand, sometimes it's important to not be satisfied with the situation at hand and to seek a change--however large or small. If it weren't for the rooster, I would have stayed in a place with mediocre food and awkward conversation rather than improving my lot.

This reminds me of a great graduation speech I once read by Barry Schartz, author of Paradox of Choice. His essential point is that for most things in life, "good enough" is good enough. We should be careful about always seeking perfection at the expense of enjoying our lives. He calls this healthy perspective "satisficing."

Of course there are some things for which we should be "maximizers." Perhaps the rooster story shows that I choose to maximize when it comes to sleep. But I think there's a deeper message about social change burried in there somewhere as well. When dealt a lousy hand, we shouldn´t be satisfied with our lot.