well, i ran around the corner

Dia quatro

Today I focused my observation skills on the sidewalks of Buenos Aires. On my bus ride in, I noted the scrub down they got from shop workers. The debris was swept into the street or into the tree beds in the sidewalk. Many shopkeepers hosed down the area and some even used hard bristol brushes to remove the dirt that had collected.

I also saw many workers wiping down the tall windows that display the shops' goods and polishing the brass doorknobs. Every detail of the store was pristine by 10am leading me to believe that mid morning is the time of day when Buenos Aires gleams. The sun is not too warm, the breeze is not too cold, and the sidewalks smell like café.

As I was walking to the building where my criminal background check for my visa would be, I spied a rat the size of a small football scurrying from the high rise to the shelter of a newsstand. Even the locals were surprised with the appearance of the furry creature.

The sidewalks in Buenos Aires are made of mostly 10x10 blocks of small, square tiles. Some of them are missing, many are cracked, nearly all of them are uneven. This makes walking with a tourist's eye very difficult as when I'm gazing up at a building or into a shop as I'm walking by, I occasionally stumble. I've yet to go down, but it just might happen.

By 4:30pm, I was riding the bus home and noticed that the small flow of water that sometimes runs along the side of the road (it was raining earlier) contained countless cigarette butts and some wrappers. The sidewalk showed many pamphlets and notices that people hand out as advertisements. There were spills and a sticky spot at my bus stop. The peak beauty of the city had definitely passed for the day.

The bus system seems to have little rhyme or reason. Three 39 buses will come in a row. They all stop at the same spot at the same time and take off as if the ones in the back are trying to take the lead. Then there will be an assortment of 5 and 30's that stop by. Then a couple more 39's show up. 15 minutes later, two 67's roll up (that's me). I think about trying to board the less crowded bus, but my want to get home and fear that if I'm lolligagging on the sidewalk, I'll simply be left in the dust. So, I basically just jump on whatever bus is closer.

I have yet to ride the bus alone, which is good, but also does not promote my independence. Or my Spanish skills, which are admittedly still at about a 0.5 out of 10. To pay, you must tell the driver how far you are going on the route so that he or she knows how much to charge you. I have yet to actually say my stops' names. I usually just gesture to the person that went before me and utter a "yo tambien". I'm going to get it though. I have to.

I got a public transportation card this morning and loaded money onto it. Some people use coins, but having a card definitely makes me look like less of a tourist, though I'm sure I still am fairly identifiable. This is not a very diverse city. I've seen a handful of black people and only one man wearing a yamaca. That's not to say that there are 5 black people and one Jewish man in the whole city, but everyone else seems to be of European decent with dark hair. Skin tones tend to be rather light, though I've heard that outside the city, skin tones darken.

My host family prepares a wonderful dinner for me and my housemate every evening. I enjoy fresh salad and bread with a main course that has yet to disappoint me. Tonight's entree was a yellow rice dish that had green beans, peas, red peppers and eggs mixed in. I was finishing up my second helpings when the electricity went off again. Thankfully, this outage didn't last as long, leaving us in the dark only a few minutes. As always, we finished our dinners, cleared the plates and ate fruit together at the table with forks and knives. Today, I had a wonderfully sweet clementine, and Monday I had an apple. Yesterday, I decided to go with a banana y dulche de leche. It was pretty much the best thing I've ever had - an excellent choice. Well, dulche de leche is pretty much always an excellent choice, but this was a particularly good combo.