Miercoles, Dia Cinco

(Originally 'posted' on 12/17/08)

Buenos dias!

Well, I’m going on day 5 in Buenos Aires, and I feel like I’ve been here WAY longer – it’s a pretty incredible City and I’ve spent much of the last few days working and in meetings learning about how business (specifically real estate) is conducted; things are certainly different from the states, and I can certainly understand the hesitancy of American companies working/investing down here...

It’s amazing how small the business community is in the world, as I was attending a meeting yesterday with a prominent architect discussing a few potential deals I am trying to assemble, and when he took at my resume, his eyes lit up (not because of how amazing I am, haha) because he had just met a few people from my last company about one month ago at a South American Investment Conference. Sure enough, a few minutes later, his assistant whips out the business cards of two former Gettys colleagues... What?! Really?! I promptly put on that filter in my brain before I said anything and simply smiled and laughed at the coincidence... Ha! On the good note, at least he knows I’m not necessarily a dummy, unless he thinks less of me as a result of the people I was with at the meeting...

Work aside, my Spanish is progressing my leaps and bounds with each day, as I am really trying to speak as much Castallano (the dialect of Spanish spoken across Argentina) as possible. I have found there to be pronunciation challenges with specific words, such as ‘celular,’ as the use of the mouth and tongue in combination is different in Spanish than in English, so it’s a matter of retraining my mouth how to talk – similar to Asian languages using the letter ‘r’ because the sound it makes in English does not exist in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (among others). There are also phrases, such as ‘tiro al arco,’ which means a shot at goal (any sport where this is applicable, not just soccer), so I try and practice them aloud when I’m in the privacy of my apartment – I’m not really interested in people thinking I’m crazy walking the streets repeating words and phrases; probably not a good idea for me to be considered the crazy gringo, ha!

One thing is for sure – Latin Time really does have a definition! I am also under the impression that Argentina is actually a verb: to Argentina. What I really like about it is that I end up being the guy who is always on time for things, which makes the Shindler gene that so often proves to put us behind schedule, namely my sister and I, a perfect fit for Latin America – I knew there was a reason that I picked Buenos Aires!! If someone says he/she is on their way, it means he/she is leaving in 30-45 minutes, and if he/she suggests a meeting time, it’s at least one hour thereafter. My dad would be proud of how annoyed I’ve gotten waiting around, as he’s always been the one to be timely, but I’m learning and will probably fall back to my old ways and just be on Latin Time from here on out... However, this does not apply to business meetings, as people generally seem to be on time for ‘important’ things when it comes to money down here, as there is not a lot of it to go around, and everyone is after his/her piece of the pie.

So far, I have been able to spend some time with a handful of friends, and with each new connection, new friends seem to emerge, so the social networking experiment is certainly going well. However, I am still without the ability to call mobile phones in Argentina, which is becoming a bit of a pain in the culo (butt). I’m going to try and resolve that issue this week and make sure I have both a prepaid calling card, which I need to dial mobiles from my Argentine landline, and a mobile phone. Beyond that, I got my personal apartment phone (Vonage – VoIP) all set up, as I needed to buy a new power source because I had apparently fried the one that came with the base set because I didn’t realize the power (voltage) was different when I attempted to set it up the other day. Oh well, live and learn – all squared away now, so no sweat off my back.

I’m still trying to get a feel for how things function during the day, as my days have consistently begun after 2p, and ended around 5a, not because everyone is constantly partying, but because things just start/end REALLY late... For example, I came to understand that my first nite was much later than I had originally thought, having gotten home around 4a when I thought it was midnite. This was probably the bubbles from Polo, but as the next few days unfolded, I realized why... The sun doesn’t set until 915p, so at 9p, you still think it’s like 6 or 7p, which doesn’t really help... I’m certainly not complaining about the sun being up from 7a to 9p, it just throws off the your body when trying to adjust. That, and, dinners usually start well after midnite – on Sunday, we sat down at 2a to eat, and that seemed pretty standard, as the restaurant wasn’t even close to being empty... So, to counter this, I’m trying to be home by 2a – I know, this may sound a little nuts, but waking up before noon is now a priority, ha!

For those who aren’t aware of them, empanadas are the street food of Buenos Aires – little delicious bundles of joy (beef, chicken, corn, cheese, ham, vegetables, etc) that cost AP $4, which is a about US $1.25. I can eat these things until the cows come home, and have tried to have at least one every day. I may start a blog only about empanadas, as I scour the city for the best ones I can find... The food, otherwise, has been great, and I had the unfortunate happenstance of grabbing a few drinks and an appetizer at TGI Fridays – how lame, right?! The restaurant we ended up going to for dinner didn’t even open until 9p, so we had to wait it out for an hour by getting ripped off at the ‘establishment’ because it’s a tourist trap... BLAH!! That, I promise, won’t happen again, and if it does, I certainly won’t let any of you know about it, haha.

So, today is my first day without any real plans, so I’m catching up on a little bit of work and will hit the ground as a tourist to set out on a day of picture taking and exploration...

Chau,
Adam