Cultural exchange

*The pictures are from a friend, arent´t they cool?

Every expat/tourist/traveller/martian/whatever is interested in having an authentic cultural exchange with the locals of the visited place, right?. That´s healthy and smart and makes you feel that you are immersed in the new culture, and not just taking advantage of the devalued currency (or whatever you could take advantage of)

However, some people don´t understand the meaning of cultural exchange. well is not that I have a phd in cultural exchange or anything, but I do know that copying is not an exchange, is thievery, is fake. And you don´t want to be a phony, right? (well maybe you do, in that case just wait till I write the "Faking porteños for dummies guide").

It´s ok to not fit perfectly in a different culture, after all you don´t have to, it´s almost impossible. You can try to be polite, respect their rules, but you cannot pretend that you know exactly how everything works and think that you´ve learned everything and you have graduated from the expat in Buenos Aires school.

Probably you´ll find that a lot of our rules and habits are great but others are annoying and make no sense. That´s normal. What you cannot do is to use the rules for your convenience. Oh, you don´t understand what I´m saying? let me clarify with some examples:

The kissing rule

When you got here you were surprised by the huge amount of kissing. We kiss to say hello, we kiss to say goodbye, we kiss all the time. First time you saw that you were like "wow, I´m going to kiss all the pretty girls" or something like tat. Yes sure, kiss all the pretty girls, but if you decided to adopt this "rule" you have to kiss the guys too!!! So prepare those lips, use balm, maybe a little lip gloss and kiss till your lips sore.

Not tipping

You met some really "smart " porteños that told you something like "this is just a bar, we don´t need to tip" or "the waiter won´t even care, they are used to not receiving tips", and following their wise advise you start to tip less or not tip at all. Look, this only proves that you are a cheapskate, not that you are immersed in this culture. So next time think twice before having some lame excuse to avoid the tipping part. That leads me to the next bad habit hat some foreigners "catch" from us.

Giving excuses

We are masters in this area in particular. I think that we could won the olympic games for this discipline that unfortunately is not official yet. We have been practicing this sports since we were in elementary school. We know exactly what to say in every occasion and we don´t feel guilty by making the worst lies ever. Even telling that you mother or father died is fair in this dirty game. You, on the other hand, have no clue about how this works. So if you don´t show up at some place at a certain time and when you apologize you say something like "there was a traffic jam" all the porteños in the room will simply hate you. For us , inventing excuses is a fine art, so if you are going to lie, at least put some energy in telling an amazing story that makes us laugh, or that makes us feel your pain (fake pain of course).

So that´s it. I have to go. I have to keep working for the wellness of the human race.

Trasnochedanza

Hi!. My friends are having a Not-a-party-exactly. I don´t know how to describe it. You can dance but maybe there won´t have music all the time. And after the dancing part, they´ve prepared some performances. I´m definitely going. If you are looking for something unusual, you should check out this "party".

TrasnocheDanza

7 PM jam

10 PM performances

velez sarfield 218 -barracas

See you there!!!

Talking with our hands: Don´t cross the line

If you live here or you´ve seen a porteño talking, you probably already know that we use our hands a lot when we talk. I`ve learned how to control myself with my clients, but I used to be almost a mime. For example if I had to say sun, I would say it and at the same time I would point to the sky. To say "car" I would grab an invisible wheel and make a turn, and for "hair" I would touch my hair. Yeah, I looked kind of retarded. Luckily I have myself to put me on the good path. I think I was not confident about my English and I thought that people would understand better if I did all these crazy signals all the time. So once I discovered that annoying habit I stopped making so many movements (and a fool of myself).

Bitch tours survival guide to BA and porteños
Useful information for a better stay

Next time you are talking to an annoying porteño/a, the ones that cannot shut their big mouth and won´t listen to you not even for a second, try this: Tye his/her hands in the back and he/she would go instantly mute.

Once more the Music festival

Hey, you cannot miss the Buenos Aires music festival. No, seriously, I mean it.
It starts the 29th and it finishes september 2nd. Here you have the link to the official website, there must be something that you like...

http://www.bafim.buenosaires.gov.ar/

It's only in spanish (it's funny, but they have the english flag, but it doesn't link to anything, so practice that spanish)

Bus = Tardiness?

" Porteños are always late because they use public transportation, so there is no way they can be sure that the buses/trains/subways are going to be on time; there is always a problem with them (public transportation, of course)"

I´ve heard this theory from an expat who was trying to explain and justify our not so good habit of being late. I immediately disagreed with him, and I explained why. I told him the case of My dear friend P-face, 25, porteña, Caucasian who is always late . She started using taxi cabs to solve her tardiness problem. Every morning she would arrive at her work at least 15 minutes late, until she discovered that using a cab she would only be 10 minutes late. So now, after that experience, she´s learned her lesson: she only uses taxi cabs.

She is still late, of course, in fact I´m waiting for her right now. I guess there something about the genes...Dunno

But this morning I discovered that sometimes public transportation can be 100% guilty for our tardiness. And I´m not talking about demonstrations, or traffic jams, that impede the normal circulation, no. I´m taking about Insane bus drivers with an extra help

10.20 AM. I´m in the bus stop. I don´t take his line so often. I don´t know how often it comes.

10.25 AM A police patrol parks exactly in the space saved for the buses. One officer gets off the vehicle and enters into a coffee store

10.27 AM The bus is one block away from the stop. The policeman is coming from the coffee store with 2 paper glasses and a little package (Pastries?). He gets in the vehicle while the bus is waiting for them to move.

10.29 AM The patrol is back on the road, the neighbourhood is safe. The policemen are happy with their free breakfast and we, the passengers are kind of happy that at least we can get on the bus where is not as freezing as in the street.

10.35 AM Everything normal. Low traffic. Happy passengers picturing themselves arriving at their activities on time, or even arriving a little earlier and drinking a cup of tea (in my case).

10.36 AM the bus drivers starts to yell. The passengers look at each other with surprise (not because this is not common. We are in shock because the bus driver is getting up from his sit and threatening the other driver in a very rude language that includes some words that I´ve never heard before while he aproaches to the door.)

10.41 AM The bus driver realizes that he has to continue with the ride for the sake of his passengers (or maybe he was not as brave as made us believe, seriously, we were expecting a street fight)

10.50 AM The bus driver, probably a little bit stressed out after the fight, has a great idea: He needs some time to relax. He pulls over in front of a kiosk, he leaves the keys in the bus and he gets off. In the kiosk he meets a friend and he buys a pack of cigarettes. He lights a cigarette and smokes half of it. The rest of it he rather smoke it on the bus (and that´s what he did).

10.55 AM We continue with our lovely ride, now also enjoying the perfume of the bus driver´s tobacco.

11.00 AM I should be in my class right now. But I guess that my destiny is to be in this bus, with this crazy driver. Images of those movies where a plane is about to crash and people are screaming all over the place come to my mind.

11.10 AM The driver finally understands that he has to rush. Unfortunately he found out about this when it was my time to get off the bus. So instead of pulling over in my stop, and in order to not miss the green light, he left me 3 blocks away from where he should have dropped me. Nice.

11.16 AM I arrived at my class almost 20 minutes late. I don´t even bother to explain why. Nobody ask either. They know that they could be next.

Everywhere but the Alvear (Hotel)

Warning: This is a serious post

A lot of people think that his is one of the best hotels of Buenos Aires. Even I used to think that way, but I´m afraid to say that Alvear hotel doesn´t have what it takes to be Bitch Tour certified

I want to make sure that none of my clients or readers have to go through any of this ever again.

Fact #1.

My clients were supposed to arrive at the Alvear at 12 pm (they were on their honeymoon). I had to pick them up at 2 PM . Due to a flight delay they arrived at the hotel at 2.15 pm. All they wanted was to take a shower and then my Bitch tour. The room was not ready. They took like half an hour to prepare a room that should have been prepared at noon.

Fact#2.

Don´t try to read a magazine at the Alvera. Sometimes they have the Buenos Aires Herald, sometime la Nacion, don´t ask for anything else cause they will point the magazine kiosk in the front door. Come on!

Fact#3 Tea service. I´m proud to say that now you can have the worst tea experience in the world, and yes, it´s right here, in Buenos Aires. The alvear provides you with the worst tea service in the whole world. Not only that the tea is not high quality, the food is tasteless, scarce, and cheap. Plus, you have to share the same room with some local wannabe´s.

I hope this will convince you not to book at this place.

Get used to it

I´ve found this ad on craig´s list:

BUTCHER WITH EXPERIENCE IN TEACHING
Please read postings carefully. Most people are not teachers. I've been reading them and was surprised to find journalists, Human Resources graduates, and a wide variety of cheeky people working as teachers!!! This is like a weird zoo. For becoming a teacher you need to become a graduate at a teacher's training college first and this means studying a lot for years. Do not let them fool you, unless you want to be taught by a butcher!!!


The person who wrote that ad is not very aware of where she/he is...

If a bitch can give tours, why a butcher cannot teach spanish?




"Buenos Aires is a great city, I mean it. I come from france. Have you seen the movie "Ratatouille"? Well in France, people discriminated against me just like they did with my fellow rat in that film. But here, I´m teaching French in a private institute (ok, I earn in Negro, but who cares). Buenos Aires is a land of opportunities" A friend I met in Gibraltar (bar is San Telmo)

On-line course: Learn to think like a porteño

I know, you try hard to fit in, but still there are some details that escape from you. The problem is that your brain doesn´t work properly (for this country, of course) and you need to fix that in order to be "one of us".
Now let´s begin with this on line course.

Step #1
Setting your brain.

Our culture, as you may know, is a big mixture of culture (if you didn´t know this, please don´t read any further. Buy our previous on line course: "Argentinian history for the dumb asses"). So,
the first thing to do is to make your brain Argentinian. And how can you do that? Easy:
Inhale a mixture of Dehydrated tomato sauce (for the Italians)
shot yourself with a good Spanish Paella ( for the Spaniards)
And make an enema of Beef (for the gauchos)
Then mix every ingredient you can find in your kitchen on a big bathtub. Take a bath for like 3 or four hours.

After all this, we can say that you are 13% more Argentinian.

Step #2
Learning the logic

Here you have some common situations and how to deal with them.

1.
Foreigner: You have a birthday party on a Friday night. You´ve been working all day and you feel really tired. They told you that the party started at 1. You think: I´m really tired, I won´t make it. By 2 am I´ll be sleeping on the couch (if there is one) or in the bath tub.

The Porteño way: Party? 1 am? perfect. I´ll eat my dinner at 11, then I´ll sleep until 2 am and I´ll show at at 2.30 (well maybe at 3, whatever)



2.
Foreigner: You are cooking dinner for 10 Argentinian friends. You haven`t prepared any dessert cause you were expecting that at least someone would bring something. At 10.30 (an hour and a half later than they were supposed to arrive) everybody shows up with a big smile and empty hands (maybe someone brought some wine). You want to die.

The porteño way: Ok, I´m inviting 10 people over for dinner. Probably 3 of them are not going to show up so I´ll cook just for 7. But maybe someone brings their friends, so I better cook for 12. Dessert? No way!This is not a restaurant, if they want dessert they can go to the ice cream store.

Part #3
Practice what you´ve learned

1-You are invited to a party. They´ve asked you to bring something to drink....What would you do?

Think about it and then check the right answer below

The correct answer is:
Buy the cheapest wine that I can find and bring a good wine for yourself in you bag/purse/backpack or don´t bring anything and tell them that you forgot to buy it or that the supermarket was closed.

Cumana restaurant Review

I´ve heard about this restaurant a long time ago. Every comment was like: It´s sooooo cheap and soooo goooood". Is not that I don´t like cheap places, but I don´t like cheap people, and all the comments about this place came from people who think that tipping is "optional". Anyway, I never felt like going. Apart from that, many times I saw people waiting to get in and that´s another thing that I cannot stand.

Anyway, the other day, it was my friend´s birthday and he decided we were going to Cumana.

The place is ok. There´s not enough light or enough room. Basically the place is like a gigantic table that you share with strangers. Is not that I care, but the place has a romantic vibe, and I think that is not comfortable to have a first date if someone is talking about artificial insemination (or something like that) 20 centimeters away...

The food was good. It was a surprise.

The prices are incredibly cheap. And I think they can keep the prices so low cause they hardy have to pay to the waiting staff (there are maybe 4 waiters for 100 tables).

Bye

PS: It was really hard to write this piece of crap post. I guess I have to warm up, since I haven´t been writing lately....