..on the beauty of language. what we refer to as
´change´ in english - and only talking about money -
can be expressed as ´vuelto´ (do you have enough
change if i pay with a $100 note), ´cambio´ (do you
have change for $100), or ´monera´ (i don´t have any
change on me). isn´t that just beautiful?
and another one: i realised that the
spanish word ´hay´ (for my non-spanish-speaking
friends, this means ´there is´ or ´there are´) must
have come from ´ha´ + ´allí´ (meaning respectively ´it
has´, and ´there´). my hypothesis is that ´ha allí´
gradually went through the phonological shortening of
´hallí´ and eventually to the current ´hay´. gracious,
i *do* have so much fun by myself.
so in summary, my highlights in argentina so far have
been:
1. discovering i like banana split ice cream (even
though i don´t like banana ice cream as much)
2. discovering the ´facturas´ in argentina (they´re
really really REALLY cheap pastries/buns - i´m talking
a dozen for $1AUD..)
3. seeing a guinea-pig-type-thing eat grass.
this is not to say that i´m not enjoying other aspects
of my trip, but these 3 things are definitely the
highlights of the last 2 weeks.
here´s a budget tip for the girls (´because you´re
worth it´): if a bug flies into your eyes, carefully
smudge it in your eyelashes as you´re getting it out -
voila, homemade brown mascara at your disposal. ´maybe
she´s born with it, maybe it´s uncoordinated insect´.
i met carlos martinez, an older gentleman who works in
the chacarita cemetry in buenos aires, and we started
talking about dancing. then he showed me el chámame,
the traditional dance where he´s from, - i found that
i really suck at dancing with a partner. my
coordination has no sense of courtesy for the other
person´s movements, and just barges ahead doing
whatever it wants. i told him i´d practise, and would
visit him after a few months to show him any progress.
a couple of days ago, i saw a dog pause at the
roadside, look right, then left, then right again,
before crossing. that was a smart dog.
an ambulance driver slowed down to whistle at me - in
itself, not that exciting for porteño standards, but
considering the ambulance lights and sirens were going
full blast, i felt sorry for whoever they were meant
to be rescuing.
my mum sent me this, and i thought it was funny: ´I
know you do plan and "think" but sometimes you make me
worry.´ how many of you have cute mums like this? i
bet they all think like that.
