my teacher is an old pervert

To acquire a new language is difficult. I waver between casually enjoying the process and declaring proclamations such as “I will NOT speak English in this country any more! Only Spanish, I must learn this language”. And then I carry my little dictionarrio around and try to be all studious and eventually realize this approach is not for me. I am on the look out for a new Spanish teacher to supplement my lessons through Bueno, entonces…for as great as the program is, I still need guided practice. I had an excellent teacher in theory until he tried to go through a lesson on the names of the body parts in Spanish by touching me…not that that hasn’t been one of my most dreamt of fantasies, it is just that it always features a drop dead gorgeous Spanish teacher followed by a lesson of the names of all the places in the house “mesa”, “cama”, “douche”. Well, I am done with male teachers, getting a female and sidestepping the whole problem. 

I thought my handle on the verb “to be” had gotten pretty good, but the reality is that it is still confusing. I realized this when lesson 19 went back and addressed “ser” and “estar”. I completely get the concept but these words are used so much in conversation I don’t even realize I am using them incorrectly. It is great to see the color coding the way they do it on the program because you see it in context and then it locks that image into your head for later use. This is also true for all of the masculine and feminine adjectives, the color coding is helping me to access it for later use in my vocabulary. 

secrete show!

As most of our shows have been on the streets of BsAs, it was a beautiful change to actually play in a bar. We called the show “from streets to seats” and it was in the incredible bar in Palermo that didn’t even have a name but an address that you have to ring and they unlock the door for you. Inside was beautiful art work and interesting decor, complete with the lower halves of women, all legs and sexy stockings. We set up in a back room that was very Victorian style with beautiful wood and elegant chairs. Many of our close friends came and piled into the cozy intimate space. We had a wonderful time, the harmonies were beautifully mixing, and we even had a friend come and play the cajon (Peruvian box drum). A special surprise came when the brother of the cajon player showed up and danced the most incredible flamenco and they sang old flamenco songs – they kind of stole the show, but we were a nice contrast with our strong female energy. We have video footage and will be recording a CD tomorrow, I LOVE THIS CITY!  

Clearly the art and music has been coming on strong, I just need to keep the momentum with the spanish. I am learning great things through Bueno, entonces…and as it is very street smart and nightlife aplicable, I put the lessons into direct practice right away. The program displays the verbs and conjugations so well with the color coding and all of the visual cues. It prevents the confusions between adjectives, verbs, nouns, feminine and masculine. A very hard concept for me in spanish are the reflexive verbs, but again they deal with what could be a boring subject in such a funny way that the concept gets directly wired to your brain.
Who wants to waste time learning to say “she has a white dog” when you can be learning much more applicable things (especially in this country) such as “tiene piel como chocolate blanco”.

Sexy Castellano!

Round 1 with my new Spanish program Bueno, entonces... and I love it!!! It is written how a spanish program for adults should be. I wish I would have known about it before coming to Argentina because it would have prepared me so much better for the trip. You get to experience the Argentine accent directly in the program and all kinds of cultural things relevant to BsAs. It has a super sexy twist to the lesson, and feels almost as if you are watching a funny sitcom – also the intro theme reminds me of my favorite show “Arrested Development”. 

This is definitely the best spanish program I have experienced. The interactions between Dave and Jimena are brilliant. Dave has a beautiful English accent and is learning to speak spanish while Jimena speaks clear and beautiful castellano – and she is super hot. The lessons are fun and interesting with adult language and humor making spanish learning accessible to the people who would be traveling, living, or studying abroad. I found myself having to pause the program while I laughed at Dave’s absurd comments. I really like that they included an explanation of the terms “yanqui” and “gringo” and where they came from, as well as the classic “stupid American” misnomer of claiming the title of “American” as for those solely in the U.S. when there is a vast amount of country known to the world as “America”.  Also, to have the verb for cuddling explained in the first lesson “hacer cucharita” pure genius…I have asked a number of people about this in spanish, and they thought to put it in the first lesson. Good job! Sometimes you need to let someone know…”sure you can come back but only to “hacer cucharita”…I have some more spanish lessons to get through before things get crazy chicos…

: )

Check out the video for a taste of Dave’s humor:

The “magic” awards

I do not watch much TV, in fact I have not owned one in around 10 years. But there are some new shows out there that re define sitcom for me. My three favorite are; Arrested Development, The Office, and Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Now I mention these in order to better describe the event I went to last night called “The annual Magic Awards”. One of my favorite characters from Arrested Development is called “Job”, and he is such a fool. He is a professional magician and you get these peaks into the twisted land of cheesy preforming magicians. Well, I just experienced that last night, in the real sense, here in Argentina. I went to the show because I had a friend doing a dance performance there and did not know it was “the MAGIC awards”. The whole production was so overwhelmingly cheesy I could not stifle my laughter at times. A completely other world. The presentation went on in Spanish – of course – and I did OK following the general idea. It is hard to just listen to the words and not be close enough to read the eyes and hand gestures. So much of language learning is inferring through the gestures. This is why Bueno, entonces…is such a great program. You get to listen to the language, but more importantly watch the expressions and see pictures associated with the lessons. All of this serves to better cement the vocabulary and cadence of the language into your brain. Well, this day is lovely so I am off!

binky sucking pirate

Well, my last 24 hours have been something out of a twisted fairytale – a check to why I live in cities…the characters you can encounter with such frequency are overwhelming, sometimes the energy is just so, and they all come out of the cracks to congregate. It is like I am partaking in an offbeat martian comedy or something out of the parable of the poisoned well. I was in San Telmo around 4 in the am, street drinking with a group of friends and misfits when my body becomes suddenly aware of a creature before I even get a visual. Milling about yet close to the group, he was a beraggeled trip. With a fit of nappy hair, tangled beard, massive duct tape backpack, and one piece jumper. His steps were far apart with bent knees, moving close to the ground and pirate eyeing our group, circling, yet keeping a good brick throws distance. The real kicker – a neon pink pacifier in his mouth all the while sucking hungrily. We decide to move on to a corner under a beautiful lamplight so my friends could preform. Our group was quite the motley crew as well – toothless older dude who had a never ending supply of tall tales, a gaucho cowboy esque man who plays the cajon and sings wonderful flamenco, his incredibly gay mormon brother who click clacks in his high heeled dancing shoes and speaks such fast castellano slang (thank god for Bueno, entonces…)my head spun trying to get a handle on what the hell we were laughing about, my doll like sweet friend with a glow like a bottecelli, a blue haired punky street kid, and some Austraillians (It seems like the Aussies are everywhere, they are like movie extras in my life). So, we head under the street light, on a misty night kickin it down a cobblestone street in the beautiful antique barrio. Pirate binky sucker follows in the shadows. When we proceed to stoop it under that beautiful orb and my friend breaks incredible rhythms on the cajon and song, his brother throws down a wooden board and dances the most amazing high speed flamenco tap with extraordinary elaborate and exaggerated hand gestures remanecint of New Zealand bird mating dances. In my visual I have the creature, who quickly slinks over onto an open lit area of the side walk (there are a good 15 people around, mind you) and takes a shit. He then then proceeds to guard his creation, walking the perimeter, almost like he was taking reconnaissance. Between the flamboyant dancing and the binky sucking feces circling pirate I lost it and laughed so hard I about peed myself. Back in San Telmo this afternoon, I went with a friend to play guitar and sing to the streets in the sunshine. Again I found myself surrounded with a group of the strangest cats…one man who played and sang deep tango love songs fully acting them out with guitar and complete chamuyero drama, a young street kid who couldn’t get enough of our deep south blue grass songs, an older matronly piano teacher, and an old man from Uraguay who also sang tango loud enough to keep the pigeons off of our empanadas. We passed around guitars and shared music, ending up in a parrilla where they gave us free beer, wine, and food while we brought the house down with songs sitting at the bar. Music is the vibration of unity bringing us all together. Its power to connect cultures and age groups, creatures and freaks is just endless. What a day!

El hormiguita!

Lesson 14 has mirrored my life in a pretty interesting way. Two things that have happened to me down here, both of which are quite hilarious. Once, when I was first learning spanish in my first week, part of my study routine was to head to the bar and have a beer to take the edge off the whole learning process. As it were, I was living with an Argentine woman, and came home fairly tipsy around 7 pm…that is like lunch time by Argentine standards. So, feeling abit embarrassed for my inebriated state, I decided to head into the shower and then put myself to bed early. To tell her this I say something along the lines of “nesecito la basura”, She quite rightly loks at me very confused, I then again state, this time with hand jestures to explain, “necesito la basura, lavo con basura”. I think I am saying that I need to use the bathroom, the shower, In fact I am saying I need to wash myself in trash. Dear god. We laughed so hard once the mix up was clear…

Yesterday I met El Hormiguita. He is a huge ant man. A man dressed as an art super hero who cruises around La Boca. He is fabulous and introduced my friend and I to all the musicians and street vendors so we could busk for money in the streets. Brilliant.

Lesson 14 contains both of my favorite things in a funny way: ants and trash…

bed>

sos un chamuyero!

This was a hilarious lesson teaching the word – chamuyero – which stands for bullshitter. This is pretty funny because I learned this word yesterday in a little pizza place in La Boca while waiting for my dinner. I met some locals who were telling me NEVER to cross a certain street in La Boca, and other areas that were off limits because they are ran by gangs that will take all of your things. Also, it is super dangerous to take a taxi down through there as well, a woman was killed in a taxi recently so they could steal her bag…super sketchy. 

Anyways, one of the words they taught me was chamuyero, used in context “no me chamuyes!” Don’t bullshit me!

HA! I love it. Well, I am on the hunt for another spanish tutor…will be straight forward and share it with my readers…my last teacher got all slimy and super creepy vibe on me. It is a real bummer, he is an AMAZING teacher, really funny and interesting, great lessons, I learned a ton in 2 classes, he has had many female students over years and even has a daughter and son my age…but he creeped on me. I am not an easy one to startle. I often have a mouth like a sailor, have traveled all over the world, had numerous love affairs, drink whiskey on the rocks, but dude got out of hand. It was subtle, but crossed the line. I need a female teacher, I am done with the men here. Thats another reason the program Bueno, entones…is great, David might be sketch dude in the videos, but you never have to deal with him hitting on you in person (and it is all part of the charm).  

sounds of mating cats

The most god awful sound is outside my window at this moment making it VERY difficult for me to concentrate on my spanish class from Bueno, entonces…Mating cats in the patio making sounds that are similar to torturing babies, soulless ghosts searching for peace…it is horrible and I want to throw rocks. OK, I am a cat lover, I will not be throwing rocks, but I hate their sounds and I will never look at cats the same way again after hearing these horrible sounds of lovemaking. I am in a bit of a mood because I am tired and thoroughly drained after teaching a class today and following it with 4 hours of a private spanish class. When you really want to learn something it is incredibly draining because you put all of your attention into what is going on at the moment to try and understand the crazy words being so beautiful slurred together at you. The class 12 is pretty hilarious and right on par with my mood considering David and Jimena are both super cranky and getting frustrated and pissed with each other:
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A donde vas?

It is too cold, I am having one of those “what the f*#k” am I doing in BsAs moments when I could be stretched out on a beach in Thailand drinking cocktails, fire dancing at night, and eating incredible food?!!! AHHHH, Then I remember, when I break it all down to the real purpose, I am here to experience this incredible culture and learn to speak the beautiful spanish. I experienced a frustrating moment today when asking for direction to the art store….sometimes you think you are getting comfortable with the language and then a whole string of nonsense comes out and when it is important like directions, you are screwed. Amazingly enough my spanish class today covered these points, I am just going to watch it over and over on repeat…Lesson 11 was really helpful. AHHH, so cold in this enormous art space, I am wearing boots and my toes are still freezing…but then I think about the children you see in the streets with out shoes and I feel like a total spoiled baby with my abundance of socks, shoes, and complaints. I am going to begin working on a program with a friend to design a class to teach people how to make really simple shoes with very basic materials, often you can find them as scraps by all the leather factories, additionally the fabric stores lay out scraps. 

I have attached the lesson from Bueno, entonces… with the directions, it is helpfull: