There's no way I'm Bohemian enough for this city

Having cultivated in the last few years a decidedly edgy urban look for myself, I realized as soon as I landed in this city that I was walking in a fashion-foreign land... If there is one word that sums up the trends mobilized in the streets of Buenos Aires, the word is bohemian. Bleach-blonde streak-chunks in one's hair, super dark grey skinny jeans, a wardrobe confined largely to black, greaser leather jacket, and way-too-many piercings translates to Ugly Duckling, Odd Man Out, Ostracized From Society in the hippie-chic naturally beautiful and above all bohemian world of Buenos Aires fashion. Pretty much the only accessory on me that would count toward rendering this California suburbanite "acceptable" is my toe ring. Edgy is not cool. Being super beautiful while wearing no makeup is cool, and I think that's cool. Probably the best way to describe the difference in fashion vibe here as compared with the United States, at least in the womens department, is to showcase footwear. I've provided examples:







And I'm not joking when I say this is ALL people wear here. If any womens shoe defers from the bohemian-chic sandal program, it is for this fashion gem right here:



That's right, Nike makes a SPLIT TOE sneaker. And it is ACTUALLY POPULAR in parts of this world. It is called the "Air Rift" and apparently, it is excellent walking gear. But it does look like you're wearing Ninja Turtle feet, or a camel toe, or a cow patty. Either way, it causes uncomfortable images and comparisons to emerge from the collective unconscious. But I guess that doesn't bother them here.

Really, I'm just jealous of Argentine beauty... Anyone who can do what they do they way they do it with their hair and clothes and shit can pull off Ninja Turtle feet, too...

:)

Irish Liquor is Very Expensive Here

Happy San Patrick's Día! What is up, and who could have guessed that Argentines love to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day just as much as us immigrant-y Americans. Not a single Irish person existed on the streets besides perhaps a sixteenth of one here and there floating about within our group, but man, can those Argentines wear green, drink Quilmes, and have a very Argentine St. Patrick's Day or what. They close off an entire matrix of streets in the Retiro area and don't allow cars or outside beverages. Then, because drinking in public is NOT a crime (fuck yeah!), hoards gather in the strip between the bar-walk, centered around the Irish pub McKinney's. Street vendors secretly sell beer out of black plastic trash bags at horrifying prices (10 pesos??? whatttt that's like $4.... wahhhhhhhat are we whining about again? Oh ya, now that we've been living here two weeks we are spoiled by how far the dollar goes) and Argentine crazies climb lampposts and do strip teases on them. Also, when men realize that you are speaking English with your friends, they kangaroo-hop up to you with whatever English phrase they have stored in their brains (and it's surprising some of the random words they know. Among the awesome-est: "Americans, crazy!" "Beautiful!" "I have need" "What the fuck!") and the scene inevitably goes something like this:

Argentine man: "Ohhhhh hellllo Americans"
Gina, trying not to allow him into our friend circle: "Hola, como estás..."
Argentine man: "Ohhhohoho! Muy bién, American Lady! Helllooo"
Gina and friends: (laugh.)
Argentine man: "You! Have! Biiiiiig tits! Hahaha"
Gina: "What the fuck"

So that was funny. You know how those scenes go, you always replay them in your head the next day like, "Oh man, if a guy ever does that to me again, I'm gonna put on my hardest face and not say anything and then just... Imma just... Just gonna PUNCH him ya, so hard, and then when he's on the ground be like, 'Have some reSPECT'" But no matter what, the next time it happens, you just squish your face up like "ew" and kind of lightly push his body away and hope he stops harassing you. Dammit. When will Kung-fu Gina ever take over my body and do the things I wish I could make it do.

In other news, we were planning on having Irish liquor night in lieu of the holidayyyy but Bailey's is like $20 US here, soooo def ended up having Irish knock-off liquor night for $8 US! Hoorayyy for creativity and being broke! In the end, BOLS brand boasting "de año 1575" "Licor de Café" tasted fine to me. Huzzah!

Totally Irrelevant Post

I just want to take a moment to say that I have a serious history crush on Young Mutton-Chops Shirtless Physically Fit Teddy Roosevelt (see photo below and believe).



Hellllllls yeahhhhh

In other news

I dyed my hair black.

BITCHES!!! bahhhhh



I realize that's totally cliché, like I'm an American studying abroad in a foreign country for the first time, want a big change, so, like, AWWWIMMA DYE MAH HAIR! But seriously, eat my powder, because now I can wear colorful lipstick like I never could before and WHAT. Also, Danielle made me do it.

HOLYYY SHEEEEIT I almost just died over here

Hooray for being a big dumb ass. See, the great and healthy United States of America runs all their electricity on a 125 volt system, because it is fucking SAFER in case someone fucking gets ELECTROCUTED, but here in this, the technically third world country of my people, sacrifices in safety mean a more efficient system, run at 250 volts. Jesus Chr%^&*st. Like, twice what we run in the US, that's right.

So I had forgotten (though I neh-behr thought it possible) my Tia Lita's unremitting cuidados to “Neh-behr, NEH-behr to not wearing” shoes when you’re plugging/unplugging something because you’re gonna fry your ass off. It’s so hot and humid out here that I was BUCK in my room drying my hair, with the fan on to boot because without it you sweat so much your hair never dries anyway. I unplugged the hair dryer and I swear to god I had the quickest weirdest creepiest black-out of a millisecond ever. I blacked in and my hairbrush was on the floor… don’t remember dropping it. There was a general odd haze over my vision... The head-high was like I'd just puffed out eighteen cigarettes at once... Ugh and the creepiest part was for a good fifteen minutes my finger through my hand and my arm a ways stung like I’d fried my veins up in there like Percy done to Delacroix’s eye-balls in The Green Mile. I swear my heart was beating kind of funky…

And I still think the veins on my left arm are looking a little bluer than the ones on my right.

And my hair stands up all day long like some Alfalfa from The Rascals shit.

Just kidding, some of those sentences are lies. But really, watch the fuck out for foreign electricity systems. That is no joke, man. Jesus.

Que interesante: Cumbio

Oh haaaaay In Spanish class we read a cultural piece describing a rising adolescent fad similar to US blogging, or in Spanish, fotologing. The jovenes who engage in fotologing, los floggers for short, pay homage to the spear-head of their urban cult style, Cumbio, a seventeen-year-old Argentine star made famous by her fotolog site. That's right, people, fotolog.com is a bigger social web than Facebook or MySpace. What the hell??? Read the New York Times article here:

In Argentina, a Camera and a Blog Make a Star

What a crazy interesting random ass movement in Argentina! Tiiiiiight

Check out her fotolog phe-nom at:

fotolog.com/CUMBIO

Don't worry, you don't have to know Spanish to check out the site, unlike "blogging" here in the states fotologing pretty much only involves posting pictures, the goal being to get the most comments and followers. Sooooo ya what the heck! If you want to check out a totally random other-world pop culture phenomenon, check out Cumbio. Top image is the photo cover for her autobiography ...

brief note on scars

...Impressive, everyone here has a crazy-ass scar on their body. There are lots of left-shoulder round and seriously epic vaccination scars, extreme machete chop arm scars, someone-beat-me-over-the-head-with-a-shovel-but-then-I-probably-killed-them-afterward forehead scars, I-put-my-hand-too-close-to-a-vagrant-dog-and-it-ripped-a-hole-in-me scars, any kind of scar you can think of, and so what I'm trying to say is everyone here looks way more badass than me, and it's very intimidating.