The beer seems to have improved slightly.

Argentina, in my mind, is infamous for its poor brew selection. The national domestic beer of choice, Quilmes, is just...well it's just god-awful, it's like watered down Coors Light. I only used to drink it when I was trying to get wasted (which, in 2007, was probably a lot of the time) but now they've come up with a few slightly darker varieties of both Quilmes and its Brazilian competitor, Brahma (which I prefer), thus improving my quality of life significantly. This was a serious concern prior to my arrival. (The wine, however, was and still is very top notch and very cheap when buying from within the country).

I've been here a little over a week now, and things are going well. It's not an easy transition, but it's happening and I'm rolling with the punches. I hung out with a 2008 Fulbright (who has extended her stay through April of this year) on Saturday, in an area of the city I'd never been to (yet another large and fantastic park), and we ended up at this outdoor tango show in one of the city's bigger parks, drinking wine in the grass with some of her friends. There were maybe 10 of us, a mix of Argentines and foreigners, and everyone was really friendly and relaxed. The day itself was long and exhausting but the evening's close was really fitting, all the language and the bottles of wine getting all mixed up in that hazy summer evening kind of way. On the walk back to where we could catch buses and taxis, I talked to this med student girl from Paris about my project, and we discussed life and the collapsing world economy and whether we could live in Argentina long-term...it was a good conversation in Spanish, and I spoke easily, aside from my accent, which was reassuring for me. When my nerves get to me in new situations, sometimes I speak very haltingly, but when it flows, it flows. Those moments are so sweet.

On the way to this outdoor concert, the Fulbrighter (Jess) and I were kind of comparing notes on what we'd expected to get from our time in Argentina. At some point I said that one of my larger goals was to learn to make friends more effectively in a foreign environment, that last time I had let the culture shock get to me and hadn't really felt socially comfortable until the later months (which were, in a way, too late). This time I have been much more adaptive, as planned. I thought I was sort of baring myself on a whim, since we were getting along well, and that my goal was sort of obviously admirable. But Jess interpreted it in a way that I didn't expect. She sort of paused the conversation and then said, "Well, is that really what you want, to just have a bunch of superficial social experiences that go away after you're gone? I mean when I went home and saw my friends after being gone for a year, there was just such a different feeling being in that social situation versus this one. There's just something there that takes years to build up."

We sort of debated the point back and forth for a bit, and I think there was some miscommunication at first, but we agreed that the thrust of what I wanted to work towards -- acquiring that skill of being able to be content in any context, familiar or foreign, alone or not -- was straightforwardly desirable. Nonetheless, her perspective has kind of stuck with me. I can feel when I spend time with people here that I am, in some way, just trying to feed a little tick in my head that compels me to be social. Meeting new people is great and interesting -- always enlightening in some way -- and I'm enjoying doing that here. But there's this little feeling of exhaustion that grows when you continue to lack a deeper connection in your social world. It's almost like you can't feel like yourself: you are always the new guy or the foreigner, never someone that people already understand. And as that deeper part of you goes untouched for a while, it starts to feel like it's not there at all. It's a disorienting experience, like being in solitary confinement in spite of being surrounded by people all the time. It's the nature of a new place like this, but it tires me out some days.

I'm working through all this stuff very well, though. I've been heading to "my office" enough that I'm sorta starting to become a "regular" to the people that work there (I think), and tomorrow I'm gonna hit up a beginner's tango class. All of you know that I am an awful dancer and that in normal circumstances it takes an open bar in order for me to reveal this awfulness to the world, but I'm feeling pretty electric with the culture these days and this is a good way to dive in. How cool would I be if I could tango when I came home? A friend recommended this place as a good one to meet young people at, so hopefully it'll help from that angle, too. I also joined a gym today, which, you know, is probably not a place where I'll be meeting lots of people but, you know, if I meet some at the tango class or work or whatever, I'll be able to be super attractive and in good shape, which can only help (plus, once I can tango, I'll be an exotic norteamericano who (shock!) knows how to tango!). These things altogether are part of my plan to become irrestibly interesting to Argentines and norteamericanos alike.

This post was a little somber. But next one -- update on the study, in which I have had a minor conceptual breakthrough, and about which the librarian woman talked to me for like 40 minutes today because she thought it was so fascinating (begin becoming super interesting to the argentines: check!).

Thanks for reading!