Yesterday I awoke to discover that there was just enough water left in the tap to . . . brush my teeth. After that - nothing. Unfortunately for my coworkers, who spend most of the day with me, showering was out of this question. This wouldn't have been so bad, except I hadn't been able to pick up my clean clothes the day before. The owner of the laundromat down the street said he'd be open when I stopped by. But he wasn't. Starting to understand Argentina?
This morning I was sad to discover that my beloved subte station (beloved because it is a convenient 8-second walk from my apartment) was lockered shut. Due to a paro, or strike, unionists (gremialistas, perhaps my favorite Spanish word of all time) had shut down several subte lines. This left the 1.5 million people who typically ride the subte, well, subte-less. The government, as you can imagine, was not very happy. Neither was my boss when I arrived half an hour late.
This afternoon when I left work, Clarin announced that protestors had shut down major streets in the city center, complicating traffic on Avenida 9 de Julio, an 18-lane road that runs through downtown. Yes, 18 lanes, you read that right.
Anyway, besides good jokes, there are upsides to all this havoc. There are fantastic words to be learned from it (I think I've already introduced you to kilombo, meaning "head splitting chaos"). There are also free subte rides (the subte had returned to service when I came home from work today, but everyone was passing through for free).
Lastly, there's a new attitude about life: Well, if it - the water, the subte, the oven, the lights -doesn't work, it doesn't work. Go have a cafe and some medialunas (or better yet, ice cream and beer, a fascinatingly disgusting concoction I was recently introduced to).
Maybe it will work later. Maybe.
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1 comment:
Oh boo hoo. Some people will complain about anything.
Tonight, when I stopped by Crumbs, my new favorite cupcake shop, which sells nothing but the bestest cupcakes and brownies in town, they were out of the Oreo cookie brownie I was hoping to get. I had to settle for the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup cupcake.
See, we all have to endure hard times.
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