Color Local

Liria, our Argentine literature teacher twirled the sideburn like strands of her pixie hair cut between her fingers as she recounted important happenings in Argentine history. This subconscious mannerism was reminiscent of Confucius twirling his beard as he spouted words of wisdom.


Michelle y yo queremos enseñar la clase

Y es la verdad que all of our teachers here are extremely intelligent and eager to cultivate us into cultured world travelers. With the Italian influence apparent in both her dialect and extravagant yet endearing hand motions, Liria painted an image of the development of modern Agrentina as if she had been there herself. We focused mainly on el barbarismo versus la civilación and the importance of los gauchos in Argentine history.

Subscribing to the Socratic method of teaching, Liria asked us many questions. We told her what we thought of the city and the people so far. When we remarked on the thinness of most Argentinian girls, Liria told us something that I was not aware before: Argentina has one of the highest incidences of anorexia and bulimia in the world. With the perpetual scent of fresh carne circulating through the city, I can´t imagine how anyone could starve themselves.

Liria is a Porteña but she lacks one defining trait of local women. Since she has a short hair style, it’s obvious she’s had a hair cut at least once in her life. When going out in Buenos Aires one would think that all the Porteñas are saving up for a mass donation to locks of love.

A common characteristic of both Argentina and the United States is their infamy as cultural "melting pots." What’s separates the two countries is that as Liria taught us, in Argentina, the hyphen doesn't exist. In the U.S., I consider myself Cuban-American. But here it doesn’t matter if your mother is Korean and your father is German, you are Argentinian. Solamente. I’ve already met people from Bolivia, Boston, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico and and I’ve only been here for 6 days.

The cultural diversity of Argentina was exemplified by our visit to a high brow club called Asia de Cuba. After snacking on jamón flavored Lays potato chips (yes, even their chips are meat flavored) we grabbed Radio Taxis and headed to Puerto Madero. How ironic that Argentine clubs have coat check when it’s 60 degrees outside, but in Gainesville coat check doesn’t exist even when it’s below freezing. Everything in the club was of modern Asian decor and especially sleek and shiny was the dance floor. Two of the girls discovered this as they skipped to the bathroom and wound up like baseball players sliding into home plate. The best part: obviously, the dance floor was empty at this point because it was sooo early...2 a.m.



Despite the ritziness of Asia de Cuba, one still needs to beware of wandering eyes. Because as Guille warned us, eye contact between strangers of the opposite sex can be interpreted as “Yes, I will marry you!” in Buenos Aires...


Puerto Madero: Afuera de Asia de Cuba