Unsolved mysteries: Argentines & stairs

After almost a year here, I'm pretty much convinced that Argentines have some genetic/cultural phobia of climbing stairs. Exhibit A: I've been here for nearly a year and I've lived in 5 different apartment buildings, always on a pretty low floor. During that time I have seen someone other than my foreign roommates & myself taking the stairs... 2 times. Ever. Seriously. Three if you count the time in Almagro when the power went out and the elevators weren't working. This just does not make sense to me since it actually takes longer to wait for the 17th century elevator in my current apartment building than to climb one or two flights of stairs.
And it's definitely not laziness or a relaxed cultural attitude towards time. Something hilarious I experience every single morning on the subte is that, as people approach the Florida metro stop, everyone stands up and clusters around the door so they can get off the train as quickly as possible (me included.) What's hilarious about this is that the crowd pushes out of the door, sprints to the bottom of the escalator, and then - stands still for the ride up. Yeah, you know how at home the non-walkers on the escalator stand to the right side so everyone else can pass them? Not here. You have to be the first person on that escalator if you want to actually walk up it.
Which is cool. It doesn't bother me because like there's anywhere that I really need to be 10 seconds earlier that desperately. But I mean, just totally out of curiousity... what is that??
I work in a 28 floor office building here, and I'm sorry, but really people? Can you not just take the stairs from the first to second floor? In the United States, it's kind of impolite, but moreover embarrassing, to take the elevator only one or two floors, unless you have a broken ankle or a heavy suitcase or something. No?

Mystery. But I love it. It's silly and endearing. Besooooooos!

Down the rabbit hole

“What if I should fall right through the center of the earth... oh, and come out the other side, where people walk upside down?"
So I didn't fall down the rabbit hole - I came on a 747. But Buenos Aires does feel like Wonderland sometimes. It's so crazy and exaggerated and temporal and my life here is so changeable and accelerated. It's a different reality every weekend. And yes, there are people who want to help you, people who want to trick you, and people where you can't tell the difference. It can feel like a big urban Disneyland with different themed cities and towns, where the character of the city changes completely from one block to another. And you have to abandon the idea that things should make sense all the time, because they don't.
Why the sentimental shrooms-esque rambling? I guess because I'm leaving Buenos Aires in 6 weeks. I don't even want to write it down, because then it will be true. Now that I know I'm leaving so soon, I'm taking a closer look at everything around me, and becoming a little anxious and sad that my life here is slipping away from me and coming to an end. Even though I've been here almost a year, I feel like I've only begun to scratch the surface. And of course, because it's the law of the universe, I've finally met someone, just as I'm about to leave. C'est la vie, right? Maybe I'll be back, maybe not. I have a feeling I just might wake up one day in Northern California with a Buenos Aires-withdrawal induced panic attack and flee the United States again. Of course, if McRepublican wins this November, I'll be too ashamed to leave the country and will have to hide my face from the world for 4 years. Or buy a lot of maple-leaf clothing to wear when I travel.
I don't remember how the story ends. Alice finds her way out of the rabbit hole and back home, but is she happy when she gets there?

I ♥ Argentina, reason #5,786

The schedule.

So, this morning I stumbled out of bed at 9:30 a.m. and slunk into the kitchen to make a cup of life-saving mate cocido. I don't do well in the mornings. I don't really even like to talk to anyone until I've been awake for at least an hour. Anyway, the Argentine mom in the apartment where I live was in the kitchen, took a look at me, and said, "It's way too early to wake up, isn't it?" (Although in Spanish.) Now. It wasn't sarcastic. What a nice, nice thing for an adult to say. Yeah, I still don't think of myself as an adult, maybe because I don't think I'll ever reach the age where I like to wake up early and give younger people a hard time about sleeping late. I love that about BA. At home if you look tired in the morning, or whine about waking up early, people will probably tease you or make you feel lazy. But here it's like, duh, no one likes to wake up in the morning. It's a given. Isn't that how it should be? Does anyone really like waking up early everyday? I think I've met like two of those people in my life and I felt kind of uneasy around them.
The schedule here is just so much more perfect for how I like to live - waking up late, working till late, eating dinner late, having long lunches and long coffee breaks. You have time to relax when you get home in the evening, because you don't have to go to bed at 11 p.m. to wake up at 6 the next morning. Of course, it can get a bit out of hand with the nightlife, and it's a problem when the only moments of daylight you see are in the cab ride home at sunrise. But having a job kind of prevents that problem from happening during the week.

Up next: I also love Argentina & Argentines because the whole country seems to have a crazily intense sweet tooth. And they are not apologizing for it. I think you need to be raised on loads of dulce de leche from a very young age to have that kind of tolerance for sugar.

Plastic Surgery: Why?

I've written about a lot of things on here, but never before about plastic surgery. Buenos Aires is the capital of plastic surgery, and keep in mind that I did live in Los Angeles for 4 years. Maybe the plastic surgery here is just more noticeable. But whatever it is, it's not pretty. I just don't get it. I'm not someone who judges people for wanting to look good and even for going to extreme measures to do so. Personally I hate even going to the doctor and so probably wouldn't have surgery for purely aesthetic reasons, but I think if something really bothers you, and plastic surgery can fix it, then go ahead. That said, a lot of the plastic surgery here is not good. The most common thing is a huge, stretched-out and often lopsided mouth. You'll often see this huge mouth on the same face as eyes that look like the extra skin has just been clipped away and then sewn back together. Yesterday I was in the elevator at the office building where my institute it, a huge office building that probably half the population of microcentro works in. I was standing next to an ex-famous Argentine actress from the 1980's and I could literally see the line in front of her ear where her facelift ended. Why, why, why? It's not about looking prettier, or younger. It's a really strange aesthetic that I don't understand. And what's more, when you're talking to someone with really obvious plastic surgery, it's so distracting and embarassing, and it's like a car accident where you don't mean to stare but you can't look away.
It's also pretty questionable that 15-year-old girls routinely get boob jobs as the ultimate quinceañera gift and that one of my students who is 21 just got liposuction. We think we're obsessed with looks in the United States but it just doesn't compare to here. It's strange and sad, and especially in a country with so many naturally beautiful people.

Photos: Argentina's most famous plastic surgery divas, Susana Giménez & Moria Casán