Telephone Cards

I have this cute little cell phone that I got from my program. All I had to do was leave a $50 deposit, and then buy telephone cards and add credits to my account. Each card costs me 20 pesos (about 7 dollars) and I get an extra 8 pesos, for a total value of 28 pesos. This lasts me about a week or so.

Yesterday I bought an international calling card for 10 pesos (a little more than 3 dollars) and called my parents. I spoke to my mom for about 5 minutes then called back again later and spoke to my dad for about 5 minutes. I still have over an hour worth of credit on that card.

This is all very convenient, but there are problems too.

Anna called me this evening from her cell phone. She was on Corrientes, what I call 'mid-town' the theater district. It's crazy full of people in that part of town. She sounded a bit stressed. She wanted to know if I wanted to do something. Then we got cut off. My phone does not get good reception in my apartment, so I think this was the problem. I sent her a text, but didn't hear back from her. Finally, I decided to go out for a walk, maybe to meet up with her, possibly to get dinner, but also to see if my phone would work from outside. As soon as I stepped outside, Anna called. She was now at home and had a pizza she was going to eat for dinner.

I had been waiting for Hernan to call me. He texted me earlier and then we spoke and I thought we were going to check out a movie. He was going to check to see if there were any good films in English playing. He doesn't like Argentine cinema. I got tired of waiting for him to call and had finished my reading for class, so I went out. In the middle of dinner, he texted me. He said there were no good English films playing. I was a little pissed. I was expecting us to do something today because I had the day off and other than playing with his music, I don't know what he has to do during the day. Now it was after 9:30 and he was finally getting back to me saying there were no films in English. So I didn't respond.

After I finished eating, I was walking down Santa Fe and I saw that there is a film about Edith Piaf in French called "la vie en rose". I had wanted to see it. So I texted him - "there is a french film" - he called me immediately and said there was a Japanese film (or maybe Chinese) playing in Belgrano (I don't know where that is) at 10:50. I said I thought that was too late (and I knew it was too far -the French film was right where I was). That was it. He told me to call him.

Then I got a text from him saying he was sorry but he didn't have many credits. This is why he couldn't talk long.

So, this convenience thing with cell phones and calling cards and all of this stuff is really not that convenient. Cell phones can be expensive because unlike the US, each minute costs something. It's great if you are like I am in the states and don't use a lot of minutes, but it is not great if you want to have a conversation with someone and discuss what movie you'd like to see. I don't know if Hernan has a land line. But I solved the problem (perhaps) by sending him an e-mail about the French film. We'll see if that happens or not.

Anyway, today was a good day. I walked a lot. I did find a nice cafe, it is a bookstore on Santa Fe called Ateneo that Larry introduced me to on my 2nd day here. It used to be an opera house and the inside is magnificent. There is a cafe where the stage was. I posted a picture from the web. After I had coffee and a sandwich there, I walked for quite a while, eventually making my way over to Patio Bullrich, a shopping center not too far from where I live that used to be where people traded livestock (you can see a pic on my photo blog). I then walked towards home and found another cafe and sat outside under 9 de Julio (yep, under the street) and had another coffee and an alfajor (cookie with dulce de leche in it). I think I freaked one waitress out when she thought I didn't speak Spanish and another one came out to serve me. She asked me if I spoke English, but then we proceeded to have a conversation in Spanish. She was very nice.

The good news is I finished this short story I was supposed to read. It turned out to be quite a pleasurable experience. The beginning was difficult because there were all of these characters and the story hadn't developed yet, but once I got into it, it became easier. It was a mystery with two murders (I hate violence). It felt good to be able to read it and understand what happened and "who dun it" and how and why...

Ok, time for bed.