This afternoon I arranged a meeting with one of my new conversation partners. His name is Mario and he is 20 years old and lives in my neighborhood.
We texted each other back and forth a bit and I suggested coffee. He texted back and said he doesn't like coffee but drinks tea. I have some nice tea here that I got at Jumbo, and even though I wasn't planning on us meeting here, but preferred a public place, since I had seen his photos and he looked nice, I decided to invite him up. Well, actually I didn't invite him up at all. When he rang the buzzer and I went down to let him in, he just came in and we came up. It was all fine.
He's a very nice guy and really impressed me with his intelligence. He is going to school studying to be a French translator, and is fluent in French. We started off speaking in Spanish, and I figured if he could speak French fluently that probably his English was not that good, or if at best, maybe as good as Hernan's, which is good but not perfect. After about 20 minutes of speaking Spanish I told him I wanted to hear his English. He stopped for a minute and said he needed to switch over, and then started speaking almost perfect English without even a hint of an accent. I was blown away. He even used expressions like "go with the flow". We then spent the next few hours talking in English and he was able to talk about any topic. He told me about the current political situation here with Cristina and the farmers. He explained the meaning of conchetta. He told me about popular music. He was even knowledgeable about the political situation in the US. I think it would be really hard to find a 20 year old American who could speak 3 languages fluently, talk intelligently about politics and know about life outside of the borders of our country. He is also a really good teacher for me. A little after 6 he asked me if I had cable TV and then turned on a program called "el patito feo" - the Ugly Duckling - which he said is a good program for me to watch to learn Spanish. He said it was for kids, actually it was kind of a teen program kind of like some Disney program, but it was cute, and I could understand a lot of the Spanish. It's definitely a good program for me to practice my listening. He also said he is going to send me some links for music that I can listen to.
I don't know what time he came over, but I was thinking when I set these exchanges up that maybe we'd meet for an hour or so. I think he stayed about 3-4 hours. I started falling asleep during El Patito Feo because I didn't have my nap and I had figured out how to get the heat going in the living room. So between no nap and a nice warm apartment, my head started bobbing up and down while we were watching TV. I really am a tired old man.
After Mario left, another partner I have lined up, Luis, called me. I've actually been avoiding talking to him, but I don't know why. His e-mails have been really nice and very enthusiastic. I think his enthusiasm scares me. Why would he be so enthusiastic to meet me? Well, anyway, he called while I was in the middle of making a provoleta that looked like it was going to come out great. We spoke for a little bit and he is also really nice. I felt bad that I was playing hard to get with him. I sent him an e-mail and told him maybe we could meet on Wednesday.
Tomorrow I am making a Thai dinner for Hernan for his birthday. I'm also meeting Mila, my tango teacher from SF who is here for a few weeks, either tomorrow afternoon or on Wednesday. We're going to have afternoon tea at the Alvear Palace Hotel. Since I don't know when I am meeting her exactly, it was hard to plan something with Luis but I told him Wednesday evening should be a good time. I'm looking forward to meeting him because he is so enthusiastic about meeting me and showing me around. He offered to take me to the tango festival and also suggested that we go see a movie.
So, it looks like it is going to be pretty easy to meet people who can give me a little more of a window into Argentina. Even if we are speaking English, like I did with Mario tonight, I am still very fortunate to be able to meet people who I can ask questions about cultural things here and who will help me find interesting ways to practice my Spanish on my own. My only worry is that I am not going to have enough energy to be able to spend time with all of these people, especially if they want to do things in Buenos Aires time (like dinner at midnight).
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