In case you didn’t know, I am a target for ridiculous situations and this hasn’t changed since I’ve been in Buenos Aires.  I was reading some of my older posts and I was like, “¡Jesus Crísto!  I’ve forgotten to write about the past 500 (more like four) fuera de control situations!  TO THE BLOG!”
 
1.  Never, ever assume that someone doesn’t speak English.  I’m serious.  Most people here will neglect to mention that they speak perfectly fluent English until you’re about 45 minutes into a conversation with them.  I’m glad that they feel like my Castellano is at a level in which they don’t feel obligated to switch to English because they’re straight-up embarrassed at my speaking skills, but still.  It would be nice to mention this fact a little sooner.  ANYWAY, here’s the (más o menos) quilombo Kaarin and I found ourselves in about a week ago.  We went to Palermo to have lunch and we were having a hard time deciding what to order.  I was craving steak (story of my life) and Kaarin wasn’t in the mood for pasta or empanadas which is all this menú seemed to have (story of Argentina’s life).  The Argentine guy next to us got this savory looking crepe and it looked delicious. Kaarin and I were like, “I want to live inside that crepe for the rest of my life.”  We decided to ask him if it tasted as good as it looked after he started eating it.  Unfortunately this guy was taking 500 years to start eating.  During this time I’m talking to Kaarin saying, “Oh my GOD, what is this guy’s problem?  Why is he taking so long to start eating?  I just want to know if it tastes good!  Seriously.  Take your time, bud.  No rush.  He’ll probably think we’re trying to flirt with him if we ask if it’s good.  Whatever, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”  Finally he starts eating and I ask him in Castellano if it tastes good and he looks really confused, so I ask him again, only to have him laugh and say, “I don’t speak Spanish.”  Oh, my FREAKING GOD.  At this point, Kaarin and I are trying to control our laughter and are pretty embarrassed that we were full-on chugging crazy haterade on this guy IN ENGLISH while he was less than TWO FEET AWAY.  

2.  This past Tuesday I had my Contemporary Argentine Cinema midterm and I decided to take the colectivo to school because buses here drive so fast that you’re always in a mild state of terror.  One time Arielle, Phoebe and I were riding the colectivo and it started speeding down the street with Arielle barely on it, which caused her to compare it to the Knight Bus á la Harry Potter, which in turn made me laugh so hard that I lost my balance and fell into the buses’s little stairwell and was unable to get up for a good minute because I couldn’t stop laughing.  That’s another quilombo in itself, but to the story.  I’m on the bus reading over my notes when I look at the street sign and realize that it’s taken us 10 minutes to go two blocks.  There’s an unreasonable amount of traffic so I jumped off the bus and start running in order to make it to my midterm on time.  In turns out that one block of the street was blocked off for some sort of pseudo-protest and all the buses had to reroute and UGH.  I finally made it to school and started looking for the door to my building, but to no avail.  I walked down the block in case and I missed it, and nope, the door was not there.  I felt like I was in a freaking Julio Cortázar short story and I was in world where magical realism reigned supreme and my Doppelgänger was going to walk by me at any moment.  I’m was already late to my midterm because I had no idea where my building disappeared to, so I ran into the Academic Center like a hísterica blabbering about how I couldn’t find the door to the building.  Phoebe, the kind soul that she is, offered to help and walked me to my building, at which point I realized that my building hadn’t disappeared.  No, turns out I was looking on the wrong street the entire time.  WHY DO THINGS LIKE THIS HAPPEN TO ME, I DON’T UNDERSTAND.  

3. When Mariano found out that our class didn’t read the entire novel about a chubby girl obsessed with Ricky Martin, he became a full-on sassy, insoportable beey-otch.  It was fuera de control.  It got to the point where I was thinking, “If I get ONE MORE sassy email from him I am going to shave his luscious locks and force feed it back to him.”  The quilombo all started when a guy in my class, Morgan, was eating an apple during lecture.  Professor Sassy Latino was not pleased with this, so in his sassiest tone ever he asked, “Morgan, why are you eating that apple so slowly?” and Morgan was like, “Uhh…I didn’t want to make a lot of noise.”  So PSL (Professor Sassy Latino) was like, “Where’s my apple?  I’m the professor!” and Morgan offered him a bite, but PSL declined and said that No, he wanted his OWN apple.  The next day Morgan brought him an apple as a joke which was nice because PSL lowered his level of sass, but unfortunately, it was short lived.  After class we were in the computer lab listening to Ricky Martin (I kid you not) when PSL sauntered in and handed Morgan back the apple and said, “Es fea, probala” (It’s gross, try it) and cavorted away.  No one could believe that something that ridiculous had happened.  Personally I was like, MARIANO, YOU CANNOT BE FOR REAL.  WHO RETURNS AN APPLE?  YOU’RE CRAY!  Later he sent us an email with a P.S. that read, “Por favor cuando me regalen frutas chequeen que las frutas estén en buen estado.”  (Please, when you bring me fruits, check that the fruits are in a good condition.)  OH MY GOD, THE SASSY SCALE JUST BROKE, SOMEONE CALL THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS, WE HAVE A NEW SASSIEST PERSON ALIVE!  It’s pretty funny though because Morgan still brings PSL fruit everyday.    

4.  A few weeks ago NYU threw a little asado.  There was carne.  There was choripan.  There was vino.  Lots and lots of vino.  And with vino came the inevitable inebriation.  At 1 PM.  Oh, Buenos Aires….

Ben and me in our natural states:  
 

Anyway, PSL graced us with his presence and he definitely knew I was drunk as soon as I frantically asked if the carne okay after there was a loud thud by the grill.  Later on during the asado he winked at me and I had to do everything in my power in order to prevent a stroke.  For dessert we had alfajores and apparently I asked Phoebe to hold it for me while I went upstairs and then called her 30 seconds later to ask if my alfajor was okay.  At this point PSL popped his head out of his office and told me, “Every time I hear your voice, it reminds me of a villain.”  I was wondering what in fresh hell he was talking about and then he clarified and said it was because I played the villain waitress in our class’s telenovela project.  Then 10 seconds later he jumped back out to add, “Perhaps evil comes to you naturally.” and disappeared back into his academic cave.   WHAT IN THE WORLD.  I feel like I should be offended but, no, I am more besotted than ever.

UNTIL MY NEXT EMBARRASSING, FUERA DE CONTROL QUILOMBO (probably in the next five minutes).

*Quilombo: an out of control situation; hot mess