Spanish School, the City, and Polo Ponies

Three days into Escuela de Espanol, and it is not easy. We spent most of these days learning how, well that is false, trying to learn how to conjugate verbs in Spanish. It's hard for me to do in English! We have progressed to the point where the instructor will only speak to us in Espanol and we are only to speak to her in Espanol. If we sit there long enough with a bewildered look, she will eventually tell us what to do in Inglese. Loreen has a special way of doing it! Next week is to be all about learning vocabulary and phrase structure. It seems that Argentina has their own way of speaking Spanish and use different sounds for certain letters than the rest of South America or Spain. We have one other lady from England in our class, so with only three of us we get a lot of attention. Amber, the English lady, I think actually studies in the evenings as she seems to be advancing quicker than Loreen and I (also, this is the fourth winter that she and her husband have spent in BA). People here are maybe a little hard of hearing as I often have to repeat my simple Spanish three or four times before a little light comes on in their eyes and they say something different but always bring us back what we ordered:) I can now start to pick out some commonly used words in a conversation. One in about every three hundred!

We have been out and about the city a bit, a couple of days wandering on foot, a city bus tour and a long day yesterday through a few barrios picking up other turistas to go out to a polo club, about 65 kilometers in the country. It is a huge city with everything from homes built in the 1800's to modern homes. It is laid out on a square grid and housing numbers run from zero up from the city center so it is easy to find our way around. Like any city it has some pretty dodgy areas and we don't pack any bling. The streets, other than the very main corridors are all a lane and a half, although they seem to be able to get three cars wide some how, one way. A large percentage of the streets in the downtown are still cobble stone.

On our drive yesterday we passed huge modern shopping complexes, didn't see any Costco but Walmart stores. Shopping may be a national pastime as every parking lot was full of vehicles (and even late in the evening). I guess this is not unusual here as Argentinians do not go out for the evening meal until 9 or 10 in the evening, Loreen and I are starved by 6. Then to be very cool they venture out to night clubs at around two in the morning. We have not adapted well to those hours yet and our host family must think we are pretty dull! We have eaten dinner and are home by the time they start to make the evening meal. The English lady at school goes for drinks at 8:30 and then for dinner and they are usually the first ones in the restaurant.

We spent yesterday at a polo club out in the country. Polo is very big in Argentina, with maybe the best players in the world. It is also a rich sport, some of the horses used by the national team cost upwards of $200,000 US. Lots of polo families children grow up on polo camps (farms) and go into other professions, but keep a few horses at clubs and play makeup games on days off and weekends. It was a club like this we were at. We watched a four chukka game, four periods of ten minutes each, four players to the side. Having never even watched polo on television it was very interesting and not too many rules. You switch the direction of the goals every time the ball crosses the goal line and you are not allowed to cross in front of another rider, although you are allowed to push them off the ball with your horse as long as you don't cross in front. After the game we were treated to an asado (BBQ or grill) which was very, very tasty. We had empanadas, chorizo sausage, beef short ribs, blood sausage, salads, roasted vegetable side dishes and plenty of Malbec. There are no sauces on the meat just seasonings and local olive oil and vinegar for the salads. Argentina has vast grass plains and the beef is mostly grass finished, tender and flavorful. They love their beef here and are probably the largest consumers of beef per capita in the world. Not too much on fruit and vegetables though.

Then all us tourists had a quick lesson in polo and riding and out to the field we went for a little polo match. Two Argentinian amateurs, a British girl that is here training and the tourists played a "free for all" game. Not being competitive at horse sports, I kind of held back and let the rest take the lead, not! My caballo, Feona and I got along great and we even managed to score a few goals. Loreen said her stomach hurt from laughing, watching me and the British girl or the Argentinean chasing the ball at full gallop with me shouting "Feona, vamoose, get up, vamoose". Loreen, who has not been on a horse for probably 10 years took to those English style polo saddles and was racing up and down the polo field with an abandon, but they gave her too short of a polo mallet and even by lying almost on the horses side she had trouble reaching the ball. It was great fun and a great day!