Espanol 101

We arrived in Buenos Aires 6 days ago and have not yet taken ONE picture. Unlike my previous entries (admittedly heavy on facts), I have nothing to say about the city's history or the major tourist attractions. We decided to soak it all in and become acclimated to our surroundings. Plus, we're tired of carrying our camera around.

Our first task: learn/brush up on Spanish. My first realization - it's all Castellano here. Despite a few years of training in Spanish, I can barely make out 50% of the conversations here. I now have some appreciation for foreigners who visit the US and struggle with all the various accents (e.g. Southern, New York, Valley Girl). We found a small school and enrolled in Spanish classes for the next several weeks. Of course, they teach THEIR own flavor (as our teacher put it, "YOU Americans wouldn't teach English in the British accent, would you?" - which is quite different than what we learned in our home state of Cali-Mexico. And, they talk really fast. We've had our first two classes already and the frustration level is at Level Orange. Ay caramba!

We love our apartment. It's gigantic, with hardwood floors and vaulted ceilings. The water pressure is low, but we don't care. It's in a charming building built in 1910 and we have a nice view of the neighborhood park. The owner is an architect and has a keen eye for interior design. We have a full kitchen and went to the nearby 'supermercado' to pick up some essentials. Nobody really speaks English here and the labels are not always helpful so, we have probably purchased swiss cheese instead of provolone, and Half & Half instead of milk. The supermarket is like Kmart and VONS in one - 2 stories and just as many brands as we have.

We managed to find the jelly/jam aisle but could not find any peanut butter. Lee found the word for 'peanut butter' in his handy translator toy and we attempted to ask an employee where it might be located. He looked at us like we were nuts (pun intended) and pointed to their Dulce de Leche section. They have 15 different kinds of dulce de leche- a sweet dessert spread that looks like peanut butter but with 4 Xs the calories. Think nutella but caramel-flavored.

We were on a mission now. We went to every market in the neighborhood asking for the stuff. Finally, one store owner said that some specialty stores carry peanut butter but it's really bad. Now, we have not felt much home-sickness so far but in that moment, I could see the sadness on Lee's face. I felt a lump in my throat. We miss the good 'ole fashioned nutty, the creamy, the Skippy, and even Jiff.

If you're reading this now, take a large spoon, dip it into your peanut butter jar and savor each morsel. Though everything is dirt cheap here (the peso is about 1/3 of the dollar), we would be more than willing to pay blackmarket prices for a taste of American peanut butter...