After class today, we went on a tour of the city prosecutor's office, down by the National Congress building. I was pretty proud of myself, since I managed to figure out how to take the subway and actually switch to a different subway line all by myself. Later on, around midnight, I started getting sick and had to try to explain to a pharmacist that I needed cold medicine. He looked at me and tried to sell me Kleenex. Grrr. I ended up leaving and going to a different pharmacy. One of the biggest frustrations for me in Buenos Aires involves the language. The Spanish here is so different from what I studied in school. Portenos speak really fast, they drop off the ends of words, and there's a mix of Italian slang (called "lunfardo") and an odd Italian lilt to everything. People here can understand my Spanish, but I can't for the life of me understand them when they speak to me. I explained to one person, when he asked me something, that I hadn't spoken Spanish in 23 years and that I needed for him to speak slower. He gave me a dismissive hand motion and walked away.
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