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Other entries in Buenos Aires

stereotypes and lessons on horns

saturday should be a day of sleeping in and relaxing. i failed at the former so hopefully ill be able to do the latter. i didnt go to bed this morning until 7am because after getting home from the second club in as many nights around 5, i stayed up to chat with the many people that were still awake and hanging out. i met an 21 year old argentinian guy who is from a more remote northern part of the country and is only down here for a visit. its his first time to the capitol and he doesnt speak any english. so i spoke with him in spanish and for the first time on this trip, i really understood everything he said and was able to converse freely for about 2 hours. the club was similar to the night before, large cover although this time we got a bonus of one free drink. it was packed with too many people and most of them were not locals. but we had a decent time until we repeatedly got ignored or just plain disrespected by people we were trying to talk to. david found that one guy blames the israelis with intolerance of the palestinians and thinks its the jews in america who are mostly at fault for the continuing struggle. so we left after we got tired of it and came back to the hostel.

not much else to report from B.A. so ill go off on a tangent about some things weve learned on our travels. firstly, its evident that after years and years of traveling by persons of all nationalities, certain stereotypes arise about people from those countries. americans have a decent reputation despite our current governemtn. the backpackers usually dont agree with Bush so the rest o the international community seems to understand that. scandanavians have a great rep cause theyre outgoing and speak brittishly accented english so that is comical. but the people with by far the worst reputation are the israelis. weve met our fare share already and with apologies to my israeli side of the family, i can somewhat understand why their international reputation is what it is. for example here in this hostel, there are about 10 israelis and after multiple attempts to be friendly to them, ive repeatedly gotten the short version of 'not interested'. this morning an isreali girl came storming into my room to get something out of her locker and woke me up. when i rolled over groggy eyed and mumbled a good morning, she didnt say a word and lft the room slamming the door. then i tired to go back to sleep but the same girl came back in 5 minuts later with the same disrespect and tendency to make as much noise as possible. so that is one example and the thing that i dont understand is that it is well known the reputation they hve but many either dont know it, or if they do know it, dont make any effort to change their attitude. ive heard horror stories from too many other travelers about their similar experiecne with the israelis. but i will try to keep an open mind and not make any prejudgements. i just hope that they are a little friendlier and more respectful in our future encounters.

now onto horns. i love the way the south americans usetheir horns. its what i assume it was meant to be as a signal to warn people of a cars arrival or nearing arrival. no one uses it for screaming at other cars like in the states. it more like, when youre going thru an intersection, you hok it twice to alert peple that youre there. if youre passing another car, you might give it a short tap and then another when you pass saying thank you. that is most common in the norht part of the continent where smaller cars or even buses will pass the slower traffic and then honk an appreciative toot once successfully making the manuever. but there is zero to very little road rage that ive seen. no one leaning on their horn or honking a horn or even waving a fist if they get cut off in traffic. everyone seems to be aware that other drivers are equally crazy and are prepard for sudden changing of lanes or swerves through narrow passages.overall i think that the drivers are nuts; but so are the drivers in teh states. here they are just more accepting of that fact and more patient.

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