Argentina.2: Caca

Jessie with Claudio and Paula.

There were a few things I was going to have to adjust to in Buenos Aires. The kissing, for example, which is a standard greeting.

Jessie's landlord was a bit taken aback when I greeted her by reaching for a handshake. Claudio, a student of Jessie's who had spent time in the U.S., was polite enough to say, "I don't know if you do the kissing thing," as he shook my hand.

It's an odd amount of affection for Americans to see, but everyone here does it, no matter what gender, no matter how well they know each other. "It's not really a kiss so much as you touch cheeks and make a kissing sound without making eye contact," Jessie explained.

When in Argentina, I suppose I had to, and as we bid good night to Claudio and his wife Paula I acted like a true Argentinian.

That day, though, Claudio y Paula took us to the Feria de Mataderos (Fair of the Slaughterhouses) in a section of the city rarely visited by tourists. The area and its eponymous soccer club are actually called Chicago because of both place's fondness for killing cows.

Along the way, Claudio relentlessly tried to teach us bad words and play little practical jokes.

I pointed out some unpleasant stuff on the ground. "Watch out for the --"

"Caca de caballo," Claudio instructed me. Not to be confused with caca de perro, which we also saw.

He seemed to delight in trying to mess with our heads, but it wasn't particularly successful given that I didn't understand a word of his Spanish and his wife constantly told us to ignore him.

But they did a great job of showing us the fair and ensuring that we sampled empanadas, tamales, and chipas there. We also saw the traditional gauchos, or Argentine cowboys (whose pants adorn college women everywhere) and their female counterparts, the chinas.

On the street, gauchos y chinas mixed with everyday folks in traditional dances from la pampa, or the plains. One of their most romantic dances involved circling your partner and teasing them with a hankerchief.

Claudio, meanwhile, still had a mischevious grin on his face. "Are you scared?" he asked me, since we were in a non-tourist area.

"Well, I would say I was scared of you, but not when you're holding Paula's purse," I retorted.

Later, on the bus, Claudio taught me more dirty Spanish words as I struggled to get used to the fact that in Buenos Aires the "ll" and "y" sound is pronounced "shh," and people here rarely use "tu es." Combine that with the fact that I had to suppress the urge to speak French, and I was confused as hell.

At dinner, we got a little inpedo off a couple bottles of 8-peso ($2.50) wine while we ate bife and lorco, a type of bean soup with pieces of pork and stomach -- yes, stomach.

I passed on eating the stomach and instead tried to concentrate on learning the difference between saying "fart" and "whore". Perhaps not the most useful words, but it's what Claudio wanted to teach us.