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After living in a country for a certain number of months, you get your routine down (thankfully) and have fewer of those “expat moments” where you suddenly plunge into the cultural deep end, having no idea what the f#@k is happening around you.

We had one such “exapt moment” today when we finally decided to use the swimming pool at our new gym.

Before diving in, so to speak, we made sure we had our gym cards, knew how to enter and leave the facility, were familiar with the layout of the gym, and had used the weight and cardio area quite a bit. All systems were a go to give the pool a try.

So, today was the day. We split up at the locker rooms. Of course, my first expat moment occurred with the lockers. I needed a peso coin to use them, which I didn’t have. But, they did have a guardarropa, basically coat check for your stuff. So I used that.

Then, I tromped out the door from the locker room to the pool and was immediately stumped by the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth of doors, none of which could I open into the pool. While I was trying to figure out the door situation, a lifeguard started yelling at me in Spanish from across the way, and unfortunately I couldn’t see him because I didn’t have my glasses on (I was all goggled up, ready to swim). I scurried to place my glasses on my face, peered over at him, and after a lot of mystification, I finally figured out that he wanted me to go to the door marked medico.

I complied and was greeted by a nurse, who told me that she needed to examine me every 2 weeks in order for me to be able to swim, and she would give me a voucher with her permission to enter the pool for that length of time.

I had some trepidation about about an “exam” at the pool, but happily, it turned out that I only had to spread my toes (I’m assuming looking for fungi), flash my armpits (not sure why) and she wanted to look in my mouth as well (happy to report that I don’t have toe fungus on my tongue).

When I was finished, I inquired if she had gone through this regimen with a tall American male who didn’t speak Spanish. She said no and I went in search of my husband, who had actually managed to penetrate into the inner sanctum of the pool and was at that very moment being accosted by a lifeguard asking for his medical exam…so I rescued him!

As we were trotting around the ring yesterday, our fabulous instructor Natalia said we were going to be doing some jumping (which she so charmingly calls “shumping,” a term we have now adopted). We laughed and thought she was joking…gulp, only she wasn’t.

Now, to be clear, our jumps involved trotting over a little 1 and 1/2 foot fence, but still, we weren’t really mentally prepared to be doing any shumping and were a bit nervous prior to beginning the exercise. (We told her it was a good thing she didn’t let us know last week, or we would have worried about it for 7 days.)

So the Offermann/Reeves clan spent Tuesday afternoon practicing the transition from posting into taking a jumping position and guiding our horses and ponies over a wee little fence while trotting!

Pictured above, Tom is putting on Zoe’s polainas (“half chaps” or “short chaps”), each sporting their natty velvet helmet!

Yesterday, Tom and I had to split up so that I could get Zoe to her overnight play date on time. (Admittedly, we were “on-time” Argentina-style, you know, about 1 1/2 hours late!)

Anyway, earlier in the day, we were at the park having a lovely picnic with friends and realized that the hour had gotten away from us, so I decided to take the keys and dash home to get Zoe ready while Tom walked Zelda to a play date with her friend Liam.

Pressed for time, Zoe and I sprinted for a taxi, got in, and then realized that while I had the keys, I had no money to pay for the cab (I forgot to get dinero from Tom)! I explained our situation to Zoe in Chinese, and told her we would beg our driver for forgiveness when we got to the apartment and ask him to wait for us downstairs while we got some efectivo (cash money).

How did the driver react? He was lovely…positively gracious, even. Our kind conductor sat downstairs and had a cigarette break while we completed our fire drill cash retrieval operation. During his forced tarriance in Las Cañitas, our hero didn’t even run his meter. Indeed, he insisted on giving me the benefit of the breakage when I first tried to pay him, since he didn’t have change (of course).

In fact, he was so good-natured, he didn’t want to accept the tip that I tried to give him for his troubles…I was ready to throw down and reach through his window and give him a big noogie, but he finally accepted my overpayment!!

Tom and I used to believe that we were horrendous at putting away our laundry because the washer and dryer were located all the way down in the basement, which was dark, dank, and dust-filled and also lacked a suitable spot for folding.

That theory got shot down when we remodeled the basement and still, our laundry languished.

We next sold our house and rented a condo where the washer and dryer were situated on the same floor as our bedrooms. What could be easier? Surely it would be impossible for us to avoid actually folding and shelving our clean clothes in such a cush laundry environment?

I am embarrassed to report that it didn’t help at all — we still had piles of clean laundry laying about in baskets for days.

Now, we live in Buenos Aires, and we send the vast majority of our washing across the street to a lavandería, and it is returned to us, usually the same day, completely folded. How could we procrastinate now…all we have to do is put it away?

Well, as you can see in the above picture, we still can’t get our clean clothes in the closet! What is it about putting away the laundry? It takes 4 minutes, but we hate doing it.

Some cool bloggers in Argentina post about the emotional highs and lows encountered while coming to the aid of a friend; me, I blog about banana bread…enough said.

This last weekend, we dipped our toe back into baking by taking a stab at our always forgiving banana bread recipe (actually obtained from my sainted mother). We thought, “we can do this…I mean, it’s not like baking is a science that requires exact measuring, right?” So, while Zoe was cavorting in Pilar with friends, Zelda, Tom and I went to work, refusing to let the the facts stop us: we had no dry measuring cups, no measuring spoons, baking powder instead of baking soda, and no wheat flour! With a wee bit of research on the Web about conversions accompanied by some dubious “eyeballing” as we added ingredients, we had ourselves some batter.

Actually, it was rather liberating baking with only a cursory concern about measurements. And, I’m happy to report that the results were fabulous, if a little blonder than we are used to due to the lack of wheat flour.

The banana bread was our BuqueBus snack food during our trip to Colonia, Uruguay this week to renew our visas.

A “telo” is sex hotel…but more on that later!

First, I wanted to talk about “lunfardo,” which is a type of slang here in Argentina that arose from Tango culture. From what I can tell, lunfardo vocabulary is usually a clever play on words (for instance, the Spanish word for “veal” is “ternera,” which is also the lunfardo word for “young woman”). Additionally, the simple transposition of sounds (“hotel” to “telo“) can create a word.

Now onto the telo. Sex hotels, which offer rooms for rent by the hour through to overnight accommodations, are quite above board here in Buenos Aires. Frankly, they are a necessity when children live with their parents well into their late twenties and you have a lot of horny young backpackers visiting and living in communal hostels!

These inns of iniquity are also needed to facilitate the business of conducting extramarital affairs, as illustrated by one of my favorite telo services, hidden car parking (all for an extra charge, of course).

I’ve heard the pillows suck though, so if you’re going to use a telo, bring your own pillow!

Fall is a dangerous season here in Baires. The peril comes in two forms:

1) Leaf Colored Poo. While this may be self explanatory, I’m going to elaborate further! As we head into the fall season here in the capital city of Argentina, the streets are beginning to be strewn with light tan colored leaves. Unfortunately, said leaves blend in perfectly with light tan colored dog caca, making the streets a veritable mine field. We can no longer stroll with the occassional sidewalk pan of the eyes scanning for crap. Now, we have to walk with our heads down, eyes peeled trying to dodge all colored objects on the sidewalk. Trying to walk home with the girls pulling their wheeled school bags is an exercise in stress management.

2) Leaf Over Poo. Aside from the obvious doggy-doodoo-on-the-bottom-of-the-shoe issue, this gem of a situation also creates the possibility for extreme physical comedy at your expense. Upon stepping on said leaf over poo, picture a banana peel on the floor sort of foot skid that results in arms flailing and woop yelling that is witnessed by your fellow pedestrians.

There are many things that make one feel “so American” when one is living in Buenos Aires, such as, inadvertently slamming taxi doors, failing to execute the hello or goodbye cheek buss, failing to effusively greet or depart from acquaintances, using tu instead of vos, shopping at the Jumbo… .

Then there is the grand daddy of them all: showing up at a restaurant ten minutes before it opens, lurking outside, peering in the window like a starved big cat pacing its cage. Or my next favorite, going to a restaurant at between 5:00 pm and 6:30 pm (during tea time) and asking them if the kitchen is open enough to actually cook something. That was our modus operandi tonight.

This evening’s meal involved us going to our local corner cafe and pleading our case for some hamburgers, even though the rest of the citizenry was taking their tea time meal: coffee with a cookie or a tostado. To top it off, we were playing pickup sticks in the middle of the table, which really had the waitress rolling her eyes.

To recap: hungry family with young children begging for food at 6:30 pm and playing pickup sticks while they waited — it doesn’t get much more ‘Merican than that!!

We had our first horseback riding lesson this week! (Okay, I know that it seems like we are trying to create some sort of throwback to a colonial lifestyle between our tennis club and equestrian outings, but I assure you that we will not be hiring a governess for the kids anytime soon.)

Our goal is to achieve some basic competency with horsemanship so we don’t look like idiots when we are trotting or cantering on the rare occasions that we find ourselves on horseback . (I don’t believe there will be any jumping in our near future, although it does look like fun!)

Anyway, it was the beginner ring for us — the girls with their own instructor and Tom and I with ours (turns out, no one wanted to give us a class as a family because apparently kids and adults learn too differently).

We worked on our posting (also known as, “how to avoid bouncing like a goof while trotting”), our walking, our horse kicking, our smacking horse rumps with the riding crop, our stopping (feet move slightly back, squeeze with the legs, hunch in the seat, and pull back on the reins), our rein holding, and our dismounting (take both feet out of stirrups).

Take Aways: I need to wear a sports bra. Tom thinks he’s found the ultimate sport for him since there is no arched back posture required, and to stop properly, you must hunch a bit. Larger horses can’t be made to trot by little inexperienced riders, instead they eat and mosey. We have learned a new Spanish and English word — polainas, which, in English, are short chaps or half-chaps.

This last Wednesday, Zelda left her wool school blazer (expensive) in the back seat of the cab we took home, a victim of the taxi-as-clown-car operation we run every afternoon. By the time I had realized it, the black-and-yellow car was several blocks away, driving off into the sunset.

Fast forward a day. The owners of the kiosko across the street rang our doorbell and presented us with Zelda’s blazer. The cab driver, knowing roughly where he dropped us off, had brought it back last night and left it with the kiosk owners, who said they knew where the little blond school girls lived.

I had tears in my eyes! I wanted to be able to thank the taxi driver, but our neighbors across the street didn’t have any contact information for him.

This is one of things I love about Buenos Aires! The people.