"Hell of a Cats"

 Part of our routine here in Mendoza is to go to our weekly “intercambios” (in English, interchange). These events are organized by the school and are advertized throughout the city.  Locals and foreigners alike get together to practice their English and Spanish.  On Mondays the intercambio is structured; they last two hours, and someone rings a bell every half hour to change from Spanish to English and vice versa. The first few of these were uncomfortable with our struggling Spanish. Nothing makes you feel like a bigger idiot than not being able to convey a simple concept. Especially when you know when you can speak better, but for some reason all that comes out of your mouth is gibberish.  But, as we have found out, making mistakes and trying to speak is the absolute best way to learn a language.

Intercambio in Bar

On Tuesday evenings, there is another intercambio, less structured, at a bar.  It’s been a great way to meet some really great people, but I have to say we did dread them in the beginning. Now that we are feeling more comfortable, they are enjoyable and the highlight of our time here.

At an intercambio a few weeks ago, a couple of new people showed up. They had both lived in the US is the past, one in D.C. and another in Utah. They were promoting a community theater play that was all in English, called “Hell of a Cast”. It was an adaptation of a play called “Noises Off” which you have probably never heard of (there was also a movie adaptation from the 80’s).  Tamara was really excited because she loves theater, and her high school had put on this play way back when, and she knew the script very well.

Hell of a Cast!

The play was in English.  All the actors were native Mendocinos, some had thick Spanish accents, and on top of that, many of the characters were supposed to have British accents.  Because of this, some parts were a little difficult to decipher, but overall it was a highly entertaining performance.  There are were several instances from this evening that we wanted to share which, we felt, were particularly “Argentinian”.

The play was supposed to start at 7pm. We went with some people from the intercambio and got there a few minutes before seven.  After we bought our tickets and went to enter the theater, the usher told us they were not opening the doors until 7:10. We all had a good laugh about the perceptions of time around here.  It is something that we always have to compromise on.  Dan always wants to arrive right on time or early, and Tamara always wants to arrive on time or a little late.  With the compromise, we usually end up getting to place on-time/eary-ish.  We now eat dinner around 9pm every night, but it’s still considered early for Argentine standards.

Hell of a Cats

Dan(Top), Maia (Left), Tamara (Middle) and Kate (Right)

While we were waiting for the doors of the play to open, we looked down at our tickets for “Hell of a Cast” (which is a funny title to explain to a native Spanish speaker.  “Hell of a …” is a compliment?) and instead the tickets read “Hell of a Cats”. Meow. You often see signs where something is lost in translation. Our favorite bar name here is "Very people....good things come in."

After the show, we went to our intercambio at the bar, where all the cats, ahem, I mean cast, showed up. They all got a big laugh after we showed them the tickets.  Another typical Argentine moment: When looking over the menu at the bar, I glanced at the vegetarian options. One of the two options was a chicken breast with vegetables on it (ha!).

We have learned many things during our language learning adventure (for a future blog post).  We have had a great time in Mendoza and are sad that we have to leave.  Next up, we have about two weeks where we are going to travel in the far northern part of Argentina to check out some amazing desert landscape. Then we will travel to Buenos Aires for a few days before flying out of July 18^th!