Does nudity translate?

In an earlier post I wrote about the rumpor/colas and their importance in the Argentinean society and their bare-naked presence on the beaches here. In this post I will continue on the same subject, but now I will discuss the nudity per se more in detail. It is quite clear that the rumpor/colas are more shown here than in Sweden for example, but what about the rest of the bodies? And how is nudity considered in other situations “off the beach” so to speak?

Let me start by describing what the nude scene is like in Sweden, or at least my view of how it is. Back in the seventies during the strong feminist waves in social democratic Sweden females were liberated in terms of not using bras etc. The sexual revolution and the hippie culture had reached the chilly north. But what the heck do I know; I was born only in 1978? Anyway, this is how I see it. The liberated Swedish women with their ok salaries and long vacations started to travel to the south of Europe to get some sun on their blond, pale bodies. Of course they took their newfound liberation to the newly opened Franco-Spain for example, invading the beaches topless. Even though I was not part of this era I have suffered the consequences of the reputation of “easy” Swedish women. I have many times answered “German” when asked for my nationality in countries like France, Spain and Greece… Here in Argentina Swedes have some reputation but luckily not the same as in the south of Europe! However, I have heard from my father in law that in one town in the south of Argentina there is a beach called “the Swedish women beach”. Apparently some time in the 70’s a Swedish company was building something big down there and the Swedish engineers lived there for various months during the construction. Their wives used to go to this specific beach topless, of course.

Nowadays, since let’s say beginning of the 1990’s it is not very fashionable to be topless on the Swedish beaches either. But it is not just the “toplessness” that has been part of our “naturalist-nude” tradition. The sauna culture has an important presence in the whole country, as well as the public bathing houses. (In socialist Sweden we share and share alike many public installations) Obviously these exist here in Argentina and in other countries as well. There seems to be a difference though, in how comfortable people feel being nude in front of strangers. In my experience women here cover up everything when changing in a locker room. Swedish friends of mine have had comments such as “you are quite secure concerning your body, right?” when naked in a locker room abroad. Maybe it has got something to do with us being obliged to shower together after gym class in the public school (up until 9 years old even with the boys)? I remember that the few girls that actually tried to cover up were considered a little bit strange… And believe me, most of us had far from perfect bodies! Some interesting remarks can obviously me made in these situations. As an example I can mention a comment by a friend’s daughter who looked at an old naked lady in the shower of a public bath: “Mom! Look how LONG breasts that woman has!” =)

There is also this thing with skinny dipping, especially around midsummer in June. But I would say that the sauna culture is one of the strongest influences on Swedes’ nudity. Concerning the sauna, you are actually obliged to be naked. If you do wear a bathing suit or alike you will practically be thrown out of the public sauna since it is considered NON HYGIENIC (as per the signs on the wall in the shower room). In some families they do not even cover up with towels in the sauna, not even when the parents in law (!) are there. Then of course you are completely naked when you run out and roll around in the snow or jump in the frozen lake for a quick dip. In high school some friend and I experienced this cultural difference for the first time when some Spanish girls were visiting. Before going out on a Saturday night we decided to use the sauna at my friend’s house. It is quite common to drink alcohol in the sauna, especially before going out! We then realized that the Spanish girls were not at all comfortable with the rest of us being nude…

I thought that Swedes had lost most the nude culture by now when the post-70’s generations are taking over. However, a friend of mine told me about a public sauna in central Stockholm just recently where naked women were practising yoga; in the sauna, not covering anything in any position. And obviously bare naked. My friend’s only comment was that it was merely “too much information”. The thing is that the Swedish nudity seems more natural than sexual in its character, if you understand what I mean. For example, when my grandma is topless on the beach it is not the same thing as when a hot, “posing” (always posing, what is that all about?) girl wears a g-string on an Argentinean beach…

ASSMAN

The idea for this post is to discuss the presence of the cola/rumpa/booty in society… What a subject! But I do feel it has some importance since there seems to be a great difference of this body part’s importance in different societies. It was not easy to choose the Swedish or English translation for the Argentinean word “cola”. There are namely so many different nuances of the word, but also since it is not so used in Swedish (English as we all know, is not my first language…). The Swedish translation used here was actually the word that we decided on after a discussion among Argentinean and Swedish friends. “Rumpa” does not sound perfect nor 100% correct, but it was the best translation we could come up with.

In Sweden the “rumpa” is hardly present at all I would say. This might be due to the fact that I am a girl and I do not hear what guys talk about in the locker rooms etc. (NOTE I am not discussing the role of women in society in this post, but it will definitely come up later on!) However, judging from magazines’ cover, the “front side” of the women seems to be more in focus in Sweden. We hardly come across “rumpa” neither in the colloquial language nor in society. There are a few hardly used expressions (“ta dig i baken”) that I know of and of course we have our dear “rumpnissar” (“but fellows”: creatures from Astrid Lindgren’s book about Ronja).

I do not know the US society at all, but we do receive a lot of entertainment from over there in which I have found that the rumpa/cola/bottom/booty is present to at least to some extent. Some examples are the constant mooning in teen-movies, generally performed by adolescent guys, Ace Ventura and his “Assholemio” (unfortunately I could not find a clip for this, hilarious, a must see) as well as an extremely funny episode of Jerry Seinfeld about the Assman. When it comes to “bad words” it seems to have earned its spot with expressions like assh..e, kick ass and not to mention the Irish arse… But hey, what do I know? English is outside of my jurisdiction so to speak =)

But what is it like in Argentina then? What role does “la cola” play in the Pampa-society? Well, I can tell you this much: it is a loooot more obvious here than in Sweden at least. Maybe because it is a latin country or maybe due to something else. But (!) I am not looking for the why; I will only describe what I have seen so far… Let us start with what for me as a foreigner was the first evidence of the “colas” participation in the porteño everyday life: the magazines. The amount of “colas” you see when passing by a newsstand in the street is INCREDIBLE. There is a clear “cola-focus” in the male magazines where usually the girls on the cover only show their “cola”, wearing barely a G-string. You can usually only see a glimpse the girl’s face that peeps in the back of the photo. So, imagine what a newsstand filled with these looks like. Or even more spectacular – imagine a 10 square meter advertisement on the wall in the subway… What a sight! This is of course also very visible when you go to the beach – only g-strings as far as the eye can see. I am therefore obliged to buy my bikinis when in Sweden…

So, it seems at least Argentinean men are highly interested in women’s colas, but the “culo” also has a special role, especially in the language. (culo is referring to the part that is “not the buttocks”) In an earlier post I wrote about some Argentinean curses of which many had connotations to balls. There are also many words/curses/expressions based on “culo”. The idea is not to present synonyms to the word culo, instead I will only describe some of its different uses. Now I am back to the awkward situation of actually having to write these down… One way of saying “to have luck” is to say “qué culo”, i.e. literally “what a but”. This same expression can be used in a slightly more “colloquial” manner, using a synonym to culo that has its origins in the word eye (say no more). Culo is also used to express fear. I will not write those expressions here in Spanish (I feel they are too brutal), but their literal translations are: a) to cut nails with your but and b) that it shivers. Another way of expressing the fear is with a gesture with your hand. Please, see the illustration of the letter A in the picture of the finger alphabet, but the fingers are hold upwards while you open and close them. I will probably write something about gestures later on and a better illustration will then be provided.

Enough! Now I have to move on quickly to the “pedo” before I can finish. Pedo means fart. And it is WIDELY used in all situations. Here comes a far from exhaustive list of expressions where it is used: to be drunk, not even drunk, to go very fast, by chance, in vain, etc etc. To end this post I just need to mention that Argentina has its own Assman – a famous soccer player. When I first saw the name on the back of his shirt I got to think of a superhero. What would the superhero Assman have as his special powers? What would his face look like? Well, I leave you with those images =)

Lost in translation

I am staying on the linguistic track in this post. But instead of Spanish here I am taking a closer look at the English presence in Buenos Aires. Given that I worked for several years with teams of Spanish-English translators here I could easily have been lead to believe that most Argentineans are fluent in English. However, since I speak Spanish I hardly ever get to know “general” people’s level of English. (Not that I think you need to speak English at all - as you all know by now from reading the blog my English is faaaar from perfect.) Some input I have snapped up from the society around me here has given me a notion that the matter of “knowing English” at least has a place on the agenda. I will share some “data” with you on this topic that I have gathered in a highly non-methodological way.

The first illustration is a commercial for diet-coke. The idea is to show how many said they would never drink diet-coke, but now they do. They compare it to several other situations asking people to raise their hands if they agree. One of these moments is “how many have sung along an English song only by “phonetics”” … Pay attention after more or less 20 seconds into the video.

Then we have this incredibly funny Peter Capusotto. He has a “rock show” on TV where his amazing characters present different videos and so on. He is sooooooooooooo funny and is definitely one of the top-ten comedians on my list. I am just so sad that his jokes not always translate well. You will probably get to see more of him here in the blog anyway since I am such a fan. Ok, back to the subject - English – hopefully this one translates!

One of his characters, Roberto Quenedi (yes he is using a Spanish spelling of Kennedy =) sings English songs phonetically. The picture here is the “album cover” of this character and it reads: “songs sung in shitty English”. Please, take a look at the clip for a better illustration.

The Spanish speaker voice says more or less:

“Beautiful songs that have accompanied us all our lives… They are songs that are pronounced perfectly in their original language – English. Now there is someone who sings them the same way you do – singing in “shitty” English. …with a terrible pronunciation, like yours, like ours”.

One of Pablo’s best friends has turned this “shitty English” thing into an art form. He is very creative as a person and comes up with incredibly good lyrics to the English songs he does not really 100% understand. Apart from being very inventive with song lyrics, he also has a brilliant way of handling spoken English. Since I (try to) speak Spanish my friends usually do not have to speak English to me. However, when I have foreign visitors coming over they do not generally speak Spanish and my Argentinean friends are always great about doing their best in trying to make themselves understood in the foreign Anglican language (with varying results). It should be added as well that not all my visitors speak perfect English either, so it is not always easy to keep the conversations going around let’s say a dinner table. But usually, thanks to a lot of food, good wine and “buena onda” we enjoy ourselves big time. This thing about not speaking the language perfectly even adds to the laughter, especially if our dear friend I mentioned earlier is part of the group. Let me give you some examples of some great use of English when it is at its best:

My brother in law Per was visiting and one night we all went out to this sailing club to make an asado/barbecue (of course). We went for a stroll to look at the boats and our resourceful friend wanted to make my brother-in-law aware of something slippery on the ground. So, he turned to him in the dark and said: “EYE”, pointing with one finger to his eye. Per, being Swedish and all, did NOT understand why this Argentinean was pointing to the eye and saying just that. In Swedish in makes no sense, and I do not think it makes any sense in English either. Of course our friend wanted to say OJO which, apart from the literal translation as “eye”, means sort of “watch out” in Argentinean Spanish.

Same people in this following setting: Per, Pablo, myself and some friends going to another asado at a friend’s house. During the dinner our imaginative friend comes up with yet another great direct translation. He tells a story and ends it with “but I did a big paper”. We all just looked at each other, no one had any clue what he was trying to express, neither us Swedes nor the Argentineans. So he says it to us in Spanish – you guessed it right? Papelón…

Wow, you can not imagine how much we laughed! And my poor brother in law still did not understand – which I suppose none of the non Spanish speaking readers do either. Short explication: “papel” in Spanish translates “paper” AND “role” (theatre/film meaning). And there is a saying – “papelón”- that literally translates “big role” but it means sort of to make a fool out of oneself. So, our friend tried to say that he made a fool out of himself but ended up saying big paper – qué papelón jajja!

Just imagine how many of these things I say when I (try to) speak Spanish 24/7…………………..

Learning how to curse the porteño way...

As a foreigner it is hard to know the level of “slang” when learning a new language. And when it comes to a language that is spoken in so many different countries as Spanish, even a person (me) that has learned Spanish in lets say Spain, need to relearn when they move to another Spanish-speaking country such as Argentina (obviously me again…). I would say that the “porteño” spoken here in Buenos Aires is very different from other Spanish “dialects”, especially due to the Italian influences and the voseo. I had to learn a completely new vocabulary and even new grammar when I arrived here. However, due to natural reasons, the curses are somewhat more sensitive than other “normal” words and therefore deserve some special attention here… When you are not a native speaker it is hard to know the level of ugliness of curses. It is difficult to recognize when it is ok to use a certain curse and when not. From my experience the best way to find out is by trial and error. Just be very observant of the reactions of the people around you. One problem with this strategy though, is that the people you meet are not always the same and some words that are ok in one situation are not at all ok in another. A better strategy might be not to use curses at all, but this obviously never occurred to me. My idea here is to describe some of the most common porteño-curses, how they are used and what concepts they are based on in general; evidently from an immigrant’s perspective! As you can all understand I have made some serious mistakes during my years here using these words…

In Swedish most curses have to do with the devil, hell and “dark stuff” in general. When we get really upset we say stuff like: devils! Hell! Devil! Satan! Baaaad words according to us, but still they are sort of ok to use. They sound badly when spoken, but not nearly as horrible as the “latino curses” do when translated into Swedish. The latino curses seem to be based mostly on genitals, mothers’ sexual habits and so on. Let us start with the ones based on genitals and the most known Argentinean curse: BOLUDO. The origin is genital, ie it comes from the word for “balls” – “bolas”. It is a very commonly used word among friends that can be used in a friendly manner, sort of like saying “hey you” – “ey boludo”. More or less… Or they just put it in as a friendly way to say “idiot/stupid” – “noooo, boludo!” My boyfriend for example, when he speaks to his friends he says boludo in more or less every sentence. He would never use the word in front of a client though, or say it to someone outside his inner circle of friends. Nor to me – except for this once when we were in a rental car on the “autostrada” in the north of Italy. I was reading the map while he was driving and we could not find the signs telling you how far it was to the next town. In that stressed situation a “boludaaa” escaped and I was so chocked that I just started laughing. It goes without saying that we missed the road we were looking for… This is an example of how you can use the word in negative way. Here it is clearly meant “idiot” in the most off-putting manner ;o)

This next word is quite more offensive and it feels strange to write it, but here we go: pelotudo. The origin of this is also genital, but from another synonome of balls: pelotas. I have chosen to illustrate this word with the cover of a well-known book that describes different types of pelotudos argentinos. Again, it is another way of saying that someone is an idiot, but I do not think there are so many positive connotations to this one. Let us move on now to a “omni-hispanic” curse, the well known hijo de puta – you guessed it - son of a bitch. Here the connotation is the role of the mother and how you need to protect her image. It can be very offensive to use this word and you need to master the language to be able to use it with a positive connotation. Warning – do not trial and error this one! A friend of mine did with bad outcome!

To move further down the mother (and sister) lane we start approaching some really dark waters. However, they are quite commonly used in certain situations and in groups of well known friends. I am not sure how to put this next one… Let us say that it is a strong suggestion to someone to go back to where they come from, from the very start, literally. Hm, think birth moment and you might know where they mean. In other words you can be asked to go back to your mother’s or sister’s XXXX (sorry, I can not write it =). This is most often used when you really want someone to “get the h--- out” or more subtly when stuff does not go your way, like the f-word in English I would say. The expression can also be used with the word “parrot” instead of mother or sister, ie “go to the xxxxx of the parrot!”. I heard that the history behind this was that the foreign prostitutes in the port in the beginning of the 20^th century were called parrots since they did not speak the language and only repeated what was said to them…

There are so many many more expressions to be discussed, but I do not want to wear you out. A too long post can really be a “patada en las bolas” – a kick in the balls =)

The main objective: to “hang out”

I had some comments on the DNI-complaints post that people would have a hard time understanding why I still choose to live in Argentina. Hence, I feel urged to describe some of the reasons to avoid any confusion =) Apart from the most obvious reasons such as “love concurs all” (my Pablito) and that I (luckily) had not foreseen all the problems I would run into, an important motive for choosing to live in Buenos Aires is its social life, to hang out… It seems that here you spend more time with “your people”. There is no excuse too small for a social gathering… Again, I need to underline that I am basing this merely on my personal observations, but I have a hunch that I am not very mistaken.

Let me give an example to be clearer. One of the most obvious cases is how you celebrate your birthday here in Argentina. EVERY birthday HAS TO be celebrated, not only the children’s, and EVERYONE has to come. As I see it with my foreign Swedish eyes it is basically a perfect excuse for friends and family to get together. What is more, at all (?) birthdays there is Happy-birthday song, cake with a candle and the photo taken while blowing it out. Grown-ups and kids, they all do it. This is perfectly illustrated in the photo here from my first birthday party in Buenos Aires. The cake also serves as a norm that lets you know when it is ok to leave the party/gathering. Leaving before the cake is served is “mala onda” (not really bad manners, more like bad “spirit” – any translators around to help me out here?).

Another maybe more creative interpretation of mine concerning the reason for the birthday gatherings would be the celebration of one’s self, the right to take up other people’s time etc. This is something Swedes in general are not so good at with the “Jantelagen” hanging over them. One point that leads me in this direction would be the omnipresent Freud and that a great part of the (middle class) Argentineans has been psychoanalyzed at some point in life. However, to me, the Argentineans’ “buena onda” (good spirit) and need to hang out outweighs any other possible reason for the birthday gatherings.

There are of course many other gatherings as well such as the family pasta on Sundays, girls’/boys’ night out usually on Thursdays, etc. But THE gathering , one of the most common ones and maybe the one most known internationally is – the ASADO (Argentinean barbecue). I will not go into details here concerning the “ritual” per se, it will come in a future post as it requires its proper space, but I can say as much as it occurs every weekend if you are very lucky.

According to my "observations" there are some facilitating conditions that make these gathering possible. For example, the children tag along and are left sleeping on chairs or alike during the night, and you can actually invite a lot of people over without being very pretentious about it. Ordering in take out, such as “empanadas” (pirogues/pasties) is a more than valid option. And finally, the only valid excuse for not attending these events if you are not already booked on another one, is if you are ill. “I do not feel like it” does not work - that is merely “mala onda”.

The pagan Swedes – Part I: Easter witches

A few weeks ago one of my Facebook-friends here in Argentina wrote that he, as a non-christian-believer wanted to make the 21^st of June the summer solstice, a national holiday. It was obviously posted as an ironic message, at least as far as I interpreted it. Obviously I had to reply and let my friend know that in Sweden IT IS a national holiday (at least the Saturday most close to it) and that it is one of our most important feast-days of the year. This got me to think of our pagan culture up there in the north… We are Christian protestants and all that, but we still have kept many of our pagan traditions and they are still just as important (if not more) as the Christian traditions and feasts. Therefore I intend to write some about the Swedish pagan traditions here in the blog as they occur during the year. But I want to underline, again, that this is non-academic so should you be more interested in the details and the actual history behind them, please just consult Wikipedia =)

Maundy Thursday the Swedish children dress up as Easter witches and go around the neighbourhoods asking for candy and stuff. And as is very common in Swedish traditions, they all dress up in the VERY SAME manner. There are some basics that need to be part of the costume to make it an Easter witch, such as: black freckles, red round rouge spots on the cheeks, scarf on the head etc – please see the photo for a better illustration. Back in the days when I and my friends did this we gave out homemade “Happy Easter-cards” to the people when they opened the doors while saying in chorus just that – “Happy Easter”! We always brought bags and such to carry the candy and money (!) we received during the day. I am not sure if the kids of today still do that. Maybe it sounds somewhat like the English-speaking countries' Halloween-tradition, but as you can tell there are major differences. Since I am not at all scientific about this I can not say who inspired who etc. Well, anyway, the tradition is that the Easter witches end Maundy Thursday night going by broom (kvast) to dance with the devil at Blåkulla. It does not sound very Christian now, does it?

My DNI adventure

I think any foreigner who has tried to live in Argentina would understand why I choose to tell my DNI-story at this early stage in the blog. It is a very central part of your immigrant life here and even after six years in the country in my case it is even more present that ever before. For you (lucky) people who do not know what a DNI is, I can in a resumed manner say that it is a sort of small passport with a social security number that is basically worth gold. Without it you can not really do anything plus if you get your hands on one you are one lucky bastard and your Argentinean life will never be the same again. However, the path to your DNI-holder life is an adventure and all immigrants have their own story to tell. It could be compared to mothers’ stories about their pregnancies and deliveries (to all mothers – I am being ironic ok! ;o) Here is my story, or “catarsis” if you prefer:

It all started when I first arrived back in 2004 with a student visa (I was an exchange student the first year). When I finished my studies I decided to live and work in Buenos Aires instead of moving back to Sweden. Once I had my work permit, the next step was to get the DNI. I was told I had to go to this certain address early in the morning to get “a number”, they opened at 8 am. The FIRST time I went, I arrived around 7.30. The line was sooooo long – it went along the building, turned with the sidewalk, crossed the street, entered the park in the next block, went through the entire park, reached the end of the park and I took place there – more than two blocks away from the entrance. I could not even see the building I was supposed to enter. After around half an hour people started saying that there were no more numbers. Ok, so the next time I came back by 6 am, and again the line reached the end of the park, so I went straight back home. Third time around I realized that to have a chance I would have to sleep in the park – NOT a very nice neighbourhood. But what do you do? You need the DNI for just about EVERYTHING. Even when arriving in the middle of the night I was way back in the line, still in the park, no sight of the entrance. Then, sometime during the night a Bolivian woman came up to me and my friend (luckily a dear Colombian friend had the same DNI-need) and offered us her spot in the line – just outside the entrance – for 20 pesos each (about 40 SEK). I felt so bad – should I a white European take her spot just because I have more money? NO! But as it turns out, she was “working the line”. That is, she already had her DNI, arrived early every evening, with her kids, they slept there on the side walk in order to be able to make money selling the spot. Increíble… And she was far from the only one. Well, we accepted and got in to leave our fingerprints, papers, photos etc (imagine the photo after a night in the park…).

More than 3 MONTHS later I could go and pick up my PRECIOUS DNI. After an entire day of standing in 1004496887 different lines I reach the counter where they hand it out – what happens? They tell me the translation of my birth certificate was not valid, it had not been done by a public Argentinean translator. Obviously they had checked all my paperwork after the night in the park, and there had been no previous information concerning this. Back then I still got upset about these things, nowadays I have surrendered and do not spend my energy trying to explain why this all is so WRONG. Well, I got the document translated (again) and went back a week later. An entire day in line, reach the counter, all in order, then the man says: please come back in 4 months to pick it up! Hhaahha So, the entire year without DNI… I go and pick it up just one month before my visa expires and when I try to renew the visa I had to reinitiate the whole process. Which meant that I had to get a new DNI too! Lucky me =) But the second time around I did not have to sleep in a park, they actually changed the system and were giving out appointments. I got my appointment three months later, after that it took around three more months before I got the new DNI in my hand. Then, once a year it had to be renewed – implying a new date written with an ink-pen and a seal on one of the pages in the little DNI-booklet.

But to get the DNI renewed, of course you need to renew the visa first. The company I worked for were great about this, had all papers in order etc so it was quite a swift process. Until I was entitled the permanent visa, last year. According to the rules, laws or whatever you call it, as an immigrant you are entitled to get the permanent visa after three years with work permit. However, when I go to get mine, they say that it can not be issued since there is no “regulation”. Hmmm. Now, one year later they tell me that they do issue the permanent visas again, but not to me since I did not work here last year. Hahhahahahahhhaha So, this means that I, after six years in the country is back to tourist visa status and my DNI can not be renewed… Obviously I was told this could be “handled”, it seems there is always a monetary solution. But, you know what, I did not feel like paying quite many $$$$ for something that after so much despair and hard work actually was rightfully mine. Last time I went to the immigrations office (after they made me go back 6 times in a few weeks), I actually cried and the clerk sitting in front of me asked her colleague to “get me out of there”. It makes you feel very welcome… Luckily the country has so many other great things, and especially people, that makes it all worth it =)

I am sorry, this was too long, I know. I just had to get it out. And if I had shortened it (more) I do not think I would have been able to correctly communicate the agony ;o) I promise the next one will be shorter!

La Boca

Following the same logic as the first submission, based on the Samborombon photo, I will now get the La Boca-thing and photo here on the blog out of my system. It is the second most obvious Swedish-Argentinean connection in my book. Of course my book changes a lot and this does not imply that the following texts will be done in the same order. It is enough to say that I need to get passed the La Boca-story in order to continue this blog-quest of mine. So, here we go!

La Boca is one of the most internationally famous districts of Buenos Aires. It is the port where the immigrants arrived at the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century. This is where the tango is said to have been “born”. (Well, bla bla, please Google Boca if you are interested to know more…) The connection to Sweden, that you as a Swede is told by every Argentinean the very same moment you tell them you are Swedish, is the colours of the club symbol of La Boca. Imagine how many times you have heard the story after six years ... Way back then (year?) when they founded the sports club La Boca they needed colours for their symbol. The story tells that they (who?) sat in the port and decided that the next ship that arrived, its flag would be the colours of the club. Surprise! A Swedish ship appeared on the horizon and made it difficult for a Swede in Argentina not be “hincha” of Boca Juniors. In the photo above you can see what the “hinchada” can look like – and as a Swede it gives you some summer of 1994 world cup feelings when we were part of a winning team =)

(But you better not mention the world cup 2002 if you do not want to get in trouble - soccer is a serious business here. When I was still a "porteño rookie" I joked with the hairdresser about this, while he was cutting my hair, BIG mistake)

Samborombon

Welcome to my blog!

It feels somewhat pretentious this whole blog-thing... But, I think it is a good way of giving my Argentinean boyfriend's mind a rest. He is quite tired of my never ending comments about his country, culture and language. Cultural differences are interesting in a relationship up to a point when they can either disappear/diminish or evolve into a real problem. So, to avoid this second quite negative scenario I will share some of my thoughts here, communicating them to cyberspace.

I think it would be a good thing to start with the Samborombon thingy, given the photo chosen for the blog and all... Samborombon is a big deal to most Swedes, while hardly any Argentineans would raise even an eyebrow upon hearing the name mentioned. Samborombon is a small village at the Rio de la Plata/Atlantic coast (just where the Rio turns into the Atlantic). Full stop - only three lines in Wikipedia. For Swedes, however it represents a romantic place where Fritiof got brushed aside by Carmencita. Oh, how we all adore the beginning of 20th century (?) song by Evert Taube.

So, you can imagine my Argentinean boyfriend's face when we were in the car, on the highway from Buenos Aires to Mar del Plata and I call out "SAMBOROMBON" when we pass a road-sign saying just that. "Stop the car!!!! Turn around!!!" We found a way to turn and I got my photo taken next to the hostería. And it is true - it is a village without streets, just as the song tells =) Obviously I was singing the song including all verses, translating them all into Spanish to Pablo (my boyfirend) during the rest of the trip. Cultural exchanges at their best! hehhe

(Of course the only (?) Argentinean restaurant in Stockholm bears the same name, and at all Swedish parties in the Swedish club in Buenos Aires the song is sung at the top of the lungs of all the drunken Swedes attending).

That was that - my first submission!