Opinion Sur Joven

I´m waiting for the bus 110. There are at least 10 people standing in front of me in the line, and 10 behind. It´s 6 p.m. and the fourth bus passes by without stopping. I look across the street and find Susana Gimenez, one of the most famous Argentinian TV host, smiling stiffly in a poster hanging on the wall. She never takes the bus, so she can´t understand my problem. What is my problem right now? I don´t have enough coins! In Buenos Aires, weird city, coins are worth much more than bills. Luckily, I find in my rucksack the coins that allow me to get on the bus. From the bus I see several groups of friends of different ages sharing “mate”, couples kissing each other passionately and boys and girls in separate groups. Two beautiful girls with long shiny hair are wearing trainers with “exclusive parking” for the big toe. They look like Ninja Turtles.

This contemplation is interrupted by a violent jam on the brakes, and I need to concentrate in an attempt to keep my balance. The traffic in this city is crazy and chaotic. The bus driver is hurried, as is everybody else. However, people in the streets seem to have all the time in the world: waiting in line (there are lines for everything), walking at a slow pace, or standing still on escalators that take them outside the subway. The bus stops abruptly again. The traffic light is red and the bus stops in the middle of the zebra crossing.

It’s a beautiful day and Las Heras Park is full of dogs. It seems that everybody in Buenos Aires has a dog. The curious thing is that not all the dogs are small (what you might expect in a big city!). There are a lot of huge dogs! Why is it that “porteños” want dogs? I have no clue, because it is always dog walkers who take them to the park.

A dog walker passes by my bus with more than 10 dogs, struggling to have at least one leg on the ground.

The sympathy I feel for the dogs turns into pity for the man in a suit who steps into a massive dog mess. These dog droppings always have the shape of the unfortunates who stepped into it, like this poor man.

The bus goes really fast with the help of all green traffic lights and I finally arrive at the café in Palermo where I´m meeting my friend. I´m thirty minutes late and I feel guilty although she is even later: nobody seems to care about punctuality in Buenos Aires.

We order a bottle of cheap beer, with peanuts and chips for free. We are full and almost forgot the time we lost waiting for each other.

Daily life, routines, the pace, people, customs and feelings in Buenos Aires are completely different from Norway. In my country it is not common at all to wait in line for a service; plastic surgery is considered a vulgarity related to the porn industry; there are no “mate” or dog walkers, there is always an available seat on the bus; a dog mess will mean a fine to its master, and above all, punctuality is a must.

Still, with all the differences between these two countries and after a year of living in Buenos Aires, I would love to stay longer because I feel at home here.

I came to this city to study at the School of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. The students’ situation that I found was very weird to me. We attended four-hour classes in 40° C heat and no ventilation at all. In Norway, we have one-hour-forty-five-minute classes with a fifteen-minute break.

In Buenos Aires, where it is impossible to get bored, I feel the necessity of taking advantage of every cultural activity I find out about ( which is usually free). And that is why compulsory classes annoy me (in Norway you can choose whether to go or not), as well as teachers arriving late or going on strike without letting us know in advance. That must be more annoying to those Argentinian students working all day.

The only way to stay awake and catch something in the class was by taking “Cafi-aspirin” (which is forbidden in Norway because of its high level of caffeine), and not even mention the political groups at university, with students who would interrupt the class all the time to tell us about their political views (they were all marxists), their struggle plans, and events. I was impressed by all the political activity at university. As in Norway, students here are mostly left-wing, but the difference is that Norwegian students are not very committed to the cause: demonstrations and events of this kind are much less frequent. There, the prevailing values are anti-racism, anti-liberalism, democracy, the opening of borders to immigration, the environment and aiding developing countries.

My UBA mates looked very active, enthusiastic and supportive. “Norwegians have a lot to learn from these guys”, I thought at first, but after a few months I realized that both could learn from each other. And it surprised me that it was these same politically active and enthusiastic people who littered in the streets, drove after drinking alcohol without wearing seat belts or discriminated against Chileans, Paraguayans, Bolivians and Chinese.

The arrogance of the “porteños” make Buenos Aires a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The city and its people hide their weakneses under a veil of modernism, beauty, culture and friendliness, and maybe that is why tourists on short vacations fall in love with it. When I finally found that the city is not as incredible as it seems and that people have both positive and negative qualities, I felt more relaxed. At the same time I could love and hate this city as much as I love and hate Norway.