Try to get yourself a bargain son; Don't be fooled by the very first one

As I said the other day, I want out of the Hotel Regal Pacific, nice as it may be. The company set me up with an agency that is supposed to help me locate a place. They seem to know what they're doing, but we hadn't been looking as actively as we needed to. I only have a limited time in the hotel. Dolores was my town-wide apartment tour guide during this process. With boundless enthusiasm and a knack for quickly figuring out when I was going to hate a place, it made our visits efficient. But despite all the looking we didn't find any good options.

Finally, last week we loaded up with seven appointments. Surely one of them would work out. Here's Dolo and some (supposedly) famous actor who owned one of the units we looked at:
The place had an absolutely amazing view, but was just way too small for my needs. But here's that view (click on it and it should get bigger):

After kissing so many frogs, the prince was finally found. We're in negotiations now, but I have every belief that it'll work out. Fingers crossed. Here's one shot of the place in action. OK, it's empty, but it's ready for action...

When Dolo was describing the fact that the major roads converge a somewhat in the area near one of the apartments, she couldn't think of the english word. So she put her hands to her sides above her hips and said, "You know, it's like a waist." That's the easiest way I can sum up that people just aren't anywhere near as fat here as they are in the States. I think I've seen maybe one acutal overweight person since I've been here. Yet the meals are all gigantic (more on this in a posting soon!). Go figure.

I got my first crack at being a tour guide when Dhvani and friends came to town. Not really knowing anything yet, I relied on a co-worker for some help and he got us out to a milonga. Milongas are clubs where people go to dance the tango. More procedural art than a sock hop, the dancers are extremely intent on what they're doing. Also, they woudn't let us get out there without a lesson. I wanted to try, but after watching for a bit, I understood. You can't just go tango. Still, we had fun watching. It's interesting to note that all the tango music is from the 1940s and 50s. That is likely a bit part of the reason it's not very popular with the kids here today. Out of the 20 people on my team, only one of them has really even tried it. I plan to give it a shot when someone visits who wants to take a lesson. Any takers???

As I said before, my Spanish is sucky, but improving sucky. I've had more than a few language gaffes. The first one occurred over e-mail when I meant to tell some of my team to let me know that if they needed more advice to let me know. Advice in Spanish is consejo. I left out the s which made the word conejo - rabbit.

Más conejo

Other botched translations include when I tried to ask someone about local customs worth checking out. Only I used the word for customs at the airport and he was all, "Why the hell would you want to do that?" And finally, as I said I have grown accustomed to this whole kissing-as-a-greeting thing. I told my frined Nico that I have been kissing the guys in the office. Of course, there's a different word for kissing as a greeting than kissing kissing. Now I know (and thank goodness he was there the first time I made that error). More to come...