Going with the F%$#ing Flow

On Monday, I scampered around the bus terminal, zigzagging from one end of the building to the next looking for the best deal on bus tickets to Puerto Iguaçu only to find they all cost exactly the same price.

On Tuesday, I waited for an hour for my teacher to show up to give us our mid-term only to be sent home because she literally “just forgot.”

On Wednesday, I got up at 5:30 AM to get to the migration office by 7 AM only to wait 3 hours to be told there was a mistake and we would have to return next week to get our student visas.

Today I slept until 11 while rain fell on the tin roof outside my window and I pretended all the inefficiency and red tape of Buenos Aires was just a bad pesadilla.

By Wednesday, I was really genuinely pissed at Buenos Aires and its complete and utter lack of ability to do anything efficiently without 3 lines and a 10 hour wait. Riding home on the subte, (which thank god was working after a week of on-and-off service) I gritted my teeth and muttered swear words under my breath. Then a friend suggested I “just go with the flow,” to which I responded “I am going with the f@#$ing flow.”

At this point I realized I was indeed not going with the flow, whether it f@#$ing sucked or not. Genuinely in life I do not do much flowing. I make lists and spread sheets and freak out without my agenda. That is who I am. And in America I can get away with it because I am usually surrounded by at least 5 other people who are just as anal.

But my lists and agendas don’t jive with the Argentine world. In Argentine I get “why is this blonde girl freakin’ out” looks and I am beginning to ask myself the same thing: “Why can’t this uptight blond girl just flow.”

So in the spirit of coming to a cultural compromise with Argentina I am taking a yoga class, lighting some incense and doing some deep breathing. And I am learning to flow.

But I’m keeping the agenda book- whether it flows or not.