Sh-o (or as the rest of the world says yo)

Today, when i was picking up my laundry from the lavaropa down the street, i had a nice little conversation with the ladies there about what i was doing in Buenos Aires.

Then they started laughing at me.

"Pareces como una portena. Dices "sho" no yo."

Apparently i have picked up the- what i always thought was terribly annoying- porteno way of saying the letters y and ll.

shaves instead of llaves. shuvia instead of lluvia. masho instead of mayo.

And sho instead of yo.

And for some reason it made me smile the whole way home.

It's not that i think i appear porteno to portenos or even to the ladies at the dry cleaners. It is just that i finally feel like Buenos Aires is starting to have an effect on me; like it is actually starting to change me.

Honestly, I didn't come here to learn Spanish, although that would be a plus. I came here to experience another country or really i came to experience myself in another country. I came here to touch another culture and let it touch me. I came hoping to be changed, hoping to be a different person after 6 months, a person who has lived a little more. I came hoping to leave a mark on a city and now realize although my mark here will fade the mark of Buenos Aires on me will be forever; even if it is the terribly annoying sho.