Rocking the workout

Kathy showing off Fitness One.

Being in Buenos Aires for a while does not exempt us from the task of staying in shape, lest we become those fat gringos. After searching on the internet for close by workout places, we identified a few likely candidates. So we grabbed our list and headed out.

All of the places on our list were a subway ride away. And all were expensive for what you get. None of them impressed.

As we walked home we said why not check out the workout place we saw a couple of blocks from where we live, (vivemos). It's called Fitness One and is situated in a storefront.

It's half the price and the equipment is old but functionable. So we decided having a place that's easy to walk to will encourage us to actually workout. No excuses for not working out. It turns out they don't issue you a membership card, you use your thumb on a thumbprint scanner. OK, so the Argentine bureaucracy has my thumbprints. Fast and easy but a bit creepy. 

As it  turns out it was the right decision. We try and workout 3 times a week. The cool thing is they always play a heavy mix of 60's and 70's American rock and roll. They love that stuff here.

It is surreal. Sometimes I'll be pumping iron and on comes Deep Purple's, "Highway Star," off that great Machine Head album. (My first hard rock album I ever bought).  I'm over 5,000 miles away in Buenos Aires and probably most of customers don't even understand the words to it. Oh well, it's a bit of home away from home.

The best part of Fitness One is they have classes at no additional charge. Or favorite class is Stretching on Saturday mornings with Julio.  He moves us through a hour long set of stretches. Not too strenuous but not too wimpy either, just right. The bonus is he plays a great mix of easy stretching music. From Genesis to David Bowie to Johnny Cash, the Beatles and finally some great meditative music for our final long slow relaxation pose. We walk out of there totally refreshed. 

A great instructor, good stretches and a wonderful music assortment all rolled into one. There is more than one way to rock your workout!

The singing elevator

We found our casa on Airbnb. It happens to be on the the 4th floor. It's got stairs which we take alot. Gives us a chance to grab some heavy breathing going up the stairs, and it also has a, "singing elevator." We even gave it a nickname, José.

Now most elevators will have a bit of musak playing when you ride them. But José  plays old American 60's songs, 24 hours a day, he never stops, and always plays in a loop. So, "I've got that peacefulllll...easy feeling..."  can get a bit stale after awhile. We know we're going crazy when one of us starts to hum it!

Now I don't know why they chose to include the singing option in José, the ride only takes less than a minute, but the music goes on forever.

Jose the Singing Elevator

No english

Came across this video about these two guys trying to learn a foreign language. They claim a fast way to learn a language is to go cold turkey and only speak the language you are learning. So no english.

Well I thought I would try this. But it is proving harder that I thought. I keep wanting to speak in english because my spanish is so awful. I only know a limited vocabulary in spanish so getting my point across is not easy. 

Give it a try, it might help you.

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/myprojects/the-year-without-english-2/

Spanglish with beer pong is fun

Learning Spanish is not easy. I had spanish way back in middle school for a semester, so all I remember are some numbers, a few days of the week some months and a few greetings. But, I learned I could always remember the days of the weekend if I ran the two words together. So "sábadodomingo" formed a nice sounding long word. Kind of sounds like a saint's name or an opera singer.

Part of what makes Spanish difficult is all the many verb tenses. They have one for present, for past, future, almost future, almost past and maybe it might happen in the future verb tenses. And on top of that, almost all the tenses can be plural or singular or masculine or feminine. And there is a neuter or two thrown-in to keep you honest. My head was spinning and feeling like it's going to (va a) explode!

OK, maybe I should meet some locals and practice some spanish, how bad can it be? 

I checked out the local Buenos Aires online Meetup for local groups to practice spanish and spotted Spanglish. It's a group that gets together at a bar. For 10 minutes you speak english and then you switch to spanish for another 10 minutes and back and forth. 

The concept sounded fine. So I went. It was at a bar just down the street from our apartamento in Palermo, Hollywood. It was Friday night and there were about 30 people for Spanglish. We divided up into groups and started. Well, maybe I just getting old but the bar music was really loud so I could barely hear everyone without shouting. I did meet some interesting people. One local youg guy was a guitar player that played modern Tango music, pretty cool. There were lots of locals there that needed to learn English for their jobs, so it was interesting.

But at the table next to us was a big group that looked like it was having an office party, and they were all having an intense game of beer pong. I've never played it but it looks like a sure way to get drunk. So all the shouting and yelling and drinking just added to the decibel level. I think I strained my vocal chords that night.

So needless to say I didn't get that much "spanish learning" out of the experience. But I think the concept is sound, just the venue was wrong. I plan to go back, and next time I'll bring my own ping pong balls.

Felices Fiestas 

from

Buenos Aires

Coming to Buenos Aires "Fair Winds"

Hola Amigos--
Well the flight was long but we made it Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's nice to be out of the cold weather of the upper Midwest. It hit 94 degrees the other day, quite a shock to the old bod and the sweat poured down.

Impressions of Buenos Aires: A huge city with very nice people. Lots of cars that force you to look before you walk across the street. A great subway system, but be sure to avoid the crowded morning rush hour. We love the subway, cheap and clean.

We got settled in to our apartment in Palmero Hollywood, I plugged in our US powerstrip and promptly blew the apartment fuse. A call to the landlord and were back up and running. Time to walk around and explore the shops, cafes on every corner and nightlife. We are right across from a Catholic School. So there are lots of kids in their school uniforms coming and going. And when it's recess time, you can feel the excitement in the air as noise level rises.

Buenos Aires is a city of Spanish speakers. But once in a while we do hear English being spoken as we stroll along by sidewalk cafes. Meeting up with our spanish tutor soon...

Hola Amigos--

This blog is my attempt to help myself learn Spanish before my upcoming trip to BA, Buenos Aires. Where I'll continue learning Spanish and also learn Tango dancing. Lots of learning going on!

I just started a spanish class that meets on Thursday nights with Dr. P at the local community college. We learned the first day that Spanish has many of words in common with English. Which should make things a bit easier. And  that Spanish is one of 5 Romance languages all derived from Latin. Lots of people in the class seem motivated to learn and many with a multi-language background.

We learned that 85% of the Spanish verbs are regular, or have regular endings. The other verbs are semi irregular and the rest are irregular translated as you better memorize them!

Today I just got a package from Amazon with the 3 spanish books I ordered. Easy Spanish Phrase Book, See it & say it in Spanish and Easy Spanish Step-by-Step. They all look good. I just ordered the books on Thursday and got the books on Saturday. How do they deliver them so fast?

I also bought Benny's Fluent in 3 Months Plus online mishmash of language hacking. I really like Benny's take on learning languages. Just jump right in and don't be intimidated.

I also found some Learn Spanish youtube videos. Pro Spanish, it's nice and slow and I can speak. "No Tengo un animal." 

So far so good.