The one month checkpoint

Tomorrow, I will have officially been in Buenos Aires for a full month. I don’t even know how that is possible. Looking back on individual experiences, it seems like I really have been here for quite some time, but on the whole, it feels like 4 weeks is nothing, that I only just arrived. The one thing I have come to realize and really appreciate is that for once in my life, everything isn’t planned out. I don’t really know what I’ll be doing every day, and most of my planning is very spontaneous. I have my schedule set up now, more or less, but besides that, I can do whatever I want with all the other open spaces. It’s incredibly refreshing.

Every day I feel like I could think of one small victory that is making life that much better here. Some examples:

1.My Spanish is steadily improving. I am hoping to be able to incorporate more slang/common language into my every day speech so that I may one day stop sounding like a disgustingly proper Spanish textbook.

2. I’m getting good at calling out cab drivers that try to rip me off and take the extra long route because I am an American. “Oh oh, sorry, I was thinking of a different number.” Right.

3. I finally learned which way the doors open in this country. It’s usually a push door to enter most cafes and restaurants. I don’t run into glass anymore.

4. After multiple visits to the Fencia café next to IES for tea and medialunas (little delicious croissants that are all the rage here) before class, I have made friends with the staff.

5. Jesus and I are making big strides. This week, she gave me pink bed sheets. I think she likes me.

Fun fact: I have a music major in my apartment building. How do I know this? Drums and bass guitar at 9:30 am ON A SUNDAY.

My life since last Friday.

Saturday afternoon, IES took us to a rugby match. Beautiful weather, liters of Quilmes beer, and good times. The match was great, considering I have never actually been to a rugby match before. A friend actually spotted a Northwestern rugby shirt? The guy said he had gotten one because Northwestern rugby had been down there for a tournament at one point. Who knew? The place was absolutely packed, with people of all different ages. A bunch of little boys in matching rugby shirts were playing on the adjacent field. I don’t think I could ever allow my 5-year-old child to play a sport that is essentially football without pads. Maybe that’s just me.

Saturday night my friends and I went to eat at a wonderful Italian restaurant in Puerto Madero, the port area along the Rio de la Plata, called Sottovice. The Italian food here in general, including pizzas, is fantastic, probably due to the great amount of Italian influence. After dinner, several of us went to a club called Punta Carrasco. Looking at the website for it now, it’s actually a ridiculously pretty place: http://www.puntacarrasco.com.ar/terrazas.html

Absolutely huge, it has over 10 different rooms with multiple bars. There’s also a gorgeous outdoor patio area with large palm trees and plants everywhere around the seating areas. Lucky for us, we have met a club promoter here who gets us into clubs for free, which was very convenient, considering this place looked pretty pricy, especially the drinks. All in all, very cool place.

The next day I went to the San Telmo street fair, a very well-known fair that happens every Sunday. San Telmo is in the southern part of Buenos Aires, full of many beautiful old buildings and cobblestone streets. This is the area where Buenos Aires was originally founded. Unlike the Recoleta fair, this fair has many antiques, among other handmade accessories like bracelets, purses, and scarves. While you roam the streets, you can grab freshly baked pastries and medialunas, watch a short tango show, or listen to the many street musicians. While we were there, we stepped into a large church on one of the main streets to listen to a choir concert. There are also many painters that come out there, and they usually display images of the city or tango dancers. I hope to find the perfect tango painting for my apartment this year.

Speaking of tango, I had my first class Monday morning, 8am. It was a little rough, but luckily I’m a morning person, so I was in better shape than most of my classmates. The class was split pretty evenly between IES students and university students. We basically learned some basic steps and started dancing in pairs, struggling at times, but not doing too bad. It’s going to be very challenging, but the professors seem very nice and the students are warming up to us. I’m very excited about it.

Tuesday I had a very interesting Spanish class. Somehow we had gotten off on a tangent and began talking about the differences between US and Argentine perceptions of economic/social status. This is what I learned. I was shocked:

--A person with more free time is regarded as someone who has high social status. Somebody who works a lot is seen as somebody who hasn’t ‘made it’

--In terms of priorities, socializing comes before work, and how successful you are at work is even less important

-If an Argentine does not enjoy the social atmosphere at his/her workplace, continuing to work there is completely out of the question. A bad social atmosphere is a huge indication of a place where you don’t want to be.

--Argentines typically work less hours a day, in order to socialize more

--Students are graded on a 1-10 scale, 10 being the best. Rarely do students receive A’s (9-10), because, as I understood it, of the idea that perfection isn’t really realistic/attainable. Thus, in Argentina B’s are considered excellent, and C’s are pretty good as well

--Our professor doesn’t really understand the concepts of “competition in the workplace” and words like “challenge” and “frustration,” because they just don’t really exist in the Argentine vocabulary…wow.

I left class that day with my head spinning, unable to fathom the idea of a place that not only is not comprised of a population of crazy workaholics, but also doesn’t revolve around the concept of relentless, cutthroat competition in everyday life. I just might never leave.

Wednesday morning I bought my tango shoes! They are mandatory for class. Guess what color I picked? You’re absolutely right, hot pink with snakeskin. How’d you know? They are beautiful. I attached a photo for your viewing pleasure.

After some convincing, I was able to switch out of my Spanish class on Friday mornings. So, now I only have class Monday-Wednesday. That means 4 day weekends, every weekend. FTW.

Floods and Slang Words

Wednesday morning I learned a new word- inundación. It means flood. Wednesday morning I woke up to the sound of pouring water. Curious as to what it could be, I stepped out of my room to see the entire kitchen filled with water, as the washing machine had started to overflow. My first instinct was to run back into my room, grab the dictionary, and look up the word for flood, because I had no idea how to communicate this to Jesús over the phone. She told me to wake up her son Manuel, so I did, and it was a happy ending, but I wasn’t expecting to learn that word so early in my trip.

Later that afternoon I had my first poetry class. My professor is extremely animated and clearly very passionate, so I think I can guarantee this will be a great class. After that was urban history of Buenos Aires, which already gave me a headache within the first 20 minutes, but will also be very interesting.

Wednesday evening I come home to see a note on the table from Jesús that reads, “I will be back with my friends at 10:30.” I have come to find that Jesús is quite the social butterfly, I figure she’ll have a few friends come over like last week for their usual weekly rummy game, so I go about my business and decide to take a nap before going out. I wake up around 11 to hear so much noise in the apartment. My friends had already grabbed a cab and we’re on their way to pick me up when I came out to say hello/head towards the door and get sucked into the celebration. There were about 25 people there, Jesús’s entire Wednesday acting class, celebrating their acting teacher’s birthday. Jesús proceeds to cut the music and present me to all of her friends, all of whom jump up and nearly throw their wine glasses to welcome me. The first person that comes up to me is this acting teacher, who was my FAVORITE. Like somebody out of a movie. He was wearing some kind of bohemian linen shirt and had an earring, and he threw up his arms as he spoke, as if he could only explain everything he was saying by acting it out. He was so wonderful.

Anyway they sit me down, put wine in my hand, and proceed to chat with me for the next half hour about anything and everything, including school, family, and politics. It was so great, they were not only all very warm and inviting but also very interesting. Needless to say, I missed my cab and met up with my friends later. If I understood correctly, I believe I was invited to sit in on one of his classes in the future, so hopefully that will work out.

Thursday I felt pretty worthless, as I only woke up around 1:30 after having come home at 7am the night before. The only thing I did was go out to a late lunch with friends and later nap and skype with friends in the evening. I really can’t complain though.

Yesterday morning I had class at 9am…absolutely brutal. For some reason I felt that my 3 months of waking up at 6am to intern at Wilson this past spring would somehow translate into me being able to wake up for a 9am class, but surprisingly (or, rather, not surprisingly) it did not. The only good part about class was that we learned a lot of new slang words.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Banana: literally, it means banana (shocker) but in slang it basically translates into “tool,” somebody who thinks he’s really slippery/smooth (like a banana peel I guess?) but is actually a joke of a person.

Borrarse: a verb that means “to erase yourself.” So, if somebody’s bothering you and you want them to get out of your sight, you say “borrate!” You actually just told somebody to erase themselves. That is hilarious.

Salame: yes, it means salami, but in this case it means idiot.

So if you’re feeling really sassy, you can put these 3 together and say something like,

“Borrate, salame. Tu eres una banana.”

“Erase yourself, idiot. You’re a tool.”

There are a few other words like sope and feca that have just had their syllables switch, so in actuality they are peso and café (a dollar and a coffee). Clever, huh?

That afternoon a few of us went to an amazing ice cream shop called Volta. Ice cream in general is incredible here, but Volta is by far the best I’ve had so far. The flavor I chose was Dulce de Leche con Brownie…enough said.

I found paradise.

Ok, so I’m a few days late. Apologies.

Friday evening I discovered the magic of a sleeping aid. With a 17-hour bus ride ahead of me to Puerto Iguazú, and no movies to watch besides All About Steve (which I ended up watching anyway and have to say is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, second to Material Girls), I decided to knock myself out. To be honest though, the bus ride was really not too terrible, especially when you had 14 other friends to keep you company. These omnibuses are also very nice- fully reclining seats, aka a “full cama”, TVs, and dinner/breakfast was served.

We arrived in Iguazú around 9 am Saturday morning and headed to our hostel, the Hostel Inn…by far the most American hostel in all of Iguazú. Can you tell? Considering that the word “hostel” screams anything but sanitary living conditions, I really can’t complain. For $17 a night we had pretty decent cabins and clean sheets.

We toured Iguazú National Park all day Saturday, which was great but quite cloudy. We went down one trail that was called La Garganta Del Diablo, aka the throat of the devil, which lived up to its name as we saw how massive the falls were. In the afternoon we took the “Grand Adventure tour” (lame) that took you through the jungle on a big truck until you reached the boat docks. I think the tour guide maybe pointed out 2 things, a endangered palm tree and a fruit that was in the same family as the papaya, and that was all. But then we got to the boat that was to take us under the falls. I didn’t actually think they’d drive us into the falling water, but they did, and we were soaked, and it was amazing. I highly recommend it for anybody planning a trip there sometime in the future, it’s a must do activity.

In the evening we had a $10 buffet meal at Hostel Inn which would have been great had we been there at 8:00 when it started, because by 8:30 everything was basically gone and the waiters were being sassy about giving more portions of meat…whatever, it was fine. After dinner began the Brazilian show…yes, we had a Brazilian show, complete with Brazilian girls with huge feather headpieces and bejeweled outfits. It was entertaining, except that both dancers were about 50 years old, which made everybody extremely uncomfortable.

The next morning, I wanted to go back to take better pictures because Sunday was completely clear blue skies and warm. A few of us went back to the park (you can get in for half price if you show your ticket from the previous day) and took some incredible shots of the falls. SO worth it. As you walk along the trails you find so many other little falls that are tucked away and are gorgeous. It’s a very nice walk and there is no intense hiking whatsoever. I apologize for my 200 pictures on facebook of these waterfalls, but I felt it was necessary to take that many. They were really that beautiful.

Sunday afternoon we came back to our hostel and relaxed until our bus ride home around 7:15, a little more eventful than the last, considering we had better movies like Transformers and Fast and the Furious, but nevertheless we went to sleep relatively early. We also had a team of 16-year-old boys on our bus, who apparently had just finished a volleyball tournament. They were attempting to convince us to hand them a few of the complementary mini wine bottles from the back of the bus. Really? One of their father chaperones eventually gave them one bottle to share between the, oh I don’t know, 7 of them. They thought they were the coolest kids of all time. This is when I decided to go to bed. Before I fell asleep, I was listening to music and pulled back the window curtains to see one of the most beautiful starry nights I have ever seen. There was nothing but miles of Argentine countryside. The next morning the weather was beautiful, and I snuggled up with my cup of tea and continued to look out the window for the last several hours of the trip. I feel like that sounds like some Indie film, no? Going on a road trip with friends and staying in a hostel, waking up to a sunny day and drinking green tea while admiring the miles of pastures out my window?…I seriously felt like I was in one. I loved it.

We arrived in Buenos Aires around noon on Monday, and went home to get our lives in order after a weekend away from civilization.

Today, Tuesday morning, was my first day of classes. I forgot that I actually have to be productive during my time abroad…so I went to my first Spanish class at 11am, however my second Spanish class of the week is on Fridays at 9am, which I need to fix pronto. Otherwise, I really enjoyed my first History of Argentine Cinema class today. It’s only once a week from 5-8. I think it will be a great class. My professor also seems great. His hair is out of control, like super crazy curly that sticks out of his head and it’s wonderful. I feel like we can relate somehow.

Later last night we went out to a bar called Sugar, pretty obviously a gringo bar. During one conversation with an Argentine, he asked an interesting question. He asked why Americans say “um” when we can’t think of something to say, while they say “em.” Great question. I had no answer.

Epic Class Fail

So Wednesday had a bit of an interesting start…

A group of 20 of us decide that we want to go to Iguazú Falls this weekend because we don’t have class on Monday. We decide to all meet at the IES center (our abroad program’s center). While we wait, we are informed that one of our friends, Delfina, is currently alone in her apartment, hearing screams from the apartment next to her because robbers are holding her neighbors hostage. She was promptly evacuated from her apartment and was only allowed to return today. The story made headline news. She knew because she could see her own apartment on the screen. Apparently SWAT and police surrounded the apartment…Wow. Cool wake up call?

Once it was confirmed that she was safe, we headed to the bus station and successfully bought tickets for Iguazú Falls this weekend! They’re located in northern Argentina and are said to be absolutely spectacular. Most people get around by overnight buses, which is exactly what we decided to do. Plus the buses have seats that recline into beds, ideal for an 18 hour ride…

Last night was a little rough. I went to my first marketing class at UCES at 7pm. I think I only understood about 1/7 of what the professor was saying because he was speaking RAPID Spanish. Luckily, the few phrases I did catch were something along the lines of, “I talk really fast, and I won’t be slowing down. So if you don’t understand me you have a problem” and “The material for this class is long…really long” and “I hate when people ask stupid questions. So make sure you think before you ask.” Needless to say, I won’t be returning to that class. I still have my tango class, which will be great, and all of my other classes will still be in Spanish, so I’ll be fine. I have decided to take Urban History of BA, History of Argentine Cinema, and 20^th Century Argentine Poetry.

Jesús and I are making progress with our dinner conversations. The other day we discussed the Argentine obsession with plastic surgery and body image, which led to other topics such as the obese American culture, which led to eating disorders, which led to me attempting to explain the concept of a sorority…I think I finally got through to her, but only after several confused looks, especially because I told her I was in one..Somehow that didn’t work out as well I would have liked. I think she may have gotten the wrong message.

Did you know that in Buenos Aires if you are in trouble you are NOT recommended to call the police for help? Yea. I didn’t either. That was a touch unsettling.

Today I went to a Megatlon gym near me, and it was unbelievable. It is the best. They have tons of different machines and you can take whatever class you want, you just show up. I am already obsessed. I walked down Avenida Santa Fe to get there, one of the busier streets in the area, and realized how bad those incense kiosks are. I seriously feel like I’m in a Catholic mass 24/7. After the gym I made another great discovery: Tea Connection. Do we have this in the States? If we do, I am embarrassed for not having discovered it sooner. Lots of great, healthy food and a million different kinds of tea drinks. My life is complete.

Tonight we had a big end-of-orientation dinner at a parilla named La Bistecca in Puerto Madero, which is the area right on the water (beautiful view). It was again a full blown buffet with separate areas for meats and made to order pastas. The Tiramisu I tried was amazing, only second to the one I had in Italy.

Now I must go to sleep as to prepare for our Iguazú Falls adventure this weekend. More to come on Monday.

My SINCEREST apologies to you all for the lateness of this post, believe me if I had the time to write before now, I would have. I’m not quite sure how to tackle this first one considering I have so much to tell even having been here only 9 days, so we’ll see how it goes. Also, be warned that if you plan to read this, take a seat and make sure you have about 20 minutes to spare.

Ok. Here we go. I arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday morning, around 8am. Having been in 95 degree, humid weather in Michigan for the last several months, walking out of the airport into 40 degree weather was a little rough. Reps from IES welcomed us outside of customs, put us all in cabs, and sent us on our way. Being dropped off on a random person’s doorstep on an unkown street in a foreign country was quite possibly one of the most terrifying experiences of my entire life. After ringing the buzzer, I was greeted by my house mother at the door, an elderly and incredibly kind woman by the name of María Jesús. She, however, prefers just Jesús. To further add to my anxiety were the first minutes of communication with Jesús, who speaks absolutely no English. None. On top of that is the issue of the very different Argentine dialect of castellano (Spanish). Here’s a quick Spanish lesson:

1. In Argentina, all Y sounds, which in Spanish includes the letters Y and the double L, are changed to “sh”. “Me llamo” is now pronounced “me shamo.”

2. Argentines don’t feel like saying S’s in their words. They just don’t really exist. Maybe it’s a laziness thing? I don’t know. But very interesting. They’re substituted by a faint H sound.

3. Remember when you conjugated in Spanish class and your teacher told you to skip the collective “you” vosotros form because he or she assured you that it is very rarely used? So you never really learned it? Yea…Surprise! They use it here all the time.

Put those all together and you’re gonna have a headache within minutes. Days can be quite mentally draining.

After unpacking my things, I started to relax. I decided to go explore a little before meeting up with some friends. I live in Recoleta, one of the nicest “barrios” or neighborhoods of Buenos Aires. The city is absolutely gigantic, and I hope to explore as many barrios here as possible. Every street corner here is different. The architecture is unbelievable, a mixture of old and modern with tons of European influence. I love the fact that there are many parks here, right in the middle of everything. I found my friends at a café where we chatted with some new friends from our IES program. We decided to have a happy hour at 3 pm (oops.) after which we aimlessly walked around the city for several hours, passing even more beautiful buildings and many street fairs that are held every Sunday. Later that night we went to a bar called the Alamo, which was clearly an American bar, considering the bartenders spoke English and ESPN was on TV.

Monday was my first full day and we had orientation in the morning. Since my apartment is only about a 20 minute walk from the IES abroad center, I walk there every morning, which is beautiful and very refreshing. We drove to the Museo Histórico Nacional to have lunch and to have more orientation presentations. During this lunch I had my first empanadas, pastries filled with meat, cheese, and vegetables, and completely fell in love. This could be bad. Later we had a guided walking tour of another barrio called San Telmo. On Sundays it has a remarkable unique fair which I hope to get to soon. Monday was my first dinner with Jesús. I was able to have my first taste of dulce de leche, which is basically a very delicious topping. It looks like caramel, but tastes SO much better. It’s eaten with basically water you want- fruit, toast, on cakes/pastries, or just by the spoonful (amazing).

Our first evening activity in Buenos Aires was the Alamo bar, which is kind of a joke because it’s an American bar. The bartenders speak English and ESPN is on TV. I had my first taste of fernet which tastes like jager but has a really strong herb taste…maybe it’ll grow on me? Doubtful.

Tuesday was just more orientation and general wandering around the city. We got a discounted membership to a gym here called Megatlon. I’m really excited about it because it’s huge and super intense and has lots of different locations we can go to also. For about $20 a month we can use any and all of the machines there, as well as take any classes we want.

Wednesday I visited the Cementerio de la Recoleta, the burial place of Eva Perón, aka Evita, a very famous and highly respected woman here in Argentina. She was the wife of president Juán Perón and served as First Lady until she died at a young age of cancer. She was a well known women’s rights activist and also founded a charity foundation for orphans and homeless women. All in all, a pretty amazing person. Her grave was beautiful and covered with fresh flowers.

On Thursday I had academic advising and was convinced to take a tango class at IUNA Artes del Movimiento, an excellent, if not the best, university for dance. Great. I’m going to die. I think it would be incredible to learn though, so I’m going to try it out. Thursday night I went out to my first parilla (steakhouse) called Don Julio with some friends and had dinner consisting of appetizers, wine, and steak for only $15…not kidding.

Friday was our day at an “estancia,” which is a ranch. We arrived in the morning and were greeted with empanadas and “mate,” an herbal drink. You put the herbs into a small wooden cup, I guess, and you have a thermos near you with hot water that you pour onto the herbs and keep refilling. You drink through a special straw that has a filter at the bottom so that you don’t swallow the herbs. It’s very neat and pretty good! I like it. It is considered a social drink, so everybody passes it around. It’s very common in parks on Sundays, where you’ll often see groups of friends hanging out and drinking mate together on the lawns.

But about this estancia…I may or may not have had the best meal of my entire life there. The empanadas and bread and cheese were just an appetizer apparently, because later we were lead into a large restaurant in which a huge buffet was set up. There was everything-meats, cheese, bread, vegetables, seafood, EVERYTHING. It was unbelievable. There was a separate buffet just for desserts, one of which was dulce de leche cake and I died after I ate one bite of it. It was heavenly. After we got back with our plates from the buffet, waiters came by with huge pieces of meet on long poles that they sliced off and gave to all of us. They came around about 5 times with different kinds of meats. Needless to say, we were all in the biggest food coma of our lives after. Later we were able to ride horses and borrow bikes to ride around the estancia. I realized how much I appreciated being outside of the city for the day. The noise is constant in BA and it was wonderful just lying outside on the grass on a beautiful day. It was exactly what we needed after a long first week.

Saturday we took one of those obnoxious big double-decker bus tours around Buenos Aires which was actually kinda great, we got a chance to see a lot of great sites. So much for fitting in. Later that night after dinner, we went to a hostel bar that made us all so happy because they played Girl Talk and Nelly while we were there. A little bit of home was nice.

Sundays are great here. Every Sunday there are street fairs that sell anything and everything. Live bands play as porteños sit on lawns either listening to the music or chatting amongst themselves while drinking mate. We all got a late start Sunday after a late Saturday night, so we didn’t really do much else besides sit and relax. It was great.

Monday we had to do an oral exam in order to be placed into a certain Spanish grammar class. It brought me down a little as I started to realize that I would actually need to take classes while abroad…?

Today, Tuesday, we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes (Museum of Fine Arts) in the morning. Later I went to UCES, a university for communication and social sciences, to enroll in a marketing class for the semester. In the afternoon, I visited one of the several botanical gardens here. Very nice to find such a peaceful spot in the middle of such a crazy city.

So…to end, a few things I have learned so far in Argentina:

1. I am the only ginger here. For this reason, I get stared at…all the time. I came to the realization that there’s no way I am going to fit in, so I might as well accept it. That is why yesterday I wore shorts on my way back from the gym, which is a. not common for girls to do here at all and b. awkward because all the porteños (Argentines) who were dressed for the dead of winter even though it was probably 60 degrees today looked at me as if I was absolutely insane. Staring also calls for potential car accidents. For example, the other day one man driving a bus the size of a greyhound who was too preoccupied trying to figure out who is this freak of a person than to look at the road. Awesome.

2. Kiosks on the street burn incense all the time. Why? Who knows.

3. Nights are LONG. If you plan to go out at night, your evening will probably play out like this: you will eat dinner around 9:30/10 until midnight or so. From there you will head to a bar for some casual drinking and chatting until around 3 am, at which point you head to the club, because clubs only open at 3am. So, if you don’t want to be considered completely lame, you won’t be home before 5. Perhaps you’ll be home in time for breakfast.

4. Breakfast. It doesn’t exist for many porteños. Breakfast consists of toast and jam, tea/coffee, and maybe some fruit.

5. Unlike the American drinking culture, Argentines drink slowly. They like to stay at bars for a while after dinner and casually drink and chat with their friends. WOW, WHAT A CONCEPT. Maybe we should try it sometime. It was very clear that when this topic was addressed at our orientation by one of the IES staff, she was trying to say “Don’t be an idiot and drink like an American because it’s only embarrassing and never socially acceptable” in the most delicate way possible. Everything here is about slowing down and enjoying time with friends and family. Also, you need to drink slowly or else you’ll never last till 7 am.

6.To Argentines, everything is close by. “Oh yea, it’s close. Just 24 blocks away.”

7. Everything is cheap. The bus is like 30 cents, clothes are decently priced, and you can eat an amazing dinner with multiple courses for under $20.

8. I can attest to the fact that yes, the majority of this country’s population is very well dressed and very good-looking. Intimidating? Very.

9. Everybody is incredibly helpful. They appreciate your effort to speak Spanish and are always willing to give directions. Even if they don’t know where something is, you will still end up standing on the street having a 5 minute conversation as he or she attempts to make up an answer in an effort to help.

10. Political correctness does not exist. Porteños are very direct and often give nicknames to people, so if you are Asian, they will call you Chino, even if you’re Japanese. If you’re fat, they call you fatty to get your attention. Mine is “colorada,” for my hair.

11. The concept of “get a room” does not exist either. PDA is extremely common, whether it’s in a bar, in a store, or just randomly on a street corner.

12. People here are apparently extremely body conscious, and for many women here shopping is a big ordeal, because sizes are abnormally small. It got so bad that the government felt it necessary to pass a law against stores making extremely small clothes. Whoa.

For now, I am done. Believe me I will never make you read another post like that again.