Castellano (pronounced Castezhano)

It's been a while and there is a lot to catch up on. First, Buenos Aires- it's big and there is a lot to do. It's a pretty cool city and in 5+ days there I was barely able to scratch the surface. We went to the Argentina vs. Uruguay World Cup Qualifier last Saturday and had a blast. The atmosphere was tremendous, with a lot of chanting and cheering throughout the entire match. Much like in college football (USC 69 - Wazzou 0... are you serious?) the fans stand for most of the game. The game itself was pretty good (2-1 Argentina win) but the Argentines thought it was boring and not a good effort. They proceded to lose to Chile 0-1 on Wednesday and their coach was shown the door. They don't mess around with their futbol.

I've been in Bariloche for the last 3 days. It is a gorgeous city and is full of life despite the heavy tourist vibe. It lies on a glacial lake surrounded by the Andes, making it a very popular destination for outdoors enthusiasts (me). I've gone hiking, biking and ziplining so far and I plan to go rafting either tomorrow or the day after. I thought 3 days here would be enough, but I've decided to make this my only stop in the southern regions of Argentina. It's just too big of a country to cover quickly and I don't have enough time to make it work. After spending 22 hours on a bus to get down here, the last thing I want to do is get on another bus for a full day.
Anyway, the purpose of this post, and the reason it is titled as such, is to discuss the language that the Argentines speak. It's technically Spanish though they call it Castellano (apparently Español is something completely different), and it's actually closer to the spanish that is spoken in Spain than Spanish spoken in other parts of Latin America. There are 2 major differences between Argentine Spanish and the Spanish that I learned in school, the first is that the double L produces the "zh" sound and not the "yuh" sound that I have grown accustomed to using. Not a major difference on the surface, but it can definitely throw me off when trying to comprehend someone giving me directions at a thousand words per minute. The second big difference is the use of an informal tense known as vos. This is not the vosotros that I learned in Spanish class (that's only used in Spain, and rarely) it is it's own tense with it's own congugations. Instead of using tu or usted, they use vos. Here is an example of a question I was asked using vos: ¿De donde vos? That is supposed to mean: where are you from? The congugation of vos is very simple in that it absolutely eliminates irregulars, for example if you are asking someone if they have milk you would ask: ¿Tenes leche? That's right, no I in tenes.

Needless to say, the language has thrown me for a bit of a loop. I'm getting by though. I'm officially down to 2 weeks left. We've entered the home-stretch. I hope you enjoyed your little Spanish, I mean Castellano, lesson. Next time you run into an Argentine, drop the vos and they will be quite impressed. Off to climb a mountain or something fun like that.