Apartment Search

Dan: I’m tired. I’ve been walking around all morning. I made up some more resumes and went to make the rounds again. I suppose I should be patient. In the long run, a 2 week job hunt really isn’t that long, but it’s frustrating not having anything to do. It’s also frustrating trying to find the institutes I left my resumes at before. When we walk together, Louann has usually been the navigator. I just keep getting lost when I go by myself, even with a map. I’m going to need a new pair of shoes soon or someone to show me how the buses work.

Louann is taking Spanish classes in the morning. I went to look at another apartment. Finding a place, as a foreigner, has proved to be a bit problematic. People generally sign a 2-year contract and to sign that contract they need to have a guaranteer, usually the company for which one works, co-sign on the contract. As foreigners, we have no such possibility. Luckily we’ve recently found the part of the classifieds that lists people with furnished apartments who rent daily, weekly or monthly to tourists and foreigners without the garantia. Of course it is more expensive than the other ads for regular apartments, but for us it’s a difference of paying $4-500 a month as compared to $2-300. Anyway, the place I looked at today had one bedroom, a kitchen, a balcony and two hungover, 20-something, Israeli tourists. The place was nice but after their 2-week stay, it smelled strongly of cigarettes, beer and youth.

Food: Hot dogs, arguably the lowest form of fast food, are quite popular in the two countries we’ve visited in South America. In both Chile and Argentina they are generally served with ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise in three long stripes. Quite a mess to eat. In Chile this is called a completo, or ‘complete’ hot dog. I had one called the Aleman, or German, which included sauerkraut in addition to the aforementioned condiments. Here in Mendoza the red, yellow and white topped dog is called a Pancho, maybe named for Pancho Villa for some reason. One generally gets two of them, end to end, in a long hot dog bun. Not that we’ve been looking too hard, but we haven’t seen much fast food. Usually if you sit down to eat anywhere, you can count on being there for an hour. The other night I didn’t want to commit that much time, so I stopped by Mr. Dog, a place that always seems to have a line out the door. They had a selection of panchos. One was pancho with a poncho (normal condiments plus ham and cheese). I got the Super Mr. Dog (hold the mayo), which included the normal stuff plus two footlongs in one bun with lettuce, tomato and cheese. And for a change, hot sauce was available. Please don’t tell Dr. Wahlstrom what I’m doing to myself.

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