Exito!

Wednesday was quite a busy and satisfying day, the day that I discovered, among other things, that as long as I don't talk to much, my accent allows me to pass as a native. I first realized this when in a mountaineering store. I decided to spend the entire day in the city on Wednesday, with the focus of the day as the Museo de Armas. I took the subway into the center of town and walked towards Retiro and Plaza San Martin. As I was walking down one street, I noticed that it was full of mountaineering/camping stores, and, needing gloves and a hat for a trek I may/may not do, I went into one of these stores to buy what I needed. I spoke for a bit with the man behind the counter, he took down a bunch of gloves, told the the benefits of each, we discussed the trek and the function I would need and finally I made the decision to buy a pair of waterproof skin-tight gloves and a Ben Wallick hat (he-meivin yavin). In Buenos Aires, when you pay with a credit card, you need to show ID, so I gave him my driver's license. He looked at me in surprise and said "sos Americano?!" (You're American?) It made me happy.
The second time was in the Plaza San Martin. Now, I went to the Plaza earlier in my trip, but this time it was like another world. The last time I went was on the tail end of winter, with leaves in the trees and now it is the height of spring, and the trees were full of green and purple. Check out the pictures on facebook. Anywya, I was in the Plaza, when a random Argentine came up and said "Shalom" and then told me he did not speak Hebrew. He assumed, because of my Kippah, that I was Israeli. We talked for a bit, he took some pictures of me, told me I had a perfect accent (!), and told me he was an AIDS awareness volunteer. I gave him a small donation. I then went to the Museo de Armas, the Arms Museum, which is the most impressive arms museum I have ever seen anywhere. It is huge, extremely extensive, and extremely well labeled and informative (in Spanish). I met a couple of Irish fellows there and we spoke a bit about Ireland and Celtic mythology. After the museum I went to the Palacio Paz to do a building tour, and when I went to sign up for the tour I asked the guide a few questions (in Spanish) and when I told her I wanted to the join the tour she said "but it is in Spanish." ! Don't get me wrong, my Spanish isn't that good. In fact, it is not even conversational (though I can communicate and converse a bit) but it seems I have picked up the accent. This may sound like a good thing, but it really isn't so great. Argentina has a very unique accent with unique grammar and slang that is, so I hear, barely intelligible to most Spanish speakers, and all the Spanish speakers in NYC do not speak Argentine Spanish. I need to leave the country soon so I don't get too entrenched in the local dialect.
After the Palace I walked around, saw some other things in passing, went to an all English bookstore and met a German who never read Harry Potter, and spontaneously decided to buy a ticket to a Celtic music concert, that led to the last post.