Captain Ryan Studies Abroad: #WorstLifeEver

By Ryan Durden on January 31, 2013

Photo courtesy of quimpg via Flickr.com

 

 

*I’ll be in Argentina for the next five months, so this is going to appear like a travel blog. Please take everything with a grain of salt.*

#WorstLifeEver

I have friends who have just graduated college who are working jobs they hate so they can struggle to pay the bills while hoping to get a better job. I have friends in the armed forces, serving our country overseas or suffering in subzero temperatures for 18 hours a day training to be an officer. And I’m here to tell you this: Woe is yo, my life is so much worse.

I had to spend over 24 hours traveling to this whole new world. That’s time I could have spent doing important things back in Lexington, like browsing the Internet, browsing the fridge, or browsing my eyelids. While the rest of you fortunate folks are going about your enjoyable professions, I was sitting…for almost an entire day. And when I finally got off that plane, my ass thoroughly reddened, I had to pay a fee just to enter Argentina. And the “fun” didn’t stop there.

This place is abysmal. The weather is a scorching 90 degrees at midday, without humidity, and cools to a brutal 75 around nighttime. Again, without any humidity. My poor skin is in shambles. Meanwhile, the rest of you stateside have lovely cold weather and thunderstorms to keep you on your toes. Do you know what I had to resort to doing today after touring the campus? I had to go swimming–in our backyard. It was a nightmare. It was too sunny to not wear sunscreen, but there was shade around the pool so I was almost cold once. I swear, I don’t know how these people live here. Worse still, I have to share the house with a playful kitten and two bulldogs that stay outside. Even the pigeons here are wrong. They’re smaller, quieter, and look like doves. Tell me, how I am supposed to function in a city where there aren’t even fat pigeons to laugh at? Give me the frigidity, boredom, and pugnacious cats of my Lexington house any day; you can keep this so-called “paradise.”

No, I take it all back. That’s not the worst part. Did you know that no one here speaks English? While you lucky Americans can conduct your business and weather warnings in a real language, I have to resort to this “Spanish” dialect. The only thing I can understand is “No.” My host brother was yelling “No” at me when I accidentally said “I’m horny” instead of “I’m excited.” I don’t know why he was so upset; clearly he should be mad at himself for stealing the word “No” from us real Americans. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to bang my cabeza against the wall until I forget this horrible, terrible, no good, very bad country.

 

Notes:

  1. Aside from the reciprocity tax debacle ($160 to enter Argentina for Americans because that’s what we charge Argentinians for US visas) the travel was incredibly easy.
  2. This place is amazing. It’s cheap, the weather is awesome, and the people are friendly. Plus, pets.
  3. And the Internet is better than it was in Belgium. Although that’s not saying much.
  4. My only legitimate complaint would be the eating schedule, which has us eating dinner around 10 or 11. I’ll adapt, but it’s going to be tricky.
  5. Did I mention that I’m swimming in January? Because I totally am.

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