WordReference's wild ride comes to an end

The clock struck midnight for 2010's greatest Cinderella story.

After recording a string of memorable upsets earlier in the fall semester, WordReference.com, the plucky online dictionary that translated its way into America's hearts, began to lose steam, and will most likely finish the year as Mark Abadi's fourth-most visited website.

Five things I miss about the U.S.

The last in a series.


The top five things I miss about the United States of America


1. Burritos. There is no food that I have craved down here more than a burrito. Not like authentic Mexican knife-and-fork burritos — screw that. I'm talking about the enormous handheld football-sized warmly wrapped-up pieces of heaven you find anywhere in the United States. In Chapel Hill burritos are the post-party late-night food of choice, and there are approximately two Mexican restaurants for every UNC student, so I was disappointed to see a complete dearth of Chipotles and Q'dobas and the like in Argentina. I asked around about the one similar franchise in Buenos Aires, California Burrito Kitchen, but multiple sources confirmed it just wasn't the same and the tortillas were all stupid.

1.5. Spicy food. I figured coming to a Latin American country meant my taste buds would be pushed to their spicy little limits. Turns out, Argentina food is bland enough to satisfy even the most sensitive of wisdom-tooth-removal patients. This seems to be another cultural aspect Argentines borrowed from their European friends. You can specify you want your meal spicy at a restaurant, but it almost always comes out at baby-food levels of unspiciness. I just wanted to douse everything I ate — hamburgers, milanesas, medialunas — in my beloved Sriracha sauce. The only exception to the rule is chimichurri sauce, which has a decent kick and is terribly underused.

2. Family and friends. I miss you blah

3. Napkins. I'm pretty sure nothing pissed me off more the last five months more than Argentina napkins. I swear to God I will never take this simple luxury for granted ever again. In Argentina, table-side napkins are the size of your palm and feel like a sturdier version of tissue paper, or perhaps wax paper fused with a receipt. They don't soak up anything. Sometimes in a restaurant your food will come with one "real" napkin, which if went unused I would horde in my apartment in case of serious spills. Next time I visit Argentina I am stocking up in advance.

4. Predictable toilet-flushing handle locations. In the United States, there is a universally accepted location for toilet flushers: the upper left-hand corner of the tank. But Argentina doesn't play by those rules. Flushers go wherever the hell they want. My first day in the hostel I gave up searching for the flusher after two minutes and left the bathroom. The next time I eventually found it — a nub sticking out of the wall, at eye level, that you push inward. Other creative flushers include a nub on top of the tank, and, in my apartment, a chain hanging from the ceiling. Noticeably absent was the one location I think would make the most practical sense, which is on the floor next to the toilet. Hands-free!

5. Biscuits. Apart from consistently sparking epic British-American English dialect wars among my friends and me (you can have your weird digestive biscuits), biscuits are also a delicious staple of Southern American cuisine. My friends have heard my incredibly detailed accounts of the biscuit-enjoying experience, so instead of describing them again, I'll instead link to the menu of the greatest fast food restaurant in the world. And it's not "iced" tea, it's "sweet" tea; they just included that so foreigners would understand. I'm coming home baby!

Leaving

Last night around 2:30 in the morning, my roommate Luis Facebook-chatted me, asking what I was still doing awake. Luis was at his friend's house undoubtedly getting plastered, a fact I was cognizant of and confirmed the following morning, so I kept the conversation light and simple. "About to pack. My final 24 hours here."

And that's when it hit me that my semester here is coming to and end. This past week the thought of leaving has excited me because it came with thoughts of traveling to Colombia and returning to the United States to see family and friends. But the moment I read my words to Luis I was overcome with emotion as I realized I didn't want to go.

My thoughts immediately turned back to my first day here, when terrified but eager I checked into my hostel and began a new chapter in my life. So much has changed since that day I hardly recognize that person. I've learned how to cook and how to speak Spanish slang. I've memorized bus routes and given directions to tourists. More significantly, I've had so many changes of heart regarding my future profession — ranging from the serious (English as a Second Language teacher) to the not-so-serious (professional movie subtitler) — I can't keep track anymore.

And somehow, I've gotten to know this giant city. Between the speculation about college classes, summer internships and career paths, I've admired colorful facades and watched kids kick around torn-up soccer balls and walked cobblestone streets that seemed to go on forever. I'm leaving Buenos Aires with more questions than answers, but right now the only thing I care about is I'm leaving.

Five things I won't miss about Argentina

The top five things I won't miss about Argentina


1. Mayonnaise. It wouldn't surprise me if the national food of Argentina were mayo. Locals put mayonnaise on everything. It is more ubiquitous than ketchup in U.S. restaurants, however whereas ketchup often shares the stage with mustard and occasionally relish in America, mayonnaise enjoys a complete monopoly on the condiment market down here. I witnessed someone in a steakhouse get turned down when she asked for ketchup for her hamburger and fries, because all they had was mayo.


Before coming to Argentina, I'm pretty sure the only food with which I consumed mayonnaise was tuna fish. But here, the topping goes on any and all foods. It's so common that it's just a natural part of life for Argentines, like oxygen, or yelling. My biggest shock came when I saw a commercial for Hellmann's light mayonnaise in which a spoon is seen dumping globs of the stuff on top of salad and fish and chicken as I looked on in horror. I couldn't find the commercial on YouTube, but this mid-90s one should suffice in demonstrating the local affinity, while test you on your Spanish food vocab.

2. Stray dogs. I'm not a dog person, so I was a little unnerved to see dozens of dogs roaming the sidewalks any given day. They're everywhere. Sometimes I even start up a round of Dead or Sleeping, a little guessing game I like to play when I see a dog lying on its side with its eyes closed, or one time with an old guy on the Subte. The dogs seem to have adjusted smoothly to city life — they will wait politely at the curb until the light changes before crossing the street, and will walk harmlessly side-by-side with humans as they commute to their local dumpster. But I could do with out the barking and pooping and fear that one is going to leap up and bite my jugular.

3. Restaurant policy

This one's a catch-all topic that comprises everything I hate about eating out in Buenos Aires. Here's why:

• Cubierto. Cubierto is a mandatory fee tacked on to your check at most restaurants. Ostensibly it is a 2-to-8 peso charge for using silverware, although I highly doubt you can reject silverware and opt out of the fee. Cubierto lies dormant like a samurai in the back of your mind throughout the meal before ambushing you when the check comes out.
• No free refills. All restaurant drinks come in glass bottles here, meaning fountain soda and the free refills they come with are a foreign concept to locals. Besides being most likely terrible for the environment, the bottle policy forces you to ration your drink for the entire freaking meal. Have you ever wanted to take a sip but wouldn't let yourself because you wouldn't have enough left for your entree? It's the worst feeling in the world. In the U.S. you get your money's worth. The second that soda comes out I drink half the goddamn glass because in the United States there are endless free-flowing rivers of soda and I know my waiter's just waiting for the chance to ask me if I'd like some more.
• Water. Water comes in glass bottles too, meaning it's not free like in U.S. restaurants. This means every college student's diabolical scheme to save money and order "just water, please" is immediately foiled. At more low-key places you could probably order tap water but there's a decent chance it would be filled with like algae or something.

4. Fernet and Coke. Fernet is a terrible, terrible alcoholic beverage derived from owl pellets that Argentines mix with Coke to mask the dirt aftertaste. I've heard from multiple sadomasochistic sources that you "acquire the taste" after three or four times drinking it, although I've drunk it enough times to just up and say it tastes like ass. Fernet and Coke is somehow worse than the national drink mate, a bitter concoction of hot water and grass clippings. But while I enjoy taking part in the tradition of preparing and passing mate, fernet and Coke is one drink I'll be fine never tasting again. (By the way, can someone explain the concept of acquiring a taste to me? I've never understood why a drink can't just, like, taste good to begin with.)

5. Pizza. I figured with such an Italian influence, Buenos Aires would boast some impressive pizza. Wrong. Pizza here is less of a food and more of a congealed food-glorb. Olives come standard on every pie, and if you order meat, your pizza will come covered in what is essentially an enormous sliced up cold cut. Onion pizzas across are more like an entire chopped onion with some dough and cheese sprinkled underneath. Once on the Subte, I saw an advertisement for a pizza place, and the one pizza they chose to display was smothered in anchovies. It says something that the best pizza I ate all semester was in a British pub. And you know something's backwards when the most famous pizzeria in town is called Kentucky Pizza, which is like seeing a place called Quebec-Style Tofu or Mozambique Tacos or Ice Cube's School of Acting (Hey-o!)


Next up: Five things I miss about the United States

Tierra del Fuego diaries

The following journal entry was found under a foot of snow on the South American island of Tierra del Fuego. Historians believe it to be written by American expeditionist Mark Abadi sometime in the mid-19th century, before he was famously captured and eaten by sea lions, who were in turn immediately buried alive in an avalanche.

Today is Day Four of our Journey. I find myself in a terrifying and enchanted land. The winds are powerful, stronger than I have ever seen in my homeland. The air is bitter, the water cold.

We ventured to this island unprepared for the brutal conditions that awaited us. Six of my men have succumbed to the cold; another three suffer from frostbite. We keep warm best we can by slaughtering beached whales and lathering ourselves in their blubber. Our food supply is meager, so we have resorted to eating rocks and local children.

I fear tonight may be my last. If someone finds my letters separated from my decomposing but well-preserved cadaver, know that I have know regrets about my Journey, and I am without uncertainty where I belong. To my wife, if you shall feel the wind caress your cheek, know that I am calling for you. This shall give you comfort in my absence.

I must bring this letter to an end, as my men and I must search for camp before the sun disappears below the austral horizon. Tell my mother I love her, and my wife that I think of her highly. Tell my son he shall grow to be a courageous adventurer like his father, and my seven daughters that I bless them with the good fortune to marry either doctors or prominent tobacco magnates.

I would like to wish the world goodbye, as I, in the land of ice and fire, turn to face the wind and walk slowly into the unrelenting night.

The top five things I'll miss most about Buenos Aires

I have 10 days left in Argentina, assuming I don't get consumed by a whale in Tierra del Fuego this weekend. That means it's time for some end-of-the-semester lists, including what I miss from home and what I will and will not miss about Buenos Aires. Not surprisingly, most of the entries are food-related.

So here's the first of the series: the five things I'll miss the most about Buenos Aires. Despite the complaining I've done from time to time, I've grown to enjoy this city quite a bit. 

The top five things I'll miss most about Buenos Aires

Riding, and rating, the colectivo

Riding the colectivo is a daily part of life in Buenos Aires. Colectivos are what locals call public buses, and during the daytime, they own the streets. It's rare to find one in the morning that isn't packed. And because the subway closes at 11 p.m., colectivos are usually the best option for late-night transportation as well. Buses run 24 hours down here, so even though late at night you might be waiting on a deserted street for 40 minutes, you at least know you're getting home eventually.

Finding the right bus can be a little intimidating at first. Before I became familiar with four or five of the routes that run near my apartment, I would spend upwards of half an hour leafing through the Guia T booklet, attempting in vain to match up streets with bus stops until I gave up and hailed a taxi. Those days are behind me, however; now I just use Google Maps and comoviajo.com to tell me what to do.

When in a foreign part of town for the first time, the first thing I notice are the buses. The kiosks, the buildings, the people, they all might look the same as those in any other neighborhood. But in a new area, the buses -- the ones you've never seen because they don't drive anywhere near your house or your school or your favorite bar -- always stand out. Each one has a unique design, and adds a splash of color to the streets.

With that, I found it appropriate to rate the colectivos. Not by timeliness or efficiency, even though it kills me when I see an uninterrupted line of six 108 buses when all I need is one in the other freaking direction. And not by pleasantness of ride, because that honor would go to any bus outfitted with LCD screens and blue mood lights. Instead, I'll evaluate the colectivos by the first thing one notices about them: their outer design. 

The champion

Línea 68 — If the other buses on this list are rolling pieces of art, then the 68 is a masterpiece. According to Wikipedia, the design is the work of a studio hired by the bus company, and the professionalism shows. Against the white background, the rounded, off-center 68 draws the attention of the viewer, and is accentuated by the disconnected circle surrounding it. The black and soft blue tiles, ostensibly without pattern, give the work a sense of spontaneity. The brilliant use of negative space allows the bold colors to jump out. Even its web site is silky smooth. This is a bus you stop and stare at as it whizzes past you. This is a modern classic.

The Mother of All Tinas

I've said "a mountain" instead of "a lot." I've said "the house of the twins" instead of "the twins' house." I've said "em…" instead of "um."

This is getting tina'd, a complex and multifaceted cultural phenomenon first observed by Important Scientists and later expounded upon in a Widely Respected Journal. It also Relates to Acadaemia and sometimes is discussed in Professional Settings.

I thought such verbal blunders comprised the only aspect of getting tina'd. But about two months ago I experienced a Silent Tina, meaning I got tina'd nonverbally, which is like the white buffalo of getting tina'd. To this day I often reach for the hyphen on my American computer when I really want the quotation mark.

However, nothing compares to the absurdly intricate tina I got a week ago.

It happened as my friend Maisie and I were trying to locate a bus stop. It was almost 3 a.m., and we had just finished participating in Buenos Aires's annual Night of the Museums, the annual event in which more than 170 museums across the city allow free entry all night.

We were keeping our eyes peeled for the 111 stop on Paseo Colon, a huge street with a thousand bus stops for a million buses give or take a few. I recognize the area we're on and I want to tell Maisie that I've gotten on the 111 bus before on this block.

My words: "I know I've picked it up somewhere around here."

I had a feeling I had just gotten tina'd because no one says they've "picked up" a bus unless they're, like, Mariusz Pudzianowski, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Clearly saying I've "caught" the bus would have sufficed. Thirty seconds later it hit me.

• The Spanish word for catch is coger
• But in Argentina, coger just so happens to be a curse word, meaning the F-verb. (Instead of "catching" a cab or a bus, Argentines use the word for "grab" or "take")
• Using Tina Logic™, I extended the taboo of coger to English, and subconsciously determined that "catch" was off limits in English as well
• I picked up a bus.

Hot date

Today's date is November 12, 2010, or 12/11/10 if written in the date/month/year format used here in Argentina. Seeing such an aesthetically pleasing date made me feel wickedly entitled when I realized Americans would never see such an oddity with their month/date/year format. Then, I realized they would, on December 11.

Thirteen hours at UCA

It's pretty nice only having school two days a week. I head down to class Tuesday, then Wednesday, and then I'm off to enjoy a five-day weekend. Some might say I have a lucky schedule, however, no luck was involved, my friend. I spent two full weeks tinkering my schedule, collecting syllabi, even going to class on my birthday until I found the perfect equilibrium between easiness of classes and perfectness of timing.

What I ended up with was a Wednesday with three classes, each of which lasts between three and four hours, and keeps me at UCA from 9:30 a.m. until 10:15 p.m.

So, what goes down on a typical Wednesday in my world? Let’s start from the beginning:

Spanish progress report

With less than a month and a half remaining in my semester in Argentina, the time has come to evaluate my progress in the Spanish language.  I have certainly come a long way — I remember how during my first week I was thrilled when I produced the pronominal phrase "nos pagan." Now, it takes more complex structures to shock me, like tonight, when I dropped "Lo podrias haber usado" when talking about a fork my roommate could have used, and then quickly started a conversation with a British friend about our Spanish progress to reaffirm how awesome I am.

The moment made me realize I've been venturing more and more into complex sentence territory. I'm not hanging out as much in the present tense like I used to. My weeks-old sentiment that I feel I use the same 25 or 30 verbs every day still applies, although the exceptions are beginning to come more frequently.

I found out "por lo tanto" means "therefore" and not "for the most part," which is how I've been using it for three and a half months.

Argentinafication update: I played basketball the other day, and as it was my first time playing in months, I was a little rusty. Every time the ball slipped or I missed an easy rebound, instead of groaning "Ugh," I let out the unmistakably Spanish "Ay!"

I've come to appreciate the language for the nuance in its expressions. For years I viewed Spanish as inferior to English when it came to description. And while it's true English has a more expansive lexicon — mainly because it tends to absorb the words of every other language — there are some tricks you can turn in Spanish that you can't in English. I love the "able" words: You can say a photo is "unshowable" or a party is "unmissable." I love how you can put the subject in any position in the sentence ("Yo comí el chorizo," or "Comí yo el chorizo,") or eliminate it entirely ("lo comí) depending on where you want the emphasis. And I love how you can tack on up to two pronouns to the end of any verb — "Dámelo" expresses "give it to me" in six letters.

There are certain English words that are untranslatable, such as "quaint," or the quasi-slang concepts of "awkward" and "random." But I've come to realize  that the discrepancy isn't a failure on the part of Spanish. It's just one aspect of what makes English, or any other language, unique. It will probably take years before I grasp all the subtleties and nuances of Spanish speech, although I'm now intrigued by the prospect of learning them.

And, to not end on a cheesy note, here is what Dominican baseball commentator Ernesto Jerez shouts every time someone hits a home run. It's the baseball equivalent of "GOOOOOOOL!"

I have decided I will scream it the first time I correctly say something in the imperfect past subjunctive.

Stop the presses: Mark dreamed in Spanish

Contrary to popular belief, there is no correlation between dreaming in another language and fluency in that language. It is possible for you to dream in a language you only know a few phrases of, or one you haven't spoken since you were a child. I didn't know this fact, however, until I began writing this blog post and had to research the subject. Before today, an irrationally large amount of my self worth was hinging on whether I would have a dream in Spanish before I left Argentina.

Last night, I did.


All the international students at my school went on a trip to a most likely fictional location in Argentina. After arriving at the hotel, we were divided into groups and told that the following morning we would be competing in a relay race across the entire town.

For some reason I was given the disproportionately long eight-mile leg. I am the only person on any team designated a task of such length. This concerns me, as apart from a few alcohol-assisted sprints down Avenida Córdoba, I haven't gotten too much physical training down here.

I nevertheless accept the challenge. The following morning, I line up at the starting line. The race has now transformed into a full-fledged marathon. I am terrified. The gun goes off and I take off. But before I get very far, I am stopped to attend a series of business meetings, which are conveniently located alongside the marathon course, which has now moved indoors. The parents of American Idol season 8 finalist and UNC alumnus Anoop Desai were observing from the balcony, but I think that's because American Idol season 8 finalist and UNC alumnus Anoop Desai was somewhere in the building competing in a singing contest.

Because I kept getting tied up by these business meetings, by the end of the day I have traversed less than one mile of the 26.2-mile course. I recognize my progress as slower than desired, so  I promise to myself I will run at least 13 miles the next day of the marathon. I go back to my hotel to get a good night's rest.

The next morning, the marathon is still miraculously going on, because in my dream world, marathons evidently function like the Iditarod.

Here's the part where my memory gets fuzzy. Next thing I remember is I'm outside a packed school auditorium. Everyone is exiting the auditorium and starts navigating the hallway to get to the exit of the building. I'll never know if I ever finished that marathon, but I'm going to assume that I didn't, because who finishes a marathon in two days?

Anyway I happen to be sitting in the hallway outside the auditorium, spinning a dreidel. When the doors open, I am now blocking the pack of people who are trying to walk through the hallway. But rather than get out of the way, I start doing that thing where you flick the side of a dreidel while it's spinning to make it spin even more. And the people behind me don't walk around me; they just politely wait for me to achieve my task. I keep flicking the dreidel, spinning it forward a few feet, and every time I flick it forward I scooch up a bit and the crowd follows.

Eventually we must have reached a big intersection in the hallway because pretty soon all the people disappeared, and I was by myself, just flicking the spinning dreidel forward foot by foot. Then a Latino couple emerged, probably in their late 20s, and I noticed in front of us a few movie posters lining the walls, including All the Right Moves starring Tom Cruise. They asked me in Spanish when that movie came out, because they presumably had never heard of it. I answered (IN SPANISH!) that I thought it came out around the early 90s.

Then, in real life, my roommate Jorge knocks on my door and enters the room, waking me up. He says some Spanish stuff I didn't understand, and left when he realized I had been sleeping. Dude, you don't go ruining people's dreams like that. I don't care if it's 2 p.m.

So the actual Spanish part of the dream may have only lasted two sentences. And it turns out All the Right Moves came out in 1983. But tonight I will try my hardest to track down the couple and let them know. And if I have the time, strike up some more conversation.

A spoonful of life

While walking down a busy street today, lost in my own world of thoughts, I heard a skateboarder approaching me steadily from behind, and I didn't want to deal with the rascal, and I thought, "If that skateboard touches me, I'm gonna kill this guy," and then the skateboarder passed me on the left, and revealed herself as a young woman, and I was left standing there, alone in a city of 13 million, punched in the stomach and holding nothing but my own prejudices.

The Most Important Man in the Barbershop

Today I finally gave in and got a haircut. Sitting in the barber's chair while the stylist snipped away was easily the most terrifying experience since I've been here. I learned that I am just as incapable of describing the type of haircut I want in Spanish as I am in English, which left me anxious I would walk out with any of the number of atrocious hairstyles that are inexplicably popular in Buenos Aires. Seriously though. Mullets, rat tails, rat tails that start at the top of the head and bowl cuts are all evidently in style. There is a dude in one of my classes with three dreadlocks in the back with the rest of his hair normal.


This time, I avoided my typical blunder of continually repeatedly asking the barber "a little shorter, please," until my hair is way to freaking short. I don't know why I do that. Usually it's because it's been such a long time since my previous haircut I have no ability to comprehend depth and length, and maybe even time and space. Resisting was difficult, especially because one moment had my confidence and self-worth soar to unprecedented levels. Mid-haircut, I was called upon to translate between a barber and a customer who did not speak Spanish, briefly making me The Most Important Man in the Barbershop. I walked out a completely neutral-headed man. Just my style. All in all, a haircut you could set your watch to.


Meanwhile, the correlation between having a two-studded eyebrow ring and a completely indecipherable porteño accent is strong as ever.

Aardvark attack

A quick recap of the past week of my life:

Thursday-Monday

Iguazu Falls last weekend. Iguazu is an uber-majestic waterfall park on the Argentina-Brazil border. It is a bit of a ritual for Buenos Aires tourists to suffer through a 18- or 20-hour bus ride to get there. At the park, my group absorbed the raging splendor of the falls from afar on a series of trails and bridges. Then, we hopped on the Grand Adventure speedboat, surged at kamikaze-like speeds into the falls and got raging splendor sprayed directly in our faces.

The real fun began when we took a break at the snack bar. That's where the coatíes hang out. As we discovered, coatíes are small aardvark-like creatures whose only apparent source of food is bread crusts from the snack bar at Iguazu Falls. 

For real, this place was crawling with aarvarks yo

These guys spend their days with their snouts on the ground hunting for crumbs. They also sucker tourists in with their cuteness for a bite to eat. They have no reservations about climbing onto tables, either. In all seriousness, more so than seeing the actual waterfalls, my favorite moment from the weekend very well may have been witnessing a patron accidentally drop a full sandwich on the ground and watching an impressively alert coatí sprint to his table, snatch the sandwich off the ground, sprint away and devour it in a matter of seconds. 

Actually scratch that. My favorite moment happened on the drive back, when boarding the bus, I slowly came to the realization that our bus came equipped with "cama" seats rather than the semi-cama we paid for. Cama seats, which are considerably more expensive than their semi counterparts, recline all the way back and are comfy beyond belief. Ironically, for several hours I was unable to sleep because I was so excited that I was sitting in a cama seat.

Tuesday

Incubus concert. Lead singer Brandon Boyd shouted "muchas gracias!" after several songs and the crowd went apeshit every time.

Wednesday

MLB playoffs began. I watched the Phillies-Reds game at The Alamo, which caters to Americans desperate for sports that are not named after poultry. 

The bar was packed, albeit with Argentinians who did not know what baseball is. My friend Anthony, a Yankees fan, commented on how unbelievable it was that two American baseball fans are watching the playoffs on a muted TV in a noisy bar in Argentina. 

I picked a good day to get in front of a television as Roy Halladay, my new hero, pitched the second no-hitter in postseason history. When Carlos Ruiz threw to Ryan Howard for the final out, I went berserk, shouting and jumping and running up to high-five a group of Argentine strangers who were startled yet intrigued by my happiness. Alcohol may have been involved. I don't remember for sure; I was too drunk. Needless to say I will be there for the next one.

Thursday

I got tina'd without even saying a word. While participating in a Facebook chat on my laptop, I typed the word 'it's' and was confused to see the 'it-s' on the screen. I soon realized I have grown accustomed enough to the Latin American keyboard that I had reached up for the dash key, where the apostrophe is located on keyboards down here. 

The future

Tomorrow I take the 10-hour bus ride to Cordoba, where I will spend the weekend celebrating Argentina's Oktoberfest. I have ceremonially renamed the festival Doctoberfest in honor of Roy "Doc" Halladay, who, if you didn't here, is a beast with insatiable appetite for blood and World Series victories.

WordReference clinches spot in top 5

Let the celebration begin.

A timely click propelled WordReference.com into Mark Abadi's top five all-time most visited web sites early Tuesday morning. 

The upstart online English-Spanish dictionary whizzed past The New York Times en route to top five status when Abadi, struggling to describe in Spanish the shrill, musical sound he was producing with his lips, flocked to the site to translate "whistle" at 12:23 a.m.

The achievement marks the culmination of WordReference's meteoric rise through Abadi's Internet browser's main page. In late July, it hadn't even cracked the top eight displayed on the Google Chrome "new tab" screen. 

However, Abadi's desire to learn Spanish slang, American football terminology and curse words pushed the site into Chrome superstardom.

The road to the top five wasn't easy. The task required overtaking established Abadi Internet staples such as nytimes.com, philliesnation.com and the700level.com, not to mention late-season threats by Stumble Upon and MLB.

Abadi's general ineptitude in the subjunctive tense helped the site gain a steady amount of daily visits to its conjugator feature. However, it wasn't until two weeks ago — when he forayed to the rarely used French-English translator in his efforts to impress French chicks — that the site began making a serious run.

"That was huge," WordReference founder Michael Kellogg said. "French chicks."

A spot in the top eight opened up in July, when, a day into his five-month stay in Argentina, Abadi realized the online TV show streaming site Hulu was unavailable outside the United States. Hulu's subsequent fall from grace is widely considered the most notable collapse since Abadi began using the Chrome browser half a year ago.

It is unlikely WordReference will challenge the "Big Four" — Deadspin, Facebook, Sporcle and YouTube — any time soon. But at the rate Abadi visits the site — he checked and rechecked the translations of "blind" and "deaf" 11 times yesterday alone — a place in the pantheon is well within reason.

At press time, Abadi was howling wildly in his apartment, wearing nothing but protective goggles, spraying his laptop with champagne.

Soccer thing happens

So, soccer happens here a lot. For my American readers, soccer is a sport played on a rectangular field in which players kick a thing into a net. Whoever accrues more goals after five hours wins the match, although bonus points are awarded to whichever team has more players fall to the ground after incidental contact. Much like mate, fernet and any other terrible, terrible beverage they adore here, you could call soccer an "acquired taste" for me.


I couldn't live in Buenos Aires without seeing what all the fuss was about, so two weeks ago my friends and I headed to the barrio of Boedo to see San Lorenzo take on Vélez Sarsfield. (The fact that I am just now writing this, I assure you, is because it took two weeks for the excitement to taper, and is in no way related to my interminable sloth. Not to be confused with this interminable sloth.) 


The game went surprisingly un-hyped considering it was played between the top two teams in the league (standings as of September 24). But that's the dynamic of the league in Argentina. Of the seven clubs based in Buenos Aires, two dwarf the rest in popularity: Boca Juniors and River Plate (linguistic side note: other English team names include Racing, All Boys, Old Boys and Arsenal). No city in any American major league has more than two teams. It's like Los Angeles: Boca Juniors are the Lakers, River Plate are also the Lakers and every other team is the Clippers. 


Tourists and foreigners are expected to choose one of the two clubs as their adoptive team, as they win a lot, are resoundingly popular and have tourist-friendly stadiums. My friend Ian, who is in his second semester here, inexplicably roots for San Lorenzo, a team whose stadium he is fearful to enter alone. He told me the stadium's the team's hooligans — who stand in the expansive "popular" section of bleachers behind the goal — are notorious for mugging people, starting fights and peeing on the people below them mid-game. Pshaw, I thought. Sounds like an average Thursday night. 


So we got a group of four together and took a bus down to the stadium, stopping at a cafe to enjoy a local microbrew before the match. The microbrew happened to not be a microbrew at all, but five liters of Quilmes, the Budweiser of Argentina. Or at least that's what we expected; turns out the only beer available was Budweiser, the Quilmes of the United States. Ah, Budweiser, my old friend, I thought. I haven't seen you since college.


The four of us then headed to the stadium, which was conveniently located in the heart of an area I affectionately referred to as "Shantyland." I'm sure the throngs of people walking to the stadium made the place safer for the day, but that did not stop Anthony and me from getting a bucket of water dumped on us from a second-story window. The culprit escaped unidentified, which is lucky for him, because I was giving some pretty menacing (read: terrified) looks from below.


The game was slated to start at 4:30 p.m., so we were a little puzzled when we arrived at 4:27 and it had the action had already begun. This fact is memorable in that is the first known instance of something in Buenos Aires starting before its scheduled time. We found our way to our section (not the hooligan zone), but our seats were occupied. We squirmed our way through our row and showed the seat-takers our tickets. They apologized and relinquished the seats, and after the game we talked football over a nice microbrew.


But then I woke up, and I was still standing awkwardly in front of a bunch of guys passively showing them my ticket, blocking rows and rows of fans behind them, who judging by their looks of consternation and implementation of an impressive array of vulgarities, were none too pleased with our display of courage. We retreated to the stairs, where we stood for the remainder of the first half. 


While standing, I was able to take in the scenery. To my left was the notorious popular section. Thousands were packed in there, all jumping, waving flags, banging on drums, pumping their fists and shouting their team songs. Practically everyone was decked out in a San Lorenzo jersey, which I was considering buying but was dissuaded when I saw their prominently displayed corporte sponsor.


All Walmarts aside, the energy in the stadium was contagious. When the popular section started a chant, the rest of the stadium joined in. When a San Lorenzo player got knocked down, the stadium erupted. I didn't even know the words. I just shouted a sustained "ohhhhhh" and threw in a "San! Lo! Ren! Zo!" every now in then when it seemed appropriate. I got into the fist pumping as well, which is done with the index and middle fingers pointing out, almost as if taunting the opposing team's fans. Because apart from the game being played on the field, the fans are also competing against one another, and are equally competitive as the players. Every San Lorenzo shot that went just wide of the goal was applauded and cheered almost as much as if it had gone in the net.


Not that I would know, of course. The game ended in a 0-0 draw, so I have yet to experience my first goal. I suppose this means I have to go back now.

The popular section

Highlights of the game:

• Getting our seats back. The guys in our spots left at halftime and didn't come back. I jumped on the opportunity and reclaimed what was rightfully ours. I even offered to sit in the seat closest to the aisle, so in case they did come back, I would do all the talking. I spent much of the second half praying that wouldn't happen.
• The near-brawl that occured after the game. Once the final whistle blows, the opposing team's fans, who are allotted a sliver of seats in the corner of the stadium, have 30 minutes to exit the stadium, while the home team's fans must remain. (I imagine the type of environment that produced that rule is brawl-conducive.) While the Vélez fans were exiting, some San Lorenzo fans attempted to break through the barrier separating the two sides with a makeshift battering ram before they were stopped by police. Several fans from both sides began throwing chairs and other objects over the tall metal barrier. Nothing became of the altercation, although apparently the cops resorted to teargas at some point. 
• This kid:

I had my camera on him for much of the second half but was unable to catch him during one of his adorable angry fist pumps. 

The next day, I told another international student I went to my first game. "Cool!" she said. "Boca or River?"