Kyle Berg

Sunday, December 17th and Monday December 18th are days that will live in infamy. At that time I considered myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth. Okay…enough with the exaggerations…but it was a momentous day.

Well, where do I begin? For the first time in my life, at 25 years of age, I can say with absolute certainty that I have a girlfriend. There´s something different sounding about that. (Chris & Raul, all jokes about my questionable sexual orientation shall henceforth cease).

(I can hear the screams “Where´s her picture?” Take it easy. My replacement camera arrives January 6th. After that, you´ll probably be sick of seeing Vanesa´s picture. Until then, hold your britches).

I stopped at a local food joint on Scalibrini Ortiz to buy some chicken to bring to my friends´apartment. They are always hungry and don´t have a fridge, so I figured it would be a nice gesture. I arrived about 3 or so and we devoured all the food. A Mexican friend from church showed up and we all had a nice time chatting for a couple hours. I mostly listened because it´s difficult to ascertain what´s going on when native speakers really get going.

I was planning to leave to check out an apartment in Recoleta at about 6:30. Vanesa returned from her play practice at 6:15 or so and we talked for a few minutes. She asked if I wanted someone to accompany me to the apartment and I said, “Si querés” (If you want to). Didn´t want to be obvious. I waited for her to shower and we left to look at the apartments. From the moment we walked in, I was not interested in the apartment. It was small, had ugly decorations, had an odor of old people, and was expensive. We left and laughed about my frustration and attempts to keep my mouth shut while in the apartment.

We strolled down Libertador for a while and came to a nice, quiet artificial pool. There wasn´t anyone around, so we sat down to relax and talk for a while. Vanesa couldn´t go to church the night before, so she asked me what happened. I shared my frustrations with the theme and my general thoughts about how the message was always the same, general theme. While the passion was there, it usually lacked specificity and substance. She was very surprised because she and her roommate Monica felt the same way but never came across anyone who felt the same. If they tried to share these frustrations with their friends, they would be viewed as unspiritual or something similar. For the second time in a week, we had an in-depth conversation about God and really connected–in Spanish. Again, she had tears in her eyes as we shared our feelings and experiences. I thought about asking her if she sensed an attraction between us, but decided to wait.

We walked down to Charcas and both had a gigantic hamburger because we were dying of hunger. The pleasant conversation continued, but we didn´t talk as much, because we were a little tired. I asked her about her interests and she told me of her love of the arts. After she told me she could draw, I pulled out a pen and asked her to draw something for me. She did a quick sketch of a woman with flowing hair. I laughed and told her how poor my drawing skills were. Demonstrating the artistic ability of a 5 year old with a crippled hand, I drew an oddly-shaped, completely disproportionate man. Vanesa laughed, tore out the section of my drawing from the paper place mat, and placed it in her purse. This caught my attention.

Afterwards, we stopped at the locutorio for some water and gum and then retired to a park bench in Plaza Guemes. Again, we relaxed and shared pleasantries. She was tired and laid down next to me on the bench. As we continued to talk, it was becoming more and more obvious that there was an attraction between us. After I´m not sure how long, we headed for the bus stop at about 2:15.

We waited for busline 15 for a long time. As we sat against a wall along the sidewalk and waited, she said “Te quiero mucho.” I was very flustered because I thought this meant something completely different. (Literally, it means “I love you,” but not in the English sense of the word. It´s a phrase used to express care for friends and others close to us. There is no English translation, but the closest would have been “I care about you a great deal.” The Spanish equivalent of those 3 special English words is “Te amo.” Only crazy, borderline psychotic women say this right way. They are the ones from whom you run, leave everything behind, and keep running!). She looked at me, waiting for a response, and appeared to be at the point of crying. After a few minutes of explanation, we laughed at my ignorance and I told her I felt the same way. We ignored several buses and sat there on the sidewalk, talking until 5 in the morning. Needless to say, I didn´t feel to well at school that morning, but I didn´t care.