...something new everyday: Let's play a game!

So one thing that rules about spending extended amounts of time on a different continent is that you can begin to dip a toe in the pool of intracontinental perceptions. "Intracontinental" meaning within the continent. (Does it cost anyone else heavily to keep straight the difference between inter- and intra-? I have to indulge in a dictionary refresher about once every 3 months because I start to doubt myself... totally alone on this one? ...screw you guys)

In addition to how we (los Estado Unidenses) perceive/ stereotype/ judge the countries of Latin America, they also perceive/stereotype/judge each other. It's an interesting dynamic because they all seem to be aware that the rest of the world rarely considers each country on its own. Unless there is some egregious human rights violation or exceptionally progressive change happening in one of them, the countries of Latin America are treated mostly as just Latin America by the rest of the world. Consequently we often stereotype the continent as a whole, as opposed to just Paraguay on its own (How many of you just had an "aha!" moment when you remembered that Paraguay existed just now? My point exactly.)

So what I've learned from being here is that, at the very least Chile and probably many of the other countries of Latin America perceive the inhabitants of Buenos Aires as "holier than thou." And obviously by holier I mean more European. As far as I can tell the venom is directed mostly at people living in BA rather than Argentina at large. You'll hear sometimes people with elevated, wrinkled noses do a mocking impression of someone from BA talking about how "Yes, they were born and raised in Argentina but actually their family is Italian." It's odd for me considering that if say I I'm from the U.S. people often find this answer to be inadequate and need to know where the different sides of my family came from before they got there. Apparently that kind of stuff can get you a bad rep down here.

It is not totally unfounded however, this notion of Buenos Aires being closely linked to Europe. In many areas Buenos Aires could easily pass for Paris. Thus I have a challenge for you all. It's called: Which city is this? Below you'll find pictures I took on the streets of Buenos Aires and in the famous Cementerio Recoleta mixed with pictures I either took or snagged off the internet of the gorgeousPère Lachaise cementary in France. I've converted them all into black/white to level the playing field a bit. Go ahead and see if you can guess which city is which.