I love the bookstores here. They're tauntingly fascinating places.

Fascinating because they've got everything you could want. Looking for the complete works of Jules Verne? They've got it. Complete history of erotica from the 17th century to the current day? It's there. Greek / German / English philosophy? Check. Latest bodice-ripper / best-seller / sci-fi? Yes, and the not-so-latest too. There's whatever you might want, and quite a few things that you might not think of; it's a bibliophile's wet dream.

Taunting because, of course, it's all in Spanish. It's like being a diabetic in a lolly shop. My fervent desire is that those sweet treats will not be forever beyond my reach... (some day soon, ojalá)

Despite the language barrier, and confirming my status as a card-carrying linguistics egg-head, today I bought a treatise on the lexical, syntactic, and phonological variations of Spanish spoken across Argentina. Can I have anything but a basic conversation in Spanish? No. Can I tell you in which regions there is pre-consonantal aspiration of 's'? Yes! (And with a bit more practice, I'll be aspirating my 's's pre-consonantally with the best of them)