musings

Yesterday we headed out to Tigre for a day trip. Shortly after the train pulled out of Retiro Station I saw what I hadn't yet seen but knew to be lurking somewhere - namely abject poverty. In a word the ghetto. Here in BA these are referred to as as Villa Mercias. This particular Villa passing by the train window is known by the name of Villa Trente Uno. It is a shanty town with with a population of 15,000. The houses are little more than cinder block, brick, mortar and corrugated metal roofs that seem to lack much in the way of structural integrity. Many of the residents are immigrants from Bolivia and Paraguay that have come to Buenos Aires for a better life or job or both. The interesting thing about these Villas is that they are for the most part self-sufficient. They have electricity that they have wired up themselves and basic plumbing that they have installed with their own hands. They appoint a villa President to oversea affairs, have their own general store and youth centers. There are some 750,000 people living in in Capital Federale who reside in these villas. One would imagine the residents to be socially marginalized and likely discriminated against. It is a stark contrast to the image of BA as a slice of Europe grafted onto the South American continent. Considering that BA is a city of 16 million 40% of which live below the poverty line it is suprizing that the population of these villas is not larger that what it is.

Tigre is a charming place. It is an island that sits on the Parana River Delta about an hour outside of BA. Residents off of the main island live on their own private islands in the river. Some of these residential islands are no more than an acre or two. Each home is built up on stilts in anticipation of flooding. Each island home seemed very personal, with their own boats and docks and placards in the front yard proclaiming the name of their abodes such as Andreas, Palmas, Dorrego etc. It was amusing to see Direct TV Satellite dishes tacked on to boat docks or nailed on to two by fours in the reeds. The local elementary school and church are situated on their own islands and water buses bring the kids to school. The main port is called Peurto Di Frutos. Historically the port was the aggregation point for all the fruits that were brought up and around the Parana River. The fruit at the port looked beautiful, completely organic with none of that paraffin polished sheen you see in your major supermarkets. It was tough to get decent photos on a moving water taxi but what I did get I will leave HERE

So there is an interesting political parallel here. Nestor Kirchner the Prime Minister of BA has a wife Christina who is running for the presidency. The election is this October. Like her husband she is also a Peronist and is currently a senator. The city is plastered with posters of a computer enhanced image of Christina Kirchner. I am trying to think of Hillary Clinton employing this tactic. I keep coming back to the Spy Magazine cover(you remember Spy right?) during the '92 election campaign where they glued Hillary's head onto a Dominatrix's body complete with riding crop. I think it would certainly spice up the otherwise droll race back home.


For some reason BA is the most psycho-analyzed place on planet earth. There is one psychoanalyst for every 30 residents.. I was at a dinner party and met a French woman who was studying psychology here. I asked her if she had any insight into this phenomenon her reply was simply "no but I am here to find out." Maybe its a well guarded trade secret? For people inundated with beautiful food, women and architecture one has to wonder how the national Psyche could possibly have come so unhinged? I suppose one could present a similar question about neurotic New Yorkers though.

The other side

It's only 45 minutes by high speed ferry to the other side of the Rio Plate which is Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. A short nap basically. Colonia is an interesting place. It was the only area of the Rio de Plata that was colonized by the Portugese. It feels like some strange social experminent gone terribly right. The streets are coble stone, very few structures are above two stories, there is little traffic and the locals drive mopeds, motorcycles and in our case a golf cart. It is one of the cleanest cities I have ever been and this being a peninsula you can see water almost everywhere you look. Something about it reminded me of the island that Patrick McGoohan was trying to escape in the British TV series The Prisoner. Aghh the dark side of Utopia.

One curious phenomenon was the homeless dogs. There were no homeless people but homeless dogs everywhere. They are looked after though. It is not uncommon to see shop owners generously sprinkling dog food on the sidewalks in front of their shops. So the fact that these dogs have no roof over their heads is of course an issue but I didn't see one pup whose rib cage was showing. These dogs get around too. There were four specific dogs I saw regularly in different parts of town and we kind of looked at each other knowingly in that "what's up?" sort of way. One of them was quick to befriend us - we named him Pepo. Pepo only had three legs but damn if he didn't have the slightest problem keeping up with us.

What I previously described was the old part of the city. We took the golf cart beyond the confines of the cobbled stone street peninsula where it looks similar to the poorer parts of Mexico. A striking contrast to the old port. We set out for an old bull fighting ring that seemed to be out pasture for some 20 odd years. Along the way there cows and horses that grazed freely on the side of school houses, libraries and police stations. At one intersection we met up with a man in a horse driven cart who was ferrying around some newly cleaned brush. We also found the Hippodrome which is the local race track. The hippodrome seemed to have fallen on hard times. The grand stands looked like bleachers one would see at a High School basketball game, paint was peeling everywhere and in the middle of the track was chest high weeds and grass growing with a few untethered passing the time. It was all a bit strange.

On a gastronomical note. The local specialty is called a chevito and the places that specialize in them are called chevitorias. The chevito is a sandwich comprised of sirloin steak, ham, cheese, bacon a fried egg, served on a hero bun. This is the sort of sandwich you get at 4:00AM from Verdi Mart in New Orleans during Jazz Fest. Not at all heart smart but insanely delicious. It is curious that a fishing town has a steak sandwich as its local delicacy no?

This is also one of those places where you go the cambio to trade in your Argentine Peso which are manageable in both volume and denomination and you receive a wad of notes that say 500U on them. One Argentine peso is worth 7 times what the Uruguay Peso is worth and momentarily you feel very wealthy until you realize it is 130 pesos for that Chevito sandwich. Its all sadly relative.


I will leave you with a tongue twister I learned laste last night it is akin to "she sell sea shells by the seashore." ditty. It is a tour de force of the rolling R.

erre con erre guitarra
erre con err carril
que rapido ruedan las ruedas
del carro cargado de azucar
del ferro carril

R with R guitar
R with R railway
How quickly the rolling the wheels
from cargo car of sugar
from the train


Some recent pics can be found HERE


C.

week ending

Hey there,
So my Mom came to town to pay a visit! I awoke on Thursday morning at 6:30 to pick her up at Ezizia Airpot at 8:10AM. Ouch. The night before it occurred to me that this was going to be something of a challenge for me as I hadn't been up that early in almost four months. In setting the alarm clock the device appeared to be something almost alien to me and sleeping through the alarm quickly became a source of anxiety. Her arrival came off without a hitch though. I hired a remise which is kind of a black car service to take me and they promptly phoned at 7:30 to let me know they were out front. A round trip fare with tolls, tip and waiting time came to the genteel sum of 30 dollars. Not bad at all. Anyway she's been a real trooper in dealing with this loft of sliding hidden doors, fire pole, pool ladders and propane gas heaters.

Yesterday was a beautiful Spring like day that hovered around 65 degrees for the duration of the daylight hours. It was warm enough that stopping in to a heladeria for some ice cream seemed like the right thing to do. We stumbled upon a place in the neighborhood called Dolce Amaretto Helados Artisanales. If someone chooses to juxtapose the words ice cream and artist you can bet that I will take notice. The portenos down here take their ice cream very seriously. The menu board was littered with flavors with names like Cielo(sky?), Marscapone, Alfajoretto and Tramontana. Realizing what he was dealing with linguistically, the owner resorted to the universal language of sample spoons. After we each had settled on a couple of flavors in a cup and content to exit the store the owner proceeded to go nuts, giving us a sampling of 20 of the 32 flavors he had to offer. As the cup I had already purchased proceeded to melt almost untouched. I indulged him in sampling flavor after flavor much to his delight. He was an ice cream artist and I was a connoisseur and this symbiosis would probably explain why it was nearly 45 minutes later before we finally retreated from his shop.

Last night was spent in Palermo Hollywood which we figured to be the Williamsburg Brooklyn of Buenos Aries. The weather lent itself to a table outside the Mekena Club, a live music venue. When we walked up it sounded as if Elvis Costello was playing. Tune after tune of My Aim is True era Elvis emanated from the club, all sung in English. The band was called Blues Motel, Blues Motel 6 is more like it. It was appalling. Two highlights of the club were A)There were hipster parents who had brought their kids and B) beautiful mullets sans irony. I have no idea why or how kids accompanied by parents are permitted in clubs at 2:00AM but it was interesting to witness. Back to the Mullets, they were fantastic - real rocker soccer mullets with bangs. At least 20 people we saw exiting after the band finished looked like they could have been the keyboard player for Supertramp. We snuck a bunch of pics and I will post them shortly.

Today was one of those uneventful days one sometimes has while traveling where nothing really happens yet you are seemingly on the go for its; entirety. We woke up late and went for breakfast, after breakfast it was nearly 2:00, a bit of shopping on the way home from the cafe and a subsequent discussion of laundry issues made sure that it was almost 3:30 before we got into a cab to do anything productive. We headed to Puerto Madiero in order to purchase tickets at the Buquebus office which has subsequently been dubbed the boogie bus by my Mom. The boogie bus is the ferry that traverses the Rio Plate in order to get one to Montevide, Uruquay. This was unsuccessful as we didn't have our passports with us which are required to secure a ticket. By the time we had incompleted this task it was getting dark and we were again hungry. We decided that a nice Italian dinner was what was needed. The problem is that one can not actually get dinner here at 6:00. The dinner menus are not in effect until 8:00 at night. This is b/c nobody eats dinner here until 10:00PM. We ended up making our way over to a place called Olsen which is a distinctively Scandinavian looking place that serves home made vodkas which are served at 18 degrees below zero(the menu made much note of this fact) and whose decor resembled a car mechanic's garage turned Unitarian Church - lots of Norwegian Wood(isn't it good?) We made do with a simple lomo sandwich before heading home.

On a random note. Automobile emissions do not seem to be an issue that anyone down here is familiar with. Yesterday when crossing Avenida de Mayo I watched a bus belch the biggest blackest plume of exhaust. The belch seemed to last for almost a minute. After a while of turning my head and covering my mouth I decided it was possibly safe to cross the street. In mid crossing however I walked into a carbon curtain that suspended itself for the lenght of the time it took to cross the intersection. This is a serious issue and regulary manifests itself on shirt collars at the end of a day out.

So it's off tomorrow to Uruguay at 9:00AM on the boogie bus. I will let you know how it goes.

Suerte
C.

sorry I'm late

After being told that this page was being ill-maintained I decided it might be a good idea to report some things from the front.

The pic above is one of the roadside shrines I have seen. I finally learned what it is. It's odd to have bottles with corporate branding on them surrounding a relious centerpiece no? This is a shrine to the Dfinunta Correa. The legend is that she traveled with her baby boy through the desert to meet up with her husband who was conscripted. She died for lack of water but her baby survived on the milk from the lifeless mother's body. People bring bottles filled with water as an offering. She is not a Saint but is treated as such by man Argentines and you can imagine the the Catholic church is none to happy about any of this.

Next the trip to the Millonga. The Millonga is basically a Tango dance hall. This particular venue was called Canning Town. Upon arrival I noticed a mix of ages on the street. There were people barely out of their teenage years as well as people your parents and grandparent's age who had come out for air. It was good to see older people since I was beginning to have the suspicion that there was some Logan's Run type scenario going on here in BA whereby everyone who was not under 30 and beautiful were killed off.

The Millonga hall itself is not much to speak of, a fairly utilitarian room with a bar, the dance floor in the middle and tables flanking the dance floor in a square. Tango is usually depicted as a showpiece with two talented dancers working their magic all by themselves. This however was 200 odd couples at any given time working an overly crowded floor. One thing that struck me as fascinating is that the style of dance is very spacial in nature yet no couples ever bumped into one another. I kept thinkingg and secretly hoping that there would a dance floor train wreck but it would never materialize. The music and dance were more modern than the traditonal places you usually see and hear. The range in ages was fascinating. I can't think of any Friday night activity back home where the young and the almost geriatric get gussied up on a Friday night and let it rip in the same room. The Millonga also is devoted predominantly to Tango but not exclusively. There would be the occasional Jitterbug and Lindy Hop thrown in for good measure and most people seemed comfortable dancing any of these. The other music that made the odd appearance bizarrely enough was The Velvet Underground which the DJ dedicated to us after learning where our table was from. Anyway these halls open at midnight and go until dawn. A quick scan of the room at 4:00AM showed evidence of many of the old folks still occupying their places on the dance floor. This is truly a great spectator activity.

Everything here seems to be named after significant dates in history here rather than the event itself and Tres de Febreuro is name of the city's version of Central Park. It is comprised of lakes, palm oasises, English style rose gardens, marble statues and exotic birds. Nothing is off limits to the pedestrian and the walking paths are crushed red stone that has a distinct smell to them. I am not sure if this is due to the landscape design but endless traffic on the 10 lane wide Ave De Libretrador 2 blocks away is reduced to nothing more than a distant hum inside the park. It seemed the park was a Canines idea of Utopia - in the absence of leash laws dogs are able to run and shit freely in an Eden like environment. It's a dogs life indeed.

So Aregentina lost to Brazil in the Cupa American, this was most unfortunate as I had high hopes of seeing the city go entirely bezerk as the result of a win. It was fun to watch the game with a table of full of Mexicans rooting for Argentina surrounded by Brazilians who were going nuts the entire game with their funny dances and chants.

I visited the MALBA which is the Museo de Arte Latinamericano de Buenos Aires. I guess I understand why there is an acronym for the museum. The museum is fantastic. My favorites were the pieces by Fernando Botero, Jorge de La Vega, Antonio Dias and Leon Ferrari that were in the permanent collection. The Cafe on the ground floor has top notch food and and beverages. The museum was also free so what's not to like?

Here are some random pics

Xul !!!!

I don't exactly consider myself to be a Philistine as neither me nor my family is from there but before today I had never heard of the artist Xul Solar.

In addition to his painting he invented two languages, his own pianos with three sets of keys and a time zone. Besides being an accomplished painter, musician and occultist he was also an architect - in short an art monster. One could only imagine the conversation at his cocktail parties. I don't know how to classify his work but it appeared to incorporate elements of Futurism, Cubism and Outsider Art. He worked primarily in water colors but there were also some oils (Tarot cards that I was disappointed they didn't reproduce and sell.) The museum itself is architecturally interesting, a kind of Brutalist style architecture - lots of large slabs of raw concrete. It's less of a museum and more of a foundation for his work and ideas. Amongst the couple hundred paintings there is also some sculpture and some ready made type pieces. I thoroughly enjoyed it and purchased four small lithographs that are printed on beautiful hand made paper that has the appearance of oil cloth. Anyway if you are interested in checking it out see the following LINK

I hesitate to bring up wine after talking about art for obvious reasons(insert joke here) but hey they do go together! That said I will mention the Bonarda grape. This is known in California as the Charbono grape which I have never heard of and is evidently Italian(Piedmont) in origin. In Argentina's San Mendoza region it's known by the name Bonarda. You can buy Malbecs here in the supermarket that are mixed with Bonarda that are fantastic. One label I love is called Uxmal. I am not sure what it sells for back home but it is $5.00 US a bottle here and is simply delicious.

OK I am off to a place called Las Cholas in Las Canitas which sounds like East L.A Gangsta food but their speciality is North Western Argentine cuisine which is known to be distinctly different from other parts of the country. The North West is known for a specific type of empanada and a humita tamale. I will let you know.

Buena Suerte

C.

living la vida boca

Hey!

I will attempt to catch you up on my recent comings and goings.

Savina the tutor came by yesterday for some castellano lessons They don't call it Spanish here probably b/c they have pleasently Frankensteined the language into something that is uniquely their own. The lesson got off to a rough start as it was interrupted by plumbers that came to fix a water heater. The plumbers were on the cell phone with their boss, the land line was being used to talk to the landlord's mother who actually owns the place and the skype phone was being used to talk to the landlord. Thus began this weird triangulation between the three of them and the three phones with the tutor doing translations as needed. The higlight of the lesson though was when I used the word "coger" which I believed to be the verb to get, she stopped me dead in my tracks and said "no no no cojer Cleef, in Spain yes ok cojer but here in Ar-hen-tina cojer is to fuck ok?." She said this without the slightest bit of embarrassment, very matter of fact. Genius. I wish I had it recorded because it would make a great ringtone for cell phone back home.

Last night we watched the All Star Game and the Argentina vs Paraquay game in Belgrano at a guy named Cave's house. Cave needs a little introduction. We had people over the house two nights ago for food and drinks. Cave was a freind of a new friend who showed up much later. Yesterday morning he phones the house and says "It's Cave I met you last night. I don't remember your name." After reminding him of my name he proceeds to ask if he can borrow the VCR!" I mean who does that? He's nice enough alright and invited people over for some sports since he has Direct TV here. I must admit that both games were good. Saw an in the park homer in the first game and the football came down to penalty kicks.

This morning I left and braced myself for the cold air and was pleasantly surprised that the weather had returned to mild Fall weather. It was nice enough to have breakfast outside at a cafe. From there with my belly full and the sun shining I jumped into a cab and we sped down the Avenida Libretador which runs along the Rio Plate. The street is the equivalent of a super highways with 10 lanes running in the same direction yet flanked by beautiful parks and greenery. The destination was La Boca.

La Boca is the old meat packing and shipping area that sits astride El Riachuelo(River.), home to the Boca Junior football club. Yes its touristy but still visually interesting. The houses are a mix of colonial and corrugated metal, splashed in a funky mix of every color Krayaola Crayons puts in the box. Apparently the origins of this aesthetic is that the locals not being able to afford paint would take the paint left over from the painting of ships and barges and use it on their houses. Now however this is mostly kept up for the sake of tourist who come and snap pictures on the Caminito which is the main drag.

After walking around a bit I took a tour of the La Bombonera which is the home of the venerated Boca Juniors. It wasn't much of a tour at all. It was a bunch of rabid Boca fans who were content to pay 6 pesos for the pleasure of sitting in the stands and watch two grounds keeper water the grass. The lack of anything interesting going on didn't seem to stop people from pulling out their cell phones and tacking pictures. I did manage to learn the term Brava Barra which basically translates to Soccer Hooligan so all was not for nought. Walking back down the Caminito a man put his fedora on my head pushed me closer to his tango partner. This old scam I was thinking when I noticed how incredibly hot his tango parter was. She threw her leg over mine and contorted me into some classical tango position at which point I handed the man my camera in order to take pictures. I handed him a couple pesos, returned his hat and took another look at the tango temptress before grabbing a cab out of there.

After that I headed to Congresso which as the name implies is the seat of the government. Congresso has a different feel than some of the other barrios. It is akin to Midtown Manhattan, sidewalks teeming with people and every conceivable type of store selling anything from beds and consumer electronics to socialist propaganda. You had the feeling that 'if it exists in Argentina one could find it in Congresso.'
I was very much looking forward to seeing the Teatro' Colon which is a masterpiece of an opera house, it was the largest opera house in the Southern Hemisphere until the Sydney Opera House went up. I was disappointed to find that not only was it closed for renovations for one year but the facade was covered in scaffolding and black scrim. I guess they didn't know I was coming. I got to see the obligatory protest march in Plaza de Congreso, apparently this is an almost daily if not hourly occurrence for some cause of another.

I have noticed this interesting phenomenon of cafe deliveries here. It is not uncommon to see a waiter or waitress on the street ferrying around a tray with a plastic lid and a few cups of cafe con leche inside. How cool is that to order coffee delivery and get real mugs and saucers brought to your door? I intend to order in coffee from a local tommorrow just to see how this works.

Anyway tonight its off to see Argentina vs Mexcio on the big screen.

Some pics from today can be found HERE



Ciao
Cleef

Feliz Nueva de Julio!

It is snowing today. Although the ground is not cold enough for anything to stick I did have the fortunate experience of witnessing a 5 year old on the corner who was seeing snow for the first time in thier life. The girl's mother was explaining to her what the falling white flakes were, either that or she was telling her not to eat it. Honestly I am not actually sure which. I hear NYC is 95 degrees with nearly equal humidity, I will take this any day. So I woke up very late today, something about the cold that slows the motivation to pull one's self out of a comfy bed. I hit my mental snooze button at regular intervals. The plan for the day was to visit the barrio of La Boca. Me, Nick and Nicole made our way to a cafe a few blocks away for breakfast. Today being a national holiday the place was crowded with people having big liesurely lunches. The couple next to us had ordered the mixed parilla meat plate for two. The parilla is basically an open charcol grill that seem to exist in almost every cafe and restaurant here. Anyway the waitress set down a chaffing dish the size of a pool table that was filled with the most obscene amounts of red meat. The dish was so large that nobody could help but laughing. Upon seeing our reaction the gentleman of the couple told us we could help ourselves, apparently this is very comon in BA. Although I really wanted to grab a blood sausage and run it through the old wood chipper that is my mouth I had to resist because it just felt kind of uhm .... odd. I opted for the Matambe which appeared to be similar to a stroganoff served with papas espanola which are very thick fresh fried potato chips. Being a three day weekend all of the ATMs were seemingly out of cash - "No plate", this limiting the options that the day held due to a cash shortage I returned home to a schedule of intermittent reading and napping. Ok it's now eveinging and some people are coming by for food and drinks, must get myself cleaned up or at least more awake. Never made it to La Boca.

muchos muchos frio

A cold snap has finally hit and perfect timing as well as I just purchased a new and stylish winter coat!

The pic to the left is the Cafe Tortoni logo but I intend to appropriate as the new monogram for all of my shirts, towels and sheets.


Finally some pics here


They are out of order much like my mind right now but enjoy.

Tonight I was napping when all of a sudden a chorus of "oohs" and "ahhs" reverberated through the apartment complex . Tommorrow being Nueva de Julio(Day of Independance) I thrust open the door expecting to witness flowering fireworks lighting up the winter sky. No such luck, it turns out it was the quarter finals of the Copa America and Argentina has just scored their first of four goals against Peru. Argentina swept Peru 4-0 so tommorrow being a national holiday I am imagining folks are going to be in doubly good form.

I have a bad habit of working backwards - what about yesterday?

Yesterday Savina came by the apartment and we drank more coffee and haphazzardly went about a castellano lesson(they don't call it Spanish in BA), from there we moved on to a cafe here in Palermo. Savina got clued in to the fact that the cafe served alfahor from Havana Cafe there which are widely reputed to be the best bar none. So in addition to ordering more cafe con leches I also ordered said alfahor. Savina proceeded to cut the alfahor into three pieces presumably for the table, yet while engaging us in imperfect tenses took the liberty of demolishing the entire desert. Upon finishing Savina declared "La puta que lo pario" which has a rough translation of "the whore that gave birth to you", Although this sounds fairly harsh I believe the english equivalent to be "son of a bitch!" She then advised us to order one for ourselves as well. Brilliant.

Our new friend Nick invited us to dinner with his friends Gnome, Ariana and her friends whose name ecsapes me at the moment. The place was called the Green Bamboo. A small gem of a Veietnamese restaurant in Palermo Soho. On the way to the restaurant Roman the manager of Lo Ded Jesus spotted us through the windown and came running out to say hello, told us to sit and came out with a bottle of wine. Roman is a real character who needs to be on Food Network or Top Chef. At one point the conversation turned to names. When I explained my entire name which is someting like 8 sylables he retorted "why you parents give you so many names when I am just going to call you Kiko anyway?" Ha ha ha ha. I tried to pay for the wine but he was having none of it then it was off to the Green Bamboo.

The problem with these 10:30 sit down dinners here is that before you know it your watch says 2:40AM which is exactly what happened.

Oh by the way it is now officialy cold here. 6 degrees Celcius to be exact.

che boludo

Sory about the title but I just became hip to it though, its local slang. It's not really appropriate to say to people you don't know very well but it is fun to say.

Savina is the name of the new spanish tutor. She has flaming red hair. She came by yesterday to give us some schooling. She stayed for a couple of hours. In addition to drinking strong coffee and conjugating verbs, there was much cultural talk about everythying from Borges translations(its a sacrilege according to her) to their beloved Che Guevara and the economy. She is coming by again today. At 6 dollars an hour its quite a bargain. We attempted to make her Mate which is basically a yerba buena tea. However the drinking gourds we bought had not yet been cured for 24 hours. She laughed at the total tourist Mate package we had purchased. Anyway she seems pretty cool. She lives in San Telmo which is known for the big Sunday market, with antiques and tango etc. She is going to show us here neihborhood tommorrow as according to her Sunday in San Telmo are not to be missed.

Every Thursday for the last 30 years the Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo have marched in protest at the Plaza De Mayo in the front of the presidential palace. The group is comprised of Mothers of the various 30,000 sons who "disappered" during the dirty war. I was looking foward to seeing this prior to coming. I have been informed though that the march has stopped as the current administration seems amenable to loooking into the atrocities(operation condor) with the possibilites of war crime trials. My loss, their gain.

Had a great meal last nightat a restaurant here in Palermo called Lo De Jesus. We came on the earlier side and had a table outside under a heat lamp. After devouring a subperb medium rare filet, the manager an Italian named Roman who spok some english joined us at our table, he also introduced us to his friend Al Pacino who looked like a Porteno version of Don Henley Fry from the Eagles and his other friend affectionately known as "payoso" or clown. The clown had a bad habit of sticking his hands in the air ala Rickard Nixon doing his V signd. Pacino bore no resemblance to the actor but seemed to have cultivated that internation man of mystery thing pretty well. At one point the clown had to be restrained from throwing a plate after I started quoting lines from Scarface. I guess you could say he was very excitable. Anyway we drank wine and talked for a couple of hours. I don't imagine it will be tough to get a table there from now on.

Dinner time in BA is at 10:00. A cab driver gave us the breakdown on meal times. Breakfast is sometime before noon, lunch is between 12:00 and 2:00 and dinner as I mentioned is at 10:00. When he was asked what people did when work ends at 6:00 and dinner at 10:00 he casually replied "we make love." Ha ha ha ha. No wonder the city has a population of 14 million.

ramblings

Alfajors - two sweet biscuits filled with dolce dulece, sinfuly delicious.

Lorco stew, heavy navy bean type of stew with sausage and bacon. The bacon is more or less chunks of pork fat still attached to chunks of bone. It's good but the constant pulling of bone out of your mouth is sort of a buzz kill.

The Italian food here is fantastic.

Malbec is the main grape. Instead of being used as a blending grape like in France here it stands on its own. You will find Trapiche almost everywhere here. It is the default house wine.

The four way intersecton without stop signs or traffic lights. I can't figure this one out. Most people don't stop and look they just slow down and if they can proceed blow through the intersection. You would think this would severely impact the mortality here but it doesn't.

Sidewalks. The sidewalks here are in a state of disrepair for the most part. You will have a beautiful block of colonial buildings that are impecably maintained but the sidewalk in front of them are just crap. Also the sidewalk changes here every 10 feet or so. It will be black and white tile, followed by large squares, followed by lined concrete etc. all within the same block.

The double L in Argentina as in parilla or calle is pronounced "zh" or "sh", prononcing double L as a Y sound will get you nowhere very quickly.

Lunfardo is a cache of Argentine Spanish slang that is widely used. There seem to be conflicting stories as to its origins. You can veiw a comprehensive lunfardo dictionary here:

http://www.elportaldeltango.com/english/dicciona.htm

Graffiti is ubiquitous. Although its not like taggers in the US looking for cred it is mainly an outlet for political messages instead of act of vandalism. I don't imagine its legal but it seems to be condoned to some extent.

Argentine women are simply beautiful.

Is this thing on?

Things have been a bit of a blur the past couple of days. A couple of late nights. Yesterday was great, went and visited the Casa Roja or the Pink House where the presdient lives, its not actually pink but more of a salmon. After that it was a quick walk down Avenida De Mayo to Cafe Tortoni. Walking inside was like stepping back into the early part of last centure. A beautiful cafe comprised of stainded glass, marble columns, lots of brass and beautiful leather upolstered chairs. This was a favorite haunt of Carlos Gardel who is the Argentine Frank Sinatra, Luis Borges and Garcia Lorca. On the way we stopped by a Porteno cafe for a choripan which is an extremely fatty chorizo served butterflied on crusty bead. Although not exactly heart smart its truly delicious. Later we went to Million which is a converted 4 story mansion where in the back court yard they were shoging Bergman's 'Fanny and Alexander.' It was great to watch a Sweedish movie with Spanish subtitles. So that was yesterday's spanish lesson I guess.


We have made some friends down here already. Last night were invited to one of these new firends Hip Hop party not far from the hotel. They were spinning some decent old schol stuff and socializing was done in both Spanish in English which was good.



We left Ricoleta for loft in Palermo which I love love love, the place is 2 blocks from the Plaza Serrano. I will be sad to not wake up to the tray of medialunas(croisants) with dulce dulece, a pot of coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice outside the door. You get used to that realy quickly. On the way out of the hotel I met the Director of Latin American operations for Google. I guess his corporate apartment was there. Anyway he gave me his buizness card I should probably email a resume his way.

Belated Happy 4th of July. I am feeling a state of independance.

Its is one of those truly beautiful days today - like the abscence of temperture, neithere hot nor cold just neutral and still. Everyone seems to be in a good mood as a result. That being said I shouldn't be inside banging on the keyboard. I will talk more later.

Tuesday No Jacket Required

Ola,

Today was spent in the barrio of Palermo. The reason for the visit was to try to secure an apartment for the rest of the month. Mission accomplished. The place is a funky two story loft in a place called Palermo Soho, not to be confused with Soho Hollywood, or Palermo Chico(it's good to know real estate is out of control everywhere on the planet.) It's two stories with a spiral staircase, half the roof is sky light and the layout is very open. One of my favorite features though is a fire pole from which you can slide down from the second floor to the foyer space between the dining area and kitchen. This foyer area is mostly stone with a rectangular wood inlay in the middle. After inquiring about this wooden inlay the owner procedeed to lift up one of the many panels comprising the inlay which revealed a tiled stand up pool. Basically its a chest deep basin for cooling off. I have never seen anything like it. Hilarious indeed. I will post some pictures of the space on Thursday - the move in day.

After squaring away the living situation it was an afternoon spent shopping in Palermo. The ulterior motive for shopping was to find a new Fall coat. While I was diligently searching for "Thee Coat" it was more or less of an excuse to practice Spanish via consumerism. So today's lessons came from retailers. While I didn't actually succeed in finding a good garment I did manage to learn how to ask all sorts of questions in Spanish about size, color and style by asking "how do you say ..."

"Como sedice _______?" The vocabulary builds at an astonishing rate when people are trying to sell you something.


The jacket/coat thing has become a bit of a joke as it has been declared the coldest winter in Buenos Aries in 42 years yet I have not needed any more protection than an old rag tag sweater at any time. Requesting a table outside at a cafe is met with looks that seem to say "crazy gringo."

Back to the retail thing. Upon entering one particular storeI was greeted by two sales people. Sales person number 1 began showing me a rack of leather jackets. After a few minutes I inquired about the nature of his injury as he was wearing a burly splint on his left foot. It turns out that he plays for Boca Junior the preminent football club here in BA. Discussion soon turns from jackets to football. At this point sales person number 2 comes over and pulls out his season pass for Racing the rival footbal club. A war of words between the two ensues leaving me caught in the cross fire. They finally resolve their issue by agreeing to disagree but moments later sales person number 1 is shoving a flip book in my face. The flip book replayed the 1986 World Cup Quarter Final where Maradona scored the miraculous goal known as "the hand of god." Not to be outdone by the flip book showcase, sales person number 2 produces his cell phone and proceeds to show me the same highlight in full motion video of the same event. This whole ordeal seemed to diffuse the hard sell they should have been giving me on a leather jacket. It appeared that this sports event has that "Do you remember where you were when Kennedy was shot?" type of importance. These folks love their football.

On the way back to Ricoletta I was amused to see a street performer whom at a red light invaded the intersection and began to perform fire juggling in front of the stopped traffic. After many cycles of catching burning sticks he approached the stopped cars with flaming sticks in hand to ask for money. I don't know about you but if a man with torches approaches the driver side window of my car I double check that the door is in fact locked. I guess it was somewhat surprising to see two cars award him financialy for his efforts.

OK it's dinner time. I will talk more later.

Day One

Greetings from South of the Equator albeit a day late. Things got off to an inauspicious start at Kennedy as as the airline oversold the flight by twenty some odd passengers. In a fit of panic the folks at the gate started offering up 800 dollar vouchers to any passengers who were willing to take the big bump. While this offer sounded tempting it struck me as equally tempting to try to negotiate asking for a first class upgrade on the next flight out in lieu of their crappy voucher. After some deliberation amongst the desk employess they agreed to the terms of my seat surrendering. So it was wheels up at last night at 10:50 instead - hot towels all the way around!

Today was spent within the tether of the Ricoleta neighborhood. Impressions this far would be it's Paris with Palm trees, a bit of Havana(some broken infrastructure) and some good old New York City(plenty of cabs and food options every five feet.) The weather is fantastic. Although it's Winter I can't help but mistake it for Fall. The air is crisp but not cold. Sweater weather at its' finest. I enjoyed a nice outdoor lunch of a handful of some of the best empanadas and a cold beer (which set me back all of $4.00 US.) After lunch I headed to the Ricoletta Cemetary where amongst many other national heroes Evita lies. In addition to dead people the quasi-labyrinth is filled with mostly friendly cats of all colors, makes and models. Additionaly these felines seem to understand the importance of a photo op. It's known to be the largest swath of real estate in BA where nobody actually lives. After that it was the mundane - looking for a cell phone, a good jacket and the obligatory getting lost because it's now dark and your Spanish is crap.

Anyway after a glass of Malbec and some Silversun Pickups on the iPod its out in search of a decent Argentine steak dinner.