In the Light of the Never Dying Spirit of Discovery...

In Light of the Never Dying Spirit of Discovery, I present the following three anecdotes:

Cancion

The bar was only five blocks away, but the transformation of the neighborhood took on a rapidly increasing pace. From the semi-suburban nature of my tree lined street, lined with cafes and apartment towers, to houses of a more modest height. The paved streets were replaced by the hodgepodge of cobblestone streets always five years from being improved by the city.

It was tucked tidily on a street corner, taking up a space hardly larger than the apartment I was staying in. The walls were lined on all sides, up to the ceiling, with pennants for soccer teams around the world, showing some truly amusing illustrations from some of the teams from the early 1900s.

Besides my friend and I and the owner, a waitress, and what seemed like the owner’s friend; the bar was occupied by a party of about 20 men ranging from middle age to pensioner. I don’t know what they were celebrating, perhaps someone’s birthday, but it involved a nonstop stream of wine, whiskey, and deli platters.

While sipping on my own whiskey, a cheap local made affair, I listened to a singer that the party had hired. An old man, flanked by two dapper dressed guitarists, sang powerfully. I caught snippets of the songs, and from the steady guffaws of the old men, guessed that the songs were of a dirtier nature.

At times the singer transitioned to slower ballads, one which sang of the very streets we were now on and was named after the neighborhood, Almagro. Tears trickled from a few eyes.

Politica en accion

I was sitting at a café on the elegant Avenida de Mayo, a wide boulevard in the Parisian style that stretches from the Congress building to the Casa Rosada. I munched on the sandwich in front of me, an open-faced, toasted sandwich with ham and cheese, and sipped on the bubbly, carbonated mineral water (a new favorite of mine since coming down here). The whole atmosphere evoked an elegant charm, tourists, well dressed men, and I sat, soaked the sun, served on by bow tied waiters.

Suddenly, a blast shook the serenity of the street scene. I looked down the street and saw a mass of blue and white banners, flags, drums, and people clogging the street. Two men at the front kept running ahead, launching some kind of mortar, and then running back to the crowd in an almost pixyish manner.

I knew that there was a Political demonstration today; organized by the President’s party, in favor of a controversial law she was pushing through congress. Marching toward me was the face of populism, stirred up in a demonstration to support their beleaguered leader.

They made their way down the street to the steady drum beat, matter of factly staring at the cafes, filled with their perceived enemies. The bourgeois bureaucrats that their leader defended them from. Waving banners of Evita, Che, and Juan under titles such as the Peronist Youth, the New Socialists, and a score of other loosely associated Political groups.

They came in streams, almost as if they were timed to make their march last as long as possible. Vans topped off by megaphones and emblazoned with images of the President and her husband (the ex-President) displayed in front of the masses spread their message up the urban valley.

The political cynics/realists such as me, while excited over what was displayed, surely see it for what it really is. An organized political stunt, funded by labor dollars and Political favors. The middle class derides the President and her husband of Hugo Chavezesque tactics, and witnessing the exercise in staged populism, it was clear.

I made my way back down the line of protestors, marching the same route taken throughout the twentieth century under more revolutionary and sincere means, crossing the Avenida de 9 de Julio, the main artery of the city’s heart. There, garbage trucks emblazoned in favor of the President drove in circles, disrupting traffic, turning the world’s widest avenue into the world’s widest parking lot. The government buildings lining the avenue were covered in slogans against the President. “Es verdad que esta es democracia” Is it true that this is democracy was a common refrain.

In front of the Casa Rosada, a number of groups, almost cued progressively made their way down Mayo to their own drum beats.

I made my way down to the other end, to the Congress building, where a carnival like atmosphere was on display. All of the groups had their banners unfurled in front of the congress. Fliers blanketed the ground like a fresh flurry of snow. People on platforms sang protest songs and railed against the perceived enemies in the building in front of them.

Families congregated, vendors sold ice cream and beer, and people generally milled about in the social atmosphere around them.

An almost imitation of presenting the people’s will. Democracy works without the protests. Healthy republics aren’t impacted by staged stunts, only by the ballot box.

But when the day comes and democracy is fading, the marches, protests, and demonstrations will thrive in relevance and impact again. After all, what’s an election? Just an organized version of what I saw that day.

Una Calle Linda

In the heart of blue collar Almagro, a block north of the famous mall Albasto, is a small pedestrian street. Its lined with benches, trees, and walking down the street’s stones gives one the image of the prototypical South American city street. The first time I walked down it, at sunset, a lone cat was strolling down it. The iconic grin of the tango singer Carlos Gardel smiles down from various pop art murals (he grew up a block away).

Walking down it this night, I saw a group of schoolchildren watching something on a projector.

Families and other people walking by stopped to join in. The kids laughed and clapped along to the cartoon playing and when I stopped to watch, I smiled.

It was an Argentine claymation about a kid who dreams of Mars, is taken there by his grandfather in a pickup truck, eventually doubts the wonder of this childhood memory, but rediscovers his passion for adventure later as an adult.

I had seen it twice in college Spanish class, and it always makes me smile at the stunning array of emotions it can provoke.

Here, flanked by the soft light on the street, munching on a cookie offered by what I assumed was the children’s teacher, I felt a spirit of community unity pulsating down the tidy yet semi-archaic street.

Zelaya

What is Foreign?

I have a habit of only writing about exciting things. As a sensationalist and junkie of all things new and exciting and fan of over the top action movies and epic stories, of course I would shape my writing to reflect my sensibilities. When I set out to write a novel about college, it quickly morphed into a political thriller set in a college atmosphere with typical college scenes placed on its frame.

My blog posts have for the most part reflected this mentality with the emphasis placed on my weekend adventures. But this does a huge disservice to you my readers and this city that I’m in.

I’m in the downhill part now, less time left than time I’ve been here, and my mentality reflects it. I’ve settled into an insane amount of comfort (for being in a city on the other side of the world), I know my way around numerous neighborhoods, I have favorite places to go all over the city, I have people that I can call to see, I’m beginning to settle into a comfortable routine here. A normal life.

It’s funny, you would think to yourself that traveling to the other side of the world would ensure a life full of constant excitement but then you forget, millions of people are living a comfortable routine life in that city. This city isn’t exciting or exotic to the people who live here. Frequently I’m asked seriously by Argentines why on earth would I want to spend this much time in Buenos Aires.

Of course the flip side is that down here, I’m exotic. My accent is something interesting, my grasp of Spanish amusing, and the stories I have to tell truly foreign. Sharing stories about college life with four Argentines at a late night bar leaves them enraptured. Just like we travel to other places to see if they’re just like the movies, so do they want to travel to the States and see if it’s just like the movies.

It is a truly difficult concept to grasp that my descriptions of Boston and Amherst are equivalent to a native of Bangkok describing their daily life.

To make sure that this city doesn’t dwindle down into familiarity, at this point I have begun to push myself harder, to seize every moment down here greater. I have a list of 54 cafes in all parts of the city compiled by the city of Buenos Aires as notable and I am trying to move through the list before I leave. It takes me to street corners and alleys in the city that I would have never seen otherwise. It keeps the spirit of discovery persistent.

To be fair to whomever is still keeping up with the blog; I am going to try to make my new entries reflect this new appreciation of daily Porteno life. Just like how they find our daily life exotic, I know that the details I have to supply about daily life down here, the otherwise normal, should prove to be interesting.

So, sorry for the hiatus, and more will be coming out soon. And maybe I’ll still have a few stories of adventure.

The Taste of a New Year, Aprovecharse

When my mom was afraid of me going to Argentina, I pulled out the statistic that Argentina is home to the world’s 6th largest Jewish population (Some Jackass, Wikipedia). Additionally, my great grandmother grew up in the country and somewhere in it I still have relatives. So of course I was going to do the Jewish thing down here.

For the first night of Rosh Hashanah (for that 1% of people reading that that aren’t Jewish or grow up around Jews, the Jewish New Year), I met up with a group of friends and went to a reform service being held in Belgrano, a wealthy neighborhood in the north of the city. Somehow, no matter how hard I tried, through getting lost and a late subway ride, I was late as usual for services. It seems that no matter how hard I try, in whatever country, I will always be a little late for the High Holidays.

The first thing that sticks out down here is all Jewish gatherings down here have security. Two big men were standing at the doorway, and I had to show them my driver’s license to be let into the temple. Any other Jewish event, whether sponsored by Hillel, or other groups in the city require some form of identification. AMIA, a group that’s some sort of all-powerful and totally connected Jewish organization in the country requires one to call ahead to visit their facilities and then be subjected to a search by what appears to be the Jewish Members of the US Secret Service.

On a deeper note, the security measures in place are a direct result of a bombing that occurred at AMIA’s old headquarters and another incident at the Israeli Embassy during the mid-90s. The acts were committed by members of Hezbollah, but at the same time, an anti-Semitic population with its routes in policies of the military dictatorships has a presence in the city.

After being helped to a seat by an usher, the first thing that struck me was how similar things were. The way that people were dressed, the way that they looked; it was almost like I could find counterparts for everyone in the sanctuary for people back at home. However, a striking difference, and it might have been because it was a reform synagogue, was the amount of music used during the services.

While someone assured me that music, whether flutes and klezmer tunes at an orthodox service or a piano at a conservative one, plays a large part in all Argentine Jewry, what I saw was a little much.

A wonderfully synchronized chorus, led by a heavily pregnant cantor, performed every prayer in what seemed like a round. Someone even had a tambourine. They were accompanied by the most multi-purpose keyboard I have ever heard. It was a piano for Ashrei. It was a xylophone during the Hatzi Kadish. And we went hardcore Miami Vice with a synthesizer during Adon Olam.

I am convinced that an essential part of rabbinical school is a course in rabbi demeanor. The rabbi’s posture, the way he spoke, looked around the sanctuary, even the way he cut his beard, resembled numerous other rabbis back in the states. His sermon was a wonderful message about interpreting Rosh Hashanah as an opportunity not to make resolutions or great changes but to take who you are already and amplify it. To take the good parts of you to the forefront. To make the better version of you. Towards the end he slipped in a jab against Hugo Chavez and the much maligned president here, Cristina Kirchner. However, like many Argentines, he referred to her husband in her place, showing the widely held belief that the former president, Nestor Kirchner, is de facto president.

Following services, I went to a family dinner that the Argentine Hillel set me up with. Another American and I who were invited to the event showed up to the event with the typical dinner gifts of wine and flowers. The family also lived in Belgrano in a multi-room apartment. The father, a pathologist, the mother, a nurse, three brothers, one of the brother’s girlfriends, and a friend of the father, an ophthalmologist cum tango instructor (again, which old Argentine man isn’t a “tango instructor”) shared their meal with us.

The men there all seemed to take special attention in the other American, a girl from California. The family friend even seemed to attempt the typical Argentine Older Man pick up, “teaching tango.” In spite of this, the family was incredibly friendly. During dinner conversation, their hatred for the Kirchners was also in blatant display. The meal was a collection of Jewish staples, such as knishes, gefilte fish, kosher wine, chicken, roasted potatoes, and of course, challah. Desert was a chocolate ice-cream cake with a meringue and chocolate cake swirl.

The dinner conversations and table demeanor was almost identical to my own holiday meals demonstrating that there actually might be a universal Jewish temperament. Around 1, the other American informed the brothers and me of a party she knew going on at a hostel in the center of the city.

One of the brothers and I came along, enjoying the luxury of going somewhere in a car rather than public transit, bandit taxis, or walking 40 blocks to save a few pesos. The brother was obviously honored for the opportunity to use his father’s car for the night to drive the guests out. And something of note, the brothers were 22, 25, and 28 and still lived at home. Argentines live with their families for more prolonged amounts of time, probably having to do with the absence of campus college life.

We got to the hostel, got to the small bar where the party was being held and were greeted by a costume party. After about an hour of watching Roman centurions, cross-dressers, butterflies, and Cleopatra, we left.

I returned to services the next morning and was greeted by a return of the Moog.
Afterwards, my friends and I accepted an invitation to have Rosh Hashanah lunch at something called the Moshe House. The person inviting us wasn’t sure if it was a pot luck or what, so we brought two pizzas with us. It turns out the place was a house where four Jews in their mid-twenties from different parts of the world live together and host programming for other Jews.

A British woman living there bought a collection of natural ingredients and encouraged us to be creative. I was the only one who really took up on the offer and put together an avocado, apple, celery salad inspired partly by a chicken avocado sandwich I once had and by Waldorf Salad.

When we all took our seats, about fifteen of us from Israel, Argentina, England, Australia, the States, and France, we were treated to a wide variety of all vegetarian foods. I can’t remember being so satisfied off mostly salads. Granted, there was falafel and humus there also, and challah, but for the most part I was able to fill myself on greens and fruits.

After the meal, a group of us sat around, listening to the guitar and drums, singing along. The people there were a collection of random Jews that I had met over the past month throughout the city. It wasn’t an all encompassing event, but it showed the prevalence of Jewish geography even down here.

However, the dinner at Hillel that night was the epitome of Jewish geography. Every Jew that I had met over the past two months was there. I even met someone from Sharon who graduated with my brother and then continued onto UMass, further cementing Sharon’s status as the hub of the Diaspora.

I left with a group of Argentine Jewish friends to visit a place called the Jacob House where a friend told me a party was going on. Supposedly it was an Israeli hostel.

After the guard opened the metal bolted door, we were greeted by an orthodox person who seemed to tend to the house. I looked around as he was making his pitch for us to come to services the next morning there, a pitch that I was very familiar with. I then looked up on the wall and saw a picture of Menachem Schneerson, the deceased figurehead of Chabad Judaism. I don’t have any problems with the Chabad movement, but I’ve always found their sales pitch a bit much.

We looked around the house a bit more and found the group of people staying there. I went up to meet a cute Israeli and I started to perform the typical Argentine greeting of a kiss on the cheek until she backed up. She was shomer nargilah, or however you spell the term for when a religious girl refrains from most contact with males.

A Texan-Argentine, Australian and I left about five minutes after we got to the hostel. We went to one bar to meet up with a group, couldn’t find them, found them, left for a party, found out that it was overpriced, tried to get into the club next to the party, but one of my friends forgot her ID. After this ridiculous chain of events, salvation came in the form of an orange school bus.

The bus was rented out by the pub crawl for the night and they helped my friends and I get into the club for free. It was a typical club night, but the place was better than most.

The next day, I met up with my Australian friend and we took the subway to the house of someone else from the Hillel events, a culinary student from the States participating in an internship at a Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurant.

We were led to his house down the back hallway of an apartment building to a house built into the back of the place. He shared it with eleven other people. It was a tangle of halls and stairs leading to bedrooms and living rooms, a kitchen, and a terrace. The living room and kitchen were stacked with an assortment of produce and boiling pots, containing flavors from strawberries to nuts to chocolate to blood sausage to fernet to pig to steak to fennel to orange.

The day was a 6 hour feast which was characterized by a progressive and increasing stimulation of my taste buds. Once we sat down to pineapple sweet potato cocktails and chocolate ganoush with a pretzel crust, the memories of roasted pig, shrimp skewers, and an oil and salt glazed steak lingered.

I sat on the porch, looking up at the slight twinkle of stars, looking around at the maze of courtyards, alleys, and terraces below us, looking at the people around me, a random sampling from the weekend’s events, feeling even deeper entrenched into the city, more enmeshed in authentic experiences. Living a life, not just experiencing an adventure.

I’ve been here ten weeks, I have eleven to go. It’s been taken to another level again, but I know I’m not maxed out yet. New Year, New Me, New Challenges.

Nothing will ever happen to you if you don't leave your doorstep

Yeah, I was feeling pretty down last week. Exactly a week ago, this Sunday, I was sitting in an apartment in a foreign country doing nothing while the rest of UMass was engaging in utter shenanigans of the highest order, my favorite type of shenanigans.

I received a slew of messages from friends, and sent messages to the others. Suddenly I looked around my life in Buenos Aires and felt alone, detached from anything resembling a meaningful connection or relationship. Seeing everything around me as only relationships built on consequence and convenience. And I looked at the photos, messages, and other things streaming towards me, realizing how much I built up at home and wondering how on Earth I could repeat it again.

Monday wasn’t much better. I scrambled to find something to do all day and night but came up dry, absorbed in the fake contact offered by facebook. People on the trip were either too busy or not in contact to just hang out. Given I broke out of the house for about two hours to grab lunch in Chinatown and explore a museum on a famous Argentine president on the way. But on the way home, it rained, and for the first time since the first week, I stepped in dog shit.

However, in life no one’s always on the outs. The down parts only last as long as you let them.

The next day, I accepted an invitation after class to go to lunch with two people in my class, a guy from Tennessee and a girl from France. Conversation wasn’t bad. I wasn’t planning on spending money on lunch, but when someone new invites you to eat, it’s always better to accept the invitation. It gives you the opportunity to start making that connection. However, the milanesa turned out to be fantastic and the restaurant was one of those neighborhood places with authentic random crap on the wall as opposed to the Friday’s or Applebee’s variety.

The next night, I went with a group from the program to a bar called El Alamo. As opposed to the real Alamo, this one had a basement full of 4-liter pitchers for the equivalent of $15 US. Needless to say, plenty of people had plenty of a good time. Cheaply. The bar was obviously for Americans, playing American sports on all the TVs, not to mention the constant stream of English that I heard around me. No special frills about the bar, nothing unique about its atmosphere. Just a place to have a good time easily.

The next day, feeling my muscles sore and my head twanging, I pulled myself out of bed to walk meet a friend and show her the best place for churros con chocolate in the city. The cinnamon, dulce stuffed pastries took on a wonderful gooeyness when dipped in the bowl of chocolate. However, the sugary sensation did little to alleviate the feelings of the night before.

The café is on a list of 54 cafes deemed “notable” or “important” by the city of Buenos Aires. The café from Argentine friends with the “rustic feel”, Café Nostalgia, is on the list, as is the tourist trap Café Tortoni. This place, La Giralda, with the chocolate and churros has a very unpretentious interior and a good assortment of locals. Its located on Avenida Corrientes, one of the largest in the city, and displayed a large cross-section of Argentines.

Later in the day, I visited another café on the list, El Gato Negro, a place famous for its teas and spices. I previously visited it after failing to find the celery seed to make my tuna salad at any supermarket. The ginger-orange green tea that I had proved to take me out of the first stage of the hang-over.

That night I scoured my contacts list for something to do or someone willing to go out until I finally found out that some friends were going to a bar with some Argentines. Another group that I knew would be there, so I tagged along.

After waiting about 30 minutes for the Argentines to arrive to drive us to the bar, the first thing that our driver asked was if we have ever drifted. The next four turns were scenes straight out of Fast and Furious Buenos Aires Drift as the guy semi-drifted in an attempt to probably seem “foreign and exciting.” Of course, the two Argentine guys were the focus of the night for the girls I was with, exhibiting the first magic key to American girls, foreign accents.

My muscles were still sore and I was not enjoying seeing any alcohol where I was, so I took off.

The next day, after some research at the embassy, I wandered off in search off another café on the list, El Preferido de Palermo. The café was located on a cobblestone corner in my favorite neighborhood in an old small market. The place still sells canned foods, various alcohols, and bread. I took a seat at a table painted lime green, yellow, and orange, among a crowd of families and old couples and ordered a Matambre sandwich.

Matar in Spanish means to kill. Hambre means hunger. Matambre = kill hunger. Matambre is I think pork, might be beef, wrapped around egg, vegetables, and an assortment of spices. I love my sandwiches, I love my cold cuts, I will really miss matambre in the States.

The café had a perfect ambience, really hitting home the local eatery feel, without being anonymous.

That night, I met up with a Brazilian friend that I met on the bus back from Mendoza and went to a Happy Hour at a radio station celebrating the 9th anniversary of a Brazilian radio show. The caparinhas were stuffed to the brim with lime, ice, and sugar. Somehow it also ended up tasting like a distinct lime drink. Somehow I also ended up winning a raffle. When my name was called, everyone obviously gave a look around wondering who this gringo was.

The CD of classical music performed by the Brazilian Youth Orchestra was hardly a grand prize, but at least I won?

I left with my Brazilian friend and his crowd to grab pizza, and then went over to a bar to perform some cultural diffusion between my new friends and people from my program.

The Brazilian-American exchange soon became a Brazilian-American-Colombian exchange when I started talking to a group of Colombians at the booth next to mine. However, one girl I was talking to, spoke fast and with an accent only in Spanish, meaning that I understood 5% of what she said.

Needless to say when I understood her asking if we wanted to join her and her friends, we did. We crossed the city with them, during which the issue of Military Bases being built by the United States was used as a double entendre several times.
Around 5am, we retreated to an apartment off Corrientes in a building that had a metal-gate elevator. We drank fernet and cokes until light started pouring in from the balcony.

Around 7 the next night, I got a call from a friend of a friend asking if I wanted to join in a poker game. Following my philosophy of the weekend, accepting whatever opportunity that came my way (granted if it seemed safe), I went to the apartment about the apartment about ten blocks away.

When I got in I was greeted by a hyper-active dog, actually now that I think about it, despite the amount of dogs and dog traces I’ve seen across the city, this was the first dog owner that I actually met.

At the game was another American, one of the hordes down here who seem to teach English, and two Argentines. One of them played the guitar. As I mentioned previously, I might have a lot of friends with foreign accents, but I hate foreign accents. However, one of the few things that can combat the allure of the foreign accent appears to be the guitar player. A guitar player with a foreign accent, don’t bother talking to any girls in a ten foot radius, they won’t hear you.

I started playing, making moves conservatively. If I could end the game with what I came with, I’d be happy. At home, when my friends and I play cash games, it’s a social occasion, a thing to keep us occupied. However, coming against the already accumulated chip stacks, I found myself down to one or two pesos. Then they told me that this game was actually a tournament style game. Winner take all.
Well, then to hell with it, nothing to lose at this point.

My luck turned and my chip stacks started piling up through a combination of luck and the confidence to take the chances. In less than twenty minutes time, I had knocked out everyone but the accented guitar player.

That night I scored a victory for generically accented, average musically talented guys everywhere. I broke the man’s confidence and won the pot for the night.

After a dinner of absolutely enormous empanadas with them, I left with the American. We got to a bar and ran into a group of girls from my program when I got a call from my Colombian friend from the night before inviting us to a party with other students and assorted UBA people.

It was a gathering of Colombians celebrating a girl’s birthday. Within five minutes of arriving, I realized that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t understand my friend. Even other Colombians had to ask her to slow down and repeat herself sometimes. She took my hands several times to dance and got frustrated when it became obvious each time that I didn’t possess the “Latino Dancing Gene.” Several times she had her roommate/faculty member/fellow Colombian show me some moves. But I think we all know how well those lessons went.

Around 6am, my Colombian night ended and I hopped in a taxi in front of a McDonald’s crowded with people on their final stage of the night.

After a two hour nap, I got to work on my research paper, hammering out 5 pages while thriving off just a bit more than fumes. Around 2, I headed to the park for a picnic organized by Hillel down here. On the way, I dropped by a bakery to bring something for the pot-luck. Baked goods here are about 25 cents a piece or 1 peso. The epicurean ridiculousness, chocolate covered dulce de leche stuffed medialunas (that’s all one pastry), cream puffs of every combination of frosting filling and coating, and of course the deep fried sugarfied simplicity of the churro, was already tantalizing my tongue.

The park was full of people simply enjoying the beautiful day. Biking, walking, roller-blading, boating, picnicking, bouncing balls, kicking balls, or savoring some mate, everyone was out of their house simply to go somewhere and do something.

We ended the day back in the Palermo Viejo neighborhood at a Jewish festival that wove through the plazas and cobble-stone streets. Sitting there, listening to modernized Klezmer music with a Latin twist, I smiled. I was experiencing and am experiencing something that others aren’t so luck to share in. All I need to do is get off my ass, and walk out the door.

Meet, See, Taste, Live, Learn

It’s funny. For all my life I’ve had this desire for adventure, to be let loose upon the world and explore every nook and cranny of it that I could. To meet interesting people, see beautiful things, taste exotic flavors. To live the life less ordinary and learn from anything incredible that came way.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m doing that. I’m doing that every chance that I get. When someone asks if I want to go somewhere, I’ll try it out. When I see someone that I want to meet, I’ll go up to them. If something looks tasty or sounds new, I’ll give it a try.

I am learning a lot about myself, the world around me, and others. In the past six weeks, I have let myself freefall through the new. But I miss the old.

UMass is “officially” kicking off tonight with a string of parties all over campus, including one at my house. With the rush of people back to Amherst and into the UMass mindset, people have been contacting me, checking up on me, letting me know that it won’t be the same without me. And for everyone that has done that, it is sincerely and honestly one of the most meaningful gestures that I’ve received.

To see the routes of life that I have planted over the past two years continue beyond me. The groups I’ve been involved with, the people that I’ve worked with, the people that I’ve partied with, and of course those many that fit in all three.
For everyone getting back into the swing of things back north, enjoy it and realize how great of a time it can be and is.

Now, with that out of the way…

Thursday night, I met up with a friend and we hung out at some friends of his apartment. The first sign that something was up was just how nice the lobby was, the permanently stationed security guard. Then my friend got a call letting him know that his friend was coming from the sauna to meet us. A pool, gym, and spa lead off from the lobby.

It turns out that the two guys living in this apartment are professional online poker players, and from the looks of it, pretty damn good ones.

The apartment was two stories. Looking at a bookshelf, a few caught my eye, including The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Michael Chabon. I commented on it and was told that the place was just a rental. They might be going to Thailand once they get tired of Buenos Aires.

Hanging above the living room area was a stereotypical trendy piece of art that you’d expect to find in a rental high-end apartment. About forty or fifty bicycle tires were suspended from the ceiling by wire, painted a broad array of rainbow shades. We tried to figure it out. The context, what the artist was trying to say, how many artists might have made it, if it was reproducible. It was probably the best conversation piece that I have ever seen in my life.

It turns out that one of the poker players is from Andover, MA and has a few friends in common.

They moved here from Las Vegas where they lived at a complex with tons of other professional poker players. They’ve crossed paths with all the big names - one of them actually plays Don Cheadle in online poker. Another one had actually used the bond that Michael Phelps was caught in a photo smoking out of (supposedly it belongs to another professional poker player).

We got into a conversation about the ridiculous degree of things that people would do as an assistant. They use theirs to shop, cook, clean, schedule, pretty much anything that requires effort. Somehow we spent a lot of time figuring out whether they could get people trying out to be their assistant to fight a live octopus in their apartment building’s pool. Needless to say, the conversation took some nice tangents.

We left to hit up a series of bars. At one of them, I tried ordering what sounded absolutely incredible, French fries with bacon, chicken, cheese, and hot sauce, but the kitchen had closed. I do plan on returning to try it. We ended the night at one of the clubs in the neighborhood. Had the expected experience…

Friday night I met up with a few friends at an ex-pat bar called Sugar with great happy hour specials. 5 peso well drinks. 4 rum and cokes = $5 US. The bar also played a string of those songs from the 90s. You know the ska/punk/pop rock songs that seemed a dime a dozen coming from a seemingly endless supply of one hit wonder bands and now nostalgic favorites. The whole trend is pretty much embodied in the career of Smash Mouth.

A group of left this bar to head to another one called 878 a few blocks away. To enter you had to ring a doorbell (seemingly a new trend in bar design in this city). We got in and the place had a very upper class yet chill vibe to it. The design was a bit retro with a speakeasy style. The walls were brick and lounging couches ringed and ran through the room. Pearl Jam was playing in the background, specifically the album Ten. Coming off a recent Pearl Jam binge, I was more than happy to chill and jam out here.

I’m a big fan and proponent of sitting in bars with groups of friends, being those people that sing along to all their favorite songs. Usually it’s just me with my friends watching, shaking their heads, and rolling their eyes.

We left 878 and took the bus to the other side of town where one of my friend’s host brothers was throwing a birthday party. An electronic band was playing in the living room, with a female singer conforming to my stereotype perception of female Argentine singers at hole in the wall places (beautiful, sorta trendy-edgy, and utterly hip) singing into some sort of synthesizer. The birthday cake was a home baked chocolate cake topped by orange, purple, and blue sprinkles, in a ring of chocolate covered wafer cookies. A fruit layer was inside.

The crowd there was older, in their late 20s and early 30s, all artsy professional types in the city. Talking to them, I realized that I was starting to get into a nice mold whenever I needed to break the ice with a crowd of Argentines. Be a foreigner. Be more extroverted, speak a bit in the broken language, and be full of stories of home and your travels there. It establishes an identity and a reason why you deserve attention. From there, you can blend in with the group dynamics as much as you want. But you just need something to contribute.

The next day I saw Inglourious Basterds. Reading Spanish subtitles of Germans in an American movie is a pretty international way to watch a movie. Beyond that, the movie was incredible, plain and simple. It provoked the whole spectrum of emotions and was truly storytelling as art.

That night, I went with a group of friend to a sports bar called Locos Para Futbol. That night, Argentina was playing Brazil in a World Cup qualifying match. The bar required a large amount of pesos to reserve a spot at the dinner they offered for the game. I got four slices of pizza, two drinks, an empanada, and some sort of chocolate mousse for way too much. But the experience was almost worth what we paid.

The bar was packed of fans from both sides. At the beginning of each half and each time Argentina scored a goal, the bar played the team’s anthem and the whole place would instantly start clapping and singing along. People wore capes of their country’s flag. Tons of people had jerseys. The crowd was perfect. People were banging on tables, hugging each other at the most minor play, the vibe was just right.

The game wasn’t. Brazil won 3-1. A cute group of Brazilian girls sitting at the table next to mine got plenty of opportunities to cheer.

We left the bar and ran into two Argentine friends of ours, one of whom was having his birthday party that night. We hopped in cabs and took it to his friend’s apartment, another one of those affairs with a pool, yard, and gym attached to their complex.

Around 1, the first crowd other than us showed up. A group of girls heavily made up, wearing clothes more befitting a club than a party. Something seemed a bit off about them.

More people kept trickling in and eventually we had about fifty people there. A few more American friends also came by.

One of my Argentine friends than took me by the shoulder to work a group of girls. I’d be the interesting American; he’d be the one showing me off. We went to a playground on the property and I found myself in front of the heavily made up girls.
Maybe it was the juxtaposition of them on the playground, but I quickly figured it out. They were all around 14. That was their average age.

Needless to say, I found another group and was able to break the ice with my Americanness. It turns out that one of them was a Bolivian girl and she spoke English with a British accent, another was an Algerian born in Yemen, there was a Peruvian, and two Argentines.

I quickly got familiar with the crowd and left the party with them around 5:30.
Each adventure I have, each place I go to, each person I meet, each thing I try, is more than what I did before. Slowly at first but now faster and faster, my networks expanding, the things I absorb, more.

Next weekend I’m bringing a bit of UMass to Argentina. I’m going to teach them down here how to make Peppermint Patty Shots. I hope there will be plenty of those going around back at home.

Class, Cutting Lines, and Kennedy (i'll leave it up to you to decide if the three are at all connected or not, it works either way)

For those of you reading who thought that this trip was all bars and clubs till 8am, steak, wine, and other forms of fun debauchery, class is now officially in full swing.

Shopping period, aka add/drop, ended today with submission of paperwork to the program office. I am currently enrolled in two schools, each offering a different aspect of the Argentine university experience, but at the same time demonstrating similarities that are quite different from the States, or UMass at least.

The University of Buenos Aires, or UBA, is a massive institution of over 300,000 students. It is one of the highest regarded schools in Latin America, and is completely public and free.

What this translates to – the buildings resemble the bombed out hull of a Balkan war ministry. I’m serious. Posters and graffiti for various socialist, student, and socialist student groups blanket every square inch of surface area in the building, or at least for my faculty. Banners advertising a range of protests against the current President of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, eight various past presidents and government officials, the American military bases in Columbia, the American military bases in the Middle East, the American military industrial-complex.

Che Guevara also looks down at you from the corner or the center of each banner. He is utterly canonized by the leftist students at UBA. If someone thought American universities had their fair share of people experimenting in extreme leftist views, travel to Latin America.

Though I will say, the self-proclaimed “socialist café” has good food and a good atmosphere.

Class was ironically half American exchange students. However the half that wasn’t sipped their mate (an herbal tea drink that’s very popular down here), ready to assault the teacher on anything perceived as remotely injust. We have to buy our class materials at a chain store and not the student union? Revolucion! You won’t let our friend’s political group share details about their rally during class? Revolucion! F? Revolucion!

The class itself was a teacher giving a very in-depth lecture in modern Latin-American economics. Nothing too unlike the states. Just the whole atmosphere of the building and the students was different. And sure enough, a few days later, the materials were available, photocopied, at the student union.

The other class is at the University of Salvador, or USAL, a private school, affiliated with the Catholic Church. The class, about Latin American literature, is held in a building that takes up a street corner. About 4 classes on five floors are centered around a spiral staircase and ancient iron elevator. A bit smaller than UBA I’d say.

The first class that I tried here was about Argentine Literature. You know those adult students, the ones in the front row who always have their work done, always will ask questions even though class is about to end and answering their question will make everyone have to stay ten minutes later? Yeah, they have those people down here too. They spent the last half hour of class just chatting with the professor.
Half the class was American students.

The next class I tried out here wasn’t going on when I showed up. Turns out last semester ran late and exams were taking place. However, I did meet another American student who showed up, turned out he came down here without a program and was directly enrolling in USAL. We found the professor when she dropped in to just check in on her office and she seemed fine.

When I met the American, I introduced myself as Michael. Michael is my name, it is a common name. It is an easy name. I called myself Miguel in 7th grade Spanish class. I called myself Zorro in 8th grade Spanish class. For some reason, the other American insisted on calling me Miguel constantly. When we met the professor, I introduced myself as Michael. The other American kept referring to me as Miguel during his conversation with the professor. My name is not Miguel, but if he thinks it helps him assimilate, good for him. But I think I’ll call him Ben and not Benjamin (pronounced Benhameen) as he called himself.

The rest of my academic time is spent compiling a research paper on US-Argentine relations. I’ve crisscrossed the city, exploring various libraries, feeling a bit too much like Robert Langdon. The National Library is a behemoth of modern architecture which puts the Boston City Hall or the entire UMass campus to shame for sheer why factor. Well, maybe UMass Dartmouth is worse.

But anyways, after submitting a request into a computer (which the start up screen informed me was donated by the United Nations, cool to finally enjoy a perk of it directly), I picked up some random books on foreign affairs from the desk and began reading. Even if the building can create mixed reviews on the outside, the inside has an absolutely beautiful view of the city and the river beyond. The buildings situated on a platform, on a hill, actually where the Peron’s mansion used to be. It is a truly great place to read at peace.

The Congressional Library is situated in more austere settings, next to the congress building, attached to a cluster of senate offices.

I went to the US Embassy to schedule a time to use their resources. I didn’t get a chance to explore their library at that point, but I did take a walk through the lobby. A passport is the ultimate line cutter. I cut the line at the front reception, at the security, and then when I got inside, I had my own attendant waiting for me. About 100 Argentines sat behind me, waiting for travel visas.

Hearing back from everyone going to UMass, seeing everyone’s facebook statuses with a college countdown, I do miss that I won’t share in all the fall experiences. The semi-familiar faces in classes, the reacquainting with hundreds of friends on weekend nights. Halloween. It’s my favorite time of the year, and this will be the first time that I don’t see the leaves change in New England, drink apple cider every morning for two months straight, or share in the joy at seeing the first snow.
I do love Massachusetts, and I really love Amherst and the surrounding Pioneer Valley. It is emblematic of all those things good, wholesome, and stereotypical about New England.

And speaking of emblematic of Massachusetts…

When Michael Jackson or any other major celebrity has recently died, I have looked on with perplexion at the absolute outpouring of emotion. But with the death of Senator Kennedy, I think I’ve figured it out. These people, these people who are larger than life, their daily actions impact our lives. Whether they touch us through their art, antics, or actions in Congress, they become part of our lives by the simple facts of their daily life.

Senator Kennedy, through virtue of his position and status as a “Kennedy”, had tremendous power, and therefore impacted our lives in innumerable ways. His constant presence on television, in the papers, ensured his constant presence in our lives. And therefore, just like when we lose an inanimate object, something we establish a one-sided relationship with, we feel loss when notable famous people depart.

The day he died, there was a breaking story on the front page of the most-visited news website down here. After that, no more news. But I know up in Mass, the news will be still going on about him when I get back.

Culture of the Day, Culture of the Night

Writer’s block is just the cramp one suffers from not stretching their writing muscle. One need’s to seize on the inspiration to write when it comes to them or else they just sputter and can’t build up the strength to get working again. With that said…

August is “Tango Month”. A series of free events and exhibitions are being put on across the city by the Government Department of Culture and the City of Buenos Aires Government. A few friends and I went to a free lesson being put on in the vacant remains of the Old Harrods’s Department Store downtown. When we passed by a week ago, the storefront seemed spooky and abandoned, like somewhere the villain from a Scooby Doo short would hide in. However, today it was buzzing.

A crowd outside peered through the windows to window shop the lessons being conducted in the front of the floor space. The floor for the lessons was packed full of middle aged tango impresarios bedecked in typical masculine Argentine style along with numerous other people who would get swept up by these men and appear to positively fly across the dance floor. And oh yeah, people like me with no sense of rhythm trying for the fourth time to get the basics of Tango down.

Despite a few bumps into other dancing couples and being upstaged by and having several dancing partners taken by a septuagenarian in a cardigan, I held my own. I think.

Arraigned around the edge of the floor space were vendors selling tango shoes (dress shoes with the soles completely sanded down), tango dresses, tango hats, tango books, tango music. At the back a rock band was playing a cover of some old tango song. I watched for a bit from a friend’s table at an overpriced impromptu café.

From there, a few of us made our way to a concert being held a few blocks down. Several people stopped to get some prepared food at a sketchy market (I didn’t like the way that the heat lamps glistened on the empanadas). We came to where the concert was being held, El Museo de Arte Hisanoamericano (a Hispano-American art museum).

The building seemed like an old fort or mansion from the city’s earlier days. When the neighborhood around it was demolished to make way for high rises and corporate towers, through someone’s act of philanthropy, the building was saved to serve culture.

The courtyard was a peaceful grove lined with statuary and shrubbery that blended into the scene. Not trying to attract attention, but accentuating the overall ambience. Fading sun poked through between the towers that loomed over the edge of the walls.

The concert, a flute, piano, and clarinet recital was held in a vaulted room with an elaborate ceiling, set among a display of Christian iconography made out of silver by Andean natives.

The music was ok, a nice change of pace. But I’ve heard more enjoyable classical music back in Sharon. Plus some guy behind us couldn’t stop rhythmically muttering some gibberish. It was weird.

It seems like free cultural events everywhere, all over the world, attract pensioners and retirees.

We followed this up with Peruvian food. Shark Cebiche is incredible, is filling, sweet, has a great texture, is just overall a fantastic dish. It’s the closest time I’ve tasted fish with the texture of steak. On the other hand, a Pisco Sour, the national cocktail of Peru, is good, but nothing special. It’s a mixed drink with lime, and all lime mixed drinks taste the same.

Pisco Sour, mixed with egg whites, is a smooth lime drink. Caprihanas, or however you spell the Brazilian cocktail, is a really sugary lime drink. A Margarita is a frozen lime drink. Lime just really makes a lot of drinks taste way too similar in my opinion. Just slight variations in texture.

After a beer at the hookah bar in Palermo, Quiroz, I found myself traveling with a new group to something that was being described as an “authentic Argentine party.” It was nearing three. For the first month, this time was a signal to check out, but my tolerance for long nights has been steadily growing. Now, walking down a street normally part of my route home I saw it packed. Most times, crossing it, I find the sidewalks almost empty. Now, probably a half hour after I normally cross it, people were pouring down it from everywhere.

We came to a crowd in front of just a door of a nondescript building. We went through the crowd, down a narrow hallway with no roof and a semi-flooded floor, following music. The crowd got thicker in the hallway and it spilled out to a bank of corridors which worked their way through what seemed like a vacant lot that had a roof thrown over it.

People congregated in rooms off the hallway, the smell of marijuana drifted over everything. We reached the dance floor, a room full of lights with a bar in the corner that served all the usuals. The place was packed, hard to navigate with my friends, obviously not built to be a club, but people were coming in because it was said to be “cool”. Holy shit, I was a guest at a frat party.

We left, happy with the fact that we “experienced” the party. If this was where most Argentines went, it makes me wonder where I’ve been going.

Earlier in the night, at Quiroz, one of my friends who was there for the first time mentioned how the crowd seemed older. A wrinkled, plastic surgery doll, with blonde hair and glistening bling who was sitting at the booth near us seemed familiar from a billboard. Drinks ran around 20 pesos at places we went to, not expensive at all by American standards (about equal to 4 bucks). It was similar to this at all the other trendy bars.

Something clicked. I’ve been balling in Buenos on an American college budget. These bars have been high end places were the wealthy and trendy hung out. Kids my age poured into makeshift bars like the one we had left at the end of the night. But the money transfer? The relative inexpensiveness of the hip bars? That’s experiencing difference in economies first hand.

I haven’t taken an economics class, but I’m starting to understand how lifestyles across the world can be disproportionate. My budget, low by American standards, affords me a high class lifestyle here. Damn, we Americans don’t know how to appreciate good things.

On the way home, sometime around 4:30, I walked through my neighborhood and saw people lined up outside of storefronts and doorways that I never notice before. Places were just opening, and it was 4:30? Better yet, these places were right near my house?

I saw a whole new life in front of me on the streets. I passed the courtyards of apartment buildings, places that seem vacant around 11:00 and saw people sitting by fountains, talking, showing no signs of quitting.

How do they do it here? I don’t know. But when I do figure it out, I’ll have a new hatred for last call at 12:45 in Amherst.

A tribute to a jacket aka a minor reflection on haves, have nots, and inanimate objects

You know, tonight was a pretty damn good night. I had a blast at the party/bar I went to, even though my shitty jokes about Canada would have been better left as a pick up line and not a whole conversation topic, but a damper was put on the night by something else.

I lost my jacket.

It’s weird, the attraction that we develop towards inanimate objects. Houses, cars, boats, shoes, handbags, these items take on identities of their own. People name them, treat them as trustworthy companions. They become armor, protection, part of one’s identity. We picture ourselves and take pictures of ourselves with these objects.

I found my jacket at an Army-Navy Store going out of business sale, right outside of Amherst. I was struggling all day to figure out a Halloween costume and I only had my brother’s car to borrow for that short window of several hours. On a whim, after striking out at the mall and the big chain stores, we stopped in the Army-Navy store.

There I found a thin; I think part wool, part synthetic jacket that looked just like Indiana Jones’s jacket. Even though it wasn’t leather, it looked the part perfectly of an Adventurer’s jacket. My inner nerd shivered in awe. My inner Jew shivered at the sale, marked down from 50 to 10.

I ordered the Fedora, a special edition official piece of memorabilia off of e-bay. The hat has its own story of decease that involves its shrinking in a water hole somewhere on a Camp Trip in the White Mountains, but I’m over its loss of use to me. I still have it, it just can’t fit on my big head.

I wore that jacket on Halloween, and had what I’ll count as my best costume ever. I had the hat, khakis, a fake revolver, a whip, brown shoes, a brown shirt, and the jacket. That night, I was thrown into the adventures of college head first, being felt up, flashed, and attacked as I worked the door at the party that night. Through it all, I had my armor, the piece that made the costume.

Afterwards, far from being relegated to a forgotten piece in my closet, I choose to wear it almost all the time. In winter, in spring, summer, fall, cold, wet, all times. I wore it over formal clothes, casual, I just threw it on and left in it. It became a permanent part of my wardrobe.

Yeah, sure it wasn’t always as warm as I needed it to be. Yeah, some people call it a “shirt-jacket”, but it was fucking cool.

I’ve worn it for the past two years. More than any other piece of clothing, it has always been my companion. It has just become instinct to grab it and go.
Tonight, some stupid American bitch at the party confused her sweater, probably bought at American Eagle for 80 bucks, for my cheap jacket. I left her jacket behind with the bartender, hoping they’d return for an exchange, but I won’t hold my breath.

I’m also saying goodbye to my car right now. An ’89 Jaguar that has carried me tens of thousands of miles across New England. Flying down to my grandparents or out to Amherst with the roof down and the windows open (probably wearing my jacket) was one of the most incredible sensations while moving that I have ever had.

After failing inspection two years in a row suffering body damage twice, and chugging along but obviously on its last breaths. After suffering through break problems, light problems, starter problems, something where it only started every 8th ignition, and god know’s what else, it’s time to say goodbye to my car too.

My grandparents are also selling their house. Countless holidays with the family have been spent there. Memories made in every hallway, every inch of the backyard, every hidden nook in the shrubs surrounding the house. I’ve spent more time there then probably anywhere but the two houses I’ve lived in and maybe camp.

These three objects have all brought me great memories, and at different points I have seen as part of my identity. But you know what, the object’s don’t make us, we make the objects.

The confidence that the jacket brought me, that was all me. There wasn’t some magical fabric woven into its lining (oh wait, there isn’t any lining to it).

The car, the feeling of adventure of speed, and etc. That was only me knowing how to enjoy otherwise boring and monotone road trips. The house, that was simple my family filling it with love.

Inanimate objects are awesome. Having possessions to call your own is a great feeling. They can enhance one’s sense of self and help shape one’s image. I love that jacket, but I’ll find another one. It’s replaceable. In the end, it’s only a bunch of stitching and fabric.

As I’m finishing this, I’ve seen on facebook that one of my friends on the trip was robbed at gunpoint by his taxi driver. He gave over 800 pesos ($200 American). Puts shit into perspective, doesn’t it?

Thank god I’m too cheap for taxis and take buses whenever possible…

That’s all nothing to say of my own experience, getting harassed by street children while coming off the subway tonight. We were speaking English, walking up to the street, and should’ve figured we’d be easy marks. I saw one running up to one of my friends and shouted in Spanish at the kid. They then started to try to grab on to us, one of them trying to kick my friend. We ran across the street, the children followed. My friends continued running and I shoved one of the kids. He looked at me and laughed until he saw the expression on my face. Him and his friend left.

During dinner, talking to my host mom’s son he acknowledged that parts of Argentina are still the “third world”. People live on the streets. Many make a living collecting bottles from people’s trash. They actually unionized and protested in the Plaza de Mayo when recycling almost became formalized. There’s one lady always sitting by the bank near me asking for moneda (money).

I’m seeing reality down here. And you know what? Fuck my jacket, fuck my car, fuck the house. I was so luck to have them. That they existed. That I’m not harassing Americans for survival. But you know what, I did like how the jacket helped me blend in, but again, like all inanimate objects, I gave it that quality. Confidence, comfort, and castellano, that’s all it takes to blend in.

The Andes

The dawn light barley illuminated the desert that seemed to stretch in all directions. Somewhere, further ahead on the road, smokestacks belched out industry.
Besides that, a slight ridgeline was visible at the edge of sight. As the desert lit up, the ridgeline drew closer and closer and there was less and less alongside the road.

Without warning, the road took us into the belly of the cliffs. They shot up hundreds of feet into the air, brown and red towers of crumbling clay and rock. Along our side, a dried up river bed with a barely bubbling creek at its base wove along. Scattered signs identified the land as the property of the Argentine Army.

The cliffs broke and we found ourselves staring at a massive range of snowcapped mountains splintering off in every direction. We stopped at a small village, a waystop for travelers on the Andean trail. Eating an empanada, I looked up and found myself in a cradle of whitewashed walls.

The drive continued, and we found ourselves dwarfed by snowy sentinels, guarding valleys that wove in unknown directions. The road kept driving upwards. We stopped as a bundled up police man at an outpost that hugged the bank of the now pulsating river checked our credentials.

Small hovels hugged the road. We drove through little tunnels cut into the legs of the mountains, seeing an old railroad parallel our course. In all directions, the mountains reached into the sky, covered with snow, a pure white intimidating vision of size. As opposed to mountains I was used to, mountains that built up from hills, elevations that gently built up into summits, these mountains sprang up chaotically, shooting high into the sky.

The Andean air rejuvenated me after the three hour recycled mix of the van. The ski resort showed signs of struggling to build itself up, but its isolation and position in the middle of the Andes, near the Chilean border, at the end of a one lane highway, was standing in the way. That and the shitty system for rentals.

Barely any supplies, only one place to go, equipment from the 70s. But one makes do. When one can’t rent gloves, one buys llama gloves.

The lines for the one lift stretched along the base of the mountain, but one doesn’t concern themselves with these types of things in Argentina. We’re used to instant gratification, top standards for service, etc. in the US, but things aren’t always so straight-forward or set in stone elsewhere in the world.

However, when I took a left off the trail and found myself skiing through unspoilt powder, granted in my jeans since they ran out of rental snow pants, I found myself somewhere special. The mountain, not even a slope, stretched down below me, emptying out into the valley. On the other side of the valley, a sharp rock formation loomed over everything. And right now, I weaved down the side of the mountain, skiing along a ridgeline, marveling at the breathtaking scenery around me.

The Andes were no longer just a name and a line on a map, they were an experience. Something to live.

Wine and Water (A Vacation in Mendoza)

Its been said many times that writing is like a muscle, that you need to keep it in practice. For the past week, I haven’t been keeping in practice and have found myself slipping. So hopefully this is again the start of regular blog updates.

Buses in Argentina are incredibly luxurious, they easily top planes. Seats recline almost all the way back and a well-positioned leg rest swings down from the seat in front of you. They serve two meals, they have flight attendants, and even play movies. On the way to Mendoza this past weekend, they played the shitty Al Pacino movie 88 minutes followed by Mr. Bean Goes to School. Nice but random mix, though it was hard to fall asleep to Al Pacino hitting on college girls with a ringtone of Baby Got Back I think it was. Seriously, the movie sucks. Mr. Bean was better when he was taking off a guy’s pants through a stall because his were too short…

Mendoza is an Andean oasis, surrounded by desert on one side and mountains on another. The first thing I noticed in the city was a serious of trenches full of running water that ran along every street. The water gushed down these trenches, sadly often carrying trash with it, through the city.

Our hostel was a youth orientated place with several lounges, WiFi (thank god I could constantly fufill my internet addiction), a pool, two coolers of the local beer “Andes”, and a bar.

Mendoza itself is simply a boring city. The relaxed atmosphere was welcoming, as in when you crossed the street people didn’t speed up to run you over like in Buenos, but it was obvious that the city itself isn’t a destination.

On a brutal side note, as we explored the city, an intense desert wind lashed at us, tearing down trees and sending debris everywhere. I found out later from someone who worked at the hostel that several people died because of flying debris on Friday. The guy himself had an eye patch after being hit by something.

That night, for a small sum, we were treated to an all you can eat parilla (grill) at the hostel. For maybe an hour and a half, the hostel staff brought us endless steak, chorizo sausage, and blood sausage. We washed the steak and chorizo down with cheap wine, in between bites of salad and bread. The steak had some sort of salt glaze over it that made each bite delicious, incredible to savor. The chorizo was pleasantly spicy with a nice juicy texture. Blood sausage tasted surprisingly like chopped liver.

When the hostel staff came with each new plate of meat, everyone chaired, overjoyed that the experience would continue. A combination of party atmosphere and cheap, good food made this meal incredible.

We woke up early to be picked up by a company that would give us a bike and wine tour, a company listed by Lonely Planet as “The Only Bike Company You Should Trust”.

I spoke with the driver on the bus ride to the countryside surrounding Mendoza about the trenches I saw. It turned out that he worked with the irrigation department in the city and explained that these trenches and gutters were part of the irrigation system. They brought water through the city from the mountains, and fed Mendoza’s many tree lined boulevards. From there they ran into the country, feeding the vineyards and countryside. Looking around, seeing almost desert like conditions, I was able to now imagine the area in its springtime glory. When the mountain snows melt, feeding the city and countryside with life.

We got to the bike company, a shack with dilapidated bikes in front. It had charm and local character at least. And a toilet without a seat.

The bike tour turned out to be a bike rental, supply of water, and a map that led us to each vineyard off the town, Maipu’s, main street.

Maipu is not the Napa Valley. Biking along, I felt myself going through an authentic South American experience for once, with stray dogs everywhere, clay houses and things that resemble shacks to us passing as favorable domiciles, and an overall air of actual ruralness.

We took a turn for the first vineyard and found ourselves with no clue where to go until a toothless local pointed the direction. The first vineyard was more of a liquor producer, serving up a wide range of chocolate and other dessert inspired beverages. The multiple combinations of dulce de leche, chocolate, hazelnut, and banana flowed down my throat like a silk blanket. They also sold a wide variety of preserves, chocolates, and their own absinthe. I think you can guess which one I bought as a souvenir to take back to SigEp.

Before taking the turn for the next vineyard, a cop warned us that the last half of the wine tour was blocked off do to fallen trees and flooding, we brushed his warning off.

We took the turn for the next vineyard and someone’s bike tires popped. So now of course we’re asking why the hell Lonely Planet would recommend this bike company. Writing right now, I remember Lonely Planet’s other horrible Argentine recommendation. The "cheap and beautiful" shoes of 28 Sport. Fuck Lonely Planet and their shitty Argentine tour writer. Seriously, that guy must be so disconnected with reality.

Anyways, because the map was pretty vague and general, we found ourselves biking around the vineyard for an hour, looking for the entrance. When we found it, tours were closed. But on the way, we did pass a grape crusher that let off one of the most sweetly smooth smells.

We got back on the main route, got a replacement bike, and continued on. Now fearful that all vineyards would be closing at weird hours, we skipped a place listed as a “deli vineyard?” to get to another one, we wanted a real wine tasting.

Sure enough, we pulled our bikes through a gate, past several bunk houses to find a sign hanging above us that said “Bienbebidos”. Bienvenidos being the Spanish work for welcome and Bebidos being the word for drinks.

The scene presented was almost idyllic with a small wine shop and entrance to the distillery to our left and in front of us a weathered old man working a parilla.

After a mini wine class and tasting, we all bought glasses and took seats at tables, surrounded by the fields of grape vines.

We had a parilla platter and sipped our wine, marveling at the scenery around us. Even though things today had gone far from plan, I had to notice how absolutely lucky I was to be sitting there at that moment. Very few people get the incredible opportunity to sit at a vineyard, after a wine tasting, in beautiful country, on the other side of the world.

After a meal, we continued on the trek. We refused to let a flooded street stop us from reaching the next vineyard, fording the makeshift river like we were on the Oregon Trail and all of our Oxen were in danger.

We arrived at another vineyard and took a tour. They explained the aging process of their various vintages in what was obviously a sales pitch that we paid ten pesos for. A lot of tales about their history and due to their status as a boutique vineyard, their wines are barely available anywhere else in the world. Afterwards, we sat through another wine tasting. After two wine tastings, I can finally say that I’m starting to understand this whole difference in wine flavors thing. I bought two bottles simply because they seemed cheap and tasted good. Other people, older people on the tour who probably knew what they were doing, bought because of the “boutique status” and the hand done nature of the entire process.

We called the bike company to let them know where to pick up the bikes and to see if we could get a ride back to Mendoza. Let’s just say this conversation ended how you think it would. No help. And another strike against Lonely Planet.

Anyways, as we waited for the bus, I crossed the street and looked at the mountains that shot up from the horizon. Off there stood mountains that only exited as a line and a word on a map. Tomorrow, I would be venturing into them. But right now, I marveled at the intricate network and life system that ran through them. The miles of vineyards in front of me lived off a combination of snow from the mountains and gravity. A system built by Indians thousands of years ago, updated by Spanish settlers, transformed a desert into one of the world’s most prestigious wine producing regions. It also gave life to the many people who made their homes here. Water.

The day ended with the nonsensical rejection by the bus of one person’s fare. It took about fifteen minutes to put 2.20 into a machine, and in the process, the whole bus appreciated that universal language of physical comedy. Each time the total was close to being met, all the coins were spat back and all over the floor. People scrambled to help and then couldn’t stop laughing as the entire scene was replayed ad nauseam. Even the bus driver was chuckling.

Cafe culture and the hottest spot in Buenos Aires

Like I’ve mentioned before, Buenos Aires has a strong café culture. We’re not talking about Starbuck’s attempts to create a faux sense of corner café (though there are some of those). On practically every street block there’s a different café, different in aesthetics, size, patron base, type of ownership. The streets are just full of different cafes.

Some of the ones that I’ve spent some time on near my house:

Right next door to my apartment building is a café run by a father and what appears to be his two sons. The wireless router is pretty sub-par, it’s been on the fritz a few times, so I haven’t been back there in a while, which is something I’m sort of disappointed about. They have menus that were obviously printed at a home computer and then laminated in a corner shop, adorned with clipart pictures of coffee and croissants (or medialunas as they call them down here).

Just to let everyone know, we do croissants so wrong in the States. When you order a croissant at home, its an oversized, flaky roll, baked basked in butter. It’s more about the texture than anything close to taste. Of course sometimes you get fruit filled croissants, but they are often overly sweet monstrosities. Down here, croissants are nice and dense, yet still fluffy, with a semi-sweet glaze over the crispy crust. I know that most seem to be from the same distributor, or the same recipe, but they taste fresh at each café.

Anyways, the café next door to me is frequented by day by people looking for a morning coffee. At night, you can find the owner and his sons pushing a bunch of tables together for large parties of older Argentines, most likely taking advantage of the affordable prices of the café’s fully stocked menu. The walls are all white and they have a modest bar, but not much selection for beer.

A block down is a café with a bit of a more artsy feel. Every time I’ve been, I’ve only seen one women working there, someone whose wardrobe, hairstyle, and overall demeanor spells out “independent woman”. When I ordered medialunas there, she heated them up, definitely a nice touch. Usually, I’ve spotted students or academic looking types there, all of whom seem to be familiar with the owner. Her windows are crowded with signs drawn on construction paper advertising weekly salsa dancing lessons, an open mic night, a journalism class, her daily discounts and combos, and other assorted activities that take place at the café. She doesn’t have wi-fi.

The next block down is a place that I first went to on a Saturday night when it was a dinner establishment. The menu had the typical Argentine fair of meats or pastas, but also a collection of artsy or ethnic dishes that were served with a nice flair. Lights were strung through the trees in front of the café over its outdoor seating and modern art adorned the walls inside.

When I returned there to use the internet, I was able to notice the rustic feel of the interior. Wooden columns stand on top of a wood floor. A barrel of peanuts sits in the corner for customers. However, the coffee is more expensive and their wi-fi isn’t compatible with Windows Vista. But they did have a larger selection of beers on tap. A younger, self-consciously trendy crowd frequents it along with a collection of well-dressed older people. The Argentine cast of Friends seems to run this place.

At the end of my street, at the intersection with a busy shopping street is a 24 hour café that serves up a truly bizarre dichotomy. The inside is fashioned after a typical European café with plush chairs, a well-stocked bar, wood paneling, and waiters with bow ties. However, the walls are adorned with autographed pictures of famous American movie stars like Val Kilmer, Adam Sandler, and Kurt Russell. The music seems stuck on a mix radio station from the twilight zone with Amy WInehouse following Love Shack following Frank Sinatra. Though they offer chips, little breaded snacks, and peanuts with drinks though, definitely the widest selection of free snacks.

The café where I’m sitting now is a new one on my list, just a block down the other direction on my street. Its run by a husband and wife and it is distinctly influenced by southern Asian design. The design is distinctly modern, yet still warm due to couches, and cushiony chairs everywhere. Pictures and weaves of Buddha look down at me from corners along with seemingly Mayan influenced art. They serve endless popcorn with drinks. The place is full of professionals, meeting after work, or just going over business papers.

There are several chain cafes in the city, ranging from the stale food of Delicity to the trendy atmosphere of Bistro Exresso, but one place brings together everyone under its roof. Rich, poor, old, young, working, unemployed. Everyone drops by this café chain where they can get coffee, pastries, ice cream, una hamburguessa, salads, and a toy with their meal. McDonald’s and to a lesser extent, but still bizarrely enough, Burger King.

I’ve visited them because they’re places where you can slip in and use a clean bathroom without paying, but each time I go through a McDonald’s in this city, I am amazed.

At the front, they have a window that just sells a variety of ice cream products. Usually, right next to the entrance is a separate McCafe that sells coffee, tea, medialunas, pastries, and all sorts of things comparable to your corner café.

Further on is the typical McDonald’s counter with a few variation in menu items, but mostly along the same themes of fries and burgers and McNuggets (whatever they really are).

People are meeting over business, like in other cafes, families are sitting down to what almost seems like elaborate meals, young Argentines are hooking up in the corner booths (something seen in all cafes) and not a tacky clown is in sight.

McDonald’s isn’t just for the kids or when you’re in a rush down here, it’s a legitimate establishment.

Old men sit over coffee and newspapers, people use internet terminals. These things are beyond belief.

The insides are nicely furnished, the place is kept spotless. Roy Croc couldn’t imagine this in his wildest, McNugget induced fantasies.

I ordered internet for my room, coming at about 20 dollars a month, including the instillation. So I won’t have much of an excuse anymore to frequent the many different types of cafes. Even though it’s been a nice experience to have each day, the price will add up, and buying a coffee or a beer to squat in a café and absorb the internet for hours won’t be cost effective in a week or two.

But if I happen to pass by a little place that catches my attention, I’ll take a trip inside, absorb its unique culture, and order an empanada or two and a drink, maybe a coffee and medialunas. And I might have to be cool and grab a Big Mac some day.

A shitty neighborhood

Two of my favorite places in the world are on the water. One, a place that I have only been to once, but persists as my computer background is a beach in the north of Israel called Akziv. It sits in the ruins of an old fort of an indiscernible age, the structure of which stretches out to a barrier that runs through the Mediterranean, creating a kind of tidal pool.

I slept on the beach there, and that night witnessed a truly magnificent sunset, the beauty of which was only magnified when viewed through an ancient stone arch. The sight of the sun setting over the Mediterranean, with a lone fisherman standing on the far barrier of the tidal pool is what I witness anytime I feel isolated in cyber space.

The other place is a beach on a small pond in southern New Hampshire. The Camp Tevya beach on Lake Potanipo holds countless memories, and has shown its beauty both through its summer sunsets and summer storms. I have sat on that beach many times either witnessing the simple beauty of nature or the fierce force of it.

My love of that beach only grew last year, working as a boating counselor on it. At the end of every day, we had to string all the boats together and lock them up for the night. As the sun hung lazily over the edge of the trees on the far side of the lake, I worked up a sweat dragging the boats through the sand and over the water. When I finished, I would sprint into the lake and swim out to a red buoy that bobbed a bit in the distance.

Now that I have told you about my two favorite places in the world, let me tell you about my least favorite. A place that I sorta despise. It also happens to be on the water.

La Boca is one of the most emblematic parts of Buenos Aires and Argentina as a whole. It started as a fishing village, built around the port, habituated by swarthy Italian immigrant stereotypes. In a similar sense to the cobblestone streets of Palermo Viejo, it was somewhere where a knife fight or adventure laid a block away. All of this took place under the brilliant sheen of colorfully painted buildings, painted with the leftover blues, reds, yellows, and greens from boats at dock.

These colors are what created the first attraction to the neighborhood and the color palate for the tourist’s Buenos Aires. Signs with various locations, such as Pipi Room, or Tango Bar, are painted in Spanish in colors that reflect the scheme of La Boca. And yes, I do intend on buying one of these for my room back at SigEp.

Today, most of La Boca is one of the worse slums in Argentina. During all of those safety talks and written explicitly in all of the guidebooks of the city, it is written in capital letters, DO NOT LEAVE THE TOURIST AREA OF LA BOCA.

Riding the bus down to La Boca, I started to notice the colors of buildings around me take on the stereotypical colorful hues. However, upon closer examination I noticed that the yellow was the yellow of corrugated scrap metal, acting as a wall, as opposed to whimsical Latino sensibilities.

The bus dropped us off at the beginning of Caminito, a two block street that serves as the heart of tourist La Boca. What I saw in front of me seemed ripped straight out of the World Exposition part of Epcot in Disney World.

The iconic street corner at the beginning of Caminito was occupied by Havana, a Starbuck’s like-coffee chain. Every other store entrance was to a gift shop that sold Argentina key chains, soccer jerseys, cheaply made tango apparel, and other items that served as the Argentine equivalent to that crap you buy right at the harbor when you disembark from a cruise ship to a Caribbean island.

Right when we stepped foot off the bus, we were accosted by people handing out fliers. People flyer in all parts of the city, but step down if you ignore them, or refuse. Some of the La Boca flierers stuck with us for the duration of our trip up Caminito, trying to stuff fliers into our hands, eventually admitting that they were getting paid to talk to us.

Any entrance that wasn’t a tourist shop was a restaurant with the same menu, serving the same staples you can find anywhere else in the city, but with jacked up prices. Each place also had their own outside Tango exhibition of people wearing stereotypical clothes that our instructors from several nights prior wouldn’t be caught dead in.

The buildings were colorful, but no longer inhabited by fearsome fishermen such as Hector (that’s a Destinos reference for all those who remember it). Rather they were inhabited by devices of the tourism sector.

As we moved further down the street, restaurant owners continued to be pushy in insisting that we stop at their places. One random man kept following one of my friends, insisting that she marry him, and then insisting that he’s a world-famous painter or something.

We eventually found a place to eat that was mildly agreeable. The chorpian came at a rather affordable price, even if it was without chimichuri. As I sat, the other denizens of La Boca started to come up to me. They weren’t pestering, and I even welcomed their presence. They laid down at my feet, played with each other, moved around as if they had total ownership of the street, and sniffed each other’s butts.

The stray dogs of the neighborhood were probably the only thing that won me over as either remotely authentic or charming. What do I mean won me over, I was in love with the strays that ran around our table.

We continued through the Caminito area a little further until we found ourselves becoming more aggressively pestered (by people, not dogs), and the buildings were getting less colorful. At the end of Caminito, one looks both ways down the street and can understand them aggressiveness of the vendors from earlier. Conditions are bad here. We walk into their neighborhood with pockets of pesos and fists full of dollars. We come searching for an authentic experience, and they’re all too happy to provide what we perceive to be La Boca, the La Boca of history sanitized and made safe for the American dollar. Thirty pesos buys you a cheap sandwich, a Quilmes, a bit of a tango show, and most importantly “atmosphere”. It buys them a way to survive.

What we don’t see is a real atmosphere, a place that still persists as a slum, pure and simple.

While waiting for the bus, I walked up to the water’s edge and looked down. It was clogged with trash.

Necropolis

The long shadows cast by the sun at its late hour added to the austere mystique of the cemetery. The shadows showed the outlines of gothic angels, byzantine spires, and other assorted iconography. The tombs themselves went down several stories down spiral staircases, some reached up a story or two to be crowned by ceilings more befitting a cathedral.

Other tombs were decrepit, crumbling, with coffins that seemed to be broken into. These ones were overwhelmed by the massive presence of the prestigious tombs on either side of them. The most prestigious, those of former presidents, ministers, writers, and generals, were adorned with plaques by countless civic organizations.
The Recoleta Cemetery seems pulled straight out of ancient Egypt. It is a veritable city of the dead, with the size of your tomb being a display of wealth. Families move in and out, profits rise and fall, some monuments and families remain to preside over all others.

Cats are the only living residents of this maze of graves. Appropriately, I spotted one sitting next to a lion, almost aware of the dichotomy between the ancient big cat and the modern one.

The ornamentation, the emphasis on status after death was an absolutely stunning thing. No where else in the world can I think of this kind of reverence for the dead, save for the pyramids of course. It’s so easy here to just get lost down a narrow pathway, winding your way past the remains of those long ago. But perhaps, shining a light on the whole ridiculousness of this kind of status obsession, Evita’s tomb is barely noticeable.

Each tomb had a distinct architecture, ranging from so baroque that you expected Dracula to pop out in five minutes to stark, solid black blocks of granite with simply a name posted above the entrance.

Some tombs had small coffins, children, others had fresh flowers and new photos. Yet others were dated from the late nineteenth century.

You could read a story in the pictures, dates, plaques, and other adornments on each tomb. The lives of these people, some unknown, some vaguely familiar as street names in the city, yet others obviously famous; were spelled out all over their graves.

By the time we left, the sun had almost set, and the cats outnumbered living people in the cemetery. On the way out, we were accosted by a lady with a thick, almost comical British accent, who asked us to donate to the friends of the Recoleta Cemetary.

Tango down

The neighborhood that we got off the subway in by far seemed rougher than anywhere in the city that we’ve been to yet. Given, we spend most of our time in a relatively gentrified neighborhood.

It didn’t seem to be anything too too dangerous, just a bit rougher, a bit more real.

I found the door that I was looking for, it matched the description perfectly. A non-descript door with a doorbell next to it and a small chalkboard in the window that said “Milonga esta noche”. I rang the bell and the door opened up, no one came to greet us.

We walked up an old staircase and found ourselves facing a lady in front of a ledger that was flanked by two candles. It all seemed so gothic and a bit cultish. We paid ten pesos and mover our way through the crumbling mansion, the only color being the brightly painted abstract pictures of dancers lining the walls.

We walked down the hallway, following the sound of voices and found ourselves in an almost bare looking studio like room. Rickety wooden chairs sat around cork tables that lined the outer ring of the room. A Spartan bar was on the other side. Two haggard looking men were busy at work setting up some speakers. The ceiling was painted in pastels at some points, but weeds seemed to be growing out of the skylight.

We were there at 10:40; I had read online that the night here began at 10. Obviously someone hadn’t accounted for Argentine time, the place was empty.

Slowly though, the room started to fill up with people who appeared surprisingly similar to us. Eager young people, most not from the country, looking for something a little more authentic than the glitzy, Vegas like shoes that attracted most tourists.

Suddenly, one of the haggard looking men, he had long, gray, straggly hair and a bit of a gut, started dancing with an elegant looking woman in the center of the dance floor.

Their moves were informed of passion, yet slow, graceful, delicate. It was both a spontaneous and a deeply controlled dance.

Then it was my turn to learn the basics. I was both too spontaneous and too controlled.

Slide to the left, right foot forward, left foot, slide to the right. Don’t walk, slide. Keep the center of the body aligned, but let the rest of the body flow free. Mix things up, go left foot forward first. Pause. Sway. Sway. Let her get the feel of your body movements. Lead. Take the direction. Slide.

I took comfort in the fact that when things didn’t go well; it was because my partner wasn’t letting me lead.

By the end of the hour, I had acquired a basic set of tango moves, I was aware of how to move across the dance floor at least. It did take several one-on-one moments with the haggard looking man, but I’ll just consider that receiving more attention.

We took our seats along the rim of the room as the place started to fill up with more people who kenw what they were doing. A man with an Antonio Banderas haircut moved a gracefully aged woman across the dance floor, in and out of the headlights.

A couple that we perceived to be American, who came with their kids, all exhibited skilled dancing moves. One man, an older guy with a weird cap, took turns demonstrating moves to the two friends that I came with. He made them look like seasoned pros.

At one point, he gave me instruction while I danced with one of my friends. I had an issue with leading with my feet, but in tango, one leads with their chest. It explains why the best Tango dancers appear so intimate and full of passion, because this isn’t a dance where one keeps distance and demonstrates talent through how one can manipulate the dancer away from the body.

It requires for two people to move as one, detecting the slightest change in body movements, requiring little sense of personal space.

The dancing winded down and a band of three guitars and an accordionist set up in the middle of the dance floor. As I drifted into the music, I noticed that our “new friend” was getting sort of interested in the girls. They were good at watching out for themselves and being wary.

Another band came up and I began to feel exhausted, feeling a little guilty that I wasn’t keeping fully alert. As another band, this one with percussion finished up their set, my friends and I collected ourselves; we waited for our “private dance teacher” to leave, and left.

The night oozed authenticity and felt like it had a little tinge of danger. It felt like what tango should be, a night of excitement and with an edge. Not taught in community centers or exhibited on big stages in overpriced theaters.

Extra-Long Weekend Edition (Steak, shopping, champaigne, and dog shit)

Sometimes, no matter how good life is going, you still step in dog crap

As I was walking into my apartment building, I thought something smelled like crap.

First I looked around to see if someone had taken a crap somewhere nearby, or maybe the porter’s dog had forgotten to take a walk. I saw nothing.

I went into the elevator and still smelled it, so I started to smell myself. Still nothing.

I walk into my apartment and I still smell crap. Now it’s a real mystery here, until my host mom tells me that I had dog crap on my shoes. Looked at one, nothing really, but the other, it was all over the front toe.

So I go out onto the balcony and start cleaning the crap off, but the smell is starting to get to me. For those who don’t know, I can gag easily. One of the hardest moments of my life was cleaning out the slop sink in my fraternity’s kitchen after renovations. There were maggots. I had to flush a little bit of water in, then leave. Recover, come back a few minutes later.

One time, cleaning out a trash barrel in the dining hall of my fraternity, there was mold at the bottom. I brought the trash outside, puked.

Yeah, my fraternity sounds like it’s some kind of shithole right now after just these two paragraphs, but trust me it isn’t. It’s a beautiful place, one of the best facilities in the Northeast. But what do you expect to happen when you put around 45 guys into their own house with no authorities making sure that they maintain healthy living conditions. It is getting better, but the prep kitchen on Monday mornings is still one of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. And I used to have to clean it.

Anyways, here I was cleaning dog crap off my shoes on a balcony on the seventh floor of an apartment building in Buenos Aires at around 9 pm. And honestly, this was the only bad thing to happen to me all week. I’m just gonna have to wait for it to dry more before I can really start to clean them.

Saturday I met up with a friend and set off to a trendy shopping district where I would find a shoe store that I found out about at home. I used to not understand the fascination with shoes. I mean for girls, maybe. They get into all sorts of weird clothing fixations. But guys salivating over a pair of nikes?

However, something about these shoes, which are hand-made, made out of leather, and based on vintage American sports sneakers, just got me excited. Plus, Lonely Planet said that they were relatively affordable.

We walked through our neighborhood, past a bar district that we frequent, down cobble stone streets that still held the cracked remains of an old trolley line. It was easy to see how this neighborhood, described by Borges admiringly as a place full of adventure and both great and horrible to grow up in, had changed though.

Knife fights in the streets between immigrants speaking a diverse range of dialects have given away to tourists buying designer clothes in mostly English, maybe a little bit of French. Tango bars and dens of villainy have given way to bars full of obnoxious American students (us) and dens of, I don’t know, something that fits into this sentence to make some cool figurative language.

But yet, the neighborhood still has charm. Lights hang over the street, strung under a canopy. An enormous arts fair winds its way up and down each street, alley, and avenue with the many squares serving as centers.

I found my way to the shoe store and had to be admitted by a doorbell. First bad sign. I got in, and it as much smaller than I expected yet very elegantly furnished. Second bad sign. Other than me, only a well dressed foreigner was browsing. Third bad sign. Prices started at 390 pesos and ran to 900. Time to leave. And after watching the Lonely Planet travel show and seeing their hosts, I thought it was all aimed at trendy, vaguely European, young independent travelers on a budget. Guess not.

We met up with a few more friends and continued our exploring. Which meant for the most part I watched them try on clothes at every little bizarre boutique that met their fancy.

I was able to occupy and entertain myself with the different quirks of each store. One seemed like it was out of the Backstreet Boys Larger than life music video with wide space-age concrete ramps that extended outwards in some bizarre display of visual illusion. I felt like a moon-man in there.

I also entertained myself with observing a variety of distinct seats in each store. Space age store had things that were weirder to sit in then those egg-shaped chairs. Some frilly boutique that sold things that looked like from a thrift store had an oversize red ottoman. One place had a bed. Another had a ladder.

The final thing that occupied me was the diverse display of hot store workers.
After this, we went to do a man’s thing, eat at the best steak house in the city.
Of course, like any great place where you show up unannounced, there was a long wait. But here, the wait came with champagne. This also meant that we would end up eating at the normal Argentine time of around 10.

We waited at a bar next door with an elaborate visual theme. What do Salvador Dali, Malcolm X, Fatty Arbuckle, and Madonna have in common? All had pictures on the wall here. Along with what seemed like toilet paper streamers coming down from the ceiling and Chinese lanterns on each table and post cards of Basque Country on the walls and god knows what other crap. Talk about taking random crap on the walls to a new level.

The ambience worked somehow. There was a dart board, and I just started idly throwing them at the board. A Frenchman started playing when I finished. I challenged him.

Like billiards, I win not on any skill at all, but on the other guy losing. When I play pool, 9 times out of 10, the other guy sinks the 8-ball in the wrong hole. Darts, the same thing. The other guy just can’t get to 150 exactly.

So we continued, as he steadily gained ground and I snailed along, sometimes hitting the section that I actually aimed for.

The count continued climbing downwards and I continued to give off quite the spectacle. Eh.

Finally, I got down to his 2 with a 1. He beat me.

No matter, I went over to his table and met him and his friends and found out that they were leaving the next day to backpack in Bolivia after being here for two weeks.

Behind them sat a map of Argentina and I looked at it, noticing how far south Ushashia was. Ushashia is the most southern city in the world, or something like that and the “gate” to Tierra del Fuego, the province of the country literally at the end of the world.

Just imagine sitting on a beach, looking out over the ocean, knowing that out there somewhere was Antarctica. Talk about the limits of adventure.

Theres a book and movie called Into the Wild, the story about a college grad who gave up his life to hitch-hike across the country with the ultimate goal of reaching Alaska. Needless to say the guy was a selfish dick to leave everyone from his life behind, an idiot for not learning anything about plants in Alaska that he might eat that might possibly kill him, and without a doubt insane.

However, his story holds amazing relevance for many people. Pretty much the ultimate case of wanderlust.

However, what happens when you reach the edge of how far you can wander? I would say the most Southern point of the Americas can count as one of those places.

Once you reach there, you can come back and explore all the fabulous stuff in between and that you’ve seen on the journey to that point. Reaching Ushashia gives me that type of opportunity with not an iota of the idiocy of the guy in the book.

We got back to the restaurant and in the last ten minutes of the wait I chatted up a group of Australians who work for Qantas airlines. Every few days, they’re somewhere else in the world. They were proud of the Qantas record of being the second longest continuously flying airline and not having a single accident. I asked about the pressures of piloting (two of them definitely had a piloty look to them). They told me they were ground crew. I also might have asked them if they’re ever afraid of crashing on some crazy island in the Pacific with time travel and polar bears and smoke monsters and hatches and creepy bug-eyed guys named Ben Linus. They reiterated the company’s record. But I did get a laugh from one of them.

We were seated and promptly treated to a diverse range of tastes and flavors. We started with palm heart salad, which also had avocado and tomato this creamy aioli dressing. And French fries.

The breads came with a selection of sauces from olive to sun dried tomato to a whole garlic that we took cloves out of.

Then the steak.

It was red, it was juicy, it was full of flavor that only increased when we dipped the meat in its own selection of sauces. Don’t ask me what they were, all I know was each hit my mouth with a completely different sensation that didn’t overpower the taste of the steak.

We also got a bottle of the same Malbec that we had the week prior. Needless to say crazy conceptual discussions happened and I realize now that I should probably swear of red wine. It makes me contemplative and meditative, two things which I already am to a bad degree. I over think a lot. Conversation with the red wine pushes me to bring my mind to philosophical levels that honestly scare me. I over think over thinking. A great conversation over a bottle of red wine can really make you push your intellectual boundaries, but I wouldn’t recommend it frequently.

My traveling partners from the day checked out for the night and I met up with another group at a bar around the corner.

So at this point I was at about four glasses of sparkly (as the Aussies call it), half a liter of Quilmes, and four glasses of wine.

After resetting myself after a shot of whiskey (use your imagination to guess what I mean by resetting), I started on a liter of Stella.

I’ve finally learned that you’re better drinking beer if you plan on steady drinking over the course of the night as opposed to mixed drinks. Providing you drink a beer that you like, you can get a few glasses down quickly and easily and maintain it through the night with a glass here or there. It’s much, safer, smarter, and cheaper.

I know this sounds obvious to a lot of my readers, but if anyone’s gone out with me, you know my tab is a steady stream of Cuba Libres.

From here, we took a cab across the city to a party being thrown at a theater by someone’s host mom. My cabmate got the idea to bet with the other cab who’d cross the city first.

The ride was a perfectly simulated perceived adventure. As our silent but efficient driver cruised down Avenida de Julio (the widest avenue in the world), towards the Obelisk that stands at the center of the city, surrounded by a Times Square like variety of electronic billboards, and taking a turn down a quiet looking street; I felt adventure.

We arrived just before the other cab, thanks to our driver cutting the other cab off (plus the other driver was jamming out in his car to Nirvana, so he obviously wasn’t focusing on being first) and made our way through what looked like an abandoned store front.

After paying a cheap cover, we walked into a theater space, at the front of which a singer who epitomized the funky, independent, spunky, yet sorta dangerous and very sexy. She was also wearing leather shorts.

Her band played well and she had a great voice. Behind them a video screen played the following assortment of images, some of which had quirky cartoon changes on them. Adam West’s Batman doing the thing from YTMND (my friends from home know what I’m talking about, but for everyone else, ), Mr. T., Juan Peron, a vampire, Pele, the other members of the A-Team, George Bush, and so many other things.

After a can of Quilmes, we checked out of here, crossed Julio into the center of the city, where we ended at Fusion. After dancing for a bit (even though most dance floor dancing hardly counts as dancing by 90% of the population), I checked out.
Got a cab and went home.

The next day was spent at the rural exhibition with a friend. La Rural is pretty much a National version of a State-Fair. You walk in and you’re instantly thrown into a crowd (especially considering today was the last day of it). On each side are faux-pampas (the plains wilderness where the mythical Argentine cowboys, the Gauchos, come from) stands selling assorted dulce de leche pastries along with cured meats and cheeses.

By the way, before I go any further, I should probably explain dulce de leche. Really creamy carmel. Imagine the best roasted marshmellow you’ve ever had.

After this, we found ourselves in a valley, surrounded by glistening tractors on each side. Scattered around were different vendors representing clothes, tourism, and other crap.

The food stands overlooked a giant vacant hole which was lined with 50 story condo and apartment buildings. The image for some reason struck me as so distinctly South American, but this fair was showing me how much we do stereotype this continent.

Argentina is distinctly Italian influenced. The most Spanish thing about their culture is the language. Everything else, pizza and other Italian cuisine sold on every corner. The café culture straight out of continental Europe. People’s heritage, the music, the dancing, so much of it Italian.

Yet, the Gaucho culture on display at the fair showed a deep similarity with the American fascination with its Wild West.

The exhibition halls held either farm animals and horses or giant corporate displays. Coca-Cola smiled down at me comfortingly from almost everywhere. Outside of the US, you really see how little market share Pepsi actually has. Ford was another major sponsor of the event. But just as visible were Galicia bank and La Nacion newspaper, two distinctly Argentine corporations.

We grabbed dulce de leche straddles, a perfect combination of flaky baklava and savory dulce, and made our way to the exit and stumbled upon a concert going on.

The lead singer, attired in distinctly pampas but not gaudy Gaucho clothing, lead his band in what seemed like folk music, but had a bit of a bad-ass tinge to it.

Then, the crowd started opening up as two young people went into the middle, produced handkerchiefs from their pocket and started passionately dancing in a manner that seemed stereotypically “Latin Hot-Blooded”. Then I looked to my right and saw a new circle formed, this one around two older people, dressed in gaudy Gaucho, dancing their own loving rhythm. Their moves matched the young people in the other circles perfectly, even with their bodies being 50 years older.

Then the other circle had a father leading his kids in a similar dance. Then another couple joined the other circle, again, somehow also producing elaborate handkerchiefs that were used as tools of seduction in their acting out of the courses of love through their footsteps and the way they teased each other with the rest of their body.

And so it continued as the band swung into tunes that explored deeper and deeper into the pantomimes being put on by the dancers.

They came in and out of the crowd, which forced me to chuckle at the idea that seemingly everyone, of all ages and body types down here, knows the art of seduction through passionate acts of dance and at any moment people could whip handkerchiefs out and start dancing through the streets.

It got darker and the crowd got larger. Someone jumped onto the stage with a harmonica and joined in with the band. The singer took a break and opened the mic for people to share jokes. A little girl came up and said something that made everyone burst out laughing and someone who looked like her mother look flustered. I think it was a dirty joke.

The band was playing near the exit and attracted more and more city folk who wanted to continue their fantasy trip to the pampas. Past where we were, which also happened to be the entrance, corporations smiled down from every wall and stall.

There were no independent leather artisans come in from their villages to sell hand made goods, only several kiosks run by a company that an employee proudly told me has 136 locations across the country.

While the food was native to the country, it was served with a Coca (as they call it down here).

John Deere sold a vicious looking thing with hundreds of spinning blades that looked like they could make short work of a Nebraska corn field.

But here, here where people stayed on, stayed before they left and the fair was gone for another year, here was something authentic. Here they danced, they sang, they stomped, they joked, and here was where the culture of the Gaucho was most prevalent. Where people were smiling the most.