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.