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.
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