Treinta.

Trenta

On friday I turned thirty.

Thursday morning my friend Aden flew down to help me celebrate. We spent Thursday seeing a few major sites (Casa Rosada and Plaza de Mayo, Los Parques de Palermo) and then wandering around Palermo SoHo. We ate lunch Confiteria Richmond and had a beer at Malasartes, before repairing to my apartment for a few Jack and Cokes (he brought me a much needed bottle of Jack courtesy of duty-free). Then we had dinner at Dada, my favorite restaurant, where my favorite waitress was working. Friday we went to MALBA with my class. We actually arrived before it opened (we took a cab because it was pouring), but this gave us the opportunity to have coffee and a snack at the slick little cafe attached. After MALBA, Aden, my profesora and I braved a march with masked, stick-weilding participants to go to the mall near MALBA. It was interesting to hear Carolina speak English, and we had good conversations switching between the two. After that Aden and I went to the cemetery of Recoleta where, among the ornate tombs we saw a funeral and had a brief tourist reality check.

That night we went to the cheeseball expat bar, Shoeless Joe's Remember the Alamo, where we had what are definitely the best hamburgers in BsAs, and I would say could stand up well against any american burgers. After Shoeless Joe's Remember the Alamo (because one must always use the full name of something so ridiculous), we went to Milion, an old mansion converted into a resto-bar. We sat on the patio, and were soon joined by Anders, my Swedish classmate, and his entourage of five Swedish girls. Somehow being serenaded by five Swedettes made turning the big 3-0 a bit less harsh. They all left for the club about 1:30, and Aden and I lingered a bit before returning home.

Saturday morning we went to Florida Garden and had, what else, Desayunos Americanos. Then we wandered around Monserrat and San Telmo. We got ice cream at my favorite heladeria (I just realized I don't even know the name), and after taking in all of the antique markets, beers at El Federal. Aden left that night, and I met up with the Latvians for dinner. They got me a good can opener, a thing which I have been looking for since I arrived. After dinner we went to get ice cream at Volta (ice cream twice in one day? hell yes.)

Yesterday I did very little, a bit consumed with thirty-funk. I ate at the Chinese Resto, went grocery shopping, and strolled Florida for a bit.

Today, in the late afternoon, I went to the Centro Cultural Borges to see the Joaquín Torres Garcia exhibition. Before I got to the room of the TG exhibit, I stopped to take some pictures of some sculptures in the atrium, and a woman approached me and handed me a flyer. Turns out she was Julia Farjat, the sculptor. After enjoying the TG exhibit, I went into the Expo-artistas 2006 in an adjoining hall. It was fantastic. Local artists displaying their work and chatting with the admirers.

A very amiable woman (who's name I just realized I've forgotten) noticed me lingering over a set of paintings and approached me. We chatted for several minutes and she introduced me to four or five artists. She and the artists were very friendly and overjoyed that I had come here to learn Spanish. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Renée Pietrantonio and her teacher, Helios Gagliardi, who has exhibited his work as far afield as Moscow, Madrid, and Greece. I enjoyed their work immensely. Some of the other works I enjoyed were by Maria Laura Ubeira and Daniel Horacio Aguirre.

I took some pictures, but sadly the wifi ('wee-fee' in Spanish) in Dromo was down, so you will see none of them now.

Chau.

Anoche y anteanoche

Well hello!
Here I am again only a few days later. Hot weather and cafes with air conditioning and wifi = more blog posts.

Last night I went to a celebration of the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, appropriately enough, in the Plaza de Mayo. I was watching TV, saw it being broadcast live, and thought, "Hey, that's only like seven blocks from here."
So, I went. It was pretty cool, although between a jublilantly loud crowd, a bad PA and my tenuous grasp of spanish, I didn't understand a whole lot. But it was interesting, and I got to see Miranda! (who I have to admit, I don't really like).

And the night before last, I went over to the apartment of one of my classmates, who is from Japan, with two of my other classmates, from Latvia, and had sashimi and other japanese delights. It was great sitting in Buenos Aires, with my Japanese classmate and her Japanese husband, and my Latvian friends, all five of us speaking broken spanish, eating good food and having good wine.

Oh, I have a question:
When exactly did the Madres de La Plaza De Mayo become the Abuelas? I mean, it makes sense, but was this a consensus decision? Was there a vote? Or a cut off date?

Hasta Luego...
Chau

So I sorta fell into the Riachuelo for a while there

It's been over two weeks since the last meager update, and I apologize. A couple of things happened:
1- I used all the included 'free' minutes on my home phone (so no mores 'free' internet)
2- My fiancée came down for a visit.

There was little time to blog, peoples.

Just a couple of things to tide us all over until I really hit my stride (tee-hee):

1-I'm going to reach President Taft-like proportions because I have discovered how good dulche de leche on bread is. You can keep the alfajores. Bread and milk-sugar is where it's at. (Oh, and cause all I eat is meat and pasta. And fried things. And the all you can eat Chinese buffett once a week--- how the hell am I less healthy than I was in the US? I guess at least I walk about 10 times more.)

2-Pecha Kucha was really cool, and after seeing Liniers there, I went out and bought Macanudo 1. Then 3. Then today I finally got Macanudo 2. I highly recommend these collections of his strips from La Nacion. His art reminds me a little of Gary Baseman, and he's got bits of Wiley, Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, and Charles Schultz.
There's another Pecha at the beginning of December, and it's worth going just to see the Centro Cultural de Konex alone. (I've also been delving into Argentine Comics history with lots of stuff by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Alberto Breccia, a great writer/artist duo. Although not as easy for me to read as Liniers' strips, I've been trudging through Mort Cinder and Sherlock Time. The Eternaut is up next.)

If anyone out there in blog-land knows of any cool Argy comix or underground art/cartooning, let me know. I do kind of miss all of that stuff from LA. But I also like that, at least for me, an extrajero, finding cool stuff here really feels like a discovery.

Chau.

Oh yeah, Pecha Kucha, bay-bee

Pecha Kucha, an art/lecture/super-fast/all-night/thingy, is tomorrow at Cultural Konex at 8pm.
If you're going, look for me, I'll be the bewildered norteamericano enjoying it all.

The Bookstore Hop

Okay, so I'm giving up on writing about Saturday 23/9 and Sunday 24/9. It wasn't anything that big anyway, and I need to just get it out of the way before procrastination keeps me from posting for weeks.
Let me sum up in brief:
23/9
Watched Davis cup on TV
Walked around
Tried to watch fútbol americano via an amazingly slow interweb connection and had a truly excellent hamburger at the ex-pat bar "Shoeless Joe's The Alamo" (No, I didn't make that name up. Thankfully it seems to be colloquially refered to as "El Alamo")
24/9
Had a café cortado and a medialuna at Café Paulin
Spent hours wandering around Feria de San Telmo and the surrounding neighbrhood.
Had lunch on a terrace in Pasaje de la Defensa at a café with tango dancers
Spent over an hour watching people trying pass the tango dancers on the narrow terrace
Ended with all you can eat chinese, again.

Okay, now that that's out of the way...
Today I woke up to rain and thunder, really not wanting to go to class. Somehow I managed to get myself out of bed, through the rapidly flooding streets to the Subte. Estación 9 de Julio was a mess, with sections roped off and workers furiously fighting a losing squeegee battle.
I got to school only to find out class was canceled. So I went to coffee with Santa and Hisayo. We sat and had pleasant conversation in broken spanish for almost an hour.
I got on the Subte back and took línea B to San Martín. I then proceeded from bookstore to bookstore (I'm going to count the bookstores in Galerías Pacífico and the fact that Dromo and Musimundo have books) for the better part of three hours. It was nice watching the rain and looking for books, but once again, it seems I'm after a book no one has. Álvaro Mutis is a fairly well known Columbian writer (He won the Cervantes in 2001), but so far I've only found two books by him. I've searched both El Ateneos on Florida, the Grand Splendid, Gandhi, Zivals, several Cuspides, Distal Libros, and Yenneys. Every worker I ask in the bookstores seems surprised that they don't have any. Ah, well, gives me something to do, and a reason to use spanish, I guess.
I bought Axel Krygier's album Zorzal, which I think I found out about through What's Up Buenos Aires.
Then I went to my favorite little parrilla for lunch. It was so wet and slick that I bit it on the way out. Lots of epas, but I was alright and it wasn't too embarrasing.

I then bought some groceries and a beer at the mercado, and sat looking out over my balcony watching the rain for a while.
Then I did laundry.
Hey, Ho, Let's Go.
Chau.

Patience

Sorry I didn't finish the story of my weekend yesterday, but I spent about 7 hours in bureaucratic limbo yesterday getting my visa. And then I ate lots of meat and all I could do was lie in bed and read.
I promise there will be more tonight.
Oh, and I know I mentioned it before, but this is the book I'm currently reading. It's a great travelogue/history of Paraguay.
Just in case you were wondering.

Hasta luego.

I been walkin' the streets at night, just tryin' to get it right

Looks like this is going to be a two parter. It sort of ended up a bit longer than I planned. The first part is Thursday and Friday. And then tomorrow I'll post Saturday and Sunday. Hey, when it rains...
Oh, and I turned on comments, at MPBS's request.
This weekend I played tourist. I had Thursday and Friday off from school. Thursday was the first day of Spring, which is a holiday at all high schools and universities. I got a late start and ended up walking around my neighborhood, Retiro/Microcentro for several hours. I went to Plaza San Martin, which was packed with kids and young people, and wandered around Florida, a pedestrian shopping street which I have a strong love/hate relationship with. It's only about 30 yards from my front door, and most of the day and night it's packed with people. There are newsstands and street performers, along with McDonald's, Zara, a beautiful mall housed in an 1889 department store building, parrillas, clothing stores, banks, C&A, bookstores, music stores, etc. There are also tons of Cambiocambiocambios and MyFriendMyFriendMyFriends.
The Cambiocambiocambios are black market money changers, giving a better rate than ATMs or actual Cambio houses, but also usually giving counterfeit bills. They stand in the middle of the street saying "Cambiocambiocambio" all day, hence the name.
The MyFriendMyFriendMyFriends are usually wearing suits or leather jackets. They can tell I'm American because I'm blond and don't have a mullet. They tend to be doing one of two things. Either trying to get you to buy goods from the terribly overpriced shops where they work, or to pimp out their prostitutes. The pimps usually hand you a little card, kinda like in Vegas. Actually, the other guys have little cards, too, but ones with clothes or leather goods instead of almost nude women on them.
Come to think of it, a lot of my life in Argentina involves little pieces of paper like these. Someone in Argentina thinks they're a great idea. Or rather, everyone does. People are handing them out most times of day and night along any main thoroughfare. And not just for whores and leather, either. In fact, most are for restaurants and cell phone companies, but I've gotten them for everything from Tarot card readings to fancy restaurants. Usually I avoid their insistent hands, but sometimes, either out of boredom, sympathy, or just pure reaction, I end up with one.
In any event, I spent a great deal of time in falabella, a huge target meets ikea sort of place with a nice cafe on Florida. I didn't actually go to their cafe, mind you. I went to Cafe Richmond a massive enclave of another era in the middle of Florida. It's all dark wood and burgundy leather chairs, old men in suits smoking, and high tea. I just had a cortado and a tostada mixto (coffee with a touch of steamed milk and a ham and cheese sandwich on wonderbread with the crusts cut off heated up in a pannini maker) and read (or tried to read) Los Inrockuptibles (kind of like Spin meets Pitchfork). I call it 'Rey de Cafes,' because it really feels like aging royalty.
I also made it to the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibit at the Borges Cultural Center (inside the aforementioned mall), which turned out to be mostly photos, with some sketches and a couple paintings. Also on exhibit there were large scale photos of New York from September 11th to 14th, 2001. It was unexpected, and a bit emotionally overwhelming. It was interesting to see the Argentines, who have suffered so much tragedy of their own, present such a solemn and grave exhibit for something that happened so far away.


Friday I began by going to California Burrito Company. It's a Hi-tec/Chipotle rip-off started by two Americans. I was really looking forward to a good burrito. I didn't get one. The tortilla wasn't really a tortilla, and the rice was sticky, like soupy sushi rice. Oh, and as in all food Argentine, the hot sauce wasn't. It wasn't a total loss, as the black beans, carne asada and guac were good, but I ended up carving out those from the rice/tortillla husk.
Then I went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts), which is a pretty impressive place, spanning pre-Columbian to current day art, with Reubens, Renoir, VanGogh, Monet, Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky, Miro, and a whole floor of interesting contemporary Argentine artists. The collection, even just the Latin American collection, is actually more impressive than MALBA, the super hip museum opened in 2001 with the collection of Eduardo Costantini at its core. However, MALBA's got the flash new glass and steel building, and the welcoming, if a bit sterile, feel of a modern, world art institution. And MALBA's presentation of works is far, far superior. The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA) is housed in a pretty 19th century building that used to be a water pumping station. Apart from one room, housing 16th and 17th century works, the ground floor is horribly, horribly lit. Paintings are hung in rooms with almost no ambient light and a spot shining directly on them. For most oils paintings, this pretty much renders them un-seeable, simply a reflection of the light from the spot. It's also hard on the eyes. The second floor is better off, but the low levels of ambient light and dark walls still make it inferior. The interior of the building is also a bit disappointing, as it's mostly non-descript floating walls erected in non-sensically small rooms. The whole thing could use a remodel giving it larger rooms, and better, perhaps even some natural, light. That rant aside, it's a great museum, and the third floor balcony has a great view of the Law school and the river. And the current Juan Carlos Liberti exhibit (which is actually in the building behind it, but you enter through the museum and then cross an internal bridge over a car park) is interesting. Very Magritte, Man Ray, Dali, and Argentine kitsch, but it makes for a neat mixture.
When I left, the sky was dark and cloudy and it was blowing something fierce. I hurried to the nearest mall (I spend more time in malls here. It doesn't hurt that most are in nicely restored historic buildings, and have at least one large cafe per level.) with the intention of waiting out the impending storm. After a bottle of Agua con gas, it looked pretty much the same outside, and I decided I better hotfoot-it home or I might be waiting this out all night. I got to the Plaza San Martin before it started raining, which was okay, as I just got a bit wet before I made it Florida and the relative safety of store marquees and overhangs, and the myriad galerias that take you inside and back through shops and then spit you out a few dozen feet down the road.
Right after I got home it poured and the thunder and lightning began.
Friday night I made some steaks and stayed at home. Even though the heavy stuff stopped about 8, it was cold and windy all night.
To be continued...

Ode to the chinese restaurant, or eventually, I get to the chinese restaurant.

So last night I went to my favorite restaurant in my neighborhood (which is not a chinese restaurant, mind you), Dada. As I was going out, the doorman asked me if I was coming back, and I said yes, and he asked if I was going out, and I said maybe. He then proceeded to half-jokingly say "4, 5, 6 AM?" And I said hopefully not. Hey, I was tired. And I'm kind of averse to going out-out by myself. Especially where I don't speak the language. Or only sort of speak it. In any event, in Dada, I was sitting innocently reading my book, At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig, after dinner, contemplating if I should have a coffee or a cocktail, and if I should stop by the bar/cafe thing next to my building on the way back home when the waitress, Alejandra as I would come to find out, came over and entreated me to take one of the seven shots lined up at the bar. Hey, what the hell? When have I ever turned down a shot? I got up from my table and gathered round the bar with three norteamericanos, Alejandra, another waitress and the bartender. We toasted and took the shot, something with Red Bull and various liquors. After, I asked the nortes where they were from, and then went to go back to my table.
Alejandra, however, intercepted me, and made me go sit with my countrymen. I met James, who has been traveling through South America for about a year, and Hallie and Kate, two study abroad students. I ended up talking and drinking with them until about 4. James had crazy stories about his travels, Hallie is making a documentary on Cumbia, the sort of 'music of the streets' here, and Kate, well, Kate is a vegetarian, which in Argentina always seems to inspire hours of "How do you do it here?" conversation. After we closed down Dada, they were going to Club Museum, where a guy that Kate knew was. I was broke, having spent about three times what I planned to. Our combined bill at Dada was about a hundred and fifty dollars. Dollars. Not bad for four meals, a bottle of champagne, and five rounds of drinks, and drinks for Alejandra and the bartenders, but a small fortune in Argentina.
So, with 12 pesos to my name, I hopped in a cab with them and borrowed 10 pesos to pay the 20 entrance fee at Museum. The club was packed. It was now 4:30. However, they were playing bad techno and only a few people here and there were dancing.everybody else was just standing, talking, or making out. If you've ever been out in Argentina, you've probably seen couples just chowing down on each other in the middle of the dance floor, on the couches, at the bars, in front of the exit, next to the cloakroom, outside the bathrooms, etc. Making out is the national pastime.
We danced for a while, or rather, Kate danced, I half danced, Hallie danced every once in a while, and James wandered around, and drank the cheap beers that came with our entry fee. After an hour, hour and a half, we moved up to the second floor. Club Museum, while not that great a club, is in a neat building. It's old, with granite and glass and wrought iron, open in the center, and has five floors of balcony-like steel clinging to the walls. We stood, sharing the last beer, talking, and watching people not dance and make out. After an hour of that, Kate decided we needed to give dancing one last shot to get out money's worth. The club was pretty empty by now, about 7, with only a few hundred people on the dance floor. James wandered off again, Kate and Hallie danced, and I walked over to the bathrooms. On the way, a porteña stopped me and told me I looked like William Walace. Cómo? William Walace. I thanked her, and she turned around and resumed talking to her friends, and I went to the bathroom. When I came out, my nortes were nowhere to be found. I did a few laps around the club, thinking that with two pesos to my name I could probably take a taxi five of the twenty or so blocks back to my place. And going shit, shit, shit in my mind. After a last lap I decided I'd just go out and walk and hope I made it back in one piece. Thankfully, on a bench across the street from the exit, sat my nortes. They called me over, and apologized for leaving, the girls saying they had been grabbed a few too many times and decided they had to go. We sat on the bench, next too a hot dog vendor who tried to arrange a marriage between Kate and his cousin in San Diego. James had a hot dog, and the local urchins tried to get a few pesos out of us. At 8, we started walking towards 9 de Julio, where James' hostel is. We finally got there, about seven blocks from my place, and the girls got a cab back to Palermo. As it was now dawn, I didn't mind walking back by myself. i did get propositioned by a puta still putting her earrings back in and getting her shirt on straight. I walked into my building, thankfully to a different doorman, Osvaldo, my favorite, who was cleaning the floors.
After sleeping a few hours, I got up with the unshakable idea that it would be very porteño, very Cortázar even, to go eat cheap chinese food for lunch. I went down Lavalle to an ATM, and then, back to the Cocina Libre chino three or so doors down from my place. It was packed, loud, and barely clean. It was perfect.

Here's the ode:
restos de chino, me encanta
Baires, Dundee, Tulsa
you're always there when I call
with platos frios y calientes,
noodles, rice and fried goodness
free ice cream, and only in BA,
parrilla, empanadas, pizza
there nothing better for cleaning
the dust of of your being
Tel Aviv, Pasadena,
Paris, Okemah
may I never stray far
from donde está.

God Bless the Chinese restaurant, and may he reserve a special place in the heavens for all you can eat Chinese restaurants.

Chau.