My neighborhood in BsAs apparently used to be the red light district. I guess that means that catcalls are currently at a minimum in the area. But the remnants of the era are still there. All around Godoy Cruz, which is four blocks from my house, there are numerous albuerges transitorios, or rent-by-the-hour hotels. Which can be an incredibly useful thing if you’re 32, still living with your parents and trying to get in your coworker’s pants (which is basically just another way of saying you’re Argentine, or Chilean for that matter).
Anyways, the point is the area around Godoy Cruz is no longer the red light district and all of these albureges transitorios have been shut down or bought out by developers looking to put in high-rise apartments in gentrified Palermo. Basically at every hour, constructions projects are going on, getting started or finishing up.
Luckily, Buenos Aires does not let a cultural transition like this go to waste.
The cultural institutions of Buenos Aires decided to turn “former love hotel Pussy-Cats into a public art space” (and I got that straight from the brochure). Basically a construction company left one of these old hotels still standing and gave one room to an installation artist to decorate as they chose. The installation begins in a large warehouse room, where three walls are covered in artists’ canvases: one wall of photography, another of modern painting on canvas and the last was paintings on transparencies that were then layered on top of each other. Then (as directed by the people running the exhibition) you go up to the very top floor and wander down.
These rooms are so weird. Like really weird. One room was covered in photos of Marilyn Monroe and JFK and phrases like “he loves me, he loves me not” written in lipstick. There was a room where the bathtub was filled with dirt and a tree was bursting through the middle of my bed. There was a room playing childrens’ music with stickers of Disney princesses on the walls. Meanwhile, each bed was made with sheets and pillowcases that said “Pussycat hotel” with the logo emblazoned beneath.
The final room was the video art room. The seats available for watching the film were 8 beds on which you can recline and look up at the screens which were showing everything from silent comedic-murder mystery montages to a film explaining why you should pick up your dog’s poop when you take it for a walk, a lesson BsAs is still learning.
My favorite part by far though, was that after wandering through this absolutely stellar, grotesque and spectacular exhibition, you enter a the show room for what the rooms of this new high-rise apartment building will look like. In other words, you leave the dark twisting maze of corridors and rooms where techno music has been blasting and you enter the pristine, neatly arranged dining room exhibition with its finished wood floors and polished counters while the soothing sounds of elevator music spread across the room. Kind of makes you wish that the red light district was still there.

Las Bombas del Tiempo

Buenos Aires is beautiful in the evenings. Especially now when it’s turning into summer. In the evening, you can remember that a world outside of Buenos Aires actually exists. The light changes and you start to notice the sky and the cloud, and no matter how busy and filled with traffic the streets are, everything seems to stop.
I’ve just finished my English-teaching course. Which turned out to be better than I expected it to be and now it seems like I’ll get placed in a job somewhere in Buenos Aires which would be good. Of course, that schedule depends on English lessons to Ashoka fellows, which definitely goes in the stellar category. Finalmente, the other day, I heard about a group that puts on educational plays in English and then trains you to sing and dance and takes you on tour around South America and Spain! Yay random skills and weird theater folk!
On the note of awesome things in South America, Las Bombas del tiempo rock my world. A group of Argentine-Brazilian percussionists put on a cheap (10 pesos) show every Monday night en Ciudad Cultural Konex, basically an awesome warehouse like performing space. Las Bombas plays in a covered patio with concrete pillars coming down everywhere. Now, I know you’re probably thinking, yeah drum circle, whatevs-. But these guys make freakin percussion orchestra a profession!
At seven (keep in mind this is an Argentine seven, so it’s more like 7:30), the warm-up group or best drum circle you’ve ever heard begins to practice. At eight, about 20 dudes and 1 chick, all decked out in red and black jerseys (with their names on the back!) and track pants come out and play their hearts out for two hours. Which is a pretty intense feat. There are 3 conductors who lead the group (but only one conducts at a time) and all of them manage to create a completely different kickass rager.
Of course it probably helps that most of the crowd is far gone by the end of the show. A beer means 10 pesos for a liter of Quillmes poured into a large plastic cup (and they sell rum and coke and similar tragos in the same sized liter-glass). Meanwhile, everyone is lighting up despite the prohibido fumar signs spattered across the space. Of course, there’s a crazy dance party just waiting to happen… So, you join in and dance like the world is about to end tomorrow.
On top of that, everyone is there. There are dudes who are seventy checking out the practice drumming (not in a creepy way) from seven to eight. There are five year olds there with their parents, there are preppies and hipsters, some strange mixing of a frat party and a reggae fest, a ton of foreigners. It’s like a giant world party. Of course, Las Bombas ends early for Argentine time (at 10 ~ 10.30ish). When it’s over, the crowd spills out onto the street and the street vendors take advantage of the ravenous and exhausted leftover excuses for human beings by offering delicious panes rellenos for only 5 pesos. At which point, everyone who has energy scours the street for an open bar and I wander home feeling glorious and a little bit fuzzy with the concept of reality and crawl into bed.

Holy guacamole!

Another tired Saturday. It’s a little rainy and cloudy down here, but that makes it refreshing and a good excuse to hole up in a café, like right now. Right on the corner of Ravignani y Paraguay, where I live, there’s this funky old café that’s called Café-Bar Montecarlo that for the most part plays mellow good music, like Feist right now and has a beautiful old bar decorated in red leather and wood and a camero who wears a suit and a nice selection of whisky, bourbon and gin behind the counter. The tables all have beautifully carved legs and the chairs are those funky old ones made of red leather and wood. Wainscoating halfway up the wall, checkerboard tiled floor, mirrors lining the walls, so I can stare at myself as I write.
My class has been going pretty well; it’s kind of interesting to be able to design lessons, it’s actually pretty fun, though putting the lessons into practice sometimes hits a few bumps in the road. I go to class Mondays-Wednesdays from 10-5 and talk about everything from how to get students motivated to how to explain Conditional 3 to people, which is used to express regret, without making a depressing class. My classmates include 7 American girls, 1 New Zealand girl, one girl from Manchester, an Argentine-Israeli and a kid from Australia. We make quite an interesting bunch on occasion, a music/dance-obsessed, Argentine-culture-seeking group of self designated ex-pats. Half of the kids are staying here after the course is over (yay us!) and the other half is heading back to US or continuing on with their travels shortly after the course finishes.
Thanks to class and the nonstop activity of BsAs in general, I’ve had (present perfect: have/has + the past participle) a nonstop week. In other words, pretty fucking amazing. Last week, I spent time at a plastic Jesus theme park, a Boca game, Brazilian/Argentine drum troupe, milonga close to home, and salsa dancing. Yeah, like I said fucking amazing.
I think the strangest thing I’ve done yet was by far the Jesus theme-park. It’s not like there were rides and roller-coasters that you go on. It’s more like a themed-park where everything is plastic. Even the palm trees are plastic and they grow in Buenos Aires (not plastic palm trees, real palm trees). Everything is like a giant cheap nativity scene. It goes through the creation story, all the Stations of the Cross and Judas betraying Jesus. There are a couple of plastic statues placed randomly about of men who look they are in utter pain or rage, don’t quite know what their deal is. You can file into theaters and watch a plastic reenactment of the nativity. Joseph moves his head up and down a couple of times and there’s a fog machine. Same with the last supper. I got to see Jesus get resurrected… twice. He only gets resurrected up to the waist so I don’t know if it really counts.
Jesus is located right across the street from the most popular club in town right now. This club is open until 10 or 11 am on Sunday mornings. So ideally, you would go rage to techno and do drugs you’ve never heard of at Pachá and then head to see Jesus in the morning. Really, he gets resurrected every hour on the hour, so you don’t have to wait around very long.
I also made myself dinner the other night using the oven. Unfortunately, I still don’t know how to turn the oven on. Es todo ahora. besos

oh my d

brazilian drummers.
life is stellar.

To be Argentine

Just taking a moment to appreciate the awesomeness of Nick Cave. If Heidi were still around, she’d tell me that he was Australian. Therefore Australia is as awesome as Nick Cave. Obvi-po. But let’s not head off on tangents before we even get started.
Speaking of countries that begin with A and things that make them awesome, I think truly the most Argentine thing I’ve done so far is head to La Rural. La Rural is like every county fair you’ve been to with really, really large tractors. Aside from their tractors, La Rural celebrates everything else from the Pampas and really anywhere outside of Buenos Aires. There are cows, chickens, pigs, artesanal foods, bulls, horses, turkeys, goats, and gauchos and more tractors, just to give you a sampling of some of the amazing things we came across.
La Rural is crawling with people. Everyone goes: parents, kids, preppies, grunge kids, hipsters, there is no one you will not run into. It’s like the entire country comes together in Buenos Aires to celebrate the less chic, homey-er aspects of Argentina, which is so strange when BsAs prides itself on its culture and fashionista reputation. It’s kind of nice to see a bunch of people who come together to celebrate each other, even though their lives can be so completely different.
La Rural is like a theme park for the country. Inside, not only will you find the crowds (and the lines -- dude, people line up for their specialty dulce de leche), but there shops that sell “gaucho” clothing (we’ll get into that in a minute). There was one American Apparel type set up, except instead of American Apparel it was definitely sporting the farm-wear aesthetic. The small concession stands sell alfajores (imagine an ice cream sandwich with dulce de leche instead of ice cream), milenesas (hotdogs), hamburguesa completas (self-explanatory), and café. As a side note, this is not Nescafé, which their Chilean neighbors would offer. No, this is really coffee, espresso machine coffee. On these rickety tables they will pull out a heavy duty espresso machine to offer the quality you deserve in a decent cup of espresso. With the selection of meats at these stands, you can only imagine why the animals at La Rural look none to happy.
But the real attraction of La Rural (I think) are the gauchos themselves. It’s like you’ve stepped into a different universe, a different time period. They wear these sort of newsboy-caps that appear to come in burgundy, navy and black. Then, they wear these hardcore, almost motorcycle, leather jackets, although they ride horses, not motorcycles. The jackets cover flow-y white shirts. Then, they wear something that must be like typical horseman pants, only I don’t know anything about that so they just like strange parachute pants to me. The gauchos sit in the stables, tending to their horses, drinking maté, and chatting with each other. Truthfully, it’s a little intimidating. Also, aside from the fully grown gauchos, there are the minigauchos, who look much, much younger, but may just be my age. When the gauchos aren’t drinking mate and simply looking badass, I think they just ride their horses around in circles and are commended for their technique and such. But like I said, I don’t really know about these things.
In the multitudes of other news I failed to report, I turned 22, saw Bright Eyes, went to Uruguay, got my haircut, am living with an Italian man named Fabio who likes to cook, went to a puerta cerrada restaurant, headed to my first milonga, had a mini PA reunion, went to the most amazing jazz club last night, started class and have spent the majority of my time with folks of the European persuasion. All in all, it’s been quite lovely. Hopefully, these will be more frequent now. ¡Ciao amantes!

Introductions

So to avoid future confusion… I’m traveling with some folks. In fact, Casa Jardin, our hostel, has turned into some sort of family home. It’s funny how you automatically bond with people when you’re in an unfamiliar situation. We cook dinners together, go out to dinners together, go dancing… And then when we wake up in the mornings we go out to coffee together. It’s turning into a real relationship rather quickly.
The hostel is a funky old town house with windows everywhere. You walk up a winding staircase to enter “the lobby,” where there is always someone sitting behind an desk made out of a really old sewing machine, a wooden cabinet and a night stand. The computer has free internet, when it works. Normally, one of four people is sitting at the desk. Rosanna is the hostel manager, she’s a thirty something studying accounting and has some kickass shoes. Many of our discussions revolve around traditional Argentine fashion; one day she told me I looked Argentine as long as I didn’t open my mouth. Fernando deals with all the scheduling of rooms and drinks a lot of maté. He also seems superhip since he’s always on his spiffy Apple computer in the lobby, so I feel a little intimidated when I talk to him. Sebastian doesn’t speak any English, which sometimes makes it a little hard to communicate with some in the hostel, but makes for a good game of charades. He still seems to have all his baby fat in a cute roly poly kind of way. Lots of times, we’ll wander in the door and he’ll be watching an American movie dubbed in Spanish. (btw, Sam, we watched a dubbed version of Top Gun, my life is now complete). The last person who is often here is a dude who is studying English (language, not lit). Our conversations are always a little bit fun because I get to talk in Spanish and he talks in English and then we correct each other in our nonnative language. It’s actually awesome.
The people in the hostel are always changing, but like us, there are some long term folks who will be here for about the same period as we will. **We** consists of Monica, Kevin, Jenny and I, just so you know who the cool kids are. We also often includes Heidi, this awesome chick from Sydney, Australia who is taking a Spanish class here. She’s a vegetarian, has a strange fascination with hippies and seems, for some strange reason, to really enjoy hanging out with a bunch of Americans from the Stanford coop community. There’s also a girl, Maia, from the Richmond section of San Francisco. Now she’s a graduate at Columbia and is doing here doing research with an Argentine think-tank. The girl from Holland, whose name sounds something like Merlouse, is also down here for a while doing pediatric work in a hospital for part of here studies. She and I discuss the trials and travails of apartment searching (problem solved on my end at least). Then, there’s the Norwegian dude who is studying political science here, likes electronica music, surfing in Uruguay and eats a lot of meat, including reindeer (sorry, Rudolph). The pretty much consists of our daily cast of characters. Más, más tarde... ¡Besitos!

Argentine Beginnings

My brain is too dead to be any kind of witty right now so here is the story… Our adventures actually began in Woodside, when I checked on the flight status and realized our plane was scheduled to leave an hour earlier than we had been told. This was a little bit of a surprise to say the least. Because the airport requires three hours for international flights, we left the house then. I mean right then. I threw whatever was on the floor into my suitcase, and Theresa and I headed down to Box of Rain to pick up our other passenger. After quick goodbyes, we headed to the airport where Monica and I said goodbye to my mother and she drove off. We slowly ambled through check-in, security, pre-flight glass of wine and made it onto the plane where I slept for however long it takes to get to Mexico City. I really wouldn’t know.
In Mexico City we wandered through the maze of gates and security only to find something like a large dining hall where we sat and had coffee, slept and read, had tacos and people watched. After five, six, seven hours, we passed through security and sat near our gate and waited another hour or so, with some heavy emphasis on the so. On the plane we chatted with our respective Spanish speaking seatmates about various things. Mainly my conversation was about indigenous groups in Argentina, Bolivia and Mexico and the sorts of crafts and national heritage-y things they produced. When the plane landed, we managed to exchange dollars and get our luggage and take a cab to Palermo Soho.
The driver dropped us in front of a door that looked like it was to an apartment. We stood there slightly unsure of what to do for a minute before deciding that calling Kevin was indeed the right option. Luckily for us, he arrived with key after ten minutes and let us into the hostel, showed us around the place and then to a piece of pizza. Deliriously tired we wandered back to the hostel and fell into bed sometime around 4:30.
En la mañana (I decided to add phrases in Spanish, so this can be a learning experience for us all), got checked in and got coffee. Two key things in my life. After that, Monica, Heidi (awesome chick from Australia) and I wandered to the park to see if we could find the rose garden. We found it closed but the rest of the park was full of people celebrating the independence of Argentina. YAY family time! There was a wonderful man practicing his ice-skating routine and lip-syncing along with his iPod. The family we sat next to tried to teach their daughter to jump rope but when her grandpa couldn’t do it either, they gave up. After that, we wander back and relaxed even more before heading to a parilla for the night. Which was delicious, except the blood and guts that Kevin and Monica were eating upset their stomachs a little. Just to say the least… Our first day ended how all days should end. In a pool hall. Luckily, Monica and Heidi are just as good at pool as I am, so Kevin had to sit back while we played a couple of slow untalented games.
Thursday was the day of the infamous interview, which was at 5:30 in the afternoon, so I had some time to stress. In the morning, which is kind of a blur, I dealt with getting coffee and a haircut and some lunch for Kevin. All turned out well and I headed to the interview. I have yet to hear how that actually went but I’ll keep all updated on my moneymaking schemes in Argentina. We wander Calle Florida afterwards looking at cell phones and boots. Unfortunately Monica was not feeling to well. This prompted us to head back to the hostel in search of food, which turned out to be pizza and coke for the night.
Friday there was more shopping and wandering Palermo, an activity that is quickly becoming a motif for everyday life, as that’s what I did today as well. On Saturday, there was actually some culture. To start off with early that morning, at about 1, we headed to a bar called Acabar that’s a lot like the Bird only way more colorful. On every table there was some sort of board game and in there stock of board games in the back there were large colorful JENGA sticks and pick up sticks and UNO, TABOO in Spanish, the list goes on and on. We went to bed tired and happy. But Saturday “morning,” Heidi and I headed to MALBA or the Museum of Latin American Art, Buenos Aires. Which was amazing!!! They have some of the most spectacular things there, Xul Solar, Juan Torres Garcia, Emilio Petruccio, and it’s an amazingly designed museum. AND there was an awesome cartoon about a little fat man who ate people. It was truly stellar. Aside from the everyday beauty of the streets and people, the art here may be the most awesome ever. Then, we headed to the Facultad de Derecho for a free concert! Which also surprised us when they started playing the overture to Superman by John Williams. Then our day only got better when we headed to WALL-E. In castellano, claro. It really just completely blew my mind. Go see it and give PIXAR your money now so they can keep making amazing things. Finally, we ended the night by heading to Amerika. That’s right, Amerika. First recommended by Stephen Funk and then the shop girl we talked to earlier. Oh my, crazy techno dancing with flamboyant men who look much better than you do. But I have to say it was a fairly typical beginning to a South American clubbing experience.
We ended our night at 6:30 after a revival slice of pizza. Our “morning” started per uje with café. Then I headed to check out a room in Palermo, which was gorgeous. Seriously, it seemed like Box of Rain in Argentina for $400 dollars a month, for a gorgeous room that’s not in the basement. The people running it, Alejandro y Beatriz are a young married couple with at least six cats and a gorgeous garden patio. Seven people (including them live there), there is a Colombian, Uruguayan, Italian, American and two argentines, it sounds awesome. But I’m looking at a couple of other places tomorrow. As briefly foreshadowed, I spent the rest of the day wandering Palermo and San Telmo. This evening plans involves crepes and who knows what else. Less about the day to day later and more about the hostel, the characters and Argentina itself later. ¡Besos!