Lost in Buenos Aires
I’ve kind of lost track of the days here. I wanted to keep updating day by day but things got a bit smudged together since we’ve been so busy. It’s not a bad thing though, but I’m a bit upset at myself for not being a bit more vigilant about updates. Oh well, I guess summarization and general reflection works in a pinch.
- Sunday the 24th – The family ate lunch at Palacio de la Papas Fritas; the charlotte was excellent. The puffy french fries weren’t half-bad either. After, we went to the feria at La Recoleta and walked around for a bit. Lots of hippies selling neat handmade crafts.
- Monday the 25th – Ariel and Jenny went up north to see my uncle Rafa; the rest of us had a great lunch at Rut and Edgardo’s. The asado was excellent and I’m now on the hunt for a few bottles of wine from a bodega called Callia; the Grand Callia was particularly tasty.
- Tuesday the 26th – Not much going on. Maia, Greg, my mom and I went out for lunch at the cafe down the street, then to a Havanna for coffee and alfajores. Later on, we went with my dad to a great restaurant called Lucio; again, amazing food for very little money (something like $16 per person and that included three bottles of wine!).
- Wednesday the 27th – I didn’t do much all day except lounge around the apartment and watch subtitled movies on TV. It was nice to relax after a week straight of tromping through the city. We did end-up Vero, Dani and Vero’s boyfriend Francisco later that night at an old billiards place.
- Thursday the 28th – Ariel, Jenny and I went to the Malba modern art museum. I’m not a fan of modern art; most of it makes me laugh and a lot of the pieces at Malba were no exception. However, not all of it was ridiculous. They didn’t allow pictures though, so ArteBA is superior in my book. We walked around for a bit after and went back to La Recoleta; the feria is on the weekend only so we went in to the cemetary. It’s a photographer’s dream and I wish I had better lenses and more time to spend there. I hope the pictures I took come out. After a nice lunch, we met the rest of the family to watch Dani play at a neat little club called Vaca Profana. It was amazing and I never realized what a talented musician he is. Well worth it. We went with Rut and Edgardo as well as their son, Joaquin and his girlfriend Eugenia to a restaurant renknowned for their fusilli noodles (basically thick spaghetti but way better). Great food, great wine (Uxmal malbec) and great people.
- Friday the 29th – Everyone went out to do various things but Jenny and I hung out here and watched “Idiocracy” on DVD. After, Maia, Greg and I went with Joaquin and his girlfriend to see his band practice. Very loud but they were decent. I can definitely hear Jaco Pastorius in the way Joaquin plays. Joaquin’s sister, Irene, picked us up and we had a great dinner at this restaurant chain known for their crepes. The food was great, of course, and so were the cute waitresses.
That’s about it at the moment. I’d love to expound on more things here but I’m tired and my brain hurts. I’m also beginning to miss home, but I can survive the next few days without issue. Tomorrow we’re going to a goodbye asado at Rut and Edgardo’s; I think on Sunday I might go with Ariel and my dad to buy wine to take back home. Hopefully I can find a bottle of Grand Callia as well as a few other good vintages.
I have a lot more thoughts I want to expound upon but again, my brain is sluggish. I think after I get back, I can really chew on what I experienced here and hopefully formulate something that can convey the things I’ve seen and done here. It has really been eye-opening so far and as I settle back in to my normal life next week, I’ll have plenty of time to think and reflect on this latest little chapter of my life.
Buenas noches.
Day 5 (Saturday the 23rd): brunch, Mati y Bernardo, asado with la familia Form
We had brunch today. Maia wanted eggs so we walked to a cafe down the street. It wasn’t bad; nothing amazing but nothing terrible either. The medialunas were decent, at the very least. We went back to the apartment to get ready for the day; Ariel, Jenny, dad and I went to meet some old friends as well. It was nice seeing Mati (Matilda) and Bernardo again; it’s been awhile. I don’t know them very well but they were always close friends of the family and took in Ariel while he was in high school down here, so his connection to them is very strong. I guess the families have grown a bit distant over the years so reforming that bond was good.
Later on, Ariel, Jenny, Maia, Greg and I caught a bus to Rut (Ruth) and Edgardo’s house. Their son Joaquin lives just down the street and we were invited to an asado (a barbecue) with their family. My aunt Anna lives with Rut and Edgardo now; a stroke some years back and Alzheimer’s has robbed her of the ability to function independently. It’s generally accepted in the family that her memory is fractured at best, but when I saw her I almost cried. She was small, hunched and frail but she still had a fierce smile and energy in her eyes. Whether or not she recognized us, she laughed and cried all the same. It was good to see her, as I have some fond memories of when she was in the States with us years and years back. As we said goodbye and headed to Joaquin’s place, it occured to me that we might not see her again. Time creeps up so slowly but when it’s over, things happen so fast. I’m just happy that I saw her again.
The asado at Joaquin’s house was fantastic. Great food with great people (funny how the two always seem to go together here). I brought down a PlayStation 2, Guitar Hero 3 and guitar, two controllers and a Mortal Kombat game to give to Seba’s sons. Of course, Juanse soaked it up. I’m glad the PS2 even worked; a million things could have gone wrong but it all worked out.
So it was another great day. Once again, we met with friends and family, had excellent meals and shared great memories while making new ones. Not even a week in and so much has happened already; it makes me wonder what will happen in the next seven days.
Food.
Food. My god, it never ends. It’s all so good. Let me run down what I’ve had so far:
- Medialunas (sweet croissants)
- Pizza fugazetta (pizza with a lot of sauteed onions and cheese)
- Pizza napolitana (pizza with slices of tomato, cheese and spices on top)
- Ojo de bife (ribeye)
- Provoleta (grilled cheese)
- Choripan (chorizo sausage sliced in a little sandwich, usually with chimichurri)
- Cafe cortado (espresso “cut” with foamed hot milk)
- Charlotte (a wedge of vanilla ice cream doused in delicious melted dark chocolate)
- Helados (ice cream; Argentines are serious about their ice cream)
…and more and more and more. Even the food at mediocre restaurants is delicious and amazing. It’s something I’m going to miss when I leave.
Day 4 (Friday the 22nd): ArteBA, milonga, old people, Marini
More walking. My feet kind of hurt but I figure it’s worth the ache if I get to see the city. We went to meet up with Veronica again to go to ArteBA, a fair of contemporary arts. I wasn’t too enthusiastic at first since I have a rather strong dislike for most kinds of modern art, but this was a huge surprise. One, photography was allowed which meant I got to try out indoor and low-light stuff (a challenge for an amateur photog such as myself) and two, almost all of the art was intriguing, sophisticated and very well crafted. I wish I could have spent the entire day there, taking pictures and musing over the pieces that struck me as the most dynamic and interesting. It also makes me a bit upset because we don’t usually have exhibits that large and freeform in San Diego and if we do, pictures aren’t allowed. I’m going to keep my ears and eyes open when I get home though, just in the off-chance that something similar comes up.
After the pleasant surprise that was ArteBA, we hopped on the subte (the subway) and went to see my parents at a milonga (a traditional place to dance, usually the tango). The milonga was in an old building filled with old people dancing to old music. It was great to see my parents dance. The tango is a very refined, reserved sort of dance: very little happens above the waist and what does go on below is choreographed and restricted to particular maneuvers, giving itself over to a sort of tight, burning passion that neither partner fully acknowledges. Even the music is designed to hold everything back just a bit: staccato, sweep, trail off and fade. It’s a sort of dance between two lovers who have no words for their passion, either due to the overwhelming intensity of it all or the simple inability to express in voice what can be better said with the body.
By this point, I was hungry. I hadn’t had much to eat most of the day since I knew we would be meeting with friends at a place called Marini, a buffet restaurant of an entirely different sort. Now, we have buffets and all-you-can-eat troughs in the States: $14.99 for a salad bar, prime rib station, frozen yogurt by the gallon and all the soda you can guzzle. Marini is not like this: it’s a classy restaurant with tuxedo-adorned waiters, real cloth napkins and table covers, fine silverware and good wine. It also has fresh fish, hand-made pastas, desserts to beat the band and one hell of a good fugazetta (sauceless pizza slathered in onions and cheese). Needless to say, for the hungry gourmand, Marini is paradise. The downside? They don’t currently accept credit cards. However, we got the cash together and once everyone showed up (14 in all), the feast begin. I won’t go in to details but let’s just say that I gorged happily and went to bed utterly sated.
That was it for Friday. A great day of art, tango and delicious food with my family. I can’t think of anything better.
Day 3 (Thursday the 21st): La Boca, sin monedas, Vero and pizza
We went to La Boca today to walk around, take in some touristy sites and hopefully get in to a local soccer game. La Boca itself isn’t that nice: it’s a rather poor area of the city and that is reflected in the state of the streets and buildings there. There’s a small bit of curious charm in the raised sidewalks that line the cobblestone roads but the trash, the smells and the general animosity of the people offset anything that could be “kitsch.” Despite that, we wandered for a few hours and ended-up in the touristy area of La Boca where the buildings are painted and decorated in creative ways to attract attention (and tourist money). It was alright, I guess. I’m not big on being labelled a turista here but I lumbered about with my camera slung from my neck, looking mostly like a tourist. I think some of my pictures came out well, at least.
The local team (named La Boca, of course) was playing a team from Uruguay that day and we had to get tickets from a scalper; after haggling, Ariel got five tickets for the “popular” section (where the locals sit). This has upsides and downsides: we were at a local game seeing the local heroes play (Riquelme was there, which was neat), we got to take part in the chanting and jeering and whooping and general revelry Argentine futbol fans are known for around the world and I got to try out my telephoto lens. There was also the fear of being crushed by a mob, getting robbed, being suffocated in the crowd and getting lost in an unfamiliar (and somewhat hostile) part of the city. It was that delightful mix of excitement and “oh shit, we’re going to get the crap kicked out of us.” At halftime, we decided we had had enough of the local color and slipped out of the stadium. La Boca lost 0-1, by the way.
I want to take a moment to point out something interesting: the busses here require exact change. So say we wanted to get back to your apartment: you would need $2.00 (in pesos) in change, not paper bills, to pay for a ticket. Now, you would think “Oh, big deal”, right? We thought so too until we learned that there’s a goddamned shortage of coins in the country. Having coins (moneda) is almost more valuable than having an equal or even greater amount of pesos in paper bills and I heard that people line up for hours at banks to get rolls of coins. Compounding this folly is the fact that we tried to buy small items at various kioscos (basically little mini-marts) in La Boca to get that much sought-after change but mostly came out with more paper bills. It’s almost as if the shortage of coins is happening because people are reluctant to give their change away, which is causing a shortage. Or something.
Anyway… we took a taxi out of La Boca and headed back to where Ariel and Jenny are staying to rest our feet and get some refreshments. After another walk through the streets of Buenos Aires, we ended-up at at Veronica’s place for dinner. She has a neat little apartment on the 13th floor of one of the thousands of nondescript apartment blocks here; the view is spectacular though. We had pizza, faina (a thin garbanzo bean bread that you put on the pizza; very tasty), and beer. It was fun and the food and company were great.
After a full day of being on my feet, though, I was ready for bed. We walked back to the apartment and I hit the bed almost as soon as I walked in. I wanted to get some rest since I knew there would be plenty of walking and site-seeing in the days ahead. If we want to see a soccer game again, I’d prefer to watch from from the safety of a living room.
Day 2 (Wednesday the 20th): Cats and steak
I love medialunas. They’re delicious and I wish we had something like them in the States. For those who don’t know, medialunas are basically croissants that aren’t as buttery or greasy, and usually have a thin coating of sugar on top. The dough is flaky and tender and a little sweet too. They’re perfect with a cup of coffee (cafe cortado, por favor) in the morning. Anyway, they’re delicious and I love waking up in the morning, shambling out to the dining room and seeing a plate with medialunas; it’s just a good way to start the day.
Fueled up and ready for the day, Ariel, Jenny and I set out to explore the city. We walked several blocks through heavy mid-week traffic to a park and botanical garden. It’s well-known for it’s population of wild cats: they’re everywhere, grooming, preening, sleeping and even hunting. Rather funny see one stalking a koi almost twice it’s size. The park was clean and quite beautiful with classical statues everywhere. I hope at least a few of my shots came out decently.
We then wandered several more blocks past the zoo, grabbed some choripan (chorizo con pan, que sabroso!) at a roadside grill in one of the parks and headed to Palermo. Ariel and Jenny paddled around the lake while I took more pictures. It was beautiful and quite serene: small families walking around and enjoying the weather, old men walking along slowly (or in one case, rollerblading), young couples in love. Very nice. We meandered through the rose garden and I got to take a few macro shots before we walked back to the apartment. It was definitely nice to get my shoes off after a full day on my feet. I wanted to rest up since I knew that night, we would be going to La Brigada for dinner.
Let me mention something about Argentine cuisine: it’s not typical Spanish food. They don’t eat spicy things here and a taco in the local vernacular is a part of a shoe. There is more Italian influence than Mexican, more pasta and beef than tortillas and carnitas. The Argentines love beef: just about every restaurant sells a lomito (a steak sandwich), empanadas de carne or milanesa de carne (basically chicken-fried steak but much better). It doesn’t hurt that the cows raised in the Pampas produce some of the best meat in the world: grass-fed, free-range, sans anti-biotics and other chemicals. Steakhouses in the US are great (I was at Fleming’s last week and had a wonderful filet mignon) but the steaks there are cooked at insanely high temperatures, and usually with butter or some sort of sauce to compliment the meat. What you get is a very rich, very tender steak. Here, it’s just… steak. A simple piece, cooked how you want it (“con jugoso”), served simply. Since the cows are free to wander, the meat is a bit chewier but the flavor is superior. It just tastes better, I think. More like a real piece of meat should.
That’s the main reason I was salivating about going to La Brigada. It’s a wonderful, intimate steakhouse in the San Telmo district. We had appetizers (I had a provoleta, basically a grilled piece of provolone that was delicious), steak, two bottles of wine and wonderful desserts. Truly a great way to start off the vacation. Seba showed up as we were finishing our coffee and he, Ariel, Jenny and I went back to hang out for a bit. I walked back to the apartment later and fell asleep, stomach full of amazing food and head full of thoughts of the week ahead.
Day 1 (Tuesday the 19th): Fog, nap, dinner, sleep
It was foggy when we landed. Very foggy. I didn’t know how close to the ground we were until we actually touched down; then it was the hustle-bustle of getting off the plane, clearing customs, finding our bags. Seba picked us up and we puttered in to Buenos Aires and out of the fog, the thick smell of diesel exhaust and a haphazardly-maintained city filling my nostrils in an oddly familiar way.
I was last here in 2005 and I didn’t realize it; I felt like I was tagging along with the family and pulled around to see the sights without much regard to where I was. This time I’m more aware of the city, the nuances, the familiar and the unfamiliar sights, smells and sounds. A lot of it has been with me my whole life: cracked sidewalks, black and yellow taxis, diesel fumes, old elevators. Much of it is new, or had been obfuscated: third-world sentimentality and first-world cuisine, nightlife, beautiful women and desperate poverty. Through a lot of walking and picture-taking, I’m looking at this city less as a curiosity and more of a real thing. The fog lifting, I suppose.
I took a nap to recover from the jet lag, which I didn’t like but I needed. The flight wore me out something fierce and I needed even a little bit of energy to push through the rest of the day and get my internal clock up to speed. My bed in the apartment here isn’t exactly a California King, but it will do. I’ve found I actually sleep better when I’m not at home, but I can’t really understand why. So I did get a few hours for a nap, at least. We went out afterwards for a late lunch which was decent, but not exactly representative of the quality of the food that can be had here. It served to fill our stomachs, at the very least.
Later in the evening, we went to the Schnecks for dinner; they’re old friends of the family and I always enjoy seeing them. We had a great meal and a lot of fun. At the point, however, I was wiped out. Seba drove us back to the apartment and I crashed, quickly falling asleep. It had been a long day but it was nice to be back in Buenos Aires.
Change
Change becomes requirement. Requirement becomes habit. Habit becomes routine. Routine becomes commonplace and becomes normal. Everyone has their requirements, their habits and routines. When one inevitably changes to the next and becomes more a part of you and who you are, how you operate, it becomes more natural, more a part of yourself. What was once something new and uncomfortable is now so ingrained in to how you operate that it’s hard to conceive of anything outside of the routine. It’s comfortable, really. And when that feeling of comfort is interrupted or displaced, you tend to fall back to change or worse, complacency.
I got laid off last week after eight years at the same job. Eight years of change becoming requirement becoming habit becoming routine. It became normal, a part of my life. The same building, the same office, the same daily patterns. Sure, faces changed, technology changed, but those were part of the routine I had established. It was comfortable most of the time, if a bit stifling. And then it all just… stopped. I found myself looking at change again, the habits and routines of my time there eliminated with the stroke of a pen. I felt numb at first, distanced and confused about it. Did I do something wrong? Had I said something to someone that I shouldn’t have? I had always held a certain smug satisfaction at my job, always thinking that I was well liked by most people there since they tended to be greatful and sincere for what I did for them. Maybe I had been blind that whole time, maybe I was an unaware bastard operator, the twisted sysadmin everyone despises behind his back but lauds in front of him so they can at least get him out of the office quickly. It weighed in my stomach heavily as I drove home that morning; I didn’t even have a lot of time to get my things. “Ciao, adios, g’bye get out.” I wasn’t fired, at least: I was laid off. That meant cutbacks, changed to company structure; even a monolithic entity like Clear Channel has routine and habit ingrained in it, I realized. There had been layoffs before, I had seen good people go, ground under the heel of corporate progress. It hadn’t occured to me that one day, I would be dodging that bootheel. But there I was, and I had no time to dodge. It just happened and it was over.
Then I found out it was another mass layoff, one of half a dozen I had seen in my time there. I felt a bit more relieved: I hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet upwards of 40 people that I knew were let go along with me, including one of my best friends. Clear Channel was cleaning house and they had gas-bombed the IT department. I later learned the extent of the damage: local IT effectively no longer existed and was being rolled in to Engineering. This made me laugh: we had always been light-years more efficient than the engineers ever were, yet we were always held to extra scrutiny, always examined and criticized far more than the engineers ever were. The mentality in Clear Channel is that radio engineers still have overwhelming value, and that IT is just a byproduct. Treated like some sort of hangers-on, budgets slashed and squeezed, sometimes outright mocked for our audacious ideas and forward planning. So they rolled IT in to Engineering to eliminate the pest of progress once and for awhile. I felt bad for my friend Matt, the other sysadmin, who had survived the latest round of layoffs only to find himself relabelled as an engineer. This odd sort of feeling came over me, a realization: I had dodged a bullet. Hell, not a bullet, it was a nuke. While the bootheel had come down, it hadn’t crushed me: I did indeed manage to scurry out of the house before the wrecking ball came swinging along. I laughed about it last week and I still laugh now.
For a few days after, my old routine was like lights in my eyes after a very bright flash. I’d still wake up at my old time in the morning, still reach to check for a Blackberry I no longer had, still felt very strange being up at 1:30AM on a weekday and wondering if I’d be tired at work the next day. It occured to me that for the first time in eight years, I had freedom. I could go anywhere, do anything I wanted. I could travel, go back to school or be deliciously lazy (I chose the third, which wouldn’t surprise you if you know me). My compensation and severance from the company is a financial windfall of sorts and has put me ahead of the game. A new condo is within reach now, as is a new car and a decent lump in my savings. I decided to put off a new job search before my trip to Argentina and just vegetate. Maybe do some light travelling, go to a brewery, eat some fast food late at night or just play video games all damn day. There’s no real routine now, no habits or requirements of me. Sure, I still have daily responsibilities, and change is waiting when I come back at the start of June but for now, I’m quite comfortable with not having to do anything normal.
This here is a test.
WordPress knocks on Facebook’s door; Facebook answers and WordPress says “I’m a burglar! Give me all your encyclopedias!”
hurrrrr
Things go here. Then they go there. Who knows?
I need another beer.