Lists

I love a good list. I also like to express my opinions about things. With that in mind, here are 10 things I will and will not miss about Buenos Aires. In no particular order...

Te amo, Buenos Aires:
1. The nightlife. It is possible to go to a different restaurant, bar, and club every night and not repeat once. Apparently, I'm taking massive dance clubs for granted, and I'm in for a rude awakening once I touch down Stateside.
2. The utmost convenience. Kioskos selling food, candy, beer, and cigarettes on every street corner.
3. Alfajores. AKA my number one kiosko purchase.
4. Taxis. They're cheap, they're plentiful, they get you where you need to go quickly and aggressively, you only feel like your life is in danger about once a week, and I haven't gotten ripped off once. Taxi drivers also always have really strong opinions about everything.
5. Quilmes. Specifically, liters of the stuff. Argentina's national beer kicks the pants off of Bud or Miller. I'm drinking one at the airport bar today.
6. Argentine girls. They're pretty, exotic, stylish, and take good care of themselves. They're actually really, really nice if you can break the hard outer shell.
7. UBA. Harvard's red-brick facades, working desks, video projectors, and wireless internet access will seem so boring after months of graffiti, broken glass, and lefty political sentiments. Coincidentally, UBA classrooms have the highest ratio of left-handed desks I've ever seen.
8. Hearing English = instant friends. There's a huge expat community here, mostly made up of students and young workers in their early- to mid-20s. Just hearing the dulcet tones of your native language is enough to start a conversation with someone, no matter how insipid he or she may be.
9. OK, OK, Antonio and Leticia. After all is said and done, they treated me pretty damn well. [Quick story: after about two months without breaking anything, I knew I was in for one more embarrassment before I left. Sure enough, it's Thursday night, about 3 am, and I'm brushing my teeth. Feeling incredibly lazy, I decide to sit down on the toilet seat. It immediately breaks in half under me. Unbelievable.]
10. Saying hello and goodbye to Argentine girls with a kiss on the cheek.

Buenos Aires, me matas:
1. Saying hello and goodbye to Argentine guys with a kiss on the cheek. I mean, come on.
2. Service. Whether it's a restaurant, a grocery store checkout line, or some government bureaucratic process, service here is unbearably slow. I told myself (and the Harvard group) that I've learned to be more patient here, but it's frankly not true.
3. Argentine food. It's not that the steak isn't tasty (or cheap). It's that there are only about 5 Argentine dishes: steak, empanadas, milanesa, ham and cheese everything, etc. They all taste the same everywhere, they're all a little bland, and they're all on the menu at every single cheap restaurant. America has mastered the art of flavorful, varied, and cheap eats.
4. Dog poop everywhere. It will be nice to be able to look around when I walk down Chicago's streets.
5. No stores are open on Sunday, or on Saturday after 3 pm.
6. Wearing my wallet in my front pocket to ward off pickpockets. It's thrown off my whole pocket-arranging scheme.
7. My cell phone. I have to recharge it with really expensive phone cards like twice a week. It's made out of really cheap plastic, it shut itself off randomly all the time, and I can never hear my calls.
8. Soccer, 24/7. I will admit, I've come to appreciate and enjoy the world's game quite a bit during my time here. But I can't wait for some Sportscenter, some baseball, some football, and maybe even some Ultimate Fighting.
9. Changing bills and the coin shortage. You could have 6 100-peso bills in your wallet, and you're still as good as broke because no place will accept your money and give you change. Also, jealously guard all the coins you can. You need them to ride the buses and they're chronically under-supplied.
10. The schedule. Dinner at 10, bar at midnight, club at 2 am, bed at 6 (7?) (8??). I don't know how these people live this way.

FLYING OUT OF HERE AT 8:30 TONIGHT!!

No Soy un Extraño

In lieu of writing some pretentious, awkward personal statement reflecting on my time here in Argentina, I've decided to do what I do best: quote song lyrics.

Charly García is the king of Argentine rock. Like a Neil Young, but from the opposite end of the Western Hemisphere, he has bounced from group to group, leaving his mark on all of them. He's also a pretty accurate reflection of his home country: a little bit crazy (half of his famous mustache is dyed white), a little bit embarrassing (he's battled cocaine problems for years, and his most recent legal trouble involved a jilted prostitute in Mendoza), but capable of some brilliant and beautiful things.

I've fallen in love with some of his solo stuff from the 80s, particularly the album Clics Modernos ("Modern Clix"). If you hang out with me, I'll probably play it for you when I get home.

Anyways, here's the song in question. I think it reasonably reflects my thoughts on this city:

No Soy un Extraño ("I'm Not a Stranger")

Acabo de llegar, no soy un extraño
Conozco esta ciudad, no es como en los diarios, desde allá
Dos tipos en un bar, se toman las manos
Prenden un grabador y bailan un tango, de verdad
Y yo los miro sin querer mirar, enciendo un faso para despistar
Me quedo piola y empiezo a pensar
Que no hay que pescar dos veces con la misma red
Acabo de mirar las luces que pasan
Acabo de cruzar las plaza, las rayas, y el color
Y siento un aroma poco familiar, alguien se acerca y comienza a hablar
Me quedo piola y digo "que tal"
Vamos a pescar dos veces con la misma red

I just arrived, I'm not a stranger
I know this city, it's not like in the papers from over there
Two guys in a bar, they take each other's hands
They start a tape recorder and dance a tango, truthfully
And I look at them without wanting to look, lighting a joint to throw them off the scent
I feel cool and I start to think
That one needn't fish twice with the same net
I just looked at the lights that pass by
I just crossed the plaza, the lines, and the color
And I feel an unfamiliar aroma, someone approaches and begins to speak
I feel cool and I say, "what's up?"
We're going to fish twice with the same net...

OK so maybe it doesn't make that much sense. But I think they're pretty cool lyrics.

I have two nights left in this country. Hopefully coming tomorrow: 10 things I'll miss about Argentina, and 10 things I'm looking forward to in America.

one thing i love about argentina

it's saturday night (sunday morning??!), and antonio/leticia and i just returned home at the exact same time. four-forty in the morning.

Also

I'm blogging to you from one of my favorite places in this city, Atkinson Movies & Coffee. It's a combination cafe, restaurant, and video store... plus, it obviously has wifi. Aside from brewing up a delicious cafe doble and a pretty good cured ham sandwich, they have a great collection of videos... Argentine classics, silent films, American cult cinema, and Hollywood classics organized by director. I've rented far too many movies from this place in the last couple of weeks--but their selection is so good that I just can't pass up. Now, I'm trying to get my fill of good Argentine movies before I leave. I've seen several good ones, including Un Oso Rojo ("A Red Bear") and El Metodo ("The Method")... both work checking out if you can find them back in the States.

In yet more sporting news, a big Buenos Aires shout-out to Angel Cabrera, Argentine golfer and winner of this weekend's U.S. Open. He's the first Argentine to win a major in 40 years. And whereas Tiger Woods is fit, trim, and could probably play linebacker (well, at least safety), Cabrera, who is known in these parts as "The Duck," is doughy and graying. Like a good Argentine, he is also a chain-smoker, and of course all American media coverage of his win just had to mention how he was puff-puff-puffing away all down the back nine on Sunday.

Spectator Sport

Somehow, I only have two weeks left in this country. Two weeks to realize unfulfilled dreams, make up for promises unkept, embark on a quixotic quest of self-discovery, and get my fill of as much Quilmes as humanly possible.

I made a list of things I want to do here before I leave. Two friends of mine from Glencoe (I’ve delighted in telling people how far we go back—I have known these people since I was six), Mark and Peter, are here for several weeks. Amid spending time at their hostel (the ridiculously-named Chill House—hey, at least it’s not called “Uncomfortably Awkward House”), eating at the finest restaurants, and exploring the ever-maddening club scene, I’ve taken the opportunity of their vacation to cross several items off of my list.

Chief among those was a Boca Juniors soccer game. Boca is the most popular and famous of Argentina’s football clubs, sort of the New York Yankees of the national football scene. Just as the Yankees play in the Bronx but have a Manhattan fan base, Boca Juniors play in the decidedly working-class, dodgy but colorful Boca neighborhood but count as fans many of Argentina’s most rich and famous. They play in the “bombonera,” which means candy box—so-named because the stadium’s high-angled, almost vertical stands make it feel about as cozy as a box of chocolates.

The games have a reputation for being wild affairs, full of drinking/smoking pot/singing/jumping up and down/the occasional stabbing, especially in the “popular” section. Not knowing exactly what I was getting into, and demonstrating an uncharacteristically high level of prudence (but a typically devil-may-care attitude towards spending money), I opted to buy one of those tourist package things. You know, one of those where they pick you up at the hotel (in this case, the Chill House), give you some food, everyone sits together, and then we sing “Kumbaya” on the way back… or something like that.

We get to Boca, where the streets surrounding the stadium have been closed and are already jammed full of screaming fans. After a quick choripan—a delicious, fatty sausage, split down the middle and served on an Italian roll—in a neighborhood joint, we attempt to stay together as we enter the stadium.

Now comes the grossest thing ever. In lieu of any indoor plumbing or even one lousy outhouse, La Bombonera has a more primitive form of waste management—namely, the staircase that thousands of people walk up and down on their way to the stands. We walk into the dank, dark stairwell, and I see pools of standing liquid on the ground. Has it rained recently? I don’t think so… then I catch a whiff of it, and choke back vomit.

(Given my notoriously small bladder, I must admit that I was part of the problem and not part of the solution.)

Anyways, after making it through the piss gauntlet, we find our seats—actually, it was really just a big staircase… not even benches to be found. But that’s ok though, because we couldn’t have sat if we wanted to. The whole popular section, probably 30 rows deep and 50 yards wide, was jam-packed with people. Also, this entire section of the stands was surrounded by eight-foot high barbed wire fences… there’s something to be said for riot control, but I swear I’m a lucky man if I somehow make it out of this country without dying in a fire.

The game finally starts, but not before the field is showered with hundreds of rolls of toilet paper, thousands of flares and smoke bombs are shot off (making already-foggy playing conditions literally unplayable for a good 10 minutes), and an enormous banner—covering the entire popular on the other side of the field—is unveiled for about 3 minutes.

[Quick sports recap: the game was a blowout win for Boca. This was the semifinals of the (*Ahem*… Toyota) Copa Libertadores, the annual international tournament for Latin Ameircan football clubs. They were playing Cúcuta, a Colombian club. Each round of the tournament is a 2-game, home-and-home series.... Boca had lost 3-1 in Colombia, but won 3-0 at home. The interesting thing about this tournament is that home-field advantage is considered so important that every away goal counts as 2 goals. Boca went on to the finals of the Copa Libertadores, where they beat Gremio, a Brazilian club, 3-0 in the Buenos Aires game… meaning Gremio has to win either 3-0 or 5-1 at home in order to even force overtime/penalty kicks.]

The popular was a nonstop onslaught of cheering, jumping up and down, and jeering of all referees and opposing players as “hijos de puta” (basically, “sons of whores”). Despite its notorious reputation, I didn’t feel particularly unsafe at all when I was in the stands. All the fans seemed remarkably friendly, as long as I was wearing the Boca Juniors scarf I bought for 10 pesos, that is. The only part that was really awful was getting out of the stadium. Apparently in order to prevent the popular fans from clashing with the opposing team’s fans, they empty the entire stadium out first, essentially locking us inside the barbed wire fences. Despite knowing we have nowhere to go, the fans continue to press forward, leading to one of the most uncomfortably claustrophobic half-hours of my life. Then this sea of people had to make its way through piss gauntlet... when I finally go out of La Bombonera, I breathed an enormous sigh of fresh air and relief.

The Boca game was incredibly fun. In other sporting news, I have discovered one of the most fun places in Buenos Aires… thankfully, only a couple weeks before I leave. Why “thankfully,” you ask? Because this great place is the hipódromo, a.k.a. the horse races. It’s totally unlike a racetrack in the States… there’s no grandstand, you just walk right up to a big open patio with some picnic tables and stairs for more panoramic viewing, and place your bets at any of several free-standing kiosks. You can stand literally 3 feet from where the horses cross the finish line… they could practically kick up mud into your face. It’s really fun and really relaxing (I can’t even imagine how great it is in the summer)… I went twice in one week. But I promise I don’t have a gambling problem or anything!! I’m betting 5 or 10 pesos at a time, and both times I’ve just about broken even. A great, great way to spend an afternoon.

Santiago, Belatedly

Santiago, Chile is an interesting place. Whereas Buenos Aires is a huge, sprawling mess that's almost aggressively disorganized, Santiago is relatively compact, clean, and very modern. Also, the whole "good airs" thing from which Buenos Aires gets its name does not apply at all to Santiago. The city sits in a valley, surrounded by the Andes on three sides, and is plagued by terrible fog and smog. The three days we were there, I think I saw the sun for about four hours.

By we, I mean my fellow Harvard study abroad-ers. This was our big reunion, the first time we had been together as a group since our two-week orientation all the way back in February. And I'm happy to report that everyone got along quite well. We had a highly-planned, structured weekend, so frankly there wasn't too much of an opportunity for us not to get along. Anyhow, this group was fine, but I've come to realize that I have a big problem with large group travel in general. I'm a pretty go-get-'em, on-the-ball type of guy, especially when it comes to traveling, and that demeanor simply does not translate well to large group travel. On the contrary, you have to operate under the logic of the "Lowest Common Denominator"--in other words, you're only as fast as your slowest person.

But back to Santiago. It reminds me of a mid-sized city in the Western United States... a Phoenix, a Seattle, a Denver (thanks, DK). Lots of modern steel-and-glass affairs, about 20-30 stories in height, set far back from the wide streets. All this modern development is a product of Chile's vigorous embrace of export-oriented market capitalism under the military regime of Augusto Pinochet, and the continuance of a "pragmatic" economic policy after the return to democracy in 1989. For the past two decades, Chile has been the economic star of Latin America, deftly avoiding the crises the befell the continent in the late 80s, mid 90s, and in 2001. Part of this is due to Chile's status as the world's biggest copper exporter... having a sought-after natural resource, when managed well, can do wonders for an economy. But I think another part of Chile's economic success is due to Chileans themselves. Whereas Argentineans are passionate, emotional, and probably a bit irrational, Chileans struck me as reserved and conservative--a sort of Catholic version of Max Weber's famous "Protestant Ethic" that is the key to capitalist success.

All this economic success, and a forceful orientation towards the world economy, also means that Santiago is more expensive and much more Americanized than Buenos Aires. The only American chains in Buenos Aires are McDonald's and Burger King, whereas Santiago is chock full of Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Hut, Domino's, Subway, Taco Bell... I won't tell you how many of these chains I frequented in my three days there.

To be honest, when you combine the gray, overcast sky, the nondescript glass-and-steel affairs, and the preponderance of American chains, Santiago struck me as a bit of a soulless place. It would be a very nice place to live, with great infrastructure and public services, but it frankly was not the most exciting place to visit... great subway system though.

A few notes about our activities there:

• Right after arriving, we headed for lunch at the central fish market. Really wonderful seafood in Santiago. We whet our appetites with Parmesan-crusted razorback clams, then I had delicious grilled eel as my main entree. It was wonderful to eat some fish after months of beef and pork in Buenos Aires.
• We took a tour of one of Pablo Neruda's three houses, a wonderfully whimsical place called La Chascona--it basically means wild-haired, and was named after Neruda's mistress (and later third wife), for whom the house was built. A sort of cross between tree house and dry-docked ship, the place is a testament to Neruda's raging ego (there is art incorporating his famous profile all over the house) as well as his status as a great collector--from Russian dolls to African masks, and everything in between. The place is chock full of perfect period pieces from the 50s, 60s, and 70s--space-age egg chairs, an old TV that he turned into a silverware cabinet, etc. We also saw his Nobel Prize (something Buenos Aires' native son Borges never won, bitterly), which was cool. Really a wonderful tour.
• Saturday, we went up into the mountains that surround the city for a day of team-building/leadership exercises on a high ropes course. I was skeptical, but it turned out to a great experience and real challenge. Strapped into harnesses, we walked on wires, climbed up a "ladder" wherein each rung was about 7 feet apart (really, really difficult), and rappelled a bit. I was sore for the next three days, but it was worth it.

In other news, I'm finally getting down to my end-of-the-semester schoolwork. This will be interrupted tomorrow, however, by the arrival of friends Mark and Peter from Chicago. We're planning on going to a Boca Juniors game tomorrow night, which should be amazingly fun. I'll tell you all about it, sometime.

That's Gross, Man

Post about my trip to Santiago is still forthcoming. Just wanted to let you all know that my culinary horizons have expanded during my trip to the culo del mundo (look it up).

First, the not-gross stuff: I've actually learned to eat tomatoes. Like, raw, fresh tomatoes. I still don't want to marry them or anything, but they're pretty OK. This means I don't have to pick them out of 99.9% of the world's salads anymore. Family, your days of mooching all my tomatoes are officially over.

Next, the semi-gross stuff: I don't keep Kosher or anything, but me and ham have never exactly been bosom buddies. But sometimes necessity begets begrudging tolerance, and that's the case with the other white meat down here in Buenos Aires. It's just about the only lunch meat there is. Go to the deli at any grocery store, and you'll find about a thousand types of Miss Piggy staring you right in the face. Seriously, people, get on the turkey revolution! Anyways, the ham here is ok: and it better be, because I am forced to eat it about 4 times a week (sorry, rabbi). It comes either cooked or raw. I like raw (ok, cured), because it's like prosciutto but not quite as good. Anyways, I'm putting a personal moratorium on ham consumption the minute I touch down in Chicago.

Now the really upchuck-y stuff. They may be racist, image-obsessed, and utterly out of touch with nature, but Argentines share one thing in common with Native Americans or "First Nations": they use every last sick, nasty part of their prized cows. Walk into any parrilla, and you can order tongue, esophagus, balls, you name it. While I haven't had the stomach to try all of these "delicacies," I literally had stomach. Today, for lunch. It's called mondongo, and it's basically tripe stew. It was chewy and suspiciously off-white, but actually reasonably tasty.

The other gross thing I've eaten is morcilla, which is blood sausage. Basically, they cook off a bunch of cow blood until it coagulates into a paste-like substance, then stuff it into a casing made of God-knows-what. While I've eaten it twice, I really can't handle it. It's super-rich and really heavy and always makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Oh, I also had grilled eel when I was in Santiago. But that was freakin' delicious.