Back in the U.S.S.A.

I miss: the beautiful blue Argentine skies, the way the city always smelled like asado and jasmine, the subte & the buses, sitting in a cafe for hours and hours, the constant noise and energy, walking everywhere, the pretty porteño accent, getting into funny conversations with strangers all the time, getting home at sunrise, 6 peso vodka, alfajores, my students, my friends, everything...
I love about being home: drivers that aren't actively trying to kill every pedestrian they see and that stop to let you cross the street, ellipticals at the gym, mexican food, family, friends, my dog, zero humidity even on hot days, the Barack Obama sign on every house & car where I live, how cheap restaurants & grocery stores are compared to BA, soy milk, and a million other things.

Thanks to everyone for reading this whole time! I haven't decided if I'll keep writing, since it won't really be the Buenos Diaries anymore. But keep checking back. Besos to all.
xx

Happy gnocchi day! Feliz ñoquis del 29!

In case you didn't know, the 29th of each month in Argentina is Gnocchi Day! Can you imagine a better holiday? It comes once a month, not just once a year, and the whole purpose is to celebrate food. More details & quite a nice little article here. The bottom line is that we eat ñoquis on the 29th because of something having to do with payday, either that on the 29th you are poor and waiting for your paycheck, and flour & potatoes are cheap, or that you're celebrating that you got your paycheck, or that you put money under your plate because it's financially auspicious. Something like that. Somewhere along the line all the supersticions mixed in my head and I started to believe that you are actually supposed to put gnocchis under your pillow on the night of the 29th for good luck and prosperity, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. It sounds messy.
Anyway, E & I are going to Las Violetas, my favorite favorite old school BA café, for my last Gnocchi Day in Argentina. ¡Buen provecho!

And some more pictures of gnocchi to get you in the mood...

Gone Fishing...

I'm on vacation! Vacation in Buenos Aires. Taking my last couple weeks in this beautiful city to relax, say good-byes, and scamper around with my beautiful and intrepid friend E who has come wayyyy down South to visit me, and try not to get too sad about leaving.

p.s. it is obviously a conspiracy that Spring finally came just as I'm about to leave and the city could not look prettier. Le sigh.

Ch-ch-changes

I think of myself as someone who doesn't like change. But it seems that I actually have a strange addiction to it, as hard as it is. It's scary but exhilirating to not know what's going to happen next. All good things come to an end, and somehow I suddenly have less than a month left in Buenos Aires.
Yesterday was my last day of work as an English teacher. It's funny - I don't feel as sad or happy or anything as I expected. The hardest thing was saying goodbye to my first beginner student ever, Marcela. I've gotten close to a lot of my students but for some reason with Marcela it was more emotional, maybe because I've really seen her on this whole process of learning a language and I was so proud of her. Despite being completely different (me a random aimless foreigner here and her a mom in her forties with a family and office job and everything) we really clicked and could legitimately have fun and be silly together. In our last class we got close to tears laughing at how much we both hated The English Patient (Marcela: "Like, WHEN he die??") And then we actually both got close to tears again saying goodbye.
I've been trying my best to not think about leaving but for the first time today I did feel a little homesick for California, for family, the way the streets and the people look, how the air smells, and I got a little excited to go home.
Meanwhile I'm just going to appreciate every last minute I get to spend in this city - the way the sky looks and how the elevators smell (if you've been here you know what I mean, they ALL have the same smell), castellano, subte, dulce de leche & asado, the energy and pulse of the city. And as my friend Nina says, Buenos Aires isn't going anywhere. I can always come back.

Unsolved mysteries: Argentines & stairs

After almost a year here, I'm pretty much convinced that Argentines have some genetic/cultural phobia of climbing stairs. Exhibit A: I've been here for nearly a year and I've lived in 5 different apartment buildings, always on a pretty low floor. During that time I have seen someone other than my foreign roommates & myself taking the stairs... 2 times. Ever. Seriously. Three if you count the time in Almagro when the power went out and the elevators weren't working. This just does not make sense to me since it actually takes longer to wait for the 17th century elevator in my current apartment building than to climb one or two flights of stairs.
And it's definitely not laziness or a relaxed cultural attitude towards time. Something hilarious I experience every single morning on the subte is that, as people approach the Florida metro stop, everyone stands up and clusters around the door so they can get off the train as quickly as possible (me included.) What's hilarious about this is that the crowd pushes out of the door, sprints to the bottom of the escalator, and then - stands still for the ride up. Yeah, you know how at home the non-walkers on the escalator stand to the right side so everyone else can pass them? Not here. You have to be the first person on that escalator if you want to actually walk up it.
Which is cool. It doesn't bother me because like there's anywhere that I really need to be 10 seconds earlier that desperately. But I mean, just totally out of curiousity... what is that??
I work in a 28 floor office building here, and I'm sorry, but really people? Can you not just take the stairs from the first to second floor? In the United States, it's kind of impolite, but moreover embarrassing, to take the elevator only one or two floors, unless you have a broken ankle or a heavy suitcase or something. No?

Mystery. But I love it. It's silly and endearing. Besooooooos!

Down the rabbit hole

“What if I should fall right through the center of the earth... oh, and come out the other side, where people walk upside down?"
So I didn't fall down the rabbit hole - I came on a 747. But Buenos Aires does feel like Wonderland sometimes. It's so crazy and exaggerated and temporal and my life here is so changeable and accelerated. It's a different reality every weekend. And yes, there are people who want to help you, people who want to trick you, and people where you can't tell the difference. It can feel like a big urban Disneyland with different themed cities and towns, where the character of the city changes completely from one block to another. And you have to abandon the idea that things should make sense all the time, because they don't.
Why the sentimental shrooms-esque rambling? I guess because I'm leaving Buenos Aires in 6 weeks. I don't even want to write it down, because then it will be true. Now that I know I'm leaving so soon, I'm taking a closer look at everything around me, and becoming a little anxious and sad that my life here is slipping away from me and coming to an end. Even though I've been here almost a year, I feel like I've only begun to scratch the surface. And of course, because it's the law of the universe, I've finally met someone, just as I'm about to leave. C'est la vie, right? Maybe I'll be back, maybe not. I have a feeling I just might wake up one day in Northern California with a Buenos Aires-withdrawal induced panic attack and flee the United States again. Of course, if McRepublican wins this November, I'll be too ashamed to leave the country and will have to hide my face from the world for 4 years. Or buy a lot of maple-leaf clothing to wear when I travel.
I don't remember how the story ends. Alice finds her way out of the rabbit hole and back home, but is she happy when she gets there?

I ♥ Argentina, reason #5,786

The schedule.

So, this morning I stumbled out of bed at 9:30 a.m. and slunk into the kitchen to make a cup of life-saving mate cocido. I don't do well in the mornings. I don't really even like to talk to anyone until I've been awake for at least an hour. Anyway, the Argentine mom in the apartment where I live was in the kitchen, took a look at me, and said, "It's way too early to wake up, isn't it?" (Although in Spanish.) Now. It wasn't sarcastic. What a nice, nice thing for an adult to say. Yeah, I still don't think of myself as an adult, maybe because I don't think I'll ever reach the age where I like to wake up early and give younger people a hard time about sleeping late. I love that about BA. At home if you look tired in the morning, or whine about waking up early, people will probably tease you or make you feel lazy. But here it's like, duh, no one likes to wake up in the morning. It's a given. Isn't that how it should be? Does anyone really like waking up early everyday? I think I've met like two of those people in my life and I felt kind of uneasy around them.
The schedule here is just so much more perfect for how I like to live - waking up late, working till late, eating dinner late, having long lunches and long coffee breaks. You have time to relax when you get home in the evening, because you don't have to go to bed at 11 p.m. to wake up at 6 the next morning. Of course, it can get a bit out of hand with the nightlife, and it's a problem when the only moments of daylight you see are in the cab ride home at sunrise. But having a job kind of prevents that problem from happening during the week.

Up next: I also love Argentina & Argentines because the whole country seems to have a crazily intense sweet tooth. And they are not apologizing for it. I think you need to be raised on loads of dulce de leche from a very young age to have that kind of tolerance for sugar.

Plastic Surgery: Why?

I've written about a lot of things on here, but never before about plastic surgery. Buenos Aires is the capital of plastic surgery, and keep in mind that I did live in Los Angeles for 4 years. Maybe the plastic surgery here is just more noticeable. But whatever it is, it's not pretty. I just don't get it. I'm not someone who judges people for wanting to look good and even for going to extreme measures to do so. Personally I hate even going to the doctor and so probably wouldn't have surgery for purely aesthetic reasons, but I think if something really bothers you, and plastic surgery can fix it, then go ahead. That said, a lot of the plastic surgery here is not good. The most common thing is a huge, stretched-out and often lopsided mouth. You'll often see this huge mouth on the same face as eyes that look like the extra skin has just been clipped away and then sewn back together. Yesterday I was in the elevator at the office building where my institute it, a huge office building that probably half the population of microcentro works in. I was standing next to an ex-famous Argentine actress from the 1980's and I could literally see the line in front of her ear where her facelift ended. Why, why, why? It's not about looking prettier, or younger. It's a really strange aesthetic that I don't understand. And what's more, when you're talking to someone with really obvious plastic surgery, it's so distracting and embarassing, and it's like a car accident where you don't mean to stare but you can't look away.
It's also pretty questionable that 15-year-old girls routinely get boob jobs as the ultimate quinceañera gift and that one of my students who is 21 just got liposuction. We think we're obsessed with looks in the United States but it just doesn't compare to here. It's strange and sad, and especially in a country with so many naturally beautiful people.

Photos: Argentina's most famous plastic surgery divas, Susana Giménez & Moria Casán

Talento Argentino

Talento Argentino may be the greatest show of our time. I've never watched America's Got Talent, but I can't imagine that it holds a candle to the Argentine version. I searched youtube for a video of the guy to the left, "El Rey," but unfortunately couldn't find one. All I can tell you is that I laughed until I cried. And well, I do that pretty often, but everyone else I was with laughed until they cried as well. Judge Catherine (below) was obviously moved to tears as well. But not by El Rey - by a group of breakdancing kids from the street. South America really does silly reality tv shows a lot better than the United States. We have a lot of trashy shows about famous-for-being-famous people where nothing happens (The Hills/Girls Next Door*) while South America has a lot of shows that just make absolutely no sense, but in a completely awesome and unapologetic way. There is usually some vague gameshow premise, but, in addition to the host, there will also be, like, a random guy in a full-size panda suit, a male model wearing tiny tightie-whities, a squirrel, and a geisha wandering around, or possibly dancing. Or a guy with a comb-over dressed in a hot pink unitard with huge fake boobs stuffed into the chest (picture the Principal in Billy Madison.) I'm not making any of that up, I saw all of those things on one show alone last night. And then they all jump into a swimming pool at the end. Amazing.
*That doesn't mean I don't watch The Hills & The Girls Next Door. Holly's my favorite.
**(both photos from talentosargentinos.com)

Blah teaching English blah blah

So, I just got home from teaching English for 11 hours straight without breaks. Which seems a bit illegal, but.. Come to think of it, everything about my employment here is under the table, so whatever. I'm alternately so sick of thinking about/talking about teaching English but then it is kind of the majority of my life here - all of my friends are either English teachers or students. And it has such lovely moments. Like today, I had a new student who is a total beginner, doesn't know how to say hello or how are you, who I was kind of dreading, but then he turned out to be totally sweet and adorable AND, has one of the most amazingly hilarious situations that I have ever heard - after about an hour of struggling through English we took a break and switched to Spanish so we could get to know each other and chat. He showed me a picture of his beautiful wife and three gorgeous daughters and told me that they are all English teachers. Except the youngest, who is fifteen, but she speaks English fluently. I guess they like to chat in English when they want to leave him out of the conversation! He is also very well-traveled, so I can't imagine how he's managed to escape English for so long.
Anyway, after that class I had a student who makes Jude Law look like Quasimodo, who I kind of try to behave normally around but get distracted by his gorgeous green eyes while he's doing the TOEFL speaking section. He's the student who I had a running joke about with the director of my institute, because he has been my student for weeks and weeks and had never brought up his girlfriend - which doesn't sound strange, but if you are studying for the TOEFL, you pretty much have to discuss every aspect of your life with the teacher, and he is a family friend of the director so we knew he had a girlfriend. I like to think it was because he was flirting with me, but who knows. He finally did mention his girlfriend, last week, in the sentence, "My girlfriend's dad is the president of Banco Nacional." Guess I can't really compete with Señorita moneybags, le sigh.
And speaking of my institute, it's totally become like a little home to me, which is really lucky and really rare for English teachers in BA. Most never meet another teacher at their institute and one girl I know picks up her salary from the institute's director once a month on a designated street corner. Safe and classy. But my institute is like a fun, cozy little clique of girls and women. There is hilarious Lili, the recepcionist, who jokes (?) about loving much younger men and recently called one of the students "feo pero, feo feo!" Pobrecito.
There's always celebrity gossip on the computer, various chocolate and candy, and someone to giggle with when the hot students come and go. "Bonbones!" as Lili would say.
There are things I love, and don't want to leave. But then, I kind of remember that I am getting paid so little that it feels more like volunteer work than a real job. Saving money is not an option. It's too bad that that that matters so much, but it does. C'est la vie of being an English teacher.

P.s. (unrelated) Sorry, this is like some horrible stream of consciousness creative writing assignment, but I'm exhausted and ranting. So here's some more: I've been kind of playing the 'naive foreigner' card with this whole political situation, because I don't want to offend anyone that I talk to, but I'm over it. Not that anyone in the United States will know what the heck I'm talking about, BUT - in my opinion, Julio Cobos saved this country's ass, for the meantime at least. If that tax law had passed, there would have been a total crisis. A disaster. I'm sick of seeing all these Pro-Kirchnerista posters about how he's a traitor and "real democracy" would have been to blindly do what his party told him to. Are they serious? The Argentine girl I live with is Kirchnerista and was telling me that it is the president's right to do what she wants and it should be that way, and that the farmers make a ridiculous amount of money. Well. I kind of just said, claro, claro, and smiled when we were talking, because I don't want mala onda, but! I so completely disagree with that. The whole point of a federalist system is that the executive branch doesn't have all the power and can't just act on its own, unchecked. And well, maybe the farmers make a ton of money, but shouldn't the taxes be distributed by income and not by industry then?

Okey. Ya basta. Besoooos...

Before Sunrise

I stepped outside and into the city this morning, and something was different. The heartbeat, the flow, the mood and molecules of the city had changed.
All because of something that happened in the middle of the night, 7 blocks from where I was sleeping.
Last night was a big, big moment in Argentine politics & history. Whether it was good or bad depends on your point of view.
Here's some very, very condensed (and mildly one-sided) background information: in March, la presidenta CFdK wanted to raise taxes (from 35 to 45%) on the farmers, and they were like, no, we think we'll strike instead and she was like, well I'm not negotiating with you people, and they were like, fine, we'll just strike forever then, and also perhaps you should stop flaunting how crazily wealthy you are and how you never wear the same outfit twice while you are chastizing us for not wanting to redistribute wealth and help the poor. Or something like that.
So anyway, the proposed tax law, which was very unpopular and totally polarizing the country and becoming a very sad and seemingly deadlocked situation, was passed in Congress and went to a vote in the Senate last night. The Pro-K's were clustered in Plaza Congreso and the ruralistas in Palermo waiting for the results. The Senate debated for 18 hours and came to a tie at around 4 a.m., so it was up to vice-prez Julio Cobos to decide. No pressure there...
And then, in this totally heartbreakingly brave speech right out of some old Hollywood, Mr. Smith goes to Washington-esque movie, Cobos votes against the president, against his own party, and for the campo, saying, "Some say I have to go along [with the president] but my heart says something else. I don't think this is a reason to put the country, the government, and social peace in risk. This is one of the most difficult moments in my life... I don't believe it makes sense to pass a law that is not a solution to this conflict. History will judge me, I don't know how. I'm a family man like all of you and I have a responsibility in this case... this doesn't mean I'm betraying anyone.
May history judge me, my vote is against."*
*Which all sounded better in Castellano.
I don't pretend to know every detail, or even most details and information, about this. But I do know what most of my students and friends here have told me, and that is: this is democracy. They feel for the first time in awhile that democracy is alive and kicking in Argentina, and that the federalist system is working. Someone dared to speak out against los K. The mood on the street just feels a little lighter, a little happier, a little more proud.
Also, I totally have a crush on Julio Cobos now.

P.s. just to clarify, not everyone in Argentina/Buenos Aires is happy about what happened - far from it. The feeling I have about what happened is just what I've gotten from talking with my students and other people and trying to understand a very complicated situation as best I can.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

...with a little political tension thrown in to make things interesting.

"Don't fuck with the food."
i.e. don't screw around with the campo, where all the food is produced.

You can buy maiz to feed the palomas...
Also known as pigeons. Kind of like feeding sewer rats?
I don't know, pigeons scare me. And I'll never understand how in Spanish the same word is used for pigeons and doves.

Dancing

I dare you to watch this without smiling:



More info here.

Happy birthday, baby!

Happy birthday Canada (July 1st), USA (July 4th), and Argentina (July 9th.) I guess something about July just makes people want their independence. Even though yesterday didn't include the excesses of red, white & blue, barbeque-hopping, microbrew-drinking and watching the 3 Bay Area fireworks shows that a 4th of July at home would have, it was still fun. I was the only United States American in the group, but we were all American-Americans, so we toasted to that, and wondered what it would be like to be from a country that was never a colony.
Sidenote: a lot of people ask me if it feels Anti-United States down here. Well, it doesn't. Not on a personal level. Aside from some interesting assumptions that all Yanquis are rolling in money, most people I meet don't generalize. I mean, yeah, they hate George Bush and Paris Hilton, but who doesn't? Apart from one very ignorant 18-year-old from Holland (who had never visited the United States) saying, "McDonald's is not culture," most people realize that we are a huge country, with a lot of different types of people and places, and while we have our share of close-minded, xenophobic people, so does every country. Being here has made me more patriotic than I was when I left. Just watch, next year on the 4th of July, I'll be the one in a homemade dress constructed from an American flag, swigging Budweiser. Well, maybe not Budweiser, yeccchhh, pero me entendés.
On a related note, mate seems to be a very good hangover cure.

Les mando un beso a todos!

San Telmo's Fire

Yes, I am a huge dork. But I've been waiting to use that horrible play on words, somewhere, for months. How is there not a bar in San Telmo with that name yet? (If you're out of the loop/ weren't born in the 1980's, I'm referring of course to St. Elmo's Fire, a brat pack Andrew McCarthy/Ally Sheedy movie from 1985.) Anyway, I took my camera out today, something I always forget to do, and took some pictures of my neighborhood and around San Telmo. Then I saw the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life. Here we go:

My favorite Subte line, Linea A, and the Casa Rosada.

Pan relleno - a HUGE fabulous piece of homemade bread stuffed with tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella. Against my better judgement, I ate almost the whole thing.

"Live with passion every instant of your life. Be happy, dream, and together we'll build a different future."

Plaza de Mayo

Av. Roque Sáenz Peña & the obelisco

Espanglish is espectacular

Who doesn't love Spanglish? There's nothing better than a conversation between people who both speak Spanish & English fluently (or close to it) because you can pick and choose the best and most convenient words from each language - words like "cozy" or "upset" that don't have perfect translations in Spanish, or like "regalar" or "tener ganas" that lack a perfect equivalent in English.

Exstrangers = strangers + extranjeros
What pass? = awful direct translation of ¿Que pasa?*
*Popularized by Moria Casán on Bailando por un sueño (the Argentine version of Dancing with the Stars)
Milagrous = milagroso/a + miraculous
It has sense = tener sentido + it makes sense
Living = living room
Ejemple = ejemplo + example
Fashion = in fashion/fashionable (Ex. Starbucks is so popular because it's fashion here.)

9 months in Argentina and my Spanish is still not fluent, my English is increasingly stranger and less coherent every day. But my Spanglish is just perfect. So much so that it interferes with my teaching. I think teachers who don't speak Spanish are probably better teachers in some ways, because if their students say something incomprehensible, they will simply not understand. Whereas I now automatically translate it into Spanish and back into English in my head and often don't even realize I've done it or that what the student said was wrong. When 90% of the conversations you have in English are with non-native speakers, you get so accustomed to certain mistakes that they stop sounding odd.

The most common mistakes are little things like saying "career" instead of degree, translating directly from "carrera," or getting confused by other false cognates like support & soportar, sensible & sensible, assist & asistir, etc., which sound alike but have completely different meanings. There are some pretty funny ones, like molestarse, which means "to bother" in Spanish, and translates to sentences like "I don't mean to molest you, but..." or the confusion between earn and win, which are the same word in Spanish, so you hear things like, "He wins 15 pesos every hour."

I don't have so many good examples of the same thing happening with English speakers trying to speak Spanish... Except one beloved incident that occured with W while we were living in Palermo last year. We went to a restaurant and I ordered steak & mashed potatoes, and he ordered a milanesa with french fries. The waiter explained that that particular dish was actually meant for two people. W then gestured at me and said something like, "Bueno, lo mismo," as in, Okay, I'll have what she's having in that case. And then added, "Y con papas fritas." Doubtless, when our orders came, I got my steak and W got the Milanesa and french fries for two, with an extra side of french fries. Try, if you can, to imagine the hysterical laughter, to the point of tears, that followed, thinking about what the waiter must have thought. Like, Oh really? That dish is for two? Perfect. Could I have some extra french fries with that?

Anyway. I love Spanglish. On another note, I also love winter in Bs As if for no other reason than the vendors on the street selling hot sugared almonds - I've never tried them but it has to be the best smell in the entire world.

xoxo

101 National Holidays

Good God, Argentina has a ridiculous amount of public holidays. It seems like at least every other week there is some holiday either devoted to one of the big names in Argentine history (Belgrano, San Martín, etc.) or something Catholic. Tomorrow is Día de la Bandera (Flag Day.) So are there really more national holidays in Argentina than the United States? Yes. Thanks to Wikipedia: The United States has 10 national holidays, while Argentina has 15. The UK has only 8 and Israel, apparently, has 24.
I know, you're thinking, that's awesome! Lots of holidays = good! But. First, I get paid hourly, not on salary, so a public holiday means either a day of missed pay or that I have to somehow arrange with my students to squeeze that day's classes into my schedule for the rest of the week. Second, holidays are usually spent with family in Arg, and these are the days that being an expat is kind of sad. Even my friends who have Argentine boyfriends/husbands, and therefore are much more integrated into Argentine family life, say they find these days more or less sad and depressing. On these days, you miss being around people over the age of 25, who have some semblance of stability in their life, and you remember the little miscellaneous comforts of home like having baking ingredients around all time (not just buying them each time you decide to make cookies) and having a newspaper delivered. You know, a real home.
I guess I've been feeling extra transient lately, both because I just got back from a trip home, and because another group of friends has left - the life of an expat is cycling through people who come here on vacation or travel and leave after a few months. After a while, you get a bit jaded and don't really want to invest time into these people, because as cool as they may be, they won't be around for long. And Argentine friends are fantastic, but don't really understand what it's like to live here as an extranjero.
Well. Off to commiserate with a fellow expat chica from Canada. You'll find us drowning our sorrows in locro and Malbec somewhere in Palermo.

I ♥ BA

That had to be the title because I was kind of having doubts about how much I loved BA. Well, not really, but more like I forgot while I was away. Because I was home, where everything is so much easier, it's all in my own language, there's Mexican food and the milk tastes normal, and there are trees and lawns and backyards everywhere. So much is taken for granted. But now I'm back, and I remember why I love it so much here. Even though it's chaotic and crowded and insane and there is no spicy food, there is something magical about this city. It's like a crazy urban Disneyland. It's not for everyone, but once you've lived here, you can live anywhere.

I do have one complaint, more about the entire Southern hemisphere than just Buenos Aires, and that is: winter doesn't work without winter holidays. Winter arrived while I was away and now the air is clear and crisp outside and it's warm and cozy inside, and you get to wear scarves and gloves, and I really like all that. I love winter. But I keep thinking to myself, Christmas is just around the corner, and then it's like, oh wait, no, it's June. At home winter is synonymous with Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's, lots of big holidays, big parties, cooking big meals, seeing friends & family. Christmas doesn't work as a summer holiday. I've witnessed it. Santa Claus just looks silly wearing a fur-lined velvet suit in 100 degree heat.
It gives me seasonal vertigo being down here, but I guess that won't be changing anytime soon.

Anyway, I still love it. And now, there's a Starbucks in BA!!! I thought it was an urban legend that Starbucks was coming, but it's true, I saw it with my own eyes. And Argentines, it turns out, love Starbucks even more than we do, because there was a line around the block.

Below: pretty pictures! From before I left but I never got around to posting them.

Oui Oui.

Gorgeous dog in Boca.

Even the elephants live in style. Bs As Zoo.

Gone Fishin'

Well kids, I'm on vacation! Not in Kauai as the picture suggests, but somewhere just as good, home! New York & back home to California on the 28th. I'll probably be too busy shopping at Target and drinking huge To Go iced soy lattes from Starbucks to write much. Also trying to order in Spanish and marveling at how big everything is. Back in BA in June.
Besoooooos!

Working for vacation

Current theme song: Cibo Matto's Working for vacation from Stereo Type A
"Feeling wrong cuz the days are too long/counting heartbeats, 72 in a minute..." Go download, you!

Anyway, I'm going on vacation next week! On holiday, as my very properly and Britishly trained students would say. For the first time in my life, I'm going on a vacation to the United States. One week in New York and around, then one week at home in the beautiful Bay Area, in my beloved Golden State. It goes without saying that I am the most excited to see my family and friends (and dog and cat.)

Apart from that, I'm counting down the days till I can:

• Communicate effortlessly.
• Eat at Intermezzo, Cheeseboard, Gordo's, Cafe Raj, Zachary's, Cactus, SF Japantown, the list goes on and on. And yes, get a huge decaf soy latte at Starbucks. I miss that too.
  
• And, eat spicy food. Actually spicy. In case you don't know, 99% of Argentines that I've met can't eat spicy food and melodramatically fan their mouths and make desperate faces when they eat, like, a salad with a little black pepper sprinkled on it.
• Drink a local microbrew IPA on the patio at Jupiter, Raleigh's, or Triple Rock
  
• Lay in the sun in my backyard (because it's almost summer at home!!!)
• Take the dog for a run at the Berkeley Marina and watch the fog roll in
• Go to Safeway and see no less than 15 people I went to high school with and/or their parents
• Wander through the UCB campus and end with a coffee at Strada
• Do my own laundry, in my own house, for free! *Well, okay, I kind of need to edit that, since I just had a HUGE bag of laundry washed and dried for only 9 pesos. And before you think I'm all spoiled, sending my laundry out, that's the only way to get your laundry done in BA. I've never seen a self-service laundromat, and it's dirt cheap to have it done for you, because, unlike in Santiago de Chile where they charge by the kilo, here they charge by the bag, no matter how big or small. And it comes back warm, folded neatly and smelling just like fresh laundry should. Anyway.
  

What I think I'll miss most about BA while I'm gone:

• Kisses! I love, love, love the excessive amount of cheek kissing that goes on in this culture.
• The colectivos. That's not sarcastic, I will really miss the unapologetic craziness of this system. Especially now that I've discovered the 140 bus line, painted lipstick red, doing their best to out-crazy all the other lines and drivers, and give you an exhilarating brush with death every time you ride. Not bad for just 90 centavos.
• How beautiful, entertaining, ridiculous, lively & chaotic, and convenient the city is.
  
• Gorgeous Argentine men in business suits (just being honest, okay...)
• Constant public transportation problems meaning you ALWAYS have a good excuse for being late
• Hearing Spanish everywhere and therefore being able to relax and tune out other people's conversations in public places more easily than I can with English
• My adorable students! (The good ones.)
• The sky. I don't know, the sky here is something special, it's extra blue and pretty

What I won't miss:

• Lazy waiters who disappear after they bring your food and test your morals by making it too easy to dine & ditch (hacer un pagadios)
  
• Crazy inflation so you never know how much a Coke Light is gonna cost
• The occasional student who puts no effort into classes and makes me feel like every class is a bad first date
• Being asked, ¿De dónde sos? every time I open my mouth. Or people who immediately assume I am a tourist and don't take the time to realize that I can actually speak and understand Spanish, despite my accent.
• My horrible gym with its 18th century Brazilian treadmills

I just read this over and realized that my writing has a bit of a non-native English speaker feel to it these days. Pero bueno, no hace falta que escriba perfectamente aquí. Anyway, I'm tired after a long day of not working (all classes cancelled) and need to go chill out with some friends over a Quilmes, some pizza & faina. That's something else I'll miss.

Luego, mis amores!

I heart teaching English

Ahh... Some days I love being an English teacher. Obviously I love it because most of my students are so fun and lovable, but I also appreciate weeks like this one, where, for example, in the last three days I had 7 classes scheduled, but only had to teach 3 of them. There is a wonderful rule among the language institutes of Buenos Aires that if a student cancels less than 24 hours before the class, the teacher gets paid regardless. If a student doesn't show up for class, the teacher should wait 30 minutes and then is free to go (and of course, gets paid.) This is a completely necessary rule, since most students are so flaky (especially the ones whose companies pay for their lessons) and it makes teaching much nicer and more relaxing. At first I was annoyed when students cancelled while I was in the Subte on the way to their class, or stepping through the front door to their office. Or when students just completely didn't show up. Now, I've been outside of the United States long enough to have almost overcome that innate Yanqui compulsion towards organization and professionalism. Who needs it? A cancelled class means 30 - 40 free pesos and a lot of free time. Also, since I would have already prepped for that class, there's no prep to be done for the next one.
Teaching English is a pretty amazing gig if you think about it. No, the pay is not good. But there are some pretty incredible upsides, like abundant work and constant job offers, the most laid-back job interviews I have ever experienced, and the ability to set your own schedule (I don't work before 1 p.m. It's like a dream come true.) And the cancellations are nice too.
Which is why, on days like today, I have time to relax in my perfect new apartment and chat in Spanish about cultural differences between Argentina and Chile and how to make Lemon Pie, go to the completely ghetto gym down the street and try to figure out the treadmills (all Brazilian, all in Portuguese), and post stuff here. Like this poem by Borges, that I love, love love, it totally captures something about the essence of Buenos Aires and how it feels when you accidentallly stumble onto some perfect beautiful little street, with old and crumbling buildings and laundry hung on the balconies, and it reminds you why you love it here.

Calle Desconocida

En esa hora en que la luz
tiene una finura de arena,
di con una calle ignorada,
abierta en noble anchura de terraza,
cuyas cornisas y paredes mostraban
colores blandos como el mismo cielo
que conmovía el fondo.
Todos — la medianía de las casas,
las modestas balaustradas y llamadores,
tal vez una esperanza de niña en los balcones
entró en mi vano corazón
con limpidez de lágrima

Unknown Street

In that hour when the light has the fineness of sand,
I happened on a street unknown to me,
ample and broadly terraced,
whose walls and cornices
took on the pastel color of the sky
that nudged the horizon.
Everything — the drab houses,
the crude banisters, the doorknockers,
perhaps the hopes of a girl dreaming on a balcony –
all entered into my vain heart
with the clarity of tears

Casa sweet casa... #5

I just moved into my 5th apartment in Buenos Aires... the first a year ago when I was first here, and the last 4 in the last 7 months. Wow. Writing that makes me feel like some quaint old-fashioned hobo or tramp who wandered around during the Great Depression with a bundle of things tied up in a checkered blanket and attached to a stick slung over my shoulder. But anyway, I am not normally this transient, and in fact as I discovered while packing up all my things, I am in fact a huge packrat. ('Do I need this skirt I bought 4 months ago and still haven't worn once? Um... YES, obviously.') We packrats don't deal too well with a nomadic lifestyle.
Anyway, what's exciting about this new place is that for the first time I am living a) not in Palermo and b) not with other Yanquis. For anyone who doesn't know, Palermo is like the Beverly Hills of Buenos Aires. Well, much more urban. But basically, it's known for tree-lined streets, great bars and restaurants, pretty parks, and being home to the BA upwardly mobile.
*Sidenote/little history lesson: I recently learned that, actually, San Telmo & the South of the city used to be the rich part. But then, when the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1871 came, the rich fled to the North, to what is now Barrio Norte, Recoleta, etc. Huge elaborate mansions in San Telmo were turned into multiple family homes (conventillos), now mostly used as art galleries. And the North became what it is today, home to the mildly/extravagantly wealthy (see the Alvear Hotel or any house in San Isidro.)
Anyway, with the exception of 6 weeks spent living in Almagro in 2007, I've only lived in Palermo. My new apartment is in Tribunales/Congreso/Once, depending who you ask, and if I'm among chetos I can lie and say it's in Barrio Norte. I'm living with an Argentine family, who has a daughter just a little older than me who is studying philosophy at la UBA, and a British guy. Here's something interesting for anyone reading this from the USA - you know how at home, being a university professor is a pretty cushy job? Tenure, big salary, easy work hours, reserved parking space? Well, not here. Professors here basically work for the love of their subject and often have to hold down two jobs so they can support themselves. I thought our education system was a mess, but Argentina could definitely give us a run for our money in that department.
Anyway, I have high hopes for this new apartment, that my Spanish will improve a bit, my commute to work will be much shorter, and hopefully I won't need to move again, at least for a few months.
I'm also now on Subte Linea B (Subway Line B) instead of D. This may not sound significant, but I have a theory about Buenos Aires, classism, and the Subte. Linea D is hands down the nicest line, the chic one, which carries Palermo & Belgrano residents to office jobs in Microcentro, or to shopping on Santa Fe. Linea C, on the other hand, is like a one-way train to Ghettotown. Literally, if you're going to the end of the line in Constitucion, something I do every Thursday. I swear, someone needs to do a sociological survey about this. You can measure it using the "People with iPods vs. People Missing Teeth" Ratio. The other lines fall somewhere in between. Linea A is adorable and old-fashioned with cute retro subte cars. Linea B, I'm not sure, but at least I don't have to transfer to get to work anymore.
Okay, enough rambling! besos to all.

AlfajOreo!

A combination of laziness and busy-ness means that not much is getting written on here these days. But I'm breaking my dry spell to tell you all about something seriously amazing that I discovered today. Or rather, that my friend Sarah introduced me to. (Sidenote: guys have some fascination with two blonde girls who have the same name. Sort of like with twins. The best was when, upon hearing that we are both named Sarah and from the United States, one guy asked if we were sisters. 'Yes,' Sarah said, 'And our parents named us BOTH Sarah.')
Anyway. I had heard tell of the existence of an Oreo alfajor, but had never actually witnessed one until today. For all y'all in the USA, an alfajor is a cookie made from two or three cookies stuck together, usually by dulce de leche, but sometimes by fruit or chocolate mousse, and often the whole thing is dipped in chocolate. So, Oreo + alfajor?? Amazing. It's like North meets South! I tried my first one today, it's basically a huge oreo with three cookies instead of two and then the whole thing is covered in more chocolate. And there is no dulce de leche anywhere in it!
Here's the thing about dulce de leche: it's okay. I like it okay. When I first got here I wasn't having it, but now it's alright. BUT I do not love it, and in a country that legally requires all desserts and sweets to contain a certain percentage of dulce de leche, and it is regarded with an almost nationalistic kind of blind reverence... well, it's nice to find an alternative. (I just had this conversation over our Oreo alfajores with Sarah, in which she said that her fiancee, an Argentine, would probably not speak to her for a week if he heard us dissing dulce de leche.)
I hope no one's offended and I don't get deported for publishing negative comments about D. de leche on the internet. I'll just add that I'm not all that impressed by dulce, BUT the beef down here is just as good as everyone says it is. Better. Really, it's fantastic.
That's all for now! Back to packing up and getting ready to move to my new apartment (more on that later.) Everyone down here, enjoy your holiday for día del trabajo!

Smoke gets in your eyes

So... nice weather we've been having. Unless maybe you've been living under a rock (or in the USA), you probably know that Buenos Aires is drowning in smoke from fires up north for the fifth day in a row. They are crop fires that, if you listen to the government, were started by reckless and/or conniving farmers. Ugh, who knows. I just want it to end.
You know when you've been in a super smoky underground club all night, and it's so gross, and you can't breathe, and you can smell the smoke in your hair and feel it on your skin? And all you want to do is emerge into the cool fresh air? Well, it's kind of like that except you can't escape. Really. Most of the highways leading out of the city are closed and the domestic airport is cancelling flights. Boo.

Well, what you can you do in this smoke but find new destinations in the city for art, culture, and air conditioning?

Today was Museo Xul Solar, Las Violetas (one of my favorite old school Buenos Aires cafés), Abasto shopping, and Casa Museo Carlos Gardel. With mi mama querida visiting me, I am getting to revisit & visit for the first time some nice touristy places. Museo Xul Solar was fantastic - lovely art, a super cool space, and lots of clean air! The others were smoky - but nice.

by Xul Solar...

Love his work!

Abasto & Gardel Museum

Pray for us here in la ciudad del humo... we've had about all the feo we can handle this week.