Blue steel - Argentina

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Well, its my first week in Buenos Aires and I already love it here. It’s a city which feels a lot like home, and the cooler weather is a really nice change from hot and humid Brazil.

The homestay where I am staying is gorgeous. It’s an old colonial style house and I’ve been given my host mother’s son’s bedroom (sorry mate) until two English girls using the spare room leave next week. I have a private bathroom (complete with claw foot bath) and there is a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in the room. It is really is lovely here, think high ceilings, polished floor boards, a large desk I can study on and double doors opening onto the courtyard outside. My host, Maria lives here with her two children (a girl, 11 and a boy, 15). She is really lovely. So lovely, she gave me $300 pesos when I first arrived just to tie me over until I had a chance to get to change my money over.

She has served beautiful food, eggplant Milanese, ravioli with tomato sauce and I’ve had the (welcome) surprise that its all been vegetarian so far.

Initially I thought the food was all cooked by her, but its come to my attention that it’s cooked by the maid. I’ve come to realise that a lot of places here in Sth America have a maid who does all the cleaning, washing and cooking. At first I was a little uncomfortable with the concept, but now our maid Julia, comes and brings me tea in the afternoons and makes my room up every day, its pretty easy to get used to…Ben can we have a maid??? Pretty please???

Like in Rio, dinner is served pretty late here. Like usually between 9-10.30pm and apparently if you go to a restaurant for dinner at 8, you will be the early bird dining by yourself. Knowing the English girls and I eat a little earlier normally, Belen serves up food early (around 8) and I have gotten used to these late dinners, but still struggle to go to sleep so soon after eating.

I’ve had a chance to sample the customary Argentine empanadas, which are absolutely delicious and really cheap (about 10APs/$1). They are small baked pasties, crispy and golden on the outside and hot and delicious on the inside! I had one with spicy beef and olives, one with onion and cheese and one with mixed vegetables. I could have had more, but everyone else only had two…and I didn’t want to be the table’s fatty-boom-batty.

I’ve also been enjoying coffee while I’ve been here and I have to say, every coffee I’ve had here has been fabulous! Surprisingly I didn’t have any good coffee in Brazil - one of the largest exporters of coffee beans in the world - but I only tried 2 or three because they weren’t often on the menus that I saw. When you order a coffee here, it arrives accompanied by a small glass of soda water. I asked the waiter about this and she said it’s a European tradition where you are served water with coffee as coffee can be a little dehydrating. I’ve not been to Europe and haven’t heard of it…but I like it, it’s a nice way to finish your coffee. Today, I went to a café for my daily café con leche and it arrived with a little shell full of shards of chocolate. Wonder what my coffee will come with tomorrow (steak perhaps?)

Food served here is also very European and I’ve seen a lot of Italian places and cafes. The area I’m in is like a really hip version of Melbourne and every café is a little different - whether its menus printed on cotton booklets, plants growing out of tables or just edgy graffiti covered walls. Everywhere I’ve been so far also has English menus, so I’ve gotten in the habit of asking for both Spanish and English menus and studying the difference over lunch, I really think has helped my knowledge of foods, but only time will tell. I always try and order in Spanish but I’m just so darn crap. I can literally see people wince as I massacre their language and after a short time they usually just stop me by speaking in English. But I refuse to be deterred. Honestly, I think they usually just think its cute and are really quite helpful with explaining things for me.

The area I’m staying is dotted with garden plazas full of people relaxing in the sun, playing with kids and sipping Mate. I recently went to the Japonase Jardin which was lovely, but unremarkable. On the way there I walked through a large park and was surprised at how many professional dog walkers I saw. Well, they were either professional dog walkers or just people who owned 10 or so dogs each and liked to walk them all at the same time.

I don’t know if its just the area I’m in but the place is covered in street art too, not tags and graffiti but amazing stencils some of which I’ve had a chance to photograph. After seeing so much around, I decided to go on a street art tour which run here for about $25, I tried to book on last weekend but it was sold out. I might go this weekend – I’ll report back after. J

Each day I go home and try to journal what I did in Spanish. It’s also helped a bit too (at least with my past tense) and is good for me to keep a little record of what I’ve done. *Since school started, this has become rather difficult, what with trying to get homework done and all….but I might try and pick it up again tonight….*

I’ve been to a few markets (or feiras), including some famous ones in Recoleta and in San Telmo. The Recoleta markets had some great crafts and what not, but I the products are quite expensive for what they are…I think it was probably aimed at tourists really. San Telmo markets were closer to the dirty end of town, and really funky with lots of street musicians and food stalls. I liked it a lot more. I bought a gorgeous scarf and a mate ‘cup’? - Basically a goblet which comes with a metal straw with holes in it you drink through. - Everyone here has one they drink Mate through and I’m testing mine out as I type! Mate is a tea, it tastes to me a little like a smoky green tea, but I doubt I know what I’m talking about. I enjoy it, but I love all kinds of tea!

Food is a lot cheaper here than it is in Australia…clothes are cheaper too I think, but only marginally. In any event, its just not worth my buying nice clothes at the moment, particularly when I’ve got some more travelling to do. Its just cheap and cheerful clothes for me, and I haven’t seen a lot of them around here to be honest. Every 3-4 weeks though, I just have to buy a new shirt or something because I’m sick to the teeth of the clothes I’ve brought. My scarf is great and gives me a little relief from my shirts, which seem to disintegrate really quickly in the wash here.

I’ve also been on a walking tour of the city. Such an amazing thing, it was free and went for about three hours. The tour was really small and it was amazing hearing a native talk about their city. It was a completely different experience to just stumbling around by yourself and I would recommend it to all. There were too many stories to share here, but one stuck with me in particular – a story of love and revenge (like all the best ones are!) Basically, a woman and man fell in love with each other however as they were from different social classes, the man’s mother forbid the union and separated the two. The woman was devastated….many years later, she came into a great deal of money via an inheritance. As a way of exacting revenge she bought a plot of land in front of a church the mother had had built and donated to the city. On her plot of land, she built what was then the largest skyscraper in South America, completely obscuring the church. So now, to find the church, you have to wander down an alley. As the final kick, the street was named after the woman. I think the mother deserved it to be honest, you never stand in the way of true love like that!!! Also, in my opinion, the man was a bit of a wuss for not standing up to his mother and probably not worth her time…but that’s my two cents.

Speaking of cents.....Argentina has two currency exchange rates, the official rate (currently 8 peso to the US$1) and the ‘blue’ dollar rate (closer to 11 pesos to the US$1), offered by unofficial traders. The difference arises from protectionist policies of the Argentinian government which prevent Argentines from buying US dollars, thereby creating huge demand for US dollars in Argentina.

Although the blue dollar conversion rates are technically prohibited, it is the conversion used most commonly by anyone with US dinero and the blue rate is even published in newspapers here. A friend told me that she saw someone go to the police after changing money at a blue dollar vendor to check the money she received was real, the policeman obliged her with no issues being raised about the fact she had used an unofficial trader. My understanding is that it’s a bit like jay walking, technically illegal but you’re pretty unlucky if it ever leads you to any trouble (mind you I did get fined for jay walking about 3 years ago…hmmm)…

As I would never engage in anything prohibited I of course didn’t participate. However a ‘friend’ of mine did and I went with her, strictly for blog purposes. We went to an address given to her by her host family to exchange the money. I was expecting a dodgy dive of a place, hidden in a back alley and surrounded by undesirables and drug related paraphernalia. This was not the case and I’ve got to say I was a little disappointed. It was a normal store on the main shopping street called something ‘tourism agency’. We were buzzed in were people behind glass screens were waiting for us to deposit the cash, which my friend did and was handed the money. There were around 5-6 other people in line waiting to do the same thing. Simples. Of course I changed money at the local bank however, if I had changed money using the blue rate I would have received approximately $1050 US pesos to my $100. Quite different from the bank rate of about $800 pesos…but I didn’t do that….ok mum?

So to sum up my first week here, I love love love love love B.A. It’s a city I could live in, not just visit. The people are lovely (although REALLY loud, all the time) the buildings are gorgeous, the streets and clean and the food is probably the best I’ve had anywhere I’ve ever visited!

Till next time...

L

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Photos

Eva Perón's grave
Really interesting story about how her body got here...involving theft, necrophilia and corpse desecration.