la tontita

So after a brief hiatus, here is all the news fit to print here from Buenos Aires.

- It's cold here! Damn cold. It was 2 degrees here in the Capital on Monday and Tuesday last week and Argentines are dropping like flies. Every day the papers report people all over the country dying of cold for various reasons: lack of housing, carbon monoxide poisoning, heart failure, etc. The French woman who keeps coming to my Spanish class at the UBA contagious with fever and flu has made me sick for the second time this season so I am making a point of eating lots of soup and keeping our heaters rocking until this too passes.

- Today is election day here in Buenos Aires and around 2.5 million porteños will vote today to elect a new mayor. All pre-election polls are showing incumbent Telerman with his unfortunate bald head being ousted in favor of Macri, but only the next few days will tell as the quilombo which is the Argentine electoral process unfolds. In the meantime the election has provided political posters like the one pictured here with counter-political messages like topu, garca, and pontete pelo puto. Poor, bald Telerman seems to be taking the biggest swings.

- Last night the lovely Ana Paula, Paul's "work wife" threw a lovely party in honor of Paul leaving his job (take that however you wish). We spent a lovely evening in a beautiful area of Belgrano complete with designer stores, modern apartments, clean streets, wide green spaces, and general loveliness. Despite having no business in such a classy part of town, we had a great time nibbling cheese, empanadas, and cake washing it down with a selection of fine Argentine wines. Good times and giggles were shared by all and I think it's fair to say that part of Paul misses the 'Office Space' world. So far he's a total failure as a house-husband but hopefully even the monkey can learn eventually.

- I had a brand new 'Lost In Translation' moment that brought me to new heights of tonta last night. I was having a hard time keeping up, totally congested with a head full of snot and rapid fire Spanish conversation. Usually it's not a problem but combine fatigue, decongestants, and crankiness and you end up where I was - thoroughly lost. I finally tried to jump into the conversation with an easy topic: an Argentine friend inquired as to what, exactly, was a twinkie. I explained that they are sponge cake, cream filled, but totally disgusting because of the preservativos that they contain. Total silence. It was about 5 seconds before I realized I had committed a rookie mistake in a public setting. DOH! In Spanish preservatives are conservantes while preservativo is the Spanish word for condom. Lots of laughter (mostly from Paul) and one Scottish-level red face later, I tried to change the subject. Serious ego damage alert. Chalk it up to swollen glands.

- The longer I stay, the more homesick I get. I just heard that my dad had a nasty tumble down a flight of stairs. When I called home my sister, mum, and dad were hanging out together trying to make the best of it. I thought about Santa Barbara, how the summer must be closing in, about surfing, about going for walks with my sisters. The cold, dark, gray city makes me miss home. I think it might almost be time.

- A dear friend of mine is pregnant! Congratulations to Carla, her entire family, and her brand new bean! I need to start knitting again.

- That's all for now. I have sickness ADD and can't finish sentences, am way behind on my emails, and have procrastinated all weekend a simple work assignment. I can't wait until I can smell and taste again. Gagh! I am considering taking out a hit on the French woman in my class...

have a nice fall

It's a perfect day. Perfect, perfect, perfect. I have spent a radical week. The summer is slowing blowing away. Sure, there will be a couple of days of pounding thunderstorms and blistering heat between now and winter in the predictable unpredictability of Buenos Aires but in general, these days are lovely.

Fall has fallen hard upon me. I have new ambitions, ideas, and projects. My first action was to going totally radical and join the local gym while trying to avoid the scores of tight, tanned-bodied porteñas staring at my pasty cottage cheese thighs and redeveloping my swim stroke to something akin to one-small-step-above-doggy-paddle. On Monday I am signing up for my next Spanish class at UBA and enrolling in DJ school. DJ Chuli on the 1's and 2's. Boo ya!

This morning the sun was shining and the breeze was a-blowin so I decided it was a fine time to take la banana out of retirement. Sure, on my long road from Almagro to San Telmo I was nearly killed by an ambulance (oh, the irony¡) and saw a man get stabbed (he's gonna pull through), but aside from a few typical city obstacles, I emerged unscathed. My poor bike is teetering on the brink of failure but if the city's delivery men are any proof, a janky bike is better than no bike at all. I hope the weather keeps up so I can keep on cruising.

They say that Buenos Aires is not a bike friendly city but I have to disagree. It's not a even a pedestrian friendly city and really, if you are brave enough to leave the house at all, you are throwing the dice. This may be the only place in the world where a Hummer would be justified. But the skies are blue so it's time to sack up and hit the streets. Grab your mate, head to the plaza, and enjoy it while you can.

my god, the heat

The silence in our household is deafening. This morning I woke, not to the dulcet tones of Bubba's snoring, but to the hum of the fans keeping the hot air circulating through our bedroom. There were no dirty dishes to be found in the sink. No one was in the bathroom for an hour forcing a near-pants-wetting incident. Everything was tranquilo. Again.

Last week Bubba left for an epic month-long adventure in Bolivia via the Argentina northwest. We haven't heard from him since he left. Maybe he has been kidnapped by gaucho bandits. Maybe he fell asleep on a bus cama and ended up in Chile. Maybe he is having a great time and is too busy to keep us abreast of his plans.

The artist formerly known as Shane Amaya is also gone. We tried to give him a proper send off with 9 de Oro Agridulce cookies and a hell ride on the 1.5 hour bus ride through the ghetto to the airport but apparently he made it through unscathed.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur of heat-stroke at the mercury continued to rise hellishly until it broke into thunder and lightning last night. Scottish girls are not made for this, to be sure. I spent the weekend sweating into my chair, waking from delirious naps with my hair stuck to my head, and unable to eat due to the heat. Me? Not eating? Yes, folks, something is seriously, SERIOUSLY amiss here.

I am trying to enjoy the empty house by rearranging furniture like a champ, keeping the bathroom neat and tidy. Visitors will flock in again in the delightful form of my friend Heather and her partner in crime, Taylor (who I am yet to meet), at the end of March followed immediately by Jenny 'Hyphen' Fickert who clearly needs a serious vacation from The Independent. Maybe by then, Paul and I will be sick enough of each other again to welcome more visitors.

The unrelenting Buenos Aires heat always brings weird moments. Last week I went to lunch with my friend Hilary from UBA and her daughter Antonia - both champions of great company. We ate some killer empanadas at local favorite El Sanjuanino and took a little stroll through Recoleta near the famous cemetery - the top tourist draw in town. Towards the end of last year, the city randomly scattered some giant recycling bins throughout the city and as we wandered through the most upscale neighborhood in town, we passed one so full of glass it was spewing out the bottom, smelly meat sizzling around the outside, and decorated with graffiti. She told me to take a photo, so I did. "That is the kind of photo I like," she said. "What Buenos Aires is really about." Recycling bins throughout the city a good intention with no execution left to rot on the summer sidewalk along side the dogshit and garbage. Hilary - here is your photo.

carnaval

An escape from the heat and the chaos in the city came in the form of Carnaval in Gualeguachú, a small Argentinean town in the province of Entre Rios that comes alive once a year for the celebration. Shane and I had previously made all sorts of hypothetical plans for going to Brazil for Carnival but one by one, they all fell apart, as did our bank accounts, as all great plans do. One of Paul's former workmates was dancing in the Argentine, bastard stepchild version of the celebration so we figured it would be a pretty good substitute. In Gualeguachú we met up with several of Paul's colleagues who were kind enough to secure us camping space.

Leaving bright and early on Saturday morning, we arrived at the campground which was a hellava scene. Tents everywhere, young, drunk, half-naked porteños covering every square inch of space, trash as far as the eye could see, and music pumping all around from personal stereos to pimped out car stereo systems requiring earplug action. I suddenly felt like I was at a Latin version of Coachella or that I was in Acapulco for spring break 5 years too late. I felt very old and very tired. We passed Saturday afternoon drinking mate on the beach, beer on the patio of the Costa Azul restaurant, and watching the madness unfold.


The main event was from 10pm-2am and was larger than expected. A giant arena filled with visitors from all over the world as giant floats, elaborated costumed dancers, and a bad carnaval song playing on a loop cruised down to entertain the masses. I have spent the last 3 months just generally being in a state of way too hot. I sweat on the subte, hide in the house during unnaturally warm hours, and wake up drenched with trouble breathing from the stickiness. I spent most of the day Friday carefully choosing my smallest, most heat-friendly clothes for hanging out by the river.

When a storm rolled in on Friday and the wind picked up on Saturday, I found myself standing on the bleachers at a giant Carnaval event chilled to the bone, teeth chattering, and without a sweater. My body was in serious shock from the sudden drop in temperature and try as I might to make a Paul-Shane sandwich, drink hot coffee, and warm my numb hands on the fire of the crackling parilla, I didn't warm up. No one else had as much trouble as me but to be fair everyone else was assisted by quickened, drunken heartbeats. Instead I became the sober party pooper and left the celebration early to seek refuge in my tent. Turns out it didn't really help as I was up until 5am shivering and chattering without a sleeping bag and cold as fuck. I am not sure what happened to the rest of the group that night. I know that after the Carnaval, they went to a nightclub until about 6am and that there were strobe lights and transvestites involved. The rest is a mystery and should probably stay that way.

Sunday the weather was back to its normal hellish ways and now I sit, back in Buenos Aires, slightly sunburned from a Sunday outdoors by the river, and just a bit miffed that the weather went feo only long enough to ruin my Carnaval and then back to its old self. My own fault really. Next time I will pack more appropriately and drink WAY more Fernet and Cokes.

It's too damn hot

I know, I know. Less blogging more photos. I was prepared for the summertime Buenos Aires heat but I was prepared for it to hit in December. Little didn't I know it would hit in mid-October leaving life sweaty and opressive. In the meantime here are some photos of one of the cooler art forms of Buenos Aires - stencil art. Stencils are everywhere and range from political, to artsy, to just plain weird. They remain one of the most enjoyable reasons to trawl the streets of the BA even when it is 90 degrees and humid as hell itself.