LaGallega's blog

I find that reflecting on going abroad takes time. How you feel about your experiences, places traveled, people met, the city you live in, changes and evolves throughout the weeks and months following your months abroad. It’s harder for me as well, because I have a horrible memory, but luckily emotions  are things that I can remember. Buenos Aires has been a rollercoaster, which I think that this blog mirrors in some way- completely different from what I expected or from what I heard (guess that is always how it happens). I had known a lot of students who went abroad previously and who had very different experiences of the city that I did. Their Buenos Aires turned out to be very different from my own.

I sit today packing up my stuff in my little room that has become my home. They made a space for me in what used to the youngest daughter’s bedroom- the wallpaper is flowers with a 12-inch trim of bunny rabbits sitting down having a cup of tea infront of their little stone house with a hay roof. I fondly have come to say that I am living in a “Children’s Insane Asylum” and have often contemplated the words that are below the trim “Afternoon tea for you and me” (in English I might add). At times the wallpaper drove me crazy but I have found that like my Buenos Aires experience it is a little strange, quite odd, at times comforting, but at the heart of it just funny. I’ll miss the wallpaper, not as much as I’ll miss the unbearable noise of 20 televisions that waft through the different apartment windows, or the unbearable heat of the tiny box room. I’ll miss home cooked empanadas, kids screaming at all different hours of the night, American music drifting in from down the hall, and the constant sound of my host mother yelling at the kids. I’ll miss the kiosks, the main street of Santa Fe, and my ten minute walk to school. I’ll miss the constant sounds of Spanish, not necessarily the “sh” but I’ll miss Lunfardo and the constant “Veludos” o “Ches” that ring throughout the streets. I will miss the little things, but at the same time I know it won’t be my last time in this country.

Did I grow? I have kept asking myself this in the last week. I definetely changed, got lost on the way even, and I am not sure I found myself or even know who that person is. Sounds existential, its not really. I have one more semester left of university then its off to the real world- whatever that is? Career? Travel? So many open ended questions that I initially thought that If I came down here would be answered, turns out that the opposite happened. More questions just kept piling up. Do I want to work in the States? Essentially what do I want? A friend once told me that “we make our realities.” I call it “magical thinking” (a term taking from the prophetic Joan Didion, I use it in a slightly different way) that allows us to believe that anything and everything is possible if we just believe it is so. I made my own reality here, fashioned it, but then got lost in the numerous realities that I was creating for myself. Number one reality: I have to go home and finish college. Can’t stay down here in mystical traveling land eating carne and drinking cerveza all day.

And last question: did I learn from this blog? In a lot of ways I learned about myself. I am not a journal keeper nor do I enjoy blogging culture. The idea of writing about something when I could actually be doing it bothers me. I rather be out reading than writing. I think I took this class to challenge myself. I do enjoy that I am able to read a trajectory of my thoughts and the varying mindsets that took over on this journey. The time constraints were my “punto debil” or weak point as we say in Spanish. I found myself stubbornly not adhering to deadlines, just because they were there set in place. When I was late I finally had to answer to myself rather than a professor, but in the end I am fine with this as this class was about myself not for a grade. It was an exercise in discipline for me- and I will guard these small reflections on a 4 months well spent. 

A friend once gave me useful advice on abroad travel: always say yes to any opportunity or offer that comes your way. Of course this is within reason, but I found it to be helpful along the way. No matter what kind of activity it was, I tried to have an open mind and say “Yes”. Want to go to a concert on Monday night? What to try cow stomach? Want to go buy handmade shoes in a neighborhood an hour outside of BA and get lost among the way? See a milonga? Go to La Boca? Graffiti Tour? Opera? Maté in the park? La Plata? Rent a car? Mendoza? Anything, big or small, or obscure my answer would be: Sure, why not. Buenos Aires in many ways is a lot like New York. There is always something to do and see at ANY time of the day or night.

I pooled my Argentinean friends for some of their advice and here is a few things that I have heard:
-Do not take LAN airline. Additionally, if possible avoid taking any Argentine airline, as they will most likely go on strikes
-Never hang your bag on your chair like you're used to in the US. There are hooks on the tables. Do not use them! They are tricks.
-Explore outside of the Palermo and Recoleta areas.
-Drink Fernet and Cola. Try Salsa Golf. Try cow's stomach. Eat from a dirty parilla on the corner. Order empanadas for a 4 am snack. 
-If dark, and you have any money on you, Spend the 2$ on a cab- otherwise you will get robbed
-Never go to ATMs when its dark, even on the big avenues.
-If wearing a backpack- well, actually don’t wear a backpack.
-Do not rent a car. If you do, check on all insurance policies beforehand.
-To sum it up, Argentines will steal anything. Caution is always suggested while fairing the rough streets of Argentina. 
-International Electronic Music Festival Creamfields is a must! 


The picture above is from a friend. She has a great blog called "The Porteña Life". Clink on the link to take you there and get more advice about the streets and life in Buenos Aires! 

Thanksgiving is always my favorite holiday. It’s not even that the conversation is so stimulating, usually it is all my family members yelling, screaming, and fighting- and those are the ones that are not too hung-over on the couch from the parties the night before. Although I do love a full house, the atmosphere is secondary to the cooking. I love cooking the food. Fine, I don’t really cook all of it, but I do like to watch most of it being prepared. Stuffing the turkey reminds me of my childhood and breaking the big piece of the wishbone reminds me of being full after a big dinner.

Since I have been traveling and living abroad the majority of my adolescent-adult life, I have been absent for many Thanksgivings. I always find that day to be the longest and saddest day of my abroad experiences. It is those days that make me realize that the things I love about Thanksgiving aren’t really what I love at all- and it is then that I have to admit I love my family and the crazy holiday atmosphere that permeates throughout the household.

This is why I was especially happy to learn that my dad was coming from LA to Buenos Aires for Thanksgiving Weekend. He was supposed to come with a big group, but it ended up just being him and I in the BYBA apartment that we had rented for the week. We had talked about doing a little Thanksgiving dinner in the rented kitchen, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that here the grocery shopping and selection of products is at best limited. He quickly discovered this on his first visit, when he came back from the market with a block of cheese and a bottle of water. And he is a chef! We laughed at it, but as the week bore on we decided that we were going to cook a Thanksgiving dinner against all odds in the dead hot summer of Argentina.

That was until we thought of the problem of the Turkey. I mean Argentina is a beef country- they love their red meat. Turkey- not so much.  But, I was convinced it was possible so I went online to look for “pavo”. Turns out there was a specialty meat delicatessen about 15 minutes away by bike. We hopped on the bikes (on loan from the apartment building) and pedaled to the store against oncoming traffic, through sidewalks, and in between the bike/parking lanes. We arrived to the shop, bought a 7 kilo turkey (about a 16 pound bird in the states, and that’s pretty big) and threw the turkey in the basket to pedal home. Dad realized that the turkey was completely frozen, already a gliche in the system but we both thought that we could find a way to dethaw it fast. IF anything, we would adhere to Argentine dining norms and eat our Thanksgiving dinner at 1030 pm at night. 

To not bore you all with the details, but highlight some problems that arose:
1)Converting kilos into pounds
2)Converting Celsius into Farenheit
3)Cooking Pumpkin Pie without a crust, we had to use pastry dough that would be used to make Empanadas. Crust ended up tasting disgusting, but the filling was delicious.
4) Turns out that when you have the Turkey in the oven for 5 hours, the breaker for the stove turns off. So then the vegetables, gravy, and mashed potatoes aren’t going to be able to be cooked. Thanksgiving dinner in the Microwave didn’t sound so appetizing.

Despite the problems we ended up cooking a feast. I invited my Argentine friend/tango teacher over to share in the festivities as well as a couple of friends. He asked a couple of pressing questions: “Does Thanksgiving fall on the same day every year?” “What is Thanksgiving?” After at length trying to explain the first encounter between the pilgrims and the Indians, and having it come out worse every time (not because of the language, but really it was the first time having to explain the day that the imperialists came, broke bread, and then later killed the Indians) (not the most PC explanation but it the point comes across like this in the explanation of the Holiday)…

All in all it was a good Thanksgiving. I ended up passing out before the infamous pumpkin pie incident. My dad fell asleep next, and the guests ended up eating, drinking, and smoking on the terrace. IT was a great Thanksgiving. Friends. Food. Family. Oh and Argentina!!! 

I robbed that quote from Dr. Seuss and I am about to steal another one, "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..."

            Dr. Seuss knew the art of traveling. He hints at the same receptivity as De Botton, highlighting that WE are the one’s you know what we know and where we will decide to go. Be that from the bedroom or to the blue and white striped sun flag that symbolizes the nation of Argentina. Dr. Seuss’ wisdom has reminded me that any kind of travel, the travel we do in our minds included, is a journey that we take by ourselves.

            De Botton stressed that our perception of the places we go changes when there are others guiding, observing, or participating in our experience- and to some extent I agree with him. “Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectation of others.” When my English boyfriend came to visit me, he kept making comments on how slow the service was or the filthiness of the streets or how the Argentines can’t seem to follow any order. He noticed little things that had become part of my normal experience. The way I saw things began to shift, my recepitivity to cultural norms faded and I began to see the inefficiencies for what they really were. I explained to him that Argentines don’t work to make money, no tips nor overtime here, and that because of this fact they live and work to survive. It’s the bare minimum here. But on the other hand, in my disagreement of De Botton, my experience reflected what Dr. Seuss had said, “I knew what I knew.” I wasn’t going let my new view of Argentine life be clouded by these new (yet accurate) revelations.

            My habits here change everyday because my life here is transient and has an expiration date. My experience is always mitigated by those around me in varying ways depending on who they are, where they come from, and what their histories are. 

Argentina produces a homogenous kind of a woman. Or used to produce, because modernity, globalization trends, and imperialist consumer culture has hijacked the Argentine woman and given her values foreign to the nation culture.

The Argentine  middle class woman used to be conservative, a good Catholic, with ingrained homemaker values. The new Argentine woman is a plastic surgery experiment, overly groomed, loves her therapist, and enjoys the company of her fellow mothers by gossiping in the park over cigarettes and maté. This may be site specific to my neighborhood in Recoleta. Maybe an overgeneralization, but this whimsical image of Latin-American woman emulating the Parisian modern woman has formulated my reality of the Argentine middle-class woman.

My host-mother is a mix of both worlds. Her hair is never combed, dyed blonde and frizzy, it is never pulled back. Her appearance is somewhat sloppy as well, but loveable sloppy, as if you wanted to give her a brush fix her long black skirt, and adjust her sweater so that it doesn’t show her undergarments. She is obsessed with the computer, reading “La Nación” articles because as she explained to me once the paper is too expensive. She is recently divorced from her husband, and as I have garnered he was her first love and will be her last.

Psychologically this is so different from American woman, who I believe have the power to re-invent themselves over and over again.  She is obsessed with her therapist, his word is gospel. She is a teacher, but recently given leave. Her maid, like most good Recoleta women, takes care of the house and her as well. She loves her maté.

She is an interesting woman. A cocktail of old Argentine values and new. It has been taxing watching her personal struggle with divorce. Trying to reconcile the old values that was demanded of women, with the new expectations and possibly freedom as a single mother and woman in a new Argentina- a different one from when she was married in the late 80’s. I see her struggling and watching me, and although 20 years younger I hope to give her inspiration of how to live her life. We have become very close and since I am a fixer I have endeavored to be a support system for her problems.

My room window is the shape of the full length mirror. Barred by iron bars and a green wooden shade that is only pulled down when it is hot, the window is my portal into the neighborhood. It faces the back of the three apartments surrounding ours forming an open air courtyard, except theres no patio at the bottom just the ground floors of apartments that hug the other buildings. The apartment symphony is one no musician could dream up. Usually the yelling comes from the three other windows in my host family’s apartment. One divorcé and three children ranging from the ages of 6-17 make for many screaming matches. Then there are the televisions coming from different apartments. I know that one guy (I say guy because of the television programs he watches, but that is gender stereotyping, and I’m just trying to make a guess) is English-speaking, possibly American as he watches Dexter, and that he has a Blackberry. His Blackberry alarm goes off every morning around 10. He sleeps through it as well, Always…

 He’s not my least favorite though. There is a woman who has sex about once a month. Maybe she has more sex, I can’t be sure; however, I just know that her window is open and the whole area is serenaded by her sounds. Its obnoxious of her, I have screamed down for her to shut her window, but she doesn’t listen. She’s not my least favorite either.

There is also the family that is two windows down and across in the apartment building next door. I can see into their kitchen, but a totalizing view is obscured by their numerous hanging plants.They fight too. One night they had this crazy screaming match. Something about he [the father] hit her [the daughter]. She kept repeating “me pegaste” “me pegaste” … “you hit me” “you hit me”.  It ended in a test of wills, and I fell asleep before I heard the result. No doubt it was fascinating to listen to other peoples problems.

My least favorite is the downstairs neighbor in my own apartment building. He thinks it is appropriate to blast Eric Clapton’s Greatest Hits at all hours of the night. The privilege is not mine, as I hear the audience clapping for the fifth repeat of his songs. There is another band that is his favorite. The concerts have gotten old quickly. I complained about him to the downstairs doorman. He’s my favorite Peruvian gossiper. He loves the boys at the kiosk next door and makes it his business to know all the juicy details of the building. He told me that the downstairs neighbor is in his 40’s, fat, and lives with his mother. I hate him. He’s apparently a gentle giant, but to me there is nothing gentle about Eric Clapton at 4 in the morning.

This is my rear window. This is my Argentina. 

I remember when I was abroad in Europe and by law under the age of 21 it is illegal to rent a car. I wanted to drive so badly throughout Tuscany, see the countryside, stop by little towns, and find bed and breakfasts along the way in tiny villas. Well, it didn’t happen. I was 19 and there was no way any rental car was going to rent a car to an underage driver with no insurance.

            When I decided to go to Buenos Aires renting a car was, naturally, one of the experiences I was most excited for. This past weekend was the school organized Iguazu trip to see the waterfalls that are tucked in the northeast part of the Argentina, snuggled right up next to Brazil. In September, my mother and I had decided to take a day trip there, so I opted out to go with the school and instead travel along the coast to see Patagonia in my RENTED CAR.

            We were a motley crew.  Arriving at Sixt at 11 in the morning, we were wearing eyed. We walk in and ask for our car- which we shortly discover is manual. The three useless  North-Americans (have to be very careful with the term American- not something you can throw out lightly) were used to our easy automatic cars, and the Brazilian, well he couldn’t drive. So the whole morning we ran around the Micro-Centro looking for automatic cars, calling different companies. Argentina is at a want for automatic cars- however, after calling all the big companies like Hertz, Avis, Alamo, and Budget, we finally found one boutique company called Drivers. They, generously, rented us a  PT Cruiser; at the time, we thought that a PT Cruiser was a safe bet, it had a lot of qualities going for it: aerodynamic design, automatic drive, and a North-American brand we could count on.

            We got on the road at 14hrs and drove out of Buenos Aires city in direction of La Plata. Around La Plata we got a little lost looking for junction 11 instead of the major highway that cuts through the country to Mar de Plata. At around 18hrs, when the sun had already set, we pulled over to get gas, filled up our thermos with a portable hot water despensor for maté and asked someone where the next big coastal town was to stop for dinner before we found a little hotel to stay at. We had big plans… Big plans indeed. Until everything went horribly, horribly wrong.

            We pulled into the town of Santa Teresita. Sometimes living in Buenos Aires it is easy to forget what the rest of the country looks like. The coastal town, on its off season, was empty. We stopped, got out of the car, took a look at the beach, saw a nice little Hostería and decided to keep on driving to the next down. It looked like a nice road that hugged the coast so for about five minutes we continued on there. However, abruptly it stopped and we had to make a quick right. Suddenly the road started to become bumpy and quickly turned into a muddy, swampy road. We hit a huge bump that sent the car flying and as a reaction I pulled on to the side of the road. There the car got stuck. Stuck. Wouldn’t budge. The three of them pushed while I past on the gas, but all we could hear in the darkness was the sound of the wheels spinning out.

            We had a lot of choices. Leave the car there with our stuff locked in go for help. Leave the car, take our stuff, go for help. Leave the car, take our stuff, say “Fuck it,” and go to the Hostería, drink and get the car in the morning. But, hey, we’re in Argentina- the car probably wouldn’t be there in the morning. Or it would be written on or torched. Damages that well, we didn’t think that insurance would cover. (Yes, we had been smart enough to ask for insurance) So, we decided to bet against our previous luck, and locked the door in the middle of the pitch black night to go in search of help.

            It was a nothing town. We had to create landmarks for ourselves just so we could find our way back to the car. A few blocks down, to the left, we saw lights on at what looked like a country mart. This “boliche” was FILLED with people a.k.a had about 5 people in it, but that is more than we had seen in the whole town combined. Two big guys came to help us out and assured us that there would be no problem getting the car out.

            There was.

            So, naturally one of them lived close and had a big cargo truck, which I can only imagine was used to transport some agrarian product like livestock or hay. He came and tied a rope to his bumper and PT’s bumper. Which, like the whole fucking car, was made of pure plastic. After two tries, my life flashed before my eyes, and the rope became taut, pulling the bumper slowly of the car, PT jumped out of the big whole I had taken her in.

            Everyone cheered. Jolly celebration. Blah Blah Blah, we thought (for those blissfully ignorant 5-7 minutes) that we had gotten out of a big issue with only a small dent in the bumper (nothing insurance couldn’t fix) we decided to call it a night in Santa Teresita and go back to the charming little Hostería that we had seen before we ventured on the hell road.

            Nope, not so fast. The minute we got out and rounded the car, it looked like buckets of blood was coming out of the from of good ol’ PT. Not wanting to play to the gender stereotype- but WOMEN SHOULDN’T DRIVE. Or at least this woman shouldn’t. And god, if I knew what that liquid was…. Turned out to be radiador fluid spilling out. Lovely. All I know is that I fixed myself a nice, stiff drink that night… Ok, fine, a few… 

Jorge Luis Borges’ “Library of Babel” is a metaphor, his explanation, of the damage that occurs when humanity attempts to categorize and explain chaotic and unexplainable universe.

Babel is the biblical explanation for the existence of multiple languages, diversity, and plurality. The story begins that Noah’s descendents, the Babylonians, using one common language managed to build the highest tower that led to the heavens. However, this was threatening to God; implied in his line in Genesis “nothing will later stop them from doing whatever they presume to do.”  Why was this threatening? Could it be that the closer humanity got to God the closer they were to discovering the meaning of God? Probably. What is more explicit however, is that the building of Babel and its subsequent destruction is God’s retribution for humanity’s desire for uniformity, conformity, and meaning. Humanity can no longer reach the heavens and achieve complete understanding of the universe.

So, what is Borges implying in his attempt to build the Library of Babel? His library is “indeterminable, composed of an indefinite, perhaps an infinite number of hexagonal galleries” (Borges, 81).  Then naturally the library contains all possible languages, essentially a library that builds the tower of Babel. Therefore man, the ever consummate librarian, would be led to the meaning of the universe. Borges’ text affirms this, “There was no personal or universal problem whose eloquent solution did not exist- in some hexagon. The universe was justified” (Borges, 83). Then Babel did for the Babylonians before them, the library would lead to God.

This is obvious. What is not so blatant is how blasphemous Borges’ attempt is. It is just another demonstration of how futile the attempt is to find God or meaning. Borges repeats many times throughout the story how meaningless it is to create an impossible library.  “Actually, the Library includes all verbal structures, all the variations allowed by the twenty-five orthographic symbols, but it does not permit of one absolute absurdity” (Borges, 86). Moreover, the library is doubly inaccessible because of the sheer volume of books that occupy its recesses. The search for God becomes meaningless. Well, almost; because ultimately Borges can’t help tempt his readers with the myth that in the library there exists a book that explains everything. 

This reaction against an ordered universe is a manifestation of Borges reaction post WWII. Upon his return from Europe to Argentina in the 30's he must have seen the complete chaos and disarray that led the country to a military coup in 1943 (just two years after he published the book). His position has an intellectual within Argentine society was being replaced by the call for action among the masses, who had taken to the streets to claim their rights as a new social class. This might explain his next quote, “I suspect that the human species is on the road to extinction, while the Library will last on forever: illuminated, solitary,  infinite, perfectly immovable, filled with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret” (Borges, 87).  It is the inane attempt at finding that one Book, (or in Argentina's case, the one set of politics that would supply an answer to the inequality of the classes,  or  the one meaning, or the one race that erases our pluralism, our myriad of existences, and ultimately the infinity of being. 

Parque de Las Heras is on my walk to Bikram Yoga. Located above Avenida de Las Heras it spans the width of the 7 parallel streets between Santa Fe and Avenida de Las Heras. It’s a large park for Buenos Aires, and dog shit aside which is collateral damage virtually anywhere in the city, it is very maintained: grass cut, park benches, play-ground, merry-go-round, and tons of trees. In the morning the dog walkers of the city tie the different dogs to the oak trees that are scattered around the park, cocker spaniels, labs, Scottish terriers, weiner dogs, laborador retrievers, golden retrievers, muts, and bull dogs alike are littered around the park. The barking is contained and mostly looses its force through the wind and the trees. The sunniest spot to sit is below the trees, on the grassy nole that faces Parque De Las Heras. Portenos like to drink their mate, tan, play guitar, read, and engage in the run of the mill sexual acts. I have always loved parks because of my intense vocation in the act of people watching. No place better than the park to watch the development of humanity.

However, a couple of Saturdays ago it turned out that my friends and I were the ones being watched. As we sat on a blanket, drank mate, we beging to here these repititve shouts “HEY LADY”, “HEY LADY” . After no success, the two men resorted to animal mating calls, which of course got our attention right away. Once we looked over, our first mistake, the two men came over and started do theatre in the park. We were like their anthropological subjects, they performed like monkeys asking us questions in English playing with the meanings of “Comb” and “Cum”. Turns out that “Comb” with an argentine accent sounds exactly like the word “Cum”. You learn something every day… Anyway, after my friends and I relaxed (and not be so frightened by crazy actors in the park) and began to laugh at their little spectacle, they ended up inviting us to their play “3 o 4 pasos” held every Saturday night at 23hr at the Trapeze Club. Initially I thought they were in a circus act of some sorts, which actually would be really cool, but I guess I was down on my luck. The two actors, one who looked like an ugly Heath Ledger and the other who looked like a caricture of a Mexican bandit black moustache and all, invited us to beers after the play.

We were eager to go- really we were. Afterall, trapeze club and avante garde theatre is a really interesting opportunity. But because the week of spring break started that Friday, it took us till two Saturdays afterwards to surprise our thesbian friends with a big group of our friends to see their show. 

The play was terrible, avante garde yes, but terrible. Between a woman having an organism on a red bench, the three main players being stuck on a green circle trying to hit on the unattainable red orgasming girl, it was eerily familiar to our rendevue in the park *without us having the organsms. Afterwards we all went for beers and played the character game where each writes down a famous person or fictional character on a piece of paper and passes it to the person on the right who then has to put it on their forward. The game then rotates from person to person each asking yes or no questions to try to guess their forehead character! To understand the debauchery that went on, that night we dined with Hitler, Forest Gump, Marilyn Monroe, Paul McCartney, his partner Ringo Starr, Che Guevara, PDiddy, General Francisco Franco, Antonio Banderas, and Dark Vader. 

I am an “estadounidense”, and unfortunately or fortunately however one may look at it, I will never be an Argentine. In some way, I will always be confined to the back region of a culture I wasn’t born into, but appropriated. My official status of “residence” does imply an entrance in the back areas of the living Argentine society, but nationalism defines identity and in that, I will never have access. However in the ethnographic dilemna of how to record the “insider” or “native” experience, I refuse to accept that we can never understand how the insider lives or what is their experience of back culture.

Though, I am perpetually preoccupied with attaining an “authentic” experience. I want to travel the roads less traveled, dance with porteños in milongas until 6 in the morning followed by medialunas and café afterwards, dance in the nightclubs, read La Nación, and eat at the restaurants recommended by “El Ocio”. Being socially relevant and authentic is a cultural must for me. Not a lover of kitsch or the masses in general, I am always looking for the most avante garde experience, but at the same time could find the old-man drinking hole and be just as happy.

I always endeavor to be a traveler rather than a tourist. I can remember certain instances in my tourist experience that I left unsatisfied: one time in Capetown, South Africa we drove forever to see this penguin sanctuary. We entered along with a bunch of students and screaming children and walked down these wooden planks with black iron bars with a railing to lean on that functioned like a bridge throughout the penguins natural habitat. I was pissed at the walkway that acted as our watchful guide inhibiting our experience. I confronted this same walkway problem in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile while hiking by the salt lagoons in the shadows of the Andes; the path was marked with stone that led us close enough to the lagoons to see them and take pictures, but still far enough away so that we wouldn’t invade and destroy the natural habitat. I am a huge fan of preservation- environmental conservation even more so, but a guided path provided empirical challenges for me. I wanted to jump on the rocks, run through the desert, bathe in the lagoons and not be inhibited. I didn’t want my experience to be mitigated by stupid rocks that didn’t even provided a proper inhibitance at all; nothing kept me from crossing the line of rocks except a certain moral tourism code that gently urged me to not deviate from the path.

Buenos Aires plays with the staged authenticity of social space that MacCannel explores. The average tourist sees a particular deduced Buenos Aires: the adequate neighborhoods (La Boca, San Telmo, MicroCentro, Recoleta) that provide a cultural and historical exploration into the city’s past and present, the two neighborhoods that represent the city’s future, Palermo and Las Cañitas.  They tend to stay clear of Retiro, which represents the underbelly of industrialization with its ports, train station, bus station, and the government buildings designated for immigration purposes. Seldom does the average tourist venture into the northern neighborhoods of the city that are more residential and provide less of a manicured aesthetic. These translations of urban settings comfort the tourist as he believes he is receiving an authentic experience. Typically, the Tourist will stick to the traditional guidebooks (my Hedonist Guidebook or Phaidon excluded) and follow a guided view of the city venturing through C/ Florida y Cementario de Recoleta or viewing a tango show at Club Tango or maybe a gaucho representation at an estancia located a few kilometers away and believe they have garnered an intellectual understanding of the culture of Buenos Aires. However, history will tell you that this icons are produced nationalisms to achieve homogenous symbols that unite a diverse people.

I do however believe that Argentina’s “milonga” has provided a window into “the back and front” without really being neither of those structural divisions. The Wednesday night “Maldita Milonga” in San Telmo is usually compromised of two parts: an hour where a couple of instructors (one female and one male) instruct a class of foreigners and natives alike, they teach a couple of standard “pasos”, the basics of the “abrazo”, and the complexities of “el eje” or how to be on the bodily axis, and the second half is comprised of the orchestra that plays different tango, milongas, or waltzs for porteños, instructors of tango, and enthusiasts alike. It is this mix of instruction and authentic action that defies the “back/front dichotomy” in the structure of the social space of the milongas. The initial facilitation is followed by the everyday practice in the real space.

 

Chile. Chile. Chile. I have to admit it wasn´t the first place I wanted to travel to for ¨Spring Break¨, yes, its spring break down here instead of fall break because the seasons are switched. I am not sure why Chile wasn´t a first choice, but it wasn´t on the same priority level as Brazil or Peru. Chile is the longest country in the world, a fact not forgotten on our 24 hour bus-ride to San Pedro de Atacama located on the Tropic of Cancer in the tippy top in the north eastern part of the country. The scenery is Nature on Crack. Andes to the left, volcanoes flanking the desert valley on both sides, salt fields creating lagoons, flamingos, llamas, thermal baths, and many other natural phenomenons. On one tour we saw Valle de La Luna which is characterized by mountainous sand dunes that make you feel as if you were trekking through the Sahara Desert. (pictured above, courtesy of Anais Katz) That night we watched the sunset over the mountains. 

 

I couldn´t help being reminded of this parody I saw on Youtube ridiculing English/Australians who go on a ¨Gap Year¨. Gap Year is basically a year of travel for the off university student. The cultural imperialist attitude and pretenscious musings that defines these students is what the video pokes fun at. However his line about being insignifigant amist nature played over and over in my head.

 

 Since living in Buenos Aires and spending my whole summer in New York, I forgot what such open spaces can feel like. I spent literally days gazing at the horizon in a stupor. It was the absence of thought that was so stunning to me. To be able to stare and have your mind completely blank is something that I don´t get to experience that often. In fact, it is this kind of eternal peace that I look for in Yoga or in dance. Traveling through Nature brought me into the recesses of my mind and allowed for silence. 

 

Chile. The experience will remain present with me for a while. Maybe my mood was inspired by being there at the same time they pulled the miners out of their three month incarceration in the mine. The whole world with their eyes turned on Chile, and I was right there, traveling up the coast, past villages with the red while and blue flag held high over tin panneled roofs, stopping only at road side services stations which sold hotdogs and pollo. 

 

Lamentably, I had not been to a museum before this assignment. Ironically, I had been to a café AT a museum (or maybe not so ironically, as genuinely I would like to consider myself a museum person, but I find that I rather sit at a café, drink, and talk about the art that may or may not be inside the museum rather than going into the museum itself). That being said, I decided to do some research on Argentine artists before deciding which museum I would like to go to. 
 

  Living in such a political environment that has plagued Argentina for most of the 20th century, artistic avant guarde creativity (although not lacking in the city) was generally discouraged and in most instances forbidden by governments that sought to quell any type of artistic ingenuinety. As I scrolled through the list of artists, none really stood out to me. Most had been trained classically, but I was looking for a depiction of Buenos Aires of what Pico Iyer had called van Gogh’s search for “reality” aesthetic, "Yet  van Gogh insisted that most had failed to do justice to their subjects. They had not, he claimed, produced realistic depictions of Provence. We are apt to call any painting realistic that competently conveys key elements of the world. But the world is complex enough for two realistic pictures of the same place, at the same moment, to look very different, as a consequence of differences... Every artistic picture represents a choice as to which features of reality would be given prominence..."
 

So, what do I believe is the reality of Buenos Aires? How would I go about describing, painting, drawing, or capturing a place with so many contraditions, histories, peoples, and influences? Unlike other cities that can be captured with an iconic image that seems to portray the varying realities of the people, [and if someone were to argue that Buenos Aires could be described in tango and gauchos, I would tend to disagree], I can't imagine what the image of Buenos Aires would be. Eva and Colonel Juan Perron? No. Bicential celebration in Plaza de Mayo? Maybe. Then there was recently the picture that celebrated October 17, 1955, the year when descamisados from all over the province marched to the Plaza de Mayo calling for the freedom of Colonel Perron? That came closer. 
 

However when I stumbled upon OSCAR AGUSTIN ALEJANDRO SCHULZ SOLARI, something about the vibrancy of his cubist and surrealist paintings led me to a much darker, passionate, Buenos Aires. Xul Solar is one of those men who fled from the repressive confines of Argentina’s political and cultural environment to a hedonistic, more liberal Europe in the 1930’s to the 1940’s. A musician, painter, composer, author, novelist, poet, and friend of Juan Luis Borgesit seems that Mr. Solar deserves his title of genius. I can hardly begin to do the man justice here, but I encourage everyone to look up his work. I am not sure what stands out most to me in his paintings or the man behind him. The painting above isn't of Buenos Aires, but I found this image to be one of his most grabbing.<img:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EcfQTb3MMxw/SS-9U65_MxI/AAAAAAAACTo/D4g8TEjBDtk/s400/Alejandro+Xul+Solar.jpg>

My every day has changed since I got here. My first two weeks were drastically different than what has become my quotidian. The first two weeks I would bar hop trying my best to be the good hedonist I imagined myself to be. Then one Monday night, my friend invited me to take a tango class with her. We hopped in a taxi and rushed to the microcenter to make it in time for our  class. The micro center is the business district and much like Midtown, nonone under the age of 25 wishes it upon themself to wander through Calle Florida or follow the working crowds as they rush to return home. That night it was raining and the cab driver, per the usual antics, dropped us off on a distant corner close to Maipu, but not exactly on Maipu. Unfamiliar in concrete jungle of downtown, we waded through puddles and finally found discarded glass entrance that would go unnoticed if it weren't for the neon sign announcing the Quilmes sponsored restaraunt next door. 

We rang the bell with anticipation. Laughing nervously as "adelante" rang through the voicebox and we were granted access into the cold marble building. Up the elevator, a doorbell later, and we were safely tucked away in "El Estudio", and what we would later find out to be one of the most prestigious dance studios run by two famous maestros Fernanda & Vilma. The beginning class is taught by two of their most prized students Flor and Carlos. By luck, we had showed up at the beginning of a class that was just starting another round of courses. Our fellow practees are in the early 60's, Gloria from Spain, and her husband Jorge, a short, balding professor of literature. That first night was concentrated on the beginning steps: walking, chest forward, "el abrazo" or the hug, the dance, and the differences in music. I left on a tango-high filled only with dreams of  songs of Carlos Gardel. 

 For each night there is a different milonga, but each week is comprised of the same schedules. There is even "after milongas" which only the real devotees go to dance with the same people that have won Tango competitions throughout the world. I always feel like an foreign invader, priveliged to see some of the most passionate well heeled dancers that continue to step on the hole ridden floors throughout buildings in Buenos Aires.  It feels like part of this intimate club, that meets in secret only to be lost on the chaotic streets. I always think that if I saw some of these people on the streets, one would never know how well they move their feet or how they hold their partners hand. Carlos once told me "Tango is a drug, and I have to confess I'm an addict." 

. My day time prowess is spent at a few select places. My favorite thing about cities is that however anonymous you may feel, your corner stores or your restaurants always know you. You can't hide in your favorite booth or your neighborhood laundry mat. However foreign you may feel, you are familiar to them. I enjoy finding those places in New York, but their is nothing like the comfort they provide while abroad. I love my laundry mat here, 16 pesos no matter what the weight. She knows my name, gives me a friendly hello, but the only problem is she doesn't separate the colors and I have been finding blue detergent stains on my clothes. I actually have been having some difficulty with the guys at the corner Kiosk. They are never as friendly as they should be, and I find myself internally screaming "BUT IM A REGULAR" can't you just give me like a fucking free piece of candy, for once? That relationship is somewhat estranged... Another one of my "regular" spots, is this health food store right by school. They are progressive for the neighborhood, and really for Buenos Aires in that matter, specializing in health food and doubling as a new-age cultural center. I stop by everyday to get a fresh smoothie and chat with the counter girl. I have to admit at force I had to force our relationship a bit, make her realllllyyyy believe that I was determined to become a regular. Now I get free sugar free brownies, which are pretty crap but hey I am definitely not complaining. 

I have always inhabited urban spaces. In the course of my travels I have come to appreciate the intricacies of city planning: the architecture used, the influences of modern and traditional structures, the different apartments that are hidden behind the mess of concrete, brick, mortar, and wood, the graffiti, markets, ports, street lamps, intersections, the lay out of streets, transportation systems, and most importantly the cultures that are born out of these spaces. Buenos Aires has provided an adequate urban playground just as much as any other city, but two facts continue to bother me. 
 

For one, portenos do not have a history of building conversation. I gawk at this every time I am reminded of it. This cultural error is hard to go unnoticed; sure, there are some buildings dating back from the 1800's but any well heeled porteno would tell you that they should tear the building down in order to make space for newer, more modern architecture. "El titular de Basta de Demoler asegura a Efe que el problema “más grave” es la desaparición de edificaciones que identifican a los 48 barrios de la capital y que en su mayoría datan de entre 1880 y 1930" (Bicentario Argentina) (The leader of "Stop Demolition" confided that the biggest problem is the dissapearance of buildings that have come to identify the 48 neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and for the most part date from 1880 to 1930) An example of this is the building pictured above "La Confiteria del Molino", an old bakery, restaurant, bar, and shop that has continues to decay and remains abandoned. Building preservation was not something I ever thought would bother me. It doesn't keep me up at night, but I am continually wondering what architectural riches were here before. This question gives birth to many other questions: what does it mean when a culture doesn't have a tradition of conserving its buildings? What is lost? What is gained?  Does this irreverance for their history hint at an underlying current of shame? Does it lend itself to the generational phenomenon of many Argentine somethings general disdain for their government, history, their past, present and future? 

The other thing that has gotten under my skin, is that Buenos Aires is THE most important port city in Argentina, and maybe in all of South America, but yet the city faces its back to its port. Picture cities like Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Turkey, or Egypt among others. They face the water, sometimes it may be the ocean or the sea. Their traditions, values, and everyday life give priority to the water. It defines their cultural practices. And to me, Buenos Aires should be like that! But, its not. Not at all. Not only is its back faced to the port, the Rio Plata is one of the most polluted rivers. Most call it the "red river" or the "brown river". I sometimes cringe at what environmental activists would think if they took one look at it. 
 

For my first month here, I was genuinely confused at a culture that couldn't appreciate their buildings or their ports. I stumbled upon this amazing compilation of articles, stories, essays, and documents called the "Argentine Reader" edited by Gabriela Nouzeilles and Graciela Montaldo.  Their introduction is an amazing work of ethnographical research and their aim is "to present to the American public a broader and more complex overview of the country's social, political, and cultural traditions that challenges the almost schizophrenic view of Argentina that still prevails today." The editors many to create a dialogue between the texts to begin to explain the heterogenuity of Buenos Aires, in addition they manage to provide some answers to my questions. I am beginning to understand that because of the constant evolution and changing demographics of cultural makeup of the city of Buenos Aires that there is a constant look abroad for cultural influence. Buenos Aires strives to replica a European city. Thus, any relic of what they deem as inferior influences of the 3rd world is covered by their careful study of Occidental progress. They have been able to create national symbols that make them Argentine, like tango and the gaucho, but their "Argentineness" is not present in the facades of their buildings. Their pride comes for the ability to replicate and copy, not create and improve. This constant construction of identity is found in the absense of conservation and presence of demolition and reconstruction.

 

I am still looking for a sufficient answer to my port question. I have yet to find an adequate explanation. 

It was his 23rdyear of driving taxis in the city of Buenos Aires. Gabriel was tired of it- the customers who stiffed him, his wife who left him, his kids who never appreciated him, the country that left him poor, tired, and worst of all Argentine. Gabriel, although reaching his 64thyear of age, was not one of those San Telmo taxistas, the ones who stood by their aging Renatas glorifying the age of Perron and what he did for the working class  (not the last time he was president and had returned from Paris, but the first time he ran the old working horse that was Argentina). To be perfectly honest, he didn’t really give a shit about those two bit men, he didn’t belong to a “Radio Taxi” union, his car was in his name (about the only thing he prided himself on)(although the car was wearing and showed signs of age in the damaged and sticky apolostery) and preferred to disassociate himself from the people of his craft.
 
Gabriel, after all, was a solitary man; embittered and lonely he preferred to turn his back on the world before it had time to perform the same abandonment to him. Doing so had come at the price of his wife and children, most thought that it was the other way around, that Gabriel suffered because of his them not in spite of them. Like he always said, “I have seen everything. Blood in my taxi, blood in the streets, all the same to me.”  
          
His Argentina was a sad one. September 22ndwas no different. He ran the 4 to 12 pm shift, not out of obligation, but of custom. The same cotton shirt, that used to be ironed with care, was crumpled and crusty from overuse, as always was under his green driving Bustamente driving vest. In the 60’s Bustamente was a sure mark of class, but over the years the holes had increased in size, so much so that whole fist could find a home on the right side under the armpit.
 
On that particular night, driving through the Microcenter down the widest avenue in the world, 9 de Julio, he spotted some female customers of varying ages on the street corner. One looked to be slightly older than the rest-Gabriel although he was old and lonely, still remembered the old familiar taste of a woman. He preferred female customers for many reasons, one were his perversions, another were they made easy targets. Especially, since these particular women were foreigners.
 
“Paranas y Santa Fe” por favor.
 
“Joelle, are you sure that’s the street that Millon is on? Why don’t you call Chandon and ask,” said the one they called Megan. She was sitting to the right of him in the front seat. A seat he preferred empty and avoided by most of his customers.
 
“Espere un momento, senor. Es que no se muy bien donde vamos. Pero, si nos puede dejar en Santa Fe y Paranas es igual y luego vamos buscando el lugar,” said Megan loudly to his right, deaf ear (deaf because of the many customers who had become to yell at him as they generally felt ignored by the their taxi driver).
 
Gabriel, hardly understood English, but could tell from how the front one was yelling at the back ones that they were confused about the location of their destination. He didn’t feel  particulary generous as to finding out where exactly they wanted to go but decided that since Paranas sounded like Baranas (a little suburb on the outside of Buenos Aires) that he would begin to drive the unassuming American foreigners in that direction. That way he could make an extra 20-30 pesos depending at what part of the journey  they realized he was leading them in the wrong direction.
 
As he drove down the wide avenue, passing Santa Fe, he made a sharp left into the exodus of people trying to return to the comfort of the suburbs. The American women were yelling ugly words from the front seat to the back seat without pause. Suddenly, Megan turned to him in the front seat and angrily began in Spanish, “wait, excuse me, where are you going? Why are you on Calle Libertador? You passed Santa Fe?”
 
Gabriel, bewildered and distracted, answered wearily that he was taking them to Baranas and continued his gaze forward.
 
Megan started again, “I don’t think you understand the street names. We are going to Paranas and Santa Fe. You need to turn left on one of these streets to go back up.” 
 
Gabriel turned and explained quickly and rashly, “you told me to go to Baranas. I am heading there, there is traffic. You want to go to Santa Fe now. Impossible. I can drop you off at Callao and you can walk up, but impossible to take a left hand turn… Do you understand me? I am speaking Castilian Spanish. I don’t know what you speak.”
 
     The exchanges between the two were growing quicker as the three women in the backseat, within their first month of Spanish, sat dumbfounded as they watched their friend enraged. They had been warned about this, this so called “joy-riding” that the taxistas loved to use to take advantage of unassuming foreigners just to make more pesos. However, Gabriel had made a big mistake. Not only did Megan speak Spanish, but she hated the business of tricking tourists.
 
“Maybe you don’t understand me clearly? I am speaking Spanish from Spain. The original Spanish. So either you drive us up Callao or you leave us here…”
 
And that was how I got kicked out of a taxi on the middle of Libertador.