Stream of consciousness re: argentine time

Yesterday I made plans with my friend, Jacinto. The plan was he would go to dinner with his friends and call me after to meet up. I texted him at 10:30 to tell him I was at home, tired, and didn´t know if I wanted to go out, but to text me and we would see.

I finished a puzzle with Pati. I caught up on the blog. I did some situps. Then I said self, I´m tired. I´m not waiting for dinner to finish. We´re going to bed. So I donned my pajamas and climbed into bed around 12:30. Approximately 4 minutes later I receive a text from my friend, Nelle, checking in. She tells me she´s kicking it at her house trying to figure out what to do for the night. I tell her I´m doing the same, feeling completely lame because I´m not doing that at all, I´m actually tucking myself in for the night. I ask her if she´s up for a drink, and she says sure, but their house is on Argentine time as usual and they don´t know what they´re going to do. It´s 12:36. At this time I am usually well into a night out. So this time I said self, let´s do this. This is hard to get used to. But you know what? I´m in Argentina. And damnit, I´m going to live like an Argentine.

So I climb out of bed and back out of my pajamas into the same outfit I wore out two nights ago (this lack of fall clothes is a personal challenge sometimes), and walk the 10 blocks to her place. As I´m en route Jacinto texts me to tell me they´re going out in a bit and do I want to join them. Imagine his surprise when I say I´m now out being Argentine, and that maybe we can all meet up at some point in the night.

So I go hang out with Nelle, Derek, Chong, and Anina, and we finally decide to hit the town at 3:15. AM people. So I text Jacinto and we all meet up at 3:45 to begin our night out at a club/bar, where he tells me I´m adjusting just fine to the Argentine nightlife, laughing at my bi-polar going out decision making skills.

I go to bed at 6am, wake up at 12:30, go to Spanish class, and now will take myself for a nap before meeting my girls at 10:30 for a somewhat early dinner. What is this place?

Old School Players to New School Fools

People. I have rejoined this century, or at least an older part of it. I am now the proud ownder of a small Samsung cellular telephone. I´m texting old-school style with T9 Abc. And it takes me about 10 minutes to write a text, Spanish or English, like my mom.

Why a phone you ask? I specifically made a point not to have a phone-like device on this trip for many reasons. But now I have reasons to believe I am benefitting from a phone. Running back and forth across Buenos Aires to check my email or Facebook to see what bar to meet my friends at is getting old. And since I have more blissful Buenos Aires time, I´ve opted for the no-contract pay-as-I-go option.

Originally I was only going to stay with Pati for the month of April, but she will be having an operation the first week of May so I offered to stay and help out for that week. When I asked her when I should plan to find another place she replied, ¨I like your face. Stay as long as you like¨. I know. I told her it was a mistake to say that because I will stay forever and it´ll be obnoxious after a while, but she insists. Who am I to argue? We will split the bills and continue living as jigsaw puzzle partners and roommates, and that´s alright with me.

our most recent puzzle masterpiece

What else have I been doing? As I told my dad yesterday, I´m kind of failing on the whole learning more Spanish thing right now. The school I signed up for only has room for me to take like 1-2 hours per week, which is the opposite of helpful. My dad said, ¨well honey, you´ll just have to go back after you return in October for the Spanish part¨. Ha. So I sent off a string of panicked poingnant emails to Craigslist Spanish teachers last night demanding 10 hours per week starting ASAP. I start tomorrow with my new Colombian teacher Lisbeth at 3pm, and we´re on next week for a full 10 hours. Boom.

I´m also becoming a staple at La Bomba del Tiempo, which is a weekly drum show at one of the cultural centers here. Like religion, I go every week to shake my tail feather.

dancers at la bomba

Yesterday kicked off the Feria de los Libros. Did you know BsAs is the 2011 UNESCO Heritage Literary site? I waited in a pretty bad-ass line today to buy my ticket in and was totally overwhelmed by the convention center-sized display. Hundreds of booths, cafes, books, books, books, lights, shiny objects. Now, I can spend hours in one Barnes & Noble. Imagine this place is the size of like 100 B&Ns. I could have died. Amazing.

Of course I stopped in the booth with all the books about yoga, healing, energy, all that good stuff. And wouldn´t you know it, they were reading auras. I have always wanted to get my aura read ever since Lu showed me hers at the office. What better time to do it than at the book fair in Buenos Aires in Spanish? I can think of plenty. But, here´s the deal. I am in balance. My aura is greenish-blue. I am a good communicator, as my throat chakra is very open, I´m calm, relaxed, and I need fresh air and the outdoors. I should play an instrument or use my hands in some way for work because my hands have strong energy. And know what else? This lady saw something because she got really serious, looked at me and said, ¨my child, you cannot control everything. You struggle with that and while you´re improving, you have to let it go. Life will bring what it will bring, nothing more, nothing less. There are too many forces outside of you to control. Let go.¨ Damn lady. Did you sit in on my first session with my therapist or something? People - these aura readings are the real deal. (Let me believe this. Don´t rain on my parade if you disagree.)

After the reading I realized I couldn´t look at any more books or words or chakra readings, and took a long walk back home. On my way I found PEANUT BUTTER!!!!! I have been looking high and low for my beloved peanut butter, and now I have it. BsAs is as it should be.

What else is happening? My hair is growing. This is a good thing, and people - when it gets all long and beautiful again please don´t ever let me cut it all off because I want to donate it or for any other reason! Also, my bangs are growing out. Probably the biggest lesson I´ve learned in 2011 is that I am not a hair-cutter and I will never attempt to cut my own hair ever again. Because even though it´s growing out and looks semi-normal, I don´t know what I´m doing I have way too much bangs circa 5th grade (I just finished living those bangs down and now they´re back at 29). It´s not even a little cool.

sometimes when the wind blows my bangs look like this and i don´t realize it. yikes!

Jane´s Last Days in BsAs

It´s definitely fall here in Buenos Aires. I LOVE FALL.

Jane and I returned to crisper weather on Saturday morning, but that didn´t stop us. We took the morning to chill out a bit and recoup from our bus journey. Saturday afternoon we walked to Palermo to check out the famous outdoor designer´s markets. Just as I finished telling Jane that I didn´t need to buy anything, we stood outside a stall filled with dresses as I tried them on one after another. So much for budgetary responsibility. But, finding my sensibility, I didn´t buy one, and settled on a more practical sweater later in the day. Sweaters, necessary for fall. Dresses, not so much. We caught about 5 minutes of a street tango performance then headed back home to change for dinner.

Characters. The world is full of them. Our cab driver to our Puerto Madero sushi dinner was no exception. Pati had made us reservations at Sushi Club in Puerto Madero so we hopped in a cab and by chance got some important back-seat Spanish lessons. Our driver showed us the difference between various Spanish accents - Mexican, Argentine, Colombian - putting on quite a linguistic show. Then he gave us a history on Argentine newspapers and their slants, taking cues from Jane´s NYTimes connection. I worried a little bit that we were going to die en-route because he seemed way more interested in watching us watch him in the rear-view mirror than watching out for oncoming traffic. But then those are minor details. As I paid him with a $100 peso bill, he gave us a v e r y  s l o w lesson in Spanish about the importance of never paying with a 100 due to counterfitting. Thank you Mr. Cabaret.

Safely in Puerto Madero we walked around the harbor admiring the views before checking in for our 930 reservation at Sushi Club. Something to get used to in many parts of South America, is the difference in restaurant service. It´s not always about the customer. It´s not always get things out quickly so people don´t get angry. It´s just what it is. That´s the best way I can explain it. Go in with no expectations and you´ll be fine. Go in with American expectations, and you´ll be pretty frustrated.

By the time we sat down to eat we were dying of hunger as we had been waiting for sushi all day. Bad idea. I almost ate my own arm. And after Jane told me that she heard an interview where Janet Jackson said a secret celeb diet trick is to eat paper because it fills you up without calories, I almost ate the menu. How mortifying would that be? And paper? Really? I hope I never go there. But alas, we found our patience and we ate a lot of really good sushi and all the world was good.

Sunday we decided to round out the week with a trip to La Boca. We took the bus with all the rowdy football fans who were heading to the Boca Juniors game, and were a bit surprised as we watched armed police escort in buses of fans from the opposing team. We were told later it was best for everyone this way. I can´t wait to go to a game. But we didn´t trust ourselves to buy non-fake tickets off the street, and continued heading to the touristy area instead.

We admired the colorful buildings, the outdoor tango and the perfect fall weather. When a nice young man told me I was beautiful and that he was looking for someone to teach him English, I wished him luck. When he asked me for my Facebook I said I didn´t believe in it. Sometimes honesty isn´t the best policy.

Sunday night we went for a tango show with Pati at the Jorges Luis Borges Cultural Center, which was fantastic, the perfect way to end our last night together. Monday we walked around the microcenter and had lunch in a hidden gem of a garden in an old monestary amid the financial district.

We did it all. Well, not all, but we did a lot in our 9 days together, and I can´t believe Jane has already come and gone. Time is going to quickly. I am well past 5 months on the road!!!!!

tango street dance in Palermo

puerto madero

la boca



after the tango show - jane, pati, me (in my uber high heels)

"Yeah, but we’re on vacation."

If there’s been a theme to our time in Mendoza, this is it. Every time we started to doubt our decisions about that other glass of wine, a nap, buying something, or dessert we just reassure each other that this is vacation and we deserve it. Imagine if I used that reasoning when I’m by myself all the time? I would have had to come home a long time ago.

We were a bit overwhelmed with what to do in Mendoza as there is no shortage of amazing options. We sat in our room yesterday with brochures spread over the beds taking turns with the Lonely Planet trying to figure it out. Andes and vineyards. We knew we had to experience these two legendary aspects of Mendoza. Bike wine tour, luxury wine tour, adventure Andes expedition, bus tour, this company, that company, etc. It’s a different experience for me to have a partner to make such decisions with, and we laughed at how difficult it was to come to these seemingly simple conclusions.

With the help of the Internet and recommendations from my friend Dipal (thanks Deeps), we decided on the full-day Alta Montana tour on Thursday and the full-day vineyard tour on Friday.

With the help of three alarms we awoke early yesterday, breakfasted, and jumped on the 20-person tour bus. We spent the next approximately 11 hours winding through the mountains, taking in the great outdoors. I’m happy to say my love of the outdoors is still alive after having spent some time back in city life. Luckily I listened to the concierge and traded in my sandals and thin hoodie for my heavy fleece and hikers because the weather got more crisp as we climbed eventually to 10,500 ft elevation to see the Christ the Redeemer statue that stands as a peace-keeper on the border of Chile and Argentina.

We stopped on the way back down for a home-cooked comfort food lunch where we enjoyed some traditional Argentine dishes and one of my favorites, corn on the cob. The separated tour group got more friendly and boisterous as the red wine flowed. Exhausted from the elevation, we napped most of the 3-hour ride back to the hotel until we were awoken by a young chap barfing all over himself behind us. Poor guy. After a quick stop to use the toilets and disinfect the bus we arrived home exhausted from such a tough day of bus riding. We enjoyed a cheese plate "for 2" that we could have shared with 5 of our closest friends and talked about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.

This morning we were up and at em early again for our full-day vineyard tour. 4 wineries, 4 tastings each followed by a 5-course lunch/wine pairing at the last. Have you ever started drinking wine at 10:30am? It makes for a very quickly close-knit tour group. 

Now we’re once again in the comfort of our black leather first-class bus seats heading back to BsAs. My how time flies.

back in the great outdoors

eyebrows

loved these bathroom signs...lindas y feos

fresh water action

slightly off balance

switch backs

yay peace

it was pretty cold up there

warming up on the bus

comfort food lunch

vineyard owner's private stash

10:30am white wine tasting - the new day drinking

barrels

vintage

grapes

grape separation

we got to mix and create our own wines

i am so classy it hurts

Holy Cow

i still step in dog poop from time to time

I’ve left my smart packing, budget traveling self behind this week. After a touristy weekend in Buenos Aires, Jane and I arrived in Mendoza this morning in style. In booking our bus travel on Monday night we decided to pay the extra $20US for the first-class overnight bus. I don’t know if I can ever go back.

We boarded the bus Tuesday night and were giggling like little girls as we fell into the plush leather seats, reclining back and up again testing the various comfort possibilities. We placed our shoes in the “shoe bags”, lost the game of bus Bingo, ate dinner complete with unlimited wine and champagne, watched a movie, played on the wi-fi enabled internet, and finally reclined our full beds to sleep soundly for the night.

We were greeted in Mendoza by some serious winds which made enjoying the city a bit of a challenge. We walked around shielding our heads from falling tree branches, our mouths from dust-induced asthma and after a few hours took solace in our hotel room. Yes. I said hotel, not hostel. Thanks to Jane, I’m living in style at the Aconcagua Hotel, and it’s lovely. When we arrived she remarked the room was a bit small, but for me, sharing a small room with only one other person sans bunk beds is sheer luxury. I took a nap to refresh my dusty eyes, and we researched our options for dinner.

Jane’s friend had recommended a restaurant called 1884, and we decided to go for it. We hopped in a cab and were somewhat confused 15 minutes later when the driver stopped in front of a large cement nondescript building. Jane and I exchanged weary glances as a security guard emerged from behind an iron gate and asked if we had a reservation. Luckily the answer was yes. As soon as he confirmed my name on the list the iron gates opened and the cab drove us into what I can only describe as a castle-like structure. It felt like we were on a big secret, the kind of place where you half expected some big fat Italian guy to ask you for the secret password. But there was no password collector, and we were allowed to enter the beautiful restaurant. 

We had read a review online that we should order the steak for 2, and that it was big even by Argentine standards. Jane hadn’t had her Argentine steak yet, so there was no question that was the thing to do. When the waitress set the “plate” down in front of us we just started hysterically laughing as the entire restaurant turned toward us, laughing as well. The steak was i longer than the length of my entire arm and thicker than my 9^th grade math book. It was ridiculous. They should advertise the steak as fit for 10 people to eat (Jane says 4 is more realistic, but I like to think big). A neighboring diner told us that if we could finish the entire thing our meal was on the house. As if.

We ate as much as we could, laughing through the whole dinner, entering soon after into content meat-induced comas. Peter Lugar has nothing on 1884.

recoleta cemetery

dogs

more cemetery shots

don't cry for her argentina

after a long search we finally found the tourist bus!

BsAs

the traditional headphone shot

me in jane's hotel room...my botched bangs are still a bit crazy but are getting better

fruit

art

my favorite bag. cannot let it RIP yet. sewing skills at the bus station

this is what luxury looks like

my bag after...with character

put your shoes in the bag

dinner

the park in mendoza - fighting off the winds

steak out

doesn't even look like we just ate a whole cow