Foto día 1

Well its photo day and gonna hafta start with a picture of Justice Ginsburg. This was her at the Jeff Lehman´s inauguration (whatever happened to him?). I remember being quite far from the podium and never noticed the sweet top hat. Props to having some flair your Honor!

So here are a few pictures I´ve taken so far here.

These pictures were taken at some cool park with tons of graffiti. It didn´t seem to be an organized event, but rather just a bunch of random guys with drums, drumming along and having a good time. They even posed for me, it was nice.

The next set of photos were taken in Montserrat, a part of town close to the center but very laid back. Che promotes the use of condoms... maybe thats why republicans hate them so much.

Here are a few pictures in front of the Casa Rosada. Its pink cuz of ox blood. Mmmm. I like that sculpture, methinks it Baroque.

Finally, these are pictures of madres de los desaparecidos, whose children (mostly related to the universities like the UBA as well as political opponents) were taken away, tortured and killed. They gather together every Thursday at the Plaza de Mayo to protest the event. They´re all about the same age and are supposedly anti-American (rumor has it we installed the dictatorship that executed this event, and its probably true). They are very political and spoke of how the new government is nullifying the immunity of officers who carried out the killings. They also seem to be very very socialist, probably like their children were.

Thats all folks... I wish the formatting could be a little better. I´ll work on that in the future.

Disclaimer

So in my infinite wisdom, I decided that Justice Ginsberg would be a cute catch to get people to read my blog. Seems as if that move was mistaken. I´m not sure how or what motivated the call, but I was contacted by a representative of her honor´s whose name escapes me. Judging by the whiney pitch and the wisps of nasal air clawaing against my ear drum, I´ll go ahead and say it was a Saul Zintsman. The brevity of the conversation caused me some concern, and I was immediately ordered to cease and desist.

Another phone called followed Monday. Mr. Zintsman told me that the address of my blog was desired by her honor, but she didn´t have enough time to file. The fair Justice is internet savy and quickly discovered my blog and was distressed she had missed out on it. Mr. Zintsman continued that a background check of yours truly revealed that I was a fellow Cornell alum of Her Honor´s. Instead of pursuing the matter in her home court she decided instead to compromise. I am to dedicate a small portion of each blog to the Justice in exchange for the use of this address. Crisis averted.

That aside its been a fun couple of days. Saturday was somewhat relaxed and hectic at the same time. After a lovely lunch at Café Serena, a great little eatery yards from my apartment, I relaxed in the sun and continued reading about Humbert Humbert and his little nymph Lolita. Amazing novel. Then after a shower I dined with my grandma at another semi-local eatery, Sesto. Fried sweetbreads were, well, sweet,tender and satisfying while the Lomo al caballo (sort of a filet mignon with a fried egg on top) was top-notch. I´ll be there again with more people, so a thourough review will follow.

Sunday brought another splendid sunrise. I say splendid because it is actually quite beautiful to see a sunrise, but I’m also a bit sarcastic. As much fun as I have at night BA is not a place I see much of during the day. I’d say I’m nocturnal, but in reality I’m awake all the time. Algunos veces, I do get to sleep the typical 8 hours, but for the most part I do it 4 hour style and fortify myself with mate and espresso then lounge on my roof. I went out Saturday night with my argentine friends Federico, Diego, and Alejandro, or Mini-me, pancho, and puke as they are unrespectively called. Federico is short so that’s why he gets mini-mi, diego gets pancho (hot dog) for whatever reason, and Alejandro puked once so he gets the name puke. The latter of the names would never fly in the US, because a majority of minors have puked via alcohol inducement (oh Alex and his heavenly heaves).

Viewing the sun rise filled my heart and gave a sense of hope which can’t really be explained unless you experience it. The absence of last call here and the aggressiveness of the sun make for interesting days and nights. I suggest you all give it a try.

Sunday recovery was as fun. Met up at the Alamo with Amanda where all Americans in Argentina ate american food and watched the game. I passed on the burgers and viewed an unfortunate pummeling of New Orleans. Tear. We advanced to San Telmo after the game and enjoyed a spectacular meal at a clearly local place called Des Nivel. It was suggested by catherine, another UBA american student. Entradas included none other than two Argentine staples. Proveletta (grillled cheese, without the bread) and matambre rollado, a rolled meat product with egg, roasted vegetables, and argentine potato salad on the side. The offerings from the Parilla ended up stealing the show. I had a Asado de Tira, which is thinly cut bone in meat done on the grill. Salted to perfection with just the right amount of grease. Amanda had a bife de Lomo which was soft enough to cut with a fork. It melted on the mouth. Accompanied by some proper red wine, we had a delicious meal and actually saw Catherine on the way out. She practices what she preaches.

Service was sketchy on the other hand. Our waiter was prompt and to the point, but as I stood huddled against a table talking to some aquantences, a rather large oaf of a waiter decided to mow me down shoulder first. I managed to gain my equilibrium before tumbling, but I was not happy. The thought dwelled in me to reciprocate, but he was at least 2 meters tall and a good 30 stones to me 15, so I opted to leave. Overall, great restaurant, good prices. I say go there.

To cap off the night, I took a ride with a quiet but hilarious cabbie. We were speaking on and off, and at some point got onto the topic of girls ( I believe he was whistling at the girls in the car nearby). I mentioned I would like to get an argentine girl for myself, and he retored ¨No, ellos son nuestros¨. I suggested we make an exchange, and he cackled and said ¨Si, cambiamos 3 por 1¨. I soiled myself laughing.

Monday was not so interesting and a respectable relief from the wacky weekend. After a class that involved an argument on genetically modified foods I went home and jogged for a bit. My luxury-laden lungs did not respond so well to the stress but I managed a good 30 minutes. My grandma and I divided half of a popeye pizza (spinach minus the e. coli, i hope). Following that, we had some helado delivered to us by a silent cyclist whom I tipped 2 pesos. 3 flavors, Banana, some fruity rum, and dulce de leche. The banana was as it should be, a pale gray color, rich dense texture, and an increidble fresh banana scent. The dulce de leche was dense as well with a creamy caramelized flavor unique to argentine gelato. The rum flavor, a staple of my grandmother´s, didn´t please my pallate so I passed. I placed my two gustos on a small and crunchy cone and went to town on it. YUM YUM.

This gives me some time to talk about living with my grandma. I held no apprehension in moving in with her for my tenure here. I´ve lived with her before and I am familiar with her habits and vices. She is quiet, laughs at everything, cries over little things now and then, and enjoys doing household things. She serves me Maté, will cut up some fruit for me, will insist on doing dishes and laugh longly at almost all the jokes I make. Learning spanish with her around is very rewarding and I wouldn´t have done it any other way.

Perhaps the best quality of hers (roomate wise) could perhaps be considered a flaw. She can´t hear. She is not legally deaf (which makes me think those laws should change), but she needs a hearing aide, or as I now know very well in spanish, an audifono. Why is it a great quality? As my roomates will testify, I am a loud person at home. I like my music loud, I laugh loud, and I enjoy volume in all its glory. With her audifono out, I can be my audible self as long as I want, and it doesn´t bother her the slightest. Occasionaly, sans-audifono i do have to yell at her in spanish, but the flurry of frustration is balanced by the need for me to speak loudly and clearly in my new idiom, something I diffidently deny myself in other contexts.

Tuesday was a routine day except for a movie I saw with a group of UBAs. Babel. Great movie. The message was enlarged by the fact that all the subitltes were in Spanish. This unintentionally made the movie more difficult to follow idiomatically, but I´m going to go on record saying that its the only way it should be watched, in a language you don´t know as well.

Thats all for now folks. more to come.

Disclaimer: I completely and creatively made up those first two paragraphs. Deal with it.

Parents Disclaimer: All that you are reading is a work of fiction concocted by my creative cranium. As far as you know, I go to class everyday on time, and afterwards I go home, study, read and go to sleep. Not one drop of alcohol has touched my lips nor have I made any friends. They are figments of my imagination. If I were you, I would go as far as to believe I´m still home, in my lovely queen sized bed, sipping on port and enjoying the spoiled life. That will make this blog seem funny rather heart wrenching.

Ummm, ¿hola?

Let me begin by saying a sincere sorry to the actual Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They allowed me to choose a url, and the first thing that came to mind was the honorable justice´s name. Justice Ginsburg, if you´re reading this and plan on starting a blog soon, we can arrange something.

Now that thats out of the way, its time to make an attempt to sum my life up for the past few months. In true hotelie fashion, I´ve decided to use bullet points in lieu of a ^Powerpoint plug in.

• I came back from Calistoga (represent) and coasted for a bit till after thanksgiving.
• After la dia del pavo, I started searching for jobs in the wine biz, to keep that momentum going
• I decided that Boston is a pretty sweet place so I took a few trips there to find a job.
• In boston, I had interviews at a bar and a retail wine shop, as well as contacts in the distribution industry. By January I had one offer that I did not care to take. Have to pay the bills somehow.
• Crashed on Alex´s couch a lot, where I got to meet his deadbeat roomie as well as a gay stalker who lived downstairs. If I do move to boston, Brookline is out of the question.
• Got a job offer in New York with a sketchy wine shop uptown. The interview made me feel dirty, so I knew i´d hate that place.
• Gave up on jobs for a week and instead ordered a rolling rock quarter keg with kenny. Took us two weeks to complete, but it was an accomplishment.
• Skied a bit, freelanced for dad, and made a bit of cash.
• On Dec 28th, jokingly jabbered to my mother that I´d like to learn spanish in argentina. She said ok, I called her bluff, and January 3rd I was scheduled to leave.
• Flight was delayed but I got 18,000 bonus miles. Booya
• Arrived in Buenos Aires (now and forever, BA) on the 4th, ate at Aromi with grandmama, and slept in a familiar twin bed.

Bullet points rock.

Anyway, my first few weeks here have been pretty sweet. First few days I hung around with my grandma, registered for my class (nivel 4!) and was shown the way to class by my mothers friend´s son´s cousin, or Maximillien. I take the 80 bus (called a colleción here) to the subte Linea B, which I ride all the way downtown.

First day of class met a lot of fun people. I´m taking español para extranjeors, which is spanish for foreigners. Initially our class was comprised of 4 americans, 1 englishman, an australian, two swedes, a german, 2 frenchmen, two brazilians and an iranian. The following day saw a switch of 1 american for a frenchman, which diminished our domination. These things happen.

Class in general has been fun. The mix of opinions and experiences is quite amazing, and I couldn´t hope for a better mix of students all speaking an unfamiliar language but getting along. Makes me think if the world adopted a language no one really knows (Quechua, por ejemplo) we´d have less fighting. We talk about everything from religion, to machoness, to tango, to reparations (seriously) and transvestites. Almost always a blast.

I´ve also made some good american friends here so far. The first day in class I met a girl, Amanda, who is enrolled at UF. She expressed a desire to see the game and of course I wanted to see the BCS championship. We met at a place called the Alamo which proclaimed it was the only bar in BA that was playing the game and got away with chargin us 50 pesos a piece to enter. They did provide a freely flowing fountain of beer several times throughout the night, which mitigated the damage, but it still hurt. We got drunk, UF won, and I got to see a bunch of bummed out buckeyes. I ended up passing out on my couch and woke up with a lovely hangover. Good night.

My other good american friend is Jessica, who is a Brown alum here with her BA boyfriend, Ignacio. Along with amanda the four of us have been hanging out and taking in the city (mostly the drinking part of the city). For example, the other night we went to a place called Opera B, or something like that, but my rainbows were not proper dress attire, strange for such a casual city. After an attempted Bribe which the Bouncer claimed was ¨menos¨we went to a place in Palermo (a barrio in BA) called Acabar. At the time I thought it was just an innocent pun because Acabar means to Finish. But much to my delight it also means to finish, sexually. Clearly, I´ll have to start using the word a lot more. Drank lots there too!

One of my favorite activities is chatting with cabbies. If I go out to the center at night, it usually warrants a return trip with a cab, since subtes close at night. Usually is a 15 20 min ride by 4 am, so I get home fast. However in my drunken state any inhibition I house to speak the language disappears. We talk about a lot, how life has improved in BA, how Bush sucks, what wines are good, drug addictions and so on. Never fail to interst me. One of the cabbies that my family usually contracts also remembers Eric from when he drove us to the airport 4 years ago. Porteños have crazy memories about people, and he calls him the Chino (which isn´t racist). Didn´t mention Shiran though, even though your asian too, technically.

I´ve been hanging around a lot with my grandmother, and she couldn´t be happier. She´s very old fashion, so she doesn´t let me do much in the way of preparing food or cleaning up after myself. Can´t say I complain much, though I help around in other ways. We eat dinner together a few times a week, drink a lot of maté together, and watch this one japanese guy on the argentine food tv. The dude is roughly 20 stones, speaks spanish fluently, cuts with insane precision, and makes traditional japanese food you never see in the states.

I´ve also met up with my argentine friends from the past. Federico is a wild and crazy guy who is the son of my Mom´s best argentine friend, Virginia. The two go way back and have known each other for like 40 years... something I can´t begin to fathom. Anyway, the first night I went out with them we got drunk off wine filled penguins at a restaurant La Dorita. We had proveletta (straight grilled provolone cheese, crunchy on the outside, gooey on the inside, all around yum) as well as a mixture of meat. Federico is crazy funny and knows enough english to joke around with a bunch of words. We spoke spanish for the most part and I talked about my travels, he spoke of his travels, then about all the hot chicks in the restaurant, then about the wine, then more on hot chicks and so on. The kid had no shame. In the car we saw a voluptuous female cross in front, and, in front of his mother no less, commented on the curvature of her ass while banging on the window and howling. Its quite a common practice in BA, but he´s managed to take it to a different nivel.

This is getting pretty long but that sums up the last fortnight fairly.

As for last night, the Brazilians at the school decided to throw a party at their hostel with tons of meat, lots of music and lots of people. I had a blast, got drunk, recovered from my cold and best of all, I was able to be an asshole. On our way out I noticed a blasted brazillian passed out on the couch, shoes on. Using my quick wits, I swiped a black marker behind the hostel desk that smelled of paint and began to draw on his receding forehead, much to the protest of one of his friends. However, upon seeing the word penis drawn haphazardly, she insisted it looked like Japanese and implied I should draw it again, so I did. After a quick escape and a failed attempt to find another bar, I went home. This morning, after much scrubbing, the black marker I accidentally got on my hand is still here, so somewhere in BA, there is a poor soul with two penises on his face.

I´m too content right now, its terrifying.