Feeling Low About Leaving

On my last day in BA, I went to the park and graded papers, chatted with a tax professor, scratched her two dogs heads, wandered around the city, and generally wallowed in the glory of a crisping toward autumn day; in my heart I felt a little like this fellow to the left - sad and forlorn about leaving such a robust city and my son for such a long, long time.

Graffitini was in its full glory, and I took many photographs on the other side of Corrientes over by the Science Museum where things got particularly pressing when I hit the back of some warehouses:

After walking and photographing for a long time, I found myself again at the movie theater and bought a ticket for Paris, a film in French with Spanish subtitles, which was a splendid way to end my trip; in fact, I am thinking the Tomas Eloy Martinez's book The Tango Singer would be perfectly filmed in just that genre to depict an unwieldy but evocative Buenos Aires.

On my way back to where Jack lives, I noticed the graffiti wall I'd photographed earlier in the day, but the best part of all was this -

the door was open, and there was a whole other world inside!
And that's my story of the trip to Buenos Aires; look the second time and the door may be open onto a whole other world!

The party's over...

I leave tonight at 9:15 and have to "check out" of my little apartment by 10 this morning; I suppose that leaves me wandering the streets in my sneaks with no socks (both pairs are vile and other shoes does work with my blisters). But it's been a perfect week, and even losing Jack for a day or two has been an excellent lesson to me. I have learned to trust him more, to expect less and to just love the little time I have with him. Last night I took 4 of his friends to dinner with the "pre-game" at my house. You've never SEEN so many bottles of wine clang and clank as they took the elevators up to my 5th floor, the lazy souls. They were all charming and funny, irreverent and dear. Pre-game extended onto 9:30, and I was starving, so we walked over to a local place, shuffled up to their second floor because Jack wanted to "be loud." We ate pasta, they drank more wine, and they regaled me with tales that they weren't sure I was hearing. I clung to every word.

Earlier in the day I went to Recoleta Cemetery where Evita is buried, and I was utterly floored at the rows and rows of enormous, ornate mausoleums. It unsettled me to see that much money spent on the dead; I think the Chinese are much better with their beliefs that the person has gone to a better place and their ancestral altars in their houses where they bring food to all ancestors every day. It is much more intimate, but then, this is an extraordinarily public culture where everything is on display, especially the person. Why not the tomb?

Then I was to the endless stalls at the market in the park and then to Palais de Glace, which is a wonderfully domed building with a sunny second floor; the exhibit was nothing to write home about other than a few pieces of the work of the disabled, which I will share if my computer will cooperate. This one I found quirkily compelling:



I passed the Museo Sul Solar, which I shall save for next time, but it did look enticing. The collection is a compilation of esoterica of "the city's most eccentric visionary: salor turned painter, astrologer, musician, inventor, mathematician, writer and philologist Oscar Agustin Alejandro Schulz Solari (1887-1963)." I have a funny feeling that this guy is going to lead me back to BA.

Connections are becoming twisted this morning, so it's over and out until Philadelphia! Hasta la vista.

LA BOCA - I love you!

Today was my adventure into La Boca on the bus; I was told 64 took me there, but alas, the driver said no. However, once I got there, I realized 64 was the right bus, but he must have been going the wrong way. 168 worked just fine, and I like the driver much better than the 64 driver. I sat right up front with him, and when he made one of the inevitable hair-pin turns at excruciating speeds, I went flying off the seat, which is up high anyway, and grappled my way back up from a sprawled position on the floor. I didn't even look around to see who might have noticed the poor soul flying out of her seat. Enthusiasm, I just chalk it up to enthusiasm

As soon as I got out to La Boca, I knew I'd found something thrilling, and I began to photograph madly. If the graffiti is exhilarating in BA, La Boca is the embodiment of this colorful energy; the houses are painted a zillion colors in a trillion ways, and they are utterly spectacular. But as I got into the quieter neighborhoods, an older woman stopped me and asked me to take no photographs. I didn't quite understand her, but she kept saying something about "spirito," and I realized that I was dealing with issues I had no business interfering with, so I slipped down another street and packed it in.

On one festive street were many stalls selling geegaws, but at the end of it was a woman selling unbelievably intricate woven shawls and scarves. I bought several and struck up a conversation with a Canadian group of four who said they come to BA every year at this time, rent an apartment and buy these shawls for all their friends, all of whom, they claimed, love them. They were buying about 20 and did acknowledge one of the men had a store.... When one woman was ready to buy, she realized that as we were admiring and trying them all on, two young, attractive women had been doing the same, only pushing into us; her wallet was stolen out of her shoulder back. I am very lucky to have had my fanny pack on which I keep my free hand all the time. I felt so, so bad for her, and she was a really nice, gentle lady.

It is difficult for me not to include many, many photos of this area because it stimulated something in me that got me onto a new quest which I called "Techologico Road Kill," and to do it you have to have a really sunny day so that you can look for the shiny objects in the road when you cross the major intersection. I wanted to get all mechanical, technical pieces that had been crushed by cars and busses so that I could make them into sculpture or or 3-D paintings. Plus, the challenge of picking the things up before getting run over by oncoming cars is enough of an adventure, but then you have the other challenge of finding a thing and not merely a shiny piece of wrapping or paper. Start looking. You might come up with some fabulous pieces for me!

After La Boca and lunch at my apartment, I walked to the Museo Decorativo, a magnificent old house of the early 20th century, designed by french architect, Rene Sergent. The objects inside ranged from fussy 18th century french chairs to Ming dynasty Chinese vases to Thai and Cambodian Buddha statues - extraordinarily eclectic mix. But the most exceptional pieces were contemporary silk hangings that were textured, brilliantly colored and as my friend in Penang would say, "A Wow." The artist calls herself Silke, and the hangings are worth checking out. As I recall there were websites on some of the documents, but I don't have one. I DO have the vivid, gleeful memory though. Here is a photo of the building; photos were not allowed inside.



I will leave you with one more La Boca photo because I have to get ready for a welcome to BA party for Nick Renner Smith, a friend of Jack's from Philadelphia. I have a nice bottle of Malbec, some champagne, olives, Argentine cheese and crackers. I invited them for "cocktails." They refer to it as "pre-game," I'm sure because this is mere warm-up to their evenings that seem to go on into not even the wee small hours, but into the breaking dawn and day light! Thank goodness I don't have to go through that anymore.

Today was Tigre

Even though I am writing this the day after, we will pretend that it's my entry for Thursday, March 12 when I hightailed it to the Retiro train station, got myself a round trip ticket to Tigre and spent the better part of the day in the town or in the delta on a boat or at a cafe on the side of the river. The town itself is lovely in a cracked pavement, precious houses on the water kind of way, and the building that housed the wee Tigre art collection was spectacular with a high walkway out onto a big plaza overlooking the river - Rio Lujan. the train station puts you on the Rio Tigre, and the city itself is surrounded by Rio Lujan and Rio Reconquista, with bridges over into the next town or part of Tigre; I could quite tell and didn't travel over those "foreign" bridges which were not even marked on my little local map. I think the museum is probably used more for functions than for its collection because there was a sign about some gala even being held there this weekend.

The boat ride along the delta took us to all the local stops, which were simply high docks out into the rivers with names on the signs. It looked as though people stood out there and just waited for one of these collectivos to fetch them, and as we journeyed, people got on and off the boat. My destination was 3 Bocas, which apparently had a lovely walking route around the island, but I chose to stay at the welcoming cafe right there on the river - Coca Coca signed umbrellas over each of the tables, protecting each from the sun, which wasn't yet shining. I stayed here for over an hour, reading my Argentine history, eating my beetroot salad with hard boiled eggs and drinking tea; and the sun did begin to shine. Ah, after two days of gray and rain, I did the shameful thing, plopping myself right into that shining orb's rays and soaking up that vitamin D and all the other bad stuff one gets from sunshine. I noticed that the other side of the river had a decidedly Palm Beach aura with something akin to the Lake Trail along the water and some beautiful houses perched on perfectly manicured grass. I got back to BA by 7:00 and home by 7:30. Jack and I stumbled and walked until we found a sushi place, and here is my FINAL WORD: DO NOT BOTHER WITH SUSHI IN BUENOS AIRES!

Graffiti is the best in San Telmo...

You know when the best thing I can say about a place is that the graffiti is extraordinary, then I'm either having a bad day, the place is gray, or the graffiti really IS splendido. It was the most colorful thing I saw in San Telmo, but then I went on a gray, rainy day when few people were on the street, and I took new transportation routes. The mission was bound to fail. On top of my mood and the rain, the sushi restaurant I'd hoped to find was not longer there - operation el busto. Nonetheless, I can't say enough about the graffiti! I will go back because there is meant to be a terrific market and some funky rooftops and crumbling buildings - stuff I usually go for - but today was just not my day.

It started late because I was determined to lay low and get some grading done, so I puttered, read the NY Times online, did emails, chatted on Skype to my neighbors at home who are about to take off for two weeks in Africa. I noticed that the decor in my "apartment" has all the nuances of the alphabet; I've got an Edgar Degas print of horses on one wall, and on the other is a Salvador Dali print of a girl looking out a window - basically her tail.. Hmmm, maybe THIS is why the graffiti spoke to me so strongly. When I finally left here, it began to rain, so I nipped into the HUGE market called Abasto in a big art deco building. There I noticed signs for movies, but I mean a long LIST of movies, so I followed my nose and found the ticket counter; I figured the rain would stop, I'd get some Spanish under my belt, and I could rest my still painful feet. In my flawless Spanish, I asked the 12 year old boy behind me in line, and he nodded at my choice, a movie title that sounded familiar from looking at the signs when I was in Belgrano. I asked him what it was about, and he spoke some English, but his mother, who spoke no English, grabbed her son's arm and gestured that they were together and then there was another person. We both nodded, understanding that this was some kind of love triangle.

After buying the ticket, I had to take an escalator up another flight to the biggest array of theaters I've ever seen, a carpeted hall of rushing sound and Spanish titles so vast that it made me dizzy. We had assigned seats, but damn if I could find mine, so I just sat on the end of a row and settled into chewing my apple as quietly as I could; I mean there were about 3 other people in the whole enormous theater. In BA we don't have previews. The movie just seems to start. As this one began, I thought it must be a preview, but it kept going like a bad dream. I fidgetted and wondered whether I should just leave. It was the same move I'd seen two days ago. Oh, well, I figured there must be a message here somewhere and stretched out in my seat to watch for the second time He's Just Not That into You, and all I can say is that the next time I go to see a movie with "Sentiento" or something in the title, I will KNOW that I've already seen it. And then some..

Oh, and then there were the melons... After my escapade in San Telmo, I walked back to my neighborhood and stopped at the SUPER Mercato where I noticed gorgeous honeydew melons on sale for $2.79 pesos. I calculated that was less than a dollar each, so I got two. When I checked out, the nice young woman asked me Spanish questions and I just shook my head, so she called over a young boy, gave him the melons and hustled me to the side so she could take care of other customers. Oh, I realized, the guy has to weigh the melons. Shit. This must mean they are going to cost a fortune, and they did - about $4 each. I slid a knife into one of them as soon as I got home and almost ate half of it because it was SO sweet and succulent that it was TDF! Just remember to weigh your melons whenever you come to BA...
I will leave you with two more graffiti photos, and if these aren't as exquisite as I believe they are, I'll eat my hat, as the saying goes; who EVER thought up that one? This is a close-up...

It's all about the feet today...

My feet have so many blisters that walking was a challenge today, so I stopped at the most exquisite looking building I found and went into the Museo del Patrimonio, which was built in the 1887 out of 300,000 "multicolored faience bricks mady by Royal Doulton and shipped from Britain" (Frommer's Buenos Aires). It was built in response to the yellow fever epidemic, a building to hold water because it was the highest point in the city. However, BA was made capital of Argentina in 1880, and people fled to this area, avoiding yellow fever, and building enormous mansions. This water Palace had to fit into the grander scheme of both place and position of Buenos Aires. It IS spectacular in the front, and the museum is full of water/sanitation gadgetry, among which are these toilets, all positioned in one room. Nice, eh?

Then, although I didn't eat there, I went to the famous Cafe Tortoni, the main literary cafe of BA.
there was a long wait for a table because the group in front of me left instead of waiting. Next to this cafe is the Tango Institute where I could have gone for a 3 hour lesson, but the feet, the feet...

I decided to get a closer look at the Casa Rosada, the big, pink building on Plaza Mayo. The president doesn't live here, but he does work here in this pink building. Why is it pink? Frommer's has two theories: the colors of the two opposing parties are red and white, and painting the building pink was a truce-like maneuver. The second theory is that the building was originally with cow blood that dried in the sun, creating the pink color. I did try to go to the museum at the side, but everything was closed for the month of March. Just my luck... so off I went to Puerto Madero where I wanted to pass over into the Reserva Ecologica Costanera, which is some ecological area where over 200 species of birds live, the irony being that this spot was established from debris and rubble from demolition and reconstruction in BA. It's a good place to run, and as I hobbled there, I noticed all the men who were "running" wore the same little sweat shorts in gray and t-shirts, all of which said "ESERCITO." I think I have it right. None of these runners were vigorous runners, but the path along the reserve is concrete and no streets intersect it. It overlooks a bleak, overgrown area that seems to be the reserve itself.
After about three hours of walking, I thought about going to the movies again, but my puritanical self drive me to the next museum I saw - the Museo Etnografico, which was wee and wouldn't let me go to the collection upstairs, so I went through the two rooms downstairs and saw some wooden carvings from Terra del Fuego, things that looked as though they were used for sick or dead people; my spanish is not very good, as you can see.
Finally I wandered to the Subte and got myself home where I have been ever since, waiting to hear from Jack whom I have not heard from in two days. To say that I am worried is putting it mildly... My next step may be the police because it seems so very peculiar to come all this way and have him disappear like this when we were to talk last night and have dinner tonight. Breathe slowly...
I shall just think of the man I photographed today - he looked so calm and content.

From one end to another... almost

Phew, who knew Lavalle Street was the fabric capital? As I began wandering down Lavalle, I saw all these fabric stores, and, as I am quilting again, my eyes began to roam the designs to see what might work with a brown, green, red and yellow quilt I'm making. Found it! Wouldn't you know the sucker was polyester - never work in a quilt...

Avanti, and onto the Lavalle and Palacie de Justicia where the handsomest man in the world stopped when he saw me pouring over my maps to ask if I needed help. I almost jumped into his arms and said, "You betcha," but I restrained myself and let him help me; however, when he said that Malba, the Museum of Argentine art, was over 50 blocks, and I'd have to take a bus, I just shook my head and said, "No, I'll walk, thank you." He said, "Oh, you're young." I assured him that I was "not necessarily young but strong," as I lifted my now sneakered right foot. I asked him about getting tix to go to Tigre on Wednesday, and he assured me I didn't need to get tix in advance; Tigre wasn't that far away. He lived there. We shook hands, and I said, "Gracias, gracias, mucho gracias," but, of course, I meant, "I love you dearly and when will we meet again?"

On my way I encountered all sorts of magical things, the least of which was a homeless man with a shopping cart or three, just to show you that there ARE homeless and poor people here despite appearances of riches everywhere. I kept walking along Avenue del Libertador until I got to the beginning of Avenida Figueroa Alcorta which goes along the edges of endless parks, BA University and finally Malba, which was terrific, but the first photo I took brought the guards, as it usually does. That was the end of the photographing, but I did capture a wonderful image of a piece I really loved. The museum startled me because the insides were the same colors that Oonie chose for her architects' firm - white and a delicious light, not quite lime green. Two of the finest works were hung on walls of that hue - Joaquin Torres-Garcia's Composition Symetrique universelle en blanc et noir, 1931, Wifredo Lam's 1943 La Manana Verde, and a piece of Fernando Botera's. From malba I walked to the Jardin Japones and enjoyed a sit down in the lovely sun and watch the ferociously famished fat carp come up to me bobbing and leaping for food. I felt sad that I hadn't brought some of that doughy bread that sits heavily on top on my microwave. Then I walked to the Subte and took a train to Juramento in Belgrano where the small BA Chinatown is located. And it was small, but the area itself was lovely, lovely, and I went to the Chinese market and bought some sickly looking peanut butter called "Mani Caviwa," whether Chinese or Spanish I do not know, and some grainy sliced bread. I sat on the bench outside the store with the oily peanut butter balanced on my lap and tried to eat a little bread with pb as I drank some green tea - a challenge but somebody's got to do it.
Then I noticed a multiplex movie theater and decided I HAD to go to the movies in Argentina; the choices were slim, but the price was right - 13 pesos, which is less than $5 - and I saw He's Just Not That Into You and, as always, wept copious tears of joy at the end. Ah, American films always hit the spot, no matter what country! I came home and then dashed out to my neighborhood Chinese shop and bought a big beer, some fruit, pasta and sauce in a bag. The meal came to just over $3. Now THAT's why we stay in an apartment! I scrounged around for a can opener and finding none, I went up to Federico's grandparent's apartment and got one. Federica was having a terribly day because he's an epileptic and hates taking his meds b/c they make him sleepy, so he didn't take them today. He was coming home from school with his "friend" and had an attack; his friend did nothing, people on the street tried to help him, but he said no to an ambulance. He was most concerned about his friend - aren't all guys at that age? I assured him to take his meds; nobody needs a friend who walks away when we are in need. He was very upset and missing his family, he said. He apparently is here with his grandparents to go to school, and his family lives outside of BA, far enough away for him to have to be here with his grandparents. I ached for the poor fellow, but I am glad to have a friend in the building. Tomorrow promises more adventures...