Friday I worked from home on studio stuff- this project is coming along very painfully slow. I decided to take a break with Aldo and go have dinner at the place near my apartment called La Pena de Colorado. I'd been there once before- very narrow, rustic, with northern Argentine food and a stage in the back. Anyway, I was called Chris up through skype and he was the last guy in studio, so I invited him to come eat with us, and we agree to meet down there around 11 or so. The place is so narrow its actually very easy to miss. Very subtle signage. Inside, we find we have to pay 12 pesos for the "show". We're not too upset about this as its $4 for an hour of live music with dinner. The place is already filling up so we grab a table for four and get a bottle of wine and a bottle of water. Chris finds his way to the place and tells us that Adam's coming too, as he's been looking for live music since coming down here. I order Locro, which is this very hearty beef stew with greens, big beans, corn, and chunks of beef and sausage. Aldo gets this sandwich not knowing exactly what it is, and gets a massive chunck of grilled meat over a foot long on a halved bagette. For $2, the meat is not the highest quality and is really fatty, but its a ton of food. Aldo doesn't even finish it.
The trio at the front is a band called Acido Criollo. They perform a fusion of argentine folk, jazz, and rock. The lead guy alternates between a jazz flute and an acoustic guitar, with a percussionist and an electric guitar player as the other two members. The music was really good. They are not yet signed to a contract nor have a CD, which is really surprising considering how developed the music was. If you want to hear one of thier songs, they have it on the restaurant website. Adam joined us halfway through. Adam and Chris were two of the three guys who came down here two months before us to intern down here, and they lived right across the street from where I live now. There's a restaurant Romario's which is a pizza and beer place where they went all the time, and became close friends with one of the waitresses, Mariu (I'm not sure how it's spelled, just that its prononced "mary-ooo"). Mariu is really cute, whenever Aldo and I come in, its besitos all around. Anyway, more of our friends showed up at the restaurant we were at, and since there wasn;t any room left, the crossed the street to Romario's. One of them must have told Mariu that Adam and Chris were over here, because we look over at the window, and we see Mariu run up in her Romario's clothes, look at us in disbelief, flip off the entire table, and run back to the restaurant.
She's really not that pissed off, just a little annoyed that they went to the other restaurant and not hers, so they talk to her for awhile and everythings smoothed out. I call it an early evening and head back around 1 AM. The smoky restauraunts and the wine really aren't doing good things for my sore throat.
Sep 16, 2006
Sep 15, 2006
hace un click
Click, as in a mouse click, has been directly taken from english in Argentina, so I see "hace un click" all the time in ads (make one click). Also, all the words they import from english are automatically masculine, just as a side note.
I'm taking a breif break from studio work and I just wanted to show you some of my favorite websites, for those of you have some time or are mildly curious.
BBC News -These guys are great for having news from all around the world, up to the minute, and they've got everything very well organized on thier website. It's published by a company managed by the British Government, so it does have a bit of a lean to it, but at least its an alternative outside viewpoint to things happening in the U.S, and occationally I'll see eyebrow raising items that never made it to the US news until several days later.
And just for fun, the North Korean official news -for the just-a-little-off translation to English, for the rabid rhetoric, and for the laughable lunacy of the content. Today's issue has a condemnation of US imperialism claiming that we're attempting to take over China and Russia, several breifs extolling the virtues of the Great Leader, and party notes about the Ambassador of Such and Such having lunch at the Palace of the Magnificient Victory of the Working People.
I typically don't follow blogs outside of Mom's great blog, but the guy who writes this blog is a maritime navigator who works on scientific research vessels and he travels all over the world, writing about what he's seeing and what he's doing. He's a bit political, but he's always someplace different and he usually posts pictures.
Woot.com is fun to visit not only because they have insanely good deals on electronics, but also because they work really hard to come up with a story about the item they're selling (they only sell one thing a day, changing at midnight) and those are always fun to read.
It may not be the Encylopedia Britannica but Wikipedia is a great cultural resource and general encyclopedia. It doesn't have an exhuastive knowlege of the barrios of Buenos Aires, but it has a few things to say about them. Really, its a much more impressive and exhaustive compendium of common knowlege, popular culture, new words and phenomena. It's written by the users, so its fun to see the posted debates they have about entries. I'll go on looking for one thing, and then let the site lead me to other words and topics since its all linked and cross referenced.
Worth1000 is a pixelpushers paradise. Professional photophop manipulators compete against each other daily to come up with the cleverest, more realistic, most funny photomanips. I especially love the contests related to Movies, like Mate a Movie where you combine two movies, like "There's Swampthing About Mary" but then I love visual gags.
If you're into the interplay of technology, and society, and culture, then Wired News is great with its collumns, news articles, scoops, and features.
For great streaming music on the internet, Pandora lets you pick an artist or a song and them streams similiar music and artists that it pulls from a massive collection of old and contemporary music.
Lastly, for the pure whoa factor, check out J-track 3D. It loads an applet window which shows you, in real time, a 3d map of the earth and all of the satellites orbititing it.
OK ten sites should take you awhile to explore and enjoy, so its back to work for me.
I'm taking a breif break from studio work and I just wanted to show you some of my favorite websites, for those of you have some time or are mildly curious.
BBC News -These guys are great for having news from all around the world, up to the minute, and they've got everything very well organized on thier website. It's published by a company managed by the British Government, so it does have a bit of a lean to it, but at least its an alternative outside viewpoint to things happening in the U.S, and occationally I'll see eyebrow raising items that never made it to the US news until several days later.
And just for fun, the North Korean official news -for the just-a-little-off translation to English, for the rabid rhetoric, and for the laughable lunacy of the content. Today's issue has a condemnation of US imperialism claiming that we're attempting to take over China and Russia, several breifs extolling the virtues of the Great Leader, and party notes about the Ambassador of Such and Such having lunch at the Palace of the Magnificient Victory of the Working People.
I typically don't follow blogs outside of Mom's great blog, but the guy who writes this blog is a maritime navigator who works on scientific research vessels and he travels all over the world, writing about what he's seeing and what he's doing. He's a bit political, but he's always someplace different and he usually posts pictures.
Woot.com is fun to visit not only because they have insanely good deals on electronics, but also because they work really hard to come up with a story about the item they're selling (they only sell one thing a day, changing at midnight) and those are always fun to read.
It may not be the Encylopedia Britannica but Wikipedia is a great cultural resource and general encyclopedia. It doesn't have an exhuastive knowlege of the barrios of Buenos Aires, but it has a few things to say about them. Really, its a much more impressive and exhaustive compendium of common knowlege, popular culture, new words and phenomena. It's written by the users, so its fun to see the posted debates they have about entries. I'll go on looking for one thing, and then let the site lead me to other words and topics since its all linked and cross referenced.
Worth1000 is a pixelpushers paradise. Professional photophop manipulators compete against each other daily to come up with the cleverest, more realistic, most funny photomanips. I especially love the contests related to Movies, like Mate a Movie where you combine two movies, like "There's Swampthing About Mary" but then I love visual gags.
If you're into the interplay of technology, and society, and culture, then Wired News is great with its collumns, news articles, scoops, and features.
For great streaming music on the internet, Pandora lets you pick an artist or a song and them streams similiar music and artists that it pulls from a massive collection of old and contemporary music.
Lastly, for the pure whoa factor, check out J-track 3D. It loads an applet window which shows you, in real time, a 3d map of the earth and all of the satellites orbititing it.
OK ten sites should take you awhile to explore and enjoy, so its back to work for me.
Sep 14, 2006
Skype
Ok, I finally joined the rest of the world and got Skype tonight. The clarity of voice was amazing. THe only problem was that my computer mic is broken, so the first time I tried having a skype conversation it was very one-sided. However, a friend of mine recommended plugging my headphones into the mic port, and that actually worked! However, the quality wasn't as clear for the other person, and I felt wierd talking into an earbud.
Skype is a way of talking over the internet, using the internet as a phone line. Talk about a reversal of roles... Anyway, its very easy and free to download and its free to "call" anyone who is also online using Skype. There is also the ability to make calls to real phones and cell phones for low rates from your computer. I'm very excited about this because I'm down here in Argentina and now I have the ability to call people. (which is kind of strange since people who know me know I'm not much of a phone conversationalist). But if you want to call me, download skype, and do a member search. Do a search for alec perkins, the only one in Buenos Aires.
But first, I need to get a headset.
Skype is a way of talking over the internet, using the internet as a phone line. Talk about a reversal of roles... Anyway, its very easy and free to download and its free to "call" anyone who is also online using Skype. There is also the ability to make calls to real phones and cell phones for low rates from your computer. I'm very excited about this because I'm down here in Argentina and now I have the ability to call people. (which is kind of strange since people who know me know I'm not much of a phone conversationalist). But if you want to call me, download skype, and do a member search. Do a search for alec perkins, the only one in Buenos Aires.
But first, I need to get a headset.
Collectivos
The subject of busses (collectivos) in Buenos Aires is a world all of its own. To begin with, the city has over 300 bus lines. Each bus line is individually owned, managed, and run by a private company, and some of the busses have multiple and different routes under the same line number. The good news is that they run every few minutes and most of them run all night. One interesting and fun result of the individual line owners is that the bus companies decorate thier busses however they want, since theres no government standard to maintain. All the busses are handpainted in different stripes and with multicolored hand lettering. Most of them also have hand painted detail work on the front and back, and every one I've seen has had some kind of shade with frills over the front window. The bus I took the other night had replaced a few of the flouruesents at the front with black lights. Unfortately, the busses are almost always packed when I'm using them, so standing room only, unless its the middle of the day or late at night.
Speaking of street transportation, another common sight is the empanada men on thier scooters. These are guys who work for empanada and pizza companies (empanadas are a type of meat pies) and they load the delivery into a square box on the backs of thier motorscooters. It was kind of funny, there was a group of girls on my bus one night, and I can hear them giggling and gabbing back there and I turn to look outside to see an empanada man idling at the same speed of the bus making eyes with the girls. Finally, he salutes them, pulls down his helmet, and speeds of into the night. This is the city I live in.
In the used bookstore I found the other day, I found a guidebook to the US in spanish. Curious, I looked up what they had to say about Arizona. "Phoenix es un cuidad grande, chaotico, y aburrido..." (Phoenix is a big city, chaotic, and boring...) After dismissing Phoenix, they immediately launched into a discussion of what to see and do in Tucson, and included a short guide to Phoenix at the end of the chapter on Arizona.
We went to get Chinese food last night because I've been very deprived of spices here. Argentines have good food, but it's bland as all get out. We walked to the nearby chinatown and grabbed a table. The restaurant smelled like a chinese restaurant I remembered from China, so I took that as a good sign. The menus of course, were all in Spanish. So I got the Sopa de wan tan and the Cuerdo Frito de salsa de Agridulche con ananas (won ton soup and sweet and sour pork). Not bad. The soup was really good for my throat which has been really sore.
Two days ago, my throat just got very sore over the space of an afternoon. My lymph nodes are a little swollen, and I'm coughing and sneezing a bit, with the usual aches. Too many late nights in studio I think. So, lots of tea, lots of vitamin C (I drank a liter of orange juice yesterday), and plenty of rest.
I miss you all.
Speaking of street transportation, another common sight is the empanada men on thier scooters. These are guys who work for empanada and pizza companies (empanadas are a type of meat pies) and they load the delivery into a square box on the backs of thier motorscooters. It was kind of funny, there was a group of girls on my bus one night, and I can hear them giggling and gabbing back there and I turn to look outside to see an empanada man idling at the same speed of the bus making eyes with the girls. Finally, he salutes them, pulls down his helmet, and speeds of into the night. This is the city I live in.
In the used bookstore I found the other day, I found a guidebook to the US in spanish. Curious, I looked up what they had to say about Arizona. "Phoenix es un cuidad grande, chaotico, y aburrido..." (Phoenix is a big city, chaotic, and boring...) After dismissing Phoenix, they immediately launched into a discussion of what to see and do in Tucson, and included a short guide to Phoenix at the end of the chapter on Arizona.
We went to get Chinese food last night because I've been very deprived of spices here. Argentines have good food, but it's bland as all get out. We walked to the nearby chinatown and grabbed a table. The restaurant smelled like a chinese restaurant I remembered from China, so I took that as a good sign. The menus of course, were all in Spanish. So I got the Sopa de wan tan and the Cuerdo Frito de salsa de Agridulche con ananas (won ton soup and sweet and sour pork). Not bad. The soup was really good for my throat which has been really sore.
Two days ago, my throat just got very sore over the space of an afternoon. My lymph nodes are a little swollen, and I'm coughing and sneezing a bit, with the usual aches. Too many late nights in studio I think. So, lots of tea, lots of vitamin C (I drank a liter of orange juice yesterday), and plenty of rest.
I miss you all.
Sep 11, 2006
16 new pictures
by archalec
new pics start on the sixth page I think of my album... pictures of the site, sunday fairs, etc.
Sep 9, 2006
Chicos en la Calle
Today was another busy day. My instep and knee were bothering me all day from the run this morning, and it didn't help that we walked for hours this afternoon. After we left the apartment, we stopped on Florida Avenue, which is a huge pedestrian street which runs for at least a mile, totally lined with shops, cafes, etc. Vendors in the middle, beggers, black market money changers, everyone. This was actually where I bought a new little backpack the other day. I just wanted something small- big enough for a notebook, but small enough almost to forget I was wearing it. It's heavy canvas, so I'm planning on stitching a River Plate or Argentina soccer team patch on it. Anyway, we were hankering for a bit of Americana so we stopped in at a burger doodle for a big mac. It was interesting in that the prices were still on par with America- about three dollars for a combo meal. Here, that same amount can buy you a dozen empanadas, or at least a medium pizza. My fajitas at the Mexican restaurant were less than five dollars, just as a comparison.
Afterwards, we caught the subte to Constitution Station, the train station in San Telmo surrounded by the poorer Barrios. Not a great place to walk around alone if you're blatently American and toting a big camera. Actually, Aldo and I fit in very well here. My hair is longer now, I've got some local leather bracelets, and my shoes are finally getting that dirty street look that everyone's clothes seem to have here. My accent is still bad, so I don't answer when shifty people ask me for the time to gauge my nationality.
(Didn't mom have a dream about having to drag me off the streets down here?)
We walked around San Telmo the rest of the afternoon. It was a gorgeous day, warm, sunny with a slight breeze. Took a few pictures, made some notes, and took in the area surrounding the site. We made our way to La Boca, one of the poorer and more colorful barrios in the city. We avoided the empty street with all the street kids hanging around it, but we stopped to talk to one who was picking through garbage on his own.
We were stumped at first what we could ask him? Anything we said could be taken offensively, since the object of our interest - what does he do all day and where does he sleep at night, are directly related to his condition of living on the street. I mean, who the hell were we, rich American students, to be studying him? All these people want is recognition of thier humanity. Weve been told that they're there on thier own accord, because its worse where they're coming from.
Anyway, we started talking to him a little bit, in a horribly awkward conversation, made more awkward by the fact that he was picking through garbage while we talked to him. Apparently, we had grabbed a newbie- he'd only been on the street for three days. He looked about 16-18 years old. He told us that his mother had died of starvation, his father had been killed, and he was on the street because he tried to interfere with his stepfather beating his younger brother with a metal pipe and got three broken ribs as a result.
We gave him some money and thanked him for his time. What can you say to that?
It's one thing to hear it from a movie, or a book, or even from the director of the teen program that violence drives many kids to the streets. Its another thing to meet one of them and hear him talk about it.
Our new project is to map the site using various layers of the city and diagramming it. A lot of groups are studying and mapping the graffiti, ours and other group are working on sound, but you can reall slice it any way you want. It just seems odd, like there's some crucial disconnect, when you go from talking to one of the kids in the street to doing an analysis of sound pollution.
Anyway, we'll do more analysis tomorrow as a group and hopefully figure some more things out.
We walked back to Plaza Durrego for a beer and some sandwiches in the plaza in the late afternoon. A nice break for my aching feet. Got some gelato afterwards and walked back towards Puerto Madero, another much newer, trendy barrio right next door to the worst parts of San Telmo and La Boca. We actually stood under the freeway which seems to divide them and looked left to see the slum housing and weeds and right to see the shiny new modern apartmetns and manacured trees. Theres a fair down in Puerto Madero every saturday evening, lots of vendors selling antiques, junk, and a lot of native handcrafts. Theres a lot of Mate gourds, leather and hippie jewellery, and indiginious wool woven goods like hats, alpaca sweaters, etc. Aldo got a bag in the traditional Mexican style that he'd been looking for all day, kind of like a big square woven purse which is slung across the body and worn very low.
After hanging around there for awhile, we were both so exhausted we took a cab back to the metro station and came back to the apartment where we both passed out for about half an hour. Its got to be all the walking we're doing. That and the huge run this morning. Nothing happening tonight, saturday night. We're all wiped, plus a lot of people went out late for Brian's birthday last evening. I wonder where that kid we met is now?
Afterwards, we caught the subte to Constitution Station, the train station in San Telmo surrounded by the poorer Barrios. Not a great place to walk around alone if you're blatently American and toting a big camera. Actually, Aldo and I fit in very well here. My hair is longer now, I've got some local leather bracelets, and my shoes are finally getting that dirty street look that everyone's clothes seem to have here. My accent is still bad, so I don't answer when shifty people ask me for the time to gauge my nationality.
(Didn't mom have a dream about having to drag me off the streets down here?)
We walked around San Telmo the rest of the afternoon. It was a gorgeous day, warm, sunny with a slight breeze. Took a few pictures, made some notes, and took in the area surrounding the site. We made our way to La Boca, one of the poorer and more colorful barrios in the city. We avoided the empty street with all the street kids hanging around it, but we stopped to talk to one who was picking through garbage on his own.
We were stumped at first what we could ask him? Anything we said could be taken offensively, since the object of our interest - what does he do all day and where does he sleep at night, are directly related to his condition of living on the street. I mean, who the hell were we, rich American students, to be studying him? All these people want is recognition of thier humanity. Weve been told that they're there on thier own accord, because its worse where they're coming from.
Anyway, we started talking to him a little bit, in a horribly awkward conversation, made more awkward by the fact that he was picking through garbage while we talked to him. Apparently, we had grabbed a newbie- he'd only been on the street for three days. He looked about 16-18 years old. He told us that his mother had died of starvation, his father had been killed, and he was on the street because he tried to interfere with his stepfather beating his younger brother with a metal pipe and got three broken ribs as a result.
We gave him some money and thanked him for his time. What can you say to that?
It's one thing to hear it from a movie, or a book, or even from the director of the teen program that violence drives many kids to the streets. Its another thing to meet one of them and hear him talk about it.
Our new project is to map the site using various layers of the city and diagramming it. A lot of groups are studying and mapping the graffiti, ours and other group are working on sound, but you can reall slice it any way you want. It just seems odd, like there's some crucial disconnect, when you go from talking to one of the kids in the street to doing an analysis of sound pollution.
Anyway, we'll do more analysis tomorrow as a group and hopefully figure some more things out.
We walked back to Plaza Durrego for a beer and some sandwiches in the plaza in the late afternoon. A nice break for my aching feet. Got some gelato afterwards and walked back towards Puerto Madero, another much newer, trendy barrio right next door to the worst parts of San Telmo and La Boca. We actually stood under the freeway which seems to divide them and looked left to see the slum housing and weeds and right to see the shiny new modern apartmetns and manacured trees. Theres a fair down in Puerto Madero every saturday evening, lots of vendors selling antiques, junk, and a lot of native handcrafts. Theres a lot of Mate gourds, leather and hippie jewellery, and indiginious wool woven goods like hats, alpaca sweaters, etc. Aldo got a bag in the traditional Mexican style that he'd been looking for all day, kind of like a big square woven purse which is slung across the body and worn very low.
After hanging around there for awhile, we were both so exhausted we took a cab back to the metro station and came back to the apartment where we both passed out for about half an hour. Its got to be all the walking we're doing. That and the huge run this morning. Nothing happening tonight, saturday night. We're all wiped, plus a lot of people went out late for Brian's birthday last evening. I wonder where that kid we met is now?
Sep 8, 2006
Textures
Big luxurious breakfast this morning of mushroom and cheese baked crepes. While we ate at this cafe, they played nothing but pop hits from the 50's to the 70's. Its so surreal hearing all this old music everywhere here. The other day I was shopping at Disco (a chain supermarket here) and they were playing The Bangles. This whole culture has a facination with 80's Americana.
After breakfast I walked along Santa Fe Avenue, the big shopping street here that extends all across the city. I found this cool huge used bookstore with a section of just english books, and all the books were from the 19 teens onward. Tons of old books. The used bookstore had a cafe in the back too. It staggers me how many bookstores there are here. There are a few huge ones, but for the most part there are at least two or three bookstores on each block. My destination on Santa Fe avenue was the huge bookstore of El Ateno, a Barnes & Noble sized place which was built inside an old baroque style theater. The book stacks were in the main floor, and also up in the balconies, and they turned the stage into a sitting area for the cafe. Really cool.
Took the Subte to the middle of the downtown, a few stops away. Totally jam packed at three PM. It was so packed, I had to lean in and push to avoid being pinched by the doors when they closed. I walked along Florida street, a pedestrian avenue downtown totally lined with boutiques and shops, and I bought a new small canvas backpack for about 8 bucks. It looks very European. I'm going to get an Argentina patch for it, or a River Plate soccer club patch. We'll see what I come across.
Walking across the city, I suddenly found myself in a demonstration of workers picketing and protesting for something. Looked like a lot of indiginous people or immigrants. I got out of there quickly, especially since I passed a busload of idle, but extremely dangerous looking special riot police. Definately not the time to stop and take pictures. Just keep walking.
Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around San Telmo, just taking things in, reading graffiti and making notes on my map. Bought a leather braclet from a street vendor, and had tea and a medialuna at a cafe up in one of the old mansions converted to antique markets.
Last night, I went to Brian's birthday party at a Mexican food restaurant. It was ok, nothing great foodwise, just had fajitas and a corona. Reminded me of home. I passed on the typical round of bar hopping after dinner and instead hit a pool hall near our apartment with Jamie and we played a few rounds.
This morning, got up and ran in the parks and in the city. There's a person who rents rollerblades down there, so I'll definately have to go back. I'm so out of shape, the run was really not very good. Knees hurt, legs hurt, so I didn't push too hard. Today, I'll head back to the site to do more photos and surveying.
After breakfast I walked along Santa Fe Avenue, the big shopping street here that extends all across the city. I found this cool huge used bookstore with a section of just english books, and all the books were from the 19 teens onward. Tons of old books. The used bookstore had a cafe in the back too. It staggers me how many bookstores there are here. There are a few huge ones, but for the most part there are at least two or three bookstores on each block. My destination on Santa Fe avenue was the huge bookstore of El Ateno, a Barnes & Noble sized place which was built inside an old baroque style theater. The book stacks were in the main floor, and also up in the balconies, and they turned the stage into a sitting area for the cafe. Really cool.
Took the Subte to the middle of the downtown, a few stops away. Totally jam packed at three PM. It was so packed, I had to lean in and push to avoid being pinched by the doors when they closed. I walked along Florida street, a pedestrian avenue downtown totally lined with boutiques and shops, and I bought a new small canvas backpack for about 8 bucks. It looks very European. I'm going to get an Argentina patch for it, or a River Plate soccer club patch. We'll see what I come across.
Walking across the city, I suddenly found myself in a demonstration of workers picketing and protesting for something. Looked like a lot of indiginous people or immigrants. I got out of there quickly, especially since I passed a busload of idle, but extremely dangerous looking special riot police. Definately not the time to stop and take pictures. Just keep walking.
Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around San Telmo, just taking things in, reading graffiti and making notes on my map. Bought a leather braclet from a street vendor, and had tea and a medialuna at a cafe up in one of the old mansions converted to antique markets.
Last night, I went to Brian's birthday party at a Mexican food restaurant. It was ok, nothing great foodwise, just had fajitas and a corona. Reminded me of home. I passed on the typical round of bar hopping after dinner and instead hit a pool hall near our apartment with Jamie and we played a few rounds.
This morning, got up and ran in the parks and in the city. There's a person who rents rollerblades down there, so I'll definately have to go back. I'm so out of shape, the run was really not very good. Knees hurt, legs hurt, so I didn't push too hard. Today, I'll head back to the site to do more photos and surveying.
Tango noche
Last night, my roomates finally got me out to tango. Thursday nights, there's a place in our neighborhood that has a tango club in the back of the restaurant, and lessons and dancing are ten pesos (about $3). So, we all got dressed up, Aldo and I in our nice clothes, the first time I've seen Jamie in heels, and we took a quick cab over where we met two more friends of ours from studio, Jaom, a Brazillian who's visiting for a week, and Leia, a sixth year.
The lessons are public, so you just dance and they try to help you out after they show you a new move. It was fun, I've never been dancing with Jamie before, so she was shocked how tall I was becuase I usually have bad posture. She was also very impressed with my ability to lead on the dance floor. A year of dancing Salsa with Jen really helped me out in that regard. This was my second lesson since I've been here, so I actually surprised myself with what I remembered. Still, I didt get what they were trying to show as well, but I'm usually pretty bad with learning new moves. Anyway after about an hour of practice, they opened up the floor and people began coming in from outside and soon the place was comfortably filled.
Tango is facinating to me a cultural phenomenon. It has its roots in African beats, tempered with Spanish and Italian musical influences, and began to be danced in the early 20th century I think. It was danced in the basements of underclass brothels with prostitutes, as men were waiting for thier turns upstairs. It remained an underclass dance on the fringe of the city until it was introduced to Europe where it caught on as a trendy dance. At that point, the rest of society in Buenos Aires accepted and welcomed it back as thier own. During the military regimes, Tango was banned as too sultry, and things were so bad that no one wanted to dance, and so no one from that generation dance at all now.
On the dance floor, I saw an elderly woman in her 70's at least kicking up her heels, and I've seen many others her age at other Tango clubs. But there's no one really from mid 30s to late 40s. The thing that blows my mind is how the younger generation, basically everyone else, dances it. In the US, you can find ballroom dancers of a certain age, 20 somethings dancing Salsa, and teens dancing hip hop, but here you dance the dance of your grandparents, typically to the same songs they danced it to. Our professor here told us that there are about 12 tango songs and theyre sung by different artists, although he was referring to all the old recordings they platy at the more traditional tango halls. I actualy prefer the newer Tango music myself.
The dance is much more slow than salsa, and is more like a waltz. The dancers never spin away from each other, or do thier own things, but there's always this contact between them, at least always facing each other. The basic is on an 8 count, which is actually ealier since the dance is more about sweeping the feet across the floor instead of working the cuban hips like in Salsa or merengue. The main difference is in the music. Salsa has a very rigid four count in the music, but Tango is so layered, you can pick out what beats to follow and which to rest on, and which to move fast and which to move slow.
As the evening went on, more people showed up, around our age, and in all manners of dress, from tee shirts to dresses, and the only constant was the woman's heels. It was a fun night, I'll have keep up the lessons. The only funny thing is that Ive never seen anyone do the stereotypical march across the dance floor with the leading arm out, like you see in all the movies.
The lessons are public, so you just dance and they try to help you out after they show you a new move. It was fun, I've never been dancing with Jamie before, so she was shocked how tall I was becuase I usually have bad posture. She was also very impressed with my ability to lead on the dance floor. A year of dancing Salsa with Jen really helped me out in that regard. This was my second lesson since I've been here, so I actually surprised myself with what I remembered. Still, I didt get what they were trying to show as well, but I'm usually pretty bad with learning new moves. Anyway after about an hour of practice, they opened up the floor and people began coming in from outside and soon the place was comfortably filled.
Tango is facinating to me a cultural phenomenon. It has its roots in African beats, tempered with Spanish and Italian musical influences, and began to be danced in the early 20th century I think. It was danced in the basements of underclass brothels with prostitutes, as men were waiting for thier turns upstairs. It remained an underclass dance on the fringe of the city until it was introduced to Europe where it caught on as a trendy dance. At that point, the rest of society in Buenos Aires accepted and welcomed it back as thier own. During the military regimes, Tango was banned as too sultry, and things were so bad that no one wanted to dance, and so no one from that generation dance at all now.
On the dance floor, I saw an elderly woman in her 70's at least kicking up her heels, and I've seen many others her age at other Tango clubs. But there's no one really from mid 30s to late 40s. The thing that blows my mind is how the younger generation, basically everyone else, dances it. In the US, you can find ballroom dancers of a certain age, 20 somethings dancing Salsa, and teens dancing hip hop, but here you dance the dance of your grandparents, typically to the same songs they danced it to. Our professor here told us that there are about 12 tango songs and theyre sung by different artists, although he was referring to all the old recordings they platy at the more traditional tango halls. I actualy prefer the newer Tango music myself.
The dance is much more slow than salsa, and is more like a waltz. The dancers never spin away from each other, or do thier own things, but there's always this contact between them, at least always facing each other. The basic is on an 8 count, which is actually ealier since the dance is more about sweeping the feet across the floor instead of working the cuban hips like in Salsa or merengue. The main difference is in the music. Salsa has a very rigid four count in the music, but Tango is so layered, you can pick out what beats to follow and which to rest on, and which to move fast and which to move slow.
As the evening went on, more people showed up, around our age, and in all manners of dress, from tee shirts to dresses, and the only constant was the woman's heels. It was a fun night, I'll have keep up the lessons. The only funny thing is that Ive never seen anyone do the stereotypical march across the dance floor with the leading arm out, like you see in all the movies.
Sep 6, 2006
mas photos!
Ok, I started using Webshots instead of the Facebook server. Webshots is a dedicated image server and it lets me upload a lot faster and a lot higher quality pictures. IF you want to see a larger image, just click on the right side of the screen "full size image". My album can be seen by following this link. These are basically more of the same, more photos from living here, more ski trip, and some new ones from our site and of our last architecture project.
by archalec
by archalec
Sep 5, 2006
Wow...
I just re-read what I did for my birthday a year ago. Click September 2005 under the archives on the right. I can't believe how much has happened since then. Where will I be a year from now?
Mi Feliz Cumpleanos
What a birthday.
Thursday night, we all went to the most innovative bar I've ever seen. The main tables had a tap in the middle of the table so the people could pull thier own drinks. A digital meter built into the table measured how many litros we'd pulled. The other brilliant feature was the inclusion of a name, telephone, and email space on the table napkins to swap with barmates. Shot some pool with my friends and actually held my own pretty well.
Saturday, I finally found peanut butter here. There´s a cool little chinatown about 8 blocks from school and I picked up a jar at a Chinese-International grocery. I returned to studio and raised the jar to the ooohs and ahhs of my peers. ¨Where did you get that?¨they all wanted to know. Small victories. Anyway, the chinese food I got to go there revealed to me how non spicy argentine food is. That night, Aldo and I hit the town looking for some live music. The oldest, most prestigious cafe in town, the grand Tortoni, had jazz downstairs at 11, but we arrived right at 11 so it was already too packed. Instead, we sat in the main room and I got chocolate and churros. This chocolate is incredibly rich drinking chocolate- served with hot milk to get the richness one wants- but I just drank it straight. One dunks the churros in the chocolate, and its delicious. One of the specialities of the place. Cafe Tortoni was where Borges frequented.
We left the Cafe downtown and took a cab over to a place recommended by my guidebook a few blocks from my apartment, actually, right on my street of Vidt. The place is called La Pena de Colorado, which I think translates to the Pity of Red, or something close to that. Its a very bohemian place with basic rustic tables, brick walls, a small stage, and a big Parilla (grill) the food is traditional northern argentine, so very rustic and meaty with stews and tamales. Apparently we just missed the guitar show, so we just grabbed a beer and split a choripan. A choripan is a grilled sausage sandwich, although whats in the sausage is one of the bigger mysteries here. Called it an early night around 2 AM or so.
Sunday, september 3rd, I went to the San Telmo market and picked up my new sketchbook. There´s a guy with a table down there who sells handmade books, and I ordered one from him as there are no good quality sketchbooks down here. About ten dollars US, for a good size handstitched sketchbook, with a cover I´d picked out a week before and very nice paper. I was able to pick up a bus 130 which runs from San Telmo all the way up to school in Belgrano. It was a gorgeous sunny morning, and I sorely lamented the fact that we were all cooped up in studio while the portenos were making out, strolling, and playing soccer in the huge park.
During the weekends, when the university annex closes, you have to get in through the old municipal water labs, a decrepid huge building with broken windows and surrounded by barbed wire. The gaurds have to come out, and roll back part of the original iron gates so you can squeeze inside. I jokingly call it breaking in to studio. Anyway Sunday we continued work on our project presentation which was due monday. I got there around 11 AM and I worked until midnight. The other two guys worked until three or four before they went home. At midnight on the 4th, I was riding a nearly empty bus through Belgrano towards home.
The next morning I overslept and got to studio around 830 AM. I jumped right in to make up for the time the other two guys had spent. Caroline, one of the sixth years, brought in a big plate of fresh pastries for my birthday and I shared it with the studio. Medialunas, churros, good stuff.
We finished our presentation ten minutes after our project was due, but everyone else was scrambling too, so it wasnt too big of an issue. Presentation went well- we were concise and showed an impressive quantity of work. Our final piece ended up being about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long. I hope I never have to see those clips again. My fingers are only now starting to heal. After the presentations, which 'overwhelmed' Claudio, we watched a presentation by Sergio, on diagrams and a project he did for our part of Buenos Aires. Afterwards, we took a break, and then came back to watch another movie about street kids. The title was Bus174, about the tragic hostage incident that occured in Rio de Janero in 2000. It was even more depressing than the first movie we saw because it was all true and all real footage. What a movie to watch on one´s birthday!
Anyway, I had told my friends that I wanted a good steak dinner for my birthday, so we tried to think of a place that was A) Local to our neighborhood in Palermo Viejo, B) Looked like it had good steaks and C) had enough room to seat the 25 of us. Janet suggested a place near their apartment that she´d walked by frequently called Lomo. Lomo means beef, so we figured that was the best bet.
We all met down there after leaving studio, and got most of us at one long table in the back. Very nice place, although it was still so small, we took most of the tables. Very modern with bamboo, concrete, and corrugated steel. Almost everybody from studio came, although it was probably as much a celebration of the end of the project as it was for my birthday. I was still touched though.
Honestly, it was the best meal I´ve had here in Buenos Aires, and the best steak I´ve ever had. Ever. I got a Sirloin that was about 5 inches wide and 2 inches THICK. Perfectly done, served over a bed of potatos au gratin and sauteed mushrooms. Incredible. Great Argentine wine all around. The steak I had was kind of expensive, 38 pesos, for buenos aires, but at about $12, the best steak I´ve ever had is a steal at twice the price. I wished so badly that Dad, Mom, and Tay could have been there to share it with me. Anyway, after dinner we hit the bars for a long, fun evening, although I didnt get home until 7 AM. Fun on one´s birthday, but definately not something to do often.
Today I slept in and I am glad our system class doesn't start until 4 PM. It was a gorgeous afternoon although it did get cold this evening. Tomorrow we´re going to do an intensive site visit in the downtown San Telmo.
What a birthday! Can´t believe I´m 22, although I´m still one of the younger students on this trip.
Thursday night, we all went to the most innovative bar I've ever seen. The main tables had a tap in the middle of the table so the people could pull thier own drinks. A digital meter built into the table measured how many litros we'd pulled. The other brilliant feature was the inclusion of a name, telephone, and email space on the table napkins to swap with barmates. Shot some pool with my friends and actually held my own pretty well.
Saturday, I finally found peanut butter here. There´s a cool little chinatown about 8 blocks from school and I picked up a jar at a Chinese-International grocery. I returned to studio and raised the jar to the ooohs and ahhs of my peers. ¨Where did you get that?¨they all wanted to know. Small victories. Anyway, the chinese food I got to go there revealed to me how non spicy argentine food is. That night, Aldo and I hit the town looking for some live music. The oldest, most prestigious cafe in town, the grand Tortoni, had jazz downstairs at 11, but we arrived right at 11 so it was already too packed. Instead, we sat in the main room and I got chocolate and churros. This chocolate is incredibly rich drinking chocolate- served with hot milk to get the richness one wants- but I just drank it straight. One dunks the churros in the chocolate, and its delicious. One of the specialities of the place. Cafe Tortoni was where Borges frequented.
We left the Cafe downtown and took a cab over to a place recommended by my guidebook a few blocks from my apartment, actually, right on my street of Vidt. The place is called La Pena de Colorado, which I think translates to the Pity of Red, or something close to that. Its a very bohemian place with basic rustic tables, brick walls, a small stage, and a big Parilla (grill) the food is traditional northern argentine, so very rustic and meaty with stews and tamales. Apparently we just missed the guitar show, so we just grabbed a beer and split a choripan. A choripan is a grilled sausage sandwich, although whats in the sausage is one of the bigger mysteries here. Called it an early night around 2 AM or so.
Sunday, september 3rd, I went to the San Telmo market and picked up my new sketchbook. There´s a guy with a table down there who sells handmade books, and I ordered one from him as there are no good quality sketchbooks down here. About ten dollars US, for a good size handstitched sketchbook, with a cover I´d picked out a week before and very nice paper. I was able to pick up a bus 130 which runs from San Telmo all the way up to school in Belgrano. It was a gorgeous sunny morning, and I sorely lamented the fact that we were all cooped up in studio while the portenos were making out, strolling, and playing soccer in the huge park.
During the weekends, when the university annex closes, you have to get in through the old municipal water labs, a decrepid huge building with broken windows and surrounded by barbed wire. The gaurds have to come out, and roll back part of the original iron gates so you can squeeze inside. I jokingly call it breaking in to studio. Anyway Sunday we continued work on our project presentation which was due monday. I got there around 11 AM and I worked until midnight. The other two guys worked until three or four before they went home. At midnight on the 4th, I was riding a nearly empty bus through Belgrano towards home.
The next morning I overslept and got to studio around 830 AM. I jumped right in to make up for the time the other two guys had spent. Caroline, one of the sixth years, brought in a big plate of fresh pastries for my birthday and I shared it with the studio. Medialunas, churros, good stuff.
We finished our presentation ten minutes after our project was due, but everyone else was scrambling too, so it wasnt too big of an issue. Presentation went well- we were concise and showed an impressive quantity of work. Our final piece ended up being about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long. I hope I never have to see those clips again. My fingers are only now starting to heal. After the presentations, which 'overwhelmed' Claudio, we watched a presentation by Sergio, on diagrams and a project he did for our part of Buenos Aires. Afterwards, we took a break, and then came back to watch another movie about street kids. The title was Bus174, about the tragic hostage incident that occured in Rio de Janero in 2000. It was even more depressing than the first movie we saw because it was all true and all real footage. What a movie to watch on one´s birthday!
Anyway, I had told my friends that I wanted a good steak dinner for my birthday, so we tried to think of a place that was A) Local to our neighborhood in Palermo Viejo, B) Looked like it had good steaks and C) had enough room to seat the 25 of us. Janet suggested a place near their apartment that she´d walked by frequently called Lomo. Lomo means beef, so we figured that was the best bet.
We all met down there after leaving studio, and got most of us at one long table in the back. Very nice place, although it was still so small, we took most of the tables. Very modern with bamboo, concrete, and corrugated steel. Almost everybody from studio came, although it was probably as much a celebration of the end of the project as it was for my birthday. I was still touched though.
Honestly, it was the best meal I´ve had here in Buenos Aires, and the best steak I´ve ever had. Ever. I got a Sirloin that was about 5 inches wide and 2 inches THICK. Perfectly done, served over a bed of potatos au gratin and sauteed mushrooms. Incredible. Great Argentine wine all around. The steak I had was kind of expensive, 38 pesos, for buenos aires, but at about $12, the best steak I´ve ever had is a steal at twice the price. I wished so badly that Dad, Mom, and Tay could have been there to share it with me. Anyway, after dinner we hit the bars for a long, fun evening, although I didnt get home until 7 AM. Fun on one´s birthday, but definately not something to do often.
Today I slept in and I am glad our system class doesn't start until 4 PM. It was a gorgeous afternoon although it did get cold this evening. Tomorrow we´re going to do an intensive site visit in the downtown San Telmo.
What a birthday! Can´t believe I´m 22, although I´m still one of the younger students on this trip.
Sep 1, 2006
The World Through Molly's Eyes
This is just a window to show you what pictures Molly, another friend of mine from fourth year, has been taking while here. There's a lot, and only a few of them have me in them, but its another broader picture of my life here in Buenos Aires. I'm actually thinking of switching to using this format for my pics.
by BsAs2006
Aug 31, 2006
Buenos Aires and Ski Trip Photos
follow this link to check them all out.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071113&l=3399f&id=10012618
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2071113&l=3399f&id=10012618
cuidad de los perros, jardin de los gatos
Buenos Aires is definately a dog city. Every morning you can see the pasaperros out walking as many as 20 dogs with all thier leashes tethered togather. The parks are always filled with pooches just having a great time. The only downside is you have to watch your step everywhere. Our studio building is next door to a huge park where there are always people and dogs. The downstairs lounge area looks out onto the park, so when I get my hot water for tea, I can see them all right outside. The only garden where the dogs dont go is the Jardin Botanico. This has the highest density of cats I've ever seen. The park is fairly large, and totally filled with cats of all sizes and colors. All the really fluffy cats make me miss Suki. We were talking with a local in the park the other day and she said that many of the cats here actually have owners, but live in the park and the owners bring food and water for them. Interesting concept. Whats really interesting is how well all the animals here get along. The natural pecking order is allowed to establish itself here, without owners who get offended if one dog growls at another, and so all the animals know thier place and get along. I've yet to see any confrontation between animals in this city. From our 8th story vantage, I see cats running around on the rooftops.
Spring is finally whispering in the wind down here. We've been having gloriously sunny days in the mornings at least, and I've been going out in just a long sleeved shirt. I cant wait until the trees begin to bloom and grow again, although as warm as it is getting now with no sign of green buds on the trees, I'm a little concerned about how hot the summers will be. Killed a mosquito in my apartment today too.
Alcohol is an interesting subject here. Most portenos don't really drink. Even the younger generation tends to perfer cokes in the evening. If they do drink, they drink wine, or mixed drinks in the clubs. Club drinks are very expenisve, but beer is very cheap here. I've seen very little dark beer here, most of it is very light. Quilmes is the national brew of Argentina, but it competes with Brahma, the Brazillian beer, and personally, I couln't tell you the difference between them. The interesing thing is that a litro of Quilmes in the store costs about 2.20 pesos, or less than a dollar, and if you return the bottle, you get a peso back. Which means that you effectively get a liter of beer for approximately 60 cents. Not to worry, we're not buying litros for each of us down here, but sharing them.
Spring is finally whispering in the wind down here. We've been having gloriously sunny days in the mornings at least, and I've been going out in just a long sleeved shirt. I cant wait until the trees begin to bloom and grow again, although as warm as it is getting now with no sign of green buds on the trees, I'm a little concerned about how hot the summers will be. Killed a mosquito in my apartment today too.
Alcohol is an interesting subject here. Most portenos don't really drink. Even the younger generation tends to perfer cokes in the evening. If they do drink, they drink wine, or mixed drinks in the clubs. Club drinks are very expenisve, but beer is very cheap here. I've seen very little dark beer here, most of it is very light. Quilmes is the national brew of Argentina, but it competes with Brahma, the Brazillian beer, and personally, I couln't tell you the difference between them. The interesing thing is that a litro of Quilmes in the store costs about 2.20 pesos, or less than a dollar, and if you return the bottle, you get a peso back. Which means that you effectively get a liter of beer for approximately 60 cents. Not to worry, we're not buying litros for each of us down here, but sharing them.
Aug 30, 2006
Back to Studio
Our studio is in a renovated water treatment laboritory building right by the River Plate Stadium. In Buenos Aires, soccer is king. People of all ages play it, everywhere. Walking around the streets we watched some kids playing in the middle of the street, pausing only to let cars through. Whenever the ball went awry, some pedestrian would invariably move out to intercept it, do some little thing with the ball, and kick it back. I even saw a guy on a bike with a massive basket swerve so he could get a touch on the ball. In Buenos Aires, there are two teams which are major rivals: Boca Juniors, and River Plate. The river plate stadium is literally across the street from our school complex. Last wednesday there was a late afternoon game. Around lunchtime, we went hunting for food, and found ourselves surrounded by all types of police. Not that we were the cause of alarm, but that they were there to maintain order during and after the game. There were a fleet of motorcycles, 20 mounted police, general beat police standing everywhere, and a few dozen special ops police with riot gear. When Argentines have a game, they really have a game. Later that night as we were leaving, we could hear the roar and chanting of the fans inside the stadium.
Speaking of food, our lunch and dinner options near here (studio of course) are pretty limited. Theres an overpriced mini cafeteria downstairs which sells coffee and some other basics. There's also a cafe/restaurant on the near corner which is slow but sells more complete coffee, tortes, breads, and some light meals. Then there is a superpancho kiosk by the car wash about a block away. A superpancho is an Argentine hot dog. Approximately the same width of a standard hot dog, and about a foot long, served on a bun with ketchup, mostaza (mustard), and mayonaise. I usually go for two as they're not that filling.
I've started experimenting with busses here. Normally, I take the Subte, which means walking 45 minutes and riding 15. With the bus, I walk a total of ten minutes and I can ride the rest of the way, dropping me off very close to the school. At least, that was the bus I took THIS morning. Yesterday I grabbed the wrong bus and ended up walking about 8 blocks to get to school. The busses here are actually a little more expenseive than the subte (say 28 cents vs 20 cents) and they are always packed. They're always very decorated on the outside however, and I get the impression that each bus line is run by a different company. A last note about busses in Beunos Aires, they are the leading cause of death of Portenos, according to one source.
Studio has started, as I am sure many of you, my dear readers, have already figured out by my lack of posts. The semester's focus is on the Chicos en la calle. (Children in the street). A typical problem of major cities, there are an estimated 400 pibes (another local name for the teens) who are in that condition. They are typically teenagers who left thier homes due to mostly poverty or violence, and due to that condition, prefer to remain in the street than return to thier homes in the outskirts of the cities. They live by begging, vending, and petty theivery. There are problems with these kids get addicted to inhaling glues etc, then move on to harder substances. There's a few horribly depressing movies I could recommend but I won't.
The general problem is that we're going to be designing a public work. The specific problem or program isn't stated because we have to figure it out for ourselves. The site is fixd: across from the remains of the Club Atletico under a freeway overpass in San Telmo.
Club Atletico is another intriguing and similarly depressing piece of the puzzle. I wont go into its details except to say that it was a secret detention and torture center used by the military goverment during the 1970s, where it "processed" 1500 individuals. The uncoverd it while constructing the freeway. Due to the fact that these events took place in such a short time ago, the feelings are still very raw and the place is very real and haunting for the locals of that generation who are now in thier 40s.
We met down there last friday for a walking tour of the area of San Telmo, the barrio where our site is. We went to the center for assisting the chicos, took pics, talked with the manager and staff, and we all bought a book of photos that the chicos took. It was 25 pesos, but we all wanted to contribute. Plus, its raw material we could use to understand the users of our public works and what they think of where they live.
We hit the partial excavation of the Club Atletico afterwards. This is really not a great part of town. From the club atletico, we visited a laboratory and repository of the materials recovered from the torture center. Afterwards, we walked a short distance to Plaza Dorrego, where there's an amazing, huge junk, antiques, and crafts market every sunday. Sundays, there are tango dancers, tango orqestras with thier multiple accordians and violins, and hordes of tourists. Interestingly, theres also an 18th century housing complex uncovered and restored. A really cool museum and gallery called el Zanjin. The original builders during the 17oos wanted to expand thier brick house so they built an arch over the creek in thier backyard and built on that. Over time, thier neighbors followed suit so that the creek became completely covered. The creek no longer exists, but they found the tunnels created by the arches, and we walked along that for a bit which was really cool.
As you can see, this is a really complex project, such that its impossible to jump right into. Our first project for studio is to explore systems of a material. The way studio is set up is that we work in groups of three: one undergrad student, one grad student, and one local student who can vary from undergrad to graduate level equivilancy. My group didnt get a local, unfortanatlely, so Im working with another guy from my year, Adam, whose brother cooked us that great meal.
Speaking of people and connections, I learned that one of the grad students from ASU who came over here went to high school in Beijing. In talking to him, we figured out we were both at ISB at about the same time, although I was in a few grades lower than he was. We knew a lot of the same people and knew about the same teachers. Togather, we lamented the fact that all of our friends went on to much better schools than ASU. Apparently, ISB has become regarded as one of the best international schools in the world, to say nothing of Asia. Wierd, huh?
Going back to our current studio project- we are supposed to work with a material, explore its potential, work with it, and create evolving systems of organization which eventually overtake the material itself. Yeah, and this the conceptual more abstract project. While other groups decided to use materials such as rubber bands, note cards, playing cards, or rolls of corrugated cardboard, we started playing with a bunch of materials ourselves instead of picking one. We tried name cards, wire, etc. but finally settled on a metal binder clip.
These clips are difficult to describe- they're not the black and silver ones you can squeese open to stick pages in. Its two flat peices of metal, used to bind double hole punched sheets togather. One flat piece has two long tangs and the other flat peice has sliding clips. The idea is that you fold the tangs up so the peice has a U shape, stick that through your papers, and then bend the tangs down and slide them into the other peice so they lock togather. Anyway, it seemed like a fun material at the time and we could get boxes of 50 real cheap.
The major downside is that they're made of thin stamped metal, so now all of our fingers and epscially our thumbs, are all sliced to ribbons from working with the stuff. We've worked with the material now for about a week, and come up with some really intriguing designs, objects, feilds, and spacial systems. We just had our review today and they liked what they saw. Our studio is led by Claudio Vekstein himself with another local architect, Sergio.
Whew. I think that brings us up to speed on all the major issues. Argentina is still great, I love Buenos Aires, my spanish is flying along, and I have major readng for tomorrow to finish.
My two lecture classes here are amazing. Theory and enviornmental systems. Three hours each one day a week, with the studio twice a week for five hours. Fridays are feild trip days as needed. Stuff I can really dig my teeth into. Already feeling the strain from studio, but its a familar pressure. Last monday when we got our presentation requiremets, that overwhelmed feeling settled back down on me like a familiar yoke. Its not really that overwhelming due to its famliarity. No, I have no idea how I'll get everything done, but I know I can get through it.
Hopefully, dear reader, you will not have attempted to read this all at once. I just had a lot of catching up to do.
Speaking of food, our lunch and dinner options near here (studio of course) are pretty limited. Theres an overpriced mini cafeteria downstairs which sells coffee and some other basics. There's also a cafe/restaurant on the near corner which is slow but sells more complete coffee, tortes, breads, and some light meals. Then there is a superpancho kiosk by the car wash about a block away. A superpancho is an Argentine hot dog. Approximately the same width of a standard hot dog, and about a foot long, served on a bun with ketchup, mostaza (mustard), and mayonaise. I usually go for two as they're not that filling.
I've started experimenting with busses here. Normally, I take the Subte, which means walking 45 minutes and riding 15. With the bus, I walk a total of ten minutes and I can ride the rest of the way, dropping me off very close to the school. At least, that was the bus I took THIS morning. Yesterday I grabbed the wrong bus and ended up walking about 8 blocks to get to school. The busses here are actually a little more expenseive than the subte (say 28 cents vs 20 cents) and they are always packed. They're always very decorated on the outside however, and I get the impression that each bus line is run by a different company. A last note about busses in Beunos Aires, they are the leading cause of death of Portenos, according to one source.
Studio has started, as I am sure many of you, my dear readers, have already figured out by my lack of posts. The semester's focus is on the Chicos en la calle. (Children in the street). A typical problem of major cities, there are an estimated 400 pibes (another local name for the teens) who are in that condition. They are typically teenagers who left thier homes due to mostly poverty or violence, and due to that condition, prefer to remain in the street than return to thier homes in the outskirts of the cities. They live by begging, vending, and petty theivery. There are problems with these kids get addicted to inhaling glues etc, then move on to harder substances. There's a few horribly depressing movies I could recommend but I won't.
The general problem is that we're going to be designing a public work. The specific problem or program isn't stated because we have to figure it out for ourselves. The site is fixd: across from the remains of the Club Atletico under a freeway overpass in San Telmo.
Club Atletico is another intriguing and similarly depressing piece of the puzzle. I wont go into its details except to say that it was a secret detention and torture center used by the military goverment during the 1970s, where it "processed" 1500 individuals. The uncoverd it while constructing the freeway. Due to the fact that these events took place in such a short time ago, the feelings are still very raw and the place is very real and haunting for the locals of that generation who are now in thier 40s.
We met down there last friday for a walking tour of the area of San Telmo, the barrio where our site is. We went to the center for assisting the chicos, took pics, talked with the manager and staff, and we all bought a book of photos that the chicos took. It was 25 pesos, but we all wanted to contribute. Plus, its raw material we could use to understand the users of our public works and what they think of where they live.
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INTERMISSION - TAKE A BREAK - GET SOME CAFE CON LECHE Y MEDIALUNAS
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We hit the partial excavation of the Club Atletico afterwards. This is really not a great part of town. From the club atletico, we visited a laboratory and repository of the materials recovered from the torture center. Afterwards, we walked a short distance to Plaza Dorrego, where there's an amazing, huge junk, antiques, and crafts market every sunday. Sundays, there are tango dancers, tango orqestras with thier multiple accordians and violins, and hordes of tourists. Interestingly, theres also an 18th century housing complex uncovered and restored. A really cool museum and gallery called el Zanjin. The original builders during the 17oos wanted to expand thier brick house so they built an arch over the creek in thier backyard and built on that. Over time, thier neighbors followed suit so that the creek became completely covered. The creek no longer exists, but they found the tunnels created by the arches, and we walked along that for a bit which was really cool.
As you can see, this is a really complex project, such that its impossible to jump right into. Our first project for studio is to explore systems of a material. The way studio is set up is that we work in groups of three: one undergrad student, one grad student, and one local student who can vary from undergrad to graduate level equivilancy. My group didnt get a local, unfortanatlely, so Im working with another guy from my year, Adam, whose brother cooked us that great meal.
Speaking of people and connections, I learned that one of the grad students from ASU who came over here went to high school in Beijing. In talking to him, we figured out we were both at ISB at about the same time, although I was in a few grades lower than he was. We knew a lot of the same people and knew about the same teachers. Togather, we lamented the fact that all of our friends went on to much better schools than ASU. Apparently, ISB has become regarded as one of the best international schools in the world, to say nothing of Asia. Wierd, huh?
Going back to our current studio project- we are supposed to work with a material, explore its potential, work with it, and create evolving systems of organization which eventually overtake the material itself. Yeah, and this the conceptual more abstract project. While other groups decided to use materials such as rubber bands, note cards, playing cards, or rolls of corrugated cardboard, we started playing with a bunch of materials ourselves instead of picking one. We tried name cards, wire, etc. but finally settled on a metal binder clip.
These clips are difficult to describe- they're not the black and silver ones you can squeese open to stick pages in. Its two flat peices of metal, used to bind double hole punched sheets togather. One flat piece has two long tangs and the other flat peice has sliding clips. The idea is that you fold the tangs up so the peice has a U shape, stick that through your papers, and then bend the tangs down and slide them into the other peice so they lock togather. Anyway, it seemed like a fun material at the time and we could get boxes of 50 real cheap.
The major downside is that they're made of thin stamped metal, so now all of our fingers and epscially our thumbs, are all sliced to ribbons from working with the stuff. We've worked with the material now for about a week, and come up with some really intriguing designs, objects, feilds, and spacial systems. We just had our review today and they liked what they saw. Our studio is led by Claudio Vekstein himself with another local architect, Sergio.
Whew. I think that brings us up to speed on all the major issues. Argentina is still great, I love Buenos Aires, my spanish is flying along, and I have major readng for tomorrow to finish.
My two lecture classes here are amazing. Theory and enviornmental systems. Three hours each one day a week, with the studio twice a week for five hours. Fridays are feild trip days as needed. Stuff I can really dig my teeth into. Already feeling the strain from studio, but its a familar pressure. Last monday when we got our presentation requiremets, that overwhelmed feeling settled back down on me like a familiar yoke. Its not really that overwhelming due to its famliarity. No, I have no idea how I'll get everything done, but I know I can get through it.
Hopefully, dear reader, you will not have attempted to read this all at once. I just had a lot of catching up to do.
Aug 24, 2006
The long road home
One thing that I forgot to mention was the stars. Out in the Andes, so far from the rest of the world and so high up in air, the sky is more clear than anywhere else I've ever been in my life. It floored me. I was shocked into silence gazing up at the stars above the snowy mountains. If you'd asked me how many stars I could see, I would tell you "all of them". The sky was filled with stars, and in the middle was the spiral arm of the milky way, with all of its nebulous clouds of stars visible arcing across the sky.
Anyway.
Woke up monday morning at 650 AM as the plan was to meet at the other house at 7 to depart. We get the four of ourselves up, packed, and dressed. We never even met the other people who were snoozing when we went to bed and were snoozing when we left. In this entire trip, every day we got up while it was still dark out. We walked over to the other house around 715 where, surprise, no one was even awake yet. We yelled them out of bed, and I settled down to watch the a volleyball tournament on tv.
Left Malague around 730, stopping off at a convience store for breakfast. Banana, yogurt with cereal, orange juice. Everyone got cheap sunglasses for the snow glare. Five hours later we got up to Las Lenas for a short day of skiing. I was still sore and my skiing was shakey so I only got about five runs in. Still, these are huge runs, so they took me the entire time we were skiing. One of the runs was the best run I've ever done in my life. The lift line was about 20 minutes of waiting due to its popularity, and at least 10 minutes of ascent at a45 degrees up to the peak of this massive ridge. The view from the top was incredible. THe run was classified red but it skied like a blue in the states. It wound its way down and around the main peak, passing craggy huge peaks on either side. It was as though we were skiing in a ski resort of giants. Its hard to describe the absolute scale of the place. It was a really warm day, even warmer than sunday. I skied in a tee shirt and a nylon shell jacket. Great weather.
Anyway, at the end of the day, around 3 pm, we took a group photo at the base and drove back out to Los Molles where we dropped off the ski rental equipment. The tiny bus felt much more open. Remeber, that we're lugging ten people, six snowboards, and four sets of skis and poles INSIDE the van. After we dropped it all off, we had a long 5 hour drive back to Mendoza. We didn't run into any incident until we got to Mendoza when the guy who was driving took a wrong turn down a one way street. Innocent mistake, especially in a strange city when we were looking for a gas station to fill up the van before we returned it. We turned off of it quickly, but we'd attracted the attention of the police who pulled us over. We explained the situtation in our broken spanish, and the police gave us a break (they really want to be nice to the rich foreign tourists) and escorted us to the gas station where they sat and watched us. I was concerned that they would keep following us after we{d filled up, but they stayed and we dropped off the van with no problems.
It was 10 PM and we were all famished, so we found a cafe outside on a pedestrian mall. Mendoza is actually a nice little city, much more laid back than BsAs with quiet squares and a very closed downtown. Shared beers, wine, and had a great ravioli for dinner. By the time we'd paid, it was 10 PM at night. Our bus would depart at 7 AM in the morning. We split into two groups. One went to a hotel and the other group decided to pass. I figured, by the time we would have gotten to the hotel, checked in, and showered, it would be 2 AM at LEAST. It just was not worth the money to get a few hours in. The shower would have been nice though.
So the five of us hit a beatles themed pub and killed a litro of a Andes beer ( all the local beers in argentina are very light ) and killed an hour. We walked around in the steets for an hour or so before winding up at the bus terminal. We each grabbed a bench and laid down with our heads on our bags. There were other people there too, mostly travelers like us and a few security guards. I caught sleep in snatches of about 45 minutes, waking up every hour or so. Slept like that until about 5 AM when the security guard made us all sit up.
There's never a night so cold than when you sleep on a bench. I felt like crap, and I looked about as good as I felt. My hair was so greasy it was a fire hazard, I hadn{t showered since skiing and the long drive, and my face was still badly sunburned from the first day of skiing (forgot suntan lotion that day, and I'm STILL paying for it). We walked around the streets some more looking for an open cafe. Nothing. Went back to the station and found a place that finally opened. Had a cafe con leche and medialunas. Man, that coffee would have been fantastic at triple the price. Met the more delicate members of our group at the cafe and then we all hopped on the long bus back to Buenos Aires.
The bus departed at 7 AM, and arrived in BsAs at 11 PM. With the hour time differnace, thats still 16 hour of riding a bus. This coach wasnt nearly as nice as the one we took in. It was $5 cheaper, but the seats didnt really recline that much, the in'drive movies were pirated copies, and we made about ten stops throughout the day. It was interesting to see the small towns in rural Argentina, but when the bus spent two hours rolling over a dirt road in the middle of pastures, I'd had enough. We were all stir crazy at hour 13.
The movies were entertaining though, in spanish with english subtitles or viceversa. The Pacifier, Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one) and Click. Click was really stupid, but it was interesting because the premise is Adam sandler is an architect with so little time for anything other than his work that he gets a magic remote to fastforward and control time. Predictably maudlin results, with a typical, and it was just a dream ending. It was funny as we're all architecture students watching it, and we were making sarcastic "now what did we all learn from this movie?" comments.
Finally, finally, finally pulled into the BsAs Omnibus station and shared a cab home with the chicas. Aldo and Jamie were still out at dinner, so I was so glad to get a shower for the first time in literally 2 days. I realized that I think of Buenos Aires as home now, riding back on the bus.
What a trip! What an experiance! I wouldnt do it again, but Im so glad I did it. What were we thinking!? Crossing a foriegn country over 800 miles for two days of skiing. Renting a bus and road tripping across the wildreness in South America. Showing up in a ski resort late at night with ten people and expecting to find a room. Man, it was great. I remember thinking about how things work out, and I remebered the conditional for that theory that I'd forgoten in the comfort of my daily life; things work out because there is no plan B. ITs either glorious success or cataclysmic failure. There were several points on this trip were we teetered pretty precariously.
Nonetheless, this will be a trip I'll never forget.
It's not every day that you take a weekend ski trip to the Andes.
Anyway.
Woke up monday morning at 650 AM as the plan was to meet at the other house at 7 to depart. We get the four of ourselves up, packed, and dressed. We never even met the other people who were snoozing when we went to bed and were snoozing when we left. In this entire trip, every day we got up while it was still dark out. We walked over to the other house around 715 where, surprise, no one was even awake yet. We yelled them out of bed, and I settled down to watch the a volleyball tournament on tv.
Left Malague around 730, stopping off at a convience store for breakfast. Banana, yogurt with cereal, orange juice. Everyone got cheap sunglasses for the snow glare. Five hours later we got up to Las Lenas for a short day of skiing. I was still sore and my skiing was shakey so I only got about five runs in. Still, these are huge runs, so they took me the entire time we were skiing. One of the runs was the best run I've ever done in my life. The lift line was about 20 minutes of waiting due to its popularity, and at least 10 minutes of ascent at a45 degrees up to the peak of this massive ridge. The view from the top was incredible. THe run was classified red but it skied like a blue in the states. It wound its way down and around the main peak, passing craggy huge peaks on either side. It was as though we were skiing in a ski resort of giants. Its hard to describe the absolute scale of the place. It was a really warm day, even warmer than sunday. I skied in a tee shirt and a nylon shell jacket. Great weather.
Anyway, at the end of the day, around 3 pm, we took a group photo at the base and drove back out to Los Molles where we dropped off the ski rental equipment. The tiny bus felt much more open. Remeber, that we're lugging ten people, six snowboards, and four sets of skis and poles INSIDE the van. After we dropped it all off, we had a long 5 hour drive back to Mendoza. We didn't run into any incident until we got to Mendoza when the guy who was driving took a wrong turn down a one way street. Innocent mistake, especially in a strange city when we were looking for a gas station to fill up the van before we returned it. We turned off of it quickly, but we'd attracted the attention of the police who pulled us over. We explained the situtation in our broken spanish, and the police gave us a break (they really want to be nice to the rich foreign tourists) and escorted us to the gas station where they sat and watched us. I was concerned that they would keep following us after we{d filled up, but they stayed and we dropped off the van with no problems.
It was 10 PM and we were all famished, so we found a cafe outside on a pedestrian mall. Mendoza is actually a nice little city, much more laid back than BsAs with quiet squares and a very closed downtown. Shared beers, wine, and had a great ravioli for dinner. By the time we'd paid, it was 10 PM at night. Our bus would depart at 7 AM in the morning. We split into two groups. One went to a hotel and the other group decided to pass. I figured, by the time we would have gotten to the hotel, checked in, and showered, it would be 2 AM at LEAST. It just was not worth the money to get a few hours in. The shower would have been nice though.
So the five of us hit a beatles themed pub and killed a litro of a Andes beer ( all the local beers in argentina are very light ) and killed an hour. We walked around in the steets for an hour or so before winding up at the bus terminal. We each grabbed a bench and laid down with our heads on our bags. There were other people there too, mostly travelers like us and a few security guards. I caught sleep in snatches of about 45 minutes, waking up every hour or so. Slept like that until about 5 AM when the security guard made us all sit up.
There's never a night so cold than when you sleep on a bench. I felt like crap, and I looked about as good as I felt. My hair was so greasy it was a fire hazard, I hadn{t showered since skiing and the long drive, and my face was still badly sunburned from the first day of skiing (forgot suntan lotion that day, and I'm STILL paying for it). We walked around the streets some more looking for an open cafe. Nothing. Went back to the station and found a place that finally opened. Had a cafe con leche and medialunas. Man, that coffee would have been fantastic at triple the price. Met the more delicate members of our group at the cafe and then we all hopped on the long bus back to Buenos Aires.
The bus departed at 7 AM, and arrived in BsAs at 11 PM. With the hour time differnace, thats still 16 hour of riding a bus. This coach wasnt nearly as nice as the one we took in. It was $5 cheaper, but the seats didnt really recline that much, the in'drive movies were pirated copies, and we made about ten stops throughout the day. It was interesting to see the small towns in rural Argentina, but when the bus spent two hours rolling over a dirt road in the middle of pastures, I'd had enough. We were all stir crazy at hour 13.
The movies were entertaining though, in spanish with english subtitles or viceversa. The Pacifier, Pirates of the Caribbean (the first one) and Click. Click was really stupid, but it was interesting because the premise is Adam sandler is an architect with so little time for anything other than his work that he gets a magic remote to fastforward and control time. Predictably maudlin results, with a typical, and it was just a dream ending. It was funny as we're all architecture students watching it, and we were making sarcastic "now what did we all learn from this movie?" comments.
Finally, finally, finally pulled into the BsAs Omnibus station and shared a cab home with the chicas. Aldo and Jamie were still out at dinner, so I was so glad to get a shower for the first time in literally 2 days. I realized that I think of Buenos Aires as home now, riding back on the bus.
What a trip! What an experiance! I wouldnt do it again, but Im so glad I did it. What were we thinking!? Crossing a foriegn country over 800 miles for two days of skiing. Renting a bus and road tripping across the wildreness in South America. Showing up in a ski resort late at night with ten people and expecting to find a room. Man, it was great. I remember thinking about how things work out, and I remebered the conditional for that theory that I'd forgoten in the comfort of my daily life; things work out because there is no plan B. ITs either glorious success or cataclysmic failure. There were several points on this trip were we teetered pretty precariously.
Nonetheless, this will be a trip I'll never forget.
It's not every day that you take a weekend ski trip to the Andes.
Aug 23, 2006
My Weekend Ski Trip to the Andes
A few of my classmates had been talking about a ski trip that weekend to Las Lenas, a ski resort in the Andes mountains of Argentina, right on the Chilean border. It was the weekend before the start of classes and studio, and a national holiday on monday, so I had to go. How often does one get the chance to Ski in the Andes?
Our saga began friday night, when we left from Buenos Aires on a bus bound for Mendoza at 9 PM. There were ten of us, 7 undergraduates, 2 grad students, and TCody´s older sister. The bus terminal in BA is huge, multileveled, and totally packed. This is an international airport for busses, with 80 bus gates all in a single row, departures and arrivals all the time. It was absolutely packed when we left. Since airfares are too expensive for the average Argentine, and trains a leftover from the British, busses compete to outdo each other with lavish amenities, from fully reclining seats to free breakfasts, anything. We took a semicama (half reclining) bus, across the width of the country (about 750 miles ) for about $30, and it included breakfast.
The bus ride out was great. We brought a few bottles of vino tinto for the ride, and as we had all the seats in the back, had a little party while Batman Begins played in spanish on the video screens. With a little help from the wine, we all conked out around midnight and I slept soundly until about 6 AM. We stopped in a tiny town for a free breakfast of stale croissants, and the worst cappuchino Ive had so far in this country. (cafe con leche is really expresso with a ton of hot steamed milk) We arrived in Mendoza a little before noon saturday.
One slight problem. We were still 5 hours from Los Lenas. With tons of begging, searching, and pleading, we found busses to Malague, a town an hour away from Las Lenas, but they didnt leave until 6 PM, which would get us into Las Lenas in the middle of the night, and all the places we were calling in Las Lenas or Malague had absolutely nothing in terms of a place to stay. We´d ask for two rooms, and they´d tell us they were totally booked for the next two days. So, we decided to go anyway, trusting to our luck. However, there was still the problem of getting there at a reasonable time.
We decided to rent a minibus from a local car rental place. Came out to less than $40 a person for the two days we used it. The ten of us loaded up and we drove the 5 hours out to Los Lenas that afternoon. The middle of Argentina is like Texas or Oklahoma. Totally flat, unbroken except for the occational windmill, rustic farmhouse, and endless fields and open skies. When we got closer to the Andes, which run across the entire horizon, the terrain got more deserty, like Arizona or Nevada. It was very strage, especailly with the huge snow capped chain in the distance.
We passed frequent police control points, at least six or seven total, and most of the time, they just waved us through or asked us where we were going. Not sure what they were looking for. We stopped at a high mountain pass, as a place where there was a shrine and around were stacked tons of partially filled water bottles people had left. I learned later that the water was left there for parched travelers, as the shrine revered a particular local saint who died from dehydration or something like that.
The sun setting behind the Andes was phenomenal. Since we were in the wine country, the farmers were burning the fields so the smoke-haze settled around the base of hte mountain chain, shouding it almost, and the rays streaming out from behind the peaks was amazing. We were all taking pictures.
We got to Las Lenas around 10 PM. Really really small ski resort. Good snow conditions. We´d set out in twos or threes, usually with one of the chicas, and try our luck at the various places. The only place we found wanted 500 pesos a night for a room, or about 180 dollars. We were laughed out of several places, and we were asking for only two rooms. Exhausting Las Lenas, we went back to the small settlement of Los Molles, about 20 minutes from the ski resort. Los Molles used to be Los Lenas until a massive avalanche wiped the place out. The remains were rebuilt, and so now its a few small hotels and some bungalows, stretched out across the rocky valley floor. We tried the places there with no luck, and I had resigned myself to sleeping in the van with the other 9 people.
The last hotel recommended we try a hostel down a certain dirt road. We took it and we weren´t sure which was the main office of a series of stone cottages. Chris, the most charismatic of the group, went to knock on the door, and ended up accidently knocking it actually open. In his broken spanish, he asked ¨what is this place?¨they told him ¨we live here.¨ Apparently, they were renters for a few days, and told him the hostel was up the road a bit more.
The Argentines are so warm, they were totally cool about the whole thing. We let Chris and the girls into the tiny hostel first. At least we could eat dinner there, we found. They talked to the owner, who said that the girls could sleep there. That was good enough for us, so we all trooped inside. Big fireplace, rows of picnic tables inside, MTV on the tube, Argentinos playing guitar in the sitting area. Very lively scene in a small space. Someone negotiated further while we sat, and the owner finally took pity and let the rest of us sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace on the carpet. They brought out dinner for us as part of the deal. Milonesas ( a flattened chicken fried steak) and jugs of wine and a huge bowl of salad. We all ate well. We also negotiated the next night in a house in Malague. Around midnight, they brought out some mats and blankets, and I passed out in my spot right in front of the fire.
I slept so well that it felt like one minute later someone was waking me up so they could put the living room back togather. We had toast with cream cheese and jam for breakfast, and strong coffee. We took off for the one of two ski rental places, actually inside two of the hotels. We cleaned out the entire towns collection of rental snowboards, although there were plenty of skis. Ski equipment was only 40 pesos total, or around $12. As we had no ski pants or gloves, we rented those from the ski place at the hotel next door. When I say next door, this is really just an encampent along one main road, and a few places along the dirt road. They had the most vibrant colored ski pants I´ve ever seen. I got bib overalls, bright red, and shiny. The boarders had it worse, having to get bright magenta or vibrant purple pants. It was absolutely hilarious.
Drove back to the ski resort, getting our lift tickets around noon. The tickets were actually cards with our names on them, which was kind of cool. At first impression, the resort of Los Lenas is quite dismal. It doesnt look that big, there´s no trees at all, and the snow was a little icy. However, a huge ridge, bisects the park, which is actually one of the biggest snow parks in the world. The lack of trees and the huge craggy mountains just make it seem smaller because there isnt any source of comparison. The runs are literally 3 miles long on average, so long lift rides.
Who skis there? Everyone, lots of British, Europeans, Argentines, and Brazilians. We saw skiiers blaze through a gate course and later learned the Swiss Olympic Ski Team is here practicing. A few Americans. The place is definately adult oriented, with bars all over the base, and a few on the mountian, all of them pumping techno indoors and out.
(Thats another thing, the Argentines are obsessed with 80´s music. I´ve heard more Depeche Mode and Madonna here than the entire rest of my life. )
Anyway, we skiied until the slopes closed in small groups. Four of us skiied, the rest snowboarded. I skiied ok, the problem was that I´ve not skiied in awhile, the runs are really long, so I was using a lot of energy and leg strength, so it wore me out very quickly. Plus my skiis felt a little loose, so I was having some control issues.
Around six, we left the park, and drove down to Malague. We met the landlords wife at a gas station just inside town and she took us to the two houses where the beds were. We dropped our stuff, and went to dinner. Had my first real argentina steak. Lomo completo, a sirloin topped by two fried eggs and served with fries. Good stuff. Argentines do beef right. After that we went back, I showered, and passed out into a warm bed around midnight.
To be continued...
Our saga began friday night, when we left from Buenos Aires on a bus bound for Mendoza at 9 PM. There were ten of us, 7 undergraduates, 2 grad students, and TCody´s older sister. The bus terminal in BA is huge, multileveled, and totally packed. This is an international airport for busses, with 80 bus gates all in a single row, departures and arrivals all the time. It was absolutely packed when we left. Since airfares are too expensive for the average Argentine, and trains a leftover from the British, busses compete to outdo each other with lavish amenities, from fully reclining seats to free breakfasts, anything. We took a semicama (half reclining) bus, across the width of the country (about 750 miles ) for about $30, and it included breakfast.
The bus ride out was great. We brought a few bottles of vino tinto for the ride, and as we had all the seats in the back, had a little party while Batman Begins played in spanish on the video screens. With a little help from the wine, we all conked out around midnight and I slept soundly until about 6 AM. We stopped in a tiny town for a free breakfast of stale croissants, and the worst cappuchino Ive had so far in this country. (cafe con leche is really expresso with a ton of hot steamed milk) We arrived in Mendoza a little before noon saturday.
One slight problem. We were still 5 hours from Los Lenas. With tons of begging, searching, and pleading, we found busses to Malague, a town an hour away from Las Lenas, but they didnt leave until 6 PM, which would get us into Las Lenas in the middle of the night, and all the places we were calling in Las Lenas or Malague had absolutely nothing in terms of a place to stay. We´d ask for two rooms, and they´d tell us they were totally booked for the next two days. So, we decided to go anyway, trusting to our luck. However, there was still the problem of getting there at a reasonable time.
We decided to rent a minibus from a local car rental place. Came out to less than $40 a person for the two days we used it. The ten of us loaded up and we drove the 5 hours out to Los Lenas that afternoon. The middle of Argentina is like Texas or Oklahoma. Totally flat, unbroken except for the occational windmill, rustic farmhouse, and endless fields and open skies. When we got closer to the Andes, which run across the entire horizon, the terrain got more deserty, like Arizona or Nevada. It was very strage, especailly with the huge snow capped chain in the distance.
We passed frequent police control points, at least six or seven total, and most of the time, they just waved us through or asked us where we were going. Not sure what they were looking for. We stopped at a high mountain pass, as a place where there was a shrine and around were stacked tons of partially filled water bottles people had left. I learned later that the water was left there for parched travelers, as the shrine revered a particular local saint who died from dehydration or something like that.
The sun setting behind the Andes was phenomenal. Since we were in the wine country, the farmers were burning the fields so the smoke-haze settled around the base of hte mountain chain, shouding it almost, and the rays streaming out from behind the peaks was amazing. We were all taking pictures.
We got to Las Lenas around 10 PM. Really really small ski resort. Good snow conditions. We´d set out in twos or threes, usually with one of the chicas, and try our luck at the various places. The only place we found wanted 500 pesos a night for a room, or about 180 dollars. We were laughed out of several places, and we were asking for only two rooms. Exhausting Las Lenas, we went back to the small settlement of Los Molles, about 20 minutes from the ski resort. Los Molles used to be Los Lenas until a massive avalanche wiped the place out. The remains were rebuilt, and so now its a few small hotels and some bungalows, stretched out across the rocky valley floor. We tried the places there with no luck, and I had resigned myself to sleeping in the van with the other 9 people.
The last hotel recommended we try a hostel down a certain dirt road. We took it and we weren´t sure which was the main office of a series of stone cottages. Chris, the most charismatic of the group, went to knock on the door, and ended up accidently knocking it actually open. In his broken spanish, he asked ¨what is this place?¨they told him ¨we live here.¨ Apparently, they were renters for a few days, and told him the hostel was up the road a bit more.
The Argentines are so warm, they were totally cool about the whole thing. We let Chris and the girls into the tiny hostel first. At least we could eat dinner there, we found. They talked to the owner, who said that the girls could sleep there. That was good enough for us, so we all trooped inside. Big fireplace, rows of picnic tables inside, MTV on the tube, Argentinos playing guitar in the sitting area. Very lively scene in a small space. Someone negotiated further while we sat, and the owner finally took pity and let the rest of us sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace on the carpet. They brought out dinner for us as part of the deal. Milonesas ( a flattened chicken fried steak) and jugs of wine and a huge bowl of salad. We all ate well. We also negotiated the next night in a house in Malague. Around midnight, they brought out some mats and blankets, and I passed out in my spot right in front of the fire.
I slept so well that it felt like one minute later someone was waking me up so they could put the living room back togather. We had toast with cream cheese and jam for breakfast, and strong coffee. We took off for the one of two ski rental places, actually inside two of the hotels. We cleaned out the entire towns collection of rental snowboards, although there were plenty of skis. Ski equipment was only 40 pesos total, or around $12. As we had no ski pants or gloves, we rented those from the ski place at the hotel next door. When I say next door, this is really just an encampent along one main road, and a few places along the dirt road. They had the most vibrant colored ski pants I´ve ever seen. I got bib overalls, bright red, and shiny. The boarders had it worse, having to get bright magenta or vibrant purple pants. It was absolutely hilarious.
Drove back to the ski resort, getting our lift tickets around noon. The tickets were actually cards with our names on them, which was kind of cool. At first impression, the resort of Los Lenas is quite dismal. It doesnt look that big, there´s no trees at all, and the snow was a little icy. However, a huge ridge, bisects the park, which is actually one of the biggest snow parks in the world. The lack of trees and the huge craggy mountains just make it seem smaller because there isnt any source of comparison. The runs are literally 3 miles long on average, so long lift rides.
Who skis there? Everyone, lots of British, Europeans, Argentines, and Brazilians. We saw skiiers blaze through a gate course and later learned the Swiss Olympic Ski Team is here practicing. A few Americans. The place is definately adult oriented, with bars all over the base, and a few on the mountian, all of them pumping techno indoors and out.
(Thats another thing, the Argentines are obsessed with 80´s music. I´ve heard more Depeche Mode and Madonna here than the entire rest of my life. )
Anyway, we skiied until the slopes closed in small groups. Four of us skiied, the rest snowboarded. I skiied ok, the problem was that I´ve not skiied in awhile, the runs are really long, so I was using a lot of energy and leg strength, so it wore me out very quickly. Plus my skiis felt a little loose, so I was having some control issues.
Around six, we left the park, and drove down to Malague. We met the landlords wife at a gas station just inside town and she took us to the two houses where the beds were. We dropped our stuff, and went to dinner. Had my first real argentina steak. Lomo completo, a sirloin topped by two fried eggs and served with fries. Good stuff. Argentines do beef right. After that we went back, I showered, and passed out into a warm bed around midnight.
To be continued...
Aug 21, 2006
quikie
Hey everyone, I´m currently in Mendoza, Arg. Doing fine and with the rest of the group .Will return to BsAs tomorrow around 10 pm after a day bus ride.
Aug 18, 2006
I'm alive
Hey, just a quikie to let everyone know I'm alive. Last night there was another dinner party. Adam's brother came over who's studying to be a chef and whipped up a phenomenal dinner for the whole lot of us. Shrimp with linguine in a cream and almond sauce. Good stuff.
Road trip this weekend. details to follow.
OK time to go!
Road trip this weekend. details to follow.
OK time to go!
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