Buenos Aires
We are sitting in the Houston Airport, soaking up an 11 hour layover and I am finally recovered enough to the story of our last 10 days in South America.
Having grown up in a small town devoid of any cultural phenomena that was not connected to irish catholism, I have always liked visiting cities. I had not anticipated how entirely exhausting the energy of “the Paris of South America” would be. Buenos Aires is 12 to 15 million, depending on how much of the outskirts you include. 3 times the size of Santiago, which by comparison I felt at home in right away. In BA, I was finally just getting the lay of the land and finding my favorite haunts and feeling like I was getting beyond the tourist attractions the last couple of days. But going back to day one, here is my list of top ten street sightings:
1) Movie/Commercial film crews. We saw the first one in our cab from the bus station (Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the bus ride…13 hours, over-night. Giant, fully reclining leather seats, 2 movies, blankets, pillows, 2 course dinner, including wine and champaign, plus breakfast) Back to the film crews, according to our friend who works in advertising, it’s quite cheap to hire film crews in BA, and the city has so may different types of architecture and neighborhoods, that one can pretty much find any kind of cityscape. Anyway, we saw a few different crews and one set of models being filmed.
2) Dog poo. EVERYWHERE. J and I each landed in separate piles within our first 10 steps in the city. There are dogwalkers that take 9 (no kidding, 9) dogs at a time. It’s considered lucky in BA to step in it, but I think they just made that up so they don’t have to stop and scoop every time one of 9 gets the urge.
3) Sculptural hair. I’m really bummed I wasn’t able to get photos of these because they were something to behold. Guys with gel sweeping their hair into sculptures resembling the famous Japanese painting the “Great Wave” were a common siting in retail venues and well-to-do areas of the city. We happened to be in a store at closing time and were lucky enough to witness one of these guys in his post-work ritual: 7 (S-E-V-E-N) squirts of cologne. Apparently the gel and the cologne combine to create some sort of flammable aphrodisiac. Fortunately, I have a special Norwegian stiffness to counteract just such weaponry.
4) Subte. (Subway) Wow. Really. I’ve been to NY, and I’ve been to Hong Kong. And truly, I can’t believe that guy just squeezed in here. What time is rush hour? EVERY TIME, except for Sunday, when the subway is so empty we thought it was closed. I judged how long we had left to go by how many sweat droplets had slid off Jason’s cheek. Usually around the 4th he really got agitated, but it was too crowded to move his hand up to his face to wipe off, and we never got out before the 7th drip.
5) Unmarked intersections. Except for the biggest streets (such as Avinida 9 de Julio, the 16-laner) all the streets in BA are one way, with no stop signs. So think of NE 15th in Portland for example. Imagine it is one way, but none of the side streets have stop signs. So, they just slow to about 20 and push through. The traffic on 15th would then slow until they felt brave enough to edge past the intersection and the flow continues trading off like this until crazy honking from one direction demands a longer turn.
6) Helmets are recommended––to be worn on your arm apparently. And if you have a bicycle but your friend has a motorcycle, you just hold on to his shoulder and keep your feet off the pedals.
7) Sidewalks. A 20 gallon manual cement mixer, a 5 gallon bucket, and one man makes a sidewalk. A man with a hammer breaks up the sidewalk where repairs are needed.
Explosives. One day we saw (well, we heard and then saw, and then heard again for many blocks) an un-supervised 5-year-old lighting fireworks and throwing them into the busy street.
9) Spontaneous street concerts. That take place at 1 in the morning and draw a quick 1,000 people from age 6 to 76, clapping and dancing.
10) Quiet cafes and bars each with their own beautiful and unique appreciation for atmosphere and personality, but seemingly little understanding of basic business principles. There were always 3 times as many staff as necessary standing around, but maybe we were just there at the wrong time. We really never went to bed before 2am (which seemed much earlier because of A, the long summer days, and B, the number of people out in the streets) but still I think we were too early for the real crowds. Once we were walking home from dinner around 2:30 and there was still a line out the door of a couple restaurants.
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