Living In Interesting Times

Greetings from Buenos Aires.

This is our fourth long trip to Argentina in the past decade, yet I haven’t really written many posts from here. One reason is that many photos here seem to require a long explanation to put them in context. For example, today I saw someone juggling in the middle of an intersection at a red light. He stopped before the light changed to ask for tips. Actually this is the first time I have seen that here; it is more of a Chilean thing. 

Nevertheless, my days are full of stuff like that here, and they are hard to share and explain. Wearing your backpack on your chest to prevent theft, taking 20 minute taxi rides for $2, not eating dinner for days at a time, or even weeks because I can’t find an open restaurant with something I want to eat. Life in Buenos Aires is different, more different than many overseas destinations. Here are some examples. 

Sometime a subway ride is more than just a subway ride. It can also be a shopping opportunity. On a long ride yesterday more than half a dozen vendors came by offering stationary supplies like pens, plastic file folders, cell phone holders or tripods ( I bought one last year from a subway vendor). There are also beggars. Argentines are great talkers, they love the sound of words, and these beggars have long pitches about their particular situation. Sometimes there are musicians. Here are some from yesterday. 

I want to talk about teeshirts. These are teeshirts with an attitude. With captions in English. In a country where not that many people speak English. I have so many questions. Who Is making these and why are people buying them? Last year I posted some on Facebook. Here is a partial list from this year:

Be your best selfie

Nowhere

Ok, but no.

Every day is a fresh start

Soy toxica

Do not compare yourself to me

Have a drink and talk about happy things

All you need is love, and a bottle of wine

Attitude makes a difference

Respect

Property of no one

Screw you. This was on a tight sweater on a beautiful woman.

We live in a location that is like a crossection between Time Square (lots of of theaters), the Champs Elysee (meaning a very wide street), and New York’s 47th Street, (blocks of nothing but jewelry stores).  

One of dozens of theaters, with the Obilisk, the symbol of Buenos Aires at the end of the street. In the evening they open half this avenue into a strolling boulevard, 

It has taken me months to take a photo showing all 18 lanes. 

If you see my Facebook posts you have seen photos of demonstrations. They are very common right in front of our balcony, although this year there have been fewer than last year.  The last one went on for many hours, had more than 50,000 protestors and caused massive traffic jams throughout the city. 

I guess I should address the issue of danger. There are police in bulletproof vest on most blocks in my part of town. There is also a police station with big glass windows where you can see monitors for cameras in other parts of town. Does this make it safe? I don’t know, and will admit that I am here right now because it is right after an election and people are not as upset as they were last year, despite being somewhat poorer.

Last night at a party an older European man was talking about various incidents he had walking home late at night. We have not had any incidents other that several where I can see people considering the odd on stealing our cellphone, but we always take taxis at night and are usually together.

BBQ (called asados here) are a really common way to celebrate with friends. Argentines love meat and are only recently beginning to discover seasoning and vegetables. I was just in the supermarket and the canned vegetable section was less than a meter wide and included olives.

Mostly they still don’t season even with pepper, and don’t include vegetables in their meals. Last weekend we went to an asado with about a dozen people. As you can see in this photo there were at least three different cuts of meat, sausages, offal, and tucked in the corner were two peppers and three onions. None of the Argentines touched the veggies. 

These are just a few examples of how Buenos Aires is a little different. We are having a wonderful time and wish we had not made plans to leave in March on a cruise up the coast of South America.. With the Coronavirus this seems like a safe and fun place to hang out for a long while, and we are not sure where to go next. This is when it would be handy for us to have a real home again.