Posts Tagged bar

Teenage Boliche, Caffe Sap, Etc.

I went out for a long night on Friday to see Ben off, as he left to start traveling with the missus (which means girlfriend in British) on Saturday. We went to Doppelganger, which is a really great place, lots of fabulous atmosphere and well-crafted beverages, and continued on to Del Plata for meats, followed by Bar Seddon for a beer or two (and a bit of old-girlfriend-talk inanity on my part), then a club called Carnal that didn’t really live up to its name, and finally another club with no name and really terrible music populated (and staffed) by 18 year-olds. The conflict of the evening arose when I could not figure out the coat check at the last, unnamed club. There was a 20 peso cover charge which you might have thought included coat check, but sadly did not. I was, however, given a ticket that looked a lot like something one might use at a coat check but was instead to be used for beverages. After three or four trips back to pantomime with the 18 year-old staffing the coat check room, I managed to figure it out, and was able to dance awkwardly with the rest of the teenagers for an hour or so before we all just gave the hell up and went home. But it was fun, and sad to see Old Ben go.

Dinner at Del Plata
Steak at Del Plata At Del Plata The Bens at Doppelganger Glowing Caipirinha

Here’s a fun fact about Argentina: they don’t have butter knives. Argentines, at least Portenos, seem to like to eat a lot of Manteca (which means butter, contrary to what spanishdict.com might say), which is good, but every knife that I’ve come across in a home or restaurant has been a steak knife. So whenever you’re spreading butter you have to be careful. Seriously, these people like to eat some meat.

Also, my newest challenge is getting my hair cut. I learned today that it’s called a corte de pelo, and I think that if I say corto en los lados y un poco largo sobre el alto, it might work. At the very least I can show them a picture of myself on my phone, right? Seriously, this is terrifying; I hate getting my hair cut at home, and I speak English pretty well. Wish me luck, eh? Bueno Suerte?

Chau-zers.

P.S. Now that I have my own place, complete with complimentary french press, I’ve been making my own coffee out of the finely ground, black-as-night stuff that I can buy at Disco down the street. And as they don’t sell half and half in the supermercados here, I’ve had to make do with 100% cream. Add the giant-grained, unrefined sugar from my cupboard, and it’s some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. Seriously, I feel like I’m drinking the sap of the caffe tree or something.

Oh, and here’s an advertisement for the maraton that I will be winning in a couple weeks. It’s nice to see that it is, in fact, an actual event:
Billboard advertising the Maraton de Buenos Aires!

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No Polo en Sabado. Entonces, Bailado.

Fellow Travelers,

I was planning on going to a ladies polo match yesterday afternoon, but after walking a thousand miles into Palermo, I got a call from kind Anique saying that they had taken the bus there only to find that it had been canceled on account of mud. So I walked around Palermo a bit and enjoyed the nice day. I found an amazing park for running and paddleboating (if I ever decide to take that up as a hobby; a racquetball replacement?), which will come in very handy as I really need to rack up the running miles in the coming weeks.

I ended up walking around for a number of hours and got home pretty exhausted. So I ate lentejas y arroz and joined Ben and some nice Europeans for a drink before heading over to Jan and Juliana’s (remember, the German dentist?) hostel to watch the Brasil/Argentina game. It was, inevitably, a little weird. This game is, I’m told, a pretty big deal here, but all we turistas in the hostel couldn’t really muster up too much national pride for Argentina, and quite a few of us (guiltily) really had no idea what was going on on the screen, anyway. I did manage to make it to Plaza Dorrego to see the last sad few minutes of the game on a huge screen in the middle of all the cafes, and it had a much better atmosphere, even a little heckling from the Brasilianos. We stayed outside for an hour or two and drank some chopps before young Julie (my new Deutsch roommate) and I headed over to Kelly’s (from class) apartment to rendezvous before…

…heading out to a club at 2:30 in the morning!

What!? Seriously. I can’t get over this. It’s how it’s done here. Marcella the Revolutionary said that she’ll go out to a club once or twice a year and she’ll just go to bed early that night and wake up at two or three in the morning to go dancing. Que loco! Anyway, we stayed up really late and had a lot of fun and I saw some surprisingly horrible dancing and at 8:30 the next morning got medialunes and cafe doble with Kelly’s bouncer novio who insisted on correcting our pronunciation obsessively, although other than that he was a really nice guy.

The boliche:
Pacha Buenos Aires

And then, I went to bed and did very very little the next day. El fin.

Y, chau.

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Entonces, un Otra Vez

At la Poesia, where meat plates were eaten:

At la Poesia

L to R: Jan, German; Ali, Parisienne; Unnamed Pole; Micheal, Swiss.

I wrote an exquisitely crafted post yesterday about my trip to a tango concert at a contemporary art museum on Wednesday, the strange Argentine accent, and a few other very interesting things. I accidentally navigated away from the page before hitting post, losing all the brilliance.

~So, let me summarize~

I went to a tango concert with a German, an Austrian, a Pole, a Parisian, and a Swiss (not a show, just tango music in an intimate, dimly lit setting) at which the black-clad musicians and middle-aged man singing emoted gracefully and, I’m sure, thoughtfully, although I wasn’t able to fully appreciate it because my Spanish is not quite that good yet. And then we went to La Poesia for meat plates.

~And~

The Argentine accent is an acquired taste, but a good one. We say our yuh sounds as shuh. So,

“Ella llege a la calle” sounds like “Aysha shaygay a la caushay.”

~Also~

I went running with Ben the Brit, who is a nice guy, today. We will go out for a brewski later on. And it’s already getting mucho calor, even though it’s still technically the middle of winter. The clima is going to be unreasonably, unbearably hot later in my South American adventure.

~Finally~

It’s incredible how quickly one can adapt to a situation. It’s all a state of mind, isn’t it? Thanks to those of you who told me that I might have a little bit of a shock on my arrival, but everything would work out soon enough. That’s exactly how it went. People are kind, and helpful, and lead interesting lives very different from my own. As such, this little trip has turned out to be a good idea. And I’m learning so much Deutsch!

Chau.

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Hoodwinked!

La Recoleta Cemetary:

Recoleta Cemetary

I went on a little trip to Recoleta yesterday to see the famous cemetery and to soak up the sights. I was hoofing it over there and had stopped at a park to check out my Guia “T”, and made the mistake of looking like a dumbfounded tourist. Luckily, Juan was right there to help me.

“Hola, senor. Where are you trying to go? My name is Juan and I work here. You can tell from my green vest with inscrutable patches on it. I am helpful and hardworking.” Juan very kindly showed me exactly how to get where I wanted to go in my Guia “T” and walked away with a kind smile and warm chau.

“Oh, I almost forgot. I am collecting money for various things. Let me show you a brochure with many causes. Babies need food, senor. children need clothes. No, that’s not enough money for the babies. That’s OK, I can wait.” It was at about this time that I realized Juan didn’t really work “here,” or maybe anywhere. It wasn’t too bad, though, I was only really duped out of 10 pesos. Which isn’t that much, really. And I fed some babies.

Also, I went on a fun night out with some of the kids on Friday. We went to posh Palermo and ate at a fancy meat restaurant, and then went to a packed little bar and ate manis and threw the shells on the ground. It was a good time, and I’m learning that it’s not that big a deal to stay out until 5:00 in the morning when you don’t leave for dinner until 10. It’s how we do it here.

At el bar:

At un Bar En Palermo

Also, I miss the Norwegians. But there’s an Australian bloke (mate? chum? geezer?) coming in their place tomorrow. I hear he likes to chat. That makes one of us. But it will be nice to have someone else here. Right now it’s just Maribel and Michael the Swiss and me here, and none of us really speak a common language. Other than tango, of course.

I’m having fun. And learning a bit of Spanish. Oh, and I ran like a million miles today, which almost killed me.

Yours truly,

No, “deee LAY neee”

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