snrtobias

On  12/4/08 Steve sent out an email:  “Just pulled in to our apartment in BA. very tired & hungry, the apartment is great, BA looks like a cross between Madrid and Casablanca, so far. Very shabby and dusty, i.e., delightful. “  Follow the following command to “click here” to read more, and also to see the photos.

 If you like Madrid, you’ll love this place: soot, diesel, sidewalk tiles coming up, plane trees, movidisimo, but not nearly as noisy, and for the most part, people carry plastic bags and pick up their dog’s shit! The incredible talk of the town is that Madonna is here giving four concerts. They seem to love her.  I wonder if that was because she starred in the movie “Evita” or whether it is simply because she is Madonna.

 The apartment is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. Photos on web pages always look sooooo good. It is in a modern building. We are on the 9th and top floor.  An elevator big enough for two people goes up to the 8th, and then we walk up a short flight of stairs to the 9th. The kitchen is so small that two people cannot be in it at the same time. The bathroom is pretty normal, actually large by Argentine standards.  The living/dining area has a futon, two Ikea type chairs, a table with four chairs, and a TV. The bedroom is just big enough for a double bed with just enough room on either side to get in and out.

The living/dining room combo and bedroom are sort of one big space separated by a closet unit divider kind of thing that goes almost to the ceiling which makes the space into two rooms, so to speak. There is also a balcony which runs the width of the apartment. It has a big awning you can roll out and one of those plastic deck tables, 4 chairs and two deck lounge chairs. It also has a hose and cold shower hook-up, I guess for when you get really hot sunning yourself.

There is no washing machine in the apt or in the bldg. The system is to take stuff to what you might think is a self-serve laund-ro-mat around the corner, but is really where you drop off your stuff to be washed and folded (maybe even ironed) by someone else. Costs about $6 a load, I think.  Taking the laundry there is another thing we have to look forward to.

 We live in a very pleasant, quiet neighborhood called Palermo with tree lined streets and parks. The housing stock is basically all newer apartment buildings like ours, attached to each other and lining both sides of every street.  We are not far from the zoo and botanical garden, neither of which we have visited yet. Nice cafes, restaurants and specialty shops. In that respect it seems quite European.

The people seem to be/look very European too. While the population is diverse, most people seem to be of European background. Italian. German. There are some recent immigrants from Africa, but no descendants from African slaves since Argentina managed to get rid of its African population when slavery was abolished. They also managed to pretty much wipe out their indigineous population, so there are not many from pueblos originales.

On the other hand, our neighborhood is said to house the biggest Mosque in maybe all of South America (not sure about that statistic). There is also a Chinatown somewhere, probably not as big as NY or even Phila, but I can’t say for sure since we haven’t gotten there yet. Quite a few Jews in our neighborhood, but it’s not the main Jewish area. But enough here to support a Kosher restaurant and even a Kosher sushi place. There is a Conservative synagogus about a block from our apartment. You can see orthos walking around, like in Lower Merian, but not as many.

Our neighborhood is next door, so to speak, to one of the poshest neighborhoods in town, called Recoleta. There the apt buildings are older and more elegant. We’ve walked around there some, but getting to know it better is still on the list. There are also poor areas, and you see some people begging but not in your face and not as many as in Casablanca.

A short walk away is a busier street, called Santa Fe,  where we can catch a subway. That street is usually quite crowded. The stores not as elegant. That area, as well as the downtown, are maybe sort of like NY. Very busy, lots of traffic, lots of hustle and bustle.  And then there are also these really lovely areas with wide boulevards, which is why this city is often referred to as the Paris of South America.  

One thing that struck me is that there are all these fancy shoppes and quite a few fancy malls, then you go out onto the street and the pavement is crumbling and there is a lot of graffiti. It’s kind of third world trying to become 1st world, or maybe it’s just a combination of the two.  Maybe it is 2nd world.  Having traveled to some extent, Buenos Aires does not seem all that exotic, except that everyone speaks Spanish and many people speak with an Argentine accent which is difficult to understand.

In short, it seems like a combination of Europe, NYC and its own thing.  But I’m sure it is more different than we are aware of after only one week here.

And yes, it is a big city.  The following photos will give you an idea. Click on the thumbnails for the complete image.

 

 

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