Chau Buenos Aires & some reflections

Two weeks in BA has been restful, rejuvenating, and tough at times.  It feels like a transition point. After 5-ish months on the continent, we are about to leave Spanish-speaking South America for Asia (via South Africa).  And BA was also the last time we'll pause for as long as two weeks in one place.  It was a good place to catch our breath and catch up on sleep.

Teatro Colon at night

Neil will blog about everything that we did here in BA. I'll just say that we managed to pack it in. Today was a good example.  We started with a morning Beethoven concert at the storied Teatro Colon, one of the top concert halls in the world.  (I hardly know anyone here but funnily I happened to know the concertmaster, a fellow student in my pedagogy class last week!)  After Mother's Day lunch in San Telmo, we spent the evening at one of the most famous soccer stadiums in the world, La Bonbonera.  We watched the fabulous Boca Juniors win, 3-1, to a raucous home crowd.

This was the scene before the game even started.

Notwithstanding all the amazing steak and cultural events, our stay in BA has been challenging too. To begin with, we're simply tired from moving around so much.  We've stayed in 54 places in 23 weeks. We've traveled extensively in Ecuador, Chile, Peru and Bolivia.   We've played more card games and games of Ghost, Geography, 20 Questions, and Jeopardy, than we can count.  We have spent more concentrated and uninterrupted time with each other than we ever have before.  

One of many meat-centric meals

When we're moving around and dealing with the next meal/hotel/flight currency, we just sort of deal. When we stop, however, we are forced to confront the reality of what is going on in the family and individually.  In BA, we had the time and space to spend some time apart.  And we also did some reflecting on how things have been going and how we want the rest of the trip to flow.  We're making some adjustments -- e.g., not going on a back country trek in Szechuan (too cold, too remote, too much camping, too much high altitude).  We realized that we all do better with some structured activity (e.g., Spanish tutoring, Galápagos trip, downhill biking in Ecuador, rafting the Futaleufu, etc.).  With that thought in mind, we are looking for a surf/yoga program to do this summer in Bali.  Finally, after the next 6 weeks of travel to Brazil, South Africa and China, we will definitely be ready to chillax.  So, we are going to prioritize beach time in South East Asia and think of July as a real vacation, before heading to Japan and then home in August.

Okay, back to BA.  My 5 sense summary:

1.  Sight -- BA in May looks just like NYC in September.  Beautiful yellow foliage on the plane trees, humid days giving way to crisper weather.  BA looks more like Paris than NYC, but our neighborhood, Recoleta, looks just like the Upper East Side.  I even saw a woman having a coffee at an outdoor cafe with her dog, who was wearing an Hermes scarf, of course.

One of many architecturally interesting buildings in BA

2. Smell -- cigarette smoke (everyone in BA, young and old, smokes like a fiend), steak, fresh baked bread and pastries.

Someone is happy about the prospect of eating the next steak

3.  Taste -- steak, steak, & steak, wine (better and cheaper than Chile or even Italy), fresh baked media lunas (Argentinian croissants), alfajores (sandwich cookies with caramel and chocolate).

Alfajores (plentiful in Chile but eaten in bulk by us only in Argentina)

4.  Sound -- you know how every taxi in Washington DC plays NPR on the radio?  In BA, it's U.S./U.K. 80's pop or tango music.  Gone are the Andean flutes of every other place we've been in South America.  We didn't even hear South American pop music here.  BA is also filled with the sound of a lyrical Spanish that sounds like Italian with a speech impediment.  Our street, Callao, is pronounced "Cazhao."  I sometimes still can't quite understand a simple word like "pollo" (chicken) because it's pronounced, "pozhou."  Don't even get me started on the vos form.

5.  Feel -- Argentinians have a reputation in South America for being snobs.  After coming to BA, I understand why.  BA definitely feels very European, as if you're no longer in South America. To begin with, everyone here is white.  There are bottle blonds, but most people here are dark haired and olive skinned, and look like they could be Italian or Spanish.  You don't see any indigenous people like you do in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia.  BA also feels very cosmopolitan.  Everyone walks and talks fast.  It also feels like a throw back to the 1980s -- the women wear platform shoes, leggings and colorful patterns, and long, big hair is in.