Torrential

I've been having vivid dreams since I arrived in this country: my mind must be in overdrive, trying to make sense of all the new things it's coming across. My dream last night involved the girl from the launderette. Not my launderette, but the one next to it. When I first when to pick up my clothes, I walked in there, said "Hola," looked bemused, then realised what I'd done. She looked at me as if she could tell from my face what I'd done too, and no sooner had I said "This isn't the right place!", than she was laughing in agreement. "I need to go to the other one!," I said, as I made my way out of the door and headed in the wrong direction to find the right launderette. She pointed me in the right direction. I looked at her through the glass, and banged my head with my hand to let her know that I wasn't quite with it, and she had a laugh...

So, I found this girl in my dream last night. Upon seeing me, she instantly started laughing, banged her hand against her head just as I had done, and said: "Hey, you're the guy who walked into the wrong launderette!"

Anyway, dropping your clothes off at the launderette is the only way to do things here. Unlike in my dream, where we actually had a washing machine in the flat that I'd never come across before.

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The weekend has been rained off in Argentina. Check out the football match between Huracan and San Lorenzo!

Madness!

Want me to write more? I'm not going to. The picture's said enough.

 

Banging pots and pans

I turned on the TV last night while eating my dinner, and caught some images of a cacerolazo taking place in some region of this enormous country, where they're protesting about a lack of power and water. A cacerolazo is the traditional Argentine way to protest: you get a pot or pan of some sort from your kitchen, together with a wooden spoon or something else with which you can beat out your protest rhythm in the street. Anyway, that's what's going on in some part of Argentina. I may be safe from such governmental neglect, as I live in a posh part of the important capital, but who knows?

It appears my slightly deranged and early-rising landlady (she pretty much stages a cacerolazo of her own every morning...) didn't spend the night at the flat last night, and this enabled me to have an almighty sleep, which saw me completely out for the count until almost 11am. Within ten minutes of getting my senses in order, I'd been greeted with the news that, outside of Argentina, there was even more unrest than a bunch of housewives in the street.

The siege in Mumbai is fortunately over now, but that could be the beginning of a new wave of something bad. Thailand's in a mess, and the tourists are stranded. I have two friends over there at the moment, as it goes. One of them will be "celebrating" his birthday tomorrow. Fun days... And, after reading so much about how nobody's shopping in the States any more, a Wal-Mart employee got killed in a stampede of shoppers, who then almost started another riot when they were told that the store would have to be closed because of the death. They needed those cut-price plasma screens.

I mean, that last story is just too much to take. This economy that we've created that can only function if people continue to buy stuff they don't even need is a complete and utter joke. Why can't a human stampede kill off a few of the investment bankers, advertising gurus and sensationalist journalists that are fueling the lunacy?

Amigo del Malba

In my dream last night, I was in England, and it was raining. I said: "Hey, it's baking hot over in Buenos Aires!" And someone then told me that, actually, it was raining there too. He turned on the TV and showed me. I woke up and it was raining.

Must've been able to hear the rain in my sleep or something. But, anyway, yesterday was a scorcher. I went sunbathing proper for the first time. Didn't last long: it was incredibly hot. I want to start using visible sun cream, so that I can see which parts of my body aren't covered, because I generally miss a bit. They should make blue stuff. Then I could paint myself blue when I go out to lie in the sun.

I have a new friend. I've become a friend of The Malba, the trendy art gallery down the road from me (a lot of things are "down the road from me", it just depends on how far I want to walk. The Malba is actually further than I thought: about 40 mins rather than 20...). Anyway, it's new and it's cool. 

(That's not my picture above, by the way. I've started questioning whether I should be taking pictures of sights and sites that have already been captured on film a million times. I'm hardly going to bring new perspectives to things: I'm not a photographer... I may now spend more of my time taking pictures of things that aren't already on flickr, like pictures of the street that's just covered in dog shit... Seriously, there's shit everywhere in this town, but the street that runs alongside the City Zoo - República de la India - seems to be the main dog toilet for Buenos Aires. It's disgusting. And, as it's right next to the zoo, well, just imagine how bad it smells...)

When I first visited Malba, I realised that this was the museum I thought I was visiting when I went out on the Noche de Museos... THIS is where all the avant-garde Latin American art is displayed! The Museo de Arte Moderno is full of European stuff, a lot of which is by artists I already know about. Very nice, but not new to me.

Anyway, I'm not writing any more here. See that? I started, but didn't continue. I love an abrupt end to things.

Puerto Madero (and that other part of town)

I woke up early on Sunday morning, and realised I’d have to do something with my day other than sit at my computer trying to get PHP to send mail. A couple of natives had told me that Puerto Madero was a nice part of town to visit, and since there’s a bus that goes there from right outside my flat, I decided to take myself off there…

The bus ride was quite pleasant, actually, but then, at 10am on a Sunday morning, neither the buses nor the roads in Buenos Aires are particularly busy. The buses here don’t really seem to be designed to hold many people, so I’d hate to travel on one in the rush hour. Anyway, it got me there easily enough, and I stepped out into the dazzling sunshine and blistering heat.

There’s not really much to be said about Puerto Madero. I took quite a few pictures (look on flickr) just for the sake of it. It really just seemed to be a dull place where rich people live (the estate agent I got the flat from said that about a third of the properties there are owned by people from the US, who only come here in the summer). I didn’t come across any shops, just a few brasseries and restaurants along the riverside. I would have liked to stop for a drink and a rest, but I figured the prices would be silly.

Walking further away from the river, there’s a big expanse of grass, and more normal folk were hanging out there, sunbathing. I would have stayed, but there was absolutely no shade, and I wasn’t there to sunbathe. I walked back the way I came, taking photos along the way to entertain myself. I must say that I liked the cranes in the area: I always like big cranes.

I studied my map, and after about 5 minutes (my map-reading skills are perhaps improving with all of the practise – though I still feel for the hapless girl who asked me for directions last weekend, who I sent in exactly the opposite direction to where she wanted to go. Hey, that was her fault for being lazy: there was a map right next to her that she could have consulted, but she chose to ask a foreigner instead…) I discovered that I was actually right next door to San Telmo!

Anyway, I went to San Telmo to watch the Ajedrez de Tango Viviente once more. I took some videos this time: you can watch them someday, when I upload them… I’ve tried all day with youtube, but the quality’s been terrible. I’m now tweaking the settings of the video for export, and I’m going to try uploading them to Vimeo instead. Videos are a bit trickier to get online than photos. Here’s a photo of the beautiful dancing people to tide you over. Like you, they’re waiting for the show to start…

And you can watch videos of the tango on Vimeo. I took a few, so go and watch them. Here's the opening dance:

Ajedrez de Tango Viviente - Opening dance from Pete Loggie on Vimeo

Bathrooms in Buenos Aires

The first thing I did upon arriving at my hostel in Buenos Aires was take a shower. And that was when I first came across the interesting approach they have to showers over here... The bathroom was one big wet room. In the bathroom I was using in the hostel, there was actually a shower curtain, but I'm not sure that it served much purpose, as the rest of the bathroom got soaked when the shower was used anyway. There were no ledges in that bathroom to place my things, but the toilet was right next to the shower, so I was able to leave my things there. This was the larger of the two bathrooms. The other one was pretty much a closet - there was a toilet, and a sink... and a shower head. Having a shower in that room would have been very difficult indeed. The only way might have been to stand on the toilet. Or just shower while sitting...

The setup in the bathroom in my flat is somewhere in between these two scenarios. It's difficult to find an angle that captures the bathroom in its entirety, but here's a picture to give you an idea:

I was talking to my flatmate about the setup, and he agreed that it was pretty cool, in a way... I said: "Hey, you can take a shower while sitting on the John! That's gotta be handy if you're ever in a rush in the morning, or really hungover..." Doug said: "Well, yeah, I was really tired this morning, actually, so I gave it a try! All I need to do is add in shaving as well, and I'll be doing all three things at once!" 

There you go: dreams can come true in this city. 

Home sweet home

I moved in to my new flat yesterday. I have everything I need here. Last night was the first night I've spent in Buenos Aires where I haven't been disturbed by noise at some point of the night or morning. I woke up of my own accord today. Earplugs weren't needed. I like my new room at the moment :-)

The woman we're renting from is a therapeutic masseuse, who boasts of being able to cure all sorts of mental disorders. I should've lived with someone like that a few years ago... Anyway, there are strict rules to follow in this flat, such as:

- No alcohol in the flat. And no coming home drunk, either.

- No drugs. If there is the slightest evidence of drug use, you will lose your deposit, be expelled from the premises, and your parents and tutors will be notified!

- No guests. In particular, no overnight guests.

Then there are some rules which are potentially more bizarre:

- Keep toilet paper in your room, and not in the bathroom. (This rule will be interpreted by me as: only keep one roll of toilet paper in the bathroom).

- You are only allowed to cook between 8 and 9 am; 1 and 3pm; and 8pm and midnight. (the landlady explained that this is because she doesn't want the smell of cooking to disturb her clients).

Actually, the rules seem to be a generic set of rules directed at much younger people. My flatmate Doug is the same age as me, and we had a laugh at the prospect of someone "informing our parents" of any misbehaviour.

Anyway, Doug seems pretty cool. I mean: really cool. He's from Seattle, and he has that incredibly relaxed personality that you tend to find in people from over there. He said to me: "This town's a bit busy and noisy compared to Seattle." I was like: "This town is quite noisy, but you wanna go to the south of Italy sometime!" I'm fully on the coffee and sunshine tip at the moment, and talking twice as excitedly as normal, so who knows what he thinks of me?!

Ajedrez de Tango Viviente

I saw something very nice on Sunday, but I never wrote about it at the time, because I had a slight cold, and then I was too engrossed in my books yesterday...

Ajedrez de Tango Viviente in Parque Lezama!

This was a superb event, and I may well return to the park on another one of the weekends that it's scheduled to take place. It always promised to be good: a combination of chess, dancing, and the park surely can't go too wrong. But as soon as the dancers came out to the board and started dancing, I realised I was watching something I'd never seen before. Unfortunately, I only managed to take one half-decent photo of the event, but here it is:

The game was played between two journalists who have made a name for themselves by writing about El Tango: they sat to one side of the "human" chessboard and played the game on a regular board. Tango dancers, both male and female, played the role of the chess pieces. There were two additional dancers (male and female), whose role it was to go to the board after each move, and dance with the relevant piece, leading it (or being led) to its new square. 

Some of the choreography was superb. The knights in particular were highly entertaining: played by men, they were bigger than the other pieces, and all had wigs woven into their hair, giving them horse-like manes. When it was the turn of these pieces to move, the female dancer would make her way to the board, and then mount the horse (generally by being spun around in the air before taking her place on the back of the horse), which then duly trotted to its destination. The Kings, on the other hand, didn't dance. They just picked up their partner in a vertical position and moved slowly to their destination. When a piece was caputured, the choreography would vary, and the "death moves" included a one-handed throttle, a sort of backward headbutt, or a flying kick (executed by the female pawns - this one was a fan favourite). Checkmate came courtesy of a death kiss by the female dancer. The black pieces gathered around the king, the dancer made her way towards the king, kissed him, and he fell backwards, to be caught and carried away by his minions. It's a shame there are no videos of the event on YouTube, as words can't capture just how wonderful the whole event was... I might try getting close enough to record my own video next time...

- - - - -

Well, today saw me move out of my hostel in San Telmo, and into my flat in Palermo. I'm a lot happier now, as I can leave my money and cards in my room now, and don't have to keep putting my laptop away. I'm settled, finally. But I'm still in no rush to go anywhere - for the time being, I'm busy putting together a website, and ploughing through as much literature as possible...