Ciao Boludo: NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

Still a little disoriented

I realize that although I have been here for a week, I haven't really told you much about this amazing city. I know you can read all the touristy stuff in guidebooks and see photos much better then mine (see above), so this post will be more a tiny sliver of some of my immediate observations. First however this disclaimer: coming to a country where you don't speak the language or know the culture, is very much like being the new kid in Jr. High school. You know something is going on but you don't have a clue what. Also you suspect that you are wearing all the wrong styles and you know for certain that you are going to be the last person picked for the kickball team in the unlikely event that suddenly there is a call to choose up sides. In other words, you are NOT the new popular kid on the block, and your narrative might be a little skewed.
Fortunately, unlike Jr. High, the Porteños, despite their reputation, have been most welcoming and friendly, despite my deer-in-the-headlights stare every time they speak Spanish in my direction.
Rachael and Owen's apartment is on the 9th floor in the Amalgro district, a mostly middle class
neighborhood situated in what was once the city's flower market, and there are open air flower shops on almost all of the corners and nearby streets. Since they seem to be open 24 hrs a day, this is an excellent neighborhood in which to argue with your sweetheart, as an inexpensive bouquet is only footsteps away. It is important, however, to watch exactly where you take those footsteps, as greywater from the flower stalls tends to seep under the loose paving stones and a misstep can give you a refreshing but filthy footbath and if you track THAT back into the apartment it will be back to the streets for another bouquet!

Cupid's Helper

Another wonderful reason to live in this neighborhood is that the scent from the flower markets tends to offset the scent of the huge heaps of garbage that line the streets until the garbage collecting horse-drawn (or sometimes people-drawn) carts come by to take it away. It is high summer here, hot and humid, so the piles of trash can get pretty stenchious, but they are also a treasure trove of potential reusables for anyone stout of heart (or maybe stout of nose) who is feeling brave and creative. Rachael and Owen have managed to craft some excellent furniture from reclaimed trash.

Think of the possibilities!

Of course Buenos Aires is so much more then flowers and garbage heaps. The streets are lined with huge Sycamore and Magnolia trees which each seem to host an entire community of parrots who fly back and forth in great flocks and squabble with the pigeons.
(Rachael's cat, Ofelia, would probably love to gobble them up but she is confined to the sink at the moment).

Ofelia in repose.

Each day Rachael and Owen show me a new neighborhood, as like in any big city, Buenos Aires is made up of a multitude of barrios, but besides sightseeing we spend much time hunting and gathering. Shopping here is a daily exercise that requires visiting various specialty shops for particular groceries. We go to the carniceria a few blocks away for fresh meat, then to the fiambreria for yummy cheese, on to the farmacia for personal items (and a couple of gallons of perfume to smell as delicious as the porteños), to the verdureria for some veggies, don't forget to pick up the drycleaning at the tintoreria and a couple of nails from the ferreteria to build something from that cool thing we just harvested from the trash pile on the way, and then on to the chino (any of many chinese supermarkets around the city) for everything else.
If we are really craving something exotic, like say geoduck, we can jump on a bus or subway and make our way to china town. I found an excellent can of something actually called "My caffe latte" that was easily on a par with Starbucks, and I had a choice off all kinds of other wonders but since I am literate in neither chinese nor spanish and the pictures on the labels were more scary then appetizing, I declined to do much shopping there.
Also, since every thing we purchase has to be hauled home and then up 9 flights of stairs, it is easy to curb impulse shopping.

Why you don't shop at Costco in Bueno Aires.

Anyway, they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I have already used up that quota so here's a smidge of what I am seeing so you can see for yourselves.
Ciao for now,
J