Even the subway system, which is the oldest in Latin America, is cleaner, less hectic, and less noisy than the one in New York. It was, still, quite backwarded in that it had a human being selling tickets! And worse, she refused to take my A$100 bill for a A$11 ticket booklet. And the subway was not air-conditioned, something, I suppose, no one but Americans would care or complain about. (Same oven system works in the London underground, the Paris Metro, etc, etc.)
There is something I can't quite describe. You have to sit in the middle of the street, and listen, and smell, and breathe, to understand this subtle, invisible beauty that transpires through your skin and makes you happy. This is the essence of a beautiful city, and Buenos Aires has that.
Because the studio won't be ready until tomorrow, I had to stay in a hostel, which was where the airport taxi it had arranged for me dropped me off. Did I mention I love a country that has no "tips" system? I know, Americans are all for individualism and work for your penny, etc, etc, but still, how annoying it is to calculate your total cost when there's already the annoying tax to add to the number you see quoted on anything. So no tips for the driver, to the waiters, to whomever.
The one-bedroom hostel room was a pathetic dump. First, I had make my own bed. Second, the pillow is made for my nephew's head, too tiny for my Ivy League brain. And plus, the so-called blanket was so thin that I was sniffling the whole night. And one last complaint: no working Wi-Fi as they falsely claimed. But the people are great. The first person I met was "Flor" (short for, as I learned later, Florencia or something). She was your typical, beautiful Porteña whose smile always hides some hardship. Hey, she's a mother (not a single-mother, though) working at a youth hostel! I later found out she takes tango classes, but I never followed up on that. She was very friendly, her smile very human (perhaps for that reason stated just now). Her welcoming attitude in this dump of a place allowed me to take a big step in believing I could speak Spanish. With the taxi driver I chatted in Spanish, but my confidence level really shot up after meeting Flor. The other staff members in the hostel were equally sweet and nice, including the man who was always wearing a thick winter coat even though it was quite warm inside.
The highlight of the day, however, was an unexpected event (but that's one thing that makes something a highlight: the unexpected). I got tired of walking around the St. Nicholas district of downtown, so I decided to go to a coffee shop. Well, there were many to choose from, and I had my guide book, which meant I tried to go to the ones it recommended, rather than just be spontaneous and go to whichever looked fine. However, I got too tired to follow the stupid book and at the same time realized that I should really, now that I was 36, having traveled with some sort of guidebook since I was 20, that I should stop chaining myself to someone else's travel opinions. So I walked into the nearest coffee shop.
Strange place, but I wasn't sure why first. I seated myself, got myself a pair of media lunas. They are small versions of croissants and taste better (except when compared to ones found in France). I started writing my first entry in one of the little travel journals given to me for my birthday. Then I started to find it odd that there were no couples sitting at any of the table. The bar was occupied by men. Then at the tables there were either one or a group of men, or one or a couple of women. At some point a couple came in, went to a table, looked around, chatted something, and then left, returning the place to its status quo. The only women there were very beautiful women. "Beautiful"? Well, that's very subjective, I am told. Let me say, they were dressed sexy, but not grotesque, more chic. Yet, they all had very voluminous chests, each had extremely tight pants (you could see the contour of their butt cracks on many of them, but I only saw that to write down the details).
And yet, there was minimal interaction between the sexes. I thought what you might be thinking now. The atmosphere was a little tense. When there was no interaction you would think they were all strangers, but then when the men did talk to the women, or to one another, they seemed like old friends. Still, the anxiety in the air, the anticipation in the air, was all very tangible.
The weirdest part was my interaction with the women. No, I didn't walk up to them and talk to them, as it was the case that initiated all inter-gender interactions. I would accidentally (really!) be looking at a woman, and she would catch my gaze and hold it. I had to look away quickly. I felt I was in a tango milonga (a party) in Buenos Aires where if a man wants a dance he sends a stare at a woman and hope she would stare right back. But we were not in a milonga and I was thoroughly embarrassed that any super-sexy woman would keep her gaze at me.
I was, of course, also amused. Where did I find myself now? Was this really a cafe for men to hook up with prostitutes? I had never heard of it, and without handy internet nearby I couldn't look it up. But if my guess was right, it was the strangest thing yet. A cafe? Historically cafes here, like those in Europe, were places where intellectuals yap endlessly about some useless ideology that eventually brought revolutions or some other ungodly bloodshed into the world. But prostitution? Wow.
Moral of the story: if you stop following a travel guide you guide your heart inadvertently to the most bizarre places.
In any case, I was done with my media luna and expensive tea, finished writing in my journal, and left. Still very amused by the event that had happened.
In other news:
- In my first milonga I got to dance with someone I had already met in Montreal, though I completely forgot about her, her name, let alone the fact that she would be here, as she had supposedly told me. In that milonga I also got to dance with a local. I have been quite lucky that night because usually first-time people just sit the whole night for many nights. I also went to another milonga afterwards and danced with a bunch of tourists (I hate to call myself tourist; that word connotes imbecility and obtuseness).
- I got my first Argentinian cell phone. It involved buying a dud from this unfriendly old man, then going to the actual retailer of the provider of the SIM chip, complaining, then buying another one that actually worked, and in the end, made a friend there. She was this middle-aged lady who at first didn't look too friendly, complained to my complaint by telling me to go back to that store and complain. But by the end of our interaction, she had already given me A$5 worth of coins (see later why that is important). And I did all this in Spanish! Only time I spoke English after entering the country was during milonga.
- About these pesky coins. One of the modes of transportation is the bus (colectivos). Its machine doesn't take anything but coins, and there is a shortage of one-peso coins (the fair is A$1.25, where a peso is A$1), so people in this city have to horde these coins unless they can afford to take taxis. Most "tourists" just take taxis, hardly anyone takes the "subte" (subway). I, on the other hand, wanting to respect the local culture, intend on taking the "colectivo" with the collective masses. So wish me luck because the stupid buses are not only uncomfortable but their routes are not documented anywhere except in this little guide....
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