Photos of Buenos Aires

Noelia and I in La Plata in front of the Cathedral, a city an hour south of BA.





I spent some time walking around La Boca, a working class district known for its bright colors and its tango.

7 Days in Buenos Aires!

It has been one week today since I stepped off of the airplane and into the southern hemisphere, into a Latin American country with a European flavor, and into winter in Buenos Aires.

So what is there to say after a week here in BA? It's big. It is full of concrete, cement, noise, and lots of rush. So, ...basically like New York. ...And any other big city in any other country in the world, with its own quirks of individuality.

Now after my first full week, due to a solid amount of aimless wandering and sore feet, I am becoming familiar with its size (looking at point A and point B on a map and estimating the real space between can only be realized after a suficient amount of actual practice and losing and refinding oneself.) I'm getting used to the public buses here while hardly using the subway at all; traveling above land in a bus, watching through the glass as the city warps and shifts with the individuality of different neighborhoods is the best way to see and become familiar with the different areas of a city, difficult as the buses here may be to decode. After Argentina's numerous catastophic economic crisis the most pressing one now is making sure you have the change to pay for each individual bus ride with change in coins...seemingly a silly matter until you actually have to try to do it. All told, however familiar with BA's public transport I may be becoming, I cannot wait until I finally am able to buy a used bike!

I've begun regular tango lessons and just today bought myself some classy tango shoes (that I should be able to ski, swim, and mountain climb in, as well, for what they charged me) and it even looks like I'm starting to find some dancing partners. In fact, I'm hurrying through this blog entry to go meet a friend out at a milonga--or Argentine tango club--and tomorrow I am taking salsa lessons with someone I found through couch surfing because of our similar interests.

Speaking of which, I have met a truckload of fun, interesting people through couch surfing: there could not exist a better way to meet a wide range of people while traveling, and I could not have come to a better place to do it (BA has the most active couch surfing group in existence. Fact.) Through couch surfing, I have experienced more culture thus far than I could have in three months any other way, just from gaining from the knowledge of native Porteño (a Porteño is to Buenos Aires as a New Yorker is to New York) and travelers who have already learned the ropes of the city.

TRAFFIC
BA is in that unfortunate group that developed driving norms in a haphazard, lack of rules-manner. It is not bad everywhere, necessarily, and not all the time (I don´t think they can hold a candle to New Dehli) but it appears that on the frequent intersections where there are no stop signs at all it is a formal game of chicken to see who gets to go first. I was in a taxi as the driver barely lifted his foot from the petal to fly through these intersections: I'm not sure if there is a completely safe but subtle rule of the road that I'm missing...or if he just liked the exhileration of knowing that he was on top, and that if any car happened to be coming but not intending to stop there was no real way in hell he was going to be able to stop his taxi in time. And street signs are either quite clear or they are awful, stuck to the side of a building at one corner of the intersection, visible to no one but the car coming toward it...and only readable once driver is quasi mid-intersection.

HOMELESS
I do not see the streets teaming, as I've heard was true after 2001's economic crash. On a scale between New York and New Delhi, it is a good bit closer to the Big Apple. (Keep in mind, however, all noted cases are only including what is visible on the surface.) I do not see much recycling here or general awareness for doing so, and it seems that the homeless may play the role, similar to in some circumstances in India, interestingly, of the post-sorters, both making their living and giving the environment a hand by sorting bags of trash out ready to be collected.

PEOPLE
This is the first time in a while that I haven't stuck out like a sore thumb while traveling! (I could just give up and resort to traveling only in Scandanavian countries.) Argentina is a mix of a rather small percentage of indigenous Americans, Lots of Italians and Spanish, Germans, and a scattering of other, particularly European, immigrants. Compared to Asia and Mexico, I blend in much better [although I´m told that I do have some native American in me somewhere.] That's not to say that I'm getting around completely cat call-free, but I'd say it's a step up.

SPEAKING SPANISH
Going well! my Spanish is very sufficient: probably at a ¨five months in Italy¨ level. I can pretty much find a way to express anything that I want and am even getting good at understanding that Argentine accent (who knew how innapropriate a place BA was to go if I wanted to learn unaffected, universal Spanish?) My progress daily is doing a lot to get me prepared for classes to begin and after only Spanish 1, quite impressive if I may say so myself. I am sure it will continue as such...as long as I don´t revert to speaking English with other surfers (which is easy as long as their Spanish isn't worse than mine, which is, in fact, sometimes the case.)

Hola Buenos Aires!

Five day in Buenos Aires already! I have taken no pictures. Now that I am in the same place for a while, I am going to take it in a bit differently. BA is certainly an interesting city; I am quickly becoming accustomed to it. It is far less of a stretch from the ordinary for me than some of my last travels, so when taking everything in I need to remember to keep my eyes open extra wide for every small cultural nuance.

Already I have had an interesting experience; not your typical first week alone in a new country. I have "surfed" the couch of about four different "friends" (they become friends sometime between your introducing yourself and your sleeping on their couch) and have met many more. I have bicycled around Buenos Aires, I have gone to a birthday party and experienced an Argentine asado (or barbeque,) I have figured out the city bus system, and I have gotten a tour from a guide (meaning an Argentinian friend who, like all other Argentinians, has studying Argentina´s history and can both accompany me as a friend and be my guide.) I have drank hot chocolate and eaten churros in Cafe Tortoni (the most quintessential tourist thing to do in Buenos Aires,) I have been fed typical Argentine meat by various affectionados, and I have cooked vegetarian food already for several different carnivorous friends. Not bad for the first five days!

Most Memorable Moments: Vietnam

•Adding Singapore—one more country added to our trip
•Waking up on overnight train to see lush green Northern Vietnam with a rich grey sky and fog low over the fields
•Vietnamese couples showing actual public affection in the parks (what would have otherwise gone unnoted was particularly welcomed after five weeks in India)
•All of the parks, period: beautifully kept parks in both Hanoi and Sapa
•My favorite porter on the trek offering me his hand on steep terrain (a roughly 65 year old tiny man with two gold teeth, hiking circles around the rest of us, carrying our food, making our food, throwing back rice wine, and taking more hits of tobacco on the water bong than any of the other hilltribe men combined.)
(That same porter showing Zack how to use the bamboo water bong)



•Trekking through fields and fields of rice paddies…with nothing in view but fields and fields of rice paddies.
•Mid-hike jumping in the stream

•Crossing Indiana Jones-like bridges
•Vietnamese lady at train station selling “sexy lady lighters”
•Playing Frisbee in the park in Sapa with Mike, Tate, and four Vietnamese school boys


•Vietnamese faces
•Vietnamese children: hands down, the cutest children in the world
•Cave spelunking

•Eating phoo with chopsticks on tiny, wobbly plastic stools on the street with Vietnamese instead of in restaurants with tourists for a quarter the price
.Walking through the market



•Watching Vietnamese exercise at sunrise in the park and the next day joining in for aerobics
•My birthday! -balloons, seven dollar hair cut with twenty minute head massage, water puppet show, birthday gifts, birthday pig, and the “Funky Monkey” nightclub
•Being given a pair of earrings from a woman in a shop because it was my birthday
•Asiana Airlines (always a pleasure with Asiana—not to be confused with Air Asia which is atrocious)



•The glory that is the Korean airport: comfortable for sleeping, pristinely clean, free internet, showers, food vouchers for long layover, complimentary musical performances and cultural museum with free crafts

Memories of Thailand

-Eating a fried chicken foot
-Eating meat, period (who has the heart to tell a host mom that "vegetarian" means chicken, too, after she has already cooked it?)
-Eating a live bamboo worm (and then more bamboo worms later mashed into a pasty dip)
-Fried bananas!
-Mixing mud with our bare feet for building adobe house
Laughing hysterically as Pee Noi (our host mom) tried to explain something to us with body language…and then realizing that she was describing the village woman who had just died and the arrangements for her funeral
-Trek in Northern Vietnam with Mirror Art Group and our machete wielding tour guides (“Are you Reaaddyy?!”)
-On last day of Thai trek, panorama of descending on the two foot wide path along the side of a cliff with a vast, crisp and clear sky of blue and white, and then later tramping through the jungle with bamboo walking sticks as our tour guides tried to remember the way
-The fresh, delicious vegetables that we ate with Thai and hilltribe families: pumpkin, broccoli rabe, kale, bamboo, spinach, garlic, tomato, hot pepper…
-Celebrations/ rituals in Ahka village during very first night of our trek and being dressed up in Ahka traditional garb…and then realizing that the rituals would continue all night long
-Watching our hilltribe leaders do anything with a machete, from finding bamboo worms to fashioning a pot out of bamboo to cook rice for lunch
-Biking around the ruins in the city of Ayuthaya


-Bowling with American dance music and flashing lights and then Karaoke in the “erotic” room atop a Thai mall in Bangkok
During trek, going to waterfall and eating pad thai out of banana leaf packaging (now that is biodegradable, Hofstra Food Services; don’t give me “we still need to use styrofoam!”)


-The Bangkok food market smells. The Bangkok food market, period.
-Eating durian fruit (it smells like armpit)
-Peer (aliases: Tornado of Destruction, Disap-Peer) jumping out of boat in Ko Lao, missing the landing by a longshot, and after he had climbed out to drip dry realizing that his camera had been in his pocket
-The drunk Moken village chief. Pee Now (the woman who really was what held the village together and did all of the duties a chief should have done) slapping him back into order

-Lifting the first Moken kid with such good intentions…and realizing what we had started. Then for the rest of the week having a constant line of tireless Moken kids lined up, ready to be airplaned around again and again
-Going to Burma (Myanmar). When we arrived, them turning the big screen television to a channel with 60’s disco music videos playing as soon as we arrived. A man with six fingers who called himself “Lucky” trying to exchange 1000’s of Burmese money with us for about 30 Baht (which is like exchanging a few cents for a dollar)
-Naked kids everywhere in Moken village
-Final group meal in Ko Payam, buffet style. Watching Peer eat mounds (plural) of food during final meal
-Cooking class in Chiang Mai
-Our cross-dressing train attendant on our very first Thai train. Who sang to us.
-Fishing and swimming off of boat with Moken men
-Margot acquiring the name, “Barbie”
-Street smoothies
-Going to a pharmacy to get medicines and supplies for Moken village, and being given it all for free when the pharmacist realized for what it was
-Snorkling in Ko Payam
-Enjoying afternoons at “You Sabai” (organic café with delicious coconut, banana, and passion fruit smoothies) and in the resevoir
-Playing and/or watching tecraw (game played by Thais; a volleyball with the feet, of sorts)
-In hilltribe villages, bamboo home on stilts, watching adults push food scraps through the bamboo floor (instead of using a trash) down to the pigs and chickens beneath the house
-Watching the pigs and chickens.
-Figuring out strategy to squat toilets
-Painting walls with mud at Pun Pun
-Breaking open coconuts to eat whenever we pleased
-In Mae Joo, shampooing our hair with eight year olds in the resevoir
-in Mae Joo, continuously watching Nong Ti (approx. 3 years old) get into all sorts of dangers that would be unthinkable in the states but that do not even register there (playing alone on tractor, playing with hammer, being put on a motorcycle standing up and wet, playing with giant bugs)
-Boxing with a professional Muay Thai trainer in Mae Joo
-Attending a formal cremation ceremony in Mae Joo. Also attending the visitation and constantly being fed, with a particular memory of a dessert of cold condensed milk soup filled with potato, kidney beans, jelly worms, toffee, tomato and only the gods knows what else and laughing uncontrollably (in a completely inappropriate environment) as we tried to swallow it down
-Constantly being fed.
-Elephant ride with Nong (Dianna from MI.) Our non-English speaking elephant driver/ guide taking us off of the course to his house so that he could get something…and temporarily sending us into panic driven hysterics that we may never leave again.

December 6, 2008...My 21st Birthday!

I celebrated my 21st birthday in Hanoi, Vietnam!

It was an awesome day, full to the brim with excitement and surprises.
It was also long.
It began at five a.m., when our overnight train arrived two hours early to Hanoi from Sapa (where we began the trek.) Four of the other girls came bursting through the train compartment door throwing in colorful balloons and yelling “Surprise!” and “Happy Birthday!” As unappreciated as I’m sure it was at 5:00 am by the other passengers, for me the day could not have started better. We spent the next 45 minutes walking to our hotel (rather than pay for six taxis we put all of our stuff into two and walked—Vietnam is significantly more expensive than India or Thailand.)

So at 5:30 a.m. on my 21st birthday, I was to be found wandering the streets of Hanoi, a balloon in one hand. It could not have been better, though, because I never would have experienced the pre-dawn life of Vietnam otherwise. This culture wakes up early! The market was booming, people were already perched on the little, wobbly plastic stools at noodle stands, and the park was alive with energy. People of all ages wake up early for mass exercising in the parks around the lake. Jogging, stretching, bouncing awkwardly, in groups listening to a tape recording of Tai Chi or aerobics, lifting weights that are brought out everyday apparently by someone, playing badminton mid-sidewalk, and doing any other sort of movement imaginable. It was beautiful! There was no embarrassment; everyone had amnesty to do whatever exercise or stretch they liked without feeling silly. We passed a group of about six women in a close circle, each giving the woman to the right a fast, karate-chopping back muscle massage. Abby and I went out the following morning at 6:00 to jog around the lake and stopped to do aerobics with a group of at least sixty women who were following an instructor and a tape. There is nothing like bouncing around to pop music remixes, throwing arms in the air, and doing pelvic thrusts in a public park with a bunch of old Vietnamese women and without a concern in the world. I love it all. Rather than run on a treadmill alone in front of a television or run alone with an ipod, you can be with an entire community of people every morning, life and fellow motivators all around. You do not feel alone, nor do you feel self-conscious (trust me: they do not.) Mattie said that this is left over from more overtly communist times when the government organized community exercise in the main parks and squares. (google it: I don’t know her source.)

When the sixteen of us arrived to the hotel, there naturally were not enough rooms open for us yet (standard check out usually is not before five a.m., even in Vietnam) so we stashed bags and were left to wander until noon.

I went with several of the girls to a salon; we had decided that we would have ourselves tweaked and polished back to normal society’s standards after our three months of no mirrors, no real homes, no real showers, no good laundry detergent, and no cares. Between the lot of us, there was hair to be cut, nails to be polished, feet to be pumiced, and hair to be waxed. For seven dollars, I had my hair washed with a half dozen products and massaged, blow-dried as if it were an art form, and cut. The Vietnamese girl who washed my hair spent at least a half an hour washing my hair, massaging my head, tugging on my roots, pulling my hair taught and flicking it (stimulates hair growth??) and then over another half an hour blow-drying my hair, more time accumulatively than I spend on my hair in a month.

As she finished, out of nowhere, appeared this glorious figure with a popped collar and a pristinely fashioned hairstyle with highlights. His name was, “my gorgeous Vietnamese hair man” and I spent the next half an hour awing over his glowing skin and eyes and welcoming smile as he cut my hair. He does good work, too.

I left my birthday balloon for the toddlers waiting in the salon and spent the afternoon wandering the city with Jordan, Emma and Nong (Dianna, but forever known as the Thai word for “little one” to me.) I stepped off the curb in my tennis shoes into a ditch one foot deep of putrid, I-don’t-even-want-to-know-what-is-in-it water, but not even that could rain on my birthday parade. I gave a big smile to all of the shocked and whispering Vietnamese who had seen, and carried on in my slushy shoe.

We met the group in the evening to see a performance of Vietnamese water puppets, and I was surprised with a big, pink, helium filled pig by Zac and John (my excited squeals of joy every time I see pigs must have cued them to something) and with Milano cookies, Vietnamese coffee, and a Vietnamese coffee maker by Mattie.

Vietnamese water puppets were traditionally used during flood time as a form of entertainment. When the rice paddies flooded peasants were unable to tend to the fields and were left with nothing to do, so they would dance puppets—people, dragons, dogs, water snakes, fish, etc.—on top of the water with long poles to tell stories of everyday life, from a drunk fisherman to a dog chasing the ducks. All of the animals were made with dragon-like interpretations, and they along with the rest of the scenery were of red, gold, and bright colors. The architecture reminded me very much of our idea of Eastern architecture that I saw in Thai temples or architecture in China—I do not know how much of this is from cross-over influence or just due to my untrained western eye. Live music, utilizing many unfamiliar eastern instruments such as the danbo, was accompanying the slapstick puppet humor.


We enjoyed the evening by walking around the lake and trying on black coats in a store—for me a sequiny Dolce and Gabana coat and for Abby a stylin’ leather one—but unfortunately as we have come to learn our sizes often are not even carried here. An entire store can run successfully here and only carry XS and S. So we walked away empty-handed (as if we were going to purchase Dolce & Gabana coats anyway) and we went out to the Funky Monkey so I could get in my birthday dancing.
Not to worry, as I said, I was up again the next morning at six to run!

Readjusting to US Life

It is not usually too exciting to return to the States after traveling, no matter how long we are away. At the airport everyone has the same, boring accent again and faces, dress, and the writing on signs are all too familiar. However, it seems that there is always that American character who makes me glad to be home. About the United States, I can say that many of us are extraordinarily friendly to strangers. I walked up to the customs official dragging my luggage and he beamed me a great big smile, "Good morning! How are you today?" "You weren't near Mumbai, were you?" making conversation the whole time. "Have a great day!" This uber-congenial, treat-everyone-as-a-friend American type I hope I never grow weary of.


Aside from that, there are some cultural adjustments that I still need to make.

-On the flights and in the American airports, I kept looking for a trash for my toilet paper. We have septic systems in this country, Alex.
-Once home, while brushing my teeth the first several times an internal alarm went off in my head telling me not to use the faucet but to get my filtered water. Here, Alex, they are one and the same.
-Along those lines, when I rinsed out a bowl to use, the same internal alarm told me to be sure to wipe out ALL of the water so as to prevent giardia again. No giardia here, Alex.
-Jet lag. Now that I am home, my internal clock is faulty and having trouble catching up.