Commuting, BA Style

The public transit system in Buenos Aires is a marvel. There is an extensive bus system that covers every part of the city and several Subte (metro, subway, whatever) lines that cover the bulk of the core neighborhoods. The Subte runs until around 10:30pm while the buses run all day and night. The cost for this is AR$1.10 for the Subte and around AR$1.25 for the bus (between US$0.25 and US$0.35 depending on the exchange rate).

The crown jewel of the public transit system is undoubtedly the Guia “T“. I go almost nowhere without it. How is it possible that one little booklet, which fits nicely into your back pocket, can contain so much information? It combines a comprehensive map of the city, think a Thomas Guide, with a complete public transit schedule. All this for around AR$6 (the price varies based on what the kiosk owner thinks you can afford). But that isn’t all. Upset about some governmental ruling and want to storm one of the cities major TV stations? The Guia “T” will show you were to go. Running out of gas? Help, Guia “T“! Having a heart attack? The Guia “T” is on it. What can’t it do? It is the Swiss Army knife of transit guides. Every major city in the world should have one. I believe that with only my trusty Guia “T” and AR$4 (in moneda form) I could be air dropped anywhere inside the city limits, day or night, and be back home in under two and a half hours. Try me. I dare you.

A chink in the transit armor is the great moneda shortage. The New Yorker has reported on this. The quick version is that the buses only take coins. In order to have money for the bus, people hoard their coins. This leads to a shortage of coins. Some small business owners won’t serve you if you need moneda change. This occasionally leads to things like trips to the supermarket where you buy a diet coke, two oranges and a pack of gum to make sure that your bill is just over AR$6 so that when you pay with a AR$10 you are guaranteed change for the bus. Not ideal. Along these lines, a similarly annoying problem is that the ATMs only dispense AR$100 notes. Businesses hate giving change for AR$100 notes and sometimes either won’t or can’t do it. If businesses don’t have change, and most things don’t cost anywhere near AR$100, then why dispense such large notes out of the ATMs? I have no idea.

Back to the transit system. Where things begin to break down is during rush hour on the Subte. Normally, the Subte is a breeze. You slide in your ride ticket and you go. The trains come regularly and, since they aren’t burdened with stops every two blocks, you can cover ground quickly. Then comes rush hour.

When rush hour arrives, one has to mentally prepare oneself before taking on the Subte. Sometimes I let a train pass by because I haven’t adequately psyched myself up. You see, the trains get so full that just when it seems impossible for another human being to fit in a car someone like a large old lady will build up a head of steam and smash her way in. The resulting momentum from people entering the train results in something approaching crowd surfing. You end up wherever the crowd decides.

Entering the train during rush hour also presents some risk of bodily harm. When trying to squeeze on, there is no gentle warning followed by a leisurely shutting of the gates. No, there is a short beep and then the doors slam shut with tremendous velocity. I have seen a grown man desperately struggle to hold the doors open after not quite making it all the way on. There he battled, man vs. machine, his messenger bag strap wrapped over his shoulder and his face a look of iron concentration. Finally the conductor, I suppose feeling that the poor chap had suffered enough, granted him a reprieve and allowed him another chance to squeeze on.

Exiting the train is your final challenge. When one has been unfortunate enough to have been wedged into the middle of a car, reaching the exit seems like swimming across the ocean. What one must do is begin a process whose roots, I believe, lie in the tango. You must start by shifting your weight, just a little, against the person next to you. Make sure you use enough force so that they understand your intention. Premature attempts to reach the door will result in angry shouts of, “Che!” and disgusted hand gesturing. When done at the appropriate time, the person next to you will shift their weight and a process of subtle moves and pirouettes unfolds that, almost as if by magic, results in a path to the exit. Fresh air at last.

The author's beloved Guia "T".

Just another morning on the Subte.

Opening Day at La Bombonera

After a two week delay, the Argentine football (soccer) season has gotten underway. Apparently the global economic crisis and profligate spending has resulted in total club debts of around US$160 million. To solve the problem the teams, I believe, unilaterally tore up their TV contract (which was a pay per view deal with a private company) and received a US$100 million bail out from the government, which put the games on free TV. President Kirchner called it, "a historic day for football, for Argentines and for the possibility of living in a more just and democratic society."

To celebrate this momentous victory for democracy, I went to opening day at La Bombonera, the home of Boca Juniors. Boca Juniors is one of the most popular teams in Argentina. Their big rival is another team from Buenos Aires, River Plate. I understand that the matches between the two teams ("superclasicos") gets a little testy.

After having some pizza and beer in the sunshine near the stadium (Boca is much nicer during the day!), a British friend and I scalped general admission tickets and sat with some of the fanaticos.

In order to get into the stadium we had to pass through several security gates. When the game started the fans threw confetti in the air and then the steady beating of drums and singing began. Boca fell behind 0-2 in the first half, but rallied back for a 2-2 tie. The fans were pleased. The riot police could save their batons for another day.

La Boca attempted to secede from Argentina in 1882

A typical neighborhood house

This is what happens to River fans in La Boca

Working the grill outside the stadium

Enjoying some sunshine, pizza and beer

Our pre-match pizza

Yet another security checkpoint

If you are thinking about rushing the pitch you are going to have to get by the barbed wire and this man

The bowels of La Bombonera

Jugador #12

Pork Neck and Vodka

I went to Olsen, Gorriti 5870, for the first time and, weary of steak and pasta, opted for a dish called “Bondiola Ahumado Olsen.” It was translated as, “Smoked Pork Neck Olsen.” Done and done.

What came out was two decent sized pieces of pork, set on a bed of mashed potatoes and covered in a fruit salsa. It was delicious. The outside was nicely crispy, while the inside was still moist and came apart easily. One of the guys I was with, who once worked in the kitchen at one of my old Seattle favorites, Flying Fish, and I declared it the best meat dish we had eaten to date in Buenos Aires. My opinion on this matter has not changed. This may be a town of carne, but I love their pork.

For Walt’s last night in BA, we decided to check out El Bistro. El Bistro is the restaurant at the Faena Hotel + Universe in Puerto Madero. Essentially, some guy, Alan Faena, took a 1902 brick grainery and hired Phillipe Starck to create a “lifestyle” hotel for the rich and famous. It is the kind of place where you enter through a 32 foot tall red glass door and listen to soft, trancey music over the loudspeaker while checking out photos of Alan with Madonna or Lenny Kravitz. El Bistro is the signature restaurant in the hotel and is decorated in all white with, I would not joke about this, ceramic unicorn heads on the wall.

I believe the whole project was meant to be the crown jewel in Alan’s massive Puerto Madero redevelopment play, called the Faena Art District, where he would develop the hotel and then follow it with apartments and residential condo towers, whose units would be sold and rented to people attracted to the lifestyle brand he had created. The shocking number of cranes in the sky in Puerto Madero and the Miamiesque site of high rise condo towers that appear to have only two or three occupants leads me to believe that this vision needs some tweaking.

When we arrived at the Faena we discovered that my English must be as bad as my Spanish. Despite specifically requesting a reservation at El Bistro, we found out that El Bistro is closed on Tuesdays and that our reservation was for El Mercado. No thanks. We are here for unicorn heads.

So, back to Olsen. We started our dinner, as seemed appropriate, with the 5+5. That is a starter dish, for two people, that consists of five different pairs of canapés, each accompanied by a different beaker full of vodka. For the record, the beakers consisted of straight, bloody mary, pepper, cassis and, uh, a fruit of some kind. My memory started to get a little fuzzy after the fourth one.

My pork neck was once again excellent. Walt’s grilled chicken was also good, but, given that the seared tuna I tried previously was also only decent, I think that diners should stick to the pork neck, canapés and vodka until further research is done.

Delicious pork neck

View of the dining room at Olsen

View of the Puerto Madero skyline from Costana Sur

View of the PM skyline from across the river

Cesar Pelli's contribution to the PM skyline

The bar at Hotel Faena. There is a 100 peso minimum Wed-Sat.

¿Es Machismo?

I have been studying Spanish the last few weeks at a school in Buenos Aires. The first three weeks I was in a class with an early twenty something teacher and a late twenty something student, Alemania. Being the only guy in the class was not a big deal, even if the conversation occasionally ran to how awful men are, the many problems men have and the like. Typical role playing exercises to practice our Spanish consisted of situations where I was a creepy guy on the subway trying to get Alemania to go out with me or where Alemania was the boss and I was a lazy worker who needed to be reprimanded.

I would sit patiently in class and listen when the conversation would turn to communism and how wonderful Che was. That degenerated to near farce one day when Alemania expressed amazement that Maradona had tattoos of both Fidel and Che. Those two are so different! How could he possibly have both? Despite his many skills as a soccer player, perhaps Maradona isn’t versed in the finer points of communist revolutionary thought. Now, if he had both Stalin and Trotsky, that would be a different story!

I, however, could not sit still and listen to discussions like how all Italians are fascists. Um, what? Apparently it is true. How could I be so ignorant of the truth? That debate got a little heated. What finally caused me to reach for my heaviest Ingles-Español Diccionario was when we started talking about what a utopia France (?!?) is and the wonders of the French government. That, my friends, is a bridge too far. I don’t need a million workers in the streets protesting the economic conditions or riots in Paris in both 2005 and 2007 to let me know that perhaps not everyone loves the current French regime. I think I can safely say that while Argentina has many problems, no society is perfect. Enough on this topic.

Today, after spending yesterday celebrating San Martin Day, I started private classes. August is an extremely slow month in Buenos Aires and, given the dearth of students and fact that Alemania has left our school, I was put in private classes for the week. Great. No problem.

After exchanging pleasantries with my new teacher, we began class. The first question, "¿Que es machismo?" For those that don’t understand, she is asking me to describe machismo. Machismo is this stereotype that Argentine men think they must constantly prove their courage, are superior to women and should, generally, treat women like objects.

After discussing this idea for a little while, she shuffled through her papers and pulled one out. It was a quiz entitled, “¿Es Machismo?” The quiz included things like, “If a man sees a women that he doesn’t know on the street and makes passes at her, is it machismo?” Um, I guess so. Or perhaps something like, “There exists many more forms of contraception for women than men, is this machismo?” Uh, I’m going to say no to that one for now, but I will have to think about it. After completing the exam, I hope successfully, we moved on.

Her: Does San Francisco have a problem with machismo?

Me: We have many problems in San Francisco, but I don’t think a preponderance of machismo is one of them.

And so on.

Finally, we came to the grammar portion of our class. Uses of the present subjunctive tense. For this another paper appeared from the stack and we began.

¿Que quieren las mujeres de los hombres? Or, what do women want from men? We then went through and reviewed a list of, I kid you not, 41 items related to what women want from men, making sure that I understood both the vocabulary and conjugation of the subjunctive in each one. If I didn’t have someone who currently holds my heart, I might have left there in despair about what a worthless wretch I am. Oh, why do I occasionally reek of booze? How could I have been so insensitive as to have gone out with the boys? Of course your mother is a perfect pearl and I love spending time with her!

I won't speak perfect Spanish by the time I leave BA, but I should be a perfect gentleman.

El Trapiche

I went to dinner recently with some of my classmates at El Trapiche, Paraguay 5099. In an attempt to try as many things as possible from this famous parilla (a type of Argentine restaurant where all kinds of animals are taken apart and thrown onto a grill), I formed a four person eating consortium. I was unable to convince them to go for the half suckling pig, but I did convince them to give mollejas a try (picture dedicated to Diamond Chuck). Initially I had no idea what they were, but had simply been told they were grilled delicousness. Sadly, an English translation revealed them to be sweetbreads. The mystery was gone, but the mollejas were still good. About that portion size...

Disfrutar De Un Burrito Es Muy Simple!

Desperation for anything approaching Mexican food resulted in me joining some classmates to the California Burrito Company. The salsa wasn't spicy and the rice had an odd texture but, overall, the burritos were good enough. Still, El Farolito need not quake in their boots.

While in line, I encountered this sign. For some reason, I loved the idea of step by step instructions on how to eat a burrito. I didn't understand why they also had the instructions in English until one of the Brits I was with revealed that she had never eaten a burrito before. Perhaps she would have mistaken the foil for food if not for this helpful sign.

Angelin

[Editor's Note: Regular visitors to this site will notice a heavy emphasis on food and food related activities. That will not change.]

A friend is in town visiting from Los Angeles. In an attempt to eat every Argentine specialty while he is here, we went out for some pizza (this after eating the best empanadas I have had to date at the Feria Mataderos for lunch - yup, I need to exercise more). Good reports led us to try Angelin at Avenida Cordoba 5290.

We were initially intimidated by the crowd jammed into the place, but decided to go in regardless (an ultimately fruitless 90 minute wait at Sarkis on Thursday night has made us a little gun shy of big crowds). After standing in line we were warmly welcomed by a round and friendly pizza man at the counter. Since many of the pizzas were non-descriptive names and this place doesn't believe in menus with detailed descriptions, we put our trust in the man's hands with a one half veggie and one half meat pizza. We rounded that off with two cups of beer.

As we waited, the man emerged from behind the counter with a huge bowl filled with freshly fried empanadas. Um, yes we will take one while we wait. Then things got even better. The man came back around while we were eating with a pitcher of beer and topped us off! Free beer? Did I accidentally enter heaven? Oh sweet Angelin, you had me at free empanadas.

The pizza was delicious. The veggie side was oozing with cheese and covered in onions while the meat side, a "completo," came with ham, a mixture of black and green olives and roasted red peppers. Definitely recommended.

Introduction

I beg you all to be patient while I play with this medium. I am as ignorant of the rules of the blogosphere as I am of the rules of curling. Mistakes will certainly be made. I apologize for them in advance.

As far as The Other Way, my only hope for this site is that, taking inspiration from Montaigne's Essays, it provides my friends and family, whenever I am away and they are bored to tears, a place where they can remind themselves of my character and, "more fully and vividly cherish me in their memories." I promise that any educational material posted on this will be purely by accident.

Now for some quick housecleaning. Nothing on this site is ever meant to represent anything approaching investment advice and all characters that appear in these entries are 100% fictional. Any resemblance to real people is entirely a coincidence. Hopefully that is enough to make my lawyers happy!

One Night in La Boca

One of the things that you are told upon entering Buenos Aires by the locals, which is reiterated in probably every guide book, is that you should not wander around in much of the city at night and, under no circumstance, should you walk around in the non-tourist areas of places like La Boca (a poor barrio which is famous for the Boca Juniors soccer team).

The tourist part of La Boca is, more or less, a three block stretch of trinket shops and houses which have been painted to re-create the feel of old La Boca. In the old days the Genovese immigrants used whatever leftover paint they had from painting their boats to paint their homes, giving the place an eclectic look.

From my perspective, La Boca was a little underwhelming (think of it as a place where the tourists get off the bus and are immediately attacked), though the PROA, a contemporary art foundation in a converted mansion in the area, is definitely worth a visit. As an aside, another thing La Boca is noted for is the police standing guard at the edge of the tourist area to discourage the curious from wandering off the beaten path. You can’t beat that kind of welcoming feel.

A classmate from my Spanish school had read about a restaurant in La Boca, El Obrero, and suggested we return for dinner that night after walking around during the day. We all agreed and at 9pm (dinner here is served late) I caught a taxi outside my apartment. That is when the fun began.

The trip began inauspiciously when my cabbie didn’t know either the restaurant or the streets it is on. I forgot my treasured Guia T (maybe the world’s greatest city transit map) so the cabbie had to call the dispatcher for directions.

As we entered La Boca the cabbie stopped and told me that the restaurant was midway down an unnamed street that was one way in the opposite direction. I was a little skeptical, but he said he was sure. I paid him and he left me with a final piece of advice to guard my wallet.

Upon leaving the cab I began walking and immediately discovered that I was in the wrong place. Great. There was a local pharmacy open (they needed to buzz me in) where I asked for directions. The man behind the counter had no idea where I was going, though one of the patrons claimed to know. She gave me the directions (two blocks straight, two blocks to the left and one block to the right) and off I went.

The streets did not exactly give one a feeling of confidence. There wasn’t much in the way of light and there were more than a few people loitering about. After wandering by a bus parking lot I told myself that if this woman sent me on a wild goose chase I was in serious trouble. All of a sudden I would be lost in La Boca with no map. The idea of being able to hail a cab was laughable (they know better). As it happened, the woman knew what she was talking about and I arrived safely, though with my heart beating a little faster than normal, at my destination.

The restaurant was great. There was an old man playing a guitar and walking around serenading the various tables and the restaurant treated us to a free round of Argentine port at the end of the night. There were a bunch of pictures of who I took to be famous Argentines on the walls. The only people I recognized were Tim Robbins, who was a foot taller than everyone else and looked goofy, and Susan Sarandon, who looked severe. I understand that Bono has eaten there, though I didn’t see his photo. They did not ask to take our photo. I assume it was an oversight.

For those that are interested, I had an excellent milanesa which was topped with tomato sauce, a pile of mozzarella and some thinly sliced ham. Yum.

So, I survived a rookie error and took home a couple of valuable lessons. One, no more going to La Boca at night. Two, if you do find yourself in such a situation, make the cabbie drop you off where you have visual confirmation of the place. Not my finest hour.