Hello, Ola, Hola: A Weekend in Buenos Aires

This post originally appeared on Frontier Psychiatrist April 19th, 2013.

I’m shaking. I’m hot and cold at the same time. I need to sleep, but I can’t sleep. Don’t throw up. DON’T. Throw. Up.  Do I have the flu? Food poisoning? Will this plane just land already? Maybe I’m just worn out after a tumultuous week in São Paulo. After an experience at GRU to rival that of Prague’s fictional Franz Kafka International Airport (including a display screen, 40 minutes before takeoff, telling us to proceed to our gate, without telling us the gate number), our plane finally lands at 9:00 A.M. and all I want to do is get to my hotel and sleep. I get an eye scan, thumbprint, and remind myself to say “gracias” instead of “obrigado.” My eyes flutter as the cab curves around Avenida La Rabida and La Casa Rosada; and then, the hotel. Rest. Sigh. This is not how I imagined my first day in sunny Buenos Aires: wiped out in a hotel room bed in a country that I was so excited to visit. So after all of that, you’re damn right I made the most of my second day in town.

Still not 100%, I ignored my physical qualms and decided I needed to see this city. With an excess of suggestions from friends that have traveled and lived here before, I begin my Saturday morning along Avenida del Libertador. It’s quiet, but it’s still early. The Recoleta fair hasn’t really picked up yet. My friend and travel buddy from São Paulo and I head to the nearby cemetery, featuring ornate, above ground tombs, eternal homes to such luminous figures of Argentine history and culture as Eva Peron, former presidents of Argentina, and Nobel prize winners. It’s morbid, sure, but graveyards are quite fascinating to me. Interesting further is the perspective of those in the surrounding skyscrapers that have to look down on this daily reminder of mortality.

The fair gets going around noon. The smell of leather tangos with the enticing scent of street empanadas. There’s plenty of jewelry, artwork, clothing, and any number of easy souvenirs or gifts. An elderly woman who hears me speaking English starts up a conversation. She is from a suburb of Chicago 15 minutes from where I grew up. A couple on the other side of me says they have one child who goes to Northwestern and another who goes to the University of Illinois. Small world indeed. In fact, half an hour in this town, and I hear more English spoken than an entire week of being in São Paulo. Not that I imagine São Paulo being a high profile tourist destination, but the tone I gathered was that Buenos Aires was even more dangerous for outsiders. An Argentine friend warned me not to speak English in the subway (which features classical music while you wait, artwork on the tunnel walls, and graffiti-ridden cars that look straight up out of the Warriors) or to ever, EVER flag a cab down on the street.

The most frustrating part of visiting Argentina is the bizarre economic circumstances in which the country has found itself. To be blunt, there is no money. The physical paper and coinage is nearly ceasing to exist. Convenience stores undercharged us instead of breaking a larger bill. Our hotel, a rather nice one at that, couldn’t even easily break a hundred peso bill (~$20). On top of this, a lot of establishments are cash only, only reinforcing the issue.

I couldn’t imagine how this has come to be. On the surface, Buenos Aires is an aesthetically beautiful city. The architecture is creative and varied, from classical European influence to the modern skyscrapers of Porto Moderno. There are wide boulevards and plenty of parks, providing a reprieve of plentiful open space that felt rare in São Paulo. It just felt like a better place to exist in. Having heard about the economic troubles seemed abstract, but quickly became apparent, and is still a reality that we Americans never have to even consider the possibility of.

Being here as a tourist means I don’t have to add more than a passing thought in these ideas’ direction. Likewise, I realize how out of touch with the rest of the world I have become while traveling. I heard about the passings of Roger Ebert and Margaret Thatcher, but didn’t follow up in the impact of the floods surrounding Buenos Aires, or how an American woman was raped and beaten in Rio while I was living it up in São Paulo. I’m left wondering what other world news I’m missing out on.

I’m constantly wondering what I’m doing here. Of course, to visit my friend who made the plunge to live in an entirely different world. But what about after I leave? Am I supposed to take anything back with me aside from a few tacky souvenirs? Why put myself out of my comfort zone? Is not the driving force of evolution to find a safe place to exist in this world? Or that just surviving and not living? And is living trying to find out new things? To take back from other cultures and contribute to your own with a new perspective? Do humans make more progress as xenophobes or by working together? Part of me feels I played it right coming back with so many questions. It justifies keeping moving and searching for answers (which invariably lead to more questions which lead to more answers which lead to a perpetual catch-22).

It’s the little things you find out traveling that keep life most interesting. Of finding a bar called Dada, the same name but entirely different vibe of one I found in Beijing. The bartender at Dada warning us against visiting the neighborhood of La Boca the same day there’s a Boca Juniors football game because of violent hooliganism (the second person to warn us of this at that). Of politically minded graffiti crying out from the walls (“Gay Power!” “Aumentar el salario mínimo”). Of avoiding the shirtless hombre flipping a switchblade and taunting us gringos as we walk along Avenida 9 de Julio, quickening our pace to avoid any escalation of the event. Of multiple instances of cars driving without headlights. Of English menus without prices on them. Of finding Haruki Murakami in multiple Buenos Aires bookstores, including the cozy Libros del Pasaje, as well as Mo Yan, Robert Crumb, Stephen Jay Gould, not to mention Abulafia, a bookstore that doubles as a winery in the Palermo neighborhood. Of being jealous of the miles of protected bike lanes the city has developed. Of eating delicious fugazetta pizza at El Curatito, washed down with a sour Quilmes, the Budweiser of Argentina, named after the city where it’s brewed [editor’s note: even if drinking beer in wine country is somewhat sacrilegious [author’s note: Never!]]. Of having a reservation for 9:30 on a Saturday night at restaurant and venue La Peña del Colorado, and being the second table there, only to have the entire place fill up at 10:30, because only us silly gringos would dare enter a restaurant so early in this country. Of finding out Buenos Aires has a growing Armenian population that has expanded the culinary delights of the city, Sarkis being of particular note. Of seeing piles of meat being grilled at Desnival then entering the studio of Miguel Angel Biazzi while the artist himself is at work, the frenzy and energy of the San Telmo Sunday fair radiating outside.

My time in Buenos Aires was short, and although I crammed in as much as I could in two and half days, there is still so much left to explore, including museums, nightlife, and tangos, none of which I experienced in full. I feel like next time I need to simultaneously move slower and faster: slower to take everything in, faster to keep up with the pace and energy of the city. For all of my anxieties that seemed to beleaguer the beginning of the weekend, the payoff was worth acquiring visa-that’s-not-a-visa reciprocity fee, the absurd scenario at GRU, the most ill I’ve felt in some time, and the monetary difficulties. I left EZE knowing it would be over 24 hours until I was back in my own apartment in Chicago. As much as I was looking forward to returning home, I was just as much looking forward to getting back out into the world again.