In the past few days Stuart and I have enjoyed some great food, wine and heated debates.
I wanted to show him around the city and take him to all the places I love. But at the same time I wanted him to experience them with some level of independence. For example yesterday we went to Recoleta. I let him lead me around the cemetery and gave him the camera to capture his perspective. He reflected the city from a different angle and made some keen observations. I particulary enjoy his appreciation fro grafitti. At no time since the hallmark of the blog have I featured other writers. However I have granted Stuart permission to create his own entry, keeping in mind the ruthless sarcasm at my expense.
Ashley has a fantastic apartment and her roommates are friendly and funny, both of which are attributes that transcend my limitation in the language. In fact given the price, location, roommates, kitchen and utilities I would say she could not have found a much better place. There is one draw back however. She lives a long a bus line. Let me rephrase that, she lives along several bus lines. Every 15 minutes from about 6am to 3am four or five buses, from different lines, roar by her window, which over looks the street. In the United States they may not be that loud, as buses are well maintained and very modern. However here they are running buses obviously purchased in the 70’s and they seem to believe that the squealing of their brakes will alert pedestrians to get out of the way quicker, and thus allow their breaks to produce loud high pitched noises at the slightest tap. One can imagine that when trying to sleep, this presents a problem, but I have gotten used to it, to a point.
I don’t bring this up to complain about the noise, but rather to note how obvious it must be to Ashley that she is located in an area with easy access to public transportation. This makes our 100 block trek across the city, on little sleep and an empty stomach some what questionable. Before we left she mentioned that she did not know the bus system as of yet, and I thought that this meant we were relatively close to things. I was quite incorrect.
The first thing we did was head to a bierhouse. After walking 30 block, taking the subway for a dozen and stopping to get food, and the sunglasses which I desperately needed, we arrived. We came her due to their beer sampler, which Ashley has labeled, descriptively, a “beer tree.” Of course upon our arrival we were told that they do not serve the beer tree until 4 pm, but luckily Ashley has the uncanny ability to make her big brown eyes look very sad and the waitress decided to let it slide, just this once. For around 6 dollars we got 10 small glasses of different beers that the restaurant had on tap. We also had a couple of tapas to go with it. All in all it was a very good meal, and we shuffled out of the restaurant and headed to the cemetery in Recoletta, which Ashley had previously visited and wanted me to see.
Along the way to the cemetery we stop at a bookstore, which was once a theatre. Ashley had already been here, but I simply wanted to note how gorgeous a place it was. I, of course, as a good little capitalist, couldn’t help but wonder about the inefficient use of space, and the amount they must mark up the books to cover the property costs, but the view and atmosphere it affords the visitor is doubtlessly impressive and strangely relaxing.
After a few dozen more blocks, while Ashley and I bickered about the US educational system, we arrived at the cemetery. Once more this is a subject Ashley has covered in the past and I am hesitant to go too far into it once more, but there are some things that I would like to add. First of all, compared to the cemeteries that we visited on our bike rides in Italy this one was grandiose, ostentatious and morbid. This is compared to the relatively quaint and personal feel that the cemeteries around Lake Lugano had. In fact if it wasn’t for the fact that the government had passed a law preventing the maintenance of the tombs I do not think I would like the cemetery at all. However it did, and the disrepair of the tombs allowed for the visitor to see some interesting juxtaposition within the cemetery. In fact juxtaposition is the reason I like the cemetery as much as I did. Whether it was the morbid statues against the sky, the art nouvea lamps against classical sepulchers, overgrown tombs next to stately mausoleums, modern architecture and solar panels overlooking rows of stone burial sites, rays of colored light shining down through dusky graves or the wealth of Jewish symbolism which showed up amongst the Catholic symbolism (apparently Buenos Aires has the 3rd largest Jewish population in the world.) All in all it was an impressive place, but I am happy to move on, as I am quickly running low on my synonyms for tomb.
Next we were supposed to stop by two museums, but, they were both closed. It was at this point that we started head back to the apartment. We did so despite the throngs of people standing around to watch motorcyclists return from a multi-day race in which they did a loop containing Columbia, Chile and a few other countries.
When we finally got home I was anticipating taking a siesta before dinner. However Ashley’s roommates were in the common area, and as such we stayed their, drank a bottle and a half of wine, and talked in Spanish for a few hours. I am still very hesitant to speak in Spanish and my slowness in articulating the language frustrates me, as my mouth fails to keep up with what my head wants to say. I do enjoy listening to it though, and I am very quickly finding it easier to understand. Occasionally I toss my two cents in, but in general I am rather reticent, which Ashley noted to her roommates was a welcome change. The problem with listening is that it is exhausting. I feel like my head is constantly working very hard just to follow the conversation, and if I lose pace, it must work doubly hard simply to catch up.
After this we headed to a restaurant to get my first taste of Argentinian beef. Needless to say it was very good. We headed back home contently stuffed with juicy stake, aching legs and dropping eyes.
.
Leave a Reply