Laundry Day

Posted on April 19, 2006 by Stardust

Today I did my laundry at Edgardo’s place, which was really nice of him. We left the laundry to dry on the roof of his apartment building. While he was at work, I met another guy from the Internet and we had a good talk at a restaurant. I met Edgardo at work and we went to my favorite restaurant in Buenos Aires called Bio in Palermo Viejo. I think it was the first time he had eaten at a vegetarian restaurant. We met two sweet women there who had recently returned from a trip to Paris. We all went for a drink after dinner at another bar in Palermo Viejo, then I went back to Edgardo’s place with him.

Tigre

Posted on April 18, 2006 by Stardust

Jim e and I took a train from Buenos Aires to a nearby town called Tigre where we boarded a catamaran boat for a tour of the local waterways. Jim e and I were joking on the way there about all the plastic bottles in the water, as if it were some exotic local fauna. The lunch on board the boat was mediocre, as was the scenery. The boat ride itself was otherwise pleasant although they played music from the U.S. the entire time. The main attraction of the ride was a series of boat carcasses left behind in the waterways.

We took the train back to Buenos Aires and Jim e went off on his own while I went to a bookstore to pick up a Portuguese-English dictionary and a guidebook for Brazil. Afterwards, I visited Pride Cafe where a cute waiter invited me to a theater production. Finally, I met Edgardo at his workplace and we walked over to a gay restaurant called Inside Bar for dinner. We were both exhausted and he had to work the next day so we went home early to his place.

Comedor de Piqueteras

Posted on April 17, 2006 by Stardust

Jim e and I went to Puerto Madero thinking we could eat at the Comedor de Piqueteros in support of their work there. The piqueteros are unemployed workers in Buenos Aires who have organized together for government benefits and jobs. One famous piquetero opened a food stall for unemployed people in the middle of the prosperous Puerto Madero neighborhood, which caused a bit of a scandal. When we got there, we found out that we couldn’t eat there since it was free or cheap food for the piqueteros, not for tourists. So we ate at a Caribbean restaurant instead.

Everywhere in Puerto Madero we saw statues of cows.

We walked on the Costanera Sur, full of my favorite Buenos Aires attraction the parrillas or meat stalls, across from a swampy ecological reserve built on landfill which we couldn’t enter because it was closed on Mondays. Since the workers’ strike had ended, we took the Subte (metro) home.

That evening, we ate at Bar 6 in Viejo Palermo and want to Aca Bar for dessert. Palermo is one of the largest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and has a variety of names for its various parts, such as Viejo Palermo, Soho Palermo, Hollywood Palermo, and so on. Aca Bar is a funny name for a restaurant because the verb acabar in Spanish can mean to orgasm.

Private Places in Buenos Aires

Posted on April 16, 2006 by Stardust

Edgardo kindly invited Jim e and me for lunch at his place, which was really great for both of us. Jim e had been a bit frustrated about not getting a chance to speak Spanish as much as he wanted.

After lunch, we walked to Cafe Tortoni where a famous elderly Argentinian poet named Sabado sat down at a nearby table surrounded by his fans.

I made a silly joke about how hard it was to read his work, since it was only available one day a week (sabado means Saturday in Spanish). It turns out my joke is incorrect for some reason which I’ll try to remember and write here.

Later that day, I called my friend Ezequiel from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre three years ago. He told us to meet him at a private club which had no sign. We buzzed the doorbell to get in. I enjoyed seeing Ezequiel again, even if Edgardo did get a bit jealous (mistakenly since Ezequiel is totally straight). For some reason, the people living in Buenos Aires, that is the porteños, call straight people “pakis”. It seems odd since Spanish speakers could think it means people from Pakistan as well.

Museum Day and Dulce de Leche

Posted on April 15, 2006 by Stardust

Saturday morning Edgardo and I headed over from his place to the hotel to meet Jim e and wander around the city some more.

We shopped at bookstalls, then walked over to the MALBA Museum and cafe. I really loved both, including the submarino (hot milk and a bar of chocolate you break up and stir into the milk) I drank there.

The art in the museum was fantastic, definitely on a par with the best museums in the U.S. or Europe. Both Jim e and I particularly liked a painter named Xul Solar.

After MALBA, we walked over to the La Flor statue, which is a giant mechanical flower that opens and closes according to the time of day.

Then, we walked by the Law University where we saw the names of those law students disappeared by a former Argentinian government.

We went to the Museo de las Bellas Artes, which was also really great.

Here are some paintings by Xul Solar who painted rainbow flags before they were “invented”:

In the Recoleta neighborhood, we walked past a gigantic baobab tree the size of a city block which was planted around 1800.

We stopped at La Biella Cafe and then for Dulce de Leche ice cream at Freddo’s, an experience not to be missed or forgotten. Finally, we ate a reasonably good restaurant near the giant Abasto shopping mall.

We dropped Jim e off in a taxi on the way to Edgardo’s place. (I probably should have moved out of the hotel by this point, but I wanted the connection with Jim e and I had prepaid the hotel stay.)

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Monthly Archives: April 2006

Laundry Day

Tigre

Comedor de Piqueteras

Private Places in Buenos Aires

Museum Day and Dulce de Leche