Futbol Americano & Fancy Dinners

With the baseball season long over and the occasional longing for the comforts of home creeping in, Emily and I have lately been searching for a few red-blooded American activities to do in our spare time. Our American housemate sometimes asks us if we’re interested in accompanying him to a terrible expatriate bar that’s either called “Remember the Alamo” or “Shoeless Joe’s” (the sign reads “Remember the Shoeless Joe’s Alamo”), but we’ve since learned our lesson. Desperate for ideas, we’ve recently started doing what everyone with a flag in their yard and Uncle Sam in their heart does on a weekly basis. You guessed it, we’re betting on football.

On a typical week, Argentine television broadcasts two games––the Sunday night game and the Monday night one. Staying up until 2 am to watch mediocre NFL teams play meaningless contests isn’t something I’ve ever made a habit of doing back home, but down here we’ve grown pretty desperate. So, usually we watch. And very often we bet a dinner on the outcome. Back home these dinners would have probably set us back about $80, but here in Buenos Aires they only cost the losing party $25. In other words, you don’t need to go calling any gambling addiction hotlines yet (the number for drinking problems is a better bet to keep by the phone).

As the savvy prognosticator of the recent Colts victory over the Pats, I was recently treated to a tasty meal at Almacen Secreto, a “secret” restaurant in Palermo. The chic café, which is run out of a couple’s apartment, specializes in the cuisine of Salta, a province in the northwest of Argentina. Light on steak and heavy on stews, tamales, and fruity malbecs, it was a refreshing change of pace from the typical gauntlet-de-bife. As you can see from the picture, the joint was both intimate and colorful. I ordered charqui (a sun-dried, jerky-like beef) and Emily had cazuela de gallina, a chicken dish. The tamale appetizers were tasty and the wine was great, but the highlight was the dessert––a milled grain covered in milk and flavored with honey, clove, and other spices.

Last week the Bears bit the dust, so on Thursday I’m obliged to take Emily out. Because it’s been a whole two weeks or something ridiculous since we’ve last tasted offal, I think we’re going to check out a recommended parilla in San Telmo. Emily has begrudgingly agreed in advance to a traditional Argentine parillada (mountains of steak, sweetbreads, blood sausage, and more) so it should be a treat. And, of course, it should go without saying that if you have hot tips on games happening this weekend, you should contact me privately. -NSH

Sweet Home Nueva Chicago

The morning after our belated holiday feast, Emily and I went with our German housemate Alexandra to the Feria de Mataderos, an event that occurs every weekend in a barrio on the southwest side of the city. Alexandra seemed tentative about riding an hour by bus for the sole purpose of visiting a feria––after all, there are dozens of them scattered around Buenos Aires––but we assured her that this one came highly recommended by our guidebooks and classmates.

After stepping off the bus, we were greeted by the site of a few dozen stalls selling kid’s underwear and Spanish translations of Dan Brown novels. We were frightened that we’d been led horribly astray, but when we turned the corner a lively scene greeted us. In addition to the vendors selling woven scarves, wooden animal figures, and homemade dulce de leche candies, the town square was bustling with traditional dancers, steak cooking on open-air asados, and men corralling children into two-peso llama rides.

Mataderos served an important historical purpose as the site of Buenos Aires’ stockyards. Most of the livestock that was fattened up on the Pampas were eventually transported to this district to be slaughtered and shipped internationally. For this reason, the barrio was affectionately referred to as “Nueva Chicago”. Naturally, we felt right at home.

After purchasing some trinkets and pondering whether we were all too big for a sulky ride, Emily and I suggested visiting the Museo de Mataderos, a collection commemorating the gaucho legacy. Alexandra definitely wanted to skip this part of the trip, but I convinced her that the nominal entrance fee would be worth it. I should have specified that if, like me, you’re a sucker for cowboy iconography and intricately rendered diagrams of beeves, the museum would be worth it. I don’t think Germans really go in for that stuff. Emily and I, on the other hand, were enraptured by the masks made from cow’s faces, the amateurish oil paintings of romantic gaucho scenes, and the classy portraits of Argentine cattle barons (apparently ostentatious facial hair is a prerequisite). Fortunately, Alexandra seemed happy with the llamas-wool scarf she bought, so I think the trip was a success. -NSH

Turkey action in Argentina

Nate and I recently introduced our host family to the many joys of American Thanks-giving, in what I think was a reasonably authentic style. When we proposed to cook a Thanksgiving dinner, our host Carlos was enthusiastic, primarily because the holiday promised to involve large amounts of meat. He immediately became enamored of the idea of a turkey on the parrilla, the family’s outdoor grill, which left us with only the challenge of acquiring said turkey. We managed to order one 5 kilogram bird at a nearby butcher, only barely restraining ourselves from purchasing two.

The turkey appeared to be something of a novelty for the butcher – when we went to pick it up, they not only remembered us and our order, but gathered around to examine the beast. It was quite lovely. Sadly, when confronted with the turkey in all its 5 kg glory, Carlos decided that perhaps it was beyond the capabilities of the parrilla, and we ended up cooking it in the oven, American-style. Despite this disappointment, and a flaky oven that delivered heat inconsistently at best, we managed to deliver a beautifully cooked turkey. At least we thought it was beautiful. I think the Argentines found it monstrous. Lara, one of the girls, asked me if we threw out the drumsticks, wings, etc, and looked somewhat horrified to hear that people actually ate them. Apparently Argentines are white meat only when it comes to poultry.

We expected to be confronting leftovers for some time, because together with two other Americans, we prepared a mountain of food. Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, salad, bread, stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and vanilla ice cream. However, among the twelve of us we managed to devour a substantial amount. Perhaps the second turkey would not have been amiss. -EMW

Mmmm, literaturwurst.

For about ten million reasons, our favorite museum in Buenos Aires is MALBA, the Museo de Arte Latinamerico de Buenos Aires. We hit the cinema there pretty frequently, and we check out the art on occasion too. Last Thursday we went with Alexandra, a German friend of ours, to the opening of an exhibit on Fluxus in Germany. We enjoyed the art, which captured the playful spirit of Fluxus, and we enjoyed the free champagne, which always enhances an experience.

After checking out the exhibit, we were discussing MALBA with Carlos, who finds the whole venture kind of horrifying. “Did you know that the museum loses money every year?” he asked us. He also said that although all the foreigners who visit always go to MALBA, he himself has never been. Perhaps the literaturwurst is not to his taste. -EMW

Spanglisherman

One of our host’s most curious characteristics is his avowed love of coincidences. This love is so strong that I’m fairly certain we would not be living where we’re living without it. You see, the other American student who boards with us is also named Nathan, and he took the same flight (albeit on a different day) to reach Buenos Aires. I’m pretty sure that Carlos was so enamored of this “coincidence” that he agreed to welcome us into his home.

Carlos’s love of coincidences is so strong that when a random German couple emailed him about paying a visit during their trip to Buenos Aires, he immediately leapt at it, solely because the couple happens to share his surname. In fact, he was so excited by this “coincidence” that he informed us, at one point, that the couple would need use of our bedroom, and that we would need to move out and live in a hostel for a week. We were ready to hit the road completely, but I think his wife talked him out of that, and so we’re still around.

The famously named couple finally arrived this weekend. They’re either in their late 50s or early 60s, and the husband is pretty deaf. They’re from Germany, and speak fluent English, but not a word of Spanish. When we returned from La Plata, we walked through the front door to find the entire family sitting around the dining room table with the American boarder, the German boarder, and the German couple. Invited to partake, we sat down for what was probably the most dysfunctional dinner conversation I’ve ever experienced. You’ve got Carlos, who speaks Spanish and just a bit of English and German. His wife and three children speak Spanish exclusively, Emily and I speak English and just a little bit of Spanish. The other American boarder speaks English and Spanish. The German boarder speaks German and English and a little bit of Spanish. And the couple––one of whom SHOUTS because he is TOTALLY DEAF––speaks German and English. Fortunately, everyone was fluent in the universal language of red meat, sausage, and red wine, so I guess we managed. But I'm not too surprised that the German couple hasn’t been back since. –NSH

Nature's Amusements

Okay, so Emily did an excellent job of describing the wondrous qualities of the Museo de Ciencias Naturales in La Plata, but I wanted to elaborate a bit, if only because it is, I think, the coolest thing I’ve seen so far in Argentina. In addition to the incredible “bone room” that Emily described, the museum also devotes a great deal of space to the enormous mammals that roamed the Pampas approximately 11,000 years ago. These creatures are arguably more impressive than the dinosaurs. For one, and if I have my ancient history right, they must have cohabited with humans. Farming is supposed to have commenced approximately 10,000 years ago, which means that fairly sophisticated societies of hunter-gatherers were roaming in close proximity to these lumbering beasts.

Furthermore, these things are ridiculously cool looking. In In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin quotes French naturalist Georges Cuvier as describing one of these creatures as originating because “Nature had wanted to amuse herself with ‘something imperfect and grotesque.’” It’s as good a reason as any I can think of for inventing an armadillo so big that you can fit your entire head inside its sinus cavity. If nothing else, these animals make the dinosaurs easier to grasp conceptually. It’s more difficult to try to wrap your head around freakishly large cousins to today’s porcupines, anteaters, armadillos, and sloths. Check out the Wikipedia entries for the Megatherium and Glyptodon to see what I mean.

Finally, if you’re familiar with the afore-mentioned Chatwin book, you might be interested to know that the skin from the Mylodon Listai––the Giant Sloth that figures prominently in In Patagonia––is still on display. (If it’s been awhile since you’ve picked up Chatwin’s book, you only have to reread the first three chapters to know what I’m talking about). Found in a cave on the Last Hope Sound in Patagonia, Chatwin describes the piece of skin as half an inch thick. “Nodules of white cartilage were embedded in it and it looked like hairy peanut brittle.” The picture above is of the piece of skin that Chatwin wrote about, and the one below is of Giant Sloth dung found in the same cave. -NSH

Aparicion con vida.

La Plata, the provincial capital of Buenos Aires, is a small city located about a hundred kilometers outside of Buenos Aires. It’s famous mostly for having been renamed “Eva Peron” for three magical years in the fifties, and for its great natural history museum, built around the collection of explorer Francisco Pascacio Moreno (aka el Perito Moreno, or “expert Moreno”). We checked out the museum today. The train ride out to La Plata was somewhat uncomfortable, but at least the hard metal seats kept us awake the whole way, and we did not miss spotting the TURKEY at one of the farms alongside the train tracks. If we can’t find a turkey for Thanksgiving here in Buenos Aires, I’m bringing my swiss army knife back out to the suburbs and catching myself one.

Upon arriving in La Plata, we went over to the natural history museum, which lived up to all expectations. Our favorite space was what I’ll call “the bone room,” essentially a mass grave of every kind of animal ever. It’s a classic example of old school comparative taxonomy, and it’s muy, muy, muy lindo, and very peaceful. We also enjoyed the massive specimens of prehistoric Argentine animals, which are unlike any we’d encountered in U.S. natural history museums, resembling mostly armadillos of mammoth size.

After we had absorbed the beauty of the skeletons in the natural history museum, we ventured out to explore the rest of La Plata, where we saw the most massive cathedral in all of Argentina, which Nate found to be lacking in elegance. We also saw tons of graffiti, which might merely signify that La Plata has a lively student population, but I think is especially thick on the walls of La Plata now because of the general unhappiness about the apparent return of right wing death squads to Argentina. Much of the graffiti referred to the recent disappearance of Julio Jorge Lopez. One of the primary witnesses in the trials against those involved in the Dirty War, Lopez disappeared from his home in La Plata on September 18, shortly after delivering some of the most powerful and emotional testimony in the trial against Miguel Etchecolatz, a former police investigator. His disappearance is interpreted by many as a sign that the tactics and methods of the Dirty War are not totally consigned to the past. -EMW

Jesus!

Argentina is nominally a Catholic country, although few of its inhabitants seem terribly devout, or to adhere to many of the traditional customs of Catholic life, such as attending church. Random patches of Catholicism remain in the culture: divorce wasn’t legal here until the eighties, abortion is illegal, and children celebrate their first (and maybe only) communion with a vengeance. Our host sister, Vicky, celebrated hers this Sunday. The family never goes to church, which may explain the one small mishap that marred the day – no one knew when the mass began, and all the guests were given the wrong time, turning up well after the ceremony began.

It was okay, though. The congregation was unusually boisterous for churchgoers, and no one seemed to notice when we slipped in about twenty minutes after the start. The mass was in general pretty low key – the priest droned on about Jesus or something, while the congregation chatted amongst themselves, children play fought in the back of the church, and people came and went freely. When the priest had some especially important piece of church knowledge to import, he would ask everyone to just please be quiet for once. And people would settle down a little, for a few minutes.

After Vicky had ingested the body and blood of Christ for the first time, we got to the really significant part of the day: the party, for which lengthy preparations had been made. The family rented out a salon, where we gathered with a host of extended family members and Vicky’s friends for an asado. Nate and I talked with Carlos’s German mother about the family history, while she kept insisting that we must eat just one more homemade alfajore – which she advertised as “made by my own hand.” The party concluded with a distribution of party favors, sweet little figurines made by Vicky and her mother. I will cherish mine. -EMW

Corre! Corre! Corre!

Sunday was race day, and we had to wake up early to make it to the starting line in Palermo by 8:30. On the ride over, I mentioned to Carlos that a girl in my Spanish class had a friend in the race, and that this chica had apparently sworn off drinking for three weeks as part of her training. Carlos informed us that he had the same thing in mind when he neglected to have a drink on Saturday evening. “I had beer in the afternoon, yes, but nothing with dinner” he promised.

Feeling pretty intimidated by the training regimens of our fellow competitors, Emily and I selected a location well behind the starting line upon arrival. There were signs directing people who planned to run 4-minute kilometers to head to the front, 5-minute kilometers to head to the middle, and 6-and-over to head to the rear. Since our goal was an hour, we figured that a spot towards the end of the sea of yellow shirts would be best. As soon as everyone started running, however, we quickly realized that achieving our desired pace would be something of a challenge. Everyone was so densely packed together that, if tired, I’m pretty sure we could have crowd-surfed our way to the finish.

Things thinned out a bit around the third or fourth kilometer, however, which was also the point at which I observed one of the funniest scenes from the event. An elderly man with a cane had foolishly attempted to cross Av. Del Libertador before the race, and only managed to make it to the median before the crowd of runners swarmed around him. He was clutching his hat with one hand and a lamppost with the other as he buckled down for what was likely to be a solid half-hour of waiting.

Things got progressively hotter as the race progressed, and Emily and I got separated around the 5-kilometer mark. Nevertheless, we must have been really close, because we ended up finishing within 5 seconds of one another. If you’d like to see our results (and a rather poorly rendered video of our respective finishes) on Nike’s flashy website, you can click here. We’re pretty positive that the times don’t accurately reflect when we crossed the starting line, but that’s okay. We beat an hour either way.

On the way out, Nike representatives handed us medals for participating in the event. Emily has draped hers around one of our bottles of wine. Carlos wore his throughout his daughter’s First Communion party on Sunday evening. Yes, we’re all very proud. (Photo courtesy of La Nacion; there’s a pretty cool photo gallery from the race there also. -NSH

Faith In Robots

The house where we’re living has been a whirlwind of cooking and cleaning lately because the youngest daughter is about to have her First Communion on Sunday (“the third most important event in any Argentine’s life,” Emily’s Spanish teacher assured her). In a bid to escape the bustle, we decided to pay a visit to one of the Buenos Aires sites we’ve been most curious about seeing: Tierra Santa, billed as the world’s first religious theme park.

Getting to Tierra Santa is not quite as difficult as the Hajj, but it’s not like it’s terribly easy, either. We had to walk a couple miles, catch a bus, and walk a couple miles more. It was largely for this reason that we didn’t simply turn right back around when the headscarf-and-sandal wearing ticket taker informed us that it would cost us 15 pesos each to see inside. We grouchily agreed.

Tierra Santa boasts life-sized recreations of key Biblical stories, the biggest Nativity scene in the world, an “awe-inspiring” 18-meter effigy of Jesus, and a recreation of the Last Supper that “becomes a moment of spiritual devotion for all the visitors of the park”. But, in fact, Tierra Santa is kind of a disappointment. Yes, there are kitsch pleasures to behold around every corner: an inexplicable statue of Gandhi that neglects to make mention of his religion, a 2000-year-old kiosk selling candy and rolls of film, a gift tent that carries not only “Tierra Santa: El Video” but “Tierra Santa: El Video Segundo Edition”, and much more. But after awhile, all of the life-sized plaster figures begin to run together, and one starts to have trouble making sense of Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mary, the hundreds of sheep, and the thousands of hedonistic Romans.

After an hour of walking around under the blistering desert sun and taking in animatronic renderings of the Nativity and the Last Supper (imagine people crossing themselves at Chucky Cheese––it’s almost that weird), we decided to split. Across the street we sat on a park bench and looked out across the River Platte. I even turned the other cheek when a dog came over and bit my shoe, so maybe I learned a little something after all. -NSH

The Argentine Tiger

A few kilometers outside of Buenos Aires, at the mouth of the Rio Plata, is a small, atmospheric port town called Tigre. We took a day trip to Tigre to get out of the city for a little while. It’s possible to take a commuter train directly from the train station near our house to Tigre, but we were advised that to get the full Tigre experience we really must change trains in Olivos and take the Tren de la Costa the rest of the way to Tigre because the views from the Tren de la Costa are really super beautiful. We enjoyed our stroll through Olivos, home of tasty medialunas and Argentine president Kirchner, to the station for the famous Tren de la Costa, but the train itself was something of a dud. It turns out that “spectacular views” = suburbia, with lots of high school sports fields.

Tigre itself, however, did not disappoint. We played guess the organ meat at an all-you-can-eat parrilla, where waiters bring tray after tray of unnamed meats to your table. (okay, Nate played, and I spectated.) After lunch, we took a trip out into the delta, which consists mostly of small islands that are reached via the boats that serve as buses for the area. These islands are prone to frequent flooding, so all the houses in the delta are built on stilts and look something like treehouses, giving the whole place a very Swiss Family Robinson feel. We took a boat/bus out to an island called Tres Bocas, where we spent a peaceful afternoon breathing the fresh air of the countryside and watching a three legged dog frolic. It was idyllic. -EMW

Our Corre Story

Many weeks ago, we mentioned that we were hard at work training for the Nike 10K, a race held throughout Central and South America on the 12th of November. Our host, Carlos, talked us into entering with him and––not wanting to seem like total wusses––we grudgingly agreed. We’re now just five days away from the big event, so I thought I’d post with an update about how we’ve been progressing with our training.

The place where we’ve found to run is a small park just a few blocks from where we’re living in Belgrano. We know from cryptic signs and Carlos’s assurances that the park is exactly 1.3K in circumference, and we’ve tailored our sessions accordingly. On the weekends the park plays host to a lively feria, which means that we have rabbits on leashes, tents with leather goods, and bad reggae blaring from loudspeakers to help keep us company. Other evenings, our only entertainment is dodging the heaping piles of dog shit.

Now, although Emily has a long history of running competitively, those who know me know that I am happy to hike, bike, and swim great distances, but that running’s not really my bag. That said, the mortal fear of keeling over dead in front of thousands of screaming portenos has inspired me to be diligent about getting my laps in. For a while we were running 7 and 8 kilometers every other day or so, but last week we experienced a mysterious tapering off. Some lethal combination of rain, laziness, and $2 bottles of wine at El Viejo Lobo kept us away from the park for over a week. This morning, when Carlos popped his head into our room and announced that he had just finished running 12 kilometers, we knew that it was time to get back on the horse.

We just finished six laps around the feria, with plans of running a couple of more times before Sunday. On the way back home, we ran into Carlos on the street. He was pleased to see us sweaty and sore, and interrogated us about how many times around the park we’d gone. We told him only six, and he looked kind of disappointed, but Emily quickly assured him that we had done so in record time. In all of our previous conversations about running, time has not really been a factor. I’m worried that Emily is broaching dangerous new ground here, but we’ll see how it plays out.

All said, I think I’m swearing off the Lobo for the week. The vino tinto can wait; I’ve got my dignity to maintain. -NSH

Que casualidad.

As noted earlier, Nathan and I take our Spanish classes at the Laboratorio de Idiomas, in the dilapidated remains of a once lovely building. In class today, my teacher filled us in on some of the details of the building’s glorious history. Nearly one hundred years old, it was once the best hotel in Buenos Aires, where every couple spent their wedding night. The grand exterior and the lobby of the building hint at these better days. Sometime later, after one Argentine crisis or another, hard times came to the owners of the hotel, who were soon putting all those en suite rooms to use as a brothel. Eventually, the prostitutes and johns were cleared out, and the building was converted again into a bank. Many years and several more crises later, the building was further degraded as the ruin that now houses our language classes.

While my teacher was sharing this history with the class, the building superintendent knocked on the door, asking permission to briefly interrupt the class to show some engineers the building. When he heard the topic of our discussion, however, he insisted on delivering a brief lecture. “Nearly 100 years old! A magnificent hotel! Everyone stayed here, even, once, Isabel, the gordita, the daughter of the king of Spain. You should remember, when you walk up these stairs to class, that you are walking where Isabel walked.”

Our teacher sighed and rolled her eyes. The superintendent began to digress, asking, “Are there any Swedish students in the class? Ah, yes? Well, I had always thought that I would marry a pretty little brunette from Argentina. And yet, I have found myself married to a blonde from Sweden!” He then announced, slowly, in English, to be sure that we all understood, “MY VIKING WIFE.”

When the superintendent finally cleared out, our teacher said he told her that story about Isabel every time she complained about the always broken elevators. “Think of how Isabel, the gordita, once walked up these same stairs, he says. But I can only think of the four more flights I have to walk up.” -EMW

A Morning at the Opera

Just this week, we mentioned to one of our housemates that we were interested in seeing the Teatro Colón, a world-famous opera house built in 1908. Much to our surprise, we were informed that it would be closing its doors on November 2nd for an extensive restoration. Not wanting to miss our chance, we woke up at the brutally early hour of 9:00 to take a tour. Upon arriving, we discovered that there were two tours––one in English and one in Spanish. And although the line for the Spanish-language tour was nearly three times as long, the tour in English was sold-out. Perplexed, we decided to join the Spanish language tour.

At first I was concerned about missing crucial information from our tour guide, but everything turned out okay. This was mostly because the facts delivered on the tour of the Teatro Colón closely resemble the facts delivered on tours of theatres around the world. The acoustics are perfect, the best box is saved for the President, the marble comes all the way from Europe, etc. It was kind of a relief. But, lest I seem jaded, the theatre was actually really beautiful. And we were made privy to a lot of the behind-the-scenes workings, such as the room where a hundred anorexic ballerinas prepare for the show, the place where they store all 22,000 pairs of shoes, and––my favorite room of all––the set design workshop, where a tiny Argentine man was furiously sanding down an enormous styrofoam effigy of an ancient Chinese warlord.

I know what you’re thinking: why would you post this lame picture when you got to see a tiny Argentine man furiously sanding down an enormous styrofoam effigy of an ancient Chinese warlord? Well, my friends, I'll tell you. There are no photographs allowed at the Teatro Colón. In fact, the only place you’re allowed to take photos is in the lobby, where’s there’s really not much to look at. Of course, everyone feels obligated to take a million photos of the lobby anyway, and so did I. I snapped one of this miniature artist’s rendering of the theatre. There was a hole in its plexiglass case, which people have been using to drop their spare centavos––maybe for suerte? I guess miniature artist’s renderings of famous theatres are like the Argentine equivalent of shopping mall fountains. Or something. –NSH