Evil Trees. Today the ongoing saga of the lack of coin change in the country hit a new low, or at least a new personal low. Until now I had been doing pretty well, dumping all of my spare change into an ashtry in my apartment and hoarding it for bus fare. But I ran out today and I needed to ride the bus to my spanish class in the afternoon. I knew there were a bunch of banks on Rivadavia along the several block walk to my bus stop, and took solace in the fact that I could always go to the bank as a case of last resort to exchange a 10 or 20 peso bill for change. My first stop was Bank Itau, which limited me to 2 pesos in change, just enough for the trip to and from class counting what was left in my pocket. I decided to hit a few other banks because I had a few minutes to spare. HSBC didn't have any tellers, and the lines in Banco Santander were too long, but there were only a few people waiting at Banco de la Provincia of Buenos Aires, so I got in line. After patiently waiting for several minutes I thought I overheard the teller tell a woman that he didn't have any coin change. Sure that couldn't be the case, I waited for the next person to go to the window. I thought I heard the same thing again, so when she turned to leave I asked her and she confirmed my worst case scenario ... even the banks don't have change. I'm not sure what to do. I will make a special trip to all the banks I can find in my neighborhood tomorrow morning, and failing that, I will buy lots of alfajores that cost $1.25 or $1.50 and relish my coin change. When you talk with Argentinians about this they think its ridiculous too. But their attitude seems to be that they somehow find away to get just enough change to get thru the day and to and from where they need to be, and sure it's an inconvenience and yet more evidence of how the government can be inept, but there are bigger things to worry and to complain about so why get heated-up about change. This is a photo of Parque Rivadavia near my bus stop. It rained today for the first time since I've been back from Salta (there's a bad drought here), so there weren't a lot of people in the park this evening. The trees in Buenos Aires can be beautiful. There are jacarandas with bright violet flowers and this tree with yellow flowers. But the best trees are the old, tall ones that line many of the neighborhood streets. In some places they are 6, 7 or 8 stories tall and the branches reach over the street from either side to create a giant green shady canopy along the whole block. The best I've seen is along Pedro Goyena near Emilio Mitre.

Apparently they are also evil and, according to an article in today's newspaper, in 2008 there were a record number of complaints against them for roots that crack sidewalks (that part is true, the sidewalks here are a disaster), branches that break electric poles or stoplights and ... my personal favorite ... 'invading houses'. According to the article, a 67 year old retiree has complained that a tree keeps rupturing the sidewalk outside his house and (it's roots) entering the toilet in his bathroom as well as breaking the floor in his front hall. His 78 year old psychologist neighbor confirmed his story, saying that she has lived in the neighborhood for almost 50 years, that the tree has been there at least that long, and that 4 years ago the roots got into her plumbing and broke her patio. 

This is a photo of the rotonda of the Palais de Glace, a small museum in Recoleta

Perros and Kioscos. Argentinos love their dogs and cats and birds. They are all over the place, in the street with their owners, in the street without their owners, in windows of shops and cafes, sleeping in the doorway of shops and cafes. And they have a lot of personality, as you can see from this photo. This guy was perched in a hole on the second floor terrace of this house just watching people and cars and dogs go by in the street.

This is a photo of a 'Kiosco' in the barrio of Flores near where I have my Spanish lessons. Here, you've got, going from big to small, chain 'supermercados' (supermarkets), neighborhood 'supermercados' (sometimes called 'chinos' because many of them are owned and run by chinese or korean families), 'almacenes', which are corner mini-markets that sell a little bit of everything and 'kioscos' which are tiny shops that typically sell candy, cookies, soda and cigarettes. There are also 'diarios', the equivalent of news and magazine stands. In the very center of the city along the Florida Peatonal and surrounding streets, you can walk right into a kiosco like you would any store. However, outside of the commercial center of the city many of the kioscos have metal bars over the doors and windows, like this one, for security. You have to buy and pay thru a small opening in the bars. This is common in nice barrios as well as not so nice ones. It just depends on the street, the comfort level of the shop owner and the hours he or she keeps. Many kioscos, like this one, are run out of the front room of someone's home. If you show up during ciesta hours the owner might not be at the window, but if you clap your hands a few times (the equivalent of 'hello is anyone there?'), he or she might show up ... depending. This is the only kiosco I've seen that had a small step ladder for little kids to climb up to the window and place their order.

Parque Centenario.  On Sunday morning we walked from my apartment in Caballito to Parque Centenario, which is about a mile away. The Centro Cultural de Recoleta, which is next to the Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is entombed, publishes a little newspaper listing all of the cultural stuff happening in the city every week during the summer. Most of which are free, as the city sponsors them. On saturday evening we hung out with Rosana's cousin in Palermo and then walked to Palermo Park to watch a outdoor drive-in movie. Well, it was half drive-in and half walk-in and sit on the lawn. I'd read about it in the paper. The movie was crappy, but it was fun. The same publication also has a list of all of the street fairs in the city, and we decided to walk over to Parque Centenario because it's close. The fair wasn't nearly as good as the weekend fairs in Plaza Serrano in Palermo Viejo, Plaza Francia in Recoleta or Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo. But the park itself and the scene of families and people passing a sunday afternoon was great. And the walk to the park along shaded cobblestone streets and over train tracks and by beautiful old houses with bouganvilla taking over the walks was even better.  The more time I spend in the porteno neighborhoods like Caballito, Flores, Parque Chacabuco or Villa Crespo outside of the tourist draws of Recoleta, San Telmo and Palermo the more I like Buenos Aires and the more sad I am that the slice of the city that tourists see when they come here is so limited and not representative of the city or its life. I understand it ... most tourists who come here have only a few days to a week because they are also going to Patagonia or Iguazu or other neighboring countries. But still, its a shame. It's like going to SF and only seeing Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf and the GG Bridge... and not seeing the Mission, the parks, Berkeley or Mount Tam. You can go to a park here and literally be entertained for hours just watching families having picnics, kids running around feeding pigeons or ducks, eating candy-coated peanuts and popcorn, couples drinking mate or making out, old folks sitting around in beach chairs talking, kids playing soccer or volleyball. I run in Parque Chacabuco, and its packed in the early evening (partly because it's summer and kids are out of school). It's fun just to run in circles and watch everything that's going on.

This is a picture of some young girls that Rosana was talking with. They were trying to feed bread to a Karp fish in the pond, but the duck kept on getting to the bread first. This led to the Karp swimming directly underneath the duck in order to catch the crumbs that the duck missed. Every now and then you'd see the Karp pop up and then disappear again under the duck. The girls were getting frustrated with the duck, and the duck was getting fat. This is a bronze sculpture also in Parque Centenario that I liked.

More Caballito. This is a photo of the subway train yard I was talking about in my post below. The gates were open yesterday so I had a good view in. I pass it whenever I walk down Emilio Mitre from my apartment to Parque Chacabuco. Subway line A, which runs thru my neighborhood along Avenida Rivadavia to downtown has the coolest subway cars. They must be over 50 years old and the interior is constructed of polished wood ... doors, walls, benches and all. 

You can see the benches move side to side and hear the wood creak as the train ambles along the tracks. It feels like it's being held together with a bunch of screws and glue. The doors slide open to both sides, but unlike BART, you have to push the handle to manually open and close them. People can be cavalier about closing them. The other day when we were coming back from Once half of the doors on the car we were in were wide open and you could watch (or fall) right out. The car was mostly empty so there was little danger of that happening, but it struck me as odd that the city would run a subway with doors that are left wide open. I think the negligence laws here are probably a little more lax. This kid saw me taking a foto of the train and wanted me to take his picture.

Ice cream. This is a picture of a quarter kilo of dulce de leche, dark chocolate and walnut cream ice cream that we recently demolished. The ice cream here is very, very good. There's no Ben & Jerry's or Hagen Daz. Sure, you can buy it in supermarkets, but no one does. Instead, there are 'heladerias' or ice cream shops on every other block, and the good ones make their own ice cream. 'Persico' and 'Volta' are the best in my opinion. The name Volta doesn't make you want to eat there, but it's good. Trust me. This one was from a place called Leoyak on Asamblea at Emilio Mitre in Parque Chacabuco, and it was really good. Here is what you do when you go to get ice cream: first pay for the size you want ... anything from a 'cucurucho' (cone) for a few pesos to a kilo (2.2 pounds) which will run you from 25 to 40 pesos. You are then given a receipt which you walk over to the ice cream counter and hand to the guys when your turn comes (there are no numbers, so if it is crowded you have to sort of fight your way to the counter and guesstimate who was there before you and who came after). The size of your order determines the number of flavors you can choose from. For example, a quarter kilo always comes with the option of up to 3 flavors. There can be as many as 50-60 flavors and I have yet to walk into a place and been able to decipher all of the flavors ... dulce de leche granizado (flakes of chocolate), crema americano, chocolate suica, chocolate con ron y pasas (rum and raisins), dulce de leche con nueces (walnuts), chocolate with almendras (almonds), chocolate granizado (chocolate chip), marscapone, sambayon (a little bit of alcohol, but good), crema del bosque (more or less raspberry cream), mantecol (i'm not sure, nutty), crema rusa (good!), crema de nueces (walnut cream), pineapple, banana, peach, lemon and every fruit flavor you can think of, wine, cactus (that was in Cafayate where there are lots of cactus), and I can't remember everything else. Rosana and I put away one of these about every other day and it hasn't stopped us from gaining weight. Today we went to Once, an old neighborhood in the center of the city which is the place to go for textiles and cheap clothes. We took the subway to the plaza outside the Once train terminal. On the way back I wanted to cross the plaza to see the memorial to the kids who died in the Cromanon nightclub fire, which occurred near there 15 years ago and is permanently eched into the national psyche here. I passed it almost everyday when I road the bus from Rosana's house into the center of town, but hadn't gotten off the bus to see it. Yes, I realize this last bit doesn't really belong in a post about ice cream, but it's what we did today and I'm trying to stay current.

Caballito. This is a picture of some of the nice houses along Emilio Mitre in my neighborhood of Caballito. If you look closely (click on the foto), you can see its a self-portrait. It also has train tracks running down the center of the street, because subway line A is a few blocks away on Rivadavia and they bring subway trains along the street to a huge warehouse a few blocks in the other direction to put them to bed or to work on them. I've seen them bringing them out a couple times, and its an odd scene to see a subway train on the street. My neighborhood has a little bit of everything ... butchers, vegetable and fruit shops, bakeries, heladerias (ice cream shops), hardware stores, pizzerias and cafes. The best place I've discovered is the Mercado del Progreso on the corner of Centenera and Rosario. 

It has a long history (which you can read about on the link above) and is the equivalent of a farmer's market with butchers, cheese, produce, bakeries and other odds and ends. Upstairs there is a cultural center where there are tango lessons every Thursday and Saturday. We went there last night. Along Emilio Mitre just a little further down from the houses above is this kindergarden,  

complete with a small tortoise that lives in the front garden. 

I've seen him a couple times. How would you like to send your kids to school here?

Cartoneros. I've rented an apartment in Buenos Aires. It's a one bedroom flat in the barrio of Caballito, which is a nice neighborhood located south and a little more central from downtown. Downtown Buenos Aires is the easternmost part of the city near the River Plate which leads to the Atlantic Ocean. It's sunny and quiet and I have a terrace with a decent view. It has air conditioning, which is key because it has been about 90F with humidity. It also has an old fashioned elevator in which you have to manually close two gates (one for the elevator and one outside the elevator) in order to operate it and a big garden out back with two canaries, one white and one orange, both named pipi. I'm about 10 minutes walking from Parque Chacabuco, where I can run, and another 10 minutes to Rosana's house on the other side of the park. This is a picture of a 'Cartonero' (a 'Carton' is a cardboard box) that I took on Avenida Cobo in Parque Chacabuco. Buenos Aires has no real recycling to speak of. People dump their bottles, plastic, paper and compostables in the trash, and, instead of trash cans, they have metal trash baskets on top of a 3-4 foot pole or perch on the sidewalk outside their homes (presumably so the dogs can't get into it). The city trash guys come everyday - I think. Businesses and residents that don't have trash baskets walk their trash bags to the nearest corner at the end of the day and leave them there. Every evening these Cartoneros descend on neighborhoods with horse drawn-carts, like this guy, or hand-drawn carts, some of which are as small as canvas hotel/gym laundry baskets and others of which are big as a pick up truck. They pick thru trash bags and take anything and everything of recyclable value ... cardboard, cans, plastic, pringles containers .... load them up on their carts and take them away to sell them to whoever is buying. I'm not sure whether there are recycling centers where they can sell their stuff or whether there is some sort of private market. But the city doesn't pay them so they are selling it somewhere to someone. The Cartoneros are men, women and children. I've seen whole families picking thru trash on a corner, tiny kids and all. They are controversial because it confronts people with the extreme poverty that exists in their country, because of the child labor and health risks and because it's unregulated. On the other hand, it's a source of income and labor for people who have none and provides the city, which obviously hasn't invested in recycling or recycling education, with a valuable service. The Cartoneros live in poor neighborhoods an hour or more outside of central Buenos Aires. There used to be a train (El Tren Blanco) that they road with their carts into the city every day. But last I heard the city stopped the train from running (presumably to prevent or discourage the Cartoneros from coming). So now they supposedly come and go in the containers of big trucks which they hire. Here's a short preview of a documentary about them. And while we are on the topic of alternative employment, I've seen vendors here that I never imagined existed. For example, on a cold evening in Salta I saw a guy slowly riding a bicycle by me with something that looked like a doll-house or big koo-koo clock perched on the handle bars. Except he had a coal fire glowing inside of it and little locomotive engine whistle. He was selling fresh roasted nuts, that he roasts right there on his bike. You know he's coming by when you hear his whistle. Yesterday, I saw an man who must have been in his 60s or 70s bicycle by me with something that looked like a big fly-wheel mounted on his handlebars. He was also blowing a whistle, but his was a mouth whistle. Rosana told me that he was a roving knife-sharpener. You hear his whistle and go outside with your knives and he sharpens them right there. 

Salta. Rosana and I came back to Buenos Aires yesterday after 3 weeks up in Salta over Xmas and New Years. We spent most of the time hanging out with her family, and her extended family and her extended extended family. There's a lot of family there, and they all live pretty close to one another. It has taken me two summers now to figure out who is who, and remember most everyones' names - of the people of met. The kids ... her cousins, nieces and nephews ... are the hardest because there are so many of them. Salta is a small city of several hundred thousand people in Northern Argentina. It sits in a large valley surrounded by mountains, which are bright green in summer during the rainy season. Despite the fact that it can rain for a couple hours or sometimes all day during the summer, Salta feels arid ... more like Arizona than California. In fact, if you took Santa Barbara and moved it to Arizona, it looks something like that. It's a old, spanish colonial city. It was where people brought horses, cattle and donkeys for sale in the old days, because it's situated on the old route during the 1600s and 1700s from Potosi, where silver was mined, to Buenos Aires, where the silver was shipped off to Spain. In fact, many of the cities in Northern Argentina that are tiny and you may not even have heard of are older than Buenos Aires and were larger, richer and more important back in the day. Now the industry up here is tourism, wine, tobacco, agriculture and petrol. People from Buenos Aires come here in droves during vacation because it is warm, cheap and looks and feels very different from Buenos Aires. Its slower, safer, people take ciesta and it has plazas, buildings, cathedrals, tamales, folkloric music, gauchos (Argentine cowboys) and colorful mountains and deserts. That's why people come. Many of the portenos who come are young and more or less back-pack and stay in hostels. Unfortunately many come across as somewhat obnoxious and disrespectful, and the locals tolerate them but don't really like them - not altogether that different than our perception of some New Yorkers. And, like New York and the rest of the United States, there is a similar tension here between Buenos Aires and the rest of the country. The center of town is relatively small, and I'd say most people live in the barrios and some small towns surrounding it, which range from very wealthy (people have second homes here ... Robert Duvall and Richard Gere among others) to middle class to working class to slums, depending. Our days went something like this: 10am - get out of bed and have a breakfast of tea, bread, cheese and yogurt and sit around talking; 11:30am - go visit her sister and brother in law who run a bakery from their house (I helped out baking or selling); 3pm - eat a big lunch and sit around and talk; 4pm - take a nap; 6pm - go into town or go visit family; 10pm - tea again, maybe with ham and cheese sandwiches, sit around and talk and go to sleep at 1am. We went south to Cafayate for a long weekend and north, with Rosana's family, up to the Quebrada de Humauaca for a couple days when we got back. This is a pic of a sculpture in the center of the main plaza in Salta, and if you look closely you can see that each of the women have something in common. The other pick is from Cafayate, or actually an hour south of Cafayate in Tucuman at the ruins of Quilmes, which was an Indian tribe with a well fortefied mountain village that held out for a long time against the Spanish until they were finally defeated and sent on a forced march south close to Buenos Aires, which is where Quilmes barrio is today and Quilmes beer is manufactured.