Hoy en BA

Fair bit of fumbling around the first month, as can be expected. Things are looking pretty up these days, though. Several reasons.

First ... we're getting more comfortable with the language and are able to roll easily through most situations and can even start to read the newspaper and magazines enough to read about event listings and show listings and so forth. We've been tossing air kisses left and right ... "muah muah ciao suerte" and getting compliments on our castellano ("casteSHHZHano").

We're finding out a lot more about the fun spots and the not fun spots around here. We've done a bit of fumbling around and learning stuff the hard way and have a good list of stuff that rocks and stuff to avoid. And we've gotten a good idea of what resources are and their limitations. For example ... the guidebooks ... very outdated and often incomplete. But once you know these things ... you know better. And also knowing that doing a trial run of something is often what you need to do before you get it totally right.

And speaking of ... we finally got an apartment that's spot on. Great location, great vibe, right price, a good kitchen, super comfy beds, and nice chilly air conditioning! All for $8 a day each!

Erica found a club that totally rocks, and some other music spots and a handfull of bars that are really cool including a couple of super ill live jazz venues (things that you only really see in the city, no?) And it's great that they go all night and sometimes well into the morning. You're never really required to stop partying if you don't want to and that strikes me as a lot more civilized than how we do it.

Loving the old school style Italian espresso and myriad of croissants and so forth. Coffee, fresh squeezed OJ, a couple of croissants with marmalade and dulce de leche and a shot of sparkling water is a daily thing (and runs like $3 for all of it).

Found the really good parilla BBQ joints and the best pizza and some great Spanish food. Couple of favorites ... a Spanish tortilla (omelette) as thick as your arm filled with gooey scrambled eggs and potatoes and chorizo and ham and onions with a simple salad of arugula garlic balsamic and olive oil. Or a sizzling lomo steak longside a spicy chorizo sausage (off the BBQ) with an impossibly good tomato salad and some fresh garlic mushrooms and an intoxicating herbal chimichurri sauce. The BBQ here is wicked and the vegetables are all farmers market fresh and good. Even simple meals that seem like nothing special will taste inexplicably good ... and it's not due to wizardry in the kitchen ... but more to quality ingredients.

And allow a bit of a tirade here ... but at first I was a bit underwhelmed by the simplicity of the food/preparation here ... but once I tried some stuff I realized that these people haven't allowed capitalism to rob them of fresh tasty ingredients and as such, even simple meals will taste awesome because the veggies are so flavorful and the meats are as well. Very little is processed and most is super fresh and pretty cheap. A bucket of strawberries that taste 100x better than the crap we get in the us costs like $2 in season.

In the US, we have wizard level chefs doing great work, but often times with industrial agriculture produce that tastes like jack shit. Down here the cows live in the pastures and eat grass, like they're supposed to. They don't live in feedlot death zones and pumped with cornmeal and chemicals. We're supposedly the richest country around ... but we accomplish that by cutting corners that affects our real quality of life. Stuff to think about. Time to plug Pollan's new book "In Defense of Food" again. Recommended.

I mean, perhaps there's a silver lining ... in that since our raw materials no longer taste good (except if you go to the farmer's markets, etc.) ... we've developed a serious culinary culture and lots of interesting chefs and lots of diversity. Argentina isn't known for diversity or complexity. Stuff here is mostly fairly traditional, fresh and simple, and it tastes and feels great, but it can get somewhat boring. What we need to do in the US is keep our interesting culinary arts but go back to using real ingredients. That's something we always tried to to at The Grove ... and people were always stunned at how good the food was. That's what happens when you use good quality stuff. Think about that when you go to a restaurant next. Is there any indication that they're using anything but the cheapest factory produced ingredients? Good question to ask. That aspect isn't talked about ... cuz most places use the cheapest shit possible. Do we really need to have the lowest food cost of any developed nation? (true fact) Isn't food something that we should spend a little money on? Isn't it one of the things that we do every day and one of the most basic pleasures of life?

Anyway. That's my tirade. Back to our regularly scheduled programming of crunk and slow jamming.

Other highlights ... Found a really nice suburban river delta zone that's a great getaway from the city and is just a $1 train ride away. Will post about that spot in a minute.

Esteban found a fun hip hop club and has been amazed at the quality of graffiti art and breakdancing here (see his MySpace for more on that).

Erica took the leap and has been taking some yoga classes in Spanish. "Perro abajo", right?

The weather's been nicer. The odd torrential rainstorm does a lot to knock down the smog and temperature and a hearty tropical summer thunderstorm is really a joy. One lesson, though ... that we can't avoid at this point is that January is not the time to come here. We were told that, and disregarded it ... but it's hot and fuggin' muggy here right now. I would compare the weather to say ... North Carolina or Virginia or something. Average highs in the high 80s and muggy. Add smog, and you go out for a few hours and you come home soaked in smoggy humidity and sweat. No bueno, but makes for a really enjoyable shower. One of my favorite things is to take a nice warm shower and get all super clean ... spray myself with some smelly body spray and curl up in my nice dark bedroom under the chilly sheets (the AC rocks!). But yeah, January isn't the best month here ... it's possibly the worst, and in fact, a lot of businesses close in January and the city empties out for the mountains or the beach (which we're about to do in a minute as well!)

Been meeting a few people and they've been nice and helpful once you get past the general city vibes. So between the people and getting the language and being able to dig a little deeper to find the good stuff, life is pretty nice.

But also ... travelling makes you appreciate home. More than you did. And even though there's a lot of things about this place that I admire and enjoy ... there's a lot that's mildly annoying or limiting or unpleasant and I'm definitely going to love coming home and will do so with renewed appreciation for it ... but inspired by the things that I've experienced here. I forget the famous person that said that to love your home you need to leave it, but he or she was right.

Signing out. More soon. Our friends Todd and Pat and Mark are coming tomorrow and the party is ON! We're gonna rage here and hit the greatest hits list then head to wine country and then to the lake district up in the Patagonian Andes and then maybe the beach! Toodles!
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