by Lynne Martin
On the wild taxi ride from the airport (Argentineans drive like the central and southern Italians most of them are!), we could see why many call Buenos Aires the Paris of South America. Its physical resemblance to our favorite city is uncanny at times, and in certain neighborhoods it was easy to forget we were in South America. As it turned out, that was a good thing sometimes.
Palermo, the neighborhood where we would be staying, pleased us when we arrived. It was a beautiful, tree-lined area with well-kept buildings and a wide range of restaurants, pastry shops, small stores, and services. It was also in a non-tourist area, which is where we like to be.
Marina, our apartment owner’s agent, was waiting for us in the lobby. She was young, gorgeous, sweet, and in a hurry. She kissed both of us on each cheek—not Beverly Hills or French air-kisses, but full-on smooches—and led the way upstairs. It took five trips to get our belongings up the minuscule elevator, which only accommodated one bag. (Our packing skills weren’t honed yet, so in this first phase of the adventure, we had too many clothes and too much equipment.)
Marina dashed through the apartment, chattering in her fractured English about light switches, Wi-Fi connections, and keys as we struggled to keep up with her. The space was small, but light and airy. It featured a two-story living room, a decent little kitchen, and a guest bath on the first level. The loft bedroom had a private bath and a small desk tucked in the corner. A fancy electric contraption lowered a huge room-darkening shade over the two-story window. The tiny balcony included two little French bistro chairs and a miniature table. Marina stood on the balcony and pointed vaguely in the direction of the subway entrance and grocery store. Then she gave us a dazzling smile, glanced at her watch, and said something about her novio, her boyfriend. She kissed Tim and me again on both cheeks. “Hasta luego.” Then she squeezed herself into the elevator, which was not much bigger than she, and disappeared. We were left in the doorway, rubbing lipstick marks off our cheeks as we wondered what to do first.
The Argentinean kissing ritual is tantamount to the accepted Mexican cortesías. From our experiences in Europe, we knew people practice the two-cheek kiss, usually among social friends. Still, the full-on bussing in Argentina took some getting used to. The first time I visited a manicurist in Buenos Aires and she approached me with pursed lips, I jumped back. I dodged her advances until I recognized the ritual and then started returning her greeting.
We noticed that as people arrived for work in stores, banks, or even the subway, kisses flew around. Everyone got two smacks, just as they do in many European countries. We eventually caught on. It tickled me to see Tim kissing other men’s cheeks, something American men would never be caught dead doing to each other. I was proud of Tim and his confidence in adopting this tradition. Real men participate in local customs!
***
“So, here we are,” Tim said to me after Marina’s departure. “Let’s get some lunch before we try to get settled.” He fiddled with the coffeemaker, which had been a relief for my tired eyes to see when we first walked in. A coffeepot is essential to our happy dispositions. My saint of a husband takes care of the caffeine jolt we both need before we croak our first words of the day.
I was reading the tenant’s instruction notebook, looking for Internet codes. “Sure,” I muttered, opening my computer. Tim started impatiently tapping the espresso machine. “Damn! Neither one of these works. We need a coffeepot before tomorrow. Call Marina, please, and ask her what we’re supposed to do.”
I picked up the phone, dialed the number she had scribbled, and heard a recorded person speaking rapid Spanish. I couldn’t understand a thing. The “Y” sound for a double “L” is replaced with a “sh,” so a word like calle, which would sound out as “kai-yay” in Mexico or Spain, becomes “kah-shay” in Argentina. Their cadence of speaking also isn’t derivative of Spanish but rather Italian, which further complicates things for visitors attempting to understand them. These and other unusual linguistic challenges would almost drive me over the edge in the ensuing weeks.
I didn’t hear the beep to leave a message, so I hung up. Clearly, I hadn’t understood Marina when she instructed us on phone use, and I never did learn exactly how to use the telephone there, so we resorted to other means of communication.
I sent an email SOS to Marina about the coffeepots and then we set out to find food. Lacy jacaranda trees, ready to burst into exquisite purple bloom, filled the esplanade below our apartment and jolted us out of our moodiness. The urban bustle of cars, taxis, bikes, school kids, and shoppers delighted us, and we saw our first professional dog walker, who had impressive control over all twelve pooches he was walking at once. At sidewalk cafes, gorgeous tall European and American-looking people draped their long, slender bodies over black and tan woven bistro chairs as they indulged in heavily foamed coffees and flaky pastries. These people looked as if they belonged in the West Village, but when they spoke what sounded like Spantalian, it reminded us that we were in the opposite hemisphere. Our tired, troubled brains struggled to sort out whether we were in Paris, Rome, Buenos Aires, or Manhattan.
When we finally chose a restaurant, our confusion increased. Dark wood paneling, lots of polished brass, and a black-and-white checked tile floor said Italy. The tables and their authentically uncomfortable French bistro chairs jammed next to each other and an impressive wine list suggested Paris.
This couldn’t be France or Italy. The menus were in Spanish! Plus, the portions sailing past on waiters’ trays were gargantuan, making me feel like we were in an American version of some multinational hodgepodge of a restaurant. But when the waiter gave me an extremely heavy wine pour, I knew for sure I wasn’t in Europe. The gorgeous red liquid shimmered to the brim of a big wineglass, not halfway up the short chubby one they usually present in other countries. He had served me Malbec, the delicious Argentine wine that straddles somewhere between a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Merlot on the taste scale. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that, because of my consumption of that particular brand over the next six weeks, Trapiche Vineyards had added a few extra rows of vines.
Tim ordered a hamburger, which may sound unadventurous but actually made sense. Argentina brings to mind Ricardo Montalban, the wildly handsome Latino actor in those ancient Lincoln commercials, riding the estancia range on a fine Corinthian leather saddle, herding Texas-size steaks-on-the-hoof.
My spouse smiled expectantly as the waiter delivered a mountain of food. “Oh, my God,” he exclaimed, inspecting the steaming plate. With his fork, he lifted slices of pancetta, glistening with fat, to reveal beneath them a pile of thin, crisp waffle-shaped potatoes. “Look at these gorgeous things,” he said, his voice muffled with the first irresistible morsel. Eventually, he found the meat patty, at least two inches thick. It sat on a ciabatta bun, topped with a slab of melting cheddar.
I laughed. “I can’t believe that they put a fried egg on top of the whole thing. But look, they gave you some lettuce and tomato, so it can’t be all bad.”
Meanwhile, I attacked my plate of ethereally light homemade pasta, tossed with arugula pesto and dusted with an enormous amount of fluffy shaved parmesan cheese. Perhaps Argentina wasn’t quite so bad.
We rolled back to our building, half-lost in a food coma. We noticed a pastry shop with glass cases displaying empanadas and pastries, diabolically located on the ground floor of our building. Clouds of fragrant baking aromas wafted into our apartment each time they fired up the ovens. Resistance was futile; I knew right away that this visit was going to cost more in self-esteem than money.
But the culinary temptations didn’t stop there. Within waddling distance of our apartment—we’re talking two blocks—we had also passed eight restaurants, three bakeries, six fresh fruit and vegetable stands, flower and news kiosks, and two pasta factories. Both of those feature homemade dishes slathered with the customer’s choice of rich, authentic Italian sauces, topped by mountains of freshly grated Parmigiana Reggiano. Clerks packaged up customers�
� choices in oven-proof containers. We’re quick learners, and we hauled many steaming bags home with us during our stay.
At the front door of the building, I fumbled in my overweight purse for the keys Marina had breezily demonstrated during her whirlwind tour of our accommodations.
There were three thick, ornate keys on the ring. They reminded me of fairy castles and old-time jails. (Within a few days, I noticed that every set of keys looked exactly like ours: one regular and two medieval. Does Buenos Aires only have one manufacturer that works in cahoots with all the builders? I’ll never know.) The short key carried a familiar size and shape. It opened the building’s front door. No problem. The other two were about three inches long, thick, and heavy with big notches at the business end, and we had no idea which opened what. After a week or so, we figured out that the key with the rounded top belonged to the apartment. That took care of half our battle. The other half was trying to open the door. The key rattled around the enormous hole in the door, while the operator (Tim or me) searched for its invisible slot by feel. The light in the hall outside the elevator operated on a timer switch, so when the end of the key connected with the slot, the timer shut off the interior hallway light and shrouded us in pitch blackness. Of course!
When this happened the first few times, we tried to enter the apartment blind. Naturally, we dropped the bags of shopping, the purse, umbrella, jacket, and whatever else we toted. The key then often fell out of the door and clattered to the floor, locking us out. We’d begin the procedure again, trying to select the right key, and swearing and fumbling for the light switch as we tripped over the belongings we’d dropped in the first place.
We never did find out what the other key was supposed to open.
***
From our experience in Buenos Aires, we established a first-day routine in a strange city that still works for us. Tim always arranges transportation at our arrival point to avoid a panic situation over language, traffic, or other unexpected problems. Once we’ve reached the apartment, paid and tipped the driver, and greeted whoever is meeting us, we shut the door on the world long enough to regroup and catch our breath. This is really important to us, especially because we are no longer as young as we used to be. We need time to acclimate when faced with exhaustion, linguistic challenges, and new surroundings.
We have also created our own checklist of essential items to inspect, like testing air conditioning and heating, how the appliances work, and other details. That checklist has grown very detailed the longer we have been on the road, and I expect we’ll add to it all the years we will be home free. We learn something new with every move-in. Experience eventually taught us to review that checklist with the manager before we let him or her out of our sight. But when we first arrived in Buenos Aires, we hadn’t learned that trick yet, and it cost us dearly in time and frustration.
Next, we inspect apartment storage and equipment, and read the owner’s manual provided by management. It usually contains essential information about the apartment, neighborhood, and city.
In our routine, I inspect kitchen supplies and start the shopping list. Usually, we find random necessities are lacking: no scissors, no pads for lists, only a couple of limp tea towels, a kitchen sponge used for far too long (and located in another room), and a lack of washcloths for the bath.
We also try to figure out how everything works. Anything with switches and knobs tends to be taxing to learn in another language. For instance, I noticed that the air-conditioning unit in our Buenos Aires apartment was located about twelve feet up the two-story wall in the living room, unreachable from either the floor or loft bedroom. The AC’s motor gobbled up about half of our little outside balcony. I briefly searched for a thermostat, but since it was early spring, we didn’t need air conditioning. I quit looking and went on to the light switch challenge. Down the road, that would become a big mistake.
Then we usually have few tense moments over tech stuff like TVs, cable, DVD players, and Internet connections. As the screen flashes “Aucun Signal,” “No Señal,” or “Belirsiz” in the upper left corner of the black screen, Tim will ask through clenched teeth, “Did you touch this remote?”
“No Signal” looks and sounds the same in any language. It means the user could be facing the next few minutes—or hours—engaged in fruitless electronic sleuthing, trying to figure out what the problem is and where through trial and error. The situation grows even more maddening when one is stumbling around in another language.
One of the great advantages of spending at least a month in a city is that we don’t need to hurry to see the sights. Thus, on the first day, we usually don’t stray far from the apartment, instead contenting ourselves with a tour of our immediate neighborhood so we can pick up groceries, find an ATM, and spot some local restaurants.
On the second day of a stay, we try to go a little farther afield and figure out the transportation system. In Buenos Aires, there are cabs everywhere. However, as in most metropolitan cities (Buenos Aires has thirteen million people), traffic is snarled often and public transportation works best. It’s a lot cheaper, too.
The first time we left our immediate neighborhood and headed for the more populated area to the east of us in Buenos Aires, we learned that strolling at our pace wouldn’t work. After I’d been poked by several elbows and prodded by people who wanted to cross before the light changed, we smartened up our stride and fell in with the rest of the pedestrians. The Argentineans took no prisoners. It’s a rough-and-tumble kind of town, sort of like Manhattan but with even more attitude.
We found the subway entrance and clattered down the stairs with the rest of the crowd. Once underground, we stepped back against the wall to observe the action. Local people in subway stations know what they’re doing, and a smart newbie stays out of the way of the daily riders. We have found that on day one in a new city, whether we’re mastering a subway system, catching a cab, getting a beer, or buying groceries, we save time and humiliation by observing how the regulars handle daily life before we jump in.
We bought subte passes, which allowed ten trips on the system, studied the map, and took ourselves to La Recoleta Cemetery, where almost five thousand vaults sit aboveground inside fourteen walled acres, creating a small city of mausoleums. It reminded us of New Orleans’ Cities of the Dead, which Anne Rice so richly describes in her Vampire Chronicles books. It’s eerie to walk down tree-lined streets full of elaborate houses built for dead people. The juxtaposition of ornate gothic spires on miniature chapels fascinated us, especially as they stood against a backdrop of modern apartment and office buildings. A gigantic upscale shopping center bordered one side. Quiet streets frozen in time in the midst of a frantic city have a chilling effect on the visitor’s equilibrium.
We searched the cemetery for familiar names and quickly found former Argentinean First Lady Eva Perón, subject of the smash Broadway musical Evita! Her surprisingly simple shrine stands among famous writers, musicians, actors, and other notables. As we sat on a bench to rest and compare notes, Tim said, “Did you notice how many of these things honor heavy-duty military guys? There’s definitely a martial atmosphere in this country. They must have paid generals really well to afford this real estate.”
“Maybe they gave them a discount because they controlled everything anyway, huh?” I replied half-jokingly.
The turbulent, disturbing history of Argentina aroused our curiosity. The nation’s politics and economy haven’t been stable for most of the country’s existence. Even during our short stay, we could sense the dramatic, moody, temperamental elements of its history through its citizens. On a single Saturday afternoon, we watched a wild and wonderful gay and lesbian pride parade and street fair with people of every persuasion adorned in breathtakingly exotic attire; fifteen minutes later on the Avenida Constitución, hundreds of women chanted, wept, and demanded justice for people “disappeared” by their government between 1976 and 1983. Our take on the Argentinean people is summed up with the joke
about the definition of an Argentinean: a person who looks Italian, speaks Spanish, dresses like the French, but thinks he is English. No wonder they seem to be a confused, melancholy people! (We developed a theory that their notoriously unpredictable economy might have something to do with it, too.)
When that strange afternoon ended, we were happy to collapse on our little balcony, have a cool drink, and see what the neighbors were up to. We were unaccustomed to high-rise apartment living where people lived their lives in full view of us. In the neighboring buildings across the way, they closed their drapes only when they were undressing or sleeping. We got to know their habits quickly. One couple’s red walls, decorated with Italian paintings and colorful pottery, fascinated us. We couldn’t resist glancing at them as they watched TV from their big chairs, enjoyed cocktails in their living room, or huddled together reviewing their budget. It was like watching Rear Window, only without the murder.
Overall, we didn’t witness too much drama, but one evening we did see an animated discussion between a man and a woman in another apartment. It got so heated that we were alarmed.
“My God, Tim, what will we do if he knocks her across the room?” I asked as the guy got out of his chair, waving his arms at the woman.
“I have no idea,” Tim whispered. “We don’t even know where the front door of that building is, and we sure as hell can’t speak enough Spantalian to call the cops and make ourselves understood.”
We exhaled with relief when he reached her side of the table, put his arms around her, and kissed her in reconciliation. She kissed him back, thank God. By the time we had gotten ourselves together, he could have thrown her off the balcony if he wanted to! This urban intimacy was startlingly different from our suburban California life, where waving at the neighbors while they waited for the garage door to open might constitute our only contact with them. We certainly wouldn’t have known the color of their dining room walls.