Culture, Steak, and Dancing in the Street

Well today was quite a full day, except for the fact that I woke up at 10:30 this morning in kind of a haze.  I assure you all that I was not doing any heavy drinking last night.  Instead I sat around with Martine, Melanie, (two French-Canadians) and Teemu (a young Finnish man - ooh that´s fun to say, try it out loud) talking politics, and philosophy, and learning that even if people like YOU, they still might bash you for being American.

I had my complimentary breakfast, which was mostly bread products - something that is perfectly okay with me, which Jay can and will readily attest to - and shared a cup of maté with a tango instructor from Belgium who is here to learn even more tango.

I decided that today would be a great day to head out and see some of the great stuff that this city has to offer.  I hopped a bus and took it down to the Recoleta neighborhood.  Oh, a word of caution: if you do ever ride the bus in Buenos Aires, you should know that you don´t press the stop button a block away from where you want to get off as a courtesy to the driver.  No no, you press that button, he stops and opens the door for you - yes, right in the middle of the street.  So that was exciting at first!

I started off by just walking around the neighborhood, and eventually made my way to La Iglesia  de nuestra Señora de Pilar.  It was a beatiful church, and one of the special things about it is that they opened up the historic cloisters for the public to come see.  For the rest of you heathens like me, this is the super-secret area above and around the main church-y area where you can access the choir, the pulpit, etc.  They had turned this area into a 3-level museum of church-y artifacts.  Don´t misunderstand my levity, it was truly beautiful artwork, and very cool to see tables and chairs used by monks hundreds of years ago.  There was definitely an emphasis on life and death in the exhibit, but probably my favorite part was looking out the windows onto my next stop: Cementario de Recoleta.

This was a really cool place.  I had never been in a cemetary quite like this one before.  I found a quiet spot in there, and wrote down some notes.  A warning: it might get a bit chesy for ya, but c´mon, I was in a cemetary.

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In the cemetary it´s quiet.  If you stop and listen, the sounds of the city float in all around me, but easily fade away as I get lost in the unending rows of mausoleums.  I look in the locked glass doors and see the stairs going down and fading into the dark.  Only now do they seem to be more than creepy boxes with bodies inside.  The carved stone above the entrances say things like "La Familia Duarte" or "Juan Cayoso y Familia".  These are homes, and together they all make up a community to be remembered and experienced by the living.

 

A cat lies at theentrance to the corridor that houses the tomb of Eva Perron - perhaps she knows that this is the place to get some scratches and love - indeed I can´t help myself from stopping to spend some time with her.

Evita´s tomb is surrounded by people - but nobody is talking.  We all patiently wait our turn to take a picture and to stand quietly for a moment and pay our respects.

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It was very cool to see this place.  On my way through I found some crypts whose doors were completely unlocked and open.  One in particular I seriously considered going down into (I mean how often does one get a chance like this?!) but the creep factor of having to walk past two coffins to get down there and there horrific possibility that someone would come along and lock the door while I was down there was reason enough to take a picture and move on.

I then went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes where they had the work of many European artists on display.  Gaugin, Rodin, Modigliani, Picasso, Degas, Manet & Monet to name a few.  They also had Luis Felipe Noé´s newest exhibit on display.  Very cool, and lots of Argentinian pride in that exhibit hall.

My day of culture continued to the now famous Giant Metal Flower Sculpture

This sculpture is enormous, and not only that but it opens and closes with the rising and setting of the sun.  Of course I didn´t hang around to see it happen, but it was impressive nonetheless!

I went back to the hostel (now a bit more savvy about when to push that stop button on the bus) and decided that I would splurge on my steak dinner tonight.  When I stepped out into the streets of Palermo Viejo something clicked.  All the restaurants had waiters out setting the sidewalk tables as various smells wafted out from each.  The early diners (at 9:00) chatted loudly as I made my way to La Cabrera.

If there was any doubt in my mind that Argentinians love food, and prepare it well, then this dinner confirmed it.  I tried to take a picture of my meal but it was too dark, so I will just say that it was an enormous cut of Rib-eye steak served on a giant wooden slab with 14 little side dishes ranging from mini eggs and cocktail onions in this delicious sauce, to champignon mushrooms and hot apple sauce.  I didn´t have a reservation and so was seated out back in the small graveled area there.  In the next 20 minutes the place filled up!  Mostly large groups, but a good mix of tourists and locals.  It was casual (I wore my flip-flops and shorts) but quite elegant.

On my way home I heard what sounded like construction in the streets.  "No way" I thought, "it´s 11:30 at night!"  It wasn´t construction but a group of 3-4 dozen people playing the drums and dancing in the street.  It was one of those very cool moments where I felt so lucky to be there watching.  They went on for about a half-hour - switching instruments or tapping out to other dancers when they got tired.  I took a video of it, but haven´t figured out how to get it up here yet.  When I do, I will.  I don´t know what it was that they were doing, it seemed to me to be an impromptu street dance for its own sake.  When I got back to the hostel, somebody that that it might have been Capoeira, but I didn´t think so.  They had "Atrevidos por Costumbre" printed on some of the drums, so if anyone knows what that means, please share.

I got home, cut off a piece of my steak for the house dog that lives here, and settled in to bed - the first top bunk I´ve slept in in years!  I´m hoping to spend 1-2 more days in Buenos Aires, and am curently looking for couches to surf on, or places to stay somewhere south of here.  That´s all for now except for

La Palabra Español del dia:

Tango - what I might be doing tomorrow night