Spring has Sprung

This weekend was simply beautiful and I wanted to post a blog Sunday evening but the day got away from me and here we are almost midway into the week.  The weekend was full of sun, it is officially spring time in the southern hemisphere and especially here in Argentina.  For a big city, it was a lovely weekend, with not a cloud in the sky and clear with blue sky.  Actually, Buenos Aires does actually have some really nice air some of the times and I think the past seven weeks have been especially nice.  Even though if you look at the charts BA gets quite a bit of rain, about four times more rain than Albuquerque mas or menos, it seems to come in buckets when it rains and I suppose it also happens at certain times of the year, I have not yet encountered that time of year.

I am into a groove down here now.  I am feeling good and feel just a bit more comfortable being here, especially knowing my way around a bit better.  I actually am starting to get a handle on where I am in the city and what direction I am headed.  If you look at a map of Buenos Aires its not a trivial city to navigate in your head.  The city is not layed out in any sort of direction.  In fact depending on where you are in the city the streets all tend to run in odd directions.  The city evolved over a long period of time, hundreds of years, and I think different parts of the city over the centuries were layed out differently and then it all sort of came together.  One marker in the city is the river, the Rio Plata to the east, or towards the Atlantic ocean.

Luckily, I can see the sun during the day and know which general direction I am headed off in.  My main map is the collectivo pocket guide, which divides the city up into these little planos or maps and they have like 25 pages of little maps of the city with all of the bus lines on them and subway lines and trains all mashed into a book that fits into your pocket.  So, I am constantly flipping through this teeny book trying to figure out what map I am on and how that fits into the bigger picture.  Not to mention the bus lines are listed in the book in squares and you have to literally follow the squares and figure out what direction the bus is going in.  All basically inside scoop for the porteños in the crowd.

Wikipedia article on Porteño

Its a pretty interesting story and the language is even more interesting.

Museo Benito Quinquela Martín

This has been a weekend of museums for me in Argentina.  Today a friend of mine and I went to one of the more famous neighborhoods in Argentina called La Boca.  We got off the subway at Catedral and walked through San Telmo on a cloudy and cool early Sunday morning.  After passing through Parque Lezama we got lost and did not know which way San Telmo was.  We finally stopped someone to ask them where is La Boca.

The Argentinians are very nice people.  This nice young man Javier who is studying at the University of Buenos Aires in Systems engineering decided to take us around Boca and be our tour guide.  He told us that he had some free time and it was a nice opportunity for him to practice his English.  He was pretty much fluent in English and so we had our own personal tour guide.

La Boca is well known for its colorful buildings.  In fact, if you have ever been to Guayaquil, Ecuador, you would see similar architecture and colors.  The neighborhood or barrio is at the mouth of the Riachuelo.  It also home to one of Argentina´s most famous soccer clubs.  Javier was proud to take us to the stadium to show us where La Boca plays their games.

One of Argentina´s most famous painters was born in La Boca.  Benito Quinquela Martín paints the common person in port scenes that mainly take place in La Boca.  I would consider him similar to Diego Rivera in the fact that Diego also painted the common people in murals.  Since he lived in La Boca, we went to his museum and also his home for many years.  The house and museum over look the port of Buenos Aires and the city in the background.  Inside the museum there are some other painters as well.  Some nice paintings from other artists in Argentina that painted around the same time as Benito.  We walked to the fourth floor of the museum and then outside on to the terrace.  There is a lovely terrace over looking the whole city of Buenos Aires in all directions.  It was a cool cloudy day, unlike yesterday which was sunny and warm and last Sunday in Parque Lezama when the spring sun in Buenos Aires was in full force.

This painting by Benito is housed in a very prominent place in the museum.  There is a small cord in front of the painting denoting its importance and also there are are chairs where one can sit down and admire this lovely work of art depicting life in Buenos Aires at the turn of the century when the port city was very popular.  It was soon afterwards that the Panama Canal would open and many ships at that time no longer had to sail around the horn.  This, as emphasized in earlier posts was the turning point for Argentina.  At the time, it was one of the most prosperous countries in the world and the city of Buenos Aires was as rich and advanced as New York City.  That is why so many immigrants moved to Argentina at the same time they were moving to the United States.  Both countries at the time were the places to be, clearly at the hands of the people depicted in the paintings of Benito.

One of my favorite paintings at the museum was a painting by another artist called.

Amanecer en Cordoba
by Guillermo Fray Butler

Amanecer is a very lovely word and one that I rather like.  It means daybreak or dawn, which is one of my favorite times of day.  I love rising early and catching the first light of day.  Especially in the summer time when the mornings are cool and the light is just beginning to come up over the mountains.

Here is a nice description of the painting.

Solitario en el cual

no se observa la presencia humana

en primer plano se observa

una casa humilde con techo de paja

junto a un árbol sin follaje,

en segundo plano

otra casa similar y en

tercer plano montañas.

Paleta alta y cálida trabajado

en tonos ocres, rojizos; cielo amarillo

Alone in which there is no human presence 
the observed foreground 
a humble house with thatched roof
next to a leafless tree,
 
In the background 
another similar house 

At the third level there are mountains.
High and warm palette worked
in shades of ocher, red, with a yellow sky.

Museo de Arte Tigre

Spring is in the air in Buenos Aires.  Since this is my first time here, I do not know about the weather, but looking at the ten day forecast and having witnessed a gorgeous week of weather, it appears that the first or second week in September is the beginning of spring.  In other words its about a week or two earlier than the official launch of spring.

Today was my first day riding the trains in Argentina.  I have ridden the subway several times, but I have never been on the train.  There are trains that run all over BA, and I cross the tracks and see the trains go by all the time but I had not yet ventured on to them.  Today was the day.  Actually, doing anything down here new takes some preparing for.  Since I don´t speak the language, actually I am starting to feel more comfortable with the language, when you get on the train you want to be pretty sure you know what the heck is going on.  Like where to pay, how much to pay, where to get on, where to get off, how often the trains run etc.  All things that are good to know before you get on the train.

Well I am happy to learn that the train and the subway are the same price.  Its about US 25 cents to take the train or in Argentina one peso.  One peso is about 25 cents at this time.  The exchange rate has been changing the past year, and at the beginning of last year it was about three pesos to the dollar and now its about four pesos to the dollar. For years, the peso was pegged to the dollar, and so prior to 2002 it was one to one.  But after the big economic crisis of 2001 in Argentina, the peso has slowly been inching up, and/or to put it another way there has been inflation in Argentina relative to the dollar.

I took a train ride to the end of the line.  I love going to ends of lines and the end of the line I went on today was absolutely gorgeous.  At the end of the line is a part of Buenos Aires called Tigre.  Actually, today was my first time outside of Capital Federal.  Capital Federal is the part of Buenos Aires province that is the capital of Argentina.  I guess, someone please correct me if you know, that Capital Federal is like Washington DC.  Capital Federal, which is the heart of the city of BA is in the province of Buenos Aires.  Buenos Aires is actually quite a big province in Argentina.  Most people outside of Argentina probably think BA is the big city in Argentina.  And actually that is not correct, I didn´t know this myself until I arrived here.  Buenos Aires is a large province in Argentina and Capital Federal is the heart of the province of BA.  The outlying areas of Capital Federal are actually in the province of BA.

I left Capital Federal for the first time and ventured out into the province of BA to an area called Tigre.  Buenos Aires is on a major river in South America and the delta north of town is really big.  Tigre is the first town north of BA that sits on the Parana River which is the river that connects with the Uruguay river which acts as the border of Uruguay and Argentina.  The Parana River heads up to Rosario and another town past Rosario called Santa Fe.

Tigre has a beautiful river walk that goes on for quite a distance.  At the end of the river walk a mile or two up the river is the Museo de Arte Tigre.  This was my second museum I have been in here, actually sort of my first that I actually walked around and looked at the paintings.  No offense, but in general museums in Latin America are not really that good compared to world class museums, but the paintings I saw today were nice enough.  I happened upon some Art opening or celebration at the museum and enjoyed a reception that they were having.  The second floor of the museum has a very large terrace that extends a long way over looking the river.  So I got to stand in the sun for about one hour, watch the boats go by, and talk with some local people about what is going on in Tigre.  Actually, I mainly listened and they talked, but this is good experience for me to listen to what people are saying.  I got a tiny bit of their conversation.  Its actually quite difficult to listen to a conversation and understand what they are talking about because you don´t have any context.  The day was spectacular, and I had a very nice sunny time.

atardecer 

Argentina tren 

se inclina 

abunda la belleza 

una chica joven embarazada 

abrazaba a su novio 

el tren se detiene

un hombre sentado 

a mi lado se levanta

la chica embarazada

disminuye el asiento

un joven frente a mí

tiene a su madre

a su vez a las casas vuelte

de los edificios grande 

una anciana vende chicles

con sabor a café

me quede dormido 

en el confort

con el pueblo

sentado a mi lado.

late afternoon

argentina train

sways and clacks

beauty abounds

a young girl pregnant

holds her boyfriend

the train stops

a man sitting

next to me rises

the pregnant girl

declines the seat

a young boy

across from me

holds his mother

houses turn to bigger buildings

an old woman sells chicklets

coffee flavored

I doze off in comfort

with the people

sitting next to me.

Parque Lezama cerca de San Telmo

One of the main reasons I am in Buenos Aires is because in the spring time a friend of mine did a tour of South America and he and his girl friend Susannah ended their trip in Buenos Aires and they stayed here ten days before returning to Estados Unidos.  Two or three days after returning home, I called him on the phone to check in with him and see how his trip went and debrief him on his journey.  He was kind enough to call me back almost immediately because he knew the trip was so fresh in his mind that I would get the full story while it was still fresh in his mind and he was still pretty much in the dream of being in South America.  We had a very long conversation, probably close to two hours but when he hung there were two things he said that really rang out in my mind.  One was that Salta, Argentina was a very nice town.  And two was that Buenos Aires was the coolest most livable big city he had ever been in, and he has done a lot of traveling in his day.  So, it was with that information that I started doing my research, and in the end settled on moving and living in Buenos Aires.  I want to publicly thank my friend for him getting me down here, and also say that in life, you never know who you are going to influence when you tell them something that rings in their ear.

Today I took my same friends advice and visited the area of San Telmo on a Sunday afternoon.  I continue to be amazed by this country, place and people and today was clearly no exception.  If and when you ever have the opportunity to visit this lovely city, be sure and ir a San Telmo a Domingo.  You won´t be sorry.

Besides the beauty of the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, it is here that you get a sense for the history of this city more than any place else I have visited so far on my journey in Argentina.  Currently, I live in Belgrano which is a more trendy, upscale, newer part of town.  When I say newer, I mean the last 100 years.  San Telmo, dates back to the 17th century and you can sense and feel an air of the past and what it was like to live here before this became the Paris of South America in the early part of the twentieth century when Buenos Aires was on par with New York City as far as economic growth and prosperity.

Wikipedia San Telmo
Pictures of San Telmo

It really wasn´t until about 1910, just after the Panama Canal was completed that Buenos Aires began to lose its status on the world stage.  I would argue that today, at the beginning of the twenty first century that Latin America as a whole is regaining its luster, and that especially Brazil and the European countries south of Brazil that are really making a nice come back in many different ways.  This is a positive note on what is happening both politically, culturally and economically in Latin America today.  Even recently, I read an article where Cuba is considering adding incentives for people to move there from around the world.

Enough rambling about history and economics, let us get back to the beauty of the city.

For the past couple of days it has rained here.  In fact, the winter weather has been very nice since I arrived except for the first couple of days that were cold and windy.  After that, the weather has been sunny, rather temperate for this part of the world and mostly sunny.  This was our first storm since I arrived and for a time there it was raining really hard and there was some flooding in the lower lying delta areas of the Rio Plata.  In another post I will talk about the river and its influence on the area as one of the largest port cities in South America.

Today was a simply lovely day.  Yesterday afternoon the weather broke and the sun came out and I walked over to China town which is about a 10 minute walk from where I live.  Its actually nice to have access to some pretty good Asian grocery stores and restaurants close by.  Its almost like being back in southern California on a very, very small scale.

Today I ventured out around mid day and took the subway downtown.  Its about a 20 minute ride into the heart of the city from where I live.  All transit points end downtown where the big ports are as well.  I live at the end of the D line, and one good thing about living at the end of the line is you can almost go to sleep on the ride home and not worry about missing your stop.  I was thinking about that today as I was dozing off on the subway while reading my book and watching all of the activity around me.  The same was true when I lived in LA.  I always rode the Gold Line home, I loved riding the Gold line and I lived at the next to the last stop on the Gold Line called Allen.  Here in Buenos Aires I live at the next to the last stop on the Green D line at a stop called Juramento.  This is all probably much more detailed information than any one cares about, but another one of my friends said she wanted details, so I am sparing the rest of you with too many details.

The Parque Lezama was lovely.  Its on the southern edge of San Telmo and houses the Museo Histórico Nacional.  The park is well known for its Sunday flea market, and its there that I bought some pretty nifty items that I needed.  As I mentioned in another post, if you are going to buy stuff in Latin America, it certainly makes more sense to buy stuff directly from the people instead of stores where you are going to pay more of a full price.  So, I have been making a habit of buying most of the stuff I need on the street if I can find it, and you get slightly better prices.  The markets in Buenos Aires are in the parks.  The Parque Lezama flea market is known for its clothes.

I spent hours hanging out in the park today.  Its not a really large park, but its big enough so that you feel like you have a bit of space and with the sun blasting down on my face on this late winter day in Argentina I was very happy.  I got to talk a bit to the local folks and mostly observe the people and the flea market vendors as well.  I was once a flea market vendor at my local flea market in Placitas, New Mexico so I know what its like to hang out all day and sell stuff.  This was a good flea market.  For those of you who attended the Santa Fe flea market back in the late 70´s and early 80´s it is probably more like that, at least that is what I heard.

As the sun started to set and the afternoon began to wane I realized I had not eaten any food for hours.  So I stopped by a local panaderia for a sandwich and a cookie.  As I sat outside, eating my cookie and sandwich, I began to contemplate mi vida and the corazón y el alma of what its all about to experience the richness of being on Mother Earth, and the opportunity we have to embrace our lives with the utmost appreciation y pasión.

Parque Lezama

three young girls

laughing next to me

sunny park bench 

happy puppy

happy people

selling their wares and tools

sunshine abounds

san telmo edge

He comprado un 

cordón del zapato y

libros de Sherlock Holmes

después de tres días de lluvia

un muy linda dia 

me gusta buenos aires