Travel Diary – Argentina December 19th 2011
Buenos Aires is like Spain in its people’s appetites for staying up late. Lorna and I have been staying up until 1 or 2 AM most nights and have often been the first to bed in the house by a few hours. This means we wake up closer to noon than nine, and Monday was no different.
In our modern world, kids are more interested in using the computer to watch videos and play games than they are in the TV. This has made sharing the computer for checking email difficult. I had brought my wireless router with me to South America but was worried about it being destroyed by the 220V power. Previously, I’d tested my power strip in the socket and knocked out the power to the house while ruining the power strip instantly. One of my goals for Monday was to buy a wireless router for Sarah’s house, which would accomplish the goals of sharing the internet and removing the need for multiple outlets.
Sarah took us out to Avenida San Juan, the largest commercial street near her house in Boedo. We ended up back at the electronics division of Carrefour and I bought a wireless router for $299. That price may shock you, but only because of the way they denote currency in Argentina. Pesos, the local currency are shown with a $ sign, just like US dollars. The exchange rate is approximately 4.25 Pesos to 1 US Dollar. So the router was around US$70. That’s slightly expensive but it turned out to be a pretty nice router.
Maybe it’s just Carrefour, but it seems like getting checked out at any larger store takes far too long here. Waiting to pay for the router was probably a 15 minute affair which included calling a special employee to handle my debit card. It didn’t help that afterward, we decided to pick up a few groceries at the previously mentioned grocery store. Lorna got in line as soon as we entered the store and it proved to be a smart move. Except that when we arrived with our cart, the women behind Lorna in line got angry and said we were cutting. Sarah opted to give up our place in line rather than explain to them. It’s possible that it’s something no one does in this culture, though I’ve seen it many times in the US.
That afternoon, Lorna and I went to the park with Sarah’s daughters Juana and Eva, Eva’s boyfriend Juanci, and the two dogs Perla and Peri. The dogs are extremely hyper and are often confined to the roof so they do not race through the house destroying things. They could benefit from a few weeks of training to calm them down to house living and more trips to the park where they’re allowed to run free with the other dogs.
Residential areas in Buenos Aires have sidewalks that are often riddled with dog shit. The city has given up enforcing that owners pick up the droppings as they fall and simply send by cleaners about once a week. I’ve never been more thankful that people in the US [mostly] clean up after their dogs. The park, where dogs mostly run free with each other, is even worse than the sidewalks. It requires vigilance to avoid stepping in what we have begun to jokingly refer to as landmines.
As an outsider, the idea of the so-called landmines has a few problems. The first is obviously that no one likes stepping in dog doo. There’s also the smell. But the one that’s troubled me the most is I spend so much time looking at the ground, I can’t appreciate the environment as much. I have also found it more difficult to memorize or notice streets.
Dogs in Buenos Aires, or at least in Boedo are rarely spayed or neutered. Though they are allowed to play freely in the park and run without leashes or supervision, you must be careful that your dogs aren’t engaging in any potential puppy production. Perla, the most energetic of dogs, is also fond of running up to picnicking families and checking to see what they’ve got. Peri, on the other hand, took a nap in a warm pool of oily mud.
Among all of this Juana played and danced in the park while Eva and Juanci played guitar and sang in English and Spanish. Eva is looking to begin school at a music conservatory and plays the guitar and piano quite skillfully. Juanci, though not attending school for music, can also play well. His real talent is his voice which I was very impressed with. I played a little of my harmonica, but having no real musical education, felt like I was ruining the songs rather than helping in any way.
The weather and the park were beautiful and we sat beneath large shady trees in the grass. There were some ruins of an old wall which played a role in a previous revolution or war. The general dirtiness of the park was problematic for true relaxation, though. Coupled with the constant danger of a mud-footed Perla crashing through us, it was not what you’d expect from a warm breezy afternoon in a public park.
When we returned home, Sarah had made stuffed peppers, canalones (sp?), beets, fruit salad, tomato sauce from whole tomatoes, and more. She’d cooked up enough food to last the family (and us) for some time before Christmas. That night we all gathered for a family dinner of giant bell peppers stuffed with rice, beef, and garlic topped with cheese and baked in the oven. They were a delicious end to the evening.
