Bienvenudo a Buenos Aires

Despite the fact that it is cliche to have one nowadays, I have decided to start a blog.  At the outset it will primarily be a journal of my experiences as I live and travel in South America.  Over time I think it will morph into a forum for ideas and theories I've accumulated throughout my travels.  Without further adieu...

I landed in Buenos Aires 3 days ago and for starters I am happy to report I am alive and happy!  The city has such a relaxed and rich feel to it.  The people have been super friendly despite my broken Spanish and are very patient with me.  I am staying in a young, hip part of the city called Las Canitas at the studio of my ex-KBC coworker Dom.   My many thanks to him for giving me a place to stay while he takes care of his newborn with his fiancee in Rio de Janeiro. 

My goal is to post once a day more or less in an effort to chronicle as much as possible before returning stateside.  I am hoping my writing will improve too as it's been over 10 years since I've written anything on a consistent basis and to any poor soul actually reading this I promise to make it as entertaining as possible. 

To quickly recap the last few days, I arrived on a Tuesday + after being overcharged by the cabbie got situated to Dom's pad where there is baby stuff everywhere.  Little things here and there don't work right, but overall it is very comfortable living here and he has Direct TV which is great because I can follow some of the NFL playoffs.  That's pretty much the only thing I'll watch as one of my goals is to ween myself off of TV whilst here (with LOST the only significant exception of course).  My first night out I ate at Camp Bravo, downstairs on the corner and they make the BEST steak filled raviolis on the planet.  They have multiple sauces they serve it with and at the moment I can eat it each meal so have to have some discipline.  At night I went out had a delicious steak, with garlic fries and large beer for $12.  Any prices I put in my blog are for my American friends who are thinking of visiting.  I'd say, on average, most things are about a third of the price they'd be in they US and 1/4 or 1/5 NYC prices.  For example, a bottle of champagne at a hip club is $25.  Which brings me to my next adventure which is a club called Mute down the street from where I am staying.  While having a few beers to get over my jetlag, a few girls waved me over.  Turned out one was an Argentine lawyer who speaks no English.  In fact, none of them spoke much English so I've been thrown into the fire on the language front which is what I want. 

They were all nice and invited me to join them for dinner at their casa the next day.  Another lawyer cooked the meet + I helped him, while the girls prepared salads and sides.  Afterward, they took me to a spanish dinner club with spanish music and people dancing.  Apparently Diego Maradona frequents the place and his pics are all over the wall, but, much to my chagrin, the loco soccer player was not in attendance.  Afterwards we went to another American style club which was also fun.  One of the big differences here is how late everything is shifted throughout the day.  Dinner starts around 10pm and people don't start going out till around 1am and leave the clubs from 5-7am.  Siestas are normal but not as predominant as in Spain.

It took me most of the following day and traversing much of the city to set up an Arg based cell phone.  That night I met up with a tango instructor who was introduced to me by my friend Diane in Miami.  He had a table at  a "milonga" which is a hall made specifically for dancing.  It looks much like a normal wedding reception with tables surrounding a hardwood floor where couples or people who meet there dance.  I will need to post pics of these events as they are fascinating.  Much of it is an older crowd + men approach women all night long asking them to dance to 1-4 songs.  It's an adult version of a high school dance except that everyone there dances the tango really well.  I will discuss these and the tango in  later posts.  Afterwards, I met up with the lawyer and her friends at a cheezy club called Western, fashioned after a saloon in the wild west.  We danced, had some late night pizza and I retired with the sun starting to come up. 

Today, I decided to check out the pool on the roof of the building.  To my pleasant surprise there were only 3 people up there and they were all chicas speaking spanish.  After a while I found out one is my neighboor who runs a beauty salon out of her apt.  They put up with my spanish, + we cooled off from the 80 degree weather with cervezas and the pool.  I left for my 1st tango lesson with Raul at 5pm and he taught me at a studio owned by a famous sex symbol actress here named Jessica Schultz.  He literally walked me through the basics, making sure my cadence matched the beat of the music.  We went out for some empanadas after I am hopeful this is the start of something good (the dancing I mean).