Buenos Aires
I'm in Buenos Aires now, and somewhat settled, so hopefully the temporal distance between blog posts will be a little shorter from now on. Maybe not. Who cares.
I'm here for at least the next couple of weeks, at least, and maybe longer. I have a week more of (Castilian) Spanish classes, and then who knows what's going on after that. There's a voice inthe back of my head (one among a chorus) telling me I should go to Venezuela, the new anti-Bush Mecca (that's a loaded phrase) and I guess I should decide pretty quickly since airfares definitely aren't getting better with age.
I just saw 3 cops on the sidewalk next to a parked Fiat compact cop car with the blue lights on. It looked like they'd just resolved some problem or other, and they were saying goodbye. OK, no problem. Except they gave each other cheek kisses goodbye. Not a recipe for establishing authority among the civilians, if you were in my country, but hey, I respect cultural differences. Definitely different than Brasil and the States. But other than that I could almost be in New York. Or maybe Paris is a more accurate comparison, because the coffee / cafés not only kick the ass of anything in Salvador, but NY definitely has some catching up to do on Europeanization as well, if that's their aim, which I'm guessing at this point it probably isn't.
And the very European-seeming Argentines (if anyone read this blog I'm sure I'd be offending someone at this point) may not be terribly economically astute, but they sure know cofee. I'm sure that being 5 months in the coffee creativeness wasteland that is Brazil is clouding my judgement, but you take a look at a cafe menu here and there's a minimum of 10 different ways of getting coffee served, without even resorting to making up stupid names like "frappucino" (which I have refused to ever say out loud).
A cappucino like you would get in New York is called "café con leche" (that means coffee with milk) in Buenos Aires. A cappucino in their terms is the layered drink you get in a clear, tall glass with a stem that's made especially for cappucino.
And, as is usual for me, I'm totally going overboard in an effort to overcompensate for 5 months of substandard coffee. Moderation has never been my forté. After Spanish class today, I was eating at a café / pizzeria when 2 other students, a German woman (big surprise) and a pre-med student from Atlanta. I had an espresso before and after the pizza, at which point the Doc said "Now I know you're addicted to caffeine", as if this wasn't the first time it had crossed his mind. We've known each other 4 days. But I'm happy that he's comfortable being honest with me. Tell you what, Dr. Hipguy - thanks for the unsolicited diagnosis, but in the future keep it to yourself. Let's try (both of us) hanging around with me after 24 hours sans caffeine and see what kind of psychotic rampage results. It'll be fun because Gretel here can watch me jam the stack of orange napkins down your throat. O wait - sorry - esophagus.
I'm here for at least the next couple of weeks, at least, and maybe longer. I have a week more of (Castilian) Spanish classes, and then who knows what's going on after that. There's a voice inthe back of my head (one among a chorus) telling me I should go to Venezuela, the new anti-Bush Mecca (that's a loaded phrase) and I guess I should decide pretty quickly since airfares definitely aren't getting better with age.
I just saw 3 cops on the sidewalk next to a parked Fiat compact cop car with the blue lights on. It looked like they'd just resolved some problem or other, and they were saying goodbye. OK, no problem. Except they gave each other cheek kisses goodbye. Not a recipe for establishing authority among the civilians, if you were in my country, but hey, I respect cultural differences. Definitely different than Brasil and the States. But other than that I could almost be in New York. Or maybe Paris is a more accurate comparison, because the coffee / cafés not only kick the ass of anything in Salvador, but NY definitely has some catching up to do on Europeanization as well, if that's their aim, which I'm guessing at this point it probably isn't.
And the very European-seeming Argentines (if anyone read this blog I'm sure I'd be offending someone at this point) may not be terribly economically astute, but they sure know cofee. I'm sure that being 5 months in the coffee creativeness wasteland that is Brazil is clouding my judgement, but you take a look at a cafe menu here and there's a minimum of 10 different ways of getting coffee served, without even resorting to making up stupid names like "frappucino" (which I have refused to ever say out loud).
A cappucino like you would get in New York is called "café con leche" (that means coffee with milk) in Buenos Aires. A cappucino in their terms is the layered drink you get in a clear, tall glass with a stem that's made especially for cappucino.
And, as is usual for me, I'm totally going overboard in an effort to overcompensate for 5 months of substandard coffee. Moderation has never been my forté. After Spanish class today, I was eating at a café / pizzeria when 2 other students, a German woman (big surprise) and a pre-med student from Atlanta. I had an espresso before and after the pizza, at which point the Doc said "Now I know you're addicted to caffeine", as if this wasn't the first time it had crossed his mind. We've known each other 4 days. But I'm happy that he's comfortable being honest with me. Tell you what, Dr. Hipguy - thanks for the unsolicited diagnosis, but in the future keep it to yourself. Let's try (both of us) hanging around with me after 24 hours sans caffeine and see what kind of psychotic rampage results. It'll be fun because Gretel here can watch me jam the stack of orange napkins down your throat. O wait - sorry - esophagus.
posted by n10471 at 2:52 PM
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