9July2009 BuenosAires

Arrived Buenos Aires at 11.00 and bubmled my way throug the airport and cab to Veronica´s apartment, where I will stay for the next two days. She and her husband Greg are great, very hospitable and entertaining. The cultural and failed communication, translation jokes never fail. He works for an online marketing advertising company so he works all day at home. She is not working so she can show me around and she is a really good host and tour guide. The city is so beautiful. So many parks! and open spaces and expansive avenues. She thinks it´s really cold, but it isn´t that cold.

Today was a national holiday, independence day in fact, which sounded like a big deal to me, though apparently it´s not (there´s one every month), so the streets were basically vacant. It´s really beautiful and clear blue skies.

Food. By the time I hit the bus on Saturday I ought to have amassed a pretty impressive meal to time ratio. I have twelve things I have to eat in the next day and a half. Today Choripan, a sausage in bread with spices. Chocolate, a really nice thick hot chocolate. They were all out of churros so try those later. Croissant pastries. Vino tinto.¨

We went and saw a tango (sexy is redundant) show tonight. I love the music, especially the bandoneon (accordeon), so agressive and haunting. The four instruments, bandoneon bass piano and violin, mesh completely forming one sound. It´s great, one of those musics that really grabs you when you hear it live, amplified, and reverberating between the stage and your body. The folklorico dance that followed was just plain impressive. A combination of tap dancing and swinging strings with hardened pieces of leather at the ends so that they clap against the stage in concert with the shoes.

And homeless children. There are many homeless drunk guys around UT that actually have food and basic needs met, easy enough to shrug off and continue with a typical complacent day. But there aren´t any homeless 7 year olds. (no dashes on this computer.) What do you do? It grabs you and strips you of your pride, your measure of your relative social standing, and your petty frustrations. And you go on.

Oh yes, and a tidbit that any Texan would appreciate. I was talking with the porter at the airport today (hoping to convince myself that my spanish is functional) and he asked me where I am from. I said, from Texas, the United States. He replied, quite eloquently to the ears of a Texan, Oh Texas, that´s in between the US and Mexico, right? If he was fishing for a tip, he caught a whale.