Buenos Aires - The Observations Finally Begin

Okay, I said that I’d do this over a month ago, so it’s time I go ahead and give some of my Buenos Aires observations. Since I’ve been here for five weeks, there are lots of observations, so I’ll try to write on discrete topics over several posts.

Topic One: Speaking English in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is not a very English-friendly city. I haven’t been out of the city yet, but logic suggests that the further out you go into Argentina, the less English-friendly it would get. The good thing about this is that it gives me a lot of opportunities to practice all of the Spanish from my four weeks of classes. Some of my proudest moments have been on the phone with my landlord trying to negotiate through thirty-minute conversations with somebody who doesn’t speak English. Obviously, hand and body gestures don’t work over the telephone so Spanish is essential.

It would have been easy enough to visit here for a few days without speaking Spanish, but I can’t imagine living here for two months without at least a little Spanish. When I was in Europe, everybody spoke English. Even the people who didn’t speak English spoke English. If I couldn’t communicate with somebody, I’d just continue to look sad and try to get away with English until the other person would break down and admit that he spoke at least United-States-Movie-Television-Music-English and helped me out. Here, that technique doesn’t work. At least no more than 25% of the time. The good part of that, though, is that it also works out in my favor sometimes. Whenever somebody speaks to me in Spanish and it doesn’t sound like a conversation I want to get involved in, I can break out my “no hablo” and “no entiendo” and exit immediately.

Topic Two: Living Conditions

The first four weeks I was here, I lived in an apartment on Santa Fe Avenida, close to the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires, which is one of the better neighborhoods of the city. Though the neighborhood is fantastic, it comes with its own problems. My apartment was shared with between one and four women (it changed from week-to-week) and only had one-and-a-half bathrooms. Needless to say, that caused issues, but those issues were easily resolved and not too painful.

The most annoying part of the apartment was the noise. Buenos Aires is the noisiest city I’ve ever been in. I couldn’t count the times that I was in my first apartment and I looked out the window to see where the plane was landing. I don’t know what type of laws they have here with respect to noise regulation for cars and motorcycles, but they’re inconsistent with those of the rest of the civilized world.

Another problem/benefit is light. It’s light outside by 5:30 in the morning. At the moment, it’s light outside until close to 8:00, and we still have about a month more of the days getting longer here. Obviously, the light in the evening isn’t a problem, but I find myself waking up early here because the apartment is full of light so early in the morning.

Last weekend, I moved into another apartment. It’s a studio apartment, but it’s all mine. It has a small kitchen and I am finally able to cook at home. Eating out isn’t a problem here because everything is so cheap, but when you can buy some of the best New York Strips on the planet at the grocery store for about $4 a pound, you realize the happiness of eating at home. Also, the apartment is on a side street, so it’s a little quieter, though it’s still far from silent.

Perhaps the best thing, however, about the new apartment is that it has a television with about 80 channels. Argentine television is awesome!!! Lots of soccer, with some American sports, lots of movie channels and lots of American television. All of the sports are in Spanish, but that’s fine. The movies and television shows are a mix of Spanish shows, English shows dubbed in Spanish and English shows with Spanish subtitles. The Spanish-dubbed shows are still a little fast for my limited comprehension capabilities but I enjoy watching shows that I’ve seen before that have been dubbed. Last week, I saw A Few Good Men for the tenth time, but the first time in Spanish. Since I already knew most of the dialogue, watching the film in Spanish was very helpful. Also, I find myself learning quite a bit from watching the English shows with Spanish subtitles.

Okay, that’s enough for this entry. I’ll write on other topics in other entries soon. Really.

Adios.

Estoy Triste

I’m sitting in my apartment on a Saturday morning in Buenos Aires. My Spanish class finished up on Friday. My next class starts on Monday, so I have no homework. My internet connection is down, so I can’t play on the web. It’s raining outside and I’m moving to another apartment in two hours, so while I’m sitting here, I thought I’d bring back the blog.

This morning, I’m sad. Four the last four weeks, I’ve been taking Spanish lessons for twenty-six hours a week and I really enjoyed them. I learned a lot, liked the teachers and made friends with some of the students. Now it’s over and everybody is going in separate directions. I’ve got some e-mail addresses and made some Facebook friends, but it’s a four-week period I enjoyed that is now over. On to the next four weeks, I guess.

It also made me think about how weird it must be for the teachers. I spent over sixty hours with one teacher, mostly one-on-one. When you talk with somebody for that long, even if you’re talking slow in broken Spanish, it’s almost impossible not to create a bond. For the teachers, a few of these bonds are created every month and then severed every two, three, four weeks or however long, mostly with people who are leaving the city and never returning.

In a few hours, like I said, I’m moving to a new apartment. I’ll do some grocery shopping, maybe cook at home for the first time in quite a while, and finally (I think) have a television, so maybe I’ll be fortunate and catch some soccer and/or work on my Spanish comprehension. Tomorrow, I will meet some of the people in my second class. That class begins on Monday and the empty place I’m experiencing right now will be filled up with new people, new experiences and new knowledge. I know that I’ll enjoy it (because I tend to enjoy almost everything that isn’t connected with the law) or at least make the best of it if I don’t, but for the next day or so I have a feeling that a mild depression is on the schedule.

Sorry for bringing back the blog on a downer, but I’ve had a great time here in Buenos Aires and my next posts will focus on Happy Sheldon. Hasta luego!!!

Don't Cry For Me: Argentina

Well, I’m back. Sort of. I’m back on the road, but I’m somewhere else – this time, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since I’m taking classes here, there is a lot less time for touristy stuff, though I’m planning on getting a lot of that in as well. Therefore, there likely will be fewer entries and fewer photos.

Now that I’ve set you up so as to not expect any photos, I’ll go ahead and give you some. Just as long as you’re not expecting any. On my first day in Argentina, the biggest soccer match of the year in South America was taking place in Buenos Aires – Boca Juniors at River Plate. I got here too late, so I missed it, though I’m pretty sure there will be plenty of soccer in my future.

If you think that missing the superclasico would depress me, it did a little bit and I went to a cemetery, but it wasn’t the depression that sent me to the depressing plot of land. It was Evita. Eva Peron is buried in el Cementerio de la Recoleta in Buenos Aires, one of the world’s great necropolises. It is a mostly above-ground cemetery with hundreds of mausoleums dating from the mid-19^th century to the present. I don’t know much about Argentine history, but many of the elite are buried in the Recoleta Cemetery, or so I am told. The only name I recognized was Eva Peron, and her family mausoleum had a crowd around it throughout the entirety of my visit.

After class on Monday, I started roaming around town and found myself in la Plaza de Mayo. The Plaza is the heart, though not the center, of the city. Its most well-known landmark is La Casa Rosada, which translates into the Pink House. La Casa Rosada is the executive office of the government and la Presidente (yes, LA Presidente – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner), roughly equivalent to a slightly-less colorful building in Washington, D.C. Just in case you were wondering, the house was pink long before Argentina elected a female president.

The other famous landmark in a city that’s not really known all that much for landmarks is the obelisk that sits in the middle of Avenida 9 de Julio. The obelisk, coincidentally known as "the Obelisk," appears to be similar in size to the Washington Monument and is impressive in its own right. What I find more impressive is what is reputedly (I’ve seen conflicting data) the widest street in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio, which is (again conflicting data) 127 m (416 ft) and 18 lanes wide. Just crossing the street is a little bit of a hike. Despite all of the traffic, however, drivers appear to obey traffic laws and the trip across, though it takes a few traffic light cycles, doesn’t appear to be unsafe at all.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back with probably less touristy stuff from time-to-time.

Ciao.

Stanley House: A Review

The Stanley House Hotel in London was the sketchiest looking hotel that I stayed in the entire time that I was in Europe. (Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures at this hotel.) Despite the looks, however, it turned out to be very comfortable and quiet, two things I look for in a hotel. It also had the amenities I like (wifi and breakfast) and only cost around $90/night. After getting a sinking feeling following my first glance, I was pleasantly surprised.

The location of the hotel could be better. It is about a seven-minute south from Victoria Station, close to the Thames. It’s not a horrible location, just not particularly active, though there were some restaurants and pubs that allowed me to get food and drink from a relatively close distance, so I can’t complain too much.

The room was among the largest I stayed in, smaller than only Berlin and Vienna. It also had a full-sized bed that was actually very comfortable. The bathroom was fairly small, but after what I experienced in Amsterdam and Bratislava, it’s nothing that I would complain about.

The wifi was free and was pretty good quality, allowing me to watch streaming video. The breakfast, a traditional English breakfast with “bacon,” sausage, eggs, tomato and baked beans, was very good and very quick. They only served it until 9:00 am, which seemed to me to be uncommonly early, but given my schedule on this particular trip to London, that worked out fine.

I had read some bad reviews of the staff prior to coming here, but I found that the staff was very friendly and very helpful. They helped with some initial problems when I arrived and I noticed them advising others of other places to stay in the area even before they had filled all of their vacancies.

I don’t really have a lot to add to what I wrote above. Like I said, it’s not much to look at from the outside, or even the inside before you get to your room, but I was completely happy with my room and would stay here again.

London Revisited

It turns out that ending the trip with two days, one full day, in London was a little anti-climactic. While I had far from seen and done everything in London that I wanted to see and do, I didn’t quite have the energy or enthusiasm to try to cram a lot into my final visit.

One reason that I didn’t do more than I did in these last two days is that the one thing that I did do took a lot longer than expected. When I left the United States a month or so ago, it was the middle of the U.S. Open. With tennis still on my mind, I decided to go to Wimbledon to see it’s museum and take a guided tour of the grounds.

The guided tour was really interesting. The grounds were a lot smaller than I expected from what I’ve seen on television. Also, I never realized how close together all of the outside courts were to each other. Parts of it looked like you might find at a public court, except with perfectly manicured grass and an overwhelming sense of history.

We also went to see Court One and Centre Court. Obviously, being the most famous tennis court in the entire world, Centre Court was quite an experience, though it seemed a little strange because there were no lines, nets or, except for about forty of us on the tour, people. One unexpected highlight was they tested the retractable roof while we were there, so we got to see that close. Not exciting, just interesting.

Most of the other things that I did in these final two days in London is just walk around, take my last set of pictures, eat, and buy a last group of souvenirs. I took some pictures of Buckingham Palace from the front, since I was in the neighborhood and since I noticed that on my last trip to London, all of my photos were from the back. That’s it, really. Nothing too exciting at the end.

As I write this, I’m on a plane back to the United States. I’ll be there around ten days before heading off to Argentina for eight weeks. I’m thinking of posting some “Top Five” lists from my European trip, just for fun, and then I’ll probably start posting again once I get to Buenos Aires.

Cheers.

Die Port Van Cleve: A Review

In Amsterdam, I stayed at Die Port Van Cleve. I’ll go ahead and start with a summary. Something about this place just always seemed to feel wrong, although the location was near perfect.

Finding the place is relatively easy, provided you don’t get there at one of the non-main stations after dark. Unfortunately, as I’ve written about in a prior post, I got there in a non-main station after dark. The hotel is at the first stop on several traps from Amsterdam Centraal. Unfortunately, from Amsterdam Zuid, where my train stopped, it’s the next-to-last stop on line five. Unfortunately, after six, there’s no way to get tickets at Amsterdam Zuid. The people there told me I could get a ticket on the train, but that didn’t happen either. I ended up risking a fine and just hopping a train without a ticket. That’s not the hotel’s fault, though.

Check-in at the hotel was easy enough, but after taking nearly 30 minutes to get to the hotel, the receptionist gave me a key that didn’t open my door. My this time, the backpack felt like it weighed about five times its already 80 pounds and I wasn’t happy. The receptionist was very apologetic and got somebody to take my backpack to my room on the second trip, but it didn’t put me in a good mood.

The hotel room was small, as was the bed, but these are things I had gotten used to in the discount hotels that I’ve stayed in while in Europe. It seemed fairly clean, but a little sketchy as well. I had made the mistake of reading some reviews of the hotel right before I got there and there were a couple of mouse complaints. While I never saw a mouse or any hints that mice were present, I wasn’t able to get the thought out of my head.

I’m not even sure what to say about the “shower.” It had a tub, but not a regular tub. It was a tub that allows somebody to sit in it. In fact, it nearly forces you to sit in it because there was very little room to stand if you wanted to take a shower. I wanted to take a shower. It wasn’t easy, but I managed. This really didn’t help its score, though, when I reviewed it on Orbitz.

There was free wireless internet that worked very well. I learned in Vienna not to take that for granted anymore. Breakfast, however, was not included in the price of the hotel, but there were numerous coffee shops (no, not those coffeeshops), so I was able to get my morning fix (no, not that type of fix).

The hotel itself is just across the street from Koninkijk Palace and Nieuwe Kirk, probably the most famous buildings in Dam Square. And you should never underappreciate the little chuckle that goes on in the back of your head when you’re walking around and passing places called Dam Hotel, Dam Souvenirs and Dam Coffeeshop. My infantile sense of humor just liked that.

The hotel wasn’t cheap, at least not by the standards that I’d gotten used to in Europe, about $140/night. I’ve received much more around Europe for much less. I understand that there are other hotels in the neighborhood that are in the same price range and if I had to go back, I probably would try one of them out. This one wasn’t bad, but like I said, there was just something not feel right about it.

Amsterdam - The Blue Entry

I’ve already gone into all of the landmarks in Amsterdam that I visited, but what does everybody know about Amsterdam? The Red Light District and soft drugs. Yes, they are there.

The Red Light District was just strange. Lots of sex clubs and women in windows attempting to entice you to come in. I hate to speak of women only in terms of appearance, but when you are talking about women selling themselves from windows, it’s kind of hard not to do so, so I apologize in advance.

I’m not a complete stranger to the world of strip clubs. There was a wide range of women in the windows in the Red Light District, but I’d have to say that the collection of women was not dissimilar to what you might find in a second-class strip club. Some were attractive, but most looked a little worse for wear, so to speak. The streets were primarily full of tourists, like myself, doing a little bit of gawking, like myself, and just trying to take in what they’ve heard about all of these years. It actually gets pretty old pretty quick, but if that’s you’re thing, and it is certainly some people’s thing, then enjoy.

For all of the coffeehouses in Amsterdam, I didn’t see a single Starbuck’s. That’s okay, though. I made do. I visited a place in the Red Light District called Hill Street Blues, because I heard that the food was pretty good. I had some cupcakes that were pretty good. Unfortunately, being overly cautious, I think I underdosed on the cupcakes, which inhibited my relaxation. I was relaxed for a few hours, but certainly not as relaxed as I would have liked to have been.

I remedied that the next day. Since there are over two-hundred licensed coffeehouses in Amsterdam, I though that I’d try something different, so I went to Abraxas, near Dam Square. I went there around noon on Sunday and had a brownie and, of all things, coffee – which was pretty good. Having learned from my mistake of the previous day, I had plenty to eat on this visit. I think I’ve found the opening line to my novel – “I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant on Dam Street when the brownie kicked in.” (Okay, so most people have had a similar experience. I just love the different ways that you can go following that line.) This was the beginning of several hours of relaxation and, for the most part, the end of my trip. Trip as in visit.

This is my last post from Amsterdam (except for the random hotel review) and I just realized that I never talked about Dam Square, which is the old town square and, like all of the other old town squares I’ve visited, is bordered with shops and very old buildings. It wasn’t all that exciting, but it was across the street from my hotel, so I was there for at least a little while every day. There, of course, will be additional pictures of old buildings from Amsterdam on my Facebook page within the next few days. (If there aren’t already. Not sure exactly when this will get posted.)

That’s it from Amsterdam. Now, on to a few final days in London and the United States!!!