5 posts tagged “san telmo”

 

we are running out of time here! only three more weeks and we head back to montreal...

part of me wants to stay. i LOVE this city. it has things i don't like (just as everywhere does), but it's exciting, fun, beautiful. socially it seems easy. i love the intellectual tradition that seems a part of so much of this and its history and people (though it's ALL in spanish!). and it's pretty cheap, too. the other night we went to this tango dance class at "la catedral" (pueyrredon and medrano) that was cool. imagine if david lynch owned a restaurant that held tango classes: funky paintings on the walls, old avertising posters in aluminum with rusty corners, dark lighting that created huge looming shadows all the walls, mismatched furniture that looked like it had come from the city dump, old dingy chandeliers, and a huge wire-mesh heart (a human heart) covered in red fabric that hung suspended above the bar with valves and veins to boot. the best part was the old 30s tango music and all these argentine couples learning the steps patiently. as we stood there against the wall gawking: man, i want to live here!

but. montreal is our home. at least for now. not sure how long we will stick around there, one project i'm going to be working on the spring may require some china-time in our log book. masa's dream is to go back to thailand, though i'm more ambivalent about this, at least right now.

next week are flying up to iguazu falls, something both masa and rupe are looking forward to. it'll be good to get out of the city for a few days anyway.

reading edwin williamson's borges: a life, a great thing to be reading in the middle of buenos aires: the life of the writer is certainly interesting but it's the history of this city that has me enthralled. the story of buenos aires is one rife with booms and busts and one need only walk around any neighborhood to see evidence of that: borges himself grew up in palermo and belgrano, considered very rough and dirty neighborhoods back in his day. now those areas are upper middle class and this area, once teeming with the wealthy, is more of the "rough and tumble" variety...(though making a comeback. slowly).

hello, weekend...

despite the rain!

rupe arrived yesterday...wow: amazing what can be accomplished in one day: gave a tour, took a walk, went to the bank, browsed a crowded florida street, made an appointment to see an apartment, ate ciabatta and panini sandwiches, worked four hours, toured an apartment and signed a contract, took a nap, watched tv, went to a pub, went to a club, zipped around town in a taxi, ate pizza, moved into new place, went shopping...

two very exciting work developments, both involving projects for two different publishing companies, both involving travel (one to new york, one to hong kong and shanghai)...nothing set in stone yet, but things looking great for both and been calling and emailing the last week or so, hammering out details...AND still some other projects sitting around in the back of the closet too! feels like this is a turning point career-wise...or could be, at any rate. what is ideal about two projects coming together is that one is good money and a career-based plus, other is a very creative one which would open doors artistically...keeping my fingers crossed that no snags hold either project up...

more pics--all the architecture might be getting tedious, but it just never ends and represents one tiny fraction of what we see every single day out on the street...

decided that el hipopótama is "our" new place...good food, great european ambience, nice quiet street-scape view, fantastic coffee, and crazy cheap (great lunch for three including drinks: 48 pesos -- 15 bucks!!). i expect to spend many an hour there...and just three blocks away!

rupe's new place is just two blocks away: a really great place owned by this tall and skinny french guy that loves to talk!...strange to have your best friend living two blocks away in a city you're living in temporarily...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wandering the streets today, we walked past this group of elderly japanese people coming out of this japanese methodist church. for some reason, this fascinates me: how a japanese person ends up living in argentina for most of his or her life, yet maintaining a japanese identity...what must they think about japan? about the japan they left 60 years ago and the japan of today? masa stopped and talked to them briefly...i think they were surprised: not many japanese young people hanging about san telmo on a sunday afternoon...they were discussing whether the sign looked too old (it did: a hand-painted wooden sign in japanese, indicating the the japanese methodists met in this location every sunday morning). here is a pic of them outside their church and some other sunday pics...

 

 

i'm back online at home. whew, what a relief!

still. when i don't have internet access at home, what do i do? i read all morning, then masa and i took a long walk around the neighborhood.

it's so beautiful! the thing is, you can tell that this was once an extremely prosperous neighborhood and some of the streets are just stunning, the apartment buildings are some of the most detailed i've ever seen. this was one of the first, most populated areas of the city (la boca, just south of here, was where all the working class people lived). then, according to what i've been reading, a yellow fever epidemic caused the rich classes to flee this area, since they all believed that the epidemic was coming from the nearby river (just past the poorer la boca area).

so they abandoned the area, moved up to higher ground, to recoleta and palermo, etc. and san telmo fell into a steep decline that it's only now starting to climb out of. for a hundred years some of these apartment buildings and houses have been falling apart, though it seems that in the 70s, they tried to rebuild the area with these awful high rises where they could house more people (though nothing like they did in montreal or toronto--some of those things are just appalling and they are located on nearly every block there!).  and this is a huge area, block after block of four and five-storied stone edifices with filligree and wrought iron balconies and shutters and gorgeous lobbies with chandeliers. the pictures here are just a tiny fraction of what surrounds us for miles on all sides...

anyway. the last several years, the area's been coming back and there are "for sale" signs everywhere (people all trying to make money since property values have skyrocketed), but also lots of construction: across the street from our building, in fact, two old beautiful 19th century buildings are being renovated.

i love thinking about that as i walk down these formerly grand avenues: argentine ladies with parasols, men with handlebar moustaches, horse-drawn carriages and hansom cabs all bustling down these streets which are rutted now, the tobacconists and boutiques now replaced with dingy internet cafes and tiny convenience stores stuffed with cookies, chocolate, chips and coca-cola bottles...

anyway, the point of all this is: though it stresses me out, it's also quite liberating to have the internet down for a 24 hour period. when it happens, i realize how tied i am to this computer and how it dictates so much of my daily activities! man, i love this place...