Two Cents Tuesday is BAck
Buenos Aires is culturally invigorating and wonderful. From an assimilation standpoint, it’s a good thing we lived in Córdoba before coming here because it enabled us to preview the very unique, Argentine lifestyle before fully immersing ourselves. After only two weeks, I’ve completely rearranged my rankings of the cities and countries we’ve been in. Mexico City and Buenos Aires are neck and neck for first place, something I really didn’t expect. But, I guess when you have zero expectations (which I try to maintain at all times), you can be wildly and pleasantly surprised.
It’s a little after 5pm and I’m sitting in an eclectic, unicorn-themed café enjoying merienda, or Argentine afternoon tea. My afternoon tea-time consists of a café con leche and a huge piece of “world famous” black-cookie cake (I have a stomach ache FYI). The two ladies next to me asked me about my dessert and ordered the same thing to go with their espressos. Now that I’m looking around…everyone in this café is having merienda and I fit in perfectly.
This morning I woke up around 10:15, had yerba mate (mah-tay) out of my new mate gourd and bombilla (bomb-bee-ja). I’m pretty much a mate-mastermind now and can fix up a pretty good cup, or eight. I had a working lunch, a great client meeting, and now I’m enjoying merienda with the rest of Buenos Aires.
A 10:15am wakeup call seems like a joke, right? We’ve come to find that this entire country is filled with night-owls and timing for everything is shifted forward by about four hours. That means even Starbucks doesn’t open until 8am-ish (equivalent to US 4am). It was hard to get used to this at first, since in Lima I was waking up by 7am every morning, but now that I’m in the groove of things, I actually love it. My brain seems to be more awake later in the day, and I get some of my best work done after lunchtime. Lucky for me, the US is an hour behind us, so I don’t feel THAT lazy sleeping in a little.
The food scene overall is amazing. Parillas (puh-ree-jahs) are on every street corner, and I even stuffed my face at an all-you-can-eat steakhouse this past weekend (give me allllll the chimichurri). Another amazing dish is Choripan, which is just a chorizo sandwich so yummy my mouth is watering. At night, the speakeasies are in full-swing, but not until at least midnight. On the weekends when the real clubs get going, it’s common to see lines snaking around the block at 4:30am.
But the best part of BA has got to be the music. By the grace of God and a few good connections, I’ve been able to slip into a few underground music gatherings, all of which immediately ignited my infatuation with Buenos Aires. I wish I could describe the exotic sounds of the cumbia-influenced electronic music, but you’ll just have to listen for yourself. One of our first events here in the city was at ZZK Records, a record label out of Buenos Aires originating from an underground party called Zizek in 2006. If you saw any of my snapchats from two weeks ago, we got to play around with the Reactable (crazy, touchscreen, QR code-reading, beat-producing, magic music machine) and listen to one of their DJs play an actual set from it. My jaw was practically on the floor. Here’s some footage from that night (shameless plug for my video production-savvy friends):
Coincidentally, ZZK records has Nicola Cruz on their label, who I got to listen to briefly in Bogotá at Estereo Picnic. I also got to see and meet San Ignacio at an artist party and then again at his record release gathering where he played out of an empty pool. I could talk all day about the music scene down here, but I’m sure most people aren’t nearly as psyched about it as I am. I have some pretty wild dreams when it comes to music. First I wanted to be a DJ myself, but as other opportunities and doors open, maybe I’ll get to experience a different side of the music industry. We shall see.
My two cents (been a while!!):
1. June in Buenos Aires is the dead of winter. Plan accordingly or you will freeze.
2. Coke Light is way better than Diet Coke, but only sold in places that are not the US, since I think there's some illegal ingredient in it? Which is maybe why I'm now addicted to it. I'm going to bring back as many as will fit in my luggage.
3. Get used to eating four meals a day in BA: 11am: Mate and small carby breakfast; 2pm: small-ish working lunch; 5-6pm: Merienda (more carby cakes and coffee/mate), 9:30pm: HUGE dinner. Probably steak.
4. Fernet & Coke: learn to love it. To be cool like a loc-dog, drink this Argentine-alcohol out of a 2-liter coke bottle with the top cut off and the edges folded over so you don't cut your mouth. I'm dead serious. Kind of hipster, eh?
5. Buenos Aires: where the hipsters of New York meet Parisian architecture, and everyone looks/is Italian but speaks Spanish.
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I’m off to another steak dinner later this evening, but first doing a kickboxing class since my phat a$$ is about to be plucked and plopped right into summertime after being in WINTER for two months.
Countdown to Raleighwood: 10 days!!
#NP: Tired Boy - Joey Pecoraro
