Election Time, Argentine Style

Normal, every day life on La Plaza Congreso is much like it is in any other urban plaza in cities throughout the world.

Children play fútbol during the afternoons. Lovers kiss on park benches into the night. Street people sleep in the grass, vendors peddle ice cream, business people walk briskly in all directions and traffic never ceases to buzz, honk and tear around the one way streets that surround the congressional plaza.

On the evening of October 28th, however, the traffic in La Plaza de los Dos Congresos was absent. No thundering buses to flatulate black smoke out onto the sidewalks. No honking taxis or impatient motorcycles zipping between lanes. People gently meandered down the middle of the streets without the usual automotive chaos.

It is not uncommon to pass large steel baracades when walking by the congressional building on the west end of the rectangular park. In fact, most government buildings in Buenos Aires are surrounded on all sides by large, cold, grated steel baracades.

But on this particular Sunday evening, the entire plaza was cordoned off. One block out on every single street stemming out from the plaza in each direction was a police baracade, made up either of the familiar cool blue mobile steel walls or just an officer next to his squad car. On the streets close to the congresional building itself, even pedestrians were not allowed through the gates.

"May I pass through?" I asked an officer at the gate in broken spanish.

"Where to?"

"To the café," I pointed up ahead, inside the baracade.

"No," he told me, with an ever so slight chuckle.

In the four days prior to the Sunday election day, I had seen two rallies in the Congresional plaza. They were animated, well attended and very, very lively. Neighbors had told me that the plaza was very popular for "parties."

The second rally of the week rolled into town two days before the election behind a large flatbed truck carrying an armada of drummers, flag wavers and what sounded like gun shots but proved only to be firecrackers. Later, in front of a chanting, flag waving, smoke bombing crowd the voice of Néstor Pitrola, one of 14 canidates in the Argentine presidential election, crackled out over the plaza via loudspeakers.

In the end, Pitrola and all other 12 canidates never had a chance. Cristina Kirchner, the wife of current Argentine President Néstor Kirchner, pretty much had things locked up from the getgo.

Described by many locals as the "best of the bad," the Kirchner regime pulled Argentina out of economic hell, and the former first lady wiped up in the wake of her husband´s popularity with a 43% victory.

But on election night, the cold blue steel baracades were nonetheless set in place at a three block radius around the congresional building. Aside from a few bullhorn toting soapboaxers or the occasional horn honking bicyclist, the plaza saw little action thanks to the police presence.

After being refused passage through the baracade by the police, I walked around the block trying to get to my favorite diner for some empanadas and pizza slices. Suddenly, as I watched people walk past the baracade it dawned on me why alcohol had been illegal since 10 p.m. the night before.

While local porteños say the police presence was "just a precaution," it brings to light the passion of the Argentine people. They tear seats out and destroy stadiums at fútbol matches, they rally hard for political causes - when they show up for a rally they often carry sticks. Political revolution is not too far in the past of this country, and some of their most infamous figures are revolutionaries.

If the Kirchner victory hadn´t been so well predicted who knows, maybe those cold, hard, steel baracades might have been tested.

- AC

PHOTOS: A dubious night sky backs the congressional building as a backdrop to a rally for Néstor Pitrola days before the election, top. Pitrola speaks to the press at the rally, middle. A police baracade one block from Plaza Congreso on election night, bottom. - AC

So far I´ve seen ...

Shown here, ¨Sergio¨paints a downtown scene in the streets of Buenos Aires --- with his feet.
- JMH


Been here in Buenos Aires for over one week now and I´ve had my fair share of interesting sights and sounds - some fabulous, some obnoxious and some just plain interesting.

So far I´ve seen ...

· Dogwalkers. The porteños (BA locals) love their dogs and pay a dogwalker to exercise them while they´re at work during the day. We frequently see a person walking between 5 and 12 perros through the busy, traffic-laden streets.
· Very little access for the disabled. At the post office a woman in a wheelchair posted up at the front door and a postal worker ran to and from the counter to help her send off her packages.
· T&A on every corner. The cover of men´s magazines here bare naked booties and plenty of breasts.
· Unrefrigerated mayo. Plus they put this terrible concoction of mayo and ketchup on everything from salads to sandwiches. They call is ¨Salsa golf¨and it, too, doesn´t grace the fridge.
· A giraffe in the foreground and high-rise apartment buildings in the background. The BA zoo is actually very well stocked with hippos, lions and bears - all within the confines of a densely packed metropolis.
· Plenty of well-dressed business men --- with mullets.
· Fruit stands selling two oranges for the equivalent of an American quarter, and incredible steak for less than US$6.
· The World Press Photo exhibit.
· That it is indeed possible to finish eating dinner after 1 a.m. before heading out to the clubs until sunrise.
· Hugs for free in a city of 9 million.
· Political rallies outside my front door, gunshots and all.
· A child barefoot and juggling in the streets at 3 a.m.
· That it´s a small world after all. In my Spanish class of six, the only American is from Sacramento and spent his summers working in Tahoe.
· A man painting a streetscape with his feet in the middle of the most crowded pedestrian and shopping street.

And by the way, language school is great.

- JMH

La Ciudad; Parte Dos

After nearly a week in Buenos Aires, I have some observations.

My first sentiments, already published on this site, that most large capital port cities are the same, still stands. With each passing day, BA becomes more familiar, and whether it be that familiarity or not, the city seems like any other bustling machine of commerce.

The city itself is easy enough to navigate, being divided up into fairly distinctive barrios, or neighborhoods, which all utilize a basic grid system of streets. Thus far, we have explored two barrios fairly extensively.

Palermo, our first home in the city, is by far the biggest in BA. The porteños describe it as full of parks and green spaces. While the city´s biggest park and expanses of neighboring parks does exist as the edge of Palermo, anyone from the United States, and from the West Coast in particular would dissagree. The park is small and on the weekend turns into a superhighway of runners, walkers, rollerbladers and bikers making laps around its parimeter.

But Palermo´s streets are lined with trees, its sidewalks are broad and its attitude is slightly more laid back than in El Centro. As in all of BA, some of Palermo´s streets are old cobblestone surfaces, leaving cars, busses and taxis to bounce along noisily passed the cafés, chic boutiques and businesses that make Palermo the "uptown" of BA.

Palermo also houses the Buenos Aires Zoo, which is pretty much like any other city zoo and surrounded by tall residential buildings. The animals here seem slightly smaller than other zoos, but patrons can buy a bucket of comida de animales for one peso and feed the inhabitants who often perform (beg) for the small nibblits of food, so malnutrition is not to blame for their size.

Just a 10 minute ride from Palermo on the Subte, which is usually packed but not exceptionally unpleasent for an underground train, lies El Centro, the heart of BA and center for commerce, business and daily activity.

El Centro is much different from Palermo or the other quieter more hip barrios of town. The sidewalks are narrow, the streets more heavy with traffic and the people more dense. Most constantly come or go from the many sky scraping fortresses of commerce, government buildings or residences at all hours of the day. Small motorcycles dart in and out of the rapid but not completely chaotic traffic and busses barrel and choke noisily through the streets 24 hours a day.

Our daily walk from Plaza de los Dos Congresos to the school is made up of 15 minutes dodging people on sidewalks and trying to make three of the consecutive four lights on Avenida 9 de julio - a monstrous four road conglomoration divided by swaths of lawn and sidewalk.

It is true, the porteños love dogs, and the canines seem to take on the same personality as the people, like any other large city dwellers their demeaner is indiferant but generally content.

While many travelers complain that BA is dirty, I find it to exceed my expectations of a South American port. It is by no means clean, but trash cans line the streets and sewage seems to stay out of sight. Although dog crap is abundant - no need for little plastic baggies here.

Overall, especially for its size the city is pleasant and the people friendly. But for a nature loving boy from the mountains, even after just less than a week, I can hear the peaks of the Andes beckoning me out of the concrete jungle that is BA.

- AC

PHOTO

The statue and Argentine flag at the end of Plaza de los Dos Congresos is sillhouted by a cloudy evening sky. - AC

Learning to learn

I´m going to admit what few people would - by nature, I´m a quitter.

I quit playing the viola in fifth grade because I wasn´t really that naturally talented nor did I appreciate the screeching sound of a poorly played instrument. In high school I quit running because, well, basically because I was a head-case. In Telluride I quit working at this one restaurant because I didn´t like the pressure of ´fine dining.´

Needless to say. I quit these things much later, and after much thought, than I originally felt the urge.

My inclination to do what´s easy was made pretty clear today as I sat to take a Spanish test in downtown Buenos Aires. Before starting Spanish lanugage school next Monday, Alex and I had to take a placement exam to determine which class level we would begin in.

At first, it was all laughs.

¨I don´t even know what subjunctive, preterite or imperfect verbs are in English,¨ I joked to Alex.

¨What´s the word for ´love´ again?¨ he asked in return.

¨Seriously, I don´t even know what this stupid test is asking. The directions are even in Spanish.¨ I was getting increasingly frustrated.

¨Whatever. I don´t even want to learn Spanish anyway,¨I said again, reiterating my irritation at feelings of stupidity.

Not true. I do indeed want to learn a foreign language. And I know it´s going to be difficult. I just didn´t imagine I´d get discouraged so easily. And really, I thought I knew more Spanish than I apparently do.

Dad told me after one of his pilgramages across Spain or France that knowing a second language is like having a second soul. That stuck with me and has served, in part, as inspiration to pursue travel abroad.

Needless to say, I haven´t done anything new or hard in a little while. Not like when I was in college and each semester I started something challenging and foreign. At least at first. And of course when I started at the newspaper I faced overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. So I should be perfectly suited to relate to those feelins all over again, right?. But I still don´t like them. No one does.

And no, I don´t actually plan on quitting. I just think about it. And maybe whine a little bit here and there. And so when Monday comes and I´m in a whole new classroom in a whole new part of the city with all new people, I know that if nothing else, I´m at least accountable to anyone who reads this blog. No matter what, I´ll return home knowing more about español, Argentina - and myself - than I did when I left.

JMH

La Ciudad

Setting foot on foreign soil is always unnerving, and after living as a country bumpkin for four years, so is arriving in a huge metropolis where green space, trees and even dirt is hard to find.

At first, the pollution in the air, the laneless chaotic freeway and frequent broken down cars allowed a feeling of regret to slide into my exhausted mind.

Joanna fell asleep during the hour long ride from the airport to our hostel in the center of the Palermo barrio on the Northwest side of the city. The solid 24 hours of air travel from Baltimore was weighing on both of us, but after our driver reached back and locked our doors as we ground into traffic on the freeway my heavy eyelids would not close.

When our arbitrarily picked hostel turned out to be booked up, we walked a few blocks to another, where despite heavy construction underway on the building, a clean room was available.

Shedding a heavy oversized bag that contains your life and makes you feel like a giant lumbering target in an unknown land is, literally, a weight off your shoulders. With our things in a safe place, we began to explore the barrio of Palermo in an attempt to stay awake, battle jet lag and get on a local schedule.

Walking through the tree lined streets past clothing shops, cafés and restaurants, each step seemed to boost confidence. The porteños - or people of this port city - are friendly, happy and comfortable.

After wandering aimlessly, mouths agape and eyes bleary with fatigue, we stumbled on a small park. The adjacent cross streets housed four lively cafés. A fountain flowed as the centerpiece of the park and people sat talking, reading or drinking maté around its edges.

We sat down among them and leaned against each other. People walked passed with dogs, children or alone. They all seemed in their own worlds, enjoying the warm spring air and last rays of evening sun. Sporadic pink blossoms sprouted from the otherwise bare branches of the trees.

Time became irrelevant, minutes could have been hours, or hours minutes, people came and went and we remained unnoticed, similar, just another couple enjoying the pleasant evening.

The life of the city transformed from a vast expanse of concrete into a vibrant flow of life, diversity and personality.

With every passing minute the life of the city becomes more familiar and more comfortable. It ceases to be a vast grimy machine.

It becomes beautiful, intricate and exciting. And for now, it is home.

AC

PHOTO
Alex looks out over the Palermo barrio of Buenos Aires from the sun deck of The Palermo House.
Photo by JMH.

Anxiety from the other half

While Alex packs, or attempts to pack, in a manic flurry, I am overtaken by something called The Common Cold. Never all that good of a patient, I'm not looking forward to starting the second leg of this journey with a foggy mind. Airborne after Airborne it is.

Plagued only partly by a sore throat, stuffy nose and tired eyes, it's really the panic-days-of-old that set in to genuinely freak me out. I've traveled before, a fair share even, so what's the big deal? Is it the yearlong buildup to the, quote-unquote, "Trip of a Lifetime?" Or is my breathing restricted and my stomach churning because my traveling companion happens to also be my life companion? Are memories of the Venice, Italy hospital stay flashing back? Did I save enough money?

Yeah, it's these bigger picture anxieties that consume me, soon masked by the superficialities of creating the cutest outfits to travel in. Avoidance, I think they call that.

But if I actually take a moment and breathe, the high stress and anxiety is my version of excitement. A whole new city, a new country. Adventures await, even overthe next 12 hours. Whatever I forgot to pack or brought "just in case" no longer matters. And now it's just a matter of taking it all as it comes. And savoring it.

JMH

Family time in Baltimore

Alex with his aunt Barbara and uncle Ron outside their Takoma Park, MD home.
Joanna with her paternal grandparents Bill and Ann Hartman at their place in Columbia, MD.

Adios

Sitting here in this strange but comfortable room, my head begins to spin and my eyes glaze over.

A seemingly random pile of various belongings clutter the floor in a half circle around me. Camera equipment, books, clothing, an array of medical supplies and snacks are strewn about the beige carpet.

Jo's soft steady breathing is a comfort, but my manic brain is envious of her slumber as it races to visualize how all the random piles around me will fit into my backpack, which appears smaller every time I look at it.

I have two piles of books, one is bigger than the other - a random collection of travel stories, a translation dictionary, sports novel and classic South American literature. The smaller pile only contains two options - an Argentine guide book and Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.

I had started Krakauer's best seller previously, and while the tale of wilderness has little to do with my journey to "The Paris of South America," it was the title and the idea of leaving everything behind in search of the unknown that prompted me to make it a part of tomorrow's accessible carry on luggage.

As I prepare myself to board a plane bound for a new continent, my mind races with excitement and anticipation of the adventures and experiences that lie ahead.

But simultaneously, I can't help but feel a twinge of reminiscence creep into my head.

It was the last two weeks spent visiting with siblings, friends and loved ones that reminded me what we have here at home. It was the final phone calls to friends and family and the thank-yous for generous hospitality that brought the word home to the front of my mind.

Even for those of us seeking more - knowledge, experience, vision, vocabulary - who constantly crave the sight, sound and taste of what's out there and to live what others flip channels to find, home is always the same.

It is comfort. It is safety. It is warmth.

But most of all, it is love.

And in the end we know, home is that much sweeter after a long journey in a strange land.

- AC

One Day at the Manisses

Often times, traveling tends to center around food.

Days are often spent idling along in limbo between meals. Because of this, going to a place with cuisine connections often make that place all the more enjoyable.

So as we rode along through the mist and choppy water off Rhode Island on our way out to Block Island I knew we would eat one or two pretty good meals.

After all, I was traveling with the little sister of a chef at one of the finer restaurants on the Island.

While I did not know it yet, the Manisses - a lodging and dining staple - was one of, if not the only, place still open in October that offered fine dining.

The fresh seafood and monstrous fish and chips were good, but expertly prepared dishes of imaginative varieties would be few and far between.

Brian Hartman, the brother of my beautiful travel companion, is the sous chef at the Manisses, and the day after he cooked us up an unbelievably delicious rosemary and bacon meatloaf with mashed potatoes in the kitchen of his girlfriend's home, Brian invited us into his restaurant for a little dinner party.

There were six of us friends and family of the chef, and with an almost deadly quiet dining room, Brian had been preparing.

As our server took a cocktail order, we had no idea that the four course blur of hedonistic ingestion that would follow would mirror an entire day - all in one sitting.

We started with a waffle under braised pork and topped with a poached quail egg.

Mimosas were served alongside the "breakfast."

After that, a course of caprese brioche was brought out - of which the variety has been lost in the sweet ginger-infused Bombay Sapphire and tonics that separated courses for me.

The "lunch" pairing of Pinot Grigio didn't help my memory, but it helped my taste buds, that much I can recall.

For our respective "dinners" we each chose an entree from the menu.

My venison was cooked to perfection.

For desert, served along with a round of espresso martinis - or Flatliners - a dessert boat with dingy in tow was placed along the length of the table with samplings of sweet confections from the frozen to the chocolatey.

While we were expected to go with our all-too-generous chef to one of Block Island's two dozen watering holes after dinner - the six of us retired home, comatose and drunk, to dream of heavenly tastes swimming across out tongues.

- AC

The island with a new pond for every day of the year

Block Island, Rhode Island:

- Eight miles off the south coast of Rhode Island

- A total area of less than 10 square miles

- 365 freshwater ponds

- Barely 1,000 year-round residents (which they determine with a Groundhog Day tradition)

- But more than 25 places to get a drink ...

It seems I return to this tear drop-shaped oasis every two or so years. I first spent the summer of my freshman year of college working as a waitress at the popular restaurant The Oar. I followed my brother and his then-girlfriend Tara in an effort to bond with my big brother. That was the summer my mom died, so this place has since held a particularly special place in my heart.

I then came back in 2003 to earn some extra cash after getting sick while studying abroad. I returned in '05 to visit for Lauren Von Bernuth's 24th birthday and again this fall to visit Bri and show Alex a piece of my past.

It's a different experience each time around, previously marked by excessive teenage drinking which now revolves less around the bars and more around old friends. With less than 1,000 year-round residents, it's like school is out here because most island businesses have officially closed. Really, you have to check and double-check the hours of operation even at the Block Island Grocery store before knowing whether or not you could go hungry for the night. It makes Tahoe City look like it's got serious nightlife.

Since it's offseason here, locals are drinking Mudslides rather than serving tourists the vodka milkshake. So "when in Rome," that's how we started our island vacation - with a 'slide at The Oar.

The weather hasn't been great - windy, chilly and a little bit wet - but the company, per usual, has been great. Meg and Roscoe, friends from Telluride, Colo. (and UPS) are also out for the week. Chefs B-Love and Roscoe cooked up a meatloaf one night, followed by another overindulgent dinner at The Manisses where brother Brian works as the sous chef. We managed to squeeze a four-course meal - or "breakfast, lunch, dinner and a midnight snack," as Bri called it - into just a few hours, with perfect drink pairings, of course.

He's off to work doubles for the weeked, so it's vaca style for the rest of us - sleep, eat, drink, repeat ...

We're off to Baltimore to visit the Hartman's tomorrow, then fly out to Buenos Aires from Maryland on Oct. 16.

JMH

Motor City

After a week in Detroit, a little spot up in the northern part of the Midwest that most people told me was an armpit, I feel quite confident in making my own judgment about the Motor City.
It really doesn't deserve the harsh judgment everyone seems to so easily - without ever visiting - slap down upon it.
The greater Detroit area has shown me some of the most insane on highway tactics of anywhere I've been in the US. But then again, I'm told by locals that people here are car crazy.

They like to drive fast and have no patience for traffic.
So why not just turn around on the interstate and drive back up off the freeway on the on ramp?
After an afternoon walk through the unseasonably warm Indian summer air in downtown Detroit, the city itself seems starkly similar to that of the industry that supports it.

Gleaming towers topped with the GM logo rise up above the downtown area from the waterfront of the river, looking over towards Canada while simultaneously watching over the city. The solid glass tower and surrounding buildings gleam in the warm afternoon sun like a beacon of hope and future over a town that seems to be poking its head out of a dark hole.
An hour drive north to Ann Arbor on a Friday night brings the youth of Michigan into the forefront.
The University of Michigan is home to the biggest collegiate football stadium in the country. On most Saturday afternoons in the fall flocks of people join the some 40,000 students in utter mass chaos.
The pounding music from run down college rentals starts at some point in the early morning darkness on Saturday morning and continues uninterrupted until nearly Sunday morning.
Gangs of kids decked from head to toe in Wolverine blue and gold pack themselves into front yards of beat down houses blaring music.
The bass makes a post graduate kid's head pound – the scotch, tequila, tasty regional beers and other various poisons ingested the night before bubble to the surface.
But beside the hangover, a twinge of nostalgic collegiate youth simmers up with the football fervor.
20 minutes outside Ann Arbor lies the 100 acre estate of Mr. Lou Ferris, a Detroit born city boy who made good in the finance business and built himself a small Midwest empire.
Lou is a master on the barbecue, and over a deliciously smoking pile of tenderloin with his sweet hearted German Sheppard guard dog Duke at his side he spins tales of the old days of Motor City.
The race riots, walking at 5 years old to the Lady on the Hill to place bets for his immigrated Lebanese grandmother and the gangsters who ended fights - in one way or another – on his childhood streets.
"I loved my neighborhood," Ferris said of his Congress St. downtown burg which now holds towering office buildings symbolizing his city's and his generation's successes.
Our gracious local hosts tell us that a day after our departure the weather is supposed to turn. Another Michigan winter will set in and push out the chewable humid air.
But on our way out we'll swing through our host barrio of Royal Oak, a chic strip of tasty cafes, pubs, breweries and - the reason for our departing stop - ice cream parlors.
While the Motor City may not be a symbol of style and grace, it is also not the armpit I was assured and in all honesty, I look forward to my next visit.

— AC