Tango!

Eve and I just returned from the finale of the Tango competition that has been raging all month. We were offered tickets last night and managed to find a babysitter (Carolina, a friend of Laura, the sister of my student Cecilia -- only three degrees of separation!) on short notice. Does that not prove that in fact we really do live here?

It was a thrilling event, held in the hundred-year-old Luna Park (the name no doubt inspired by Coney Island's). Well, of course all you want to know is who won. The shocker: no Portenos in the final three. The top two spots went to couples from Cordoba (still Argentina, of course, so a relief there); third place went to a team with a Japanese woman dancer. This followed on last night's victory of the Japanese team in the Tango Salon competition (more traditional tango, we believe). The Japanese are, apparently, nuts about Tango.

It was quite a thrill to be there. Miraculous dancers and adoring crowds, not to mention a fair bit of kitschy music and emceeing from characters that I tried to find comparisons for -- Frank Sinatra? William Shatner? Liberace? The stage was raised so the dancers were above the floor of the hall, bright lights shining, cameras on long booms swinging around them and projecting the images on huge television screens above. Smoke was sent across the stage to aproximate, what?, a smoky bar in San Telmo? I'm not sure.

But the dancers exploited their bipedalism to the fullest, and, especially, putting to beautiful use the knee joint, jacknifing their legs between the legs of their partners, around them, in line with them, in opposite directions, everywhere at lightning speed. It certainly made a mockery of our pathetic, teenage efforts to mimic the tango -- cheek to cheek, hands clasped, arms locked, pointing forward, a stilted walk across the dance floor, and then a quick turn.

Now for some lessons....

Mafalda

Jonah and I just returned from a big excursion down to San Telmo for the unveiling of a statue of the comic strip character Mafalda in honor of her creator, Joaquín Salvador Lavado, better known here by his pen name “Quino,” who was born and lived in the corner of Chile and Defensa.

We had heard about Mafalda from Tatiana on our second day here, and since then have seen her everywhere. It is the national comic strip, something like Peanuts combined with Doonesbury -- strips about kids and their lives, with an undercurrent of political commentary. It ceased publication on a regular basis in 1973 -- yes, 1973 -- and yet is still everywhere and Quino is a real hero. Along with the statue, they also put a plaque in front of his house, and gave him the first bicentennial medal (the bicentennial is in 2010). And the event showed as much -- hundreds of people crammed into this narrow square to catch a glimpse of the guy, who is a dead-on copy of Arthur Mange, father of my friend Paul. So, kind-hearted but not exactly flashy! Jonah was especially impressed by seeing pictures of Quino -- "He's just an ordinary guy who got famous for draw in these comic strips." I file this comment under "Geeks Rule!"

We stayed for the whole event, which was delayed by everyone of the dignitaries having to kiss every one of the other dignitaries, and even followed Quino and his entourage down the street in the hope of getting a signature, but to no avail. But we enjoyed being part of the festivities and managed to squeeze through the crowd and get a photograph of Jonah with the new Mafalda statue on a bench.

Noquis

Yesterday, on the way to dinner Aviva said to me that it would be a lot better if everyone in Buenos Aires owned their own car because there would less traffic and less pollution. "Taxis and buses run all day and night, so they must waste a lot of energy." I countered with the tried and true argument that cities are in fact far more environmentally friendly places because so many people take public transportation, and that in fact if everyone had a car in the city it would be complete gridlock. I am sure both answers are true, especially for the subway and buses, but I do wonder how much extra pollution is generated with taxis running around constantly, often empty. Perhaps zipcars or their like (including the new car system invented in part by William Mitchell at MIT) should be more central to our future.

Another thought: it seems bizarre that in a city where people routinely start dinner at 9 or 10 pm, that the subway stops running after 10:30. The other night, when Eve and I went out for a lovely dinner with Laura Valinotto and her novio (boyfriend) David, we didn't start eating until around 10:30. The place only filled up around 11 and was going strong when we left at midnight.

Last night we took part in a custom which I feared was invented by my guidebook and would make us look like, well, tourists. On the 29th of every month there is a tradition (still honored by some) to go out and eat gnocchis (noquis) for dinner, and then leave a 2-peso note under the plate. There are varying understandings of the purpose of all of this. One says that as Portenos are only paid once a month by the 29th people have little money so if they go out they eat the cheapest of pastas, those little potato dumplings. Another is a sly criticism of government bureaucrats, those little dumplings (or, as we might say, "sacks of potatoes") who do nothing all month but show up on the 29th to get their paychecks. And the 2 peso note -- a wish for good luck (and good fortune) in the coming month.

Whatever the reasons, we had some excellent noquis at Las Cortaderas and a nice long walk home, at a mere 10 pm.

Kaplan-Weinbaum Test Preparation

Without trying to link him to Ted Kennedy, I did want to note that another person of some import died very recently: Stanley Kaplan, founder of the test preparation company that bore his name. Here's a very well-written obituary. For those of you reading this blog who aren't Weinbaums, it is worth noting that the obit gives credit where it is due: to Carol Weinbaum, who launched the first Kaplan office outside of New York, straight out of her house (where Eve grew up), and ultimately ran a network of centers in the region. It may be time to declare the Weinbaum house in East Oak Lane an historic landmark, right up there with Independence Hall!

In all seriousness, Carol by all accounts (including Stanley Kaplan's own, in his recent autobiography) did a remarkable, endlessly exhausting job (someone I live with says it was a 24-hour job!) building up the company in Philadelphia and teaching (along with George) thousands of students in the region.

Crossing Linea D

Why do we see people from home in the faces of those in cities we visit? Why as I walk around Buenos Aires do I see people from my past and present life in the United States?

As we returned from an excursion on a crowded subway at 8:30 pm last week, I looked around and saw in the tired and bored faces of the portenos in our car, some listening to the blues in Spanish, others reading, the faces of random people from my life: Tim Crimmins (my old colleague at Georgia State University), Steve Porter (Amherst friend), Mike Gaebler (Yale friend), in the faces of the other riders. These aren't people I was thinking about in recent days, but somehow in travel, your mind opens up and makes connections.

You take your home with you and put it into the landscape -- even more, into the faces of the strangers that now surround you. I think of the title of Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can't Go Home Again, and think: your home travels with you, transposed into faces of your new, anonymous neighbors.

I am reminded also of lines from Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry":

Flood-tide below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

....

Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.

And a line from a book I am reading right now, Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann:

"It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from We bring home with us when we leave. Sometimes it becomes more acute for the fact of having left."

Ted Kennedy

I was deeply saddened by the death of Ted Kennedy. I saw in him -- projected on to him, perhaps -- a real fighter for progressive causes, someone unafraid to speak and work for justice and greater equality.

I went out of my way to shake his hand, twice -- once in New Haven during the 1984 presidential campaign, and again in 2008 at a public higher education dinner in Boston, where he gave a passionate speech about the need to invest in higher education. As he arrived, I rushed across the huge ballroom because I wanted to have a chance to thank him for his support for liberal causes. Just weeks later he was diagnosed with cancer.

For all my skepticism of politicians, he somehow redeemed himself by his stalwart commitment to progressive causes even when they went "out of fashion," since apparently it is possible for a living wage, health care for all, and civil rights to "go out of fashion." You could rely on him to speak up, with great fervor, against injustice and for greater fairness.

When the time comes -- as it does on a regular basis on Washington -- for someone to have a spine and fight for better legislation in the face of vilification from the Right, he will be sorely missed.

San Telmo

Sunday we zipped down to San Telmo, one of the oldest parts of Buenos Aires, south of the Plaza de Mayo. We were in San Telmo briefly on our first day, with our Andando teacher Tatiana. It feels like a far more intimate neighborhood than most where we have spent out time. The street are narrower, cobblestones persist, and absent are the high walls and utterly fortified apartments and private mansions of Recoleta and Palermo.

Although all the guidebooks urge a visit here on the weekend, I suspect it would be more enjoyable on a quiet weekday afternoon. Today (like most weekend afternoons, I have read) it was packed, for a half mile along Av. Defense. Antique/tshatshke stalls filled Plaza Dorrego. Magicians and mimes and tango dancers filled the streets (not to mention a man with an outfit that made it look like there was a heavy wind pushing up his coat and tie). We managed to buy little (save for a piece of quartz and some excellent ice cream) and enjoyed the slow walk toward the center of town. We did take a brief detour to see casa minima -- a ten-foot-wide house of a freedman, who was given this tiny plot of street frontage by his former owner.

P.S. Translation of the words on the above photograph: "The organ is nostalgia that refuses to die."

Blog format change

I changed the blog template so that the photographs have more space and aren't cut off. Make sure you view the blog in full screen view.

Floralis Generica

Yesterday, we left Eve to sleep -- she has an awful cold -- and went on what I like to call (and which sometimes provokes groans) "excursions." It was a simple but enjoyable one: we hopped on the bus and zipped down Libertador (named after San Martin, whose holiday we enjoyed last Monday) to Recoleta to see an amazing piece of outdoor art, the Floralis Generica, by Eduardo Catalano, a 2002 homage to the city. It is quite spectacular, and that's without even seeing the opening and closing of the flower, which takes place at dawn and dusk.

The flower itself is stunning, but the whole experience was made a bit bizarre by the art installation that covered the entire park in which it is set: it consisted of two different images of scantily-clad women -- dancers or actresses from the 1960s? -- reproduced hundreds of times on cartboard and distributed all around the flower and, as you can see, in the pool in which the flower sits. I will investigate and find out what this was all about it.

The context of the flower is also fascinating. Immediately next to it is the Facultad Derecho -- the law school. It is a 1949 neo-classical (neo-Nazi?) building, dark and brooding, with Doric columns and a long, wide, desolate staircase leading up its entrance. I don't believe this was Catalano's intent, but the opening and closing of the flower seems an apt symbol for the opening and closing of the law, and of justice, over the course of the history of Argentina. A different set of comments about the law school are made on the bridge over Av. Alcorta that one must walk to get to the school. there were graffitti about socialist revolution, portraits of Che, a series of portraits of students (law students, I believe) who were taken away and murdered during the 1970s -- the desaparecidos.

We walked to a nearby restaurant that had been recommended by one our guidebooks and it was great (two for two for this Knopf "mapguide") -- El Sanjuanino. Jonah insists that their choclo (i.e. corn -- no one says maiz) empanadas are the best we've had, and indeed, the restaurant is known for them.

We walked over to the Plaza across the way and "participated" (i.e. spent "mucho platas," as my Spanish teacher kept saying -- lots of silver) in the weekend arts and crafts fair. Along with a belt (absolutely needed!) for me, and a necklace for Eve, you can see the little paper animals the kids got, all made out of Subte cards (with the occasional magazine ad included)! We also had doughtnuts with dulce de leche inside, and a churro filled with the same. Life could be worse, but not much better.

We took a different bus back -- the speed with which they drive and turn and stop makes this more of an amusement park ride than a bus ride -- and relaxed at home. We have been actively hoarding our coins, because, as you may have read recently, there is a coin shortage here. Coins are absolutely essential because most people move around via the colectivos -- the literally 792 different bus lines (no kidding -- I have a booklet that lists every single one of their routes)...and colectivos only take coins (the Subte takes all kinds of money and allows you to buy an electronic card). For no good reason -- some say the federal government wants to make the mayor of Buenos Aires look bad -- there are not enough coins. I am regularly asked for coins in a store or restaurant if the bill is, say, $10.25. And as often as not, we will be given more money back (i.e. in paper money) rather than give us precious change.

Off now to the Sunday fair in San Telmo....

Catching up

I have fallen off the wagon! I was such a loyal writer, and now that life has sped up a bit, I have missed a few days. Also, we have all been a bit sick which has sent us to bed early.

But let me try to catch up, working backwards from today.

I am off to the U.S. Embassy now to pick up my books. I managed to convince them not to send the books downtown to the Fulbright office, as we live five minutes from the embassy and many of the books are staying in our apartment. Let's if they get all nervous when I walk up with several big suitcases to carry the books back in!

Eve and I have been alternating zipping downtown to Spanish classes this week -- me in the morning (everyday) and Eve three afternoons a week. We are both learning, but aren't ecstatic about the classes. They are small, which is great, but they pack in people of different levels because there aren't enough for many different classes in each time slot. I was put in with people a good bit stronger at Spanish than me (that would be most people). But today I was demoted to a group closer to my level and that was better. We may continue with a school in Palermo next week.

I finally made it out to "my" university -- Universidad Torcuato di Tella -- and spent a good hour touring the institution and meeting (again) my host professor, the Dean of the architecture school, Jorge Liernur. He is exceptionally kind and welcoming, and is already plotting exchange programs and a symposium next year (for which I would have to, of course, return!). The university is the successor to El Instituto di Tella, which was an important art school in the1950s and 1960s but was shut down by the government in the late 1960s. It reestablished itself as one of the best universities in Argentina, although it only recently has brought back its school of art and architecture. There is a lot in a single letter: Pancho (as he calls himself) says that those who want to remember the heady days of di Tella at the cutting of art use the shorthand of "El di Tella (because Instituto gets the masculane El) while those who know it as the university call it "La [Universidad] di Tella."

Some memories of the past few days:

--free internet in the Subte!

--utterly packed Subte cars. I have luckily headed in just before the rush hour (which really begins around 8:30 or); Eve has had the worst of it, coming home right after 5 pm. But today when I returned around 1:30 it was insane -- people just pushing as hard as they can to get in. I waited for another train, only to find it just as crowded. Once squished in, you are still subject to further compression at each stop, as those in the middle try to get out. But everyone still accompanies their body-slam of you with a curt "permiso." I can't wait to take these rides in November or December when it is 100 degrees.

--everything was closed on Monday. Really, everything. It was the holiday in honor of the Libertador, San Martin. So, we had rather quiet day (although both Eve and I still had our Spanish classes) including a lovely trip to the park, where the kids spent a good forty-five minutes climbing up, down, and around a fallen tree (it must have fallen years ago, because it is covered in carved messages and is completely smooth. We played a little baseball (provoking lots of stares) and walked again through the lovely promenade of the Rosedal garden.

--School continues to go okay for the kids, although the work is far too easy (not counting the Spanish, which is slowly coming along). Also, Jonah's good friend suddenly turned on him (you know how these things can happen) so he is feeling rather lonely. He delivered a note (in Spanish) to Ernesto and we hope that things will sort themselves out.

--a couple of big news events here, which might not have made the front page of the New York Times: the manager and security chief of a club where over a hundred people died five years ago were convicted. But perhaps the bigger news was that the band, which apparently was fully implicated, were all cleared. There were riots in the streets (about five blocks from our Spanish language school), as family members battled fans of the group. Apparently, in order to identify rioters, the police fire blue paint on everyone involved in a melee. As people flee policy can grab them. Second news item: the government paid something like $60 million pesos to make televised football (soccer) free for all -- it had been exclusively on cable. Bread and circus comes to mind.

--We just returned from Comunidad Bet-El, which has long been a mythical place for me, as it was Marshall Meyer's community and it was from here that he developed a new type of conservative service -- filled with singing and dancing -- and a renewed focus on social action. When I attend Bnai Jeshurun, there were regular references to Comunidad Bet-El, the world of Buenos Aires Jews. It deserves a longer post, which I will get to tomorrow. But summarize it this way: one can quibble over the kinds of tunes they chose, the Musak-y keyboard in the background, the feeling that you were the "audience" a good amount of the time. But the bottom line is -- and I felt this at BJ as well: here we were on a Shabbat evening and there were several hundred Jews singing loudly and confidently and with great ruach. That in and of itself was enough to make this an uplifting experience.

Shabbat shalom.

Abasto

The rain finally let up this afternoon and we decided to head off to Museo del los Ninos, which just happens to be inside the Abasto Shopping Center where a certain kosher McDonald's happens to be. It needed to be and sampled.

The shopping center was packed, packed, packed. For a cold (well, 50 degrees or so) Sunday, I guess it was the place to be. The building is quite remarkable -- three massive arched bays running several hundred feet in one direction, and probably five hundred in the other. In the food court, you can see the whole length of the building. (They have also gone several floors underground).

The Museo was nothing remarkable -- it seems like the children's museum has become formulaic: lots and lots of noise, some climbing structures, some stores where kids can play with cash registers, etc., etc. I'll give credit to the designers for placing the fun in the context of a story about what makes a city work: media, infrastructure, houses, stores, construction, etc. It even had some good bathroom humor going for it: to get into a series of tubes kids could climb through and experience the city's water system the kids must dive, headfirst into.....a huge toilet bowl. I don't think that would fly in the Boston Children's Museum. But after experiencing the City Museum in St. Louis, we were underwhelmed. (Thanks to Evan Shopper and Debbie Zeidenberg for insisting on a visit while Eve was recovering -- it is a truly unique place. You canget a sense at http://www.citymuseum.org). We might, however, return to test out the amusement park within the shopping center. Yes, there is a ferris wheel and other rides "tucked" into a corner of this huge complex.

We ended our shopping mall excursion at McDonald's. There was something hilarious about it -- the huge sign saying "McDonald's -- Kosher"; a poster assuring us that hamotzi was made over all of the bread at this McDonald's (does it really qualify as bread?); the sink for ritual handwashing. But there it is all is....save for the bacon cheeseburger. Being the only one in my family who has experienced a "regular" McDonald's, I can honestly say that this one fully lived down to the standards of all other McDonald's.

Shabbat

On Shabbat we went to services at a nearby shul, Communidad Bet Hilel. We had scouted out the location the day before....except that we couldn't find it. the only clue -- which turned out to be the right clue --was that there was a police guardhouse outside an average-looking building on Araoz. Sure enough, when we arrived Shabbat morning there was a guard outside who asked us a few questions and then let us in.

We found an auditorium half-filled (about eighty people) for a conservative service that we instantly recognized. It was it was very nice to walk in to an anonymous building and find one instantly able to participate -- I am always amazed by this experience of finding a synagogue in a far-off country, reading the same parashah, allowing us to pick up where we were when we left.

Of course, it is the differences that are fascinating. Having "grown up" (i.e. in my twenties) at Bnai Jeshurun, I recognized some of the elements, most notable a keyboardist and cantor, singing during musaf and even after the service was over. This I remember well from BJ -- a lot of music played on Shabbat evening and Shabbat morning. It is controversial I know (instruments and all -- especially those plugged in), but I find it uplifting and enjoyable. Especially when they end with a spirited rendition of our favorite tune to od yavo shalom aleinu -- Ruthie loved that tune at Camp Shemesh and was in a state of bewilderment that THESE people IN BUENOS AIRES knew it as well! A first understanding of the wandering of ourpeople. It was very informal -- only the old people, and anxious-to-fit-in foreigners (me) were dressed up. There was no sermon, only a "dialogue" between Rabbi Yafe and the bat mitvah. Alas, we didn't meet anyone, but plan on returning for Shabbat evening services next week.

We walked home, had lunch, and then settled into naps and card-playing, before I roused Jonah and Aviva to take a walk to the big park just down the street from us -- Parque Tres de Febrero. We found it packed with people (despite this being called "winter" it was in fact about 80 degrees!), rollerblading, jogging, hanging out, playing music, and paddle-boating around the lake. We made our way through the Rosedal, the rose garden that should be spectacular in the spring (it is very clean and neat right now -- unlike the rest of the park -- but, of course, barren) and then rented a paddle boat. We had a grand time, going under the bridges and around the little islands, avoiding the ducklings and many other boats. Before the boat ride we had fresh squeezed organe juice and afterwards the latest version of the ubiquitous dulce de leche -- this time at the center of an ice cream cone. (We have had home taste-tests of various forms of dulce de leche and alfajores (chocolate-covered cookies with -- what else" -- dulce de leche at the center)). This morning I made dulce de leche pancakes. Dulce de Leche pasta is next (!).

We strolled home, past an electronic violin concert, some drummers, a roller blade hockey game, a statue of George Washington, which stands across from the U.S. Embassy and Ambassador's resdience (on Av. John F. Kennedy) and the FDR statue. I felt like I was on the mall in Washington.

Then it was on to La Rural, the huge exposition hall directly across the street. They were have a timely show -- samples of food and crafts from all the different regions of Argentina. I think Jonah called it the "best place ever" because were able to walk down the rows of food stalls trying every region's jam and honey and dulce de leche and nuts and fruit and cheese. Not a bad evening. Of course we walked away with our share of goodies, including a jar of Manteca de Mani -- peanut butter, which we have been unable to find anywhere, even in the Jumbo. That's where we ran into a couple of Americans. Earlier we ran into one of Ruthie's kindergarten classmates -- we felt like we were part of the neighborhood.

Today has been lazy, lazy, lazy -- it poured all night, with booming thunder and lightning, so we were all glad to stay in bed. Eve and my bedroom is on the second floor of the apartment which is the top of the building. It is a mansard roof, and skylight windows built in -- which means the rain comes directly down onto the windows, which are transformed into drums. I have never heard rain so loud before.

We are now off to the Jewish district, Once, and the Museo del los Ninos....and the kosher McDonald's.

Some questions for future consideration:

Why is 1980s (and earlier) American pop music playing everywhere? Bill Joel, Talking Heads and the Monkees from this morning, but everyday in cafes and restaurants we hear the usual hits from high school and college. Not that I'm complaining -- I'm rather stuck in the 1980s myself. But is it "taste"? Is it that radio stations and individuals were able to acquire those albums in the 1980s (or 1990s) and were unable to acquire much after the 2001 crash? Is it that those older albums are making their ay southward slowly?

Why is it that when I first walked out of the Subte on Av. Sante Fe I was quite overwhelmed -- with the noise and dirt and chaos -- and worried about the place we had decided to live for six months, but within a week, I considered it a new home? It isn't simply that I see the same scene and feel more manageable. The scene itself looks different. This is the transformation of space into place. Or one kind of place into another.

Why is it that plastic products are so expensive -- kitchen garbage cans, ziplock bags, etc.?

Why is Haagen-Daz so unbelievably expensive and yet so desired (such that it shows up in many of the grocery stores in the more expensive neighborhoods)?

Why is there "envios a domicilio" in a small store selling perfumes and shampoo?

Why don't we have a drain in the floor of the bathroom, so that when water spills out of the bath -- say, when children are splashing around-- it can just run back into the drain?

Why does it seem that all Bauhaus-inspired apartment buildings are designed by Jewish architects (or at least people with Eastern European Jewish-sounding names)? I can hazard a guess, but I still find it interesting. Parts of Palermo feel like a little -- no, not Dessau -- Tel Aviv.

Quick notes

Just back from the Jumbo....and awaiting the delivery. How wonderful to walk out of a grocery store carrying nothing.

A busy day -- dropped the kids off (Jonah and Aviva first, and then tea and medialunes with Ruthie before dropping her off) and then headed downtown (Microcentro) to look over a Spanish language school for Eve and myself. I thought I was done with tests, but no -- we had to sit down and take a pretest to see where they would place us. Yikes. Even Eve had to guess at some of the answers! But we liked the school a lot (recommended by Fulbright and by my colleague Gerry McFarland, whom they remembered fondly), so we'll both start on Monday -- me in an intensive, four-hours-a-day course, and Eve doing a three-day-a week "regular course.

We then picked up my first paycheck from Fulbright and went to cash it at the nearby Citibank. They wouldn't do it because I only had a copy of my passport (and even though I had my license and a million other forms of identification). Arghhh.

Back home to get my passport and walk over to a branch of Citibank in Palermo. I proudly walk up with the appropriate documents and....am told that this check can only be cashed at that particular Citibank location. Unbelievable. So, this will have to wait until Tuesday -- Monday is a national holiday for the El Libertador, Jose de San Martin -- kind of like President's Day, although he was a soldier who helped gain independence from Spain, not a president.

Lunch with the kids (again at Tonno, a local favorite) and then over to the Jumbo and supplies for Shabbat dinner and regular staples (including the requisite $7 AR ($1.80USD) bottle of Malbec. Now that's my kind of price for wine).

Time to get Ruthie, and then Jonah (pronounced Zhonah here) and Aviva (pronounced Abiba). Jonah's deskmate Ernesto is quickly becoming his friend -- Jonah wants to invite him over...when he can speak a little more Spanish.

A few photos from this afternoon and evening...

We had another lovely lunch with Jonah and Aviva (who truly look like medical residents on lunchbreak with their long white coats). Fortunately, they are eager to stay at school with their friends (only a few kids go home or out with their parents at lunchtime) so we won't have to break them of this expensive habit.

We did, however, end the day with a walk back to the kosher restaurant, El Pasaje, which we went to on day 2 or 3. Much pleasure was experienced by the meat-eaters amongst us. The meat-filled empanadas may have been the biggest hit, with my steak a close second. The owners gave us a nice map of kosher Buenos Aires, including butchers that offer "envios a domicilio sin cargo" -- yes, free delivery. We have a grill on the balcony so we may very well end up having our own picnic from time to time.

Ms. Ruthie seemed to have a fine day, although she managed to complain about some of the inadequacies of her school -- chairs that are too low, bread that is "yucky," and a few other problems. But we also saw her head right in, under the guidance of Maestra Daniela, who could not be kinder or more enthusiastic about Ru -- that earns her high marks with me from

the start. Big kisses for us and for Ruthie every morning.

Here is a photo of Jonah and Ruthie on the first day of school -- Aviva refused to be included.

Belgrano

We dropped the kids off this morning and headed up to Belgrano to visit Communidad Bet El, the synagogue that Marshall Meyer revived and made a center of a social action within Buenos Aires. He trained many a young rabbi, including the rabbis now heading up Congregatio Bnai Jeshurun in New York, one of the most lively conservative synagogues in the city.

The setting is rather different than Bnai Jeshurun -- quiet, lovely, streets of Belgrano, an upper class suburb of Buenos Aires (well, it isn't officially a suburb, as it is still within the city). We couldn't get into the shul, as it was absolutely barricaded with two guards standing at different entrances. But they were happy to welcome us to Shabbat service (as long we came with passports).

This is the area we were urged to live in and it is quite nice -- single-family homes (row houses with pretensions), wide streets, cleaner. There are lots of private schools and lots of signs in English -- this is clearly the heart of the expat community. (A few signs could use a little work -- e.g. "Beauty Free" is probably not what you want out of your beauty salon).

Off to meet the kids for lunch...

So far so good....

Just returned from lunch with Aviva and Jonah. We picked them up at their school at 12:15, and returned them there at 1:30. Jonah seemed happy. Aviva was upset...but only that we got there too early and had her dragged out of class! Both seem quite happy -- Aviva has captivated the class which is almost all girls. (Jonah's class is almost all boys). Her teacher is exceptionally nice and speaks some English, and all the kids are eager to practice their English on her. Jonah said the maestra is kind of mean...but he has said that about every teacher, at least at first! The kids were fascinated with him and were so impressed by his math skills and by the fact that he could say Me llamo Jonah. His seat-mate (they each share a desk -- just like I did with Sabine Stein in Germany way back when) immediately turned to him and said: "Michael Jackson -- King of Pop," the story of which prompted much laughter.

We took them around the corner to Tonno, a nice pizza and pasta restaurant we went to on day 2, and watch Argentina come from behind and beat Russia in some soccer competition. Yells of joy from everyone in the restaurant. We returned the kids to the school, with the girls yelling for Aviva through the gates of the playground.

So far so good!

Earlier in the day I had a lovely time with Laura Vallinotto, the sister of Cecilia, one of my architecture students at UMass. She gave me all kinds of advice and helped me (well, she did all the work and I looked on) get cellphone chips for both Eve and myself.

Clearly, I won't be blogging every few hours for the next five months! But the school issue is especially important and the solution has made us both so happy we thought we send out a note right away, for those following the blog on a minute by minute basis (!!)

Fingers crossed...

First day of school. Everyone was up very early -- we have been waking up at 9 or 9:30, and today we all had to be up at 7, to make it to school by 8:05! Lots of nervous children, with Aviva the most upset (Jonah had expressed the most fears, but seemed also to be excited -- or had at least played out publicly his biggest fears so was less tense about them). We arrived to a crowd of students and a warm welcome from the teachers. Jonah's maestra put her arm around him and brought him to a group of boys and introduced him. Aviva was welcomed by a young teacher with lots of piercings and a little bit of English -- Betti she said to call her -- who gave her a big kiss and brought her in to a group of girls. Within a second of her being introduced a girl put her arm through Aviva's and literally took her under her wing. The last sight of Aviva was with her wearing a big smile and offering us a wave goodbye.

Eve and Ruthie are off to the Jardin and I am getting us cellphones with the sister of a former student.

School Success

First, my favorite phrase of the day: Tenedor Libre -- "free fork" -- i.e. "all you can eat."

Second, we have yet to be blown over by the food here. Admittedly, we have primarily sampled "normal" food in restaurants in our neighborhood. But the basics for a vegetarian -- empanadas, pastas, pizza, salad....nothing has really rocked our boat. Pasteles, on the other hand, do manage to evoke a greater level of appreciation. Dulce de leche is everywhere and in everything. There are bakeries every few hundred yards, producing dozens and dozens of different pastries and cakes and other forms of sugar delivery. Alas, those same bakeries do not seem to make good bread which is, thus far, in short supply.

But now to the main event -- we have a school (s). (Warning: for those not dying to hear about every detail of the schooling situation, feel free to wait for another post!)

The day began with Eve heading off to the district education office to inquire about local schools. Both of us were feeling uncomfortable with the school we had found yesterday. While the people were exceptionally friendly and welcoming, they only had space for the kids to come half a day, the school was quite decrepit and large, and it was a good subway ride away. We had an appointment set up for one of the nearby Jewish day schools tomorrow. But we thought -- why not inquire about the local public schools (which we had not yet seen in our walks around the area).

Eve and Aviva returned from the school visit ecstatic -- after a visit to the district office they had found the place we should have looked first: the local neighborhood school: Escuela 20, en communidad 9. Just five minutes away is a sweet little school with small classes for the kids, a small outdoor play area, a lunch room -- the whole bit. There is also a Jardin des Infantes attached, where we thought Ruthie could also go. We scurried around making copies of all appropriate documents and Eve filled out the various forms (all in Spanish, of course). We returned to a warm welcome from the school staff (all women -- in two days I have seen exactly one man in the public schools) who quickly consulted about where to place Jonah and Aviva. We met Jonah's teacher for a moment, and she seemed serious and competent (Jonah says mean, but I don't think so) and eager to see Jonah tomorrow.

Who knows how it will go, and there will no doubt be tears and difficult moments, but I can't help but believe the end result will be positive -- they will learn Spanish, learn about how other people live, make friends, and gain a new level of appreciation to the variety of peoples and places in the world. If they learn a little math, that would be fine too.

I cannot help but compare this to my experience in Gundelfingen, Germany, back in 1974, when I arrived to enter the third grade with virtually no German at all. (My father was there Herr Doktor Professor Direktor of the UMass-Freiburg exchange program). While the first weeks were indeed quite difficult (I was put in the first grade, and then moved to the third, was bugged by the kids for pretending to play baseball by myself when no one would talk to me), I have such good memories of that year. Within the month I was speaking German and fully a part of my class. That year was, to a large degree, behind my wish to send the kids to school in a foreign country. So I can' t help but imagine the kids' experience through that lens.

I must say that we heard the following statements a number of times before we arrived:

--the public schools are no good.

--they won't let your kids in anyway, because they are too full

--it is a bureaucratic nightmare to get in

--you must send your kids to a private school.

I can't evaluate the first statement just yet (although by all appearances the school seems just fine -- a real, live, local public school, with big hallways, kids at desks, things on the wall, a flag or two, a bust of a famous old guy who gave his name to the school, serious teachers). But I can evaluate the others -- both schools were more than happy to accept our kids. Too full? Lenguas Vivas was definitely on the fuller side, although they were going to put Jonah and Aviva into classes of 18 and 22 -- nothing more than we'd expect in Amherst. Bureaucracy? They wanted copies of all the materials that Eve so wisely had prepared and copied (health records, report cards, passports), but were fully satisfied with what we had and were ready to have the kids come to school the next day. Don't worry -- I am not about to criticize the decisions others made -- we may very well have ended up in a private school if we had seen one first (the Martin Buber school, for example, is right near by, but had no space at all). But I think both Eve and I feel very good that we found a good public school near to our temporary home. More reports to follow, to be sure.

And so they begin tomorrow, and early, and late: they start at 8:15 a.m. and go to 4:20! Now, this includes an hour and fifteen minute lunch break, where the kids can go home or out to lunch with parents, or eat in the school. This is a far cry from the 15 minutes the kids get to wolf down their food at Wildwood. This will also help with the transition -- for the first week or more, we will likely meet the kids for lunch and hear about the trials of the morning. More than anything, we expect them to be exhausted from trying to understand Spanish.

As for Ms. Ruthie, the Jardin attached to Jonah and Aviva's school was full so they brought us -- literally, Graciela, the staffperson in the Jardin, walked us two blocks -- to another public kindergarten that is overseen by the director at the first school. This Jardin was in an old hotel donated to the city by the owners. It looked very sweet, with a different floor for three-year-olds, four-year-olds, and five-year-olds. Tomorrow we return for a discussion with the two teachers but we assume that they will take our Ruthie -- who wouldn't want to?? We left there with kisses (in Argentina, it is always un beso, one kiss on the cheek, to anyone, even if you just met them five minutes previously (as was the case here)).

We left to head straight to the children's clothing store to buy the kids their uniforms. All boys and girls where white doctor's jackets while the kindergarteners wear a blue checkered jacket with a fake blue tie -- it has to be seen to be believed. Jonah especially was thrilled that he looks like a scientist. A few blocks away we picked up school supplies -- very specific: two three-ring binders for Jonah, filled with graph papers and lined paper; three small notebooks for Aviva; scissors, pencils, erasers. They are now set to become Argentine students.

We came home to savor (or not) the fine taste of Yerbe Mate, the national tea drink, which is consumed through a metal straw from a bowl, shared (germs and all) with your friends and family. I believe this is the definition of "a taste that will grow on you." It reminds me of my trip to Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad) with Anthony Bregman in 1990. We were eager to be purified (something we desperately needed) by "taking the waters" of Karlovy Vary. Except that it tasted like drinking liquid rotten eggs. It was so bad that we had to wash each sip down with the great elixir of life -- Coke. Why continue? We just felt we wanted to benefit from these magical waters. And indeed something magical happened: by the next day, after suffering through many pints of the horrible stuff, we found that the rotten egg taste had disappeared and we actually came to like the taste. We just drank ourselves into liking it, like the other automatons taking the waters with us. I guess that's what they call hegemony.

A little "skyping" with Jonah's friend Andreas (didn't we dream about video phone calls as kids in the early 1970s??), and everyone was off to bed, anxious about the first day of school.

Who Will Teach Our Children?

Today was spent in hot pursuit of a good school for Jonah, Aviva and Ruthie. We went to a nearby public school in the morning only to find that the Nivel Primeria -- the lower grade level -- comes only in the afternoon; older kids are in the morning. Apparently, there are three choices at many public schools -- attend from 8:15 to 1, or 1 to 4:30, or both (although not all schools offer the "completo" school day). We headed down to a very prestigious public school -- Escuela Normal Superior No. 1 en Lenguas Vivas where we found the school staff very welcoming. Before long, they were planning for Jonah and Aviva to do placements tests (in math, not Spanish!), with the idea that they would start on Wednesday. Ruthie can start tomorrow in the Jardín des Infantes. It is a run-down school from the late 1950s, but we sense a good spirit there. The big problem: the classes that are not over-enrolled (i.e. 18 and 22, respectively) were in the afternoon session. The classes that run all day have 27 and 31 students already and they were hesitant (as were we) to add any more students. We will continue look into some other public schools in Palermo (Lenguas Vivas is in Recoleta, five quick subte stops away), as well as one of the Jewish day schools.

More tomorrow, to be sure....

A few other notes from the day:

--all the atms in the city (it appears) stopped working today. This could be a technical malfunction or, more likely, a policy decision made somewhere within the banking world. No one seemed to be especially bothered -- at least not in a dramatic, yell and scream in the middle of Av. Sante Fe kind of way -- about the fact that no one could access their money for the rest of the day (what tomorrow holds we don't know).

--Thirty steps from home, we passed a man in the middle of the sidewalk, peddling his bike. The bike, however, was propped up so that he was not moving but rather powering a knife-sharpening stone. He calmly pedaled and sharpened a long blade as people scurried by and the occasional fascinated tourist (yo) took photos.

The day ended with baths (which, along with using hand sanitizer after all trips on the subte, is our modest effort against catching H1N1), and more games of "BS" aka "I Doubt It" which Ruthie managed to sweep (defeating the reigning champion, Eve).

Domingo, primero

Today was a very uneventful day. After some late-sleeping and card-playing, we headed to the Jumbo to do our share for the Argentine economy. We purchased our first Yerba Mate, the national drink -- a bitter tea that is drunk with metal straws straight from a small bowl that people regularly walk around with, or store in their bags, so they are prepared whenever the mate urge calls. Two days ago we tried our first mate with Tatiana. All I can say is that I suspect the attachment to the drink has more to do with the tradition than with the taste.

We managed to sign up for nearly free delivery from the Jumbo. We came home and while Jonah and I were out eliciting stares for our game of baseball catch in one of the parks near our apartment, the delivery from the Jumbo arrived to our apartment door. This definitely has the making of a mate-like tradition in our household.

We had our final "class" with Tatiana downtown, in Recoleta. We started at the main branch of El Ateneo, the bookstore chain. This has to be one of the grandest bookstores I have ever seen. The bookstore is in a rehabilitated 19th century theater, with the "stage" now a cafe, and the main seating area (and balconies) filled with books and chairs and tables. Quite spectacular, and packed with people.

We ended our evening with helado at our local heladeria, an interior that captures a certain feeling here. The design is clearly intended to be quite modern in a certain nostalgic early modernist way -- white walls and counters, some faux Barcelona chairs (ala Mies van der Rohe), nothing on the walls, pure. But of course, the Barcelona chairs are brown and ripped up; wires are hanging down from the back wall, and entrance has been covered with graffitti. Life has a way of intruding on architecture.

Some first urban impressions

In the interest of exploiting the dangerous few advantages I bring to my observations of Buenos Aires -- some knowledge of cities combined with a total ignorance of Buenos Aires, which combined could lead to a "fresh" perspective (students: don't use this argument in class) -- I am going to put down some quick observations, and risk being embarrassed by my naive understanding of the city I am becoming a part of.

First, a few myths to dispel (all of this applies to the wealthier parts of town, I'll admit at the start):

--it is easy to use credit cards in most restaurants and stores, without any exorbitant additional charge. We had read otherwise.

--fruits and vegetables are readily available, in the

smallest corner store to the largest "Jumbo" mercado.

--it isn't hard being a vegetarian. Though flesh beckons, there are plenty of vegetarian options everywhere.

--you can take out more than enough in pesos from the plentiful atms.

Okay enough of the embarrassing revelations about our lack of knowledge of these basics, but, truly, we read all of this above before arriving here.

Some more relevant urban observations:

--In the wealthier areas, every building has a 24-hour security guard (ours included). The huge towers a hundred yards down the street from us are surrounded by 14-foot gates and cameras and a guardhouse. Cars all park in the underground parking garage. This is a robust trend in Buenos Aires life -- I look forward to learning more from Nora Libertun de Duren, NYC parks official and former MIT planning student who wrote her dissertation on the gated communities of Buenos Aires. She is here in Buenos Aires on maternity leave.

--Portenós love their animals. There are literally dozens of pet shops and veterinarians in Palermo and we regularly see dogwalkers out with a handful (I would say more than a handful) of dogs.

--My first "memorial" -- the Ford Falcon, the dreaded car of the secret police, which roamed the streets and picked up thousands of mostly young people and sent them to prison or, more likely, to their deaths in the Río de la Plata. The cars are relatively uncommon, but I have seen several. Apparently, the sight of them still provokes fear in Portenós who lived through that time. They are like moving memorials, or memory sites.

--Time warp -- I am wary to write what I am about to write, as it will appear to display the typical North American superiority or, conversel,y a condescending admiration for the "underdeveloped" world). But I have had this feeling in other less developed (read: less wealthy) cities: aspects of Buenos Aires feel a bit like cities of my youth, or, more likely, U.S. cities of the 1950s and 1960s. Por ejemplo: old, non lcd advertisements; tiny stores that only make xerox copies, or only sell CD's, or churros; telephone booths; elevators with grand wooden doors and gates that must be closed to ride up; cheese stores with those little flags poking out offering the name and cost of the cheese (ala Anatole, the mouse who rates the cheeses in Paris); and bookstores. Yes, bookstores with real books, where people browse and then purchase books that they then read. (Apologies for the rising nostalgia levels). And then there is the public hospital system, open to all -- much ink has been spilled on the notion of "universal health care" as if it were some new invention, when in fact it is reality in much of the world.

I am sure this last series of observations deserve further development. But it has struck me that as I walk around Buenos Aires I am walking around within a photograph I have seen of cities from another time.

Brief update from Saturday's excursion

We're just back from our latest excursion with Tatiana. We sat at a cafe in sight of El Congreso (the Congress Hall and its plaza where regular protests occur) and learned by reading and discussing the contents two newspapers -- La Nacion and Clarín. Perhaps the word "reading" needs to be clarified. We could read the words in Spanish; we could not understand most of the words, however. But we made progress and learned from Tatiana about the different political stances of the various newspapers (yes, plural -- it seems that there are many newspapers in this city and they are read and discussed by the city's citizens. This sounds vaguely familiar, like a country I used to know about....

We found that much of downtown is closed on Sábado (and likely Domingo), so we settled for some fairly awful empanadas (we usually like them). Just to spite yesterday's blog where I wrote about the speed and efficiency of the Subte, today we found ourselves stranded for twenty minutes because of a breakdown ahead. Perfect time for Max to have a siesta and the kids to play on Eve's ipod. We made it home, with some churros con dulce de leche (the latter being our new favorite sweet flavor) and are now busy with, well, blogging and cardplaying ("BS" or, as we would like the kids to say, "I doubt it").

More in a few minutes....

Spanish....and Kosher Meat

We began our explorations beyond the one mile radius of our apartment by taking the Subte (Subterráneos) to its southern end in San Telmo, the oldest part of the city. Each fare: the equivalent of around 30 cents. Crowded, yes. But also speedy and efficient. In San Telmo, at the Bar Britanico, we met Tatiana, our teacher from Espanol Andando. She will be our teacher through Sunday, teaching us Spanish by exploring different parts of the city. It turns out, one of her grandparents is a Russian Jewish emigre who still treats Tatiana, who was not brought up Jewish, to gefilte fish and kreplach.

She was endlessly patient with our squirmy (though knowledgeable) Spanish learners. We left the bar and took a bus up to the Retiro train station (where we had to employ our halting Spanish -- safe for Eve -- asking about various trips and costs), before heading briefly to Plaza de Mayo, the very heart of the city. I will no doubt be returning to witness the circuit of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo around the Obelisk, in front of the Casa Rosada, their pink version of our White House. It is a remarkable story, how the mothers and grandmothers of the "disappeared" under the dictatorship, led a social movement to gain justice, and who they have not let up, but rather have broadened their pursuit of human rights.

We left Tatiana and managed to find what felt like an authentic lunchroom for the businesspeople of Microcentro -- packed tables, waiters who appear to have spent many years elegantly managing the daily crowds, including a few tourists now and again, and simple fare (including provaleta, a traditional form of, well, melted cheese).

We returned home for long enough to rest and prepare for dinner at a long-imagined place: a kosher meat restaurant on the neighborhood a mile away, past the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy, on the other side of the zoo. Eve (the true vegetarian among us)) indulged her flesh-eating family members, and much satisfaction was found in beef chorizo, hamburgueasa, fried pollo and entraña, something on the order of flank steak. All were happy....and looking forward to the next fleischig meal. Perhaps that kosher McDonald's [sic] in the Once neighborhood...

The apartment and a nap beckoned.

Day 2

Our first day in Buenos Aires ended with a nice meal at the corner restaurant down the street, and unpacking to the booming sounds of the speeches and music coming from La Rural, on the last night of the exhibition. We left the windows open so we could hear the sound of the announcer, and watched from the balcony as the prize steer were led in to the hall from their pen across the street from us. On the streets nearby gauchos, in their distinctive garb, walked through the streets, standing out against the clothing of the Portenos.

Our first full day -- after a good night of sleep -- was spent exploring our neighborhood. It started just right -- Jonah, Aviva, and I went out to our local bakery/cafe for pasteles and, for me, much needed coffee. We sampled pretty much everything in the case, just to see what we liked best, for future visits.

After a few more games of spit and BS (the current favorite card games of the kids) we headed out to see a possible school for the kids, just a few minutes walk away -- Colegio Beth. Security is tight at Jewish day schools, so we could not go in without an appointment, which we will make today. We had lunch around the corner from where Borges lived as a child (which was then at the western edge of the city), and then walked to the zoo, which we can see from our apartment. Many of the animals roam wild through the zoo -- wallaby-like creatures, and other small furry creatures that someone could be forgiven for calling large rats, and the many cats that live permanently out of the kindness of strangers.

We then went to the super mercado -- aka the Jumbo -- which is five minutes from our apartment, and just up the street from the huge mosque and Islamic cultural center. Well, let me tell you, this Jumbo beats -- at least for size -- any Costco or Home Depot I've ever seen. I believe there were 50 checkout lines. It reminded me of my visit to the Carrefour supermarket in northeast Philadelphia with my friend Steve Conn, where the staff wore rollerskates to be able to get from one part of the store to another. It had basically everything -- from hot water heaters to dulce de leche to mattresses. We are naive about most everything about Buenos Aires life, but we do understand that this is clearly a store for the rich of this "gold coast"neighborhood.

"Home" (I'll soon stop using the quote marks) for our first home-cooked meal (accompanied by a glass of Malbec, the first of many samplings), a few quick Skype chats with Sasha and Jonah's friend Andreas, and then to bed, in preparation for our combination tour and Spanish class Thursday morning.

Arrived

We are here! With no flight problems, but no sleep, we arrived safe and sound and tired at our apartment in Palermo. The apartment is nice (although the photos from the real estate company have a way of making the place look bigger), with a long balcony overlooking the skyline, and the zoo just a half mile away. Directly across the street is a dusty, open area, between two apartment towers. I assumed this was just a building lot awaiting development. But when we stood on our 8th floor balcony, we heard the gentle mooing of cows emanated from behind the fence -- there were a couple dozen cows mingling, awaiting their turn to be shown inside La Rural, the agricultural exposition center. Not quite what we expected when we reached our destination at the heart of one of the world's largest cities.

Obviously, our internet service works as promised, so posting and emailing are in full swing. (Vonage phone service will take a little longer).

So, we are safe and sound, and ready to explore the city tomorrow.