Final countdown, loose ends

This is my last weekend here; on Monday I'm flying back to SF. Its long flight and I won't get in until Tuesday morning SF time; I'm really not looking forward to the flight and I have to start packing. But I am glad to be heading back soon; the truth is I am feeling a bit homesick. Anyway, here are some pictures from around the nieghborhood that I haven't posted yet.

This is the view from the kitchen window

This is a skyward view from the courtyard in our building complex. We really lucked out in that we were on the opposite side of the 2 building complex from the street and on the sixth floor; very quiet and the air seems a bit clearer.

This park is about a block away. Its off limits to foot traffic now due to construction; I think they are working on an underground parking lot.

This is a dojo a few blocks away. I went to watch a class.

This is me eating a steak :-)

The appartment is close to the famous recoletta cemetary....

...which contains the family grave of the Duarte family, where Madonna Eva Peron is buried

The city center obolisk is a 15 min walk away; here it is at sunset...nice postcard type picture...*snif*

a little farther is Puerto Madero, very fancy

I will miss all the nice flowering trees.

Not sure if I'll post again; I have to start packing and stuff. Thanks for reading, its been fun.

Ben está haciendo las películas feos

Ok, I basically don't know what I'm doing, but I made these video clips and now you're going to watch them dammit!

I took this with my little camera of a boat going under a big waterfall at Iguazu. The zoom feature doesn't seem to work when recording video so I had to crop the picture and now its grainy, but I think you can get the idea.


Here is our boat going under the same waterfall, from the video we got from our tour company. Kae and I are in the back of the boat so you can't really see us much :-(

Kae está haciendo las películas bonitas

Hello this is Kae. My friend Jenny and I are working away on the new movies. I thought about having a shot of this set up but I think I will leave it to your imagination.

This shot took: a 15 gallon fish tank, 3 lights, 8 lbs of sand, a box of puka shells, 3 liters of club soda, 10 gallons of agua, 6 tablets of alka-seltzer & a graciously gifted MiniDV camera.

What do you think? Your comments are appreciated!

Ps: Does anyone know the poet Adam Zagajewski?

More to come...

Shopping and Tango Lessons

Kae left her copy of "Time Out - Buenos Aires", which I used to locate some men's shops. There were a whole bunch in a 3 - by - 4 block area aroung Gurruchaga and Honduras streets, so I went there to look. The neighborhood as a whole was, well...rather gay.
Look! My cat has her own shop!

Just like the Castro...

I got lunch at a cafe and ordered a salad:

The guy outside the window was drinking a Manhatten...

I ended up buying some jeans and a shirt at "Antique Denim", but the shopkeeper asked me not to take any pictures of his shop.

As it happens this neighborhood is close to a salon where I've been taking some tango lessons from the talented and cheerful duo Negracha y Diego Lanau:


By fortunate coincidence they will be in the bay area this summer; you can find the details on their web site: http://www.negrachadiego.com/

Alex and Luz

Saturday night Bay Area maestro Alex Allende and Luz gave a demo at Salon Canning:

Sorry about the glare from the ceiling light; I didn't notice it until halfway through the first dance.






Off to do laundry now, then some shopping I think.

Goodbye Kae, bus ride home

This morning Kae left to go back to San Francisco...sad, sad. She's somewhere over Brazil now I think.
Here she is leaving in the elevator:

See? Now she's gone:

We took Miguel Tienda de Leon to the airport where we saw this cute statue and the usual airport schwag

I'm not sure what this is about. If you have an idea of what the green apple-like thing on the right is let me know.

Time to say goodbye, bon voyage, adios...

...and that was it, she's gone now :-(
For something different I took the regular city bus back. It wasn't too much different from Muni, with fewer blatently crazy people. thought I might get to see some new parts of the city this way but unfortunately we didn't really go that far from the highway.

This suburb could have been in California. One of the few places I've seen fully detached houses in Buenos Aires.

We went through Ciudad Evita; where there were lots of signs supporting the current president Néstor Kirchner (there will be an election this year appairently)

On the outskirts of Buenos Aires proper there were lots of these highrise buildings. There were rather plain compared to those in the city center but none seemed delapitated or burnt out.

I've noticed that in subtitled english movies, "cool" is normally translated as "genial"

As we got toward the city center, we ran into a protest which blocked the street.

I googled "Julio Lopez" and found this article: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/654/1/. I guess the injustices and disappearences aren't entirely in the past unfortunately.

The protest seemed peacful, but I moved on to find a subte station.

...which I took the rest of the way home.

So that's it, I'm home alone now! Tonight some people I know from San Francisco will be performing at a milonga; I'll need a little rest and maté before then.

Estancia, town of Lobos

We went to the Estancia (country estate) Santa Rita, near the town of Lobos. In addition to being a guest house, it is also an active farm. We got fed a lot, and while I didn't take any pictures of the food it was all very good and made with fresh farm ingredients. Here are some pictures of the grounds:

There were chickens, roosters, and turkeys running all over the place, but they were colorful and cute enough that it was kind of charming.

The main residence was an Italian style villa house which was built and decorated like something out of Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast":

A detail of the spire, with classical statues of Poisidon and Promethius

A view of the library

A reading room:

The main staircase has these cool statues on the way up

This is the courtyard, currently overgrown and closed but nice to look at.

We were on the 3rd floor (which they call the 2nd floor); here are some views from our room:

A dove had made a nest in a palm tree next to our balcony

We went horseback riding with some of the estancia staff. The young guy on the right is Rosado, who was very sweet and helped Kae a lot

The reason Kae looks tired in this picture is that Rosado had to try four or five times to get the camera to work. I guess digital camera work is not part of his normal duties.

We rode out to the cow pastures...

The cows looked smaller and more active/athletic than the ones in the U.S. In general the livestock on the farm seemed somewhat different than we are used to (probably slightly different breeds).

Rosado is flirting with Kae here...

On the way home we fucked up our reservation (partly due to my poor spanish) and so we got stranded in the town of Lobos for a few hours. We walked around and got a drink. Lobos is actually quite pretty; I later found out that it was the birth place of folk hero, 3 time president, and nazi sympathizer Juan Peron.

Who would have thought the Stud had a branch in Lobos?

Kae bought some ankle boots at a store with a cute antique cash register:

The whole town shut down at 1:00 for lunch-and-siesta. I'd heard of this but it seems to not be the case in Buenos Aires anymore; I guess the tradition lives on in smaller towns though.

On the bus ride home I took this picture, because the scenery reminded me of growing up in Indiana.