Since this is a time when everyone is talking about change, I would also like to add my two cents.

Argentina has a massive coin shortage which makes using coin hungry modes of transport very tricky. This has been a very difficult obstacle to deal with and the more so because I am not used to coins being in short supply. I’ve left a world where coins seem to circulate and regenerate as quickly as flu germs.

To add to this already challenging dilemma, the washing machine and dryer in my building will of course…only take coins. And not just any coins. 1 Peso or 25 centavos only. So if I want clean clothes I need to hoard very specific coins for a week just to get one load done. And that’s just the washing, not the drying. All other coins must be retained so I can catch the bus to work in the morning. If I don’t have enough to spare, I have to dip into my laundry fund and get creative with my wardrobe for a few more days. If the entire predicament weren’t one big vicious circle it might all be a bit easier to manage, but because coins are in short supply, no-one wants to let go of them. And don’t assume you can waltz into a bank and leave with bags of shrapnel. They have a maximum of around 10 pesos I think, and if there aren’t queues, then they’re closed.

The best, but not always most effective solution is to frequent all nearby corner cafes (kiosko’s) as much as possible. In theory this practice seems easy enough, but kioskos come with their own barrel of surprises. Most explicitly state on a sign board when you enter ‘No hay monedas’, which effectively means ‘We don’t have coins’. When eventually you do find a plausible option you’ll go to pay for what you thought was a carefully calculated handful of goods, only to find they are sharper than you and 9 times out of 10 everything equals an even number. Then all you get is a wad of notes and a fat smile. Sometimes I have tried to stir things up at the last minute with a pack of chewing gum but this doesn’t always help. And if they suspect foul play you can guarantee some Spanish grumbles from behind the counter. On occasion I have been in a situation where the shopkeeper would rather not have my business than part with his coinage. I’ve even been given a handful of loose sweets instead. All this can be very frustrating when all you want to do is get on the bus, you are 15 pesos poorer, carrying packets of things you didn’t want in the first place and you still can’t get home.

Now seems as good a time as any to coin the phrase. ‘Spending money to get money.’

Just short of a month since my last post and only because the last 3-4 weeks have been anything but dull. Aside from the fact that I have been sick for almost as long, first with a viral infection to the throat which later morphed into laryngitis, things have been grand. What’s been especially fun was the arrival of some work colleagues, Alison and Marle about 3 weeks ago. This paved the way for monumental wine drinking and eating out, coated with splatterings of sight seeing trips and loads of laughs.

One thing worth mentioning is the Tango show we saw, something which has been on my list since I got here. This was performed at Cafe Tortoni, Buenos Aires’ oldest cafe which I think I’ve written about before. A bit commercial, but an experience all the same. Last Sunday we visited San Telmo. Not my favourite place in BA. Alison, Marle and I were really enjoying sitting outside on the cobbled street, watching all the people go by and savouring a wonderful cheese and meat platter accompanied by some nice refreshing Quilmes beer. The weather was beautiful too and it seemed like the perfect way for Marle to end her 2 week stay in BA. She had only a few more hours to go before the taxi would whiz her off to the airport. This all went horribly wrong, when it came time to pay and she looked down and her handbag was gone. This contained a fair amount of cash, passport, ID, credit cards etc. A terrible few hours ensued. We spent ages at the local police station waiting for a case number and were told it was the 10th case that day. Worst for Marle was the realisation that there would be no way she’d be able to fly that night and would have to wait for 3 days until the next available flight. The next morning I went with her to the South African Consulate to apply for an emergency passport. 24 hours later I received a call on my cellphone from some random dog-walker. It turns out this guy had discovered her passport, ID, drivers license, credit cards and luckily my name and number on a piece of paper. Unfortunately this was all that was to be found. A terrible way to end what had been such a good 2 weeks, but a lesson all the same. And now I’ve stopped carrying my passport around like it’s Spanish-English dictionary.

I think all the activity over the last few weeks and many a late night, coupled with all the indulging is what led me to eventually have to go see an ENT specialist at a clinic on Saturday. I dragged Alison along because she can speak Spanish. This turned into quite an amusing trip all in all. As I sat on a chair against a wall with a light bulb behind my head, the Doctor came toward me with a mirror on his forehead which looked like a CD and I had to concentrate really hard not to laugh. After poking around at the back of my throat for a bit, he dug in his toolbox and pulled out this weird looking tool which had tweezers the size of my baby finger. As he came closer I opened my mouth again. He indicated I was making available the wrong orifice and he went for my nose instead. Afterward Alison and I were laughing so much, because who knows what I thought he was planning on doing with that instrument down my throat. I think it would have been sinister even for a tonsillectomy. The Doctor was even smiling about it. As we left, we encountered the young male ‘receptionist’ who had very formally met us at the front desk. He’d had no time for chit-chat then, but now, outside the front door, and away from the confines of his professionalism, his stiff business-like demeanor disappeared altogether, and he asked us straight out if we wanted to meet up that evening! Casanova’s are rife here. Even when you least expect it.

Things have been quite hectic lately. This may be obvious since this blog now has a fine layer of dust on it. The weekdays have been filled with the usual weekday activities. Work, sleep, Spanish lessons, work, sleep, Spanish lessons. Last weekend I enjoyed the company of some friends from South Africa who were holidaying over here. It’s a miracle that I even got to see them since the previous weekend I had made plans to meet up with them via sms. What I didn’t know is that they hadn’t received any of my messages, so both of us thought the other party had backed out and not bothered to mention it. I’m having a stormy relationship with my cellphone network.

Anyway, so finally we connected last Friday and had some drinks and then met up early the next morning for a day trip to an Estancia (ranch). This was a fun experience. It cost an arm and a leg to get there on a bus that had us traveling with some other tourists doing hotel pick ups for about 2 hours. An hour later we were at a zoo, dropping some of them off and a further hour later we finally arrived at the ranch. Greeted by a uniformed gaucho and his team of maidens, we were offered refreshments and empanadas and given a brief introduction and left to our own devices, either to ride horses or go on a horse drawn cart. We opted for riding the horses. I haven’t ridden a horse since a friend took me riding on some Polo horses in Addo a million years ago. I almost became history when the giant machine of an animal went bezerk and took me on a whirlwind tour through some farm lands. So it was a bit like ‘getting back on the horse’. Luckily what we were mounting, were the moth eaten and fragmented remains of what once were work horses. The poor things could barely walk let alone gallop away into the sunset. So it was more of a plod, but fun all the same. We scoffed a 2.5 hour long lunch which was accompanied by a Gaucho with a guitar and his ‘band’. They performed all kinds of musical acts and a dancing pair showed us the many traditional Argentine dances, including of course the Tango. There were a huge amount of tourists there that day, and the Gaucho-slash-MC read out all the different countries which were present. A few were selected to go up on stage and sing something traditional. Being of the more ‘exotic’ variety, we just knew we were going to be picked on. Sure enough, a few minutes later, there the 3 of us were bellowing out the 2 national anthems. I think I’m still blushing.

This weekend has been interesting too. And now all that’s left of me is the moth eaten and fragmented remains of someone who partied til 7am on Saturday morning. I experienced proper BA night life first hand. The night only started at 12:30am. On the way to a friends house, I passed several bustling restaurants, all spilling with the late night eaters, some of them even with small children. That’s how they roll here. Starting the night with dinner anytime after 10. People start going out to bars and nightclubs usually around 2am. And it is completely normal to make your way home when the birds are already up.

Me on the horse-slash-donkey

The Gaucho

Dancers

Every local that I’ve told seems to have been a bit shocked that I enjoyed not one, but two Asado’s this weekend (Braai’s or BBQ’s). Although it is a long-lived and prospering Argentine tradition, I think usually one does not fill one’s whole weekend standing outside beside a coal fire, nursing a drink. Well, slightly normal for a South African. At least in my family anyway!

But perhaps this is testament to the fact that one Asado is enough. Because traditionally it occupies a duration of hours, eating an array of cow or other animal entrails (more on this shortly), along with other meat and different vegetables or ‘bykos’ as we call it back home. And all this to be washed down with copious amounts of red wine. My Spanish teacher has been filling me in with the help of an English newspaper article on the subject, which I’m having to translate into Spanish. There seems to be much emphasis on an Asado being more of a ritual than anything else, with much less focus on the food, but rather the gregarious nature of the exercise. I have to focus on the food for a second because yesterday I tried Mollejas (Sweetbread aka Thymus Glands). I was given a small piece to try and tried my best to bite off a few square millimetres but the elasticated goo would not let go of the fork, and I soon felt like I was on the set of Fear Factor munching for a prize. Looking up and taking myself to a happy place I managed to swallow the muck down and made a dash for my drink. I guess it’s just the thought of it more than anything else. I’m open to trying new things but somehow this texture just did not turn me on. Adjectives that spring to mind: fatty, spongy, pasty and chewy. Another present and more well known dish, also typically present at an Argentine Asado was Morcillas (Black Pudding). I chose to take a more passive approach and watched everyone else piling in.

Anyway, both of these Asado’s were hardly the traditional kind (but still with the longevity and copious amounts of red wine). Both events were littered with foreign expats however, both had one common denominator. An authentic Argentine Asador. In other words…a Braai Master. They actually have a name for it here. At home it’s just ‘Dad’. Or if that’s lacking, then any male who volunteers.

Asado y Vino

This really is only a fraction of the food and wine that was present.

The Auction

So we arrived at The Farmers Ball fashionably late and minutes before the sit down dinner. As we entered it felt like something dream-like. We wound our way upstairs over decades of footsteps, and a much younger Queen Elizabeth ll glared down at us from an oil on canvas as we stealthily took photos on the grand staircase. Having missed the inaugural banter we found our table amidst a pool of red-faced, tuxedo-ed moustaches. It wasn’t difficult to see that we had been allocated the kids table.

Soon after sitting down, some scholars from the local St. Andrew Scot’s School came round selling raffle tickets. There was an additional prize-giving where if you were lucky you had a winning ticket under your plate. I won 3 pairs of pantihose. We ate Brie tibio caramelizado, ensalada de holas verdes, tomates secos (Caramelized Brie with green leaves) to start. Then Gigot de cordero Patagonico, reduccion de jugos de coccion, chutney de membrillos y pera, raclette de papas, vegetales grillados (Patagonian lamb, mint, pear and quince chutney, roast potatoes and grilled vegetables). Following the main course everyone was invited to attend an auction of two paintings in the main dance area. This was done in Spanish so at most points I didn’t know whether we were into the hundreds or thousands, but just kept myself from fidgeting and falsely raising the bar. Luckily I am short, so no real risk there.

Post the very entertaining auction the Mesa de Postres opened up. Literally a few metres of strawberries, cakes, creme brulees and other tiered desserts. The ‘Los Fantasmas de Liverpool’ and the ‘Black Label Jazz Band’ made for a fun night of dancing. My friends entertained the more formal twosomes with some funny antics and sometime after midnight they brought out all sorts of party hats and other paraphanalia.

Unfortunately the ambassador, Dr. John Hughes and his Mrs, were not in company as he is actually right at the end of his tenure and was otherwise occupied. Probably taking in one last breathe of the awesomeness that was his home. We sublimely wafted out at about 3am which is very premature for a night out in Buenos Aires.

The front of the British Ambassador's House

Friends and Amigos

Our table