Last day in Buenos Aires, and it feels, for the first time, like some form of winter could actually be coming. (Maybe because this is also our first day of rain.) The city, by the way, is lovely in the rain.
Wait! Sun has come out! (Forget about some form of winter! And loveliness in the rain! Actually its still raining, but brightly sunny too, and lovely.)
I am sitting here at a sidewalk cafe in a shopping-residential, not particularly distinguished, section of Buenos Aires. Although not a touristy area, it is a place with a bunch of leather stores, and I’m trying to gather up the strength and resolve to go into some of them. (I hate shopping. Much caffeine and concentration is required to even get me to make the attempt.)
What’s really taking up my concentration though–aside from the need for even more caffeine–is the question of how it is possible that so many cars are passing through the intersection next to this cafe–and buses and trucks and pedestrians and bicycles, with no one bumping into each other. Each of the crossroads–Mallabia and Murillo–allows, more or less, two lanes of moving traffic; each has a pretty continual stream; there is no traffic light, or even stop sign.
Here’s how it basically works. If a car/bus/truck/ is part of a current flood of traffic dominating the intersection, they whizz by. If they are not part of the current dominating flow, they nudge nudge nudge, until they can brazen their way across. Then, when there is a break in one side of the flow, the other (brazening) side begins its flood.
I am sure that there are many accidents overall. But in the time that I’ve sat here, there has not been so much as a tap.
Which, I am forced to remember, is completely different from certain parts of my experience in last night at the wonderful La Viruta Tango (housed in an Armenia community hall), where during an informal beginner’s tango session, I could not go a whole set of steps (as in eight beats) without bumping into another set of dancers.
Maybe this is because the drivers are not looking only at their feet.
More on wonderful tango, and better milonga (a faster, simpler form of tango), later.
As one of my daughters has noted, one of the great pleasures of getting coffee or tea at a cafe in Buenos Aires are all the little dishes.
This is only one of the great pleasures. The cafes are pleasant in and of themselves, with tables both inside and out, with leafy trees usually somewhere in view, if not directly overhead, with internet service and quiet and nice smells, and, above all, a sense, the minute you enter, of time stretching out before and all around you.
Of course, you do kind of need time if you are going to a typical B.A. cafe. The experience is not susceptible of rushing. Waiters typically take some appreciable fraction of an hour to note of your little fidgeting movements, or large body, at one of their tables. (This is not a complaint. Serving staff is almost invariably kind, and while they do not seem to notice little subdued bleeps of “we’re here,” they also, on the reverse side, never make signs that it’s time for you to go. It seems pretty certain, in other words, that one coffee could allow you to maintain a station in a cafe for several hours.)
Eventually, then, the order is made and one is, eventually, brought all the little dishes– a cup of coffee, a small container of sugar, a glass of water. If you are ordering tea, a small ceramic pot, and pitcher of milk. And then, the coup de grace, a little plate of some abbreviated treat–itty-bitty cream puffs, bite-sized cookies, smidgeons of brownie. (At one cafe, even side dishes holding a small scoop of ice cream.)
The treat is not something ordered by you; it just appears, as if the stimulus of caffeine demands a side of sugar for true absorption.
The best thing about the treats–well, the best thing is that they are incredibly delicious. And always a bit of a surprise. And free. And did I say delicious?
But the next next next best thing is that they are that exact size understood by any diet-conscious person to contain absolutely zero calories. Amazing.
Taking Buquebus Ferry to Uruquay today from B.A. Sounds pretty exciting. I anticipate/hope that it is only a monster ferry in my clumsy rendition of it above. Happy Sunday.
And then there are those trips where some of your best memories are of the times you broke the plumbing.
I shouldn’t call them”best” memories–how about most unforgettable memories?
(BTW, this is not one of those trips. I repeat, from my couch in a rented apartment in Buenos Aires where we paid a significant damage deposit, this is not one of those trips.)
It really isn’t, actually. I don’t think you can “break” a pipe that’s not joined at all but simply aligned (more or less) with the pipe beneath it, with a big gap in-between, and yes, we have aligned them again.
Of course, there was that restaurant bathroom in Paris where I actually did tear the faucet off of the sink and water would not stop gushing straight up into the air. Onto the floor. Out the door. (How was I supposed to know that you weren’t supposed to push on the tap so hard?)
And I’m absolutely not going to go into any incidents in Mexico, except to say how lucky we were that none of the other people staying at the same house were home that day, and never lose heart.
But here, today, in this rented apartment in Buenos Aires, everything is just fine.
I am in Buenos Aires, a beautiful and extremely leafy city. I may be particularly conscious of the leaves because it is Fall here, a time in which one is always very conscious of leaves. Fall, and Buenos Aires, also have a wistful quality, which, as a kind of wistful, Eeyorish, person, I am quick to glom onto. Here’s the draft poem of the morning:
My world without you – Leaves
My world without you
is like a tree fallen in a forest;
without you there to hear it,
like a tree that may have fallen
in a forest somewhere, without you
next to me, a tree possibly falling somewhere,
out of my range too; nothing,
in short, feels real
without the warmth of your hand
at my back.
So when we talk of leaving, let it be of leaves (mine)
pressed up to leaves (yours); let it
be of leaves only, grown, blown, each to each,
their veins nearly in line, their
outlines coupling, leaves of a tree
not fallen, swaying gently, mightily.
All rights reserved, as always. Suggestions welcomed.
The bad news is that all my clothes are still heaped on my bed.
The good news is that I’ve packed my vitamins, flax seeds, omega oils, lutein (for the eyes), advil, and I’ve thoroughly scoped out the which digital devices question.
The bad news is that I don’t think I own any great casual slacks.
The good news is that I have, at least, washed every pair of underwear that I own.
The bad news is that the travel router that my husband got for me doesn’t work.
The good news is that he’s taking it back, which gives him something to do other than the cross word puzzle (while watching me pack vitamins.)
The bad news is that he’s not coming on my trip.
The good news is that it’s a relatively short trip, and I should come home healthy (what with all the vitamins) and safe (despite the lack of slacks).
Also, if a car runs over me, I’ll be wearing clean underwear.
ManicDDaily 
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