I had to catch a cab the other day, not something that happens often for us, we usually bumble along on the subway or on the buses but every now and then something happens which means you have no choice. In this case it was the subte line being closed five stations away from where I needed to catch my bus and me needing to get to class.

Anyway, when taking a cab in BA there are a couple of golden rules...

Don't look out of the front window.

I'll repeat

Don't look where you're going

Or, to put it another way

DON'T LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOING

It's for your own safety, for your blood pressure, to stop you from weeping and gnashing your teeth and wailing 'we're all going to die'

The reason for this is simple: cabbies in BA have been driving on these roads for years. The ones who can't drive here will have been weeded out long ago. The remainder are adept at fitting five lanes of traffic where there are four painted lanes, at pulling infront of buses at the last second, at anticipating traffic lights so that cyclists and pedestrians are fair game. They blow their horns at the slightest delay infront and they change lanes with less than three inches of space.

If you watch where you're going you will arrive needing to get very very drunk. Which is no good when you're teaching (well except for my history teacher but that's another tale).

The other thing to do is:

Check your change very carefully.

This is not because cabbies are mathematically challenged, no. Liz took a cab to the posh area of Puerto Madero for a job. The lovely taxista (cabbie) was very chatty, wished her good luck and all that. And he slipped a fake fiver (five pesos, I think we would have noticed a five pound note) into her change. She says she should have spotted it but it was in with a bundle of other notes.

We haven't been involved in any accidents, and maybe this is because each cab has a tiny Virgin de Lujan (the national virgin.... so says one of Liz's students, I'm not sure about that myself) on the dashboard, she's the protector of travellers (I guess that there was a bit of a scuffle with St Chris and the V of L is a tougher broad than she looks (and so small too).

Okay with that bit of blasphemy I guess my next trip will be 'eventful'. I'll let you know.
  ¶ 1:26 AM 1 comments

  Yesterday we went on another safari, the photographic kind. So it was a day of bumbling with the language and being very grateful to the flickrianos for being patient (and for talking Spanish, repeating things and generally being friendly). Roy, on the left, second row down, said he was deliberately speaking very fast because I needed the practice, well at least I think he said that...

So you can try and guess which is me and Liz, not hard....

We went to the centre of BA and spent about 6 hours wandering and taking pics, stopping for a coffee after it got dark, then resuming down at Puerto Madero.

If you want to see any more click on the flickr badge at the side.
  ¶ 12:22 AM 1 comments

  Spring will be springing officially here on Thursday, and the secondary school students get the day off because... erm I suppose to encourage scholarly appreciation of all things springy (Slinky class at 3pm on the steps anyone?)... I have no idea why other than the beginning of Spring is a big deal. There are parades and it's traditional to have picnics.

I also learned a new definition of Spring.

It's when the maximum temperature is over 25C instead of around 20C.

Well that's what it seems like. It was another cloudless day and we headed off to Los Bosques de Palermo (literally the forests of Palermo, in reality the parks). About half of the population had the same idea so there were a fair few people lounging about, playing football, drinking mate, eating choripan. Very relaxing.  ¶ 10:27 PM 1 comments

  It started every fourth or fifth time you flushed the toilet. Now though, now it's every time.

It starts with a whubwhubwhubwhubbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr as the pipes outside start shaking with the effort of delivering water... it sounds like a didgeridoo and it can go on for a while. You can tune it by turning on the cold tap at the same time.

And now it's gotten a little more cunning. Often it'll be a few minutes afterwards, when you think you've got away with it that it kicks in... after the didgeridoo it winds up into an impression of a jet taking off and then it tails off...

Every time...

Sigh...
  ¶ 7:47 PM 2 comments

  We were sitting about a dozen rows up from the touchline at the halfway line. Good seats. When we looked up to the left there was a gaping hole in the crowd. We asked Fernando, Liz's student who had organized this trip to the River Plate stadium (the Monumental), and he said it was the space for the Barras.

Two minutes before kick off there was a procession of flags and banderas and the sound of drums. The barras were arriving. They call themselves Los Borrachos del Tablon (the drunks of the old river stadium). As you can see in the picture they have a lot of flags.

River were playing Quilmes, who are bottom of the league and they made a rubbish job of it too. Two players sent off in a scrappy midfield battle (or so people said). There was a young lad in front of us who was singing along with the barras (usually about Boca Juniors), obviously he was out of place, but it seemed he was accompanying his grandfather.

The crowd were passionate, hurling abuse at the referee and the Quilmes players, one of whom was a bit dirty. So much so that the grandfather ended up on his feet yelling 'hijo de puta' (son of a bitch is the politest of translations for that one).

River ended up winning 2-1 and the game got a little better after 2 players were sent off and made a bit of room. Fernando was relieved, as were the other fans. We just enjoyed the spectacle. No trouble, good natured fun in the stadium where Argentina won the world cup in 78... they're still using the same TV cameras...  ¶ 12:44 AM 0 comments

  Okay, I know it's Thursday, but it's the weekend anyway. Before you get all jealous, we finished work at 9 this evening. Liz is working 30some hours a week (in four days) and I'm doing a bit less but with more travelling.

And as Thursday rolls around the question comes up again and again... 'pizza or parrilla?' because the big decision is whether to head to Pizza Napoles or Lo de Jimena (Jimena's, as we discovered our local parrilla was called, we had to ask though, thanks to the dearth of signs).

Today it was the parrilla (barbie). Now, one thing you couldn't accuse Argentine cooking of is subtlety, the parrillas are big man sized cooking, any place where a spade is part of the kitchen equipment (either for moving coals or carcasses) is a bit butch by definition. Lo de Jimenas is two rooms. One, the original, I guess, is smallish, with space for 30 or so diners, and a big old grill by the door. The other room is next door but one, and used to be a pizza parlour, it holds another 40ish. Tonight it was packed, at least it was by the time we left (10:40 for those who care).

We had a new waitress who was very friendly, she smiled as she told us that there was no bife de lomo (fillet steak) because there was a birthday party in there... so we followed her suggestions and had the bife de chorizo (sirloin) a la mariposa (cut like a butterfly). She also suggested we put perfil y ajo (parsley and garlic in oil) on the chips, and looked a little shocked when we mentioned the English propensity for vinegar on said tubers.

But we started with provoleta, which is a barbecued round of cheese (a little cheddary) topped with oregano mmmmm.

Nouvelle cuisine it aint, but oh my did it hit the spot. I haven't got tired of the beef here yet, there's still a oooohhh-my-goodness-shoot-me-now-because-this-is-the-best-beef -I-ever-tasted feeling about each plateful.
  ¶ 2:18 AM 0 comments

  So this....

... is what happens when the flickr BA safari crowd walk past a big mirror at the zoo.

Yup, we went to the zoo. It's 15 blocks from us and it's one of those old style, almost victorian zoos whose purpose seems to be the entertainment of visitors rather than any Gerald Durrell style preservation. I'm a bit ambivalent about places like this, parts of it were depressing, like the baboons with huge sores, and the tropical house that you had to pay AR$3 extra to get in but had no animals at all in the main butterfly room.

But going with the Flickrianos is a hoot. One person will see a 'shot' then another and then another will see the same one, eventually you get all of us crowded together. At the point this picture was taken people (non-flickrianos) were practically sprinting away in fear after being yelled at by this mob (no te cruces: don't cross...). It was bloomin' cold though, still winter, I had to zip up my jacket at one point!  ¶ 7:16 PM 1 comments

  One of my students told me last week that he was going to see a great group performing a Murga For those of you who won't click on the link, a Murga is a type of show/music performed during the Carnival in Uruguay, and in Argentina too, it's just that the Uraguayans are the best. The band, Falta y Resto, are apparently one of the best in Uruguay. So, said my student, I think you'd like it.

Liz has a very good approach to invites and the like, say yes... I'm coming to see the advantages.

The show started at 10 (a lot of theatres seem to have two shows on a weekend, one starting at 8 or 9 and the other at 10 or 11) and the place was packed, I had noticed a poster in town advertising the show, it said 'By popular demand' and they weren't wrong. The crowd was a mix of all ages. I had no idea what to expect.
So when 12 men in suits/shirt and tie combos with painted faces (think of a cross between KISS and a pierrot clown) came on stage it was a little surprising. The music is multiple part harmony, the closest I can describe it is as though Showaddywaddy and the Flying Pickets had children who were cool and liked Billy Bragg. The singing is backed by a couple of drummers and a cymbal player, and a guitarist every now and then. It's very rhythmic, it's for carnival after all and you can easily picture crowds shuffling along to the chk-chk-chk, pa paaa (alright, it's hard to do rhythms in text). It's also at full volume, normally it's all loud but tonight they were a little quieter because of the inclusion of a tango in the spirit of togetherness (that song ended, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Two cities, one heart).

The theme of the show was Amor Rioplatense, which is Love, in the River Plate area... it concentrated on the rivalry between BA and Montevideo, there was a lot of comedy that went over our heads but we got enough of the sense to be amused. There were a few digs at the current crisis between the two countries over two massive paper mill projects upriver in Uruguay. One song described how in order to face the ongoing world environmental crisis they had formed the society of friends for cleaning and breathing and how they were going to clean everything.

While the singing is going on, various members of the group are miming and generally capering in a jesterish fashion so it's good to watch even when you don't get all the jokes.

They finished at midnight or so, and we went for a drink with my student and his wife, and his boss (also an English student)and his wife, so we had the tables turned on us and had to speak Spanish for a while. Then we had a quick trip to the Pizzeria El Cuartito for a couple of slices at 1am and had an early night...  ¶ 4:21 PM 1 comments