Ariana in Argentina: FIRST IMPRESSIONS of Life in the Big City

written 4 April 2011 while eating a plate of raviolis a la salsa rosa (pink sauce) y una bebida de pomelo (yummy grapefruit soda):

I’m getting the hang of life in Buenos Aires. I arrived to the capital of Argentina on March 25 and was so graciously received and oriented by my old Panama compañera, Leslie MacColman and her partner, Demián Gómez. Buenos Aires has nearly 3 million people in the city proper and another 7 million in what's considered Greater Buenos Aires. So far, what I love about it and particularly about my neighborhood, San Telmo, includes: the mom and pop stores everywhere and the resulting ease of buying anything you need steps away from your door (groceries, hardware, printer, belts, great restaurants, hair salon, etc.); the confiterías y panaderías (bakeries) that sell delicious sandwiches de miga, medialunas (croissants) y facturas (pastries) and different panes y bonbones (breads and chocolates); the café and bar culture…when in doubt, have a coffee (or an ice cream or a copita de vino); the cobblestone streets and also the more contempo, wide asphalt avenues; the delightful French-inspired colonial architecture and history; the little parks and plazas; indoor canchas de futból (soccer fields) everywhere (I can see one centro deportivo’s field from my apartment window); the antique and oddity shops (any piece has more value when you know its history, Pamela Biazzi told me today); tango, Brazilian-style batucada drumming, and other street music every Sunday at the San Telmo Feria outdoor market; multiple generations—it’s all ages all the time; the stylish leatherware; the friendliness of people on the street and in my building (I know porteños are known for being fríos but I come from the Northeast, a colder region literally and figuratively); the fact that no one is phased by one more extranjera. Many will show faint interest in my origins but not really in my intentions here—in other words, it appears to be easy to do your thang without judgment from the neighbors.

Some things I don’t love include the heavy traffic noises, dense crowds downtown, the graffiti that is not artful or thoughtful (though much of it is both), the ubiquitous dog poop piles on the sidewalk, spending a lot of money quickly, incessant ogling by men (sometimes it's flattering since they are generally polite with their comments--nothing outrageously rude yet), and the imposed fear that someone is going to rob you (muggings and pick-pocketing are a problem, as everyone else is happy to remind me). These are mostly the same annoyances that one might experience in any other giant urban center such as Madrid, New York or Rome. The air is contaminated but not as severely as in Santiago de Chile where I had black boogers back in 2000. Santiago is located in a basin surrounded by mountains and did not require catalytic converters for many years. The particle matter just settles over the city like a gauzy blanket. On the other hand, Buenos Aires is a flat coastal city so the winds can more easily clear out pollution.

Despite some of its challenges, Buenos Aires has very quickly won me over!