mikethecock.com

Oh… hi there! How have you been? Me? I’m doing alright. It’s been a while since I have fed the internet, so I figured I would come back here and catch up on that. Life is getting back to a decent routine, and I’m going to try to maintain that over the summer. I’m getting into the groove of my new job, summer is trying to happen, and all is well.

The writing bug seemed to have abandoned me after I returned from South American likely due to the hectic insanity of trying to get my world back on track. It’s been an interesting couple of months. Some high points, some low. I did manage to do some writing during that time, just not here. I’m writing a screen play about a ruggedly handsome, super intelligent guy named Mike. That’s all I have so far.

I did a trip to Montreal back in May which was super fun. I got to hang with some of my favourite peeps in the town of my favorite hockey team. The only down side was the sales tax. Ridiculous. Now I understand how the Frenchies can be so angry all the time. Just kiddin’ Frenchies. Je vous aime.

June 4 th came and went. I’ll post pics as soon as I delete the ones of me dancing around with my pants off. Yeah… that happened. Oh well. I did somehow manage to maintain the presence of mind to send myself home shortly after that. Good for me. This year’s item of value that was lost or destroyed was a pair of Ray Bans. One day I will learn not to take nice things to J4.

     Well I am back in Calgary, and everything is the same. Same city. Same cold weather. Same job. It’s almost like Buenos Aires was a crazy dream. Or, maybe this is a weird recurring nightmare. I keep pinching myself hoping to wake up next to the pool with a sunburn, half a glass of wine spilled all over me and drool running down my face. So far no luck.

     There are some positive aspects to being back. Obviously reconnecting with friends is a big one. Being back at work has a plus side in that I will be able to begin rebuilding my retirement fund to cover the cost of my next adventure. I have been ‘bitten by the bug’ as they say and I no longer see Calgary as a place I want to be all the time, rather just as a home base that I return to between spending time in other places. I think I may start applying for CEO jobs at large corporations to help me fund my plan. That is when I come up with a plan.

     It’s tough to say right now what the next few months will hold. I have a job now which is nice, and allows me to start thinking about other things like a place to live. I need to look into some sort of Spanish lessons since I did get anywhere near the level I was at while I was in Argentina. I’ll probably just keep on being a hermit until the weather warms up. Maybe I’ll just hibernate. Somebody wake me up in late April.

     I did learn a lot from my trip. I made some mistakes, did some dumb things, and learned of opportunities I would never have known about. Having this experience under my belt will really help enhance the planning of the next round. Whenever that may be. When the opportunity does present itself, I sure as hell want to be ready. I’ll be lurking in the shadows, saving money and making plans, and when that chance shows it’s face… I will strike!

      As I wrote about back at the beginning of November, I wanted my musical experiences in Buenos Aires to be new. Not necessarily all local, (although definitely some) but since I was taking the opportunity to check out a new city, country, culture, and language among other things, I wanted to expose myself to music that I hadn’t heard before. Some of it is artists I have never heard, some is new albums by artists I like, and some are just random things I haven’t heard before.

     First off if you haven’t listened to Majesty Shredding by Superchunk as I recommended back in November, then stop reading this and go do that right now. For serious. My love for Bowie has grown and I am now going to obsess over trying to pick up some of the albums on vinyl. So that’s the two I I mentioned before. What’s new?

     Over the course of the last few months, I have acquired quite a bit of music. Whether harnessing the powers of the internet, or wandering into local record shops, my collection went from zero to awesome in no time flat. I’ll talk about a few and then provide all of you with the official soundtrack of my trip. I know the world has been waiting with bated breath for this one.

1- The Strokes – First Impressions of Earth

It’s actually somewhat embarrassing to admit that I hadn’t listened to the Strokes at all before arriving in BA. Travis played this album one night while I was taking him to cribbage school. I was immediately hooked and this one has been on my play list ever since.

2- Los Shakers – Shakers for You

Travis had an old compilation of some sort featuring a few songs by Los Shakers, a band that defined the “Uruguayan Invasion” (ie – the Argentine version of the British Invasion). We were in love with these songs and set out on a quest to obtain more music by this group. Eventually we found a music store that had all of their music and we cleaned them out. The album I ended up with is ‘Shakers for You’, a brilliant album of Beatles-eque rock sung in English by a band that clearly does not speak English as a first language. Great stuff.

3- La Coka Nostra – A Brand You Can Trust

Back in the day, House of Pain’s debut album ‘Fine Malt Lyrics’ rocked my world. Sadly, HOP slowly faded from existence and I never found Everlast’s solo efforts to be anything worth getting excited about. I assumed I would never hear from these guys again, but that all changed when I was introduced to La Coka Nostra. Featuring all the member of HOP as well as Ill Bill and Slaine, this is easily my favourite hip hop album in years. Granted, I don’t listen to a ton of hip hop, but this album is worth checking out.

4- Robyn – Body Talk

Sweden fucking rules at music. ABBA, Ace of Base, Roxette, and Robyn. The full length is actually a compilation of tracks that were released on her 3 ‘Body Talk’ mini albums. This album is just plain good pop music. It even features a guest appearance by Snoop Dogg. Along with Superchunk this is an album I kept going back too. For the record, Entombed and Refused are also from Sweden.

5 – Tanghetto – Mas Alla Del Sur

Buenos Aires prides itself on being the home of tango. A new generation of the tango sound has taken root in the city. Known as electro-tango it’s a combination of traditional tango sounds and instruments combined with modern dance beats. Tanghetto is the premiere electro-tango band in BA, and their music can be heard blasting out of shops on Defensa.

Here are some of the other albums I listened to:

Linkin Park – A Thousand Suns. I downloaded this because all the reviews I read said that most LP fans would hate this album. I checked it out and loved it. But yeah, I could see how they would hate it.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – Mojo. New album, same Tom.

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs. Didn’t love it at first. It’s grown on me.

The Black Keys – Brothers. I was a few months behind on picking this one up. Awesome.

The Replacements – Let It Be & Tim. Another band I have always wanted to listen to more of, so I started with these 2 albums.

Los Natas – El Neuvo Orden de la Libertad (among others). Argentine stoner rock. Really good stuff.

Sonic Youth – Sister. Never heard this one before but it’s now of my favourite albums by them.

Bad Religion – The Dissent of Man. Picks up right where the last album left off.

Paramore – Brand New Eyes. Checked ‘em out when Natasha was visiting and I liked them.

There’s a bunch more, but no need to list every single one.

     Many people were puzzled when they asked me about the places I planned to visit in Argentina and I informed them that my plan was to remain in the city of Buenos Aires pretty much the entire time I was there. For me the trip was about people. I really wanted to immerse myself in the culture of another city. I wanted to meet people and get to know them. I enjoyed making acquaintances in my neighbourhood with people I encountered on a daily basis. (Perhaps another time I will make a trip to observe penguins and waterfalls.) For me, the entire MO of my trip was justified by meeting and making friends with Andres and Alejandra.

     As I have mentioned before, it was fairly early into my stay in BA, just after Travis arrived, that we ventured down to La Bodega del Pintor based on an ad I had seen and my desire to find a specialty wine store. Andres is the co-owner of the store and was very quick to help us with all of our wine needs. His girlfriend, Alejandra, was working in the store at the same time and we met her as well. Our first visit lead to making arrangements to return to the wine store later in the week to have English/Spanish lessons with the two of them.

     Our first lesson consisted of 3 bottles of wine, some cheese, and some great Spanglish conversation. Despite a bit of a language barrier, we really hit it off with the two of them. Over the following weeks we returned for several more Spanish lessons as well as dropping in a few times a week for our wine needs. Andres was very friendly to us, and right from the start he gave us his home number and told us to call him if we ever needed anything that he was able to with. I thought it was pretty damn nice for him to make an offer like that to two basically complete strangers.

     As time went on, we became even more friendly with the two of them. We started exchanging email during the week, both to chat and to help each other with the languages we were attempting to learn. During my friend Natasha’s visit we decided to invite the two of them over for a traditional Argentine asado (roast) on the parilla (grill) in my building. (That epic grilling adventure can also be read about on this magnificent website.) This became a semi regular occurrence with A&A returning several more times to join us while I brushed up on my Argentine meating skills.

     Through them I was also able to meet Andres’ brother Julian (an amazing artist which is a story for another day), his wife Paula, their son Francisco, as well as Andres’ close friend Romeo. My last Monday in BA was spent at the parilla in the back of my apartment with all of the above mentioned people as well as Johnny and Stef, and and Australian couple we had met. It was a pretty amazing night. I was too busy tending to steak to take pics, so I will have to raid Johnny’s photos when he returns.

     My very last night in Buenos Aires I spent with Andres, Alejandra, and Romeo drinking a few bottles of wine at the wine store. It was a pretty great evening and I came to realize how close I had become with them, and how much I was going to miss them. Over the course of our stay, Travis and I had made arrangements to bring some items to the two of them as tokens of our appreciation for everything they had done for us. We gave them several bottles of Canadian wine, and introduced them to maple syrup and Crown Royal. I even managed to get Andres hooked on Frank’s Red Hot sauce. I also gave Andres a sweet Hockey Canada t-shirt.

     On the last night I spent with them at the wine store, Andres presented with an amazing going away gift. He gave me his team Argentina football (soccer) jersey that he has had since he was young. It is an older version of Argentina’s national jersey which is no longer available. It was a pretty significant gesture in my books and it really meant a lot. I realized at that moment that it wasn’t the city, the warm weather, the great food, or the lifestyle that I was going to miss, it was my friends.

     Had circumstances allowed me to stay in BA, I know we would have stayed very close friends. While it’s tough to leave that behind, I don’t feel this is the end by any means. I have an amazing motivation to return to Buenos Aires, as well as trying to convince them to make a trip to Canada. It’s a pretty great feeling to have made such good friends in such a short time. Meeting and befriending Andres and Alejandra stands above everything else I did in BA.

After 3 and half amazing months in Buenos Aires, the time has come to return to Calgary. I don’t say “return home”, because over the last few months, San Telmo has come to feel like home. I walk the same streets everyday, I recognize the same faces as I pass by. I am familiar with many of the local business people like the waitress at my favorite cafe, the people at the bakery across the street, the guy who runs the convenience store next to my building, and of course the security guards who work at the front gate to my building. It’s going to be hard to leave these people behind. Never mind the friends I have made here. Oh yeah, and there’s the weather too. Currently 27 and sunny here. According to the internet Calgary is -17 and snowing.

Despite all that I am ready to go. I accomplished almost everything I came to do here. My Spanish isn’t anywhere near where I wanted it to be, and I didn’t write as much as I had hoped. I accept responsibility for both of those things though, and I intend to keep working on them. My poor planning skills cost me missing a soccer game and I would have liked to check out more live music, but I just see those as reasons to come back here eventually. I miss my friends in Cowtown, and as odd as it may sound, I am ready to get back to work. I need to keep myself busy (ie – give my liver a hard earned rest) and start making some cash money.

I have been thinking a lot about what I am leaving behind, and what I am going back to. So as a tribute to Buenos Aires, I give you, in no particular order, 5 things you’ll see on the streets Buenos Aires that you won’t see in Calgary.

5 – Caca
Yup. Poo. Everywhere. Unlike Calgary’s bylaw enforced doggy poo free streets, walking through BsAs is like running a gauntlet of dog shit. It’s everywhere. Big ones, small ones, fresh ones, old ones. The fact that no one picks it up, combined with the narrow sidewalks means your poo-dar needs to be running at full capacity at all times.

4 – Crazy Bikers
When I say ‘crazy bikers’ it may invoke images of huge tattooed guys on Harleys, but that isn’t what I mean. The motorcyclists here are bunch of crazed daredevils. (I should mention here the motorcycles people ride here are small ones, almost like glorifies dirtbikes. I haven’t seen a single chopper the entire time here.) Not only do these road warriors dodge and weave quickly between vehicles in heavy traffic, it also common to see them doing crazy shit like driving with one hand, helmet tilted all the way back on their head, chatting on a cell phone. As if that wasn’t scary enough, the passengers are a whole different breed of insane. They don’t wear helmets at all and just cling to the back of these small bikes as they burn through the uncontrolled intersections. Scariest one I saw? A guy riding his motorbike with his wife/girlfriend person clinging to the seat behind him with their kid wedged in between them. Loco.

3 – Garbagemen
Genuine, honest to goodness garbagemen roam the streets of Buenos Aires. In their bright yellow reflective ‘Juga Limpio’ uniforms, these street heroes (if you saw how fuckin dirty this city is, you have to think of these guys as heroes) can be seen out and about at all hours. Buenos Aires is a very old city, the core of which has no back alleys which means garbage goes to the curb. Since I have been here, the city is starting to distribute dumpsters all over the streets which is helping to clean up the mess a bit, but before that the system worked liked this: People throw their bags of garbage out to the curb (remember the sidewalks are very narrow). During the course of the week the roaming hordes of recyclers come through, tear the bags open and take what they want. The rest of the garbage just sort of goes wherever at this point. On garbage days, the foot patrols of garbage men arrive, pushing carts with garbage bags and brooms on them. They proceed to sweep up and rebag all the garbage. Shortly afterwards the garbage truck rolls through with more garbage men on board who remove the bags from the streets. Hats off to these guys. Certainly not a job I could handle.

2 – Taxis
I suppose it’s not fair to say that one wouldn’t see taxis on the streets of Calgary. Here, however, cabs seem to make up about 35% of the traffic. They are everywhere. I have never waited more than 3 minutes to flag down a cab here and I never have to go anywhere to do so. I can just go out to the curb and wait. One down side of the cabs in BA is that they aren’t great for tall people since they are all compact cars. Being alone or with one other person is ok, but with 3 or 4 people, the tall person won;t be super comfortable. If someone has to ride up front, it’s best to volunteer someone short. The meter hangs from the ceiling in the upper right front window. Tall people will have to sit with head tilted or bang their noggin on the meter.

1-Street Booze
It’s not illegal to enjoy a cerveza or two while wandering the streets. As such, it is not uncommon to see people drinking beer, or sometimes other things on the streets. This usually occurs at night, but if you get up early enough on the weekend, you can see people sitting on the curbs outside of bars, enjoying their last beer or two outdoors after watching the sun come up. I haven’t seen anyone abusing this privilege here. I am not sure I understand the regulations against this in Calgary. Since it’s not illegal to be drunk, what difference does it make if you actually have the drink in hand or not?

Honorable mention: Air conditioner jizz. Although this technically isn’t something you see, it’s definitely something you would experience here in the summer time. In the summer, everyone runs their air conditioners, which of course, suck all the moisture out of the air. That moisture has to have somewhere to go, and for most people, they just let it run off their balconies. As you are out walking the narrow sidewalks (did I mention they are narrow?) keep your eyes peeled for puddles that seem out of place. It’s a little bit freaky to be walking along on a hot cloudless day and suddenly have something drip on your head.

I’m having lunch at my favourite cafe in San Telmo. I thought I’d take advantage of the wifi and share the view.

     When I was young I loved Christmas. It was simple. Presents and 2 weeks off of school. What more could a kid ask for? As I grew older, I grew more cynical about the holiday season.

     My first job was in retail, and I got to the see the other side of it. People would come in to the store to buy gifts for people. They would have no idea what their children/parents/siblings would want and would rely on us to help them pick something. I also started to realize the financial cost of Christmas. I always ended up broke at Christmas time trying to get gifts for everyone.

     I began to realize that the tradition of exchanging gifts was a hollow facade. For kids, Santa was some genius parents’ creation to try and make them behave all year. An embodiment of positive reinforcement. For adults, the gift exchange is done merely because “it’s that time of year”. What an awful reason to give someone a gift.

     I also became disillusioned with the “spirit of Christmas”. I still don’t understand why humanitarian and charitable acts have to be saved for the middle of December. Can’t the spirit of Christmas just be the spirit of humanity? Can’t we just be like that all the time?

     None of the things I have mentioned have changed, as I stand by the fact that Christmas as I have known it all my adult life is 98% corporate bullshit being jammed down our throats from the day after halloween to the end of the Boxing Week sales. (Remember when it was just Boxing Day?)

     But that’s not what this is about. This is about the other 2%. When all the nonsense blubber is trimmed away, there is something pure underneath is all. I am talking about friends and family. That’s the real gem of Christmas. It gives everyone in the world a chance to be together with the people they care about for a few days a year. It’s the one time that is set aside for that. No matter how busy people are, or where they are, or what every else is going on, people always find a way to connect at Christmas. That’s Christmas. Or Chanukah. Or Kwanza. Or Flying Spaghetti Monster Day. It’s about the people you care about.

     I was fortunate enough to experience one of the best Christmas’ in recent memories this year. Coming to Buenos Aires allowed to avoid everything I dislike about Christmas. I did not give or receive a single Christmas gift this year. (Ok, I bought my cleaning lady a bottle of wine, but I would have given her that anyway.) It felt great. I wasn’t bombarded by the same overplayed shitty Christmas music re-recorded by the years most popular artists or artists trying to resurrect lost or fading album sales. I went to the mall a week before Christmas, in a city of 13 million people, and yet didn’t feel like I was going to get trampled or smothered like a 14 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. My brain wasn’t slammed with the same 5 Christmas commercials every 10 minutes while trying to watch hockey. I didn’t have to go to any bullshit non-denominational office “holiday” parties. I escaped all of that.

     What I was left with was a chance to hang out with a few close friends. We had breakfast. We watched Gremlins. (My first time seeing it. Seriously.) We played some cards. Travis cooked a phenomal chicken dinner and we watched a few of our favourite shows’ Christmas specials. Thanks to the powers of the internet, I was able to chat my family. Pretty much a perfect day.

     Obviously everyone has their own thoughts on Christmas and what it’s about, but for me it’s important to keep in mind that Christmas isn’t the destination, it’s the vehicle. I’m sure that’s a shitty metaphor, but my point is that it doesn’t matter if you go the movies, go boar hunting, or drink mouthwash and duct tape each other to telephone poles, the point is that Christmas lets you do what you want to do with the people you want to do it with. Fuck all that other materialistic nonsense. Hang out with the people you care about. That’s what I was really able to experience this year. The only thing missing from my Christmas eggnog. But, since I traded it for 35 degree weather, I won’t complain.

     I genuinely hope that everyone who may end up reading this was able to enjoy Christmas is some way or other, whatever it may be. Up next, New Years. What’s the true meaning of that you may ask? It’s an excuse to get shitfaced of course.

Christmas with the Martin boys.

     I have been to a lot of cool place over the last 2 months. A lot of people expressed surprise when I indicated I wasn’t planning to travel at all while I was in Argentina. I just wanted to come to Buenos Aires and hang out. I came here with no real plan, and no real desire to do touristy things. However, I did want to explore the city and inevitably that means doing some tourist type stuff along the way. Without further delay, I give the second in a series of half time reports: A list, in no particular order, of my favorite places I have been so far. Most of these place can be read about in any tour guide, so I didn’t talk too much about them.

TOURISTY JUNK

Recoleta Cemetery

     I’ll start with one of the obvious ones. The cemetery is a very popular attraction for tourists and it’s easy to see why. It was created to be an attraction. It’s entire purpose is the showmanship of the upper class, proving that even in death, they are all about one upping each other. It’s like an elite golf club for dead people. That being said, it is a very attractive place to visit. The design of some of the tombs is stunning, and amount of time and money and thought that has gone into the place really has to be visited to be appreciated. How long you spend in there really depends on how long marble statues can hold your interest. Unfortunately that topped out at about an hour for me. Glad I went and experienced it, but after a while the tombs start to look the same.

Recoleta Cemetary

Defensa Market

     Another BA tourist ‘must’, is the Sunday market on Defensa. As it happens, this is just down the street from me so I have actually visited the market about 8 times now. Probably about 3 times too many actually. The same vendors are there every week, so once you have been through a few times, it loses it’s magic. It really is a cool place filled with all sorts of booths from flea market style, to art booths, to clothing. The market has it all. Not to mention a great place to people watch. Absolutely worth spending a Sunday afternoon there.

Colonia, Uruguay

     Ok, not technically in Buenos Aires, but right across the river in friendly Uruguay is the little town of Colonia. There really isn’t a whole lot to do there, but that’s part of the appeal. It’s hard to use any word except ‘quaint’ to describe the peaceful little town. An amazing way to get away from the congestion of the big city for a day to relax and drink some vino by the water. I recommend the fast boat across. There really isn’t much to see on the “scenic” boat ride which takes twice as long.

Colonia, Uruguay

HANG OUTS

Geubara

     Che Guebara is a tiny hole in the wall on Humberto Primo in San Telmo. If you sneezed while walking by you would miss it. It is by far my favourite place to have a night cap. Basically a small space between 2 buildings with a bar, a shelf for booze, a stereo, a few stools, and an elevated area for bands to play, this place has more charisma than 95% of bars I have ever been to. It doesn’t try to be another more than just a place that says: “Hey, come on in and have a drink and hang out.”

Pasaje Solar

     Although I plan a separate entry for food, Pasaje Solar is more than just a great restaurant. The awesome staff, and the garden patio make it a great place to just sit and relax. Not to mention the amazing food.

Plaza Dorrego

     A little historic square in San Telmo that was once one of the centres of the city. Now it’s filled with tables and chairs from the various restaurants around, as well as some street vendors and the odd tango dancers. Any time of day or night there are people hanging out in the square. A great place to spend an afternoon drinking sangria and enjoying the sunshine.

SHOPPING

Palermo Soho

     I will admit I have a soft spot for buying shoes and clothing. This section of Palermo offers a great selection of stores along a small strip. They are mostly menswear stores, but there are other gems in there as well including a store that hand makes 1950s style leather sports shoes. Do I own a pair? Yes I do.

Abasto

     The only real ‘mall’ by North American standards, this mall was formerly a large marketplace which after time was abandoned and has now been reborn as the hippest shopping place in town. ‘Shopping Abasto’ as it is know locally includes 4 levels of stores, a big ass food court, a movie theatre, and a kids museum on the top floor including a full size ferris wheel thingy.

RANDOM

Casino Puerto Madero

     It doesn’t really fit in any other category, but I had a blast the night we went to the casino. The booze was cheap, the place is always open, and playing games I didn’t fully understand, in language that I barely understand with money that has ¼ the value of Canadian money was just an amazingly fun experience.

     One last note… getting to these places. Although the subte (subway) will get you to almost all of these places, and is incredibly cheap to take (1 peso per ride), it is only a decent option up until about December. Once it starts to heat up, you do not want to be down there. It gets pass out hot in the tunnels and the trains are jam packed at certain hours. Taking a a cab here is easy, and cheap. The radio taxis are the “legitimate” taxi company cabs. Everything else can be risky. We have been in several non radio taxis where we have noticed the meter running up at a much faster than normal speed. A 30 minute cab ride to somewhere like Palermo in heavy traffic costs us about 40 pesos. That’s roughly $10 Canadian. Well worth not having to sweat to death in the subway and get straight to the destination.

     That’s about it. As I said earlier, you can read about most of these place in any BA travel guide. I just figured I’d make a quick list of my own favourites.

     After spending almost ten weeks in Buenos Aires, one of the things I love the most is the people. As with any large city, one has to be a bit careful, and I definitely had my worries coming to such a large place on my own. I was worried about petty crime and getting lost, and general inability to communicate. Much to my relief I have found the people here to be amazing. I had observed a lot of people and I figured I would talk about them.

     The first important custom of the locals is the cheek kiss. It is a single cheek air smooch shared between friends. It is a little more intimate than the North American handshake, and twice as efficient and the Italian double cheek kiss. It is a nice way to separate greeting a stranger from greeting someone on a friend to friend basis. I must say that I really like that distinction. Shaking hands is such a bullshit thing to do. People are forced to shake hands all day with people they don’t give a crap about, so when it comes time to greet someone you do care about, why use the same handshake that holds no genuine meaning.

     Although I suppose it is somewhat tougher to gauge as an outsider, I have generally found people here to be friendlier than back home. I believe that this extends from everyone’s generally relaxed attitude. It’s impossible not to notice how un-stressed everyone seems to be here. It simple observations. For example, the other day when we were in Starbucks here, we noticed how big they are here. Why? Simple. People want to sit down and drink their coffee. Barely anyone gets their coffee to go. People here want to sit down, drink their coffee and chill out. No one is in a hurry. People take their time doing everything. Shops close for 3 hours in the afternoon so people can go home and nap. Going out for dinner can be a 3 hour experience. The server will not bring the bill until you ask for it. They aren’t trying to rush you out the door to get the next paying customer in your seat. We once went to one of our favourite parillas, found out it was busy, and asked how long for a table. They said ‘not tonight’. It had nothing to do with not wanting our business, but they were not about to rush people out.

     I have also noticed that the people of Argentina are a very passionate people. Within the first month of my arrival, former Argentine prime minister Nestor Kirshner died. I was amazed at the outpouring of positive support. There were memorials held at Plaza de Mayo which thousands of people attended. There was graffiti that started showing up everywhere saying things like ‘Thank you Nestor’, and ‘Nestor forever!’. I can not think of any Canadian, especially not a political figure, who would receive anywhere near that kind of show of support when they died. Maybe… MAYBE, if Sidney Crosby had dropped dead on the ice immediately after scoring the gold medal winning overtime goal at the Olympics, we may have seen something, but even then I don’t think it would be on the same scale. The people of Buenos Aires are fiercely proud of their city and country, their wine, their music, and their beef. Don’t even get me started on the soccer. The rivalries and matchups here would even make the English proud.

     Last but not least, is behaviour that I find thoroughly entertaining to observe. I am talking about the way men react to women. Notice I didn’t say the way men treat women, because that sounds like it has negative connotations. In fact the opposite is true. Women are very well respected here. Eva Perron is a national hero of the people, and the current prime minister is a woman. Even Canada hasn’t had a woman PM for more than 5 minutes. What I mean by the way that men react, is the flirtatious nature of men in public. At first someone unfamiliar might use the word ‘objectify’, but I don’t think that is the case at all. It is more like a playful game, and from I can tell, the women enjoy it just as much as the men. The behaviour I talk about is everything from cat calls, to honky at women on the sidewalk, to comments when passing women on the street. I saw a guy pass an attractive lady on the street and he simply turned his head and loudly said ‘wow!’. We had a cabby earlier in the week who, although I didn’t have time to figure it all out, I think was using some sort of multi honk system for rating attractiveness. 1 honk for mildly attractive all the way up to 5 honks for stunning. Having spoken with some foreign (in this case from Louisiana) women about it, they said it is somewhat intimidating at first, but after a while they have realized these men aren’t trying to have sex with them, they just love to flirt. It’s an art form here. I may have to take some lessons before I leave.

     On a quick side note, one more thing I found interesting was that I have spoken with several Argentines who hate the fact that people from the USA have claimed the term ‘American’. They feel that anyone from any America, Canada and Argentina included, are Americans. ‘America is all of us’ they say (paraphrasing of course). I tend to agree. Just because the USA couldn’t come up with anything less dumb to call their country and doesn’t break down into anything that rolls off the tongue to call their people, doesn’t give them the rights to ‘Americans’. I am going to take a stand against it and start calling them United Statians, or maybe just finding out which state they are from. What do you call people from Indiana anyway? Indianites? Indianians?

     I rambled off a bit there as I tend to do, but that’s my half time report on the people of Buenos Aires. I absolutely love the people here, and I believe they could easily challenge Canada for the title of ‘Friendliest people in the universe’.

     I have eaten a lot of beef since arriving in Argentina. Not that I want to, but there’s really no escaping it here. Eating a delicious slab of cow is a way of life here. Yesterday the experience was taken to the next level as Travis and I cooked our own Argentine steaks for the first time.

     Naturally, I have cooked steaks before. In Calgary it’s easy enough to go down to the COOP, pick a couple of nice looking steaks through the display window at the meat counter, take them home, marinate them in whatever, then slap them on the BBQ. Cook ‘em up and enjoy. Not that big of a deal really. I think the experiences of cooking steaks like that in the past is part of what made me appreciate last night’s culinary journey that much more.

     The day started at the San Telmo market. This place has an amazing array of vendors selling everything from antiques to clothes to produce so fresh it tastes like it was picked 5 minutes ago. There are also several butcher stands. Grocery store meat departments these are not. The work takes place right in front of the customer, and every usable part of the animal is on display include tongues, brains, hearts, and intenstines. We asked for one of our favourite cuts ‘ojo de bife’ and the butcher showed us a steak in the display case. We asked if he had any more since we needed more than one. He went to the meat locker behind him and came back with a giant piece of cow. He quickly shaved a few large chunks of and turned it into the cut we wanted. He asked us how thick, and we showed him we wanted about an inch and a half. After a 5 second display of knife wizardry we had our steaks.

     It’s important to understand something about Buenos Aires. People are not in a hurry here. Pretty much everything in life here is taken at a medium casual pace. This includes cooking. I hadn’t really thought about how much we do in our North American kitchens to save time. It turns out that propane/natural gas BBQs are a prefect example of that. My building’s grill, which is located just on the far side of the pool, is a large charcoal grilling oven. Not the sort of thing that just heats up in 5 minutes.

     We had bag of charcoal, and a bottle of the local equivalent of BBQ lighter fluid, ie – pure alcohol. We poured half the bag of charcoal into the oven, doused it in alcohol, and set that shit on fire. It didn’t take long for the alcohol to burn off, and we hadn’t achieved lighting much of the coal. After much more dousing in alcohol, relighting, and stick our faces in and blowing on the coals we managed to get them all lit. I am somewhat surprised that neither Travis nor I melted our faces off during the process. All in all, it was about an hour to get the grill heated.

     Travis gets all the credit for actually cooking the meat, and it was cooked to perfection. About 10 minutes of sitting on the grill over white hot coals and we had the most delicious steaks I have ever been party to preparing. We had used only a bit of salt and pepper to season them, and they were magnificent. I really feel like there is no other way to cook steak now. Argentina is turning me into a steak snob.

     A few bottles of wine, an after dinner dip in the pool, and the company of good friends made for a pretty great evening. I am looking forward to honing the grilling skills and eventually inviting some of our local friends to join us for a steakstravaganza.