Gente

I love street photography.  The ability to capture and obtain a souvenir of a random single moment fascinates me.  In other words, I am a little bit weird, and other find me weird when I point a camera lens at them for no good reason.  Oh well.

I am starting a new photo series called "Gente"-"People".  It will feature shots of both friends and random strangers that I happen to see on the streets of Buenos Aires.  Hope you enjoy.

"Gente-Foto 1"

"Gente-Foto 2"

Toys

If I could figure out a way to import toys from the US and sell them here... I could be rich.  Toys here are expensive, very expensive.  The cheap, plastic Family Dollar special that we might drop a couple bucks on back home in the states cost three times the amount here.  Most toys are imported from China and some are made here, but these are simple toys like dolls, plastic balls, water guns, basically: cheap plastic junk.  Toys imported from the US and Europe costs an exorbitant amount of money.  Things like board games can run $40 to $50 USD.  Most toy stores offer a payment plan, where you can make a couple of monthly payments on your purchase.  With prices like these, kids here don’t have bedrooms overflowing with toys, and I honestly don’t think this is a bad thing at all, and I think kids learn to really appreciate a new toy, also not a bad thing in my opinion.  Big people toys are also expensive here, laptops, computer mice, iPods, cell phones, digital cameras and basically anything electronic sell for way more then the US sticker price.  It is things like this that make me realize just how cushy we have it back home, something that has been put into perspective a lot more these past six months.

"Toy Store"

The Mistake

"El Collectivo"

A couple of weeks ago I made a very stupid mistake …and it involved taking the bus.  Background knowledge: Buenos Aires has a pretty impressive bus system.  There are actually three forms of public transportation: train, subway and bus.  The bus is called “THE COLLECTIVO” here.  The bus and subway are my prefer methods, and because the Subway lines only run in certain parts of the city, I end up taking the bus more often.  Areas that cannot be reached by subway can be reached by bus; you can basically go anywhere in the bus and for very cheap.  I can go from one end of the city to the other for a mere fifty cents.  However like everything in life, it ain’t all rainbows and sunshine.  No sir.  There are problems to be encountered when taking the bus.  The first and most avoidable problem is getting lost.  There are dozens of different bus lines and corresponding bus numbers, but it is difficult to know which bus goes where, because some buses might have the same number but take completely different routes.  Learning the ropes of bus riding takes practice as well as some map reading skills.  Kioskos and newspaper stands also sell cheap booklets that list the dozens of different bus numbers and their routes.  Problem number two: TIME.  I never expect a bus to be on time.  I just don’t.  LIVING IN ARGENTINA RULE #1 is I always give myself an extra fifteen minutes.  This means I either arrive to work early, on time, or on occasion late.  Buses run on a “schedule” but you can always expect delays.  Problem number three: Crowding.  Riding the bus during rush hour can be a pain in ass.  Sometimes buses become so crowded that the driver will refuse to stop and pick people up.  That's the another thing, the buses don’t stop unless someone has requested to get off, or you have physically flagged down the driver of the bus you want to hop on.  Even you are lucky enough to make it on during rush hour, you can expect to become very cozy with your fellow riders. 

Okay, so the stupid and totally avoidable mistake I made a couple of weeks ago.  Every Wednesday morning I work in a part of town called Flores.  I catch the #132 bus in order to get there.  I often recognize the #132 because of its red, white and blue paint job.  This particular bus takes two different routes, both of which put me where I need to be for work.  So one particular morning I was running late.  I had made it to the street corner in time to see the signature red, white and blue bus.  I hopped on, paid my fair and sat down.  Halfway through the ride the bus turned down a different street.  However, traffic was very heavy and sometimes drivers are known to take a side street in order to avoid a traffic jam.  The bus kept traveling in the direction I needed to go.  LIVING IN ARGENTINA RULE NUMBER TWO: ALWAYS carry an emergency $50 pesos.  I keep this emergency money tucked away in case I ever need to take a cab, in the event that I become lost or if public transportation gets shut down due to mass striking.  Which has happened before.  In retrospect I should have gotten off right then just taken a cab, but I decided to wait and see how far the bus went, thinking that the #132 maybe takes three different routes instead of just two, so I stayed on.  So like any giant city, Buenos Aires has some seedy neighborhoods.  Some seedier than others, but it was then I noticed when we turned a corner that I was now in the dreaded “villa” (slum) of Bajo Flores.  Not good.  I decided to stay on the bus in hopes that I would continue on through Bajo Flores and then head up in the direction I needed to go, since I knew that my work was only a couple miles away. Then the driver off the bus stopped and announced that this was the last stop and I had to get off.  I whined to him that I didn’t want to walk in this neighborhood and he shrugged his shoulders and told me to get off.  I reluctantly got off.  Then I noticed as the bus pulled away that I had not been riding the #132 after all, I had boarded the #26.  Both buses I then realized are red, white and blue.  “Stupida,” I muttered to myself.  I am lucky for the fact that I blend in rather nicely here. I do not look particularly “American.”  I am often mistaken for being Brazilian or Argentine, but there was going to be no mistaking that I am not from the Villa.  This was very apparent when I got off the bus and endured stares and cat calls from a group of men waiting for the bus across the street.  Panicking is never an option.  I took a deep breath, I strapped on my backpack tight, checked to see if the spring loaded pocket knife I always carry, in the event I shall need to poke out someone’s eyes was in easy reaching distance and then I put on my “just try and fuck with me” look on my face.  I walked to the corner and with my heart pounding waited for a cab to drive past.  I was in the Villa for all of three minutes, but needless to say, I shouldn’t have been there at all.  I make my Argentine friends face palm themselves when I tell them this story, and I endured a tongue lashing from the cab driver who picked me up.

So the moral of this story: Everyone messes up.  My motto is: learn, laugh and educate others about mistakes that you have made.  Therefore, ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure you are getting on the correct bus.  I am lucky nothing bad came from being were I was not suppose to be.  It is very easy to end up lost or in a neighborhood you should not be in. So double check and stay safe peeps.

Band Gig

Saturday my husband Thomas and I had a photo gig.  A Venezuelan student of mine plays sax and flute for a Brazilian/Caribbean band here in Buenos Aires.  I asked if his band would like some pictures and he happily agreed.  They were scheduled to play on Saturday at the Niceto nightclub in Palermo.  We arrived an hour early and had a fun time shooting pics of all the members.  They were a great bunch of guys to work with.  After the shoot we stuck around for the concert and ended up having a really wonderful time.  I plan to post pictures of the photo shoot, but they need some work still.  Until then, here are two pics of my hubby and I...

"Me"

"Thomas"

A Little Frustrated...

So today I feel a little frustrated.  Argentina is not a first world country.  Their technology, safety standards and sanitation is not the most…up to date.  So my frustrations today are stemming from the subject of cell phone usage.  Okay, cell phones, things here and in the states are somewhat similar.  You can obtain a cheap pay as you go cell phone, or you can sign up for a contract with a company and chose a plan and minutes and all that jazz.  Because of the fact that we are poor as dirt right now, my husband and I got a cheap pay as you go special.  Before I elaborate on the Olympian process it took to obtain this I will first say that Argentina has the tendency to do things a little…”half assed”.  Example, we went to the cell phone store called Movie Star and asked for a pay as you go cell phone.  We discovered that even though it is pay as you go and does not require a contract, you still need to show some type of documentation showing that you are an Argentine citizen in order to buy a phone.  Bummer.  Except I am lucky and I have several Argentine friends and one of them was nice enough to accompany my husband to the store and we used his document to obtain a phone.  It should have been smooth sailing form there right?  Ha!  Okay so now we need to activate the thing and get our number.  Most pay as you go cheap phones in the states require that you dial a number and follow some easy instructions in order to activate your phone.  Here?  No way, that would be too easy.  No, instead an employee at the store told my husband that we would receive a text message with our phone number, and we would have to wait a few hours for it.  Hours turned into days which turned into weeks and no message. Our cell phone might has well have been a paper weight.  We tried a couple of times to go to the cell phone store, but it was either ridiculously busy or closed. Then we were told we needed to go back to the exact store where we purchased out cell phone in order to get the pin.  This was going to require a 40 minute bus trip since we had since then moved.   When I told my friend Argentine friend Cesar about this, he was pissed.  He went back to the store and basically had to demand that we receive our cell phone number.  Eventually we did.  Then we discovered in order to be able listen to our voicemail messages we have to obtain a special pin.  How do you obtain the pin?  By receiving the magical text message of course.  We have been here six months and have still never received the pin number, I would go to Movie Star and demand it, but I just haven’t seemed to be able to muster up the energy, besides text messages work fine.  Part Two.  Pay as you go means exactly that, you pay for the minutes you use, but how does one recharge their minutes?  Well you have to go to the Kiosko (the corner store) and you give them your phone number and they punch it in a special little machine and then you pay and then your phone gets recharged.  This sounds easy right?  Well usually it is.  Except the machines that transfer the minutes to your phone are often down.  Yesterday was Dia de Amigo (Friends Day) and every one and their brother was calling their pal on the phone and this resulted in some sort of cell phone outage.  No cell phone calls to be made or received and no recharging your phone.  Today I woke up and went to work.  My phone is out of minutes so I spied a kiosko with a sign that says: MOVIE STAR RECHARGE YOUR MINUTES HERE.  So when the lady at the window asked me how she could help me I told her I wanted to recharge my phone.  She gave me a funny look.  “Recharge your phone?” she asked.  Me trying to stay calm: “Yes, I want to RECHARGE my phone.”  The woman shook her head, “No, we don’t recharge phones here.”  I pointed to the sign.  She stared at it and then shrugged.  I resisted the urge to hurl my phone at her and instead bought a Pepsi.  So what can I say, this is not a paradise, far from it.  There are things I love, things I hate and things that make me want to impale my own face, but that’s life.  You take the good when you can and you learn to deal with the rest.   

Shop

While in Colonia, Uruguay a few weeks ago, my husband and I, who were in need of gum, stopped in a little shop.  It was jam-packed with all sorts of goods and as soon as we entered I was hit by the smell of aging cheese.  Not my most favorite smell in the world and it didn't take long to realize to smell was coming from the display case to the left of the picture.

Caballito

A street shot of my neighborhood on a cold, Sunday afternoon...

Coffee

The coffee here is good.  Really good.  I don't know what it is or how they do it.  I am sad to say that Starbucks somehow crept its way down south and has proven to be rather popular here, but I think it is a novelty more than anything else.  Otherwise, most restaurants and cafe's serve a very decent cup of coffee and most places include a small plate of cookies and a shot glass filled with water, I'm always rather amused by this.  Next to yerba mate, coffee is a very popular beverage, and people develop a taste for it at a young age.  No taboo about it here, and I think it's awesome.

Plaza Miserere

"Plaza Miserere on a Winter's Day"

On my way home the other day, I cut through a large plaza located not far from our apartment.  Plaza Miserere see's a lot of foot traffic throughout the day as it is a also a large transportation terminal for buses, the train and the subway.  Unfortunately, it also has a reputation for being dangerous, robbery being the most common crime.  Luckily, my Canon S95 is a rather small camera, and it can fit in my jacket pocket, which is very convenient when taking inconspicuous pictures nonetheless, I was scolded by my Argentine friends for having even been in the plaza alone in the first place, but I managed to snap a few quick pics and then walk home without any bad incidents. 

"Close Up"

Submarino

The Argentine know how to do hot cocoa.  Although you'll find it listed on the menu as a submarino (submarine).  Here's how it's done here down south: you are served a glass of hot milk, and two small bars of dark chocolate.  You drop the bars in the milk, allow them to melt, stir it all up and sip...enjoy with cookies or an alfajor pronounced alpha-hor, it is Argentina's most famous dessert.  It consists of dulce de leche (caramel) sandwiched between two crumbly cookies and is sometimes sprinkled with coconut.  When paired with a hot submarino your 2,000 calorie snack will be complete.

"Step 1"

"Step 2"

"Step 3"

"Step 4"

Friday Night Fun

Last Friday I met up with some co-workers and students at the Caracas Bar, in Palermo.  It is a restaurant that specializes in  Venezuelan arepas, which are cornmeal cakes stuffed with meat and cheese, sort of a Venezuelan style empanada...they were a little on the pricey side but a delicious treat.  My husband Thomas snapped a picture of me and an adult English student of mine.  I have to say, I always feel a little bashful when adult students who are older and much wiser then me call me "profe"  which means "professor," but I like to think that we do a great job of learning from each other...

"Friday Night Fun"

Por Favoooooor Part II

Back to Colonia, Uruguay my husband Thomas and I went on Sunday.  We needed to renew our visas yet again.  While walking around town I spotted the friendly old Uruguayan man.  You might remember him from this post: http://angelainbuenosaires.blogspot.com.ar/2012/05/por-favooooooor.html
There he was sitting in the same door way he had been lounging in ninety days ago.  Outfitted in the same sweater.  Still his friendly self and willing yet again to be a photography subject.  When I look deep into his weathered face and I can still see the vestiges of the handsome man I am sure he once was.

The Bizarre...

So graffiti and urban art is plentiful here. There is of course your typical spray paint graffiti, scribbled letters and words that I can't decipher.  There's political graffiti, I don't have any good examples at the moment but I promise there will be some to come.  Then there are of course an abundance of artsy, whimsical murals... and then there is the bizarre.  Creations that make you wonder what exactly was rolling around in the mind of the artist who felt compelled to create such a work of art on a random street corner...

"Monster"