My 1st Parrilla

Tonight my new flatmate (from Germany) decided to go out for dinner and asked me to go too. So we went with another friend (from France) of him to a Parrilla at Lavalle Street. It was a very small Parrilla. It was my first time that I went to a Parrilla. At the entrance they had the huge grill with all the meat. We ordered a Parrilla for three persons. To kill the time we first got some eggplant with garlic, vinegar and oil and some bread, all free of charge. Just a few minutes later the waiter came with a little “table grill” and a lot of meat on it. It was a frame that had hot coals at the bottom and the meat on the top. We had some chicken, beef steak, beef filet, chorizo and blood sausage. It is common to eat the beef without any side orders. At the end we were stuffed. It was really good!

Therefore, Mum and Dad, don’t be surprised when your son comes home twice as big!

We ended this night with a fresh beer at a bar close by.

My 1st ‘Tango Argentino’ lesson

Yesterday I went to my first ‘Tango Argentino‘ course. It was “La Viruta” at Armenia Street in Palermo. We were at least half an hour late ‘cos my roommate got the wrong time from the schedule. When we arrived there at 10pm we met some Italian friends of him. We talked a bit and then got inside. I had to pay 18$ for entrance. I was a bit confused ‘cos I didn’t wanna pay any entrance but a Tango lesson. Well, we went downstairs and there was loud Tango music. Tables were situated in U-form and in the middle there were some couples dancing Tango Argentino. It seemed to me like a show. Then one man acted like a show master. He must be the boss of this place. At this point I thought I was at the wrong place. But that guy selected the trainer couples for the classes. Then they just parted the whole dance hall for the six different levels and I got to the absolute beginners. They played Tango music all the time so the trainer couple explained the basic steps and we could just practice them with music. We had to change partners all the time. There were mostly people from other countries, mainly from Germany, Italy and the USA. The hall was very crowded, I guess 150-200 people of all ages. That many people made it difficult to enjoy the practice. After that course at about 11.30pm we had to clear the dance floor and a Tango show began. The compañía “Tempo Tango” existing of three couples gave us an impressive show accompanied by a little live Tango orchestra.

After this show we had the chance to dance until 6am.

We had a table with some friends from France, Italy and the USA. The ladies at our table “had the pleasure” to dance with El Pibe Sarandi. He is a guy in a white suite, probably 85 or 90 years old who likes to dance with all the ladies at one night, I guess. He was very busy and didn’t take any break.

It was a great night!

It is incredible how cheap this event is. When you buy for tickets at once you just pay 1,60€ for one day and you can enjoy all courses of this day plus the show (as long as you don’t leave the place). So you could take part at two Tango courses, one Salsa course, one Rock ‘n’ Roll or Milonga course and the Show for just 1,60€. And a 0,5L bottle of Warsteiner costs just 1,50€. This might be a place I will come back more often

I got some videos on my homepage  

1st Impressions of Bs.As.

Finally I’m back. First week I didn’t really have my own internet. The one in the Hostel wasn’t that good because you had only 20 minutes before you were logged off automatically.

The second week I got the flu cause I came back from the disco just in a T-shirt (I mean we had 21°C). I’m still a bit ill but yet able to write some text.

Sorry that this one became that long! The next reports will be shorter again.

I don’t know exactly where to start because there are so many things to tell. Bs.As. (Buenos Aires) has adopted so much from Europe, so much flair, art, style and culture, that you sometimes think about if you have already left your country. On the other side there are some similarities to North America like the big old shabby cars (I guess they don’t have any MOT/TÜV here like they do in Germany, therefore they look like a large battered metal tin and they are always followed by a creeping brown cloud of exhaust), traffic lights and the road markings, and there are so many weird things which can only be Argentinian…

Ok. Maybe first of all something about the swine flu: I’ve seen only one child with a mask yet! But everywhere there are signs telling you how to prevent H1N1: by washing your hands frequently with water and soap, not having to close contact to others, avoiding overcrowded places, etc.. These signs are usually red with yellow letters and are posted in subtes (subways), in restaurants, at some streets, and tourist points. Companies excuse themselves for not having that close contact like handshakes to their clients at this time. Everywhere you can buy alcohol gel and it is everywhere used where you have contact with others like in the service areas with customers but also in restaurants and toilets where you can help yourself and even in the subtes. I usually have my own little bottle with me (thanks Heidi ). It is easy, quick and practical.

Now about the porteños (people of the harbor city Bs.As.): They used to kiss one other for greeting. That means one kiss to the right cheek - neither three like the French people nor two like the Spanish. By the way, men kiss one other as well. So don’t be surprised!

They are a very nice people as long as you don’t meet them in traffic! If you fell or you look like lost it doesn’t take a sec till somebody offers you their help. But you should always be careful that this is not a trick of stealing.

The porteños are unflappable when you meet them in the supermarket at the cashier or at a ‘fast food’ restaurant for example. You need to bring a lot of time because it may take a while… or even another one. I figured out that they try to make up for that ‘lost’ time on the streets. There are only a few important rules to survive as pedestrian:

Be faster than the vehicles!

Traffic lights are no guarantee to get to the other side safely!

Zebra crossings only mark the place where you (might!?) find traffic lights for pedestrians!

Taxis, motorbikes and buses never brake, especially last ones!

Therefore:

When you got green for pedestrians, always watch out for vehicles turning right! They don’t want to wait when they got green either so they just drive no matter if there are some pedestrians crossing the street! And don’t wait till they passed to cross the street safely because then your light has already turned red again!

When the traffic light counts down your last seconds to cross the street, take it serious because at zero the vehicles shoot towards you from the side!

Just watch the traffic lights for the vehicles at the avenues! When they turn red it’s time for you to cross the street (although your traffic light still says ‘Do Not Cross’) to leave half the street behind you that when the vehicles had begun turning right they won’t hit you!

If you are first crossing the street at red traffic light make sure you got a free gap on the other side to be save when the vehicles try to get you!

Don’t be afraid of all the security you’ll find at/in many apartments, every store and every street corner! There not interested in what the people do, if they cross the streets at red (they do it as well!) or if you sell your stuff on the pathways or if you stop with your car (even though you cause a traffic jam)!

By the way, who volunteers for taking me by the hand when I’ll be back in German traffic again?

It is interesting to watch the drivers because the usually don’t use the lanes but drive as they want. How they worm their way through the traffic. How they try to knock over the pedestrians. How often they use their horn and how little respect they have for the emergency vehicles (even though they have these always alternating crazy sounds you know from all the toys). But when it comes to the red traffic light at the avenues… there are seven or eight lanes of vehicles at the same time shooting over the crossroads at Avenida 9 de Julio with more than 50Km/h and then suddenly all cars stop at same time because as soon as they got red the others crossing from the sides get green. At least the streets go only in one direction. If not there is a hint painted on the street saying ‘watch both directions’.

The porteños like fancy headlights especially the taxi drivers and quite often the bus drivers too. So if they decided to use any headlights at all they have these blue (very rarely also green) headlights that just look cool but barely show you the way at night.

But that’s not the only thing you should pay attention to!

There is a lot of dog shit on the sidewalk, for example, because there are quite a lot stray dogs like there are stray cats in rural areas in Germany. But that’s the lesser evil!

Much worse are all the potholes! When something knocks out of the sidewalk… well, that happens. And that the little hole grows gradually happens too. It even happens that this hole stays there for quite a long time! Like the one at Corrientes (Avenue) that covers – since I arrived here – the area of about one square meter and let you fall in unbelievable 15cm. And if they decided to repair these potholes they just fill them with some concrete-like paste and cover them with a pallet till it’s dry. Looks very nice when they don’t replace the tiles or paving stones but taking out the rest of them to leave grey rectangles!

Every night there are some people cleaning the city by emptying the garbage cans and sweeping and cleaning (with the shopping mall cleaning cars) the pedestrian precinct. At the streets you find big hills of garbage bags from all the people living and working there. You don’t separate your waste at home or at work. For this you have some people the poor families that are ripping of all the garbage bags on the street, digging for the carton and paper, to sell it on the black market. Then some other guys (I haven’t figured out yet if they are hired as private cleaners or if they work for the city environmental and operational services) pick up all the left garbage and leave the places clean again.

Buenos Aires is a really big city. But it is also so well organized! You have the subtes that bring you almost to everywhere. It is the cheapest way. You pay only 0,20€ per ticket which you can use all the time as long as you don’t leave the subte. But don’t exspect them do give you a ride after 10.30pm! C’mon, we’re talking here about one of the 20 largest cities of the World and not about - let’s say - Hannover (Germany) where there is only one hour the trams/subways don’t drive. Another way is the colectivos (buses). They are up to twice as expensive. The bus stops are so small that you can sometimes hardly find them. But quite often there are people lining up to wait to get into the bus. They don’t have schedules so you just stand there and wait. That might be an hour. And don’t forget to raise your arm when your bus approaches otherwise it might pass you. Another option is the taxi. But here you should take the “radiotaxis” because they are registered and therefore reliable. You pay 0,70€ + 0,35€ per kilometer. The other taxi drivers like to do extra turns/tours and charge you for that or change your 100$ note secretly with a forged note.

That’s by the way another interesting thing! The Europeans like to pay witch 100$ notes (100AR$ = 18,44€). These are the only notes you get from the ATM. And these seem to be THE notes that are mostly forged. Therefore everybody is checking your 100$ notes when you pay with them. Sometimes they even put the numbers of the banknote on the receipt. But first they are surprised! If I could read their minds I would read ‘wow, you must be rich paying with a 100$ note’. Some of them even refuse to take that much money when you want to buy something for let’s say 20$ because they didn’t have enough change…

But back to the city! With the Guía T, the bible of Bs.As. (a little booklet which contains an easy system of all busses and detailed little maps of all parts of the city to figure out which bus you need to take to get from the point where you are right now to your point of destination) it’s child’s play to get along in this metropolis.

What’s also crazy about the Argentinians is that they are lining up at the street. Yeah, you read right! Lining up. It looks really weird! This line can be as long as one block and also likes to go around the corner. Therefore when you just turn around a corner you are quite surprised when you run into the end of a line. When you observe these lines for a little while or follow them to the beginning you’ll figure out that they are waiting for the bus or to get into a disco, museum or restaurant.

But at some times there is almost nobody on the street. In the morning and some time in the afternoon the streets are deserted. When you want to dinner, don’t be disappointed when there is nobody in the restaurant at 9pm or you don’t get served because the waiters and chefs are eating. Dinner time starts at 10pm at the earliest; quite common is midnight. After dinner at let’s say 1am they get dressed for the night and around 3am the discos and night bars open for the night life. But don’t expect to find a place to have breakfast at 5am. Even Mc Donald’s and Burger King at the Avenues were closed that one night I got hungry.

But a lot of stores in the shopping streets are opened also on Sundays.

And there are also the 25h kiosks.

The prices for eating in a restaurant are usually lower than in Europe. Especially the drinks are cheap. In restaurants you get 0,33L lemonade or water for 1-1,5€, in discotheques you get the ‘good’ Argentinian beer Quilmes in 0,33L cans for 0,55€.

A lot of people sit in the many cafés to have a cup or two. One cup of coffee, a little glass of orange juice and a medialuna (croissant) for 1,40€ is quite a good price. With the coffee comes always a glass of water. The cafés always give you the opportunity to sit outside. When they are facing to the street they usually have installed a plastic wall and in winters they usually use a heating pipe over the entrance that you don’t have to freeze.

The prices for meat (as long as we are talking about beef) are very low as well: 2€/Kg. Of course it depends on what kind of meat but even the filet is very cheap – about half as much as in Germany, I think.

There are some German names they haven’t been translated into argentine or are at least used in everyday life like ‘Weltanschauung’, ‘Kindergarten’ and ‘Leberwurst’. I even found a label on some Argentinian beef saying ‘Mindestens haltbar bis’. But why do they have then a new name for ‘hot dog’? Why do they call it ‘Pancho’ instead of at least ‘perrito caliente’?

In Bs.As. the Italian cuisine is very common. You get pizza and pasta everywhere. The day, I arrived in Bs.As. I just brought all my stuff upstairs to my dorm and then I went to the next restaurant close to my hostel. By then it was already midnight. There I looked at the selection of pizzas and decided due to the fact that I already had a little dinner just before landing at the airport (at 7pm) to go for the pizza ‘chica (6)’-size. It took me a while to decide because I was thinking about the name! I’m not a ‘girl’ therefore this size might be a bit too small for a big boy that is always hungry. And what the heck does the number in parenthesis mean? But it was in the middle of ‘piccolo (4)’ and ‘grande (8)’. The waiter asked me twice to make sure that I really want to order this size, these six slices. Ah, now the big light went on!…

A few minutes later he came with a round silver pizza tray. WOW! So, this is chica-size? I got a pizza of 33cm of diameter (in comparison with a normal frozen pizza from a German supermarket: it’s twice as much). It was already cut in six pieces. He put one of them on my plate and put the tray besides my plate. I could only find cheese on my plate. I thought ‘well, let’s get cracking!’ and I started. Meanwhile the waiter went back to the counter and talked with another waiter. They were always looking at me as if they bet on me. Finally I finished this pizza. It was quite a lot. There was definitely too much cheese on it. I had to dive for the bacon. But after a few days and after my third pizza, I figured out that cheese is the main ingredient of Argentinian pizzas. So, don’t order a pizza ‘Quattro Formaggio’! It would be a too big challenge for your stomach!

Interesting is also that one waiter or even the boss of a restaurant stands at the entrance to get some clients. But not only at restaurants but also at any other store or shop there are some people standing on the street and yelling their offers, even at exchange offices.

On the Avenues there are always people in blue jackets and a big blue flag with a big blue E in a white spot on it which stands for Estacionamentos (parking lot and multi-story). They are waving them to direct you to the parking places. When the cars want to pull out from the parking lot there is always a signal sounding. This is especially shocking at the beginning of your stay because that sound remembers you most the time at the sound that rings after a bank robbery and there are quite a lot banks in Bs.As..

At my first day (August 8 ), my two Brazilian roommates took me to the Recoleta district. It is one of the nice and noble districts. We strolled over the first public cemetery. It is unbelievable what kind of tombs they have there! I don’t want to know how much grants you have to spend to get one of these. We also stopped at the tomb of Evita Perón. It was not easy to find it because you have to look for her family name Duarte and it is not such a conspicuous big tomb.

The next day, us three went with two Germans and two Mexicans to Tigre. Tigre is both a district and its main town, and it is situated in the very north of Buenos Aires. We went there by train starting at the main station Retiro. It was quite an interesting trip by train because the trains are very old and the doors don’t close properly. Every time the train stopped at a station and the doors opened a huge black cloud of exhaust got on the train. It stank like hell!

It is very common in subtes and trains that children walk through to sell little thinks like key fobs or adults try to sell tights or candy bars and musicians play quite good Spanish Guitars or other music.

In Tigre we enjoyed a catamaran trip on the Paraná River to see all the different little houses at the river side.

The third day, I went with a German girl to Palermo, another rich district of Buenos Aires with many very good and cheap restaurants and beef grills called Parrillas or Asados. It was like Paris and Italy together. There was one café after the other on the one side of the streets and on the other you could shop like in Paris, boutique after boutique with ‘haute couture’-fashion and young designer fashion. These shops were usually locked but as soon as Europeans stopped by they unlocked immediately and welcomed them. We stopped at a fancy café that had collected all the old furniture and dishes from grandma. They didn’t match at all but it was interesting to see so much European ‘home’-history at one spot. We had a coffee and a medialuna, kept this moment on a photo and continued our tour.

Wednesday, August 12, my roommates and two friends from North America asked me to spontaneously join them to watch ‘El Fantasma de la Opera’. So I did. It was a nice play and a cool scenery.

At night, we tried to get into a cool boliche (discotheque) but they refused to let us in because we didn’t have the right dress code. They had ‘after-work’ party that night. We tried to find another location without success. Therefore we just bought some beer to kill it at the hostel.

The next day we took part in the pub crawl that was organized by the hostel. It started lame in the pubs but the end in the boliche at Aráoz Street in Palermo was quite good.

Friday, August 13, I enjoyed some Tango show at my street. Since the boss of this Tango school speaks several languages and he had the typical music from all parts of the world he asked the spectators of their origin. When he had asked me he played some Bavarian folk music. We talked a bit in German and later he gave me the opportunity to dance Salsa with one of his Tango dancers.

At night a German guy took us to some boliche called Caix. It was somewhere in the north at the water. He had some connections to get us in. It took a while because his Spanish was not the best yet. This boliche was really cool. They even had a dance floor outside, directly at the water.

Since Monday, August 17, I live in a shared flat at Talcahuano Street at the Plaza Lavalle in the district of San Nicolás. The Plaza Lavalle is not that overcrowded as others. It is just one street away from 9 de Julio and its Obelsico de Buenos Aires and it’s quite close to my university, just a 20 minutes walk. I got the subte D directly in front of my door that takes me to the university and the district of Palermo for example. Just to the right there is the Mirador Massue (a building of the style ‘art nouveau’, named by its French architecture) and the Palacio de Justicia de la Nación (Supreme Court of Justice). On the other side of the square there is El Colón, the leading opera house in South America and considered to be one of the four great opera houses of the world. They are renovating it right now. I hope the will finish it as soon as possible that I can visit it. At the beginning of next year it has its 200th anniversary. Therefore they have to hurry anyway!

The flat in 6th floor is a bit older but quite comfortable. I live in a little room with bed, bedside table, desk, wardrobe and shelves. I share this flat with an Argentinean woman and a male student from Paris. They are very nice and I get along with them very good so far.

We have our own “guard” at the entrance of our building checking who comes in.

The sockets are interesting! They are flat like in the US but the old sockets are for the plugs we use in Germany (two round pins). The new sockets have two flat pins facing each other at about 60° (plus one for grounding). Some of them are combined. Therefore I can use my German electronic devices in some of the sockets of my flat without an adapter.

The best of this house is the elevator! It is one of the elevators you might know from very old movies, this cages where you have to open two doors manually from left to right. If one door is not closed properly the elevator can’t operate and makes an annoying alarm. That’s what always happened in the hostel because the people just left the elevators in a hurry and without paying attention to the signal. The result was that you had to use the stairways almost all the time.

My university is a very little one at the beginning of 9 de Julio Avenue at Carlos Pellegrini Street. The organisation is quite a big chaos but I guess that’s the showpiece of universities in general. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century and has all its style.

The inner courtyard is just awesome at the one side but one the other side they built a new building for the pupils. Therefore it is sometimes a little bit annoying when the little kids have their sport course at the inner courtyard while you have your classes. Interesting is that they wear something like a white simple overall as school uniform.

The lecture rooms are very small and very simple: just a board to write on, some “table-chairs”, a simple table as desk for the lecturer, and a TV with VHS or DVD. The lecturers are very nice. The size of the lectures is very small. We are 6 to 12 students. I have to take the Spanish course Intermediate for foreign student which is two hours a day and four times a week. In this course are some students from Brazil, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan.

Our university has a cafeteria that offers tartas with pumpkin, spinach, bacon and/or cheese, panninis (baguettes with cheese and bacon/chicken/beef/tomato squeezed between two hot iron plates), empanadas (filled pasty), and other thinks like a fresh espresso and cakes with dulce de leche (caramel cream).

There is one thing you shouldn’t forget to bring to university: toilet paper because they don’t replace it…

Yesterday, my flatmate asked me to come to a concert of a Kevin Johansen. I haven’t heard anything about him before so I checked some youtube videos. It seemed to be fun. I had to sign in on the singer’s Homepage to get free entrance. It was quite spontaneous; therefore, after university, and half an hour before start, I signed in on that website and went to the Theatro El Nacional at Corrientes, directly at the obelisco. It was free because Kevin Johansen is going to make a new DVD and now needs an audience. They let us wait almost two hours but we were compensated by an awesome four-hour concert. I really liked his music. It is a mixture of pop, rock, latin, and Argentinian folk. He has about eight musicians playing all kinds of instrument. Some of his songs are about Buenos Aires.

Today was again one of these freezing winter days in Buenos Aires. We had 27°C. Today was the first day of this winter we used the air conditioner in our lecture room. Good that I didn’t bring any winter clothes to Argentina.

Arrival in Buenos Aires

Finally I arrived in Buenos Aires. It was 7pm local time (MEZ + 5h).

I met two students from Bonn at the Airport Frankfurt - heading for Bs.As. as well. Me and the one girl were asked to change seats with a family with a little child. As a little thanks the boss of the flight assistance team gave us a Champagne from first class and a voucher of 25 euros. They were all very thankful for the changing and therefore quite kind to us.

The service of Lufthansa was just great! We had two meals, one snack, and as much drinks as we wanted (they always stopped by offering us another cup of lemonade, wine, sparkling wine or Baileys). The flight from Frankfurt to Bs.As. took us a bit more than 13 hours but I’m not too tired.

Here some other quick details:

distance: 11500km (7200mi)

altitude: 8839m (29000ft)

flying speed: 948km/h (589mi/h)

outside temperature: -53°C (-63,4°F)

movies on board: Monsters vs. Aliens, 17 Again, Dragon Ball Revolution

route: Hannover - Frankfurt - Rüdesheim - Vianden - … - passing Salvador, Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo - Buenos Aires

The three of us took then the “Tienda Leon”-Bus-Service from the airport to the city and from there to our hostels. It was organised very well and cost us just 12 U$D and about 45 minutes.

I checked in at the Hostel Suites Florida (at Florida 328) for 10 days. I share my room with two guys from Brasil and one from the USA right now.  When I first used the bathroom I thould ‘cool, you already know this doorknob from the US’ (turning to open and turning the pin in the middle to lock the door) but that would have been too easy! No, it’s the other way around: push that button in the middle to open the door and turn the doorknob to the right to un-/lock it. Weird Argentinians!!!