Well, not exactly Alcatraz. I'm staying in the Hotel Alcazar in Buenos Aires, and while the room is a little cell like, it's actually very nice. And I'm not totally linguistically incompetent, it's just my second language (if you can quite call it that) is French, and I've never really got my head around Spanish. So, you could call my rain-besieged island home Alcatraz if you were feeling unfair and melodramatic, and I have less Spanish than Bilbo Baggins, so we'll leave the title as it is...The flight was uneventful. This is normally a good thing, but some of the events that were missing were decent entertainment and the right food showing up. I suppose I shouldn't expect the Spanish to grasp the concept of vegetarian food*. At least they didn't hide any ham in my fruit salad.
The plane was also late. It never seems terribly important when that happens to a flight expected in at 2:30pm. It starts making a difference in the late evening. I eventually crept into my hotel at about 23:10, my journey being further delayed by: slow baggage delivery (no cute dogs), a shortage of ATMs that actually did any telling, standing around at a transport interchange trying to work out how to say "how do I get to Microcentro" in Spanish and, crucially, understand the answer (as it turn out, someone Habloed some Ingles, saving me the bother).
Buenos Aires feels astonishingly European. That shouldn't be particularly surprising but then again Sydney and Wellington don't feel Astonishingly British. So far, however, this judgement is coloured by the fact that I've really only seen it on a Sunday. The buildings aren't suddenly going to change of course (at least, I really hope not) but if the BA culture is significantly different it will be interesting to see how the place changes when it's full - people make a city, no matter how many nice wrought-iron balconies there are.
The city centre was deader than a Recoleta Cemetery inhabitant, including an absence of open cafes. This became pressing after an hour's aimless wandering, as wobbliness was setting in with no sign of relief. I swiftly changed plans, heading out to Palermo's green spaces, assuming that if the local cafes around parks and museums shut on a Sunday afternoon it was no wonder the economy was struggling.
Palermo, however, is a pastry paradise. Bewildered by the cream filled choice, I eventually selected both shop and produce, and retreated to the botanical gardens to munch away opposite a statue of an incredible surprised wolf. A trip to the Japanese Garden allowed me to see my first flag-in-the-shape-of-a-fish, as well as some beautiful and very well kept shrubbery. My language being poor I could not establish the word being spelled out by being cut into the lawn. Perhaps it was mischevous graffita and read simply "mow me".The MALBA Museum, a shiny modern art block not far from the conglomeration of massive Japanese goldfish, was an entertaining (and airconditioned) treat. The highlight was Oscar Munoz's paintings on a shower curtain (no, really); the lowlight was the strange moment when the woman at the desk refused to take my AR$100 note to pay a $32 fee - she had no change. This is a problem across Argentina, apparently, but I wasn't quite expecting it from a top end tourist attraction. 'Maybe your bosses should have made the fee $30', I suggested, sadly in English. The change problem is such that when a cute child skipped through the Subte later on with a tiny fistful of coins and looked at me with big brown eyes, pleading for me to hand over a shiny centavos or two, I was able to say in all honesty, "you'll be lucky".
I paid with a card. The museum, that is, not the cute child beggar.
My feet would have been even more sore if I hadn't been able to navigate the Subte system. It got off to a rocky start. I got on at Belgrano, where the woman in the ticket office didn't want to play a linguistic guessing game with me at first, and only (partialy) relented when I just stood there looking despondant and repeating "Lo siento, no hablo Espanol" until my tongue thickened with boredom and humiliation. What Argentines don't do, I've noticed, is type up the numbers on a till or calculator to show you (as happens in many other countries). Maybe the proximity of a British colony has had an effect - instead they just like to repeat the numbers slowly and loudly English-style in the hope that they will magically make sense on the 17th try. I ended up with 5 subte tickets. I'm still a little hazy about how much they cost.
The next quirk is that Belgrano had literally no maps anywhere, meaning I had to guess a direction and hope for the best. Fortunately, the other stations were much better equipped (including free WiFi! Eat your heart out, Choob) so I found my way to wolves, fish and shower curtains.
Palermo really was quite lovely, and I strolled through the Veijo area to find a recommended vegetarian restaurant. Yes, that's right. My friends have been amusing themselves by telling me horror stories of how hard it is to get vegetarian food, but so far the Argentinians have been very obliging. Meraviglia is a simple but nice vegetarian cafe. As a simple but nice vegetarian it was all but perfect. The all-but being my fault again as I tried to understand the waitress explaining that the tofu stir-fry was off the menu. Thanks to a helpful fellow diner I was eventually able to select a tasty alternative.
Perhaps I need to make a little more effort with the phrase book.
* one very wonderful member of the cabin crew was normally on hand moments later to stand the offending food away from me and admonish the staff until the right meal arrived. If only I could just carry her around with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment