Buenos Aires

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Let’s Start with the Italians

Well since I’ve been locked down at home now for about a week, there’s not a lot happening, and certainly nothing work posting about in the blog. So I decided to take this chance to write a bit about Argentina. Although my friends have heard me rave about this country for several years, and I’ve blogged a bit about my travels and other adventures, I haven’t actually said a lot about the country itself. I’m going to do more posts like that from time to time, and I thought I’d start — naturally — with Buenos Aires.

“Argentines are Italians who speak Spanish and think they’re French.”

So goes a well known saying here, and it’s particularly noticeable in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Italian and French influences are both strong, but in different ways. Today I’m going to talk about the Italians in Argentina and in another post I’ll deal with the French.

Immigration

The first wave of immigration from Italy took place around 1880-1920, round about the same time as Italians were also flocking to New York City. Both groups were looking for a better life, and they profoundly influence both cities.

Food

I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like Italian food, but it seems that each country puts its own spin on it. Buenos Aires, for example, is bonkers about pizza. One of the main streets is Avenida Corrientes, and there’s a long stretch that seems to have a pizza place on every corner and some in between. Argentines love cheese, and the more the better, so the pizza here tends to not only have a thicker, more doughy crust, but enough cheese to make a gooey covering that strings out much like the cheese on French onion soup.

Personally, I like the pizza here, but if you are a fan of the thin crust, it may not be your favourite.

Porteños, which is what the natives of Buenos Aires are called (as well as folks like me who have taken the country to their hearts and happily call themselves Porteños too), also have an ongoing love affair with ice cream. Since Italians are also world famous for the ice cold treat, it seems natural they would bring the taste here.

The ice cream tends more towards the Italian gelato than the creamier North American type, but not all the way. Somehow, Argentines have found something halfway between the two which seems to me more delicious than either.

There are so many ice cream shops in Buenos Aires you’d wonder how they all stay in business — except that they all seem to be buzzing day and night! There’s one in Olivos, where my friend Cecilia stays, called Arnaldo’s. We went there one night around midnight, and had to line up just to get a table! Whole families, complete with kids and dogs, were there eating ice cream!

Language

Anyone who speaks Spanish will tell you that the version spoken in and around Buenos Aires is different from the rest of the Spanish speaking world. It’s usually called Castellano rather than Español, and has a definite Italian lilt to it. Not to mention that Porteños speak with their hands just as Italians do. As Buenos Aires sits on the River Plate, the dialect is called RioPlatense, and it’s also spoken in Uruguay on the other side of the river.

There is also a totally incomprehensible (at least to me and most expats) slang here called lunfardo. It apparently originated among Italian immigrants in the working class barrio of La Boca. The story goes that it was created to flummox the police, who couldn’t understand what anyone was saying!

Tango

And of coure for me, the best gift the Italians brought to Argentina was the tango, which also originated in La Boca. My tango teacher told me that the close embrace that so characterizes tango was the only way many single men, who had left their families back in Italy, could enjoy close physical contact with another person. However it started, I’m sure glad it caught on!

Architecture

Buenos Aires is full of magnificent old buildings that originally housed wealthy families and are called palacios. One of the most striking, though, was actually built as an office building, which it continues to be today. Palacio Barolo was designed by the Italian architect Mario Palanti and opened in 1923.

The building  has 23 storeys, each representing a stanza of Dante’s Divine Comedy. And as the architect was a Freemason, there is also a great deal of Masonic symbolism in the building.

I took a tour of Palacio Barolo on one of my previous visits. This is a sketch I did from the door of a shop across the road.

This has been a very general overview of the Italian influence on Buenos Aires, and I hope you found it interesting and learned something new about my beautiful adopted city. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them if I can.

My next post will talk about the French influence.

 

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Things I’ve Accomplished Since Lockdown

Argentina went into lockdown officially on Thursday, and we were almost there for a couple of days before that. Since Thursday, mainly because I am spending time at home alone, I have:

  1. Made rice pudding from leftover rice — yummy
  2. Made banana bread from overripe bananas — yummy
  3. Caramelized onions to have with delicious Argentine steaks — yummy

( These three are all part of my newfound desire to cook, after hating it for most of my adult life. Stay tuned.)

4. Shortened the sleeves of a jacket — something I’ve been meaning to do for months.

5. Hemmed one pair of pants.

I’m going to continue this list for as long as the lockdown lasts. Knowing I’m doing that will encourage me to do more things.

What are you doing to make the most of this enforced downtime? Leave a comment to share your experience.

If you are one of the many people who have asked if I was OK because I hadn’t posted in the blog for a while, thank you for caring. I’m fine. I’ve just been a bit lazy, but I’m back on track now.

Stay safe.

 

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Lockdown

Well, it’s here — total lockdown throughout Argentina. The President went on telly last night to make the announcement, and it wasn’t really a surprise. We have about 150 cases in the country, apparently all of which are “imported”, and there is no sign of community spread. That’s because of the precautions we’ve been taking so far and, amazingly, Argentines are doing what they’re told — not a natural thing for them! they are building eight emergency “hospitals” to deal with the situation, which I imagine will be kind of M.A.S.H. type places. Great idea. Of course God alone knows how we’ll pay for it as the economy is already in shambles, but hey, one crisis at a time.

We can go out for food or medicinal supplies, but police will be on the streets asking where we are going, so they are serious. Good thing.

I would like to say I’ve been working on my book and other business things, but sadly that’s not the case. Like many others, I’ve found it hard to summon up the energy, and even interest, to work. But I have done some things I’ve been meaning to do, like hemming a couple of pairs of pants. I’m also taking the opportunity to work on my new cooking skills. Check out this yummy rice pudding — which I decided to make from some leftover rice! OK, I know you may not think that’s a big deal, but for me it is. In the past I would keep the leftover rice until it walked out of the fridge!

Now that we are in mid-March, summer is winding down here. It’s not fall yet, but it’s not hot hot hot. I have a lovely balcony with plants, so I’ve moved one of my comfy living room chairs out there and I’ll be doing some work and some reading out there for a while. Good way to get fresh air too.

As I’m not a big movie fan, I’ve never felt inclined to get Netflix, but I’m considering it. In the meantime, there’s lots on YouTube to inform, comfort and entertain. I found old episodes of the British gameshow/comedy called Q1 hosted by the hilarious Stephen Fry. Falling off my red couch laughing. Check them out if you enjoy sheer unadulterated British silliness. Otherwise, forget it as you’ll just shake your head!

The other thing I’ve been doing is using video calling to stay in touch with friends. Four of my women friends here in Buenos Aires had a “virtual glass of Malbec” together a couple of nights ago, and I’ll be doing more of that with other friends both here and around the world. I highly recommend it. Might be a good idea to plan in advance to talk about things other than coronovirus though. No point in moaning all the time.

Well that’s it for now. Heading out to my balcony to sit on my chair and have lunch.

Stay well and safe.

 

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Carnival!

A number of years ago I went with Cecilia and another friend to Gualeguaychu to see the second biggest carnival in South America, after Rio. It was spectacular.

Other cities in Argentina hold carnivals, including Buenos Aires. Even though this is the capital, the carnival is quite low key and nothing like as exciting as Gualeguaychu. But it’s fun in its own way, so I went with Venetia and Sally to check it out.

No huge floats, no almost naked people, no professional dancers. Just people having fun. Here are some photos and a video to give you a feel for the event.

This was some sort of exhibit of costumes, but we never figured out exactly what they were.

Parade make-up station

These were some cool boots!

I don’t want to be here. Why did you make me do this?

Carnival baby

Carnival baby’s mum

Backstage after the parade

Not sure what role this bus played but it was pretty cool looking

More backstage

And of course we ended the afternoon in the usual way!

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Bar Britanico

Four of us went on another book research outing on Thursday, this time to a lovely old place called Bar Britanico. It’s in San Telmo, where so many of the older and more interesting ones are.

It has an interesting history, but I’ll just tell you one funny part of it here. As you can see from the photo, the name is painted on the windows. Back in the time of the Malvinas Conflict/Falklands War, it was deemed not a good idea to have this name on the bar.

In another place, they might have renamed it and painted on another name. But this is Buenos Aires, where there’s always a different approach to life! They simply covered up the BRI at the beginning and everyone started calling it the Bar Tanico. Then when the conflict was over and things quieted down a bit (although they have never really forgotten it), they simply uncovered the letters and once again it is known as Bar Britanico. That is so Buenos Aires!

Lina and Venetia both enjoyed their food, but Joanna and I opted for the fish and chips, reasoning that it would be good in a place with a name like Bar Britanico. Wrong. Very dry and disappointing. But as you can see from this photo, Lina’s chicken was absolutely yummy!

It’s a lovely old place, and I’ll be going back soon to do a sketch for my book.

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Lucy’s Birthday

Lucy is one of our group of expat friends who moved away from Buenos Aires for her job a couple of years ago. Although she now lives in Boston, she takes every chance she can get to visit Buenos Aires and we are always happy to see her. This time her visit coincided with her birthday, so we went to a really fun rooftop bar at the top of her hotel. You can see how much fun we were having!

It got better when she went down to her room for a minute and found the management had left her a bottle of champagne. So she brought it upstairs for us all to share!

After spending a couple of hours there, we went on for dinner at Abdala, a lovely Middle Eastern restaurant we like. I didn’t take any photos there, but trust me when I tell you the fun continued!

When you have a group of badass women like these, fun just naturally happens!