JamieSue

Buenos Aires Best (so far)

I am so lame. Firstly, for using the word lame. But, stick with me here, it’s worse than that. I am in Buenos Aires. The city of sexy sleek tango, of dark politics, of wavy haired men with bedroom eyes, of haute cuisine I can actually afford, of gorgeous women in unwalkable shoes, of parties that start at 1 a.m. and end at 7 even though it’s a week night, the South American cultural jewel.  Buenos Aires the “Paris of the Southern Hemisphere”. And what’s my favorite part so far?  There’s no contest. The zoo.

I am going to avoid the debatable question of my morale opinion on Zoos. Yes, I feel some guilt. But, truthfully, the guilt is far overshadowed by the pure thrill at seeing the animals – especially here. The Buenos Aires Zoo is, like the Central Park Zoo, right in the middle of the actual city.  Unlike the Central Park Zoo, the animals here outnumber the neighboring population of homeless people.

And, for the Zoos that I have attended, including the Bronx Zoo, what makes this one so much better? Fewer laws. 

Unlike the U.S. Zoos, where even the rented strollers are encased in plexiglass and surrounded by a four foot portable ditch, the zoo here does not take the separation of animals from people as a strict rule.  As soon as I entered the zoo, I met a throng of ducks, chicks, birds, and some kind of hairy-wet-rat-but-not-a-rat thing that immediately approached hoping for food. A few steps further and there were the occasional rabbit-mini-kangaroo-deer concoctions that were teetering around the grass and cement. A giant white duck spent at least 20 minutes following me around the elephant enclosure and later I was scorned by a family of peacocks near the Fanta Food stalls.  It was terrific. I was at the zoo alone, but not. The only downside was the lack of information on the wandering creatures. Personally, I’m hoping for individual wet-rat name tags hung on little chains around the necks of the animals. We’ll see how that goes.

Not only are the animals panhandling the crowd, the zoo actually encourages this behavior. They sell bags of generic food (since when do Elephants and ducks eat the same thing). For a mere 1 U$D you can bribe the animals to throng around your out stretched hand. Think of it like the Swatch of the 80’s. It’s fantastic! I fed and/or groped goats, deer, llamas, camels, monkeys, and even long-distance elephants. Animals such as goats are allowed to come right up to you at the chain link fence (which caused many prison yard associations for me and I wondered if the goats were secretly trading favors for packs of cigarettes). For bigger animals like the camels, there is an iron rail which theoretically zoo visitors should stay behind and a long feeding trough where you can slide your food down to the animals. Of course, no one here believes in rules and many people were leaning over or standing on the rails to feed the animals directly.  Feed the animals directly? Of COURSE I wanted to feed the animals directly. And so I did, until the zebra incident. 

I thought, I’ll get a picture of my hand feeding the zebra so I can say to all my friends, “Look! My hand was in Buenos Aires feeding a zebra!” However, as I leaned over the railing and extended my hand whilst clutching my bag under my armpit and balancing the camera in the other hand and trying to take a picture, the food slipped out of my palm. Take a look at the picture. What looks like food to you?

Yep, my pinky finger. The zebra promptly bit down on to it and started twisting his head to the side to attempt to remove my tasty finger. With some distress, I said “ow ow ow ow” while waving my camera about threateningly.  The threat worked and the zebra let go. My finger was slightly mangled (see above the knuckle), and swollen and unbendable the next day, but it is typing sufficiently now.  It was a very good lesson learned however. Should I meet a zebra in the wild, I won’t extend my hand to shake. Apparently, the zebra needed to get the taste of me out of his mouth afterward because he immediately began chewing the edge of the food trough. Or, perhaps he was trying to sharpen his teeth for next time.

I immediately applied my zebra experience to other animals on entering the “rainforest” building, a remarkably run down concrete building that felt more like a military encampment than a rainforest. When it came time for me to push through the heavy plastic strips blocking the room with the gigantic squaking parrots who shouted “Hola!” at me as though it was war cry, I had a moment of serious consideration. I judged the distance between the plastic covered door, across the suspended bridge of death, to the other plastic exit door. Could I make it? The massive birds were swooping about and shrieking. Just as I was about to retreat and avoid the room entirely, a parent dragging a five-year-old boy by the hand passed me and went into the bird zone.  I knew that was my moment.  I followed them in. If the birds were going to take anyone, it would be the snack sized kid. The kid immediately started to sob, and I didn’t blame him one bit – he was surrounded by furiously shrieking, screaming parrots shouting at him in Spanish – but the parent persisted in dragging him through. No wonder psychoanalysis is so popular in Buenos Aires.  We all survived. This time.

I loved being able to get so close to the animals. Of course, there were the moments when I thought, “how can we do this to these animals?” “Aren’t they miserable being trapped in a zoo.” “How do humans treat animals badly when we are so much like them.”  Over at the monkey cages, those feelings were particularly acute while I was watching the monkeys wrap their fingers around the fence, watching them press their faces against the gaps, and watching the flicking movements of their eyes as they scanned the crowd. As soon as I removed my bag of food from my satchel, one monkey stuck his arm through the bars and turned up his little hand. Awww. This experience was post-Zebra, so I walked over to the little wooden trough for the food and slid my offering down the trough for the little guy. He looked at me, but didn’t move. A much larger mafia-looking monkey sauntered out of the shadows, walked casually to the trough, scooped up the food, and ate it while looking bored but tough. So, I tried sliding Mafia monkey a piece of food and then hurrying over to the other trough and putting food in it as well for the guy at the bars. Again, the begging monkey didn’t move. He just looked at my food longingly. None of the other monkeys moved. They simply watched as Mafia monkey took his sweet time eating both bits of food. I tried everything: throwing food through the bars to two different areas, putting lots of food into the troughs, even trying to toss the food up in the air so the begging monkey could catch it.  But Mafia monkey had the  whole population beaten down. No one would eat food but him. At best I guess I can hope that one day begging monkey might grow big enough to beat the hell out of Mafia monkey and become the new Zoo Snack God Father or maybe there will be a monkey uprising where Mafia monkey is dethroned and a new Mafia monkey with lower protection charges will step in. But, for now, I did have part of my question answered. How do humans treat animals badly when it is clear that we are so exactly like them?  Well, it’s obvious. We’re exactly like them.

The screaming Hola parrots.

These creatures aren't in cages. They're just wandering the zoo and of course they like the duck-elephant-deer food. Who wouldn't?

Rhino in the city.



Stretching elephant.
More pictures at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamiesuec/sets/72157604061256468/

Accidental Dating

I have discovered the dangerous “si”. It is what I say when I don’t really understand and I don’t really care. “Si, si” I say and I nod and smile because damn I’m just too tired to try to understand whatever it is you are saying. “Si, si.”   That’s what I said when my doorman asked me out on a date. “Si, si” and I nodded and then he asked me when would I like to go and it wasn’t until that point that I realized I had already agreed to go out with him. It all happened so fast.

Then, I thought, maybe it wasn’t a date. I chat with him all the time in my bad Spanish – he speaks no English. Maybe it was just friendly. So I asked…everyone I know here. They all said, no, it’s a date. It’s not just friendly. If a boy asks a girl to dinner, it’s a date.  Our plans were pizza and walking. I guess a date. A date with my doorman – how horrible.

Not because he is A doorman, but because he is MY doorman. Can you imagine if you went on a date with your doorman? If it went well and you liked him, then you’d feel the need to look decent every single time you left you apartment. You’d worry what he thought when you came in too late. Or what he saw you have in your grocery bags. Or what he would think when you had  male company.  If it went badly, you couldn’t exactly lie and say you couldn’t go out again because you weren’t feeling well, or were too busy, or were seeing someone else.  And, you’d have to see him every single day. And tip him at Christmas. Tipping your ex-boyfriend?

I had to get out of it, I thought. Until one Argentine man said to me, “That is a date. It is a date. He should not have asked you. He is a doorman.” And I was just looking at him, so he clarified, “Here, doormen are also the janitor. See, he should not have asked you.”   And so, I had to go on the date. 

But oh, how I schemed.  Yesterday, as I was coming in I asked him “What time is it.” He told me. “Oh, I said, I’m late. I’m supposed to be calling my boyfriend in the US now.” Brilliant. Right? Brilliant.  And the doorman said, “Tomorrow is okay still, yes.”  And I said yes. And then the new worry set in, maybe he would think I was willing to cheat on my new imaginary boyfriend.
Date night arrived. We were five paces out the door before I mentioned my boyfriend. I yawned. He asked if I was tired. I said yes, I had been up late with my boyfriend on the phone. Ten minutes later, “Oh, yes, I grow vegetables on my boyfriend’s patio.”  Fifteen minutes later, “No, I don’t have any children, but my boyfriend has one.”  Twenty minutes later, “I don’t like heavy metal, but my boyfriend does.”  It was a litany of fake boyfriend facts which I must now note down so as to correctly continue the story going forward.

All in all, I had a pretty decent night. If I hadn’t been so consumed by the ‘is this a date’ worry, I probably would have had a good night. Early on, as we were getting up to get off of the bus and it was still moving, he took my hand, theoretically to steady me as the bus was wobbling. After that, I kept my hands stuffed in my pockets just in case to avoid any other hand taking. I had worn anti-date jeans and an anti-date hair in a crappy pony tail. The doorman and I walked around La Boca. He pointed out houses with interesting histories. I walked a few steps away to avoid brushing shoulders. He told me about the river and the pollution problem. I avoided stopping anywhere that might seem romantic. He pointed out some small row boats that locals use to ferry themselves across it to the other provinces. I kept walking in fear that he would want to take a boat because I think he lived over there. Normally, I wouldn’t be so consumed by these kinds of worries, but since I don’t speak the language and I’m new to the culture, all of the subtle signs of social interaction are  completely lost on me. It’s a complication I hadn’t imagined. Am I sending out the wrong “I’m interested” signal every time I talk to my doorman, or a taxi guy, or a guy at the bank? Who knows.

We ate pizza at a famous pizza place and I dropped a few more “my boyfriend” lines. He listened to me talk in broken, horrible Spanish for three hours. He spoke in extremely simple words. Illustrated everything with hand gestures. Repeated himself several times. And was inhumanly patient as I tried to think of the right words to say brilliant conversational lines such as, “I like pizza very much” or “In New York, I take the subway.”  I insisted on paying the bill and thanked him for the opportunity to practice my Spanish. He thanked me for accepting his invitation because he is tired of eating alone. He’s 40. Divorced. He likes his job because he likes people. He goes to the movies by himself and that makes him sad. Was it a date?  I think maybe he would have liked that, but I think he was happy even when it wasn’t. He would like to have dinner again some time. I said that would be fine.  Unsurprisingly, he was gracious and kind – even if in Buenos Aires the doorman is also the janitor.

Buenos Aires Bad News

Well, it has happened. The worst thing imaginable, by me, has happened. I have been forced to buy a new bathing suit.

On arriving in Argentina and removing my bathing suit  from the storage situation it has been for the last six months, I discovered the suit looked a bit…tired. Clearly, there were problems. I put it on and it sagged. Bathing suits do not usually sag. It didn’t even sag in places one might expect such a phenomenon, in places where body parts might have stretched the material. No, not places like that. My suit sagged…in the belly button. Yep. Hard to imagine. It looked like I had an outtie. But, I knew the pain of finding a new suit. I was not trying to pick up men. I was willing to live with flaps of swim suit material hanging from my armpits and wrinkles puckering across my abdomen. That was okay. Until it snagged and opened up a special little window in the rear.

Thus, I had to buy a new bathing suit. Under the best of circumstances, this is not a good situation. I have a long torso so buying a one piece suit that does not look like it is being drawn and quartered across my body is a severe challenge. And, no, I will not wear a two piece. Don’t even ask. So, even under ideal I-have-a-car-and-know-every-store-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see circumstances needing to buy a new bathing suit is not pleasant.

Add to that, I’m in Buenos Aires, barely speaking Spanish, certainly not understanding bathing suit sizes, in a new neighborhood and compared to the women here I am the size of a football player. Pro football. Not college. Great.  I didn’t mess around with being cheap. I went straight to the large, expensive Palermo mall…and I was there for hours.

I’m very opened minded in most things, reconfirmed by an Argentine who said to me, “Are you sure you’re American? Americans are grossed out because we share a mate straw and they wouldn’t swim in our brown water.” I said, “I’m American. I’m just not an uptight American.” And that’s true. For the most part, I don’t care what other people do. For example, take Parque Las Heras, near my new apartment. It’s a large but not very secluded park surrounded by three massive, busy streets and there are many people who lay out on towels or just stretch out on the grass and relax.  As I was walking one by one weekday afternoon, a woman was throwing a ball with some men. She wasn’t a small woman. Me + 50 pounds and maybe 6 inches shorter.  Wearing a thong bikini. If she had her back to you, you couldn’t even tell she was wearing a bathing suit bottom. And she was running around a lot. Having a hard time imagining it? Try picturing sturdy Jello falling down stairs. Yeah, that’s it. But hey, that fine for her.

So, back to me being tortured by shopping. It appears that, in general, there are two options for Argentine bathing suits. You can buy one that covers your rear. Or you can buy one that covers your breasts. You can not buy one that covers both. Believe me. I looked. I even tried the granny options. The ones that come with a shiny buckle like object attached in order to distract the viewer…oooh, bright shiney thing, don’t look at my waist. The ones with the giant flappy breast sash meant to conceal that what was once two perky mountains is now more of an avalanche. I even tried on the bathing-suit-dress-skirty-bag-like creation. I have to admit, that one swimsuit DID cover both areas…but when I considered that when wet that quantity of material would probably add 15 pounds of drag to my swimming, I rejected it.

Four hours and 15 swim suits later, I returned home with two purchases. Just in time, too, because the weather today was obviously swimming weather. But, after the rain stopped, I did go swimming. Which type of suit did I pick? Did I choose to have material to sit upon or shade for the girls? Boobs or bottom? I went with the barely boob coverage style. And, it was true to its name. Swimming today, alone luckily, brought whole new meaning to the term breast stroke. I guess they didn’t expect me to actually swim in the expensive swim suit. I haven’t yet tried playing ball in the park.

Excuse me while I brag

Excuse me while I brag. The very most amazing thing on earth is:

1.     Swing dancing for three hours in stifling hot gym with no windows and no air conditioning where you must drink three bottles of water simply to survive and change your shirt three times and still when you sit down you leave a wet sweat mark which, when you stand up again, you must carefully stand atop of so as not to mortify yourself

2.     Surviving step 1

3.     Arriving home just before midnight and going on to your roof where there are no lights and there are no people and it is totally quiet and sliding into the very cool, very marvelous swimming pool.

4.     Then after you have forgotten how hot that gym was and how tired you are and you are floating peacefully on your back, you watch the moon eclipse overhead.

(okay, so it's not much of a  picture, but it really was pretty)