Global Voting

I don't think of myself as a very political person. It's not something I'm super passionate about, but I do feel it's important to know about local and world politics and it's also very important that people exercise their right to vote and not take it for granted.

I'm excited about this election year mostly because the Democrats have two very strong candidates for President and I'm very optimistic for what 2009 will bring. I'd be happy to have either Hillary or Obama represent me in November. I'm ready to feel proud of my country again because our government is not something I've been so proud of recently.

So when I learned that the Democrats Abroad would be holding the first ever Global Primary, with their very own delegates representing them at the National Convention, I knew I wanted to participate in this historic event. Sure, global expats would have far fewer delegates at the convention than California, but perhaps my single vote would represent a bigger percentage of the delegates say there. The global primary would also be testing an online voting system which could be used in future elections. The picture above is of me casting my vote in Tazz Bar. (Maybe the US would get more voters out if they held elections in the local pubs! By contrast, in Argentina, all pubs are closed the day of elections.)

Around the world, on Super Tuesday, Democrats Abroad were having parties to watch the results streaming from US television channels and casting their own votes. I joined expats from Hong Kong, Bangkok, Dublin, Berlin, Lebanon and more for this exciting night. It was a great party too. There must have been over 200 of us in Buenos Aires. While discussions are usually about where you can find the best Mexican food, or navigating the Immigration office to renew a visa, we were in full blown discussions about national health care, fundamental beliefs of Libertarians, and how the electorate college functions, all while sipping Argentina's Quilmes beer.

After placing my vote, a woman from Reuters approached me for an interview. CNN, Reuters, ABC, and Argentine Newspapers were there for the event. Read more about the election here and my 15 minutes of fame. Maybe I should pick a different country to live in for each election!
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31789020080206

Casa Felix

Much of the food here is steak, potatoes, pizza, and pasta. The steak indeed, is some of the best steak I’ve eaten, perhaps ever. But after awhile, it becomes a bit monotonous. There’s a sense that there isn’t much imagination in the average Argentine restaurant. It’s good, but even too much of the same good thing gets old.

And then my friends and I went to Casa Felix. This is a “closed door” restaurant, also known as a private restaurant. It sounds a bit exclusive, but on the contrary, it was a very intimate, laidback setting, for a close group of friends. There’s no sign on the door, in fact, it’s not really a restaurant. It’s the cook’s house. Diego Felix, invites people into his house creating the most imaginative meals in all of Argentina. For starters, he has a garden in his back yard where he collected fresh herbs for our meal. We had an Argentine/Mexican fusion dinner, starting with marinated beats wrapped in zucchini, a mint sorbet palate cleanser, a main course of white fish tamale with Mexican mole and guacamole mango garnish, and dessert was a type of flan with mate dusting (Mate is the popular “tea” drunk in Argentina and Uruguay and parts of Brazil.) Such flavors! Fresh fruits and veggies! My mouth was going into shock after being confined to boring gastronomic isolation. We will be back.

1/16/2008

Seduced by Tango

This blog entry takes place at La Viruta. Click to play the song by my favorite tango electronica group, Otros Aires, which happens to be about a night at La Viruta.


Tango is an intense love affair. It is an emotion, an experience in and of itself. Tango has never been "just a dance." I have taken over a dozen classes, had private lessons, and attended a few milongas. While I would love to say that I have mastered this dance, I still have a long way to go. But I finally started to hear some of Tango's sultry and seductive calls last weekend.

One is not asked if they would like to have a dance. There's a secret form of communication between men and women in the Milongas, (tango dance halls). Across the hall, a man will make eye contact with a woman. He will slightly lift his head, raise an eyebrow, and then perhaps glance towards the floor. In response, the woman will either hold eye contact and offer the slightest smile back, or demurely nod, moving her head only a centimeter at most. It's the tiniest nod back. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd miss this whole exchange and just see people meeting randomly on the dance floor. "How do they all know who they are dancing with?" I exclaimed to myself when I first saw this. People were pairing up magically, while I was oblivious to this under current communication. There's also no talking. I suppose you communicate through the dance. When you agree to dance, you agree to the whole set of songs which may be 3 or 4 in a row and can exchange a few pleasantries in between songs, but certainly not during the dance.

So last week I went to La Viruta with my friends. Saturday nights are busy, bordering on too crowded. We had a table off to the side which wasn't ideal for finding dance partners. But late in the evening, I noticed an attractive man way over at the other side, looking at me right in the eyes. He held my gaze, and then I saw the tilt. Yes, that was definitely a head tilt. Yes, he was asking me to dance. I froze for a microsecond and then found myself gently nod back, as if I were the Tango pro I pretend to be. My mates of course missed all this and just saw us silently meet by the dance floor, like a scene from a movie.

There was silence between us. I started to lift my arms up to him to get ready to dance, but he just continue his intense gaze. Was this still part of the secret language? I don't remember anything about this. He stepped closer to me, really close. I took a small step back. He just kept staring. For a brief moment, I though, "Am I supposed to know this guy?" I met someone here a few weeks ago and we exchanged emails, but I was pretty sure this was a different guy. I was wondering if he was expecting me to recognize him. More staring, he took another step towards me, I took another step back. Um, what is this, I though?

Then he dramatically, and slowly, raised his left hand for me to take and I put my left arm all around his shoulders. Our heights were a perfect match. He pulled me in closer and we started melting around the dance floor. I felt like I had been dancing Tango my whole life. I was Tango. We were Tango. My inner voice laughed at myself. "Usually we have at least exchanged a hello and our first names when I dance this close with someone." Yes, this is the love affair part of Tango. But really, our bodies were moving as one. Round and round we went all over the dance floor. We turned, walked back and forth, legs tangled but moving in perfect coordination. I could feel his heart beating through my chest. Or was that my heart? I had been seduced by Tango.

Our series of songs ended. I thanked him for the dance, still wobbly in the knees. I walked back to my table with my friends in awe as much as I was. "I think I need a cigarette" I said to them. And I don't even smoke!

I’m married……… (or tired, I can’t remember which one)

My friends with young children have blogs full of funny things their children say and I seem to be following in their children’s footsteps. We either confuse similar words, or use a word in the wrong context. Here in Argentina, I am no stranger to this.

In Spanish, the word for tired is cansada and the word for married is casada. That small little letter “n” added in the middle of the word certainly changes the meaning. After intensely working my brain out in Spanish class, and then traipsing around in the muggy heat to find the best cobbler for custom made tango shoes, I sighed, “Augh, I’m so very married.” "Estoy muy casada." It wasn’t quite what I meant to say. Although I hear marriage is hard work, so maybe these words are long lost synonyms.

Verduras (vegetables) vs. vidrio (glass)
And then there was the time I was biking through the busy streets of Buenos Aires and said, “There sure are a lot of vegetables in the road, watch out you don’t get a flat. Glass is dangerous for bikers, so we frequently point it out to people riding with us so they can avoid it. Although I've never heard of any biking accidents due to vegetables in the road, I'm sure it could also be considered a road hazard.

There are plenty more mistakes I've made, some probably just as funny. Maybe being oblivious to them is good.

Armpit Inspection

It is HOT. It is swelteringly hot. Temperatures have been around 40 Celsius, which is near 100 Fahrenheit! I think living in San Francisco for the past 7 years has weakened me to such extreme heat.

So Drew and I decided to cool down with a dip in one of the many city pools while at the same time getting in a workout. Club de Amigos is located in the Woods of Palermo, the largest city park I've found so far. It has everything! It seems like a huge country club. There are all sorts of fields for futbol, field hockey, basketball, , sunbathing (the second national sport here, second only to futbol.) Getting in was a challenge. On line, their entry was listed as being $7 pesos. This had then gone up to $10 pesos, and there was a separate fee for the pool, $25 pesos. Everywhere we turned, the price started going up! It is the new year and inflation is at about 20%. In the end, it was about U$S 11, so a fair enough price.

The two outdoor pools were packed with people and didn't have lap lanes, so we checked out the indoor pool. It seemed like a decent pool, with plenty of space in the lanes. But before I could get in, the life guard came up to me and said I needed to get a doctor's note. What? Around the corner there is a small medical office. I waited for Drew to come out of the men's dressing rooms to explain this to him. He had already gone through this whole scenario. When trying to check in his bag, the guy asked him for a certain piece of paper. Drew's Spanish is excellent when it comes to ordering food or asking for directions. It's everything you need to get by driving your motorcycle through Mexico. Being told he needed a doctor's note was not in his vocabulary. after multiple attempts to explain this to Drew, the bag-check clerk jumped over the counter and walked Drew to the medical clinic. With a clean bill of health documented on a piece of paper, Drew was ready to swim. He gave me a quick update on what to expect. I sat on a bench in my bathing suit, waiting for the door to open. It was a small room with a guy in a white coat. He asked me to raise my arms to check for fungus in my armpits. I hesitantly raised my arms, fearful of offending him with my sweaty pits. It's been a hot and sticky day. This is the last thing I want to do! Then he checked my feet for athletes foot or toenail fungus. Augh, what a job this guy has. I hope it's not his full time job. I can just see his resume "armpit and toe inspector!"

Then it was back to the pool to finally do some swimming. Drew was at the other end of the pool and shouted back to me, "Hey Nic, check this out!" He stood up and the water came up to his knees. The water was only 1.5 feet deep at the other end! So in swimming my laps, every time I came to the far side of the pool, my fingertips would graze the bottom of the pool. This would be perfect for triathletes as this signals the time to jump up and start running out of the lake or ocean.

In the end, it felt great to swim a few laps and use muscles that have been resting for quite some time. And now I also know that I officially have clean armpits and toes!

Happy New Year

The invitation to the New Year's Party said to come after midnight. How can you have a New Year's Party that misses the count down? Apparently this is normal in Buenos Aires.

Parties in the States are more about leading up to the New Year. You ring it in together and then the party tends to end sometime after midnight, maybe around 1AM. Contrast that with Buenos Aires, the New Year seems to represent the start of the partying. The night of the 31st is more about spending time with family and having a big dinner together. Then, after midnight, people disperse to dance in the street, light fireworks and then head to various parties.

Drew previously met the owner of Limbo and Limbo Club when we were out having drinks (early one other morning). A call to the owner got us a roof top table at his restaurant and we were seated about 11pm. It was midnight and the temperature was still around 40 Celsius, or 100 Fahrenheit. It was a sharp contrast to typical New Years in the Northern Hemisphere. At midnight, fireworks lit up the sky above our heads while Love Generation blared from the speakers. The fireworks were directly over our heads. Glowing embers were falling down on some tables. These fireworks were not a organized city event, but rather set off by anyone who bought them at the many firework stands on the street. At times I stepped back under the small awning hoping to get a little protection from the sky that seemed to be falling.

We met two girls from Holland, Lisette and Annelies and at about 2am, decided to head to our New Years party. On our way out, there was dancing in the street, so naturally, we joined in. There was an alcohol check point at the end of the block, so Drew managed to persuade them to check his blood alcohol. It registered at 0.38%, nearly 5 times the legal limit in the US. The surprising part though, it that they told him he'd be fine to drive. Now I know the laws are a bit crazy in Argentina, really only suggestions, but that's crazy. Drew said he felt pretty good, but a 0.38% is close to death and serious alcohol poisoning. Percentages are percentages, so there shouldn't be a difference where it's measured in metric or British units. They must be measuring something different as driving with a 0.38 BAL would be crazy, even for Argentina.

Around 3AM we finally made it to the New Years Party on a beautiful roof top terrace. There was a full view of the city and a swimming pool for dipping our toes. The party continued on until we started to see the sun peaking up, lightening the sky with a dusty pink color. I finally strolled on home and made it to bed by 8AM. It's just as well I'm only here on a 6th month sabbatical because I honestly don't know how long I could keep it up. I find it hard to recalibrate my sleep schedule when I wake up at 5PM the following day (or really the same day). Regardless, I'm optimistic for a great 2008, full of dancing and celebrating.

The group with the tall guy.....and partying with Nicola

It's 6:30 AM and I'm on my balcony watching the sun rise after a night out with friends. The birds are chirping, the sky is clear, and I can't believe I've just come home from a simple night of dinner and dancing with friends. The Argentines very much work on a different schedule!

Last night...or do I describe it as tonight, was a great evening joining friends from different circles. My two Swiss girlfriends were celebrating their last night out before heading to Chile for 3 weeks. Karina, a girl from London whom I met at the South American Explorers club, brought 2 fellow English girls, including another Nicola (the first ever Nicola I've met in person!), and then there were two Argentine girls we met the previous night while out in Palermo SoHo, and then there was Drew, my college buddy who has spent the last 2 months on his motorcycle riding through Mexico.

So any time a tall striking man enters a bar with 8 women, it's sure to draw attention. Several hour later, while waiting to order a drink at the bar, two men from South Africa started chatting with me. "So, are you part of the group with the tall guy?" I looked at them a bit surprised when they assumed I spoke English. I think I see myself as blending in better than I really do. I'm starting to feel like a local and forget that I have fair features and curly hair. A bit later, a young porteno said, "oh, you're with the guy with the girls!" It seems we had made a name for ourselves.

The men in Argentina are known for their love of women. No woman has walked by a table of men without being checked out. Men never hide their gawking, or pretend to just be glancing in the general direction of the object they seem to be inspecting. But it seems tonight that the men were noticing the one male counterpart of our large group. Perhaps they were trying to figure out his secret.

Meeting another Nicola was a bit surreal. I somehow felt that I had found a long lost twin. We immediately hit is off. Her wonderful wit and sense of humor and the tall elegant way she carried herself reminded me of my friend Jane, also from England.

The sky by now is clearly blue and there is no denying that it is fully daytime. I'm off to bed to catch a few zzzzz's so I can at least wake up in the early afternoon and not feel like I've completely lost my Sunday.