January in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires in January is officially dead. 

All day long, the news channels flick between images of the beaches of Pinamar, Mar del Plata and hip, trendy Punta del Este in Uruguay, comparing which has the hottest temperatures and which the hottest, most scantily clad women.

All the local mini-supermarkets near my flat are closed for at least two weeks, and I spend 45 minutes ploughing around the neighbourhood in search of a bunch of bananas to fuel me for my hot, sticky January runs in the park. This is no easy task, and most of the shops don't even advertise when they'll be reopening - it's a given that they'll be shut until Feb.

Even Miranda, my favourite local parrilla, is shut for two weeks and I can barely believe the cheek of the place! I can't imagine a restaurant in London being so arrogant as to dare to close down for two weeks for summer holidays, but in Buenos Aires this is the norm and I just have to get used to it. 

While everyone heads to the beach, I revel in the relative quietness of the subte and the Microcentro, my daily walks from the tube to the office much less crowded and the man who makes weird faces at me on the walk to the tube curiously absent. Even the group of intimidating builders I walk past daily in my summer dresses are absent for the entire month, making my commute much more relaxing. 

My January is spent mostly topping up my tan by the lake in the Bosques de Palermo on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, taking 10k runs around the neighbourhood and relaxing in the evenings in front of a DVD. The few friends I have here have gone away to ranches and other summer hideaways and I'm perfectly content to while away the scorching days in my scorching hot flat, preparing for my February trips to Mendoza, Punta del Este and Brazil, with a nice hot cup of tea and a Havannet...

The Tube

After my horrendous "I hate Buenos Aires" tube experience last week, I heard there was a different route I could be taking to and from work, and have been taking it ever since. 

It involves a 20-minute walk for 10 blocks all the way up Fitz Roy to Dorrego station, and then it's a really simple straight tube journey for another 20 minutes or so to Florida station, which is a 2-minute walk from my office. I don't get a seat until I'm almost home, but on the way into work at 6:45am I can get a seat maybe 3 or 4 days out of 5, which is better than nothing.

The other thing about walking to the tube at 6:45am is that everyone is still out from the night before, particularly on Friday mornings after a Thursday night out. There are beer bottles in the street and students spilling out onto the pavements from bars. It all makes me feel very old and boring...

Riding the tube here is a bit like being in 80s Britain. Every single office worker wears grey, black or brown clothing, often seemingly corduroy or similarly bland outfits, and the hair dos range from 80s perms to mullets. Whereas I thought the tube in London was an antisocial place, in Buenos Aires it's a bit like a mortuary. Everyone just sits still with their head down, ignoring everyone else. They don't read books. At all. They just sit there. Well, it's a long journey so I take a book with me every day, sometimes a magazine, always in English, and people stare. They seem to think it's really odd. It's quite uncomfortable, really. God forbid one day I read a tourist guide or something...

On the way home it's just a game of sardines, rocking from side to side and bashing into each other while trying to keep hold of the flexi-handle things. And trying to keep my bag safe from pick pockets.

And I thought the London Underground was bad... Honestly, I take it all back. 

Nob Hill - one of the residential buildings I pass on my new route to work. Looks pretty nice actually!

The One Where I HATE Buenos Aires

I leave work at 6pm at usual and walk the ten minutes to Catedral station before descending the steps to the subte. To my surprise, there's a thick wall of people on the platform, about six deep until it reaches the platform edge. What the...? I'm used to this in London at rush hour, but it's the first time it's been like this here in a whole week so I know it's not normal. 

I could walk back up to street level and get a taxi, but I don't really want to spend money to get a taxi home from work when I can get the tube - I'm just going to have to get used to this. I wait and after five minutes or so, the train arrives. It's empty because  this is the first stop on the line, so the entire thick wall of sweaty bodies piles in and we stand like sardines, waiting for the doors to close. Unfortunately, because I was at the back of the human wall, I find myself crushed in the doorway between an enormous sweaty fat man and a couple of tall, skinny, long, greasy-haired men.

There seems to be a struggle for the doors to close and I hear a throat-clearing over the loud speaker, followed by a very short announcement from the driver. Unfortunately, I don't understand a word that he says as he speaks so quickly, except I know it's bad because it leads to a collective groan from the mass of sweaty passengers.

We stop at the next stop and dozens more people squeeze in, squashing me even tighter into my smelly human sandwich. Then, at the next station, we stop, but the doors don't open.  After a while, I hear the driver's voice again and this time I understand, "There is a problem with the doors. They won't open. We will continue to the end of the line, Congreso de Tucuman." 

Congreso de Tucuman?! That's 15 stops away! He gives us absolutely no opportunity to get off the now-moving train and we're forced to stand like sardines all the way to the very end of the green line. I can barely stand as the amount of floor space beneath me is not equivalent to the amount of space my feet take up and I'm practically on tiptoes, half crouching, one leg bent out to the side in excruciating fashion while I simultaneously try to keep hold of my two heavy bags. 

Finally, after about 15 minutes of slowly moving through stations without stopping, the train stops and I hear another muffled announcement. I don't quite catch all of it but, as the doors open, I realise I have an opportunity to alight and I seize it. I step off and follow the mass of people as they confusedly move up the escalator. This is Pueyreddón station. I know it's not too far from Palermo - five stops - and I can just get a taxi. The rest of the tube line seems to be broken anyway.

But the moment I step out of the station, I realise the sky is black and it is literally bucketing down with torrential rain. A hundred or more passengers have just got off at the same station and there are various buses letting people off too. There isn't a taxi in sight. I walk across the road and try to fathom the signs at the bus stops, but they make no sense. 

I wander further. Surely I'll find a bus at some point that's heading towards Palermo - it really isn't far, but it's too far to walk in this rain. I stand in a shop doorway and Blackberry my colleague back at work for advice and he tells me which buses to look out for, but there are none. 

I walk around in the rain, searching for a taxi. Several go past me with their lights on without stopping. More than one drives past and splashes me dirty black puddle water. As I get more and more saturated with the rain, I get more and more exasperated and allow myself to think, for the first time, I HATE Buenos Aires. How can there be no taxis in the rain? 

I walk for 30 minutes in the rain. It's coming down harder and the taxis seem to be more and more scarce. There's only one thing for it - I have to go back to the tube.

I've walked aimlessly and I have no idea where I am, so I have to just retrace my steps until I finally get back to Pueyrredón. I descend the steps and see that finally the platform has emptied out. A train eventually comes along and I get off ten minutes later at Palermo and walk the remaining ten minutes down the cold, dark, rainy streets to home, where I jump straight into a hot shower.

It's taken me 1 hour and 50 minutes to get home. In London it used to take me 25 minutes. This is insane! I've missed my usual Skype slot with home and I'm so exhausted I'm not going to be able to do anything tonight. It's getting late. At this rate, my life is going to be working and commuting and nothing else.

Ugggh.

There's only one thing for it - I'm going to have to start running home.


 

Buenos Aires Woes

Why is everything so difficult here?

Woe #1 - The sardine-effect on the subte. Whereas in London I would at least get a seat after a couple of stops of being squashed in a hot, sweaty, human sandwich, here I have to stand for my entire 10-stop journey, while I get jolted from left to right, hitting my fellow passengers with my enormous bag as I go.

Woe #2 - The oven in my flat is from about 1853. There is no button to light the stove or the oven. After two days of vain attempts, my neighbour finally came around last night and showed me how to light it manually with a super-long match. I have a massive fear of fire. This is not good.

Woe #3 - The supermarkets don't take cards. What is all that about?!


Yesterday, on my way home from the Palermo Soho experience, I decided to stop at one of the small local supermarkets in Palermo Hollywood to pick up a few bits and pieces.

I fill my shopping basket with a ton of essentials - shampoo, conditioner, bread, toilet roll. I am shocked to find a loaf of bread that's 16 pesos. That's about £2! A small bottle of non-main-branded ketchup is also about £3 and practically everything is more expensive than it would be in England. I can barely believe it. No wonder the restaurants are so full here - it's cheaper to eat out than in!

Finally I get to the counter and the Chinese dude behind the till puts all my items through. I go to pay with my credit card and he shakes his head at me.

"No credit cards," he says in heavily accented Spanish.

"Why?" I say, thinking the machine is simply broken.

"No credit cards in supermarket," he says. This is a permanent thing, it's not just for today. 

I have racked up more than 100 pesos of goods and I only have 60 pesos in change, so I have to put most of it back. The shop assistant looks at me as if I am stupid.

Bear in mind this is a decent-sized supermarket, larger than, say, a Tesco Metro or Sainsburys Local in the UK. And they don't take credit or debit cards. Unbelievable!

Lost in Buenos Aires Part II: the Wrong Side of the Tracks

It started off as badly as it ended.

I wake in the early hours of the morning to hear the sound of the rain pounding on my huge, wooden-framed windows and I know it's going to be a bad day. I wait until 6:45am and, just as the rain turns to a light drizzle, I take my cue to walk the 10 minutes to Palermo subte station before it starts pouring again.  

I'm doing my best to look professional in my new job and I'm wearing a smart dress with clear tights and flat shoes, which I will swap for heels when I get to my desk. Within moments of stepping out the door, I hear a crack of thunder and the torrential rain starts again as I hop from puddle to puddle to make the completely shelterless journey to the station. 

By the time I walk down the steps to the subte, trying to avoid getting poked in the eye with an umbrella (my ultimate fear), I am drenched through to the skin, thick mud splashed all the way up the backs of my tights. Highly professional, indeed. 

It pours with rain for the entire day at work. Remind me exactly why I swapped London for this place?! It certainly wasn't for the weather, judging by the start I've had. Watching the rain out the window on the eighth floor is quite therapeutic, mind you.

Before I know it, I've survived my second day at work and I'm heading home to brave the sardine-like conditions on the tube again. Feeling fairly confident this time, I make the 10 stops on the green line from 9 de Júlio station and alight at Palermo. I exit the station, turn left and begin walking in the still-pouring rain the 11 or so blocks along Avenida Juan B. Justo...

...Or at least I think it's Avenida Juan B. Justo. Twenty minutes of rain-soaked walking later, I am not at my destination, and I realise I have gone wrong. I must have taken a different exit from the station and when I thought I needed to turn left, I should have gone right. It is dark, pouring with rain and I have no map. Damn - of all the days to get lost.

I walk into a tiny corner shop, or kiosko, and ask for directions to El Salvador, the street where my flat is located. The friendly lady points in one direction and tells me it's 10 blocks. Fine. I start walking, counting down the street numbers. Ten blocks later, I come to an enormous, impenetrable wall. What the hell? It's so dark and wet and now I'm on a deserted street with an impassable, high wall and I'm completely lost. And of course, there are no taxis about.

Behind me, I hear English voices - a British accent - a young man coming out of an apartment. I seize the opportunity and ask him how I get to the other side of El Salvador with Fitzroy. 

"You're on the wrong side of the train track," he says. "You need to walk all the way back that way - there's a road under the bridge on  Paraguay where you can cross."

Jesus.

I walk another eight blocks or so and cross the very dodgy-looking street under the bridge on Paraguay. I am basically back, one block away from Palermo station, where I began half an hour ago, only considerably colder and wetter. 

I know the way from here and I finally arrive back at El Salvador con Fitzroy. It has taken me 90 minutes to get home, when it should've taken 45.

Thank God it's Friday...

First Day at Work: the Rookie

I get a taxi to work for my first morning, since I have literally no idea where I'm going. It takes about half an hour to get to the Microcentro, though I head to the wrong floor of my office and am knocking on a glass wall trying to get someone's attention before I realise I need to get the lift to the ninth floor, where the reception is located. Finally, my colleague lets me in and I find my new desk.

I help myself to the buffet breakfast in the office kitchen: sliced pineapple and strawberries, a sweet chocolate croissant and a cheese and ham croissant covered in a sweet, sugary glaze. I say croissants, but they're known here as media lunas, or half moons, and my dear colleague assures me they are not the same as croissants, though they quite obviously are. If I eat this amount of junk every day for breakfast, I'll be needing to run marathons every weekend!

It takes three hours to set up my desktop and get logged on at work - fortunately with the help of the friendly tech guy - so I can't say I do a lot of work this morning, but I guess that's allowed. A couple of emails have been sent around the office so everyone knows of my arrival, and various people come to my desk to introduce themselves. There are about 20 people in the office, and I know at least 12 of them already from my stint working in São Paulo, so it's not like getting to know a completely new workforce.

At lunch time, the news bureau chief has organised a delivery of empanadas as my welcome treat. These are basically greasy little miniature Cornish Pasties full of either meat or cheese. I eat three - two beef, one cheese, and I can't say I'm overwhelmed. I don't like greasy, fried food and I won't be eating these every day, but the locals love them.

I survive my first day at work. So far, so good. Time to attempt the tube journey home...

¡Ay, Dios mío! 

Ok. Let's get this straight. One of the reasons I wanted to move from London was because of the daily hell that is the commute on the tube. Being squished in a human sandwich with my face in some old businessman's armpit for half an hour in a hot, overcrowded underground train on a twice-daily basis has never been my cup of tea. So, imagine my horror when I find out the Buenos Aires subte (for subterráneo, meaning underground) is just the same, only much, much hotter. Oh god, I'm going to need a bike...