back in buenos aires

tomorrow will be one month since i began my aimless wanderings throughout south america.

and here i am, back in the big city of buenos aires. i arrived on sunday morning, after a fifteen hour bus ride and after a saturday spent recovering from a ridiculous friday night. ah. but friday night is another story. blah.

i took a taxi from the retiro bus terminal to my new apartment in palermo queens. i was greeted by my new roommate, jonas, who showed me around the place. the apartment is all tall ceilings and windows and balconies and birds chirping. seriously! i have never lived somewhere so nice and i have this weird feeling that i am staying in someone else's house. but, as jonas reminds me, its my apartment, too, for the next few weeks.

(i still meticulously fold the hand towels after use.)

this weird shock of a semi-permanent place of residence still lingers. it took me over 24 hours to finally painstakingly unpack my backpack. i always feel like i need to be ready to get on a bus and leave. i forced myself to hang up photos and line my shoes up nicely. oh, and my room i bigger than any room i have ever had, and its all mine! so weird. my own bed, my own desk, my own TV. so funny to me!

besides the odd feeling of being settled, i have explored the neighborhood a tiny bit. yesterday, i walked 4 blocks down avenida thames (where i live) to the main street of corrientes. i wandered for about 2 kilometers before i got tired and turned into a havanna cafe (sort of the starbucks of argentina) for a ridiculously sugary espresso drink and cookies. afterwards, i went grocery shopping at the supermercado, which was sort of the highlight of my day haha.

last night, jonas and i went to one of his friends' houses for a movie night. this guy has a whole room full of chairs, a giant projector and dozens of movies. so great! after watching "i'm not there" and "control" (two movies about the lives of famous musicians), we realized it was 4 in the morning and sleep was needed.

today, i woke up several hours into the afternoon and after almost burning the kitchen down trying to fry an egg on a gas stove, i am contemplating what to do. museums? maybe. parks? possibly. but actually, right now, i am craving a cup of cafe con leche and a couple medialunas and sitting at some cafe for hours reading jd salinger. i guess i am allowed to do that. its vacation.

words / concepts of the day:

aminovio: hmm, forgot to discuss this concept earlier. amanda told me this one haha. basically, aminovio = amigo con beneficios. get it?
supermercado: supermarket of amazing south american food products. in argentina and chile, basically the same products as in the US. just slightly different. for example, tomato paste comes in boxes, yogurt and milk comes in a non-resealable bag (it seems so counter-intuitive!), and the best thing, por salut, this cream cheese sort of thing (but not) that is amazing on crackers or for making cream sauces. i am obsesses with it. i have two containers of it right now.
south american kitchens: looks like american kitchens, but the stoves are gas stoves. which means you have to turn on a switch on the wall, push in the oven gas nob for the apropriate burner, and light a match by the gas until it goes poof! and a flame appears. it is tricky and i always feel like i am going to set myself on fire. also, the water heater in always in the kitchen. everytime you turn on the hot water the thing goes wooosh and a flame appears in the little heater window. so odd.