Today is the last day of our month in Buenos Aires and also the first time I’ve attempted to do any writing. Like I mentioned in my last post, we really haven’t done anything too exciting (Spanish classes, sightseeing, and apply to grad school), but it’s still been an interesting month. Rather than try to catch up on all I didn’t write about with individual posts on different subjects, like the day we went to so-and-so museum or the tangible ways the credit crisis is affecting Argentina, I’ll try to share what our first impressions were and how those impressions have developed and matured over the past month.

            Our first few days in BA were exciting and we were pretty impressed. It was our fourth continent on this trip and the first time either of us had been to South America. Furthermore, Buenos Aires is supposedly different from many other places in SA and it seemed like a nice place. It is joked that Buenos Aires is the most American of the European cities. The center of the city definitely seemed like Europe. From the majority Caucasian population (85% nationally, with German and Italian surnames supposedly more numerous than Spanish ones) to the old world architecture, it seemed that we could have been in any European metropolis. To our untrained ears, Spanish, or Castellano, is spoken with Italian sounding accents, the men wear European-cut suits, and can often be spotted wearing uniquely European things like capris or the color orange. The main avenues are wide, the streets have trees, there are plenty of parks, plazas, and memorial statues. The stone or brick buildings have French balconies and domes cap the corners, while bakeries and cathedrals are everywhere. Yet, BA is American and new world too. Yes, BA is some odd Franco-Italia-Germanic-Spanish conglomeration, but that sort of thing only happens in America, in the new world. Additionally, there is an indigenous population and immigrants from all over, gauchos are revered, and steak is the meal of choice. Initially, BA was new and fresh, it’s Euro-American character was appealing, and the city was developed enough to make our month very comfortable and relaxing.

Congreso

            I think Buenos Aires would be a great place to visit for a few days, but the longer we stayed, the less we liked it. Our initial impressions seemed to be pretty façade. Joylani thinks that we underwent a bout of culture shock and some of our growing discontent stemmed from missing Asia. I think there’s definitely an element of truth to that. For one, BA wasn’t exciting, vibrant, and growing like Asian cities. BA is developed, but old. The buildings had nice architecture, but many were run down; there were sidewalks, but they were often broken and unsuitable to walk on; many people walk their dogs along the wide avenues, in the parks, and in the plazas, but there has to be more dog dookie in BA than anywhere in the world; there are garbage cans and rubbish bins throughout the city, but people prefer to litter. This last point is perhaps even more annoying with the knowledge that Argentineans have a high level of education and facilities to recycle and/or throw their trash away (unlike the undeveloped world in both ways), so their littering problem is more out carelessness than ignorance. The city is beautiful in some ways, but its dirty. There are a lot of parks, but you can’t sit anywhere because of all the dog crap and cigarette butts. Supposedly, BA is one of the cleanest cities in the world pollution wise, but that seems to be more a function of its geography and the strong winds (Buenos Aires) than the actual amount of carbon emissions. The buses spew black soot that pedestrians. Furthermore the buses and subway are overcrowded and the city’s infrastructure is insufficient. So what is BA and what will be my memories of it? I think it wants to be European with all the positive connotations that are associated with Europe, but BA is too rundown to even be compared. True, it’s a developed city, but its not maintained like European cities and is definitely on the downhill. Things like the bakeries and wine were nice, but it wasn’t enough to make up for all that the city lacks. While it is true that I have really liked many Asian cities with broken sidewalks, litter, and crumbling infrastructure, there are some important differences. Argentina has been independent for nearly 200 years and hasn’t been burdened by an exploitive colonial past like nearly every Asian nation we visited. People are educated and the city was developed- BA’s problems stem from carelessness and neglect. Asians are generally poor and uneducated and their cities have never been developed until recently. Not that littering is ever okay, but it seems more acceptable if the litterers are ignorant without any place to put their trash, rather than careless and lazy. Similarly, its one thing if a country is developing and hasn’t gotten around to even making sidewalks, but quite another if a city is developed, but allowed to crumble. Perhaps the American traits of selfishness and individualism and the current European priority of entitlements over opportunity, have melded in this Euro-American city and are contributing to its decline.

Avenida de Mayo on a quiet Sunday morning

            That is a lot more detailed explanation of what I dislike about Buenos Aires than I had planned to write, but it pretty much sums up my impressions of the place. Although we disliked the city, we had a good month. While I got restless staying in one place for so long, having an apartment did have its upsides. Those who know me won’t be surprised I liked having my cereal. Joylani liked cooking. I could try local beers from the grocery store and we tried a few new wines too. Not planning or packing was nice. Plus having a big room and bathroom all to ourselves was nice, not to mention a TV and internet access. We explored all over the city, visiting a lot of plazas, parks, and several good museums. And while BA is on a downtrend, it was affordable given its level of development (compared to other cities of similar development), due to the Argentine Financial Crisis of 2001-2002. But it is still a city, not a place to stay unless you are doing something (working, studying, etc.). You can only sightsee so much and at some point everything that seemed novel to me became routine. It was a good month in a city that we didn’t really like and now we’re ready to go.

We’ve been in Buenos Aires for a month and I haven’t done any writing. So I thought I’d write a short post explaining what the heck I’ve been doing for the past month. Our first week here was mainly spent finding an apartment for the month and checking out the main sights in the city. The second and third week, I took Spanish classes and also worked on some grad school apps (Joylani took classes during our third and fourth weeks). The fourth week, I finished up my apps and explored the city a bit more. So its been a pretty mellow month travel-wise and you readers aren’t missing out on anything. Hopefully, I get one post about Buenos Aires written and posted before we go. Sorry we don’t have more to write about Buenos Aires since we spent a month here, but like I said we’ve just been busy with other things.