Buenos Aires. Eye-rays, is what I tell my English speaking brain. Not Air-Ees, Eye-Rays.
There is something about this place that I can’t put my finger on. We’ve been here a month, and still the city seems to shift, to change. It changes by the time of the day, by the day of the week, almost as the staircases in Hogwarts upend and revise direction, only pretend you’re blindfolded and can never see it happening. The city is transforming before your eyes, but you would never know it at any given time. It is clockwork, but to the casual bystander it is entirely unpredictable. This is so much the case that I find myself getting lost on a street I have walked dozens of times. If you are to stand on a corner at 9am and close your eyes until 3pm, when you open your eyes you will be completely disoriented. Shift forward again, with eyes closed, until 10pm. Again, the city moves around you. It moves around you while remaining perfectly still. It is a masterpiece. This city is living art.
This is also a city of cafés. Café culture unlike anything I’ve experienced before, rivaled only, perhaps, by that in Italy. Each café is unique, from décor, to music, to menu items and lighting. They almost all have reliable wi-fi, and you can find people busy working away most hours of the day. Argentinians will also linger for hours over a single espresso or café con leche. No one is bothered if you choose to order one coffee and take up a table all afternoon. Dogs are often welcome, inside as well as out. And many cafés open early and stay open past midnight. Which makes them one of the only reliable wayposts in this ever fluid, mutable metropolis.
Mutable, yet concrete. Concrete jungle. Tree lined streets. Purple jacaranda trees bursting into bloom. Graffiti splashing history on the walls of derelict buildings. Street musicians serenading restaurants packed with guests lining up for meals at 11:00pm. The question “you want meat? Meat cow?” when ordering dinner while a strange man tries to sell you socks. Spring in November. Bongo drums and dancers under banners of Argentine flags. Families drinking mate, a popular caffeine-rich herbal tea, out of a metal straw while picnicking in the park. A middle-aged man using his thermos to fill his mate gourd (mug) at the bus stop. Fresh croissants on display in bakeries at every corner. Trees, with trunks as wide as refrigerators, bursting out of their sidewalk confines. A street performer juggling hoops on his unicycle at the red light. Maradona and Messi, everywhere you look. Empanadas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. School children in matching polo shirts chanting in unison, a mini protest with fists in the air, storming the streets under the watchful eye of their teacher. Fresh cheese markets. Yogurt in bags. Dogs walking themselves. Malbec.
I am here, I remind myself. With unfamiliar constellations over my head. I am here, and this time I promise to write more about it.
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