Dinner with Hernan

I had a great evening. Hernan invited me over for dinner and cooked an amazing dinner for me. I had a better meal and a better time at his place eating this home cooked meal than I have at any of the restaurants I’ve been to – cheap, funky or fancy.

I took a taxi over and on the way sent him a text “pray that I arrive alive” – the taxi driver was crazy and reminded me of the drivers we had in Korea last summer. Several times he had to come to a sudden stop and at one point, I thought a bus was going to run right over us as it squeezed into our lane. I miraculously arrived in one piece.

I brought some bread and two apple tarts I bought yesterday at the café/bakery near Marcelo’s apartment – the place with the loud people who reminded me of the Sopranos. Every time I walk by there, the place is full and it seems like people are talking from one table to the next instead of the intimate, direct stare kind of conversations that happen in most cafes here. But this place has an amazing display of cakes and breads and things, so I went in after my tango class and got some rolls (they didn’t have loaves) and some apple tarts, thinking Hernan would come over yesterday for lentils, but he had to go to his his brother’s birthday party.

We started off with peach daiquiris and the bread with cream. They have this cream here that is very thick – they use it for pasta sauces. Hernan mixed it with some Thai red curry and we ate it with the warmed up bread. It was delicious. Then we switched to white wine and had fish. He cooked it ‘a la papelote’, well, actually, I’m not sure if that is the right word. He put it in foil packages in the oven with green olives, scallions, potatoes, green pepper, white wine and a sprinkle of curry powder and sesame oil. It was so delicious. The thing I loved about it was the way the flavors blended, but still retained pockets of their own dominance. Every now and then I’d get a taste of the curry, or the scallion, or the sesame oil. Also the fish was really hot as we ate it, it was juicy, and delicious and fresh. It was a really healthy and hearty home-cooked meal.

We were all set to watch a DVD he rented, but for some reason the DVD wouldn’t play. The same thing happened to me with a DVD here. I rented “Walk the Line” when I stayed home from school sick one day, but it wouldn’t play. I had to return it without ever watching it. So instead, he turned on the Turner Classic Movie channel and we watched some movie with a very young Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh. It was dubbed in Spanish, and I had a hard time following it. Every now and then Hernan would translate something for me, but it was usually something I was able to hear clearly and already understood. It was the usual boy meets girl story, but in this case the girl was already with a guy and she met another guy who was working as a clerk in a department store and things got tricky. I thought Janet Leigh was a bit of a slut.

We were watching on his computer monitor, which is pretty big, but the bottom of the picture got cut off. One of the prominent characters in the film was Janet Leigh’s son, Timmy. But because he was often at the bottom of the screen and the adults were standing and talking to him, he got cut off and we couldn’t see him. So they’d be standing there talking and you’d hear this voice, but you couldn’t see where it was coming from. Sometimes it looked like they were talking to a chair or the clock on the table. It was very funny. It was quite a strange movie and I’d like to see it in English to see if it was strange because we were watching it in Spanish and were a little toasted, and couldn't always see Timmy when we heard his voice, or because it really was strange.

I took a taxi most of the way home, but because it was a nice evening and I wanted to walk some, I walked part of the way. I had to wait a while for a taxi, which is not something I remember having to do much on a clear night like tonight (when it's raining it is more difficult). When a taxi finally came, and I saw it wasn’t a radio taxi, I hesitated. Everyone has warned not to take taxis that are not radio taxis.

Today at school I pulled out some change to pay for my tea in the cafeteria and I saw that I had this large 10 centavo coin. It was odd, because the 10 centavo coins are very small. This one was identical in size and color to the 50 centavo coin. I showed it to Claudia and she said it was “trucho” – no good. I didn’t understand what she meant, but it turned out that today at lunch when they gave me my change, they gave me a stack of 50 centavo coins to add up to the three pesos they owed me, but one of them was this 10 centavo coin that wasn’t worth anything because it was an old coin. So, they cheated me out of, about 17 cents. I thought it was funny that this happened in a very nice place that I’ve been to several times and they should recognize me. Claudia made me give the coin to her and she gave me a 50 centavo coin, and said she didn’t like to see when people get bad money, but I thought I should just go back to the cafe and leave the coin as a tip for the waitress who gave it to me. Two can play that game!

So, as I got in this taxi, I thought about my earlier very traumatic rip-off experience where I was slipped a phony coin. “But what could this guy do?”, I thought…

I told him I wanted to go to Callao and Santa Fe, being careful to make my pronunciation as authentic as I could, so that he wouldn’t detect I was a helpless foreigner with lots of cash. As we drove down Santa Fe which was still buzzing with the remnants of late night activity, he asked me if I was visiting. I told him yes, and figured since I was busted, I’d add, “it’s a beautiful city”. Then I realized, maybe he was asking me if I was visiting a friend, and not asking me if I was visiting the city. He then said something I didn’t understand, but I thought he said something about getting robbed. Sill, I felt no threat. Maybe because I was kind of numb from the dinner, wine and daiquiri.

I noticed that there was no identification visible in this junky old cab that had nothing on the outside but “taxi” – the doors were otherwise black. “But what could this guy do?” I thought….he greeted me very nicely when I got in the cab and he didn't look dangerous.

I asked him if he was working all night, and he told me he had just a little bit more. He worked a split shift, half afternoon, half night. “Oh”, I said.

As we got close to Callao, I felt relieved that the meter was 7 pesos and some change, so that I could give him exact change and didn’t have to worry about him passing me any phony money as change. I noticed raindrops on his windshield, and said to him, “it’s raining?”, and he went on this long spiel about something that I did not understand at all. I think he was talking about the wave of polar air that is expected to hit.

I handed him 8 pesos, the meter was at 7.80. He told me to have a good night and I got out. Nothing happened. I had no reason to worry. It wasn’t raining, but the air was thick, wet and slightly warm.

I walked down Santa Fe which was pretty deserted and the traffic was fairly calm. The cafés that were open had some people in them, but they were not full. Shop windows had the gates down, but were still lit up showing off the clothes, shoes and other goods they had for sale. People stood in line waiting for buses, which were the only form of public transportation still running. I wondered who these people were, many of whom seemed to be returning from work at midnight.

I looked up at the many beautiful buildings that line Santa Fe, big, old apartment buildings. It is one of my favorite streets, especially at night, I thought.

I noticed people sweeping the sidewalks and the streets, and also saw the garbage collectors picking up bags of garbage on the curbs. At some points, I passed bags of garbage that had been torn open by the “cartaleros” - people who come out as soon as the sun sets and start ripping open bags of garbage looking for cardboard or anything else they can sell. Apparently there are trains full of these people heading to recycling centers. Behind the mess that the cartaleros made, were street sweepers, who looked like they were employed by the city. It was amazing to see all of this trash all over the streets, at one point and entire sidewalk for half a block was covered with litter, and know that in the morning, it would all be gone. Every night, the streets are filled with litter and by morning they are clean. I remembered a thought I had before, somewhere, where I noticed people all fulfilling their role in this intricate web of life – everyone has a role.

It was amazingly warm for an evening when another polar wave is supposed to hit the city with the possibility of freezing rain. Is this the calm before the storm?

As I approached the large face of Jane Fonda telling me I was almost home, I thought about how my feelings about being here have been going on this wild rollercoaster ride lately. Some days I want to just return home, other days I feel bored or neutral, and on days like today, I feel like this is the perfect place for me to be at this moment in time. I really had fun tonight, and am so glad I met Hernan and have been given a little glance behind the tourist curtain to see some of what life in Buenos Aires is really like. I love it when he talks about his family and I try to imagine what they are like, or what it is like in their home. Or like this evening, when he showed me some pictures of his crazy cousin from Corrientes that she left on his computer. It’s a whole other world that I wouldn’t have access to if I were just doing touristy stuff, or just going to school, or just watching TV.

I’m still an outsider looking in, but I’m closer to the in and have a better view. I like what I see. I'm going to miss Buenos Aires, even though I will be happy to be home.