NOTE: This is part 1 of a multipart series about my trip to Argentina. There are ALOT of photos. You can imagine how much there is to say.

I'm back from Argentina!



What? Argentina? Wasn't I just in Korea? Isn't this SoKo, as in South Korean, Notes?

Yes. Amazing isn't it? For a thousand bucks and a few uncomfortable hours at 40,000 feet a person can sleep under a different set of stars and wake up in another world. In my case, that other world was Buenos Aires, Argentina.



When I first thought about it, Argentina didn't sound quite as exotic as Korea. I spoke a little Spanish. I had more background knowledge about Argentina than I ever had about Korea. By 'more' I simply mean I knew they had cowboys, boleros and invented the Tango. I also had heard of this place called Patagonia. I wanted to visit it.

In fact, most of my trip to Argentina was geared toward exploration. When I go on vacation, I'm not one of those people who likes to spend days sipping margaritas on some sun-soaked beach by an azure sea. I simply can't sit still long enough. I itch to get out and learn about the strange world in which I awoke. Luckily for me, Buenos Aires is custom made for such an oddball vacationer.



It is my opinion that one of the hallmarks of growing older is a steady narrowing of one's worldview. As the years pass by, we start taking the world for granted. Our eyes become accustomed to whatever little space we've chiseled out around us and we miss out on the discovery and sense of wonder that characterized our youth.

Little by little, routine and the daily grind wear down our senses and starve our imagination. Meals become nothing but food, the flowers become scenery, and the people around us become like furniture in a huge house in which we only occupy one bedroom. The seasons come and go, the news changes, sometimes we buy a new car, but very little holds magic for us. Everything is normal, plain, uneventful, simply there. And then one day we're ninety.



Traveling changes all of that. Traveling, especially international travel, is frightening stuff. You pay a thousand bucks, you get on an airplane, and nine hours later you are standing in a place where no one knows your name, no one speaks your language or shares your culture or your history, and quite possibly resents that history (if you are American, that is). Heck, they might not even know how to make a rye bagel!

Scary, isn't it? But what is the age-old saying? What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger? Yes, I believe that's it. Sort of cliché, but it fits. International travel DOES possess the ability to kill us, making the saying even more true. However, by defeating those fears and getting the most out of the experience (as well as not getting killed), a person gains alot.

Travel renews the sense of wonder and wide-eyed amazement of youth. When I stepped off of that airplane in Buenos Aires, all five of my sense were awake and vividly alive, tasting, listening, smelling and seeing in a way I hadn't experienced since I did the same thing in Korea back in September of 2005. All around me people were speaking Spanish, and my mind was furiously trying to recall the three or four years of classes I all but slept through in high school and college.

NOTE: A few days before I was shopping at the local farmer's market in Atlanta with my parents and I happened across my high school Spanish teacher, Nieto Studstill. She was happy to see me, and asked me how I was doing. When I told her where I was going and how bad my Spanish (still) was, she shot me a look that said, "See, I told you!" You can imagine how I felt.



That feeling came back to me as I waded through Argentine customs. Como say what? Unlike in Korea, the words coming out of people's mouths were not a complete and total mystery. Spanish is closely related to English both grammatically and in terms of the latin based vocabulary. Also, Argentina is populated with immigrants mostly from Europe. Racially speaking, I fit in pretty well. My mouth gave me away.

Luckily, the woman working the desk of a taxi company spoke flawless English, and I arranged an inexpensive ride into town. As the driver loaded my suitcase, I had a chance to look around myself. The Buenos Aires sky was a deep blue and the spring air as dry and cool as the Fall weather in Atlanta. To my right, a family was greeting a recent arrival back into their arms. They all kissed each other on the cheek as they loaded her things into their car. Their chatter was warm and friendly and felt like a good omen to me.

The journey into town was long. Outside my window the slums of Buenos Aires flew by, block after block of empty roads, cinder blocks, metal bars and graffiti. As we neared the center of town, the slums gave way first to suburban ranch houses and then to quaint apartment buildings, shops and cafes. People, dogs, trees and busses flashed passed my window. In many places the pavement had been worn away by time, cars and weather, exposing the much more resilient cobblestones lying underneath. My taxi shook and lurched to a stop beside a shuttered convenience store nestled into a corner of a slate-grey two-story building along Rocamora Avenue.

The driver patiently waited as I rang the intercom button. A groggy but excited voice from my past answered. A few minutes later, my old friend Faith Marden opened the door and welcomed me with a big hug. Down a long hallway and up a flight of stairs and I got a second helping of hugs from her boyfriend, and my friend, Bernardo Bronstein. The two had met in Paris five years earlier, and settled (for the time being) in Buenos Aires.

This is Bernardo.



And this is Faith.



It had been a long, long time since either Faith or Bernardo had been up at 7:30 in the morning. Faith taught English and worked for a company selling mortgages and Bernardo taught English. As with many people in Buenos Aires, their jobs didn't usually start till late morning or early afternoon. They found it strangely entertaining to be up before 10.

"So this is morning?" Bernardo quipped as we pulled out the table for breakfast. I unpacked the grocery bag full of goodies Faith's mom entrusted to me to deliver to her daughter. Issues of the 'Funny Times,' a can of organic pineapple, and an avalanche of socks spilled from my suitcase. However, the true treasure I bought for the couple the Saturday of my departure from Atlanta. Faith laughed with joy when she saw them.

"Yeah! Bagels!" she squealed and took them into the kitchen. We caught up with one another over a breakfast of bagels and the strong Argentine tea, Mate (pronounced Ma-tay), which looks and tastes something like kudzu and packs a massive caffeinated punch. Faith and Bernardo have been living in Argentina three years running, with no indication of returning to the States.

Why should they? Life is good in Buenos Aires. Rent, bills and food are cheap, the transportation is adequate, and work is plentiful. Faith and Bernardo's linguistic dexterity afford them a certain degree of competitive advantage in the Argentine job market, which has become a mecca for multinational outsourcing.

Their apartment is a simple one-bedroom affair with a big living room, one bath and a kitchen so small only one person can stand in it at one time. A giant wooden-slatted shutter opens to a concrete terrace overlooking Rocamora Avenue, and you can even climb a steel ladder to their roof, overlooking the neighborhood rising up all around in bright shades of gray.





Many of the buildings in Buenos Aires have a lot of character. And though I saw many buildings sporting grand architecture and classic facades, by far my favorite building lay across the street from my hosts' apartment: A small two-story apartment building I named Mr. Roca. See if you can spot him.



See him? In the middle? He's the one with his eyes half-closed, a bright yellow mole and a Marine haircut. I wanted badly to try and convince the people living in Mr. Roca to help us make a movie in which they pulled the lampshades on the windows up and down to make it look like he was talking.

Around lunch time Faith and Bernardo went to work. I followed Bernardo into downtown Buenos Aires and cut loose as he headed for the office. He dropped me off at a park named after the Argentinean hero, General San Martin, and pointed me down Florida Street towards a photo exhibition by Magnum photographers on September 11tth.

Florida Street is home to one of the city's premier touristy shopping destinations, and sported the usual harbingers of capitalism.



Some of the shops even sported a little Konglish (though I guess it should be termed 'Arglish' in Argentina).



I walked the streets past numerous shops selling everything from cellphones to leather jackets. Wow, I thought to myself. "I'm in Argentine Nampo-dong!" I couldn't help but compare Florida Street to Gwangbokdong. The two were just too similar, so I focused on the differences.

One of the main differences were the poor people who haunted the awnings and stairwells around the shops hunting for spare change from tourists. In Nampo-dong, such people were there, but rare, and almost always just adults. It's not that Korea is bereft of poverty, but rather that the Koreans are better at sweeping such people under the proverbial rug. One of the shocking aspects of walking Florida street were all of the homeless children, some of them just babies, walking barefoot and filthy from person to person or sitting on the sidewalk.



Naturally, people living off of the charity of others have a keen eye for American tourists. We also sort of stick out. I walked down Florida street in a $250 Gore-tex jacket with a brand-new LowePro camera bag on my back, a digital SLR in my hands and a pair of blinding white New Balance sneakers on my feet. According to Faith, no Argentines wear New Balance shoes and nobody but a tourist would carry his camera around his neck. There is simply too much street crime in Buenos Aires.

I hadn't walked 100 meters down Florida street before a girl who couldn't have been older than 8 walked up to me with a baby tucked under one armpit like a football and the other hand outstretched to me.

"Monedas, monedas," she begged. Her hair was knotted and filthy and her skin was dark with dirt. There were no shoes on her feet. My heart went out to her, and I dug out a few coins. No sooner had I given her the money than three more children quickly changed course and intercepted me at a busy intersection.

"Monedas! Monedas!" The implored, spurred on by the first child's success. "Oh, shit," I thought, suddenly trapped between my conscience and the simple reality of exponential and inexhaustible demand growth for my charity. I could already see other children across the street eyeing me. I was saved by an Argentine in front of me who turned around and said something harsh in Spanish that scattered the children. He nodded to me as if to apologize and the light changed. I crossed the street.

Waiting on the other side of the street were the Volantes (however, the "V" is pronounced like a "B"). A volante is basically a flyer for some local business, and lying in wait all down the length of Florida street are the people who pass them out. They prowl the street, thrusting the volantes into the hands of passers by. Another 200 meters and my back pocket bulged with volantes advertising everything from strip clubs to Chinese food.

As I neared the photo exhibit, I passed other, more enterprising, Florida street denizens. A student of music played classical guitar. Another man performed magic tricks. A couple danced a sort of hyper-athletic Tango.



And for a few bucks you could have your picture snapped with the handsome old dancin' geezer.



These children employed their musical talent to pick up a few coins. Faith told me some of these kids allegedly work for the mafia, and if they don't make enough money then their "boss," usually a parent, will beat them at the end of the day. After I snapped this photo, they both begged change from me and I gave them more than I had given the barefoot girl with the baby.



Some people make their wages legally. This man worked as a "human billboard." He patiently waited for the traffic light to turn red and then, as other people crossed the busy avenue, he walked out into the crosswalk and held his sign up in front of the drivers stopped at the light. He was a friendly man, and said his was an easy job, as it afforded him lots of time to listen to music and talk shows on his mp3 player.



I finally made it to the exhibit and was brought back five years to that cool fall day in early September when the world came to a standstill and 3000 people needlessly lost their lives. It was hard and strange to relive that day. The photos were massive, well-composed and captioned. After the 9-1-1 exhibit, I plunked down a few pesos and took in an exhibit on the Mexican artistic genius, Frieda Kohal.

The Argentines take the arts very seriously, as I will get into in in the third installment of this multipart blog. Next up: An all-percussion orchestra and the exploration of Buenos Aires. I hope you enjoyed part 1. Look for the next update in a few days. Peace. --Notes