have arrived safe and sound in Buenos Aires

So it´s been a little more than 2 days now that I´ve been in Argentina and I´ve spent most of that time freaking out. Well, freaking out while walking, usually - and not necessarily freaking out in a good way. Last night I was freaking out while trying to get to sleep. This is a very high energy city, I am living in a rather polluted and busy part of town, Villa Crespo. It is the Jewish neighborhood, blue-collar, middle-class, where I figured I´d get a more authentic experience. My eyes are swollen every morning from the pollution and I´ve made the mistake of drinking the water (in tea, boiled, I thought this was okay??).

Behind the peach-painted metal door on the street, you walk down a long skinny corridor lined with plants to another door that leads you to the open area of the casa. There is a room to the right where Mike from Midway Chicago is living, a recent college graduate (I told him I´d flown out of Midway a few times, was this rude?), then counter-clockwise you have the den, with a table and Diana´s computer, then left of that is Diana´s room, then a bathroom and the kitchen (which toxicly smells like kerosene). Then there is a set of shallow worn marble steps that lead up to the terrace, Diana´s studio, and my room which consists of a bed, table, wardrobe, and bathroom - all of which I awkwardly move around. The hot water for the shower I´ve found out takes a while to travel up the pipes, but after waiting ten minutes and having one minute of warm water and then a continuous trickle of cold, I´ve learned that I will be taking trickling cold showers. Luckily I joined a gym a few blocks away where I plan to take any needed hot showers. A gym where you need to be inspected by a doctor for lice and they check your fingernails as well to see if you are fit for the swimming pool - this to be done every 15 days. I also need my doctor´s okay that Í´m healthy enough to work out - and I´m hoping this will just slide by unnoticed because I have a whole list of hassling things to try and figure out before I do that - like learn Spanish! I feel like such a rude idiot not knowing much of the language here and am looking into Spanish classes pronto.

The madame of the house, Diana, is an artist, very kind and helpful and is trying to do everything she can to make me feel comfortable. When she laid out the house rules she said that we smoke only alone and ashamed, on the terrace or in our rooms, ashamed. I´m not planning to smoke in either, but I found this rather humorous. Her tango paintings and sculptures are all over the house and there is one in clear view from my bed. It is all very interesting. She gives art lessons at her home and today had a little girl over, they were working with colored paper. She is full of information and ideas for what I can do here and has helped me find Spanish classes at the University that I can sign up for next week. She has also described for me what things were like in BA during the economic crash in 2001 - people wailing in the streets because their homes were taken from them, all their money in the bank was taken from them. She said that it made people crazy and there are still many crazy people left on the street. I think I may´ve seen some of them already. She said that she likes having rooms to rent out because she likes meeting new people and trying to understand their perspectives. When I arrived Wed., we had tea and a long chat talking about our different perspectives.

There is also a black cat, Shakti, and a tortoise that I accidentally stepped on when I first arrived. At first I thought he was a doorjamb.

Next day...
I´ve spent the last couple of days just trying to slow things down. The pace of the city and my urgent need to feel comfortable and adapt to my surroundings has caused me to feel quite anxious - that on top of not sleeping well due to traffic through the night and birds chirping early in the morning has not been a good mix. Last night I went to a tango performance that included dinner. It was all quite impressive. I had an Argentine steak that was so huge it was ridiculous. The smell of steak cooking everywhere I go may just put me off meat for quite a while now. This morning I went to a spinning class at the gym I just joined and could smell cooking meat from the restaurant across the street the whole time. Along with making me nauseous, it also brought back memories of the gym I belonged to in Evanston that was above a steak place - it always smelled like burnt meat in there.

So tango was good and I loved the music - I´d like to learn some tango steps and plan to take some classes and go to some tango halls. I´m trying to develop a purpose for me being here besides writing - concrete activities like spanish classes rather than such abstract ideas - I think this will help ground me. I also want to make some friends. This will all help me happily write. If I´m not feeling good I don´t want to do anything. I didn´t get home from the tango show until after 1am last night and my head was literally buzzing. I´m hoping to get a good night´s sleep tonight. What has happened to my nerves over the years? I think back to being in Japan - how did I do it? I don´t know if I was more resilient then or if the older I get the less adaptable I become and more inclined I am to want to be cozy at home.

My favorite area so far is Puerto Madiera, an old port that´s been refurbished. There are lots of pretty cafes along the water (unfortunately, however, there is a Hooters and TGIF´s, not so pretty), lots of warehouses restored with lofts. It is very quiet, no cars zooming by, and people seem very relaxed. Beyond the canal is a huge nature preserve. I wandered around in there yesterday. It is completely wild and you can walk along the ocean. Again, very quiet - it was just what I needed. I´d like to make it there a couple of times a week. I do like cities, but I like green cities. I need parks if I´m going to be in a city. I need to be able to breathe!!! My impressions of the city as a whole have been quite positive - the more I see the more I like it. It feels like a mix of Japan and Europe. BA actually reminds me more of Kyoto than Paris - but I think that´s just the newer (last 50 years) cheap construction. The older stuff reminds me more of cities I´ve visited in Spain, Barcelona perhaps. But it´s only been a few days - I want to get my first impressions down because I know I will never see the city the way I see it now, it will continue to change and grow by the minute - and I´m absorbing it all as I go. This can be a bit overwhelming. But I guess this is exactly what I wanted. It´s already getting hot here, was probably in the 80s today.