Empanadas: one of the only foods I can still eat in this countryFrom the very get go, it was comforting to find a restaurant with good food, open when I need it to be, with friendly people, and to go there a lot. Two cafes have stuck with me throughout the semester, so I am going to write about both of them (I also can’t think of enough to say about either of them to make four hundred words).

The first is Il Migliori, the restaurant across the street from the center, and basically a practicing cafeteria for us NYU in Buenos Aires kids. Mondays and Wednesdays give me just enough time between Grammar and Composition and Cultura Popular de Argentina to run across the street, shovel in three empanadas, always one of cebolla y queso, one of jamón y queso, and one wild card, chug a cafe chicito, throw down eight pesos and run out again. It is the only place I have found in Buenos Aires that can be fast if need be. It is so fast, the servers deliver coffee to shops nearby on rollerblades. It seats about 30 people at small wooden tables with small wooden chairs at paper place settings that read in English “It’s Time to Party!” And it’s cheap. Empanadas are $2.80 each (pesos mind you… which is about 75 cents) and a small coffee is $4, ideal for visiting habitually. The second is a café called Bricco in Recoleta, the neighborhood I live in. It is a hole in the wall with a couple of plastic tables outside with the word Quilmes plastered across them. I stumbled in with a friend one morning because it was around the corner, and we where ambling home at 8am on a Saturday morning, and we were lazy and still a little buzzed. I had had a medialuna before, they are hard to avoid if you wanted to, and I understood the concept, a sweet croissant, and I wasn’t very impressed by it. These were different. They make them on site and brought them out warm. Sugary, buttery, flaky croissants, so fresh they are still warm and doughy on the inside. We were awestruck. Now we sit outside in those tacky plastic chairs that support your weight and advertise for beer simultaneously at least three times a week. The server, Karina, asks if we want ‘the usual’. I have never had a ‘usual’ in New York or San Francisco, but it makes me feel like I’m home. Sometimes I feel guilty for having two places I go to several times a week; I wonder if I am exploring enough, if I am really taking advantage of this abroad experience. But the true abroad experience, I think, is finally becoming comfortable in a place that is uncomfortable. I get a little bit of that as a regular. 

Editions du SeuilOne of my favorite places this summer was actually my office. If your familiar with Paris geography at all, it’s in the 6th arondissement between Odéon and St. Michel, and if your not, it is near the Seine right by Notre Dame. It’s an excellent location, surrounded by restaurants and cheap take-away places selling crepes, Palestinian sandwiches, pizza, and “asiatique” food, which is the French version of take-away Chinese, a long bar of random Asian-like foods that will be microwaved and handed to you in plastic-sealed containers. As I working in foreign rights for a publishing house, it’s located in the heart of what is essentially the publishing quarter of Paris. Almost every significant French publisher is located with a 7-block radius of each other, and a good bet is that their authors aren’t far away. It is also the head-quarters of Gilbert-Joseph, a French chain of booksellers. They have four large stores in the area, that sell everything from technical academic books, to foreign language fiction, to art books, all at discounted prices because they will resell any undamaged books you sell back to them.
And tucked into a little corner, amongst the tasty cheap food and slightly-used, cheap books (what could be better?) is a little hotel particulier with a big, green, worn door. The only indication that there is a business inside is a small framed poster for “Le Seuil”. A quick ring of the buzzer, and you enter into a small hallway filled with cardboard boxes of freshly delivered books and samples, packages, and store displays to be delivered. Around the corner is the reception, with an awkwardly low couch (I think to discourage lingering visitors) and the coffee machine that spits out plastic cups of coffee, complete with little plastic spoons already inside, for only 25 cents. Up three flights of winding stairs of varying heights, or a slightly longer trip in the tiny elevator, and you arrive in my office. A large room with two big windows and covered on every side by enormous, chaotic bookshelves filled with children’s and arts books in every language imaginable and files and files and some more files over there. In the middle of the room there are three large desks, invariably coated in papers, books, and the weird, colorful French files essentially made of folded paper. The French don’t have the same filing system of manila folders with label tabs stashed in drawers in hanging files, instead they have folded paper of varying degrees of the thickness filled with paper and stashed in boxes, making things much harder to alphabetize or organize in anyway.
This room is where I spent the majority of my semester chilling with my young bosses, translating, and enjoying the fact that I finally felt immersed in France, the only foreigner in a building full of French women with great style, trim figures, and the job I can only dream of.

KonexIf it's a Monday and it happens to be 8 o'clock chances are you will find me at the Ciudad Cultural Konex. The center is located in the barrio of Palermo and was opened in 1920 and was used as a factory oil deposit until 1992. Years later it was bought in order to create what it is now. El Estudio Clorindo Testa y Asociados was commissioned to transform the old oil into a cultural space keeping intact the original architectural details of its time. It retains its relationship with the industrial resignification since it was completely designed, including the furniture with PVC pipes. The design belongs to the architects Luciana Levinton, Silvana Ovsejevich and Ma Eugenia Ruani. They have a bunch of shows and is a great medium for creativity. They just opened up a store at the center where you can find pieces from independent Argentine designers which include jewelry, dolls and designs related to the topic of the events taking place during that specific week. Some of the designers who are currently out include: Vacavaliente, Sopa de Principe, A dosveinte, Gabriela Horvat, Tramando, Doma, Estebecorena Brothers, If you seen me not agree Tour Industry, Brion, lix Klet-Churba, Air and Monoblock. The design we see now belongs to the architects Luciana Levinton, Silvana Ovsejevich and Ma Eugenia Ruani.

The reason why I love going there on Mondays is because of a fabulous event that happens weekly called "La Bomba del Tiempo." La Bomba consists of a collective of professional percussionists who get together every week to put on a show. The director, Santiago Vázquez, created signals with which the group communicates with. It's hilarious watching their faces. The shows are improvised and really, it's fantastic and beautiful to watch. You can really feel the music throughout your body, and everyone is just dancing, drinking and having a blast. They normally invite a guest to come and play with them during the second half of their show. Guests range from fellow percussionists, punk rock singers, musicians playing their own unique instruments and everything in between. The show lasts for about 2 hours and afterwards everyone spills out into the streets looking to buy food, afterparties and a taxi.

Here's some videos:

yacht y golf

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Benjamin describes the structure of public spaces and tries to reason how people relate to those spaces.

De Botton describes the smells, colors, and ideas that all places carry with them so as to get a better idea of why he feels those spaces are significant and when are they significant.

“Yacht y Golf” is a lush hotel in Paraguay, about half an hour from Asuncion. This past weekend half of our group traveled out of Argentina to stay at this place and tour the area surrounding the city.

I am breaking a rule here. I know the assignment is to describe a place in the country where we are staying. But I have been here long enough for most every place I walk into to fit into a scheme of normalcy. I thought about what I could describe in Argentina. Cafes like Café Martinez, a chain that evokes Starbucks all over the city (or at least downtown). Museums like the malba which shows contemporary Latin American art which is fascinating yet it was the art that caught my attention when I visited—and somehow it was not the place. I could discuss the NYU building which used to be the embassy for an African country (I can’t find out which) until the university bought it. The building is beautiful where the rooms haven’t been redone to look like classrooms on 25 west fourth or that building across from Coles. Dull white ceilings and a lot of traffic. I like going there but for the people, not the place.

I think that I will remember my trip to Paraguay for two reasons: getting to hang out with people from the program who I haven’t talked to before and the strange, excessive, bizarre, yet not absurd place that was Yacht y Golf. I am writing about Yacht y Golf because it fits into the type of description and thought processes which Benjamin and De Botton evoke, namely the impressions given by structure (décor, architecture), common conceptions and themes.

The lobby of Yacht y Golf has light-colored walls and half drawn curtains and seems dark. On your left you can look through a wall of glass with glue marks on the edges of the panes where they attach to the wooden frames. Through that glass you can see a false waterfall issuing from jagged rocks and clusters of tropical-looking plants. In the lobby there is a table with a chessboard to the left, golden pelican statues on coffee tables and an enormous wooden carving of five indigenous-looking faces grimacing (what does this mean? More importantly, does that description alone give you an image?).

The most of the rooms are ample with one enormous bed and mirrors on the wall across from the headboard. The décor is straight from another era that I would call the seventies. A lot of gold-colored things (sinks, reading lights, ashtrays) and dark tones. You can still smoke in the rooms, that’s a time-warp in itself.

In the basement (also the beach-level) are the suits. Though each of these is different all have multiple rooms and beds, jacuzzis, and enormous mirrors above the master beds. While the Ambassador suite gives off a very official vibe with its early twentieth century furniture (lots of exposed wood) and frenetic blue paisley walls, the Presidential suite hides nothing with its design based on mirrors, red and black leather furniture, and paintings of mushroom clouds. As one of our program heads said, “these are rooms where rich old men take their mistresses far away to do things they don’t want to be remembered for”.

From what I have said here Yacht y Golf as a place tries to imitate the idea of the luxury hotel. Maybe if I mention the clay tennis courts open 24 hours, golf course, two pools, spa, multiple bars, and waterslide you better will understand this attempt at place. I don’t think the attempt was successful, at least not for many of the students who went on the trip. What I heard more than anything from them was that Yacht y Golf was bizarre, overdone, and phony. I agree with all these descriptions. But there is something else.

The blatant difference between the abject poverty that surrounded the resort made everyone hyper-aware of the inequality in Paraguay. We all felt a bit guilty staying there. We all felt like we weren’t experiencing the real Paraguay. It occurred to me though, that while Yacht y Golf may be bizarre it was not absurd. Absurdity connotes the absence of sense and Yacht y Golf makes a lot of sense. In a way it needs to exist as an indicator of the “harsh reality” of inequality in the world. We can’t escape rich and poor. We can not escape the gap between them. When I thought of this I didn’t only think of the resort as an addition to the image of the luxury hotel but as an appropriately luxurious response to quotidian life in Paraguay. But in this sense we were experiencing the real Paraguay—the reality and immensity of the resort; the reality and immensity of the gap. I tried not to think about it while I was there. I was a fun weekend.

In my opinion, there is a place where everyone regards as their safe haven. My safe haven here at Prague is my dorm. As lame as it sounds, my dorm is someplace I’d regard as a comfortable and happy place. When I first arrived at my dorm, I actually thought it looked too bare and empty. The halls looked like an old hospital hallway—it was creepy. But when I entered my room, it was a drastic change. The rooms are massive. The ceilings have to be at least 11 feet tall with wooden floors and tall windows. The kitchen is my favorite park of the room. We have an island and a nice refrigerator with an ice dispenser! It was all too shocking because I imagined my dorm in Prague to look a bit shabby. However, NYU did their job and chose a decent place for their students. The neighborhood itself isn’t very ideal, but supposedly this area is “up and coming.” My dorm not only housed me and my roommates, but it also was a place where I was able to study and watch movies on the fourth floor. It is a dorm, yet it had so many additions. Such as the piano rooms, the music room with the drum and guitars, and countless study rooms. This dorm supposedly houses music majors during the fall semester. I’m glad that I chose this dorm because I feel that compared to the other dorms, I have more privacy. I like cooking from time to time because it helps me unwind and having our own kitchen definitely helps.

Cafe room of Dobra It’s annoying that I found my favorite place in Prague a month before I’m leaving. Around the corner of my dorm, there is a tiny unnoticeable sign outside of a shop that sells what looks like to be useless trinkets. The sign reads “Dobra Trafika”. Intrigued for some reason, I decided to walk inside. There I found teas, magazines, cigars and other things you would find in a convenient store (minus the tea), but what struck me was the interior. Everything seems so deliberately placed. The walls are dark read, the teas are held in little glass cases and in the back there is a cozy space where nice (which is unusual) waiters greet you with a menu. The room is small, about 5 tables and a couch. But it is the perfect place to go to chat, play board games, or do work. The menu is the best part, especially if you are a tea or coffee aficionado. There are over one hundred coffees and teas from around the world. I’ve now tried pretty much all of the green teas and my favorite is ‘vanilka sencha’ or vanilla green tea. Usually I’m one to douse my tea in honey and sugar but this tea is extroadinary and doesn’t require it. And for 44 crowns (2.20USD), I get it a lot. They also have this breakfast plate that is a thin layer of him followed by a thin layer of cheese (almost carpaccio thin by the way) and then topped with two fried eggs. And that’s 47 crowns (2.35USD). One night, I went to Dobra with a few friends. It was four of us sitting at the table with the couch and at another table were three Czechs, two young and one elder woman. They were drunk, got up and started dancing. Suddenly, the young girl came over to our table and asked my friend, Mark is he would waltz with her. Mark agreed and we laughed as we soberly watched Mark and this drunk girl dance to music that wasn’t there. Sometimes Dobra is live and at other moments it is empty. Either way, the atmosphere is so homey (I’m aware that word is overused but I cannot seem to think of a better one) that it’s difficult to deal with the 11:00P.M. closing time.

PudongPudong New Area is the vanguard economic development zone of China. The Chinese have a tradition of naming cities and areas based on direction and natural landmarks. For example, Shanghai literally means “up” or “above the sea.” Beijing means “northern capital” and Hainan, the southern most part of China means “south of the sea.” Fittingly, Pudong means “east of the Huangpu river”, “dong” means east and “pu” is short for Huangpu. Shanghai is divided into two main districts, Pudong and Puxi, west of the Huangpu. Puxi is the largest district of Shanghai and is home to 90% of its residents, it is developed and has been for decades. Pudong was farmland and factories as of 1990 and is now home to one of the fastest changing skylines in the world. Pudong is also home to Pudong International Airport, which is the 3rd busiest airport in the world in terms of freight, and is home to the world's first commercial high-speed maglev train.

There are several notable structures in Pudong's Lujiazui Trade and Finance Zone. Perhaps the most famous one, and the oldest, is the Oriental Pearl Tower. At a height of over 1,500 ft, this enormous tower features fifteen observation levels, a revolving restaurant, and an exclusive 20 room hotel. It is the only building I remember from my trip to Shanghai in 2001. Next to the Oriental Pearl Tower is the 88 story Jin Mao Tower. The final construction price is estimated to be over $530 million and sits at just under 1,400 feet. Chicago based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill incorporated the lucky number 8 within the building's design. There are 88 floors built into an octagon shear wall, surrounded by 8 exterior super-columns and 8 steel columns. The Chinese are highly superstitious and tend to include that in their architecture. Planning for the Beijing Olympics included lucky numbers, lucky directions, and ying and yang. Jin Mao Tower has a shopping mall, restaurants, and a 5-star Hyatt hotel. It is home to the world's highest swimming pool on the 57th floor, and home to the world's highest bar on the 87th floor.

The current tallest building in China, and world's tallest completed building, is the Shanghai World Financial Center. At more than twice the cost of Jin Mao Tower, this super tall building boasts 101 floors and a glass-floor observatory on the 100th floor. I conquered my fear of heights and visited the glass floor observatory and was truly blown away by the view. Even the current tallest building in the world is going to be dwarfed by an even taller building in 2014. Shanghai Tower is currently being constructed right next to Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center. This eco-friendly building features an insulating outer skin, wind turbines that generate energy for the building, a glass facade that reduces wind loads by 24%, and a rainwater collecting system that is recycled for air-conditioning. It is projected to be completed at over 2,000 feet and will be the tallest building in China. These three super skyscrapers are going to be the future of Shanghai and will be a symbol of Shanghai and China's place in the modern world.

I know that I have written about this place before but in the past three months my favorite place to visit each Saturday still remains to be Notting Hill. Yes, it's the movie that Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts starred in but it is also one of the most well known and eccentric districts in London.

The travel book, Lonely Planet, describes Notting Hill as "becoming anaesthetised by its own popularity" but it still remains a favorite for tourists and locals alike. Beginning north of Holland Park, Notting Hill is home to one of the most recognizable street markets: Portobello Road. "From Notting Hill Gate, you being by passing antiques, home-wares and bric-a-brac stores and stalls, moving on through food to clothing- both young designers and second hand." 

Us, trying to walk through the market

Like clockwork every Saturday, salesmen and women wake up in the early hours of the morning and head towards Portobello. In a matter of minutes street stalls are assembled and merchandise is displayed. Now, of course, being the college student that I am, there is no possible way I actually make it out in time to see this process be done. I normally meander my way towards Notting Hill Gate around noon, just in time for lunch. If you aren't precisely sure how to make it to Portobello Road after exiting the tube station, no worries. Literally, hundreds of people are on their way to the market. Just follow the crowds. (And there WILL be crowds) If you can't handle hundreds of people in the street this market is probably not for you!

Pushing my way past the crowd, my first stop is normally the cafe. I wish I could give you the name, but it is one of those "hidden" places. I randomly found it while walking through an antique store. There was a tiny sign that pointed upstairs that said cafe and so I followed it. Probably not the brightest idea but I did. In this tiny upstairs room lies a little mom and pop "diner" where they serve the best and most inexpensive food ever! After gaining some strength, I head back to the overwhelming street. Week after week and I am greeted by the same store vendors that have been here every weekend.

The long stretch of market seems to go on forever and quite often smells of the fresh crepes being made, bread, and, infront of Hummingbird Bakery, it smells of cupcakes! If you're lucky, the man who makes the best seafood in town will be out cooking up different paellas and will gladly give you a taste!

With all the different characters you meet while walking up and down the busy Portobello Street you are sure never to be bored. Something or some food is bound to catch your attention and you are promised an interesting adventure. 

Caminito
Calle Caminito, a street in the barrio of La Boca, is the most popularly used image on postcards from Buenos Aires. A photo of Caminito, whether of the cobblestone streets, the colorful buildings or the live tango shows, is always picturesque. Visuals of the street, which is one of the most touristic attractions in the city, typically suggest it is a place with a unique history, rich with culture and vibrant arts. Walking down Calle Caminito on a Tuesday afternoon, mid-Argentine fall, I am surprised to find that the street is only sparsely occupied by tourists photographing the colorfully painted buildings. On weekends and during the months of Spring and Summer the street must attract many more visitors. Regardless, the realization that this attraction--one the few popular tourist destinations in Buenos Aires--still has "offtimes" during which it draws little attention, seems to say a lot about the city and the country.

A stroll down Caminito feels ironic and artificial. Overpriced restaurants line the street and each one is identical to the previous, consistently offering the same mediocre-quality Italian influenced foods and cheesy decor. As you pass, men approach you with no concept of personal space to stubbornly push flyers into your hands. They aggressively speak into your face insisting that "they have the best food, the best deals, the best shows". They are relentless and their persistence is annoying, suggesting that they are likely paid by how many tourists they successfully lure into their employer's trap.
Tables for outdoor dining line the cobblestone streets, the seating organized around various elevated stages where couples perform La Boca's famous open air tango shows. Melodies of traditional milonga music radiate from scratchy speakers intending to transport listeners to the time and place of tango's birth. Since each tango show is only storefronts away from the next, one show's music inevitably becomes part of another . Thus a walk through Caminito is like walking through a tunnel of sound. The drifting tunes of traditional, time-specific tango conflict with one another and Caminito becomes confusing.

On this Tuesday afternoon, the outdoor dining spaces are barely occupied. Of the few there, there is a lonely couple sipping cafe, ignoring the live tango dancers with their noses buried in their Buenos Aires tour guides. At another tango show, all but one of the surrounding tables are empty. Still, men in kitschy suits and women in cheap fishnets continue to dance on their stages, performing the same routines over and over again despite the lack of an audience. The dancers are not the only aspects that seem staged. The famous brightly painted houses made of wood and metal that line the streets are difficult to grasp-- they begin and end abruptly and walking amidst them you feel as if you are living inside the artistic set of play. A close look at the buildings reveals pealing paint and poor quality construction; the street is aged. The artificiality makes it feel timeless and surreal, as if the entire street is incapsulated, frozen in time. Calle Caminito is like a broken record. The music keeps playing, the dancers keep dancing, and the buildings, the souvenir shops, the restaurants, will never change. It is depressing and backwards. Few would expect that an attraction like Caminito, frequented by crowds of of tourists, is actually located just steps away from some of the poorest and most neglected areas of the city. Beyond Caminito, the streets become dirt and the buildings become increasingly deteriorated. On a quiet Tuesday afternoon, the surrounding poverty of La Boca seems evident through an underlying sadness of Caminito. I assume that the entertainers that spend their days dancing relentlessly and that the people that work the souvenir shops and the restaurants are likely local inhabitants. To me, there is something very twisted and ironic about this and about Caminito in general. It is the most artificial of places, but it is located right in the middle of reality.

GoodiesVilla Ullivi is the main academic building on the NYU in Florence campus. It houses a library, a computer lab, one lecture hall, a few academic offices and a bunch of classrooms. Each classroom is named after a different Tuscan city. The inside of the building is completely modern, but the structure is as an ancient as the three other villas on our campus Ullivi also houses a café, the place were student’s congregate, get some work done and grab a coffee. Since there are only 350 students on the program, it is never hard to find a familiar face to sit with in the café. The best part about the café if the cheap food and drinks served by a super nice man named Fernando. I choose to just buy coffee and bottled water, but you can also purchase other hot drinks, the cheapest soda in Florence, pastries and sandwiches. A favorite on the campus is a brioche filled with nutella. If you show up at just the right time, you can grab one that had come straight out of the oven. The café has about a dozen tables, and is completely jam packed between classes, but often very quite after the crowd has dissipated. Since the classes are 2 hours and 45 minutes long, the teachers leave a 15 minutes break in the middle of class for students to come down to the café and take a break. This is a great idea because it peps up the class, but I have also become friends with a lot of my peers during these 15-minute breaks. Since Ullivi has wireless Internet, it has also become the place I come to get work done. It cannot be anymore different from Bobst, but it has the same effect on me. When I block out a few hours of my day to sit in the café, I get more work done then I possibly could in my busy house. The café is one of the places I am going to miss the most about Italy. NYU is such a big school; you can walk around all day without running into a familiar face. Ullivi has such a great vibe, such a good feel about just hanging around with other students. Since I transferred from Ithaca, this is the thing I have missed the most about going to a small school. Mmmm..