This could be partly my fault for getting the dulce de leche latte. In my defense, I tried to order the 'mate latte' and 'te con mango de maracuya,' first, but after telling me they had neither the counter-man gave me a Look and asked me where I was from. He was then surprised that I was an American outside of Palermo (a trendy neighborhood more towards the city center). So I ordered the most Argentine-sounding thing (for Starbucks, which means it's not Argentine at all) on the menu.
On that note, I really really really like my neighborhood. Yeah, it sucks to have to leave the house 45 minutes before any class or meeting, and yeah, it's annoying that the guidebooks often leave my neighborhood out entirely (when there's a lot worthwhile to see and eat here) but Caballito is lovely. It's not full of tourists and super expensive like Palermo, it's not scary to walk around in alone like La Boca, and it's not full of narrow streets where you can't see the sky like El Centro. Plus, I do kind of like exploring stuff that none of the other foreigners are going to know about.
Yes - mine mine mine mine. PRETTY.
As it turns out, buying tango shoes is kind of like buying a wand in Harry Potter. I went to the shop the professor for our tango class recommended (Flabella's, Suipacha 263 - just around the corner from Diagonal Norte) and it's this little store, grouped with three other tango-shoe-stores, with all of these stiletto heels and embossed metallic leather toes and pretty straps gleaming from the dusty windows. Half of the actual store space was taken up by this huge pile of barely-labelled shoeboxes. I have no idea how the funny shopkeeper lady found anything, but I spent at least an hour in there, with her poking around the boxes and pulling things out apparently at random, trying to find a shoe that was both pretty and fit me so well I could dance in a heel (believe it or not, that heel up there was one of the shorter, fatter ones in the shop).
While I was waiting for her to find a different color of a pair of rather comfortable but unfortunately dowdy maroon shoes (which they ended up not having, as apparently they make about one of each type of shoe), I spied this golden shoe half-hidden behind a display case...
And then I waved it around and it produced sparks, so I bought the pair. The end!
I wish talking about the beggar who accosted me right outside that shop was as easy as blathering on about the shoes. Or the toothless women with her two children who came into my UBA class a few weeks ago, before the professor had arrived, and lispingly begged for money. Or the kids who work the Subte, passing around notes that say "Con tu ayuda puedo compara comida, Gracias" and kiss your cheek if you're female or high-five you if you're male. Or the man I saw dressed like an Indian holy man except completely in garbage bags, barefoot on a street full of prosperous people in fancy leather boots out to enjoy a day's shopping.
That stuff is harder to talk about, although I remember it just as much. I can't sum it up like I can ice cream and sushi, the fact that yesterday I had no hot water to shower with, or street fairs full of antiques and feathered hats (la Feria en domingo en San Telmo is full of things I could spend all my money on).
But how is the fact that every dusk I walk by whole families digging through the trash left out for the garbage trucks on the sidewalks, looking for salable cardboard or anything useful, supposed to make a diverting note for people back home?
I guess it isn't. Imma say it anyway.
Okay. I have more to write, but now they're playing Michael Buble. Which means I have to leave.
enjoy your pussy excuse for coffee!
- your suddenly-a-coffe-snob pal, Lindsey
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