Recovering in la Recoleta

la Recoleta
Buenos Aires, Argentina
16-17 December 2008

At the Art Hotel in Buenos Aires, I have a hot shower at long last. The Art Hotel is in the Recoleta, a central neighborhood in B.A., and one of the richest neighborhoods around, though not so rich as Palmero. Aesthetically, the hotel is very nice. But I don’t pay much attention to the art. The high ceilings, winding marble staircase and small handful of rooms on each floor make it a restful place. And the staff is the most helpful since I stayed at the Hotel Daphne in Rome so many months ago now – they act almost as travel agents, securing air tickets, calling restaurants and solving problems. Most problems. The light that is out in my room gets a replacement bulb, which turns out to be a bad idea – the fixture begins to catch fire. This makes my room smell like an asador for a day or two.

I venture out into the neighborhood, and a little of the larger city, making an obligatory stop at the cemetery in this neighborhood in which Eva Perón is buried (didn’t see her tomb.) And, well, there isn’t all that much to do in la Recoleta. I do spend a pleasant hour in a small museum dedicated to an interesting artist named Xul Solar, whose cartoony and iconic style is interesting to a beginning student of drawing like myself. A young woman there tries out her English on me, asking me about the drawings. I try out my Spanish on her, asking her about, well, probably umbrellas or monkeys or something, because we switch quickly back to English.

I stare for a long time at the studies of figures representing the "even" and "odd" Zodiac signs and the Planets, and wonder at all the detailed background of their personalities represented here in these mysterious faces, and how little I know about all that history and mythology and astrology, but my mood turns because all this astrology stuff reminds me of bad relationship times earlier this year…

I luxuriate in quiet naps in the afternoon these couple of days, and plug into the internet. Apparently, Obama will still be president of the USA and no one wants to buy American cars. Seems I haven’t missed that much in three weeks.