it's not the spectacles the pagaentry the thousands things you've got to see

For only the second day since I arrived the weather in BA is really crummy. Skies are grey, it’s been lightly drizzling all day and the high humidity is making it feel even colder than its approximately 55 degrees. The somewhat Boston-like weather got me thinking about how it’s going to be summer when I come home which reminded me of the fact that I have neglected to mention what I will be up to this summer. Whoops.

I will be interning in the External Affairs department of the Center for American Progress hopefully working on legislative outreach (aka lobbying big scary word) but probably working on email contact management.

I am super stoked to be in DC again! I put together a rundown of my favorite things after last summer but there’s still plenty I am excited about for this upcoming summer.

On the agenda:
Now that I am 21+, I am stoked to start exploring H St. NE. Can’t wait to hang out at the H St Country Club, eat jumbalaya and while taking in Farina family member bands at the Red and the Black, and you know be old enough for shows at the Rock n Roll Hotel. I couldn’t really do anything cool over there last year because I was a young’n but thanks to a birthday that is otherwise meaningless to me I can start seeing some new places.

Food I haven’t yet eaten: Ray’s Hell Burger, Dairy Godmother, all of the schwarma places in Adam’s Morgan I seem to have missed at which I hopefully can eat Old Bay fries, and DC’s apparent explosion of cupcake-mania. And old favorites like BCB, Old Ebbitt Express, Taqueria Nacionale, San Miguel’s Pupuseria, Amsterdam, and 2 Amys where I eat cheap and well. Mmm already excited for restaurant week in August!

EATING BAGELS. I just miss bagels. I asked Fedex this weekend and he told me they don’t exist here. I don’t think I have had a good New York bagel in DC but apparently Montreal style bagels are coming which is sufficient, as I anxiously await a something bagel-like to enjoy.

I can't wait for: softball by the monument, summertime in DC jamming to the Bad Brains, walking past a Democratic contrilled White House and Congress, visiting and re-visiting Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence with Adams's notes in the margins, hardcore shows at the Corpse Fortress, making fun of the line at Smith point, the summer 09 Fort Reno line up and jazz in the Sculpture Garden, outdoor movies, and just walking up and down and up and down and up and down Embassy Row (and this time getting to make fun of Joe Biden instead of Dick Cheney).

amped!

cuenta reg 03: about this americana

List #03: embarrassing ways that I stave off homesickness

1. eating peanut butter by the spoonful: I infrequently do this in the States but for some reason I have taken solace in doing so here. Each spoonful is an act of defiance, as I am pretty sure that the only two groups of people in the world who can hang with American style peanut butter are Americans and Israelis and it definitely seems like the Argentines frequently have negative feelings about all three of the aforementioned (Americans, Israelis, and peanut butter). Hey -- this beats going to McDonalds or Starbucks! Related honorable mention: Buying and destroying Oatmeal Squares for my late-night homework snack. I blame Andrew Helms for this.
   
2. downloading new old hardcore music: As you’d have to be a dolt not to notice, I’ve been really into hardcore lately. As a function of this, I’ve been jamming all sorts of bands I never listened to when I was in my many years of listening to basically the same 3-4 hardcore bands all of the time. This has been awesome but I am at a loss for a proper analogy to explain why. Maybe it’s because, without deviating from the same formula I love, I’ve been able to listen to things that a) seem new to me and b) are total classics / nearly perfect that I wrote-off long ago. Related honorable mention: I’ve been maxing the potential of my Google Reader and aggregating hardcore blogs. Now I get to read awesome back stories about said bands AND find inspiration for new ones!
3. The Wire: This is number three on the list because I finished the season that I had but in my first two months here I watched two whole seasons of The Wire. This was especially great when I had first arrived and felt super exhausted all of the time from being so new to Spanish all of the time and didn’t quite have a circle of people read for hangouts. I won’t say how quickly I watched each of the two seasons but let’s just say it was embarrassingly quickly. Related honorable mention: Happily, none! I’ve barely watched any TV or movies, The Wire phase excepted, since I’ve been down here as Silvia lacks a DVD player and I can’t deal with the stupidity of Argentine television.

cuenta reg 04: "snack attack bitchez," -- Jordan Fraade

List #04: snack attack, Argentine-style!

1. alfajores: Imagine two soft cookies with dulce de leche between them, covered in chocolate. Super rica, super amazing. Favorite brand, hands down, is El Chachafaz because the cookies are cloud soft and the dulce de leche is wonderful. Havana’s (Starbucks, more or less) house brand is a close second. Mmmm.
2. pomelo (grapefruit) soda: It isn’t sweet at all but rather tart and super addictive. I can’t tell you how much I wish we had Paso de los Toros (a brand) in America. I would drink it all of the time. The closest American comparison I can think of is Polar Orange Dry, except that stuff tastes like artificial sweetener whereas Paso de Toros tastes like awesomeness sans sweetener.
3. medialunas: Medialunas are Argentine croissants. There are two types: manteca y grasa. The former are made from butter, are very soft and usually contain a light but sweet outer coating. From grasa, or lard, are harder but flaky and not nearly as sweet. Usually accompany a café con leche, or espresso with milk. My favorite medialunas are served in the UCA cafeteria and sustain me during the short break that arrives 4.5 hours into my 6 straight hours of class on Tuesdays.
4. licuado: They’re like smoothies but not. Blended ice, water/milk/juice and fresh fruit, without whey BS or anything. My favorite flavor is peach with milk. Can easily replace a meal.

what you've been waiting for.... food

Last night my host mom and I debated over one of my favorite topics: FOOD. Food in Argentina is and is not what you think. Yes, it’s cheap. When David came to visit, we had a wonderful and huge parilla (grill) dinner for less than US$40. The most expensive places at which I have eaten generally charge AR$35 per entrée. When dividing by a favorable exchange rate of more than 3.5 pesos to the dollar, even an expensive meal is not breaking the bank – and most meals are not even close to that price range. Lunch today of two empanadas and a huge peach licuado (an amazing smoothie-like contraption of blended milk, ice, and peaches) cost me less than AR$20, or about US$5, mostly because my licuado cost more than both of my empanadas combined. 

So, I bet you are wondering, what is there to complain about? 

BA has incredible and plentiful mom-and-pop ice cream shops. I can dig classics like a humita (corn) empanada and a tostada miga (toasted white bread ham and cheese with the crusts cut off) for sure. Heavily influenced by BA’s montons of Italian immigrants, pretty much every corner café carries pasta, pizza, and milanesa, a breaded meat (or chicken or soy) cutlet. But, as those bland staples suggest, the food here is just not that flavorful. Contrary to the expectation drawn from the wonderful chimichurri I’ve had in restaurants in the States, I can’t seem to find cilantro in a grocery store to save my life. Tomato sauce rarely comes with oregano or even much basil; I gave up on local brands and bought a jar of imported Newman’s Own to stave off the boredom on my tongue. The concept of picante (hot/spicy) is a city myth. In fact, even when we went out for Mexican food here the picante condiments of pickled jalapeños and salsa picante were terribly bland and on a different occasion a requested hot Indian dish was mild at best. Every table comes with salt but I’ve only twice been given the option for pepper. For someone who enjoys the processes of cooking and eating, BA can be surprisingly disappointing. For those of you with milder gastos, I assure you that I’m no buffalo wings fan, that don’t like spicy food for spicy food’s sake. Plus there is just not that much variety: ham-and-cheese empanada, ham-and-cheese tostado mixto, ham-and-cheese miga, ham-and-cheese torta… you get the point. 

To be fair, regional/traditional Argentine foods like cazuelas (stews, I guess?) and traditional corn tamales (not really like the Mexcian kind) are not spicy but definitely flavorful. Street food like choripán (chorizo + pan (bread) sandwich), though potentially deadly, can be quite saborizado. I would be remiss not to clarify that there is incredible Italian food in the city, from wonderful pizza a la piedra (brick oven – literally pizza by the stone) to freshly made ricotta-and-spinach gnocchi. But by far and away my best spice-satisfaction has stemmed from abundant (and amazingly cheap) Peruvian food, which is both well-spiced and is served with a flavorful and spicy yellow salsa picante in which I frequently drown plates of French fries. That is helping to make up for the Salvadoran and Ethiopian I miss from DC, the Indian and Italian I miss from Boston, and the amazing dishes prepared by Georgetown Road’s own head chef Ed. (Yo, dad!) 

I still have much food exploration to do of course but my once-high hopes for encoutering well-spiced foods and sauces are dimming. While I live near a barrio with a large Korean population and am looking forward to sampling Korean bulgogi asado as soon as possible, I know that if it’s anything like much of the rest of what I’ve eaten here the hot sauce that defines the best bibimbap will be dumbed down for lame porteño taste buds and I will be lucky to find the soy/curry/sesame/scallion marinade I desire. Bummer. 

RUNDOWN: shana's guide to summer in dc

I typed this up for a friend who was doing a semester in DC and have sent it around to a few fols. It's a good wrap-up of why I loved my summer in DC with Andrea so damn much. 

1. Go to Amsterdam Falafel in Adam's Morgan (metro to Woodley Park/Adam's Morgan/National Zoo or walk from Dupont). Really cheap + toppings bar + SUPER DELICIOUS = worth it!! A-M has lots of somewhat gross nightlife (think: young professionals wishing they were still in college) but also the only really good record stores (Smash for punk/hardcore, Crooked Beat for Dischord early presses) and some bars that don't suck.

2. U St, the historically black neighborhood in DC, is awesome.... Ben's Chilli Bowl at 11th and U (right near the 10th St. exit for the U St. metro) is the only restaurant that serves indigenously DC food: the chilli half-smoke, a chilli hot dog. It is highly representative that the first time I went to BCB Marion Barry was also there. For real. U st. is also home to DC's Ethiopian community. Dukem is the touristy Ethiopian place -- I enjoyed Meskerem in Adam's Morgan more, I think. You MUST eat Ethiopian in DC; the diaspora population in DC is the largest group of Ethiopians outside of their native state. IN addition, U St. is home to Busboys and Poets, which hosts book readings, slam poetry, jazz bands, and serves great dessert.

3. Go to Mt Pleasant. Excellent cheap Hispanic foodz. In particular, Pupuseria San Miguel was a favorite of ours. (FYI pupusas are Salvadorean corn cakes with cheese, beans, and pork that are deep-fried quickly so the cheese is maaaad gooey. Very tasty.) Mt Pleasant is not as far along the gentrification process as U St but they just built a Target in neighboring Columbia Heights so it's progressing quite rapidly. Mt. Pleasant is my preferred locale if I ever move back to DC.

4. I strongly believe that ice cream is the only reason to go to Georgetown. Thomas Sweet aka TSWEETZ, Dolcezza (Argentine gelato) (both cira Wisconsin and P), and Max's (northern Georgetown, Wisconsin near Calvert) are three of the best ice cream places in DC and they're all so close to one another.

5. I know it's expensive but the Newseum is well worth its price. My parents and I spent 4 hours there and barely got through 3 floors. They have a huge and amazing exhibit on the photographs to win Pulitzer Prizes including interviews with the photographers and captions explaining their stories. The top floor, the history of news, was fascinating and contains original copies of Thomas Paine newsletters, the Dewey Defeats Truman Chicago Daily News, etc.

6. Go to Eastern Market to eat food (softshell crab sandwich with Old Bay Spice highly rec), walk around the barracks, then head to RFK for a DC United game and love your life. If you are brave and like jumping on your chairs -- recuerde que los que no saltan son hijos de puta! -- sit in the Barra Brava pit above the 130's section. Most fun you'll have all summer, I promise. I don't really care about soccer but I went to three (four?) games and loved every second of them.

7. Every Monday and Thursday (I think) there are free concerts from some of DC's best local bands at Ft Reno Park in Tenleytown. Meet some friends after work at Whole Foods near the metro stop, make a picnic dinner, then enjoy the sweet jamz, puppies, and babies that abound amongst the hipsters. Cheap and fun!