One of my earliest childhood memories it's on a plane with a red blanket that I had brought from home flying to Buenos Aires, on the other side of the world, so it was only fair that I wrote this that you are now reading from a plane on your way back from that same place.
I go back to Madrid After spending a few weeks in the Argentine capital and in my headphones 'En La Ciudad de la Furia' by Soda Stereo sounds on loop because to Buenos Aires I arrive with nostalgia and I leave with longing. I have returned to the city of my roots in the middle of summer to explore it with new eyes, those of those who now live it, with the intention of caress with the fingertips what one day were the streets where he was born and grew up my father.
I return for the fifth time to this chaos gigantic and vibrant to see it shine in the hottest sun. To find me in her tangles because one returns to what was in order to understand what is.
Mishigüene (Buenos Aires).
I stay with Miguel , Buenos Aires dermatologist and proud resident of the Retiro neighborhood, to take a snack in the Peace Palace, brand new with a space in its interior patio and perfect to suffocate the heat of the afternoon. Between one aperol spritz and another he tells me: “For me, this neighborhood is a romantic jungle. What fascinates me about Buenos Aires is its eclecticism. That nostalgia mixed with arrogance”.
The sun goes down as we walk through Plaza San Martín and i we improvised a dinner in Mishiguene, a Jewish restaurant that practices 'immigrant cuisine' and in which traditional music and dim lighting take us on a unique journey. The day closes with intense flavors and a pastrami with fried egg and potatoes absolutely unmissable. It is likely that you have never tried anything like it, it is worth the walk.
Raven Cafe, Buenos Aires.
Deborah , that she was born in Buenos Aires but spent a few years of her adolescence outside the city, she assured me that when she returned she had a hard time getting used to her hectic pace. She now she works in a design consultancy in the neighborhood of Palermo and she is a true lover of the area. I meet her for dinner but before I discover the Raven Brown, where the specialty coffee, giant windows and a play list fitted to perfection make it the space to spend the hottest hour of the afternoon.
On the way out, walking (the best thing you can do in Palermo is to stroll), I find myself face to face with Eternal Cadence, a bookstore that looks small but stretches inwards of the building in which you can find literally everything, including a bar that calls itself eternal, as if sometimes the right words existed.
let's have dinner at Jesus thing, on a corner between Gurruchaga and José A. Cabrera, where a candlelit terrace awaits and a smell of meat that is impossible to escape. At the door you can buy a bouquet of flowers in case you got confused. On the sidewalk pass, one after another, street musicians that will warm your soul.
We ask, as always, sweetbreads and empanadas and I finish with a bife de chorizo that reminds me exactly where I am. “I am passionate about Buenos Aires, it has culture, it breathes art, live 24 hours and to me, whatever they say, what I love is walking it ”she tells me. That night he was to walk it until dawn.
Lucilla , a globetrotting porteña who always ends up coming back, takes me out for a coffee that ends up being transformed into beer at bar of the Museum of Decorative Art . We talk about the world, how the rest of us see Argentines and how they see the rest of us. I realize that there are things that cross generations and looking towards Europe is one of them, the balance between criticism and national pride is another.
When I ask her about what Buenos Aires is for her, she answers me with the final part of a poem by Borges , precisely called 'Buenos Aires', which I feel compelled to reproduce raw because it explains itself: "Final shadow will be lost, lightly / It is not love that unites us, but horror / That may be why I love her so much". The next day she sends me a tango called You always come back to Buenos Aires. I say goodbye knowing that I will see her again.
With Fran, architect and plastic artist from Buenos Aires who moved to Barcelona 3 years ago but spends time in the city, we visit Recoleta walking to get to the Island, a little corner of the neighborhood with elevated stairs with views from the heights to Libertador Avenue. At 7 pm it is full of people doing sports but we We decided to eat a dulce de leche ice cream for poetic justice. It's never sweet enough nor is there anything better than bills (but that's another debate).
“The elegance of Buenos Aires It is something that surprises me every time I go. For me, this city is a great reflection of what we Argentines are as a society, a immigrant society that drinks from different cultures. And that is also clearly seen in the architecture” he explains to me while we review the buildings around us. A characteristic mix: elegant and chaotic.
I leave Fran with some watercolors in Plaza de Vicente López and I'm going to end the afternoon at a corner table reading Leila Guerriero. Book bought in Eterna Cadencia, of course.
Malloys Bar de Costa, Buenos Aires.
I finish with Micaela, Translation and Interpreting student, on a very hot afternoon, which takes me directly to the river bank, a Malloys Coast Bar. Micaela dreams of living in Europe for a while and between drinks she falls asleep while she tells me what she likes most about living here: “I love that the noise from the street does not stop until 3 in the morning any day.” Her favorite place is the lakes of Palermo. We spent the rest of the night with Buenos Aires slang classes. Now I know a little more, post.
Everyone told me about the green of its trees. And it is that perhaps it is not the same, perhaps that is impossible, but there is something implicit in the essence of the city that permeates it and that continues despite the blows of the years. Buenos Aires overwhelms and pushes to live higher, to breathe truth and to want to stay.
Cerati sang: You will see me return / to the city of fury. Now and always.