Interior Design, Fashion and Food

I didn't get up until 11:30 this day because I had waited up late for Lisa to come home so that I could let her in. Ultimately, she ended up staying out so late that she could no longer get a bus home, so she called her roommate's cell phone to have him relay the message to me so that I could turn in for the night.

When I got up, I took my time showering and getting ready for the day, organizing my suitcase, making the bed and farting around on the internet. Lisa went directly from her friend's house in the morning to her English class and I didn't see her until she came back from that in the afternoon. I took some time to photograph my surroundings, paying special attention to the little mundane household things that usually go unnoticed, but that were different from what I had back home in the U.S.

Lisa's room

Covered patio outside Lisa's window

Stairway leading up to another bedroom and roof terrace. Note the small bathroom underneath. The door just beyond leads into the kitchen.

Large kitchen with gas water heater and miniature stove

Large living room

The two-chamber bathroom with its medley of tile designs. There is a bidet looming in the shadows next to the toilet.

I don't know how the designer of this sink imagined anyone could clean their hands properly with the tiny spigot so close to the edge of the sink.

Push to flush the toilet

Push to switch on the light

Bars on windows are common here

Just as Lisa arrived, my internet surfing turned up a place for Charlie and I to hold our wedding reception, so I booked it without delay. Once that was achieved, we hung out for a bit, chatting about my wedding plans while Lisa prepared for her yoga class in San Telmo. For some reason, I misunderstood and thought that Lisa was going to teach a private class that evening, not realizing that it was a public class that I could have taken. As such, I didn't dress for the occasion and neither of us realized our thought discrepancy until it was actually time for the class.

We had set out early enough to be able to visit the Fashion History Museum on the border of the Monserrat and San Telmo neighborhoods, a small, free attraction displaying garments from the late 19th century to the 1980s. There were a couple of fashion design and sewing classes going on in different rooms while we toured. The contents of the museum was not terribly interesting and we were not allowed to photograph anything, but at least it was free. I didn't pay very close attention to what I was looking at anyway because all I could think about was the fact that I would be married within the next six months.

The most entertaining thing about the museum was the ridiculous cardboard cutout costumes at the end, into which I enthusiastically inserted my face.

Fabulous, darling!

Poppycock!

Dancing a medieval jig

We visited the prohibitively expensive gift shop rather briefly and then exited. It was then that we realized our very different assumptions about whether the yoga class was private or public and whether I would be attending it. Since I was wearing jeans, I opted instead for wandering around San Telmo while there was still a little daylight. I walked a wide zigzag around the area and then went back to Café La Poesía.

I sat down facing the opposite direction from the day before so that I could appreciate the other side of the restaurant. As I took my seat, a waiter who was frustrated with another customer breezed by grumbling the words, "¡Que chingue a su madre!" (literally, "He can go fuck his mother!") and not so under his breath. An elderly woman and a child who had been dining there left and then came back shortly afterward complaining about a lost wallet. Nearly the whole time I was there, a strange older man sitting diagonally from me stared at me unflinchingly and with a completely neutral face. It was unsettling, to say the least.

I had barely eaten anything that day so I ordered a supposedly small tortilla Española and a tea with milk. Suddenly a woman walked through the front door, sat at the pretty black piano, opened a book of music, and began to play. She was about my age and about as classically trained as I was. She played a set of fairly well-known classical pieces and, like I would, did so with a little too much rubato at times. Her style was more about feeling than technical accuracy. I teared up when she played Moonlight Sonata, as I often do when beautiful music hits my ears.

Everyone in the restaurant carried on with their conversations as if nothing had changed when I felt that they should have fallen silent and focused their senses on the transcendental experience this woman was offering to us.

My tortilla, the one the waitress called "chiquitita" (the little one) was too big and filled with yummy, salty sausage. At some point during the pianist's performance I just sort of forgot about the food. The staring man finally got up and left, continuing to stare at me as he walked across the restaurant and went out the door. I felt relieved. I don't know why, but I assumed he was a foreigner. I also assumed he was a complete weirdo. Even more incredibly, a couple minutes later he returned and resumed staring.

The pianist finished after what seemed like nearly an hour of playing and made her rounds with a bolo hat in hand to collect donations. I gave her five pesos, thanked her for playing and told her that it was beautiful and that she was very talented. She smiled big and very humbly thanked me. The radio clicked back on. The Beatles were playing and my waitress started shimmying at the bar.

I left Café la Poesía and met Lisa at the door of the hidden kitchen event we would be attending that evening. The name of it is Jueves a la Mesa (Thursday at the Table) and it was created and hosted by Lisa's boss at Buena Onda (and also its co-founder), Meghan Lewis. This particular meal was attended by about ten people from a variety of countries and backgrounds who had heard about the affair one way or another. The food at Jueves a la Mesa is always vegetarian and sometimes vegan and has a different theme every week. This time it was South African cuisine, which I knew nothing about, but found to be interesting.

Intimate table setting. We were allowed to draw on the table.

Meghan gives an introduction to the food we'll be served.

Dinner guests from all over the world.

Appetizer and the cow I drew

Second course, a vegetable pancake

Bobotie

After dinner Meghan served her homemade chocolates and asked us to guess the secret ingredient. After a couple of bites I was able to determine that it was peppercorn and, as a result, I won an extra piece of chocolate. 

Once the party began to wind down, Lisa and I went out to a nearby bus stop where we waited an eternity for our bus to arrive and then took the long, drowsy ride back to Chacarita. We were both quite ready for sleep by the time we got home.