Shakira & Bar El Federal

Watching the Shakira concert on TV. Last I heard there were 200.000 people vying for 100.000 spots, and since Damian and Annemarie didn’t feel like competing, neither did I. I’ve been a bottomless pit today, I don’t know why. Since my bout with tonsillitis, I’ve been influenced by this blog I stumbled upon: Eat, Live, Run. It’s written by this vegetarian pastry chef. I have no clue who she is. But she always eats hearty breakfasts so I have tried to eat something that will stick to me all day as opposed to white bread medialunas. So today I ate before my run (a bowl of Fiber 1 mixed with mueslix yogurt, natural peanut paste, a sliced banana and psyllium husks) then afterwards treated myself to coffee while finishing my book at La Tolva nearby on the corner of Guemes and Billinghurst. And since they didn’t offer me any sort of cookie with my café con leche, I ordered un cuadrito de ricotta. I think I’ll stick with Havanna for coffee. Although I did like the motto on La Tolva’s napkins: Il caffe, por esser buono, deve essere nero como la notte, dulce como l’amore, e caldo como l’inferno. (Coffee, to be good, should be as black as night, as sweet as love, and as hot as Hell.) Who says I don’t speak Italian? (And you thought I was here to practice Spanish.)

So then after coffee and finishing The Poisonwood Bible, I had yet to hear from Annemarie or Silvana. We were supposed to go shopping at Unicenter. Turns out Annemarie had to run some errands with Damian, and since Silvana doesn’t have my number… and so it goes.

The just split screens to show both Mexico, D.F. and Buenos Aires in the benefit concerts. How strange that in Mexico the sky is still blue fading to dusk, whereas in Argentina it is pitch black with night at only 9:40 pm.

Anyway, since Jenny’s Saturdays usually consist of Irish dance class and studying, I was left on my own to explore the city. So I decided to see one of Emily’s favorite spots in Buenos Aires, Bar El Federal. I hopped the D Line to Catedral, where I took the E Line connection at Bolivar to Independencia. Everyone seems to ride the subte with hollow eyes and glum faces. Even I do; as I catch my refection in the windows of passing trains my sunken cheeks and tired eyes stare back at me. It is as if we are all bored with the necessity of public transportation. Don’t get me wrong, I still love it; but I am no longer wide-eyed with wonder about underground transport. As I climbed the stairs from the station the sky had grown overcast, ready to spill with raindrops but somehow the clouds held their weight. I walked down Estados Unidos to the corner of Peru and Carlos Calvo to find Emily’s beloved Bar El Federal, one of San Telmo’s Bares Notables. After perusing the rather large menu, I ordered a café con leche and un panqueque mixto. A panqueque is basically a crepe, and Jenny claims I can’t leave the Southern Hemisphere without trying a panqueque de dulce de leche. El Federal’s menu offers panqueques de crema as well, or you can order one of each (un mixto) as opposed to two of the same. I must say, I much preferred the panqueque de crema. I like dulce de leche, but it can be too strong in large quantities. It tastes heavy in my mouth. But if Michole misses it after just one week in Uruguay, I can’t imagine how I’ll feel after having it at my disposal for three months. So I sipped my coffee, read what the newspaper had to say about fashion -- denim in particular, and finished my panqueques before asking for the check. Two coffees and two sweets? It must be the weekend.

el exterior del Bar El Federal

el interior del Bar El Federal

Tomorrow we have a noon reservation for Olsen brunch, and hope to see the horse races afterward. This was all my idea, almost a month ago; I have become quite the planner.

Oh, and on the subte ride home from San Telmo, I took the C Line at Independencia to the D Line, and an eighty-something year old lady gestured to me to offer me her seat. “¿Estas embarazada?” she asked me. She thought I was pregnant! In her defense, my empire-waist top (an Easter present from my mother) does have a tendency to billow out around the belly and the lower neckline does reveal a bit more cleavage than I’d normally expose (again, thanks Mom.) Perhaps she saw a certain tiredness or desperation in my eyes as I scanned the car for an empty seat. I told her I could stand, but thank you. I couldn’t decide whether I should be mortified or just laugh, and I spent the rest of the ride thinking that if it had been a younger woman who asked me, I might’ve considered taking her seat. There’s a priority line for pregnant women in the grocery store. Next time I have to purchase more than ten items, I might consider wearing this top and arching my back a bit…