Cordoba 456
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I’m still working on figuring out the elevator, which sometimes seems to come to the 10th floor instead of the 11th, but regardless this is the classiest apartment I’ve ever had. My building towers over its surroundings; even half-way up it, I have a view over nearly everything else. From the corner window in my bedroom, I can even see the mouth of the River Plate, with ferries and freighters coming and going. And the skyline is dark enough that at night I can even see a few stars.
One wall of my apartment is composed entirely of windows, all the way from the kitchen through the living room through the bathroom through my bedroom. One gentle push and these windows slide smoothly open, allowing you to lean out over Avenida Córdoba 12 floors down. There are no screens or barriers of any kind. (This seems to be standard here. Aren’t there mosquitoes? I saw one store selling bug screens, but they seemed almost like novelty items.) It’s freeing to have the outside air so close. In New York I thought I was lucky to have 2 small windows, which could be laboriously opened to expose 1m x 1m openings. In the morning here I slide open the glass and suddenly I’m almost outside.
There are downsides to these windows, too. An hour ago I thought my apartment was on fire until realizing the smell was just coming in the window. Still somewhat concerned, I went downstairs to watch the fireman (I only saw one) trying to deal with whatever was causing smoke to pour out of the mall next door. At that moment I realized something that is missing from the streets of this city: fire hydrants. The poor fireman had to run his hose over to my building, perhaps 100 meters away, which required linking several long hoses together. It remained to be seen how he was going to get to the roof of the 4-story mall, but I was too cold and had to head back inside (what to make of the weather here?). My conclusion: It’s best not to have a fire in Buenos Aires.
Smoke is not a common problem, but I worried that noise would be. Up this high, the unbelievably loud bus engines still make enough of a racket that they kept me awake my first night here. The next night, though, I returned to my nyc habit of sleeping with a fan on, and all was well. If you’re awake, or, I suppose, if you’re not such a light sleeper, the bus noise isn’t that bad – just a continuous rumble. It really is continuous… there is hardly a moment when I can’t look down and see at least one bus. So I’ll have to get used to hearing the pulse of the city at all hours of the day. At this point, that sound is pretty exciting.
antes era lazy sunday
despues tenés big
comentarios
Mom
The air is surprisingly clear, from your pictures. How many folks own cars?
[enviado el 06 Nov 02]
david
Suprisingly many, but downtown traffic is at least 2/3 taxis and busses, which is probably worse than lots of people driving their own cars. I guess besides the downtown traffic there isn't that much. i haven't seen anything approaching a traffic jam, or even the daily rush hour in philadelphia, save the occasional detours around protests. there aren't hills to keep the pollution in here (like santiago, the worst smog i've seen), and there's a river (a big one, you can't see the other side) on the west side, which maybe helps.
[enviado el 06 Nov 02]