superfacilmente

Well the truth is that I am moving out of Rockland County, a suburb just north of New York City, into Brooklyn, NY starting June 1st. Hopefully, the move will be permanent. So with my last few days in the ‘burbs, I have wanted to take advantage of nature. While many will unfairly deplore the state of the nature in NYC, it is true that mountains, trees and dirt paths are somewhat lacking, so I hopped in my car and headed up to my friend and bandmember’s house in New Paltz, NY to take advantage of the spring, the sky and all that New Paltz has to offer.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in New Paltz, so it is likely to be a fairly constant addition to my Study Abroad section (along with Montreal and actual trips I plan on going on) but today I thought I would address the wonderful bike trail that runs through the outskirts of the little town.

The section of the trail that I took extended about 8 miles north to the town of Rosendale. Most of the trail is leafy, quiet, and made of gravel or dirt. It used to be an old railway (hence the name) and runs right past the semi-farm houses of New Paltz.

By far the best part of the trail was the end in Rosendale where one is led to a wooden bridge overlooking the town.

From that vantage point,  with the wooden bridge and the mountains, the tranquility is nearly palpable.

I highly recommend biking down into Rosendale to the Rosendale Cafe which supports a very decent menu

Originally, when I started to realize that my time in BsAs had to come to an end, I wanted to try to exact a clever and somewhat fantastic deception, namely to never say that I was going. I, had, and unfortunately still have, a backlog of nearly 70 unpublished beginnings of posts about the fair city and my hope was to publish them before my return to the U.S., where I would at least be staying for a year. In an ideal world, I would slowly phase back some of merely BsAs production to tell stories from around South American World, not dissimilar to my other, rarely posted on, Media Masher blog and would be able to use the relationships I had developed as a means of producing fresh and interesting material at the same rate that I had in BsAs.

Sadly, of course, this did not come to be. Instead, I came to my new job, teaching 13 year olds, and have had it, until very recently, take up not just my regular 8-3:30 day but often hours before and after it. Sadly this has put writing of all kinds on hold, and would be something I would like to remedy.

A while ago, in Buenos Aires, I got into a fight with a friend over the nature of blogs like this and his. My friend argued that blogs should act as portals to the reader, a means of understanding a singular point of view about subjects, something that I wonder if the other bloggers in BsAs agree with. I at the time was thinking of putting all my ideas, and blogs, into one source, a website where those of interest could see not just a travel blog, but a blog on media, a blog on writing, and a blog of personal exposition.

However, priorities have changed. My camera has been replaced and I find myself once again in a new city, attempting to still go out and explore while not working. My writing as a general has stagnated and I need to keep it going. So, with deference to my friend, I have chosen to employ his theory in practice.

Hence “Superfacilmente” will now be at least somewhat changed. In addition to providing the 70 or so blog entries on Argentina that I had initially intended, and hopefully will keep those of you in Argentina connected and interested, I will be posting rather extensive entries of my adventures in New York City, which is, arguably, a city at least on par with that of BsAs. Expect new New York City graffiti sections and extensive writing on that subject, from rest ‘raunt reviews to museum reviews to just talking about our first day of snow (today!). In addition, I am going to incorporate my music/media interests, writing (fictional and not) and opinions into this. Do not worry. I will do my best to separate each of these into Categories/Sections on the blog, so nobody gets weight down with too many of these rants. However, please feel free to comment on this change, blogs, or life in Argentina, in the future.

Thanks for listening

-M

For our first installment of our Study Abroad, I wanted to start by going to one of the closes excursions from the city proper. Outside of perhaps the Feria de Mataderos, guidebooks primarily recommend the rich suburb of San Isidro as a place that must be seen. It’s supposed to be a home to the elite of Argentina, who I suppose will commute into and out of the city, not too different from the suburbs of New York, particularly Westchester. I know that some might not be appealing to some, who imagine secluded mansions that can only be seen through a high walled fence, as well as suburban paved highways. However, during the spring and fall, the coastal town is supposedly gorgeous with the smell of oranges and jasmine and nice views across the river. Truth be told I decided to give San Isidro a try because of mostly economical reasons, mainly free shows that are advertised weekly in the Buenos Aires Herald.

The trip also gave me an opportunity to at least try out the Tren de La Costa, which runs along the coast of northern Buenos Aires up to the suburb of Tigre (which I plan to write about very soon). Getting to the train can be a bit confusing and no guide book really makes it clear.

After taking the regular train to Olivos, we stumbled along this section and that of the area, passing by, among other things, the very crowded wharf area (filled with boats) and a car show in a MacDonalds parking lot until we found our way to the very posh Tren de la Costa station that was also a mini-mall.

The trains themselves are very new and stations are extremely cute compared to the somewhat austere slabs that make up most of the stations, but really the differences are purely aesthetic. I imagine that during the summers and springs the trips would be a welcome vacation from the heat and doings of the city. Traveling along the coast is fairly expensive ($5 or U$D 1.75) but really it would be quite the site to see the different stations and the brightly colored trains. With San Isidro being only a few stops down the line, I didn’t get to see much more than a few mansions and the coast slowly starting to appear more and more on my right.

Arriving somewhat late in the day (around 4:30 pm) we missed some of the morning performances that are happening every Sunday for free in the San Isidro station. You can therefore imagine that the station is pretty impressive, in a consumer airport sort of way. Made up of an open promenade, the station, which is two floors high is filled with shops selling anything from clothing to food, all of it a tad overpriced and replete with the standard Coffee Store and Freddo among other things.

To my surprise (which may say a lot about me) this suburban center was absolutely packed! Filled to the brim with eager onlookers who couldn’t listened agog to the band named Deltoide, which apparently is a geometric term like a diamond, but also I believe could be a pun (mixing Delta, the area the train eventually leads to in the town of Tigre and Oide, as in listening). In either case, I found them to be a standard rock band for a free concert, playing blues and rock standards as well as jamming out on their own songs.

However, the people (particularly this one “happening” mom in red pants who spent most of the time before this picture bouncing her baby boy) seemed to love it.

We grabbed the closes table to the events at an outdoor cafe (not a good idea as the sun started to set) ordered our late late lunch and watched the rest of the show. Both restaurant and band proved at very least acceptable. While we enjoyed smoked venison sandwiches (a supposed northern Argentinian staple) and Patagonian tea, the band surprised everyone with their own version of Sweet Home Alabama, entitled, of course, Sweet Home Buenos Aires. The band showed a surprising amount of whit. Though I may have gotten the translation wrong. I believe the chorus was this:

Sweet Home Buenos Aires
Sweet Home Buenos Aires

Donde El Cielo Esta Gris
Where the Sky is Grey

Sweet Home Buenos Aires
Sweet Home Buenos Aires

Comdenado País
Condemned Country (On this last line tell me if I am wrong).

Still, nobody seemed to mind the lines or the comments and eventually the band closed their set close to dusk. Feeling the chill of winter coming quickly and harshly over the water, we decided to quickly get a glance of the somewhat famous San Isidro Feria, located next to the Tren de la Costa at a park on a hill that separates the Tren from the rest of the city.

The feria was fairly abuzz with activity despite the late hour, with plenty of the vendors sipping mate to keep warm. The wares looked fairly standard and perhaps didn’t weigh up to some of the real deals at places like Mataderos or Dorrego, but were certainly pleasant enough. I myself indulged in some artisanal Dulce de Leche Liquor. The scene was absolutely idyllic with the Gothic Cathedral looming over the park. For those that like such architecture, you couldn’t do much better.

Finally, passing through the park, and a few a statues we made our way across and back towards the regular Metrovia line (and yes you can take the regular train if money or time are any sort of factor. Passing quickly through the town, I found it quaint and safe with few people minding my taking photos of the many little standard shops that I imagine are in almost every suburban town. Frankly, the whole place reminded me of a larger Carmelo, minus a bit of the old style charm of the Uruguayan city if only because when in Carmelo, you feel like you have traveled back in time to maybe the ’50s or the the ’60s (expect another post on that coming up as well). Here, by contrast, while small cute and quaint, the city perhaps lacked a little bit of that old time charm, though i have to say that I can’t help but smile at any place that has a skateboarding Santa on one of their toy shops (even if that same Santa is in BsAs). After all of that, we happily hopped on the warm and crowded train back to Retiro and home.

I think, ultimately, comparisons between San Isidro and Westchester are a bit false. I see why initially the two riverside areas are put up next to each other in some guide books. Both have affluent communities, town centers and are accessible by train. Both are adjacent to great and vast cities. However, and this again may speak to my bias, I rarely see Westchester as a great place to go for an excursion on a hot day in New York City. Instead, I find myself going to City Island, Fire Island, and some of the other unique little towns and neighborhoods that have popped up in the Five Bouroughs themselves. I imagine San Isidro might have a similar appeal. With a bit of tourism, as well as easy access, I imagine this place would be great in the summer; warm, colorful and inviting, the town (which I believe turned 300 last year) probably even has areas for people to take a dip and enjoy a spring day. While perhaps not great in the cold weather, because of it’s proximity to the city, it’s nice parks and it’s quaint town feel, San Isidro wouldn’t be a bad place to go on a Sunday, when the skies are blue and the day is warm.