my hunger-related strike

This evening I committed an unholy act in the city of Buenos Aires. Are you ready for this?? I ate dinner...at 7:30 p.m. Oh, I can just hear the collective gasp from the audience now. I can also see your brows furrowing in confusion. In case I've neglected to make this clear, Buenos Aires is a city for late sleepers and night owls. Due to its Spanish and Italian roots, the dinner hour comes somewhere around 10 p.m. How does a society function on such a crazy schedule, you ask? Well, for starters, there are very few morning people around here. My first class of the day is always in Puerto Madero, a neighborhood that houses lots of large corporations with posh offices. My earliest class of the week starts at 7:45 a.m. Without fail, every time I roll into work, I check The Coffee Store (an upscale café chain) for patrons. In five months, I have never seen a customer in there before 8:20 in the morning. To give this oddity its full impact, let's imagine this happening in Los Angeles. Picture yourself walking down Figueroa Street downtown among all the high rises of corporate America. You stroll past the dueling Starbucks directly across the street from each other near Seventh Street. You peer inside only to see baristas wiping the counters and loading the coffee bean grinders without a customer in sight. There are no gym goers, no early worm getters, no news junkies reading the New York Times, no ladies who lunch waiting to get the drop on a Macy's early bird sale, no "eight pump sugar free vanilla triple Venti half-caf, non-fat Caramel Macchiato with whip and extra caramel" fiends itching for their first $5 fix of the day. You glance at your watch and notice that it's 7:45 in the morning...on a Wednesday. You begin to wonder if there's been simultaneous terrorist attacks on the 10, the 110, and the 5 freeways to prevent everyone from getting to work because nothing else could explain the complete absence of caffeine addicts at such an hour. To illustrate a bit further...once upon a time, I was a Starbucks barista at the flagship store in downtown Santa Barbara, that's right, sleepy, touristy little Santa Barbara. I always worked the opening shift, and let me tell you that a day never passed without multiple customers in the door before 6 a.m. That's why we opened at 5:30 a.m., after all. By seven-thirty, the place was packed, and it stayed that way until well after 10. But down here in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, folks won't have it. Sure, a lot of them get in to the office at 8:30 or 9:00, but they sleep so late that few of them have time for a café con leche before punching in for the day. Of course, there's no Starbucks here either...for now anyway.

Whenever I have visitors down here, they always ask how the locals are able to make it through the day seeing as how they eat dinner so late. The only insight I can share is that the lunch rush at my favorite spots downtown runs from about 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. On top of that, cafes start to fill up around five o'clock. Sure lots of folks are simply drinking cortados (a.k.a. macchiato = espresso topped with foam), but many will partake of merienda, which is like a second breakfast or snack. There are usually merienda specials for medialunas (small croissants), tostados (grilled cheese with or without ham), and tortas (cakes). My regular cafes will regularly have plenty of patrons until around 8 p.m. I guess that's how the locals keep their blood sugar levels up until dinner time.

The other question that visitors like to ask me is "Come on, Carly. Do you really eat dinner so late?" It's almost as if eating after 8 p.m. is an impossibility. *Sigh* Well, my answer to that is I usually dine at around 10 or 10:30. I've seen porteños eat as early as 9 o'clock, but even that feels a bit early. From what I can tell, on a usual workday you can expect to eat with locals between 10 and 11:30. Of course, on the weekends, all bets are off. You might go out to eat at midnight or later on a Friday or Saturday night. Anyway, I had a fairly easy time adjusting to the late dinner schedule because I finish work at 8 or 9 p.m. on most days, so it's not like I'm knocking off of work at 6 p.m. and then fooling around doing nothing until it's time to eat. Also, from what my students tell me, they generally work late too. Regular office folks can work until seven or later depending on how busy they are. I've heard differing theories on why they work so late here. Some of my students say that Americans are more efficient than Argentines are. Some Americans point out that Argentines take a longer lunch than folks do in the States. I think there's a bit of truth in both of these assertions.

The only other thing to point out about schedules is that if you're interested in going clubbing here, you better take a siesta. If you get to a club at 2 a.m. you will be one of the first to arrive. Yep, when it's last call at home, porteños are just getting ready to go out. Obviously, you can easily stay out until past dawn or even much later. I recommend catching a nap at around seven or eight if you want to keep up with the club kids around here. Which brings me to my last most asked visitor question, "When do people sleep around here?" Um, they don't. Sleep is for wimps. I have a number of students who constantly yawn through my classes, and no, that's not because my classes are boring. I even teach dirty words upon request. No seriously, I think that some of my students are part vampire because they never seem to get seven hours, let alone a full healthy eight. I don't know how they do it because I take naps between classes, so I'll repeat my standard line on this one. On Saturday night, they roll down the black out shutters and sleep all through Sunday. Think I'm kidding? The locutorio (internet café) across the street from my apartment opens at 5 p.m. on Sundays and closes around midnight. You tell me, hoss. Are they part vampire? Are they professional power nappers? Do they catch up for a week's worth of sleep deprivation in one day? Why not? I try not to judge, just to learn. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm giving up my siestas. That's just nonsense!

So all this brings me back to the beginning. My very own senior citizen early bird special of spaghetti at 7:30 this evening. Why did I do it? Well, for one, I was hungry as all get out having sort of skipped lunch. As I made my way home I thought about sucking it up and eating at 10 like normal. Then I turned down my street only to run smack dab into a giant protest filled with banners, drums, whistles, and chants. As I waded my way through the protestors, I thought of how my evil laundry lady shrunk my sweaters today because she didn't understand me when I told her "wash only". I also recalled how the internet service that I ordered from Speedy DSL three weeks ago has yet to arrive and how I haven't been able to call through to my voicemail for four days now. At that moment I snapped. I made my way up to my apartment, opened my window wide to catch all the drumbeats and put on a little Cannonball Adderley as I boiled a pot of pasta water. Even though I had to decided to rebel, I had to give into the protesting masses outside. They left me no other choice. Besides, I missed most of the protest yesterday on my street as I was catching up on my beauty sleep with my daily little siesta.