Burritos At 37,000 Feet

So this will serve as my first South American blog-writing endeavor...and it would seem appropriate to start with a new level of enjoyment of a foodstuff that indeed comes from the latin american world, the exalted burrito. I have eaten burritos a lot of times and in a lot of places. Places where you wouldn´t expect to find a burrito. Places like South Africa, Thailand, New Zealand and France. Also I have eaten burritos in some of the burrito meccas of our fine continent, namely, the taco trucks of the west coast and the wonderful taquerias of the Mission district in San Francisco, and of course in Mexico. The best burrito I have ever had comes from a place on Haight Street at Fillmore called Cuco´s, the worst burrito I ever had was probably the one I had in Thailand. (They overcompensate with thier own cuisine, no doubt about it. I wasn´t bitching...) So all of this burrito-rambling is leading to the place where I had never had the pleasure of eating a burrito...on a plane flying to Mexico City!! This was no shabby burrito either. Yes, okay, it was not algo especial de El Buen Sabor o Pancho Villa, but it was a mexican burrito at high altitude!!! Beans and cheese and shredded pollo rojo...mmm. This is cool and even while I am overblowing this point...it made me a happy camper nevertheless. But I´ll move on.
I landed in Buenos Aires 24 hours after leaving the warmth of my short term futon home in Ty´s livingroom in Portland. I was expecting the airport to be mayhem-ish but it ended up being pretty calm and predictable and I caught a very easy-like-sunday-morning shuttle into El Retiro where I proceeded to find my home for the time being in San Telmo. For those of you who have been here before you have your own impressions but mine are based on experiences I had in Europe and Asia mostly. A lot of diesel engines and exhaust and an air-pollution problem that doesn´t bother me as much as take me back to those places through my nose memory. The streets are narrow and there is a sense of bustle here that I have never seen in any North American city. I sat in a cafe this morning watching people walk thier dogs and go to and from work and talk and traverse here and there. It is a pleasant cacophony that never questions itself. This is a nice ambiance in my experience. It doesn´t disturb me or make me want to leave or escape it with earplugs or an iPod. These are the great places in our world to watch things happen...to watch existence go down. All of the time I have spent on streets watching people go by...patterns form. North America has a sort of inborn embarrassment that most people probably don´t realize that they are projecting. Europe has its history and you can see the confidence that comes from culturally fortified idea imprinting. Asia has its population constraints and related machinations and one gets the feeling that there is much more going on than one can see with ones eyes. Africa is often lucky to have pavement at all and there is a beauty and desperation in the eyes of those who pass by. Buenos Aires has color and character and a lot of beautiful people. What am I getting at with all this? What am I saying exactly? That being from the "most powerful country in the world", it is a nice thing to find a more honest feeling in the streets of a country that we could feasibly destroy without even beginning to put a dent into our arsenal or weapons budget. That, while I love the country I was born in for certain reasons, I am happy to find qualities that feel like home in places that we learn nothing about as children of the empire. There is a good feeling amongst the chaos of these streets on these other continents that I would classify as this, among other and more simple things: These people are not warmongers...these are people who are the same as we are in so many ways...the same as we all are. They are into futbol and family and drinking some beer. They like to smooch thier sweethearts and get into mischief and hope for some things and mourn for other things. It is not as though we don´t all do these things, but in these places it feels as though we are not so ego-focused. We are not so wrapped up in the idea of being the center of the world, the most important thing in the world, with all the things we want orbiting us and us alone. So now you´ll all think I am a socialist!!! Ha ha! I say "Eff You" to all the -ists and -isms, and I give a high five to humanity being humanity... Ah, but this first blog has gone from burritos to politics way too quickly. I´ll try to just talk about the things that I do from now on, with no thinking involved...ha ha, just kidding!!! Good times, good times. The truth of that matter is that I am just happy to be here...on the road again. Eating empanadas and toasted sandwiches with jamon y queso and drinking 2 dollar bottles of good wine with beef raviolis in garlic sauce. I will probably come back fat, drunk and sped off my ass from 50 cent cortado coffee drinks!
So that is it for today. I´m going to the park to chill. I hope you are all doing well my friends. Matteo

-PS, on the plane eating burritos with me were the Dandy Warhols. A semi famous rock band from Portland. They were gonna play a show in Mexico City...a rock show fueled by the mighty high-altitude burrito!!!