not quite a hanukkah miracle

so not to be rude or disrespectful, but i've been noticing that things here in argentina are made in a way ... oh, how to say it politely ... like crap.  we have this thing in our kitchen called a calefactor.  the calefactor heats, or is supposed to heat, the water in the apartment.  it is a simple idea, really.  there is a pilot light which is to remain lit all the time as a signal that gas is not leaking into your apartment slowly killing you.  then, when it is time to use hot water, there is a great whooshing of flames inside the calefactor which immediately heat the water you are using.  simple, right?

here are the problems:
1.  often the pilot light goes out for no reason.  we have told numerous handymen this, but they say that the problem is not the innocent calefactor but the fact that the calefactor is so close to the kitchen window.  obviously, it must be a breeze from the kitchen window which we keep CLOSED AT ALL TIMES that is blowing out the pilot light.  i ask you, why put this thing near a window then?  and why is  it constructed in a way that a small passing breeze could blow out the flame in the first place?  sometimes, and this is my favorite, when someone tries to use the hot water and the calefactor actually works, the whooshing of the flames is so intense that the wind that the fire creates (or lack of wind?) actually puts out the pilot light.  ironic, isn't it?

2.  frequently (usually in the morning when i am trying to take a shower before work) even if they pilot light is lit, the flames do not catch, and then the gas is going but it's not on fire, and therefore it is not heating the water.  when this happens, you need to go over to the calefactor and turn the knob ever so slightly, testing it out in each position, until you are able to find that magic spot where the gas will actually catch fire (please note: the magic spot is different every time).

so recently we had a handyman in to "fix" the calefactor.  and for about 5 days we actually didn't have any problems.  the pilot light stayed lit, and when we turned on the hot water, the calefactor automatically began heating the water, without any fidgeting or fussing.  AMAZING!  it was, as the bolshevik brought to my attention, quite nearly a buenos aires hanukkah miracle.  but as we approached the eighth day, with fingers crossed that the pilot light could stay lit for eight whole miraculous days without needing to be attended to by us or a technician, what happened? ... the calefactor failed us!  and now we are back to this (several times a day) ...

spare room buenos aires: the exciting conclusion OR the bartender and the bolshevik

living room with cable television
 (not just a physical cable,
but also a connection to a
paid account that transmits
television programming
into the tv for us to watch!)

you may be wondering to yourself, "self, i wonder what happened with miss dewey d and her apartment dilemna?" well, we were able to find a very nice two-bedroom apartment only a few blocks away from our old apartment. it's good because that way we still know where everything is in the neighborhood.  and i am happy to say that our new landlady appears to be a non-psycho. say what? yes, it's true.

1 out of 2 balconies

and get this, when things are broken in the apartment, she promptly sends people to fix said things.  now, that is not to say that these people actually fix the things that are broken ... on no, that would be expecting too much.  but they do show up with tools and tinker around and make loud clanging sounds as though they're hard at work.  and even though that isn't quite as good as actually having things be fixed, i appreciate the illusion that they're creating.  

living room

anyhoo, we've been living here since november and i think it is safe to say that we will not be moving into another apartment during the remainder of our stay.  (fingers crossed!)  for those of you who may have lost track, this is now the third apartment we've lived in here in lovely buenos aires.

the apartment has a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms, and two balconies (one off the living room and one off the master bedroom).

master bedroom

you may have picked up that we do in fact have a spare room in our apartment.  what on earth on we doing with this spare room you ask?  well, the bolshevik and i have taken on a flatmate who will hereby be referred to as "the bartender."  the bartender is someone we knew from nyc (yes that's right all the cool kids from nyc are moving to buenos aires) and he has a tendency to make us cocktails.  not a bad trait in a flatmate if you ask me.

kitchen (with the world's
weakest washing machine)

so all in all it's pretty amusing here in the new apartment, much like an episode of three's company, except that none of us are pretending to be gay in order to live in the building.

the bar

this brings me to a question that has been plaguing me as of late ... why did people have to pretend to be gay (or cross-dress) just to get an apartment in the 70s?  was the housing market that bad?   i think we can assume that television was accurately portraying a serious societal issue here.  i'm so glad that we live in a time where people no longer have to live a life of deception just to get a decent place to live.

this week on spare room: buenos aires edition

this week on spare room ...

miss dewey decimal and her bolshevik are forced to flee their all-in-white apartment and move into a friend's spare room.

say what?!

it's a long story dear blog readers, but basically my bolshevik lost his cell phone. (then he lost his replacement cell phone, but that's less important)  SO, even though we alerted our landlady that the phone was lost (since she is responsible for the bill, and we just pay her for said phone), she somehow believed that we were responsible for paying for the 500 pesos in calls which were made in the two weeks that followed.  apparently, telling someone that you lost their phone is not enough information, so she decided instead of calling the phone company and canceling the phone (which is in her name), she would do absolutely nothing.

good plan.

this is quite typical behavior for her.  it's quite similar to her reaction to the fact that we don't have cable (or even a television in the apartment) even though both are supposed to be included in the price of the rent.  or her reaction to the fact that the handle broke off our oven door while i was baking cookies, and then the windowpane of the oven door fell out, leaving us without a working oven for 5 weeks and counting. she is quite good at doing nothing.  

but when she came to our apartment screaming about responsibility and how we owed her 3,000 pesos (yes, somehow the price went from 500 pesos to 3,000 pesos all in the course of one argument), we decided that we'd had enough.

so we absconded in the middle of the night, in a "midnight flit" as it were, and are now taking refuge in a spare room.  this spare room also doubles as a storage room for various pieces of luggage and random personal belongings.  needless to say, adding the bolshevik and myself and all of our own crap has made the spare room quite snug.  

but fear not!  i believe we may have found a new apartment to move into next week.  tune in next time to spare room to see what happens next!

unbeknownst to me, i am now a member of the bourgeoisie

i would like to preface this blog post with a caveat ... i have never had my own cleaning lady before, mostly due to the fact that i couldn't afford it.

and yet, when i received an e-mail from my landlady the other day i was truly shocked and appalled to find out that our all-in-white apartment does not include weekly maid service.  instead we have to pay 12 pesos an hour ($3) for such luxuries.  i am shocked.  

and of course the bolshevik is refusing to pay.  he thinks we can change our own sheets and mop our own floors.  (as i have done my whole adult life)  

but now all of a sudden i cannot believe the injustice of it all that we do not have these services for free.  surely, i shouldn't have to clean my own dishes 7 days a week?  i am entitled to a dish-free day, no?  

i'll tell you, after only six weeks of having someone come in weekly to do dishes, mop floors, wipe down surfaces, and change the sheets ... i have become quite used to this luxurious lifestyle.  i don't know if i can ever go back to the way things were.

lo suspiro.

buenos aires: everyone shall have ice cream, and everyone shall have a maid

it's been quite a journey, dear blog readers, but we finally made it to buenos aires!  (la paz was rather boring and unworthy of a blog post)  you're probably asking yourself, "self, were miss dewey d and her bolshevik greeted with a parade to welcome them to argentina?"  well, dear blog readers, the answer is yes.  (if by parade you mean upbeat political protest). 

anyway, as soon as we arrived we hit the ground running (after a day of napping), and began the search for an apartment.  who needs to find a job first?  we need to live somewhere, no? 

it seems that in buenos aires there is a huge number of furnished apartments that are rented out on a weekly/monthly basis, so that was a bit of good news.  and the rent prices cover all utilities, including electricity, internet (usually wifi), cable, local phone ... some apartments even come with a cell phone that you just need to add money to.  what luxury!  nyc could learn a thing or two from buenos aires landlords.

apartments here also seem to include maid service.  at first, being the members of the proletariat that we are, we looked down upon this.  surely we don't need maid service.  we will gladly pay less money and clean the apartment ourselves.  but this turned out to be an impossibility.  even the cheapest apartments come with weekly maid service.  at one point the bolshevik asked a prospective landlord if the apartment came with a maid, and the landlord looked at us as though we had asked something really obvious like "does the apartment a door?"  si, claro!  of course there is a maid!

now apartment hunting is hard work, so often we had to stop at freddo between viewings.  it's a rough life, dear blog readers.   for those of you who have never been to Bs As, freddo offers a variety of delicious fresh ice cream flavors, and typically you get two flavors per cone.  the bolshevik and i have decided that not only will we make it our mission to try every flavor available, but we will also rank the flavors and try to determine what the best flavor combinations are.  in the week that we have been in buenos aires, we have already had freddo 4 times. we're off to a strong start.  

in the first weekend we looked at about 10 apartments.  we found a rather tiny place in a very nice neighborhood, and decided to set up shop there.  it's a loft of sorts, with one small room with a kitchen, table and chairs, and bathroom on the bottom floor, then a spiral staircase to a bedroom above.  there isn't much room, but there's a cozy charm to it and it's super cheap. 

we have already found our "it" apartment (more details to come), but we don't move in until mid-july.  but do not fret dear blog readers, because both apartments come with maid service.  phew!