{"id":9039,"date":"2019-01-16T11:58:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T10:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=9039"},"modified":"2025-04-16T16:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T14:38:11","slug":"chapter-34-visiting-argentina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/siv-sketches.net\/?page_id=9039","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 35 — Visiting Argentina"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plaza de Mayo, ‘La columna de Libertad. — Left ‘El Cabildo’, used as seat of the town concil during the colonial era.<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1990 we had the idea of going to Buenos Aires and Argentina generally to visit our very dear friend Roberto and his partner, Marta, a psychotherapist.<\/p>\n

Roberto had moved back to Buenos Aires in 1981, and we had a party for him at rue Caillaux with most of his and our friends. We missed him very very much. He was so often at our place that it seemed somewhat empty without him.<\/p>\n

I suggested using some of the money I had inherited from my stepfather, Arne, who must have invested the money pretty well that he inherited from his Tante Anna via his mother, Tante Gerda. <\/p>\n

So I took a hunk out of my dwindling Swedish bank account (the first hunk went to the building of our precious veranda in ’87). And it was a good thing too that Arne’s money came to use while it was still worth something. With the inflation that has taken place since 1986, the money would be crumbs by now. <\/p>\n

Tante Anna was a legend. She lived to be almost a hundred and she resided in a 12-room apartment on \u00d6stermalm<\/em> in Stockholm, not far from Karlaplan<\/em>. She had at least two maids (but no butler) and when Mother and Arne went to visit her, a visit at a formal visiting hour, they gave their cards to the maid who opened the door, and they were subsequently asked to step into the yellow ‘salon<\/em>‘, or the blue ‘salon<\/em>‘ or the rose-colored ‘salon<\/em>‘. Never mind which one of Tante Anna’s various ‘salons’. My mother had to be introduced to Tante Anna —  it was a condition for the upcoming marriage?. The dowager must not be ignored.<\/p>\n

Tante Anna and her since a long time defunct husband, uncle Ernst, were the couple who usually invited young Gerda to accompany them on their travels to Italy and France. Tante Anna and her sister, Tante Gerda’s mother, nicknamed Stassi, originated from H\u00f6gan\u00e4s, a town  in the very southernmost province of Sk\u00e5ne. This legendary ‘Stassi’ was much admired for her beauty, by King Oscar II among others,<\/p>\n

A legend about ‘Stassi’ has it that young Gerda was walking on Strandv\u00e4gen with her nurse one sunny day, when King Oscar happened to pass by in his carrosse<\/em>. The king told his driver to stop. When he was told who the pretty girl was he said, as the legend goes, “Such a pretty girl. You will be as pretty as your mother. How well the king knew beautiful ‘Stassi’ is the object of her grandsons’ joking about this episode — the grandsons being Arne and his brother Birger.<\/p>\n

The clearly very well-off young ladies, Anna and ‘Stassi’, married Stockholmers, Gerda’s mother, ‘Stassi’, married a very successful import businessman August Julius, whose business was the first one in Sweden to import bananas.  Anna married an apothecary, which was obviously a very lucrative business in those days. His ‘apotek<\/em>‘ or pharmacy was in Sundsvall, a town up north on the east coast of Sweden. How he managed to accumulate such a considerable fortune the way he did from what is called an ‘apotek<\/em>‘ in Swedish, seems amazing today.<\/p>\n

The times they are a’changing.<\/p>\n

_________________<\/p>\n

We arrived in Buenos Aires from Florida on a sunny day in early August and Marta’s younger son was at the airport to meet us. Wonderful. We really appreciated that.<\/p>\n

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Marta Roberto and Siv eating riz-de-veau — overlooking the Rio de la Plat<\/p><\/div>\n

We were installed in Marta’s  nice house in downtown B.A. The very first day we went to a restaurant right on the big river, Rio de la Plata, and we had the most delicious deep-fried riz-de-veau<\/em> (sweetbreads), which John and I both think is about the best meat you can get. Our days or probably a couple of weeks in Buenos Aires were filled with festivities, late nights, tango shows and caf\u00e9s with delicious ingredientes — <\/em>munchies, if that vague word can explain to some extent what those delicious things were..<\/p>\n

On the first day after our arrival we went to a caf\u00e9 in the neighborhood of Recoleta and had a very nice time with some of Marta’s and Roberto’s friends who spoke French.<\/p>\n

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The Recoleta Cemetery on a peaceful day, Roberto and Siv and John behind the camera.<\/p><\/div>\n

We walked around with Roberto in the beautiful and huge Recoleta cemetery which has mausoleums as big as houses. I guess it is one up on P\u00e8re Lachaise in Paris, even though this Paris cemetery is also much lauded for its peaceful beauty.<\/p>\n

On our way from Recoleta we came across a very colorful scene. At Plaza de San Martin, a fiesta de San Martin was taking place. Masses of people were celebrating the Spanish General Jos\u00e9 San Martin, El Libertador<\/em> of Argentina, Chile and Peru around 1814. Unending processions of people in colonial costumes, music, military and horse-drawn carts were all part of the huge celebration.<\/p>\n

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fiesta de San Martin celebrating the liberation of Argentina.<\/p><\/div>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Obviously, since Marta worked as a psychotherapist during the days she could not accompany us on our late evening sprees.<\/p>\n

The tango shows were amazing. We had never seen real tango, even though I had actually danced some kind of tango with one-time friend Sven Heurgren, Sweden’s first, in fact the world’s first, ombudsman (consumer ombudsman in his case, but that was many years later). I was very young, and so was he, and he was really my sister Gun’s boyfriend. It seems amazing to me how, if you have a good dancer who knows how to lead, it is possible to do the most unexpected things when you dance. It is quite amazing what a hand on your back can achieve, when the man knows what he is doing.<\/p>\n

But that was a summer on the west coast of Sweden  and the year was 1949. Here we were in Buenos Aires in 1990. The tango was not quite the same kind. Only the rhythm was the same. And there was no bandoneon in Sweden.<\/p>\n

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Roberto , looking a bit blurry-eyed into the kitchen from the landing outside.<\/p><\/div>\n

More often than not we went out in the evenings to see tango spectacles<\/em> or just to go to a nice caf\u00e9 to have an ap\u00e9ritif that would always be served ed with ingredientes, <\/em>that were so plentiful that you barely needed dinner afterwards. Or we would go to a tango show from the caf\u00e9 and have a late supper in a restaurant after the show. 
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Tango is intoxicating. The music alone carries you away to another world, but the sensuous and graceful dancing makes you feel pure ecstasy. The styles, however, varied some, but the women always wore the heavy heeled shoes that were ‘<\/span>en vogue’ <\/em> in the twenties. Oh, tango — it plays on your heart strings. And of course it takes you back to an era that has by now been gone for a hundred years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once, an event which we will never forget, we came out from a tango show and found that the show was going on in the street. Once a week, traffic was banned from this street, known as the Broadway of BA, and people danced in the street. Quite a few couples were actually having their own little show in the street. They were good, and we were watching them for quite a while. This was seven years after the fall of the military junta. I think it is safe to say that this kind of joy could not have taken place in the streets during the seven years of the terrorist regime. The 1976 coup by Juan Per\u00f3n was overthrown. He is, however, a man whom I have never managed to get a grip on. For the people, or just for himself? <\/p>\n

_______________<\/p>\n

Our visit to Buenos Aires was a whirlwind of tango evenings, caf\u00e9s with delicious ingredientes, <\/em>that always went with the drinks, restaurants, walks around the city — and what a city!  We bought a few leather things that would have cost a mint in Europe and that are still in use.<\/p>\n