Oliver Hartman

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I’m from Maine and sometimes grow a moustache.

Author Oliver Hartman Born of a woman, I grew up in the state of Maine; Vacationland to some, homeland to me. I attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts where I successfully avoided being mugged or beat up. Upon completion of my undergraduate work I moved to Boston and got a job as a waiter in an effort to enrage my parents, allowing my Psychology and Biology degrees to collect dust.

My travels in Central and South America began with a month in Granada, Nicaragua where I rediscovered my ineptitude for foreign languages and saw Daniel Ortega reinstated as president. After a few days in Costa Rica, including a night at Jaco Beach twenty-four hours after four people were murdered, my travel plans quickly shifted bypassing a southward trip through Panama, Venezuela, and Brazil due to the rainy season and volatile elections. I caught the first available flight from San Jose to Buenos Aires.

Oliver Hartman finds Argentina

Having been in Buenos Aires close to a month I can say that it is one of my favorite cities in the world (right up there with Topeka, Kansas), although being reduced to a prepubescent knucklehead because of the language barrier is a cause for frustration. However, some intense language classes and an Argentinean girlfriend can sort that out nicely. So far, I have neither. That hasn’t stopped the party train from constantly departing from the station though, as the night life in Buenos Aires puts New York to shame. Welcome to your circadian rhythms nightmare. After “dining” (re: wolfing down quickly seared steaks bought for the super market) around 10 pm it would be a faux pas to even think of arriving at a club before 2 am, let alone verbalizing such a notion. You’ll probably get home as most respectable people are beginning their morning routine.

But, you don’t miss much if you skip the whole club circuit and pick up a little more of the local culture through pubs, restaurants, cafes, museums, music performances, tango shows, etc. Also, the weather consistently good, if a little on the hot side now, for walking; the city is beautiful with interesting architecture, many parks, and thousands of things to do.

In addition to trying to capture some of my experiences in Buenos Aires I also do clothing descriptions and write some travel pieces for a newspaper in Maine. I haven’t perfected tango yet, but my maestro says that I the most gifted natural student he has seen in years! Ok, that’s not true. I’m afraid of dancing in public unless the lights are incredibly dim or my companions are blind.

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