I have a special fascination about Buenos Aires. About its culture, architecture, tango, neighborhoods, lunfardo (slang), history, old pictures and maps, etc. Even the not so good things about us such the histrionic way we live.
This feeling increased in the last decade more or less. I admire what we built. I travel very often to other cities and when I come back to Buenos Aires I have a special feeling.
Do you have the same feeling about some place? Not a house or a building I mean a city or a town or a neighborhood.
This is how an 80's pop band interprets this city:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5WfrL2ku5E
I'm afraid I can't say I am proud of São Paulo in such a way - there would be an uncomfortable amount of truth in calling it a heartless concrete jungle. And yet, I do feel wholly in my element within this labyrinthine sprawl.
Obligatory mention of the unofficial, bittersweet anthem of this city: http://youtu.be/btn7E8yYvaM
Györ is not my city anymore, but Budapest won't ever take that place in my life.
Buenos Aires is actually really popular in Denmark. I haven't been there myself, but my friend (Thomas, who went to the WSM's) lived there for a year, and some of my other friends also went and stayed there.
I grew up in Aarhus, but have lived in Copenhagen for almost 4 years. Aarhus is my hometown, but Copenhagen feels more like my city. I identify more with certain parts of the city than with the city as a whole. So even though I grew up in Aarhus, I feel like I am a Nørrebro boy. I take random walks in Nørrebro and feel connected to the people there.
I was born and I grew up in Kazincbarcika, I consider this as my hometown and I like the town very much. Though I spent many years in Budapest and Debrecen (studies). I don't have good memories from Budapest, so feel that I have nothing to do with the city. I consider Debrecen as my second hometown, since I spent six good years there at the university, and I still have friends there. I travel back there ofthen, and for one year now, I have my girlfriend there. I'm working in Miskolc since 2009 and I attend there some ice hockey games (I became more or less a fan of the local team), I attended there many amateur meteorology meetings, my aunt lives there, I learnt to drive there, so I'm strongly connected to this city as well.
I cannot be really attached to any city of the world. They change too fast: my favourite places can be demolished or re-built, the people I like can move away, pubs/restaurants can be transformed by new owners... In my eyes, these small changes make a city totally different after some time. I have some favourite towns (No. 1 is Eger in Hungary), but my real fascination is with natural areas. The places where I feel most at home are the mountains of North Hungary (Börzsöny, Mátra, Bükk). They are way more steady and peaceful than any city, and from there I have only good memories (that cannot be told about any city where I lived).
Quote from: Usrin on July 30, 2013, 10:38:18 AM
No. 1 is Eger in Hungary
As for me:
1 Pécs
2 Eger
3 Szeged
Btw, if I'm asked about my hometown, it is Szolnok, where I lived between 1987-2008 (spending gradually less and less time there after 1997, going to secondary school then to university in Budapest). However, I've lost almost every connections with Szolnok, and I can't imagine living there again.
The city I was born in, grew up in, went to school, high school & university, where my family lives, where I had my girls and where my life-long friends live is La Plata. All of my greatest memories belong here (except for some holidays trips). This is the city I love and the city I hope I never live (unless I earn an awful lot of money some day and fulfil my dream of living in a yacht away from everything but my wife and kids).
I think this is the perfect size between a too big, loud, crowded city like Buenos Aires and a too small with nothing to do town as many around here.
Of course, having squares every 6 blocks where you can go have a peaceful time with a dog and a book really help.
And it's history is great too, full of Masonry and mystery.
BTW I saw some buildings with "lions" here too and they are from last years of XIX century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gy%C5%91r
Returning to Budapest during summertime after three years spent in China made me feel how much I missed it - I did not get this feeling during our winter visits. But I am a Buda boy in particular - wouldn't live on the Pest side. Cycling along the bank of the Danube is like no other city in the world.
That said, I love Shanghai too, I love living there, especially amongst the very friendly people who fill the city, and would I need to move from there, it would remain in a significant place in my heart. Too bad its best parts are being demolished in an extreme pace.
Here in Hirlingham in a party drinking Manaos.
I have a similar feeling in my own city without having to move away. If I ever move abroad and spent a few years, then I could think that returning to Córdoba would feel very special, but the truth is that I'm always remembering the way it was until the middle 90s, so even now being here, I still feel some nostalgia when I go out for a walk.
If I'm home or at someone else's place, everything has changed and I feel like I'm so, so far from "home" as it was. But when I go out, while there are changes, I pick places to walk that have retained their essence and so I can make as if it's still my good-old city. Yet, from time to time, something ruins the dream for a moment, like maybe somebody playing horrible reggaeton at full volume or somebody on the sidewalk checking their cell phones, ha, ha.
You have something against the cell phones 😆. We cant avoid the change but it is a useful tool sometimes. What I hate are the app logic, they are so simple that you cant do anything. Like win 8 or win 10 or android speaking about SO. I'll prefer always a PC.
I do most of my internet via smartphone. Buti only use trusted local wi-fi, I always have my phone one 'do not disturb' mode (exception for selected contacts). Most apps are not allowed to display notifications. Group chats are all muted. no social media apps active.
So an phone that I control, not one that controls me
I find it very useful.
(I'm sitting with my four year old daughter who can't sleep. So she isn't alone. And have the opportunity to write this.
I think that 90% of my forum posts are written on my phone in-between other activities.
So I'm pro phone. (But I hate it to when people prioritize their phone above company)
Well, what I meant was that seeing somebody with a phone on the sidewalk while I was walking in my town making as if it was 1990, breaks the illusion, as there were no cell phones back then. In many aspects, the city hasn't change from the outside.
But I do hate cell phones, that's another story, ha, ha. Not cell phones themselves, in reality, more the fact that we're being forced to use them. When I detect that people start to push me to do one thing, I quickly begin to develop aversion to it. I personally do have a spyphone ("smartphone") which only has Telegram; nothing else. I can also receive calls. To make calls, I have a landline phone, but don't make many calls really. I don't have a cell phone plan and don't need it because all my internet (even Telegram) is from home, via Wi-Fi. I don't carry my cell phone with me when I go out. I have it only because I use it to keep contact with some people who are far away. I don't use it for anything else. Even Telegram, I have it on my computer to and if I'm on the computer, I don't use the cell phone.
Quote from: alanrotoi on January 29, 2022, 06:09:55 PM
Here in Hirlingham in a party drinking Manaos.
Btw it was a mistype, the name is "Hurlingham". I live in Castelar, but Buenos Aires is my place in the world. I feel I could't live far from it without missing a lot of things. I live 10km away (about 7km actually) so it doesn't count as living awsy from its influence. it is almost another neigborhood but also you can note the difference of being in Buenos Aires or in a close city. It is the arquitecture, the avenues, the shops. Maybe it is hard to believe but when I live in Buenos Aires, in a middleclass non centric neigborhood called Flores you had 2-4 taxis waiting in every traffic lights in the avenue 80 meter from my building. Here in Castelar you have about 8 taxis for the whole city and lives about 120,000 people. I think Castelar is one of the most beatiful cities of the west zone.
Oh and a detail I love of a non-sleeping city as Buenos Aires is if you want to have an icecream at 2:30am every day of the week you will have and icecream shop close to your home. Here in Castelar the night life is only for the weekends.
Córdoba, the second largest city (by a very big difference after Buenos Aires) in Argentina, also has a very unique night life. Like Alan describes, here night life also is not limited to discos and it's not uncommon to see a family walking downtown at midnight. I do like many things about Córdoba. I have been to Buenos Aires a few times and I agree that it's a city worth discovering, with everything for you to do. However, I would not like to actually "live" in Buenos Aires. Distances are huge and so are the times it takes to go from a point to another. But again, if you have the chance, you definitely must visit the city.
And Córdoba has its great things and it allows me to spend time in places I've known for all my life, but I don't think I have a place in the world for myself, that is, not one in particular. Anywhere I can have peace is good. What keeps me around here is family, but I'm really a flying bird.
I have a friend in Córdoba. She works in the History Museum UNC - Manzana Jesuítica y Iglesia de la Compañía de Jesús. I would like to take the tour to all those old buildings :).