But where in the world is Grigsby Avenue?

So, I came to Patagonia to see the scenery, but as always, it ends up being about the people you meet along the way.

First, this morning, eschewing the laid-on minibus, I walked the couple of kilometers from my hotel to the town center of El Calafate. Not a communing with nature walk -- I walked along the highway, terrified by the lack of shoulder (SUVs zooming by at breakneck pace -- gut reaction, f** SUVs, quickly followed by the realization that this was the only paved road for miles around, unlike in Soho, SUVs have a purpose here) , inhaling diesel fumes and trying to ignore the catcalls along way. [Pushing 40 thought: Will I miss them when they´re gone? I remember an older German woman telling me in Sicily, ¨It´s wonderful being old. I go wherever I want, and no one bothers me." Will I think that? I doubt it somehow.] But in the here and now, I was damning the Latin male compulsion to mark his territory so vocally. Still, the cloud cover had lifted this morning, and the southern sun burned hot through that hole in the ozone layer, and the sky was a dizzying blue that matched the glacial blue of the lake, interrupted on the far side by an impressive range of snow-topped mountains. It was good to be out.

So, anyway, El Calafate -- reminds me a bit of Banff -- a well-touristed main street offering stuffed animals, ¨native¨ weaving, gourmet chocolates, expensive trekking gear, a dozen travel agencies selling the same bus tour packages, Internet, and (thankfully only) local fast food. But then 2 blocks and it all peters out... first, into local housing, humble and much less so (Nestor Kirchner, the President of Argentina, has a holiday home here) and then ... into nothing. No suburbs, no exurbs, just scrub and hills and dirt.

The local tourist aesthetic tends to dirty hippy, despite the rather high (for Argentina) prices, so even in the glitzy faux-Alpine boutiques no one was selling too hard. I breezed by endless ponchos, ¨I heart Patagonia¨ t-shirts and stuffed penguins only to be entrapped by a small store selling homemade liqueurs. There were all kinds of fruits I´d never heard of, but in a fit of perversity, I settled upon a flask of limonchelo (yes, spelled that way in Spanish). It would please me to become an expert on limoncelli of the world -- a goal, Ernesto, to say nothing of George Clooney, would have to approve of.

So, there I am, having a conversation in broken Spanitalglish with the sales girl, when the little man behind the counter asks me, in almost flawless English, ¨Where in New York are you from?" (So much for my not having an accent...)

"I live in Brooklyn.¨

His joy is evident. "My aunt lives on Grigsby Avenue. Has for 50 years.¨ Proud and smiling.

¨Where?,¨ I say, straining and leaning forward in that touristy ¨non capisco¨ way.

¨Grigsby Avenue,¨ a bit affronted.

¨No comprende¨ (which is no language).

¨GRIGSBY AVENUE. Two blocks from Coney Island,¨ positively disgusted now.

Smile of relief. A point of reference. I tell him how I grew up with Coney Island, how much I love it. He has been there many times. I tell him that they are going to tear it down, rebuild hotels and shopping malls. I have the requisite disapproving look on my face.

¨That´s good. The old rollercoaster is nice. But the rest is for schmucks¨ (My eyebrows fly off my face, schmucks, I love it). ¨Terrible place. They should renew it.¨

¨Well, I grew up with it... My father went there as a boy...It will just be like everywhere else... A tourist...¨ I shut up. I´m a tourist, and my tourism is paying his bills.

We move on. He has a son in Boston, at Suffolk University. He´s a waiter at Dali in Somerville. Now there´s something we can agree on -- great place! His son wants to stay on for a couple of years after graduation, makes more money there than he would here.

Lucas, I now know his name, tells me again how horrible Coney Island is in its current state. "Dangerous¨, he emphasizes, and I can´t disagree. But I try to make him see the romance of Nathan´s, of the grubby boardwalk, families at the ocean on sweltering summer Sundays.

¨They should renew it.¨ I smile, and shrug -- I´m just happy to be having this conversation at the end of the world. I leave, promising to tell my brother to say hello to his son...

But, where the f*** is Grigsby Avenue?

Oh, dear, I have to be up early, so I´ll tell you tomorrow about my delicious dinner and the fantastic Italian family who plied me with wine and argued with me about Berlusconi, 11 September, Guiliani´s chances for president, and universal health care.

Note to Grady: All the dogs here come up to my rib cage. They are well behaved and beautiful, but leashless -- they just stand around while their owners are in stores and then run frenetically through the streets in packs of six or eight. I think that Argentinian for dachsund is ¨snack.¨

Note to Elisabetta, Jana, and Saoul: During my dinner with the Italians, I said ¨Avrei dovuto ordinarlo...¨ The mostly silent mother of the family interrupted me. I thought I´d said something inadvertently rude. ¨Che grammatica! Avrei dovuto... Complimenti!¨ I put in a plug for WRF ;)