It's frigid outside and I'm poorly dressed for it. Sometime during the last five hours of sitting in class, the sky of Good Airs (Buenos Aires) clouded over to a dull white and all the effects of the morning sun that caused sweat to pour down my face and fill up my base layers during my run to the lake have been negated.
I put my hand on the long, gold, vertical handle of Arribeños 1599 and the doorman buzzes me in. "Hola, Buenas tardes" and he says something in greeting as well that probably included a question such as que tal o cómo le pases but our greetings have intercepted themselves and my frustration disinclines me to stop and clarify.
The door to the stairwell opens easily and closes even moreso, and I have to be careful not to let it slam behind me in a manner pertaining to a prepubescent teenager. Taking the stairs will warm me up better than my two-block walk from the university and I'll probably arrive at apartment 10B the same time as the elevator would, anyway.
I climb to floor one and resolve to count my way instead of relying on numbers, but the smells of dinner distract me. This is strange, since it's only just after 5:00 and dinner doesn't begin until 9:00 pm, but cooking a meal from scratch every night takes time.
I climb to floor two (el segundo piso) and smell the remnants of a shower.
I climb again and the smell shifts slightly to a perfume, but it doesn't have the humidity of a shower behind it. It's strong and floral, like the typical cloud that follows when you pass a woman on the streets of Buenos Aires.
I climb again and this time it's the garbage that has been left out in the hall for my nose to recognize, which is about as far as anyone in the sky-rise apartment buildings that fill this barrio ever has to take out the trash. The newspaper has a stack of its own and wine bottles are carefully placed to the side, but cardboard and paper products are mixed with compost and cigarette butts inside grocery-sized plastic bags, tied at the top. At some point during day or night, the trash will disappear from the stairs to be replaced with more within a few days.
Another floor, and the slight smell of tortilla or something breaded. I climb again.
Lingering cleaning solvent drifts from the doors on floor seven, which reminds me of the woman who came to clean the flat this morning and walked in on a sleeping and bleery-eyed American girl still abed. When I returned from my run, she was reigning her cleaning powers over el baño and I managed only to grab a toothbrush and my deodorant in preparation for my first class.
I climb again, and the smells of dinner are unmistakeable this time. The smell of beef is mouth-watering and suddenly I remember the taste of the empanadas I had for lunch.
Floor nine, and I can't smell anything. The switch from frigid cold air to the heated stairwell that I'm climbing at glute-building, calf-burning pace has set my nose to running.
I climb again, and I've arrived. Still trying to figure out what the smells of home are here as I play with my keys in the door - sometimes they turn twice, sometimes once, sometimes not at all - and the smell of stale cigarettes in the entryway obscures all else as I walk in.
