Sara and Jill, Away and a Will...

Lima, Peru

2010-12-14T09:06:00.000-03:00

Nazca, Peru

2010-12-11T04:57:00.000-03:00

Cuzco, Peru

2010-12-09T19:09:00.000-03:00

Machu Picchu, Peru

2010-12-08T19:42:00.000-03:00

Lake Titicaca/Puno, Peru

2010-12-06T15:12:00.000-03:00

Arequipa, Peru

2010-12-03T09:04:00.000-03:00

Bahía Inglesa, Chile

2010-12-01T21:41:00.000-03:00

Vicuña, Chile

2010-11-29T10:39:00.000-03:00

Viña del Mar y Valparaiso, Chile

2010-11-27T10:42:00.000-03:00

Santiago, Chile

2010-11-24T13:29:00.000-03:00

San Juan, Parques Ischigualasto y Talampaya

2010-11-21T20:14:00.002-03:00

San Juan:

Parque Ischigualasto:

Parque Talampaya:

Mendoza

2010-11-18T15:26:00.001-03:00

Last Days in Buenos Aires

2010-11-15T12:57:00.001-03:00

San Antonio del Areco

2010-11-11T12:27:00.000-03:00

Buenos Aires Pride 2010

2010-11-08T09:13:00.000-03:00

Sara goes to Iguazu

2010-10-23T16:39:00.000-03:00

Sara goes to Cafayate, Cachi, Purmamarca and the Salinas Grandes

2010-10-18T08:25:00.002-03:00

Cafayate:

Cachi:

Purmamarca/Salinas Grandes:

Sara goes to Salta

2010-10-16T10:19:00.001-03:00

Villa Carlos Paz and Cordoba

2010-10-14T08:17:00.000-03:00

Villa Carlos Paz:

Cordoba:

Villa General Belgrano and Alta Gracia

2010-10-12T02:44:00.000-03:00

Since Argentina is a part of the Americas, Columbus Day is a federal holiday here too, which meant that Jill got an extra day off of work so we had a long weekend in which we could travel. We've wanted to see Cordoba, Argentina's 2nd largest city, for awhile, and since Argentina's festival nacional de la cerveza (beer festival) was held this weekend right outside of Cordoba, it seemed like a great time to go. Every year for the past 47 years, Argentina has held a beer festival in Villa General Belgrano. The festival is also known as Oktoberfest because so many of the town's residents have German heritage. Indeed, the festival and town are somewhat controversial because many Nazis escaped trials in Europe by fleeing there after the war.

We decided to take the trip at the last minute, and since it was a holiday weekend, that meant we were incredibly lucky to get seats on any bus going to Cordoba. We ended up with the last two seats, which were shoved into a corner and vibrated the whole time because they were right near the engine in the back of the bus. It was an uncomfortable ride, but we made it to Villa General Belgrano, which is all that mattered. The festival itself costs quite a lot of money (by Argentine standards) to enter, and once you pay the hefty entrance fee, you have to pay for overpriced food and beer. So rather than paying $50 pesos to get in, we spent the day walking around the town and enjoying the artisan beer in local beer gardens. It seemed that most everyone else was doing the same thing and that there were more people outside the festival than inside anyway! We enjoyed seeing the town, but didn't feel like spending another day at a beer festival was what we wanted to do, so we headed onto Alta Gracia.

The tiny town of Alta Gracia has two main attractions, Jesuit Missions and Che Guevara's childhood home. The Jesuit Mission one of several in Cordoba province that altogether make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was interesting to see, but there wasn't that much information that explained the history of the whole place or the Jesuits in Cordoba. The museum at Che Guervara's house focused on a lot of information about his youth, and seemed to leave out some important information about his adult life. Still, we learned a lot!

Random Bs.As. Photo: The Dogs of Buenos Aires

2010-10-07T10:38:00.003-03:00

After being in Buenos Aires we now realize the importance of Bob Barkers message at the end of every The Price is Right episode to please "spay and neuter your pets folks". No one does that here, and as a result there is an overwhelming population of stray dogs running around the city, it's really very sad. This one however, is probably not a stray, but just goes to show that the dogs are taking over. Next stop, world domination.

Sara goes to Puerto Natales and Puerto Madryn

2010-09-27T05:27:00.000-03:00

Puerto Natales, Chile
After Calafate, I headed to Puerto Natales, Chile, so I could renew my visa. Puerto Natales isn't a particularly interesting town, but it's the place that nearly every tourist stops when they head to Torres del Paine national park. I arrived on Saturday, September 18th, which happened to be Chile's bicentennial. As our bus pulled into Puerto Natales, several servicemen were already in the street preparing for the desfile militar (military parade). Most of the town shut down for several days during the bicentennial celebrations, which meant it was quite difficult to get basic things done while I was there. I couldn't find a hostel that was open when I arrived, so I lugged my backpack down to the waterfront in order to watch the parade.

The parade was really interesting to watch, and it didn't hurt that the beautiful sea and mountains sat right behind everything. First several different groups of soldiers marched in and stood around while military leaders gave a brief history of how Chile won it's independence and who their key historical figures were. Then, the parade continued as Chilean huasos (Chilean cowboys, similar to Argentine gauchos) came out to perform the cueca, a traditional dance. Eventually, the politicians dressed in suits came out and danced the cueca with the huasos. The parade ended with large military vehicles and firetrucks driving down the street. After walking around town a few times, I finally found a hostel and was able to get some much needed rest. Puerto Natales was also hosting a artisan fair, so there were several artists who were selling handmade goods and other people selling handmade foods. I bought some homemade empanadas and could quickly tell that the dough had been made from scratch--it really makes a difference and those were some of the best empanadas I've eaten in 11 months.

Torres del Paine is a beautiful national park that I wanted to spend time hiking around. Initially, Jill and I had planned to hike the famous "W" trail there in November, but we realized that wasn't practical, so this was my chance to see the park. I didn't think it was safe to hike the "W" alone, especially since there was still snow on the ground in some parts, so I opted for a day tour of the park. Again, much of the tour operators in the area were closed for the season, so day tours were the only real option. Driving around the park in a car wasn't really the way I wanted to see it, and it was a little disappointing. Yet, I was still quite happy to see it.

Before we reached Torres del Paine, we stopped at Cueva del Milodón, or "Cave of the Milodón." The Milodón is an extinct giant sloth that supposedly died out around 5,000 years ago. Skin and bones of the animal were discovered in the area more than a century ago. After that, we drove into Torres del Paine and stopped at a point where we could take a short walk to Lago Grey. From the lake, which was filled with giant icebergs, you could look across and see glacier Grey. A Huemul, a type of endangered Patagonian deer, was walking around to drink from the lake, and that was especially cool to see since Huemuls are Chile's national animal. From there, we drove to several beautiful lookouts where you could see the "towers" (mountains) of the park, but unfortunately there were clouds hanging over them most of the day. We also spotted several guanacos (similar to llamas), nandu and condors (a type of vulture that is Chile's other national animal).

Back in Puerto Natales, I spotted black-necked swans swimming in the sea on my way out of town. I took another 5-hour bus ride back across the border to Calafate.

Calafate (again)
I arrived in Calafate with 5 minutes to decide whether I wanted to take a 20 hour bus trip up to Puerto Madryn, and at the last minute I decided to spend one more day in Calafate. I had befriended one of my tour guides from the big ice trek that I did, as we bonded over discussions about politics and books. So we met up to have beer at a neat book bar, which was fun, but also somewhat awkward. After that, I spent some time walking around Calafate with a nice guy I had met from Korea, who I had met on the bus between Puerto Natales and Calafate. He cooked me a delicious pasta dinner at the hostel, and I got to chat in Spanish with several nice Argentinians while he cooked. It was a really nice to relax for a day while talking to cool people I had just met. The following day, I grabbed a lamb crepe on my way to the bus station for the 20 hour trip up north.

Puerto Madryn
I headed to Puerto Madryn to get to Peninusla Valdes, a famous area filled with wildlife and an increidibly good spot to go whalewatching. The first leg of my bus trip to Rio Gallegos was fine, but the second leg was pretty unpleasant. The bus broke down about 1 hour after we got on, so we hopped on another bus that came by. At the next stop (2 hours later), we all got off and waited for another bus to come pick us up. There was no phone signal in the middle of nowhere when our bus broke down, so the driver waited until we got to the next stop to contact the bus company. Since these are overnight buses, that meant that 30 people were all crammed into a tiny bus station in the middle of nowhere from 11pm to 3 in the morning while we waited for the new bus to arrive. I finally got to Puerto Madryn 4 hours late.

The following day, I took a day-tour to Peninsula Valdes with my hostel. We started by driving out of Puerto Madryn for about 20 minutes to a beach where you could watch several whales swimming about 50 feet from the shore. It was great, but we had a schedule to keep, so we quickly headed onto the next stop, which was a small museum about the Southern Right whale. From there, we went to Puerto Pyramides, where we hopped on a 90 minute whalewatching boat ride. This was the most amazing part of the tour because the whales came so close to the boat. Southern Right whales recieved their name from whalers because they are a curious and social animal, so they often swim close to boats and are the "right" whale to kill. I've never really done whalewatching before, but was excited to see whales breaching, swimming right under the boat and mating. After the tour, we ate lunch in Puerto Pyramides, the only town on the peninsula, and then headed to a sea elephant colony. The sea elephants weren't too exciting to watch since they don't move much, but we headed to a cool penguin colony after that. Both the sea elephants and penguins were on the peninsula for mating season.

Puerto Madryn isn't a very pretty or exciting place to spend much time in, so after the tour I was ready to move on. I took a bus up to Bahia Blanca, where there was a circus festival taking place. The festival, however, was very small and uneventful when I arrived. I was tired of traveling, missed Jill, and felt ready to get back to Buenos Aires. So after a very brief period of time, I hopped on the next bus and went home.

Random Calafate Photo: Tit Ice Cream

2010-09-22T10:49:00.000-03:00

Since the word "tit" doesn't exist in Spanish (that would be teta), this sign doesn't really catch the attention of Argentinians. It's supposed to say "Tito's Ice Cream," but it sure looks a lot more like "Tit Ice Cream" to English speakers.

Sara Goes to Chalten and Calafate

2010-09-19T20:03:00.000-03:00

Since the day I saw Jill's photos from the last time she came to Argentina, I knew the place I wanted to visit most was the Glaciers in southern Patagonia. So when I realized that I had to renew my 90-day tourist visa one last time, I used that as and excuse to book a last minute trip down to Patagonia, where I could cross into Chile. I was gone for about one and a half weeks, but it was one of the coolest places I've ever been. Here are my highlights.

El Chalten
I Flew from Bs.As. to the Calafate airport, which isn't actually in a city, and then immediately took a bus to Chalten so I wouldn't have to backtrack to get there. I spent two days and one night there, and would have loved to have stayed longer. Chalten is a little hippy town that calls itself the "trekking capital of Argentina" because there are so many easy day hikes in the area. Unfortunately, most of the town was closed since I was arriving at the end of winter. So I wasn't able to go on any glacier treks from here because those guided excursions don't start up until late spring.

After settling in at a hostel, I decided to take the 10 minute walk across town to the tourist information office, but that turned into a nightmare as a snow storm kicked in out of nowhere. Walking around town in just a fleece, I was underdressed for the wind and snow, and it became an incredibly unpleasant walk. Since nearly every business was closed, it was also really difficult to try to duck inside to warm up for a minute. When I finally got the the tourist office it was closed, and I was miserable. I returned to my hostel defeated. I missed Jill and felt like crying.

The next day, I found a panaderia that had some of the best pastries I've eaten down here yet. Then I headed out to hike to Laguna Torre (literally "Lake Tower"). It was an easy hike, but since it had snowed the previous day and the trails weren't clearly marked in any way, I lost the trail about 40 minutes into the hike. After climbing up a small cliff, I was able to see what appeared to be the trail, and finally got back on it! The rest of the hike was enjoyable, and it ended at a beautiful lookout point that stops in front of a lake. Beyond the lake was a massive glacier, and to the right of the lake was the famous Mt. Fitz Roy, one of the "towers" in the area. The view was breathtaking, and I intended to spend about an hour up there eating lunch, but the cutting wind was unbearable. So I headed back down after half an hour. Three hours later, I was back in town and running to the bus to head to Calafate. I probably could have stayed in Chalten another day, but I was worried about getting to Chile in time to renew my visa.

El Calafate
I had some work to do on my first day in Calafate, so I went looking for a hostel that wasn't too crowded and had a decent amount of computers. After checking in and getting some work done, I walked out to the costanera, where you can view various wild birds, including bright pink flamingos. Of course one of Argentina's many cute stray dogs decided to follow me along the way. I spent the rest of the evening strolling around Calafate's cute, but incredibly touristy downtown.

The following day, I began the "big ice" tour to see the Perrito Moreno glacier. One company has a monopoly on giving tours where you can actually hike on the glacier, so the prices are the same no matter where you go in town to set up your tour. I was incredibly lucky to get to hike on the glacier because the big ice tours had just begun two days earlier for the season. When the glacier gets covered with snow in the winter, it's too dangerous to go hiking on because there are large crevasses that get covered up with snow, and if you fell in one, it would probably be fatal... Anyway, the big ice tour started off with a walk along a boardwalk that follows the front side of the glacier. From there, you could see large pieces of ice that had fallen off the the glacier into the water, where they became icebergs. Luckily, we got to see one large piece of ice fall off while there. Although it's somewhat sad to see the glacier falling apart, this is one of the few glaciers that is actually growing, so it's not as tragic as it might sound. One of the most fascinating aspects of standing near the front of the glacier was hearing all of the loud popping noises that the ice made as it cracked in different places.

Next, we took a boat across the lake to a "dock," where we picked up our crampons and began our hike. For about an hour, we hiked on a mountain edge that ran alongside the glacier until we finally reached a point where the guides walked us onto the ice. We spent the next four hours hiking on the glacier, which is absolutely the coolest thing I've ever done. We stopped to have lunch on the glacier, drank fresh glacier water without any filters, watched our guide descend into a deep crevasse using only his crampons and two ice picks, tried ice climbing up a small 15-foot wall, and got to slide through part of a glacier where a hole had formed and created a natural slide. It was incredibly sad when it all ended, but afterward, we hopped back on the boat, which drove much closer to the side of the glacier than we had been before. On the boat ride back, our guides gave us a glass of scotch with ice from the glacier in it. I ended the day with a delicious Patagonian lamb Pizza and an artisan beer.

Random Bs.As. Photo: Policia Federal Ride in Style

2010-09-05T09:05:00.004-03:00

It's hard not to laugh when you see the federal police driving around in one of these. Maybe not the "smartest" car for the job...get it?

Boys Come to Visit

2010-08-28T16:41:00.000-03:00

Justen and Aaron had been talking about coming to visit us for a long time, and they finally made the trip from August 20-27th! Unfortunately, Jill was in the states visiting her family during that time so she wasn't able to spend time with the boys. But it was really nice to have them visit, and I had a great time hanging out with them. Amazingly, the boys were able to take the bus from the airport to our apartment without any trouble, but since I had forgotten to tell them what our apartment number was, they had a bit of difficulty getting in! Once we connected, we ate beef empanadas and drank Malbec wine, and that night, we headed to a parilla so the boys could try Argentine steak! Afterward, we hung out at Jill B. and Elana's apartment in Palermo.

The following day, we walked through San Telmo up to Plaza de Mayo and toured Casa Rosada (the pink house, which was made famous in Evita starring Madonna). From there, we walked north along Florida street, famous for it's shopping, until we reached plaza San Martin. Then we walked east to Puerto Madero, from which we walked south back to our apartment in San Telmo. It was a lot of walking, but it's one of the best ways to see the city and the best way to pack a lot in! On Sunday, we spent time at both the Feria de Mataderos and the Feria in San Telmo. Artisans sell handmade goods and foods at these ferias, and in Mataderos there are some fun shows with dancers and gauchos to watch as well. On different days, we spent time in Recoleta, the boys learned how to tango dance at the annual Tango festival, we had hot chocolate and churros at a bar notable, the boys went to Uruguay, we went to Chinatown and we went hung out north of the city in Tigre.

We packed a lot of fun activities in, but I also enjoyed spending time just relaxing and hanging out with Justen and Aaron. We also ate a lot of delicious foods, and to top off the whole week, the boys took me to their favorite buffet to celebrate. It was really nice having them here, and I hope they can visit another time in another place!

Random Bs.As. photos: Crazy Hat Man of Palermo

2010-08-15T10:20:00.003-03:00

This man sits in the middle of an antique market every day, tinkering away to create his crazy hat art. He has all these pictures posted of him posing with Argentine celebrities, so apparently he has a lot of admirers. Let us know if you us to bring one home for you ;)

Marriage para Todos!

2010-08-03T15:28:00.000-03:00

We were lucky enough to be here this year when Argentina became the first country, in all of Latin America, and the second in the Americas to legalize gay marriage on July 15, 2010. Part of the reason we chose to come to Buenos Aires was because it was the place where we felt we could be the most open about who we are and the safest in Latin America. While there are still places here, just like in the US, where we don't feel totally comfortable, it's much more progressive than I think either of us realized at the outset. At the end of our trip we have found that BA is a pretty gay friendly city- there are gay bars, clubs, cultural centers, bookstores, coffee shops and even queer tango lessons! We've met a lot of gay people here, Argentinians and foreigners, and for the most part they think BA is a great place to be if you're queer.

Unfortunately, these attitudes are certainly not shared by everyone- especially outside of Capital. There was a strong nationwide anti-gay marriage movement here as well. The week before the vote, while walking in the city to teach my 8am class I was visually bombarded by signs and posters plastered all over the city, as well as canvassers at the bus stops and subways urging people to "protect the family." The posters depicted a mother and father smiling and holding their infant with the words "Todos al Congreso para Proteger la Familia" or "Cada Niño se Merece un Padre y una Madre" Which translates to "Everyone to Congreso to Protect the Family" and "Every Child Deserves a Father and a Mother." So Catholic protesters in Argentina take the same approach as right-wing conservative Christians in the US, they make it about family. There has also been graffiti around the city saying incendiary things like "Homosexualidad = SIDA" or Homosexuality = AIDS and "Matrimonio = Hombre + Mujer" or Marriage = Man + Woman. Seeing those signs around the city made me so angry. 200,000 people marched on Congreso to "protect marriage," seeing that image on the front page of the paper the day the vote was supposed to happen made me feel sad and disheartened.

However, despite the opposition, the bill passed, historically through legislation rather than through a judicial decision. The bill was originally scheduled to be voted on July 14 but after a marathon session that went into the early hours of the next day, on July 15 the Senate passed the same-sex marriage bill, by a vote of 33 to 27. On July 21, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed the bill into law. The law grants for same-sex couples all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, including the right to adopt children. The first marriages were performed on July 30, 2010. Argentina is the 10th country in the world to legalize gay marriage, joining the ranks of Belgium, Canada, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and Sweden. Worldwide there are also some smaller jurisdictions where gay marriage is legal: Mexico City as well as US states Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Iowa, and Washington DC (we'll see about CA!).

The celebration in Congreso afterward was massive and rivaled that of the earlier protest. We are happy we chose to come to such a progressive place, and of course hope to see equality spread throughout the Americas. Hooray!

Random Bs.As. photo: Breast Feeding

2010-07-24T14:07:00.000-03:00

There's a big campaign here to encourage breast feeding, so there have been a lot of different advertisements all over the city the whole time we've been here. This one translates literally to "Give the tit to your baby."

We Moved!

2010-07-19T13:38:00.000-03:00

The 6-month lease for our apartment in Palermo ended June 30th, and we had made the decision that we were not going to continue renting there a month earlier for various reasons. The reasons we decided to move were mainly 3: the price was too high, Jill’s commute to was too long, and our landlords, frankly, sucked. So the search began! We posted on Craigslist and other BA apartment websites, looked at lots of apartments online and went to visit a few as well. Of the ones we visited we decided on an apartment in San Telmo, only blocks from the apartment where we spent our first month here. It’s a much smaller apartment and we share it with another couple, but the price is half what were paying in Palermo, Jill can walk to almost all of her classes from home, and the landlord seems like a friendly, reasonable (and gay!) man. It also has high ceilings which are ideal for Sara to juggle inside on a rainy day.

So now we’ve been here a few weeks and both feel really happy with the move. Even though it’s small our housemates are great, their names are Kate and Shawn and they are from the UK, they have been here for only a few months less than us and are also teaching English. We’ve had dinner together a few times, getting to know each other and hanging out- they seem like great people. Another perk is that now we have a blender! We’ve been making smoothies every day, and pureeing up all kind of sauces and soups. And a coffee maker! Which means Jill can make real coffee and not sit there and hold a plastic funnel over her mug for 10 minutes while the water strains through.

And we are falling in love with San Telmo again, with more perspective and appreciation this time. The cobble stone streets, cute cafes, and old San Telmo market have been nice to explore again. And we’re branching out to see other nearby (and more Argentine) neighborhoods like Barracas and La Boca as well. We also live right next to Puerto Madero, the newest neighborhood in BA that is as much on the water as you can be here. It is pristine, upscale (not something we love about it) and only accessible by 4 bridges that stretch across a man-made canal coming off the river. It’s a nice place to take walks on the weekends, as it’s filled with people then and also it has the ecological reserve where you can see the river (and Uruguay on a clear day).

So we leave you with some pictures of our new place.

The World Cup- Vamos Argentina!

2010-07-18T01:56:00.006-03:00

Being here in Argentina for the World Cup was an awesome cultural experience. We really got to feel the excitement and be a part of the passion that people have for soccer. We caught on quickly how important it was as the first games began. It became understood, that if Jill was supposed to teach at the same time of an Argentina game, that class would be canceled. Sara had Spanish class at the same time as a game once, and the streets that are normally so noisy were so quiet, that you could here people screaming from cafes nearby whenever a goal was scored. The city literally just stopped whenever Argentina was playing. We remember going outside on a weekday around noon and wondering where all the people had gone. The streets were literally empty. It was so eerie that we began to wonder if we missed some kind of holiday or announcement about some killer mosquitoes outside. Soon enough however, we heard screams, hoots and hollers, and car horns beeping all across the city at the same time and we remembered that it was the World Cup and Argentina must have scored a ''GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!''

After that experience we knew we had to be more on top of the World Cup, we had to join in on the excitement. From then on we watched all the Argentina games with Argentines. Our first venture out was to an outdoor space in the city where they projected the games on a big screen. This however, was a major fail because there were just way too many people. The park that it was in was so crowded that you could barely move, and to be able to see you would have had to elbow your way through. We opted to leave the public viewing area in Plaza San Martin and went to a cafe instead. The cafes were overcrowded with people, even those who couldn't get a seat would stand outside and watch through the windows. Light blue and white stripes were everywhere, along with crazy hats, face paint, and the loud (and annoying) vuvuzelas. We even purchased our own "Selección Argentina" jerseys, knock offs of course, with #10 Messi and #11 Tevez on the backs.

The atmosphere in the cafes was indescribable, the closest thing I could ever imagine to it might be watching the final world series game with the Yankees and the Red Sox in a Boston Bar, but even that seems tame compared to this. Everyone, including us, were on the edges of their seats. Every time there was a goal the whole cafe would erupt with screams, cheers, and applause that would last a few minutes, everyone was on their feet hugging and jumping. And when the games were won people cheered for even longer and left with the biggest smiles on their faces. The atmosphere in the whole city after the first few wins felt so different, everyone was abuzz and smiling and it just felt like such a happy place.

Argentina defeated Nigeria (1:0), Korea (2:1), and tied with Greece (0:0), defeated Mexico (3-1) and ultimately made it to the semi-finals to face Germany. We went to a cafe in a more Argentine part of town for this final game, sporting our jerseys, but it was a huge disappointment. Argentina lost the game with a final score of (4:0) and they were out of the World Cup. After the second goal it seemed like Argentina stopped pushing and the Germany's defense was impenetrable. It was so disappointing after all the hype, and the way the cafe felt after the second goal was scored was just dismal. The city felt even more depressing after the game was over. It was strange being outside looking at all the sad and disappointed faces and hearing the silence.

The general feel of the city throughout the victories and the final loss at the World Cup was really intense and all-encompassing. In many ways it made us feel so much more connected to the people around us. There was such a sense of solidarity all throughout the city, that even we, as foreigners, felt a part of it. It was really amazing how every soul came together to watch, cheer, jeer, and be passionate about the game. We have never felt that kind of solidarity before. It's amazing to think what the impact of that kind of passion could be if it were applied to a major world issue, like hunger, or war. But, for now, it's fútbol.

We'll look to 2014- vamos Argentina!

Random Bs.As. photo: Shhhh!

2010-07-12T11:54:00.000-03:00

The nuns want you to be quiet here even when you're leaving the parking lot of a hospital.

"Go and drink wine with the people," a post dedicated to Jill's mom

2010-07-10T17:31:00.012-03:00

In the recent months we were getting through a lot of the touristy things we wanted to do and were trying to find another way to experience BA. One of Sara’s assignments for her Spanish class was to pick a café from a list of Café/Bar Notables around the city and go with a classmate. These cafes and bars are designated as “notables” because they are oldest in the city and each one has its own historical relevance to Buenos Aires. We thought this would be a great way to take Jill’s Mom’s advice to “go and drink wine with the people” - something she told Jill to do every week on Skype. Now it is part of our weekly routine to go to a café notable and drink vino (wine), cerveza (beer), clerico (white sangria), hot chocolate, submarinos (steamed milk that you drop a bar of chocolate into), and sidra (cider) with the people and it’s been great.

BA is famous for its café culture. At any time of the day, but particularly in the late afternoons and on the weekends you see people of all ages meeting up at these bars. And each one is very unique in its own way. For example, last week we went to La Giralda, which is known for its hot chocolate and churros. The hot chocolate was definitely delicious, and different than the submarinos that are found on menus everywhere. And really how can you go wrong with churros? These pastries are made of fried dough, covered in cinnamon and sugar and often filled with crème or dulce de leche. It was clearly popular with Argentinians as well since the place was packed and everyone seemed to be ordering the same thing. The ambiance here, didn’t feel as sophisticated as others we’d been in, as it had neon lights and the walls behind the bar were lined by whiskey flasks.

Another notable we went to with Jess and also Sara’s family was El Federal, one of the older ones in the city with a beautiful stained-glass bar. This bar has artisan beer and papas fritas provenzal (french fries smothered in olive oil and garlic-yum). Bar Seddon, is another that has a darker ambiance with low music playing and candles everywhere. We went here with Jess for a happy hour one weeknight, and on another trip we watched the World Cup with Jill B. and Elana and ordered a giant picada of meats, cheese, and olives. On Jill's birthday, we had gone to Las Violetas with Sara's family, but unfortunately, they weren't serving afternoon tea because they were closing early for New Year's Eve. So we revisited the cafe on one of our last days with Jess and had afternoon tea, which consisted of a plate piled with finger sandwiches and pastries, three pots of tea, and flutes of champagne.

So as you can see, each one has its own charm. Looking at the list we've also been to Bar Britanico, Bar Plaza Dorrego, Cafe Tortoni, Clasica y Moderna, Confiteria Ideal, El Gato Negro, El Hipopotamo, La Petit Colon, La Poesia, and Richmond. Out of the 60 that are still open we have collectively been to 14, and we’re still going!

4th of July

2010-07-06T10:29:00.000-03:00

There are so many American expats in Buenos Aires that there were a few large scale parties happening to celebrate the 4th of July. But since we hadn't read about anything that reminded us of the 4th (potlucks or fireworks), we headed out to a restaurant called Kansas. Kansas serves "American-style barbecue" food, which is kind of vague since barbecue styles vary widely all over the country. Still, the food at Kansas was delicious and really felt like American food. Argentina has excellent meat, but when they grill it here, they tend to either not season the meat or season it with very little. So eating a rack of ribs coated with barbecue sauce was quite a treat here, as was the baked potato stuffed with panceta (tasty, but still not real bacon) and the Caesar salad (with real Caesar dressing)!

In the states, neither Jill or I would typically go out of our way to eat barbecue or other "American" foods. Neither of us eats much peanut butter, chocolate chip cookies, cornbread, or pancakes with syrup, but since those things don't really exist here, we find ourselves craving all of those foods. So we've been eating (or trying to eat) each of those things quite a bit more than we ever have in the states.

Random Bs.As. photo: Subte is a Jungle Gym

2010-07-03T14:19:00.000-03:00

You see a lot of weird things happen when you live in a big city for very long. Some Girl decided that hanging from the poles on the subway while it was fairly busy was a great idea.

Jess Comes to Visit!

2010-06-28T18:04:00.010-03:00

Jess came to stay with us for a glorious 6 weeks and it was wonderful. It was really reenergizing for us and gave us a new set of tourist eyes to look at the city through since we had someone to show around. It was also really nice for me to have one of my best friends here, someone familiar, who knows me and has a long shared history with me. Even though Jess and I hadn’t seen each other in 10 months (!) it felt like nothing had changed. It really made BA feel much more like home to have her here. Sara, Jess and I spent our time well, balancing between spending our days doing touristy things and spending our nights making dinners together and drinking Argentine wine. Jess alternated between our place and Bliss & Ben’s place each week.

Jess was here for the bicentennial, she joined us on our visa run to Uruguay, took us ice skating, went to the many bar/cafe notables with us, and escaped to the Argentine beach town of Mar del Plata with me for a weekend.

As so much happened during the 6 weeks I’ll leave you with an accompanying picture slideshow to show how we spent our time. This one’s for you Jess Rentsch- thanks for coming to BA!

Carmelo, Uruguay

2010-06-23T01:55:00.000-03:00

We needed to renew our 90-day tourist visas again, so we decided to go to a Winery in Uruguay with Jess. Instead of taking the normal trip from Buenos Aires to Colonia, we got on a bus around 6:30 AM, which took us to north of the city to Tigre, where we caught a ferry to Carmelo, Uruguay. So instead of being out in wide open waters that feel like the ocean, but are actually part of the river (Rio de la Plata), our ferry went through much narrower river deltas.

When we arrived in Carmelo, we quickly realized there were no banks open on Sunday. So in order to change Argentine pesos to Uruguayan pesos, we had to trade money with a couple of men at the ferry terminal, who each had large wads of cash they were holding. Since nearly everyone else there seemed to be doing the same thing, it seemed less sketchy than it normally would have, and Jess assured us that she had done the same thing when she was in Central America. After that, we took a short taxi ride outside of the city to Bodega Irurtia.

Bodega Irurtia is the biggest winery in Uruguay and is owned by a large family. Our informative tour guide was the granddaughter of one of the founders, and she explained very well (in Spanish) about how they make their wines. It was fall and the harvesting season had ended in March, so there weren't any grapes to see or any wine-making, but we still got to tour the winery and learn about each step of the process. The tour ended in a wine tasting, where we were able eat several delicious cheeses with good homemade bread and to try four different wines (two red, two white) and grappa. Grappa is a hard liquor that is made by distilling the leftover grape parts that didn't get turned into wine. It was very sweet! In the end we preferred the Tannant, a red wine that Uruguay wineries are known for, and the Viognier, a white wine. We bought a bottle of each when we left, along with some delicious goat cheese, which we had tried during the tasting and which is made across the street at the family's farm.

Next, we took an hour-long leisurely walk back to the center of Carmelo, where we sat down at one of the only places that was open for lunch. We split some Pilsen (Urugay's standard beer, much like Argentina's Quilmes), fish and different types of Chivitos, the amazing Uruguyan sandwich that includes beef, panceta (not quite bacon), ham, mushrooms, olives, mozzerella, onion, egg, and mayonnaise. After eating some of the best sandwiches ever, we strolled around the tiny town, where there wasn't much else to do and most things were closed on Sunday. Finally we caught the ferry back to Tigre, and the bus from there back to Buenos Aires, where we arrived back home around 9 PM.

Random Bs.As. photo: Japan Lips

2010-06-19T02:12:00.002-03:00

We're still not sure what "Japan lips" are or why they're being advertised...

Friend Date

2010-06-07T02:53:00.001-03:00

After researching some things we can do that don't make the tourist short-list in Bs.As., I planned a friend date for Jess and Jill. I'm not very good at keeping surprises because I don't want to disappoint people, so I asked them both if they were interested in the things I had planned right before we headed out for the day. Then before we could start the fun part of the day, Jill and I had to go look at an apartment in San Telmo. Jess came with us because she likes apartment hunting and could help provide a third opinion to help us figure out whether it was a good choice or not.

San Telmo was the perfect place to start out walking for everything on the list. We walked South until we reached Bar Britanico, one of Buenos Aires' bar notables, where we had some coffee and sandwiches. While we were relaxing, we couldn't stop talking about the apartment we just saw, and with Jess' help, we realized what a great place it was. So we called the landlord up and accepted the apartment within an hour of looking at it. Then, we walked South through Parque Lezama and checked out the feria, which was mostly made up of clothing vendors rather than artisan goods. From there, we walked southeast into Barracas where we passed the beautiful old Aguila chocolate factory (which is now occupied by a huge grocery store) and where we finally hit Calle Lanin.

10 Years ago, the artist Marino Santa María began a project to turn Calle Lanin into a public art project so that people can live with art in their everyday lives without having to go to a museum. Marino was born in Barracas, has been a resident of Calle Lanin for many years and is responsible for turning the houses on it into colorful mosaics. At one end of the street, there's a long brick embankment that spans a block and sits below train tracks. Marino turns that into an outdoor museum on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays when he hangs 33 different prints of modern Argentinian artists along the bare wall. As we were walking down the street and stopping to gaze at every print, Marino walked out of his house and started chatting us up. He was very excited to talk about his work and explain it to us, even though I'm sure he's told the same story to hundreds, if not thousands, of other visitors. When we were down walking down Lanin, he invited us into his studio so we could see some of his other work and see the cultural space where children can take art classes.

After that, we walked to the beautiful Constitucion train station and hopped on a subway to head up toward the Obelisk. From there, we walked to Confitería Ideal (another cafe notable), which is famous for it's milongas, where Argentinians meet to tango. We found the milonga upstairs, ordered two submarinos (steamed milk that you drop a bar of chcoloate into) and sat down to watch the locals. Although there were a few young dancers, nearly everyone on the dancefloor was over age 60, and before long, a few older men had stopped by our table to ask us to dance. We explained that we don't know how to tango, and one of the kind men stayed and chatted with us in Spanish for awhile. A few minutes later, two older men showed up again but insisted that we didn't let our inexperience keep us from trying. A patient man taught Jess how to tango over several dances, while Jill and I frustrated our teacher much faster. He gave up and went back to dancing with the Argentinian women who knew how to tango.

When the milonga ended, we hopped on a bus and headed to Boedo, which is supposedly the neighborhood where tango was born. We ate dinner at Pan y Arte (bread and art), which specializes in Mendocino (from Mendoza province) foods and that displays different local artists on the walls of the restaurant. We shared two different casseroles that were some of the most delicious and unique foods we've eaten here even though the ingredients were fairly basic including: ground beef, potatoes, pumpkin, and raisins. We were tired after all of that running around and headed home!

Random Bs.As. photo: Bicentenario Google Style

2010-06-02T15:35:00.000-03:00

Google updated their Argentine website for the bicentennial!

Argentina Turns 200... (this post is very long, sorry)

2010-05-27T17:31:00.004-03:00

Argentina celebrated it's bicentennial this past Tuesday, May 25, 2010. Although whether that was the real date of it's 200th anniversary is up for debate. Argentina is one of the few countries to celebrate two independence days. May 25th is celebrated as Día de la Revolución de Mayo, which marks the date of the end of the May revolution that established the first local government in Buenos Aires. That's also when the Argentine War of Independence against Spain began. On July 9, 1816, Argentina officially declared it's independence, and every July 9th, the country celebrates it's Día de la Independencia. Argentina's history is very connected to the histories of other South American countries that were formally Spanish colonies, and Argentine history seems closely connected to Chilean history in particular. Chile also established it's first local government in 1810 and will be celebrating it's bicentennial in September.

Since May 25th fell on a Tuesday, Argentina declared Monday to be a national holiday as well in order to create a long four-day weekend. During those four days, there were hundreds of huge events being held all across Argentina, but the festivities in Buenos Aires were certainly the biggest! Millions of people from all over Latin America came to participate in or watch the various parades and shows that took place. On Friday, we made it to the Desfile federal (Federal Parade), which was full of all sorts of floats and performers representing Argentina's 23 provinces and Buenos Aires, an autonomous capital city. Every province had colorful displays of their own particular cultural identities. It was interesting to see the differences. Mendoza and San Juan had giant grapes parading through the street representing their famous wine country, while northern regions like Salta, Catamarca and Chaco had more indigenous floats and dancers depicting their culture, and regions of Patagonia like Chubut and Santa Cruz had mate-sipping Gauchos walking down the street. An interesting observation was related to the differences in displays of wealth of each province. The more "touristy" destinations had more elaborate floats and gaudy displays, which was starkly contrasted with the regions with more indigenous populations and less tourism, which had no floats and more people-centered displays related to dances and traditions. As foreigners and tourists, it was interesting and sad to see those contrasts and the apparent dependence on tourism as an industry.

After watching the parade for about 2.5 hours, we got tired of the crowds and headed out. All of the parades were routed down 9 de Julio, which is the widest street in the world, but since the street was also full of huge temporary food stands and stands with tourism information, the street didn't feel wide enough at all. It was really difficult and stressful to try to walk around.

Sunday was filled with another parade, but we felt way too tired to venture out to another one after having just done it the day before. We watched part of the Desfile de la integración (Integration parade), which included floats and performers from foreign populations in Buenos Aires and from other Latin American countries, on TV from our apartment.

On Monday, Argentina's national soccer team played against Canada, in it's last friendly game before the World Cup. We sometimes participate in a forum for expats in Buenos Aires and had the good luck of finding out that there was a group of Canadians giving away free tickets to anyone who would wear red and sit with them at the game. We thought we had scored 5 free tickets, but found out that it was likely that none of us would get in because we had responded so late and the Candians got fewer tickets than they had expected. So we sat at a restaurant full of Canadian soccer fans and drank wine with our friends Elana, Jill B., and Jess while we waited to see if some people would fail to show up. Fortunately we were able to get two tickets, but that left us with the difficult process of trying to determine who should go. Sara and Elana ended up being chosen because Sara was the one who had found out about the tickets and Elana really wanted to see the music acts that were supposedly going to perform at the game. They must have had pretty good seats because they were sitting about 20 feet away from a box that Maradona's father and brother were sitting in. Argentina beat Canada easily, but unfortunately neither Shakira nor Ricky Martin performed, it was apparently a wild rumor. Still, Elana and Sara enjoyed seeing a game surrounded by so many Argentinian fans. While they went to the game, Jill, Jill B. and Jess went downtown and met up with Bliss to explore some of the stands that had been set up along 9 de Julio. Again the lines and crowds were crazy so they really only made it in to two stands that were not necessarily worth the wait. So instead of continuing on to see more they got some emapandas and a liter of beer and people watch the crowds and listened to the concert playing at the obelisk.

Later up Jill, Jess, and Jill B. went to meet up with Sara and Elana to see the light show being projected on the newly renovated and reopened Teatro Colon. Once we found each other the show had started and we were too far away with the crowds, so we escaped to the subway and went back home to watch the show on TV! It was beautiful and much easier to appreciate from there.

Tuesday was the biggest day of celebration, but after dealing with the crowds the day before, we decided to celebrate at home. Argentinians traditionally eat a stew called locro every May 25th, so we made Argentine locro with Jess and ate it later that night with Jill B., Elana, and their friend Carolyn. Locro is hearty but not thick, and is made of beans, corn, carrots, red peppers, onion, squash, tomatoes, chorizo sausage, and panceta (the closest thing Argntina has to bacon). We made the traditional version as well as a vegetarian version and some empanadas. The girls brought an alfajor cake, which was like a giant-sized alfajor, for dessert. Alfajores are a very common cookie here, that are made up of two biscuits layered with dulce de leche (a carmel like substance made from condensed milk) in between. And of course we rounded the meal out with Argentine wine. While we feasted on Argentine food, we watched parts of the closing parade and a light show being projected on Cabildo (the first government building in Bs.As.) on TV. It was a nice way to wind down the long weekend.

Random Bs.As. photo: Sexy Potatoes

2010-05-17T14:27:00.000-03:00

We were walking around Belgrano (a neighborhood in BA) when we ran into this person dressed as a potato in a bikini. They were out promoting some kind of new processed flavor cube that you're supposed to mix with potatoes. Knorr must have decided that the sex sells thing applies to potatoes too. We got some free samples of the cubes and a photo...

Muchos Festivales!

2010-05-09T11:13:00.002-03:00

Buenos Aires is the biggest city either of us have ever lived in, and with around 13 million people living in the metro-area, there are always a ton of of interesting things going on. One of the coolest things about Buenos Aires is all the festivals that are put on throughout the year by the city's Ministerio de Cultura (Ministry of Culture). Since January, they have organized three huge festivals. One of them, Aires Buenos Aires, was a summer festival with all sorts of activities including concerts, dance shows, circus shows, exercise classes, movies, poetry and theater. Amazingly, the whole festival was completely free! One of our favorite shows included aerial tango dancing, which meant that throughout the show various tango dancers had giant bungee-like cords attached to themselves to they would dance horizontally on walls or be bounced around from the floor so they nearly flew for a few moments. Here's a clip from the show:

In April, an independent international film festival, BAFICI, took place. It included many free films, and the ones that cost anything were in general half to a third of the price of most regular theaters! And one of the coolest parts of the festival was that there were several open-air screenings, like this one:

Most recently, the city hosted Circo Polo, an international circus festival from the end of April through the beginning of May. About half the shows were free and those that cost money were very affordable for the level of talent that was performing. The festival also included many lectures about the history of the circus in Argentina, the troupes that were performing, and circus schools around the world. There were several circus tents set up in a park with a lot of open space, but we went went to a couple of really impressive (cirque du soleil-esque) shows that were held outside. At one of the opening shows there was a giant metal spider-like structure, and several aerial artists ziplined into it from nearby buildings. They all wore bright white outfits that were meant to resemble angels. Here is some video from that show:

A week later in the circus festival they had a special show in honor of Argentina's Bicentennial. It took place in Plaza San Martin. The show was made up of the same angel-like zipliners who had been in the opening show, but this time they were coming from much higher and performing above a much larger crowd. As they came in they'd drop a lot of feathers on the crowd below, and the visual effect and along with the music were beautiful together. The night sky made it difficult to see the zip lines so it really looked as though they were floating and flying above us. The crowd of people, kids and adults alike, had so much fun playing in the feathers that after the show, they stuck around having "feather-ball fights" and breaking into dance. Here is some video from that evening:

It's exciting to think the city will be hosting 6 other big festivals this year that should be just as entertaining. The level of entertainment that these festivals provide for free is really impressive, and it's interesting to think about what projects the government funds. You can go into beautiful old public buildings here that are falling apart and lack toilet paper or paper towels, or walk down streets where the sidewalks are completely broken, but the city still manages to hold high-quality public events for it's citizens. Besides the 9 major festivals the city government hosts, it also substantially subsidizes many other festivals. From the end of April to the beginning of May one of those festivals included a giant book fair, which was so big we weren't able to see it all in one trip and actually went three times! Here are some photos from the Feria Internacional del Libro.

Random Bs.As. photo: Dog-Man...nequin

2010-05-05T10:48:00.000-03:00

There are all sorts of districts in the city. There's a district that sells fabric, one that sells rugs, and many many more. We ran across a mannequin district that sold all sorts of weird ones, like this dalmatian with a human body.

6 months in BA!

2010-05-01T13:21:00.001-03:00

It's hard to believe, but yesterday we officially passed our 6 month mark of living in Buenos Aires! It's definitely a significant milestone for both of us as it's the longest we've ever been outside of the states. To mark the day, we traced our steps back to where we spent our first days here. On Saturday, we took the subte back to San Telmo and strolled around the neighborhood. Since it was May 1st, it happened to be Día Internacional de los Trabajadores, or International Workers Day (similar to Labor Day), which commemorates the struggle for an 8-hour workday. So as we walked around, we came across many gatherings in streets and plazas, that were being held by various unions. We walked by the hostel where we had ended up stay at on our first night after the apartment we rented online wasn't what we expected. We walked by the studio apartment that we had rented for our first month. We spent some time in Plaza Dorrego where we had seen street performers and loads of tourists, and where we had bought empanadas, and where had Sara passed clubs with other jugglers on our first night in B.A. We walked by the apartment we had stayed in with Sara's family when they visited.

As we walked, we reflected about how all the things we've done in the last six months and how much we still want to do with the rest of our time here. In some ways it feels like we got here so long ago and in other ways it feels like we're still so new to this place. We feel proud of how much we've managed to do in the time we've been here. We're both employed, and are living well on our budget, we've got a great apartment in a great area, have made some friends, and feel like we really know the city pretty well.

On Saturday, we celebrated the 6 months here by treating our selves to a nice dinner. In B.A., there are many puerta cerradas, or closed-door restaurants, which are essentially meals hosted by various chefs in their homes. We went to Casa Saltshaker, where the chef serves 5-course dinners centered around various themes. The themes are usually based upon a historic event that occurred on or near that day, but that night the theme was Iron Chef. So the first two people to make reservations (not us) had gotten to choose a key ingredient they wanted to eat that night. They chose chocolate and duck, so each of the courses included at least one of those ingredients and a couple of them included both. Since the meal is held inside a home, the number of guests is pretty small at around 10 people. Although they often have visitors from all over the world, we were the only ones there that night who weren't Canadian! We enjoyed both the company and the food and hope to get to check out another puerta cerrada for another special occasion while we're here.

Random Bs.As. photo: Turn that frown upside d...oh wait

2010-04-23T18:37:00.011-03:00

Every street here has it's own pastelería or confitería (pastry shop) and we found these gems at our new favorite around the corner from our house. You know sometimes you just have the kind of day that you want your pastry to frown back at you :(

Studying, Training and Working

2010-04-22T13:18:00.002-03:00

I started taking Spanish classes at la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) at the beginning of January, and am now in my third intensive class and level! The professors at UBA have been great, the tuition is incredibly low, and my classmates have been an interesting mix of people from all over the world. Spanish seems to be a fairly easy language for English-speakers to learn. Not only do we share basically the same alphabet, but many words are cognates so more often than not, it's easy to guess the meaning of a new word that I've never seen before. I’m continually amazed by my classmates from countries like China and Russia, who started with completely different alphabets and have far fewer language resources available—if there’s a second language here, it’s English.

This month, I've also been taking a conversation workshop at UBA. With only 5 people, it's a nice small class and provides an opportunity to get lots of speaking practice! We spend a good deal of time doing listening comprehension activities with songs and radio broadcasts. I've also gotten some speaking practice at an event called Spanglish, where our friend Jill B. works. Spanglish pairs a native Spanish-speaker with a native English-speaker for about 5-10 minute intervals. During that time, you speak in both languages, for half the time, so both people have the opportunity to practice the one they're learning . Then one person moves to the next table so you continually meet new people throughout the night. It's kind of like speed dating without the dating part, unless you're looking for a date, in which case you can try to flirt with strangers.

I've also been taking two juggling classes in Spanish at different cultural centers. One of them meets for 2-3 hours every week at Circo Criollo, which is only a 20 minute bus ride from our apartment. I love this class because it's made up of only myself and 1-2 Argentineans, which means I get to learn a lot from the instructor, and everyone at the center is incredibly nice. Since the class is so small, I also get plenty of Spanish-speaking and a lot of listening practice! The other class I'm taking meets twice a week for two hours at a neat place called Circo Trivenchi, located in the Barracas neighborhood. It's a cooperative, so once you pay a monthly fee for using the building, you're allowed to take any class you want. Instructors are compensated a la gorra (by the money you put in their hat). The hat is placed on the side and people walk by it on their way out, which allows everyone to pay what they can on a sliding scale without feeling like they're being judged. It's a great system because it makes all of the classes available to nearly everyone without making them feel guilty for being unable to pay for classes upfront (like you have to at other cultural centers). I enjoy these classes as well, but it takes me a full hour to get there on the bus or the subway! And they're a little larger, so I've met more Argentinians but gotten less individual instruction in this class.

I also started working for a consulting company that works with search-engine optimization/marketing for companies in the U.S. I write articles, which this company then places on various websites and blogs. The articles aren't necessarily supposed to be written very well, they're just supposed to follow a few guidelines and include some hidden keywords. By putting more content on the internet that includes those keywords, the company can increase traffic to their customers' websites and move those websites into a higher position on search engines (so you see their product first when you search for those keywords). Even though I can write about pretty much anything I want as long as I include those keywords, you can only get so creative with keywords like home security system. But so far, the positives outweigh the negatives. The nice thing about this job is that I can choose how many hours I work and I get paid electronically in USD. If I work only 20 hours a week, that more than covers my living expenses here and leaves enough time to take Spanish and juggling classes, which is what I really want to be doing here.

Random Bs.As. photo: The Big Apple...of South America

2010-04-16T08:22:00.006-03:00

Buenos Aires' own little Chrysler Building can be found in Belgrano at the Manhattan club, for anyone who misses NYC.

Some Video from Uruguay

2010-04-13T20:21:00.001-03:00

Random Bs.As. photo: Failblog-worthy?

2010-04-08T16:12:00.004-03:00

Solo (only) empanadas, except they have fajitas...

Our Uruguayan Beach Trip

2010-04-02T14:16:00.003-03:00

Punta del Diablo
After traveling by ferry and bus for about 12 hours, we finally arrived at Punta del Diablo at noon and were ready to spend the remainder of the day napping on the beach. We spent 1.5 days here with our friend Bliss and really liked:

● Seeing the ocean from almost any point in town because it is built on a hill
● Lying on the beach all day, only interrupted by a walk along the water or a walk into to town to buy some food or beer
● Friendly dogs we temporarily adopted (but really they adopted us).
● Cold Pilsen on the beach, Uruguay's cheap beer that is, in our opinion, markedly better tasting then Argentina's Quilmes.
● Fried seafood empanadas filled with fresh fish, mussels and cheese (yum!).
● Watching surfers ride the waves (or at least attempt to).
● Clerico, an Uruguayan white sangria filled with lemons, grapes, peaches and bananas.
● Chivito, an Uruguayan special sandwich that has beef (surprise!), egg, panceta (kinda like bacon), ham, lettuce, tomato, onions, and mayo.

Cabo Polonio
Getting to Cabo Polonio was a bit of an adventure since there are no paved roads to access it. We took a bus to the "puerta" of Cabo Polonio and from there took a 4X4 that we liked to call a "dune buggy". When the woman who sold us the tickets said 4X4 we were picturing a small ATV and wondering how we would ever get our bags on one of those. But what we got instead was a big truck with benches that could barrel right through the sand dunes. Some highlights were:

● Our nighttime dune buggy ride under the stars. With zero light pollution and a clear sky it was like seeing the sky for the first time, completely filled with stars.
● Eating dinner, brushing our teeth and doing all other nighttime activities by candlelight, since there wasn't electricity.
● Waking up in the morning to play with puppies and sit on the porch of our hostel that was literally on the beach.
● Taking an early morning walk on the beach and once again being flanked and befriended by the local stray dogs.
● Hearing the the constant calls and barks from the sea lion colony on an island just off the shore from Cabo Polonio. It sounded like a stadium of people cheering and screaming.
● Spotting a few sea lions on our side of the water, who were basking in the sun and fishing in the water by the lighthouse.
● Eating fresh Corvina (local whitefish) and Cazón (dogfish shark!) a la plancha (grilled with a spritz of lemon) for about $5USD apiece
● Being on very unpopulated beaches and having giant stretches of sand all to ourselves.
● Running into another juggler on a virtually empty beach and Sara getting to pass clubs with him.
● Meeting the famous Condor, the man featured in Anthony Bourdain's Uruguay episode on our first night.

Punta del Este and Jose Ignacio
We met up with our other friends, Elana and Jill B., from BA to spend out final 1.5 days at Jose Ignacio and Punta del Este. Punta del Este is the more ritzy of all the places we went to, as it is a big vacation spot for Latin America's rich and famous. It was certainly a different feel than Cabo Polonio and Punta del Diablo with it's skycrapers creeping up towards the beaches. Jose Ignacio, a 40 minute bus ride from Punta del Este, was a quieter beach with beautiful beach homes (Shakira apparently owns a home here) and a lighthouse that reminded us of beaches in Cape Cod. We enjoyed:

● Walking the boardwalk at Jose Ignacio along the rocks, sand, and past the lighthouse to find the perfect beach spot.
● Admiring the beautiful beach homes (mansions)and watching for Shakira sightings.
● The famous "La Mano" sculpture at Playa Brava in Punta del Este, that looks like a giant stone hand coming out of the sand. We all took turns climbing onto the thumb.
● Watching the sunset over Playa Mansa.
● Spending our last morning on the beach, Sara juggling and Jill getting sunburned!
● Just making our bus to Montevideo by about 2 minutes because we just couldn't pull ourselves away from the beach, and of course we had to stop to buy some sweet and savory emapanadas (raisin-pork and hawaiian ham-pineapple).
● Befriending an Argentine man on the boat ride home who was also graciously our temporary Spanish teacher.
● Watching the sunset from the boat and getting a quick glimpse of the light reflecting off the distant skyscrapers in BA from across the water.
● Our constellation lesson led by the captain of the ship to keep us entertained on the top deck during the 3 hour boat ride.

Random Bs.As. photo: Big Mac's Gym

2010-03-29T20:30:00.001-03:00

A "Ronald Gym Club" attached to a McDonalds in the Colegiales neighborhood of Buenos Aires. Now you can work that meal off right after you consume it.

90-Day Visa Runs

2010-03-23T16:43:00.006-03:00

Navigating the Argentine bureaucracy to get a real VISA is very difficult and expensive so most expats avoid doing it. Everyone who enters Argentina is given a free 90-day tourist VISA, which means every 3 months perma-tourists need to leave the country and re-enter in order to be living here legally. It sounds like a hassle, but really Colonia, Uruguay is only a 45-minute boat ride from Buenos Aires. So it's pretty easy to live here legally for quite awhile, and many people live here and make the obligatory visa runs for several years.

It's hard to believe, but it's already been 3 months since we went to Colonia, Uruguay with Sara's family at the end of December! So tonight we're boarding a ferry that leaves Buenos Aires at midnight. After about 11 hours of travel (ferry to Colonia, bus to Montevideo, another bus to Punta del Diablo), we'll arrive at a beach and begin exploring the following towns:

1) Punta del Diablo - A sleepy fishing village that's becoming more developed each year as more middle-class Argentinians and Brazilians spend their summer vacations here.

2) Cabo Polonio - A remote beach town that lacks electricity except for a few generators. Since there are no roads to get here, we'll have to take a 30 min. ride in a monster-truck/dune buggy over some big sand dunes to get there.

3) Punta del Este - A very developed and ritzy resort town where the elite in Latin America try to be seen during summer months. It's often compared to Miami or the Hamptons.

Summer pretty much just ended here, and January and February were the busiest months at any of these coastal towns. So we're looking forward to chilling out on some (hopefully) not too crowded beaches. Then we'll head back to B.A. just in time to start classes and work on Monday.

View Beach trip to Uruguay in a larger map

Random Bs.As. photo: Who is walking who?

2010-03-20T15:30:00.008-03:00

An Argentinian "Paseaperro" or "Passadore de perro" (dogwalker). Legally dog walkers are not supposed to have more than 8 dogs at a time, but that is rarely enforced. It's common to see people walking up to 15 dogs at a time. Many dogwalkers even wear customized belts that have loops for attaching several leashes.

26

2010-03-08T14:34:00.002-03:00

Sara turned 26 on March 7. Thanks to her parents Kathy and Jeff, we had an amazing brunch at the Four Seasons! It was quite an experience, including the part where we didn't quite have enough on us, and Sara had to run around to find an ATM that still had cash in it on a Sunday afternoon (they often run out over the weekend).

The Oscars were held the same day, and an Argentine film, Secreto de sus ojos, had been nominated for the best foreign film. Several Argentinian movie stars were at the hotel to watch the ceremony and celebrate, but we were unaware of that and didn't run into any of them.

Here are some photos of the tasty food.

Jill gets a Job (times 3!)

2010-03-02T15:09:00.001-03:00

After graduating my intensive TEFL course at the end of January the time had come to start the job hunt. I revised my resume and wrote a cover letter, and sent them out to over 30 teaching institutes around the city. Within a week I had several job interviews set up. I really liked the first place I interviewed with as the first question they asked me was "what are some of your core values?" The interview lasted an hour as I talked with the director about shared values, good teaching practice and how to see your student as a "whole person" and build a relationship with them. Any of you OCSLers and GCDers out there would know how appreciative I was for this kind of conversation. It was not something I expected to find here. I was offered the job on the spot and I asked for a week to think it over (as this was only my first interview!) My other interviews went relatively well, but no one else asked about my values- just for a summary of my experience, strengths and weaknesses, and availability. One interview actually didn't go very well. The whole thing from start to finish was less than 10 minutes long, and after two minutes of talking the director told me that I "spoke very closed" and that it was difficult to understand me. Then she spent the last 5 minutes giving me advice on interviewing with institutes :/ Such an awkward experience.

By the end of my first round of interviews I felt ready to say yes to that first institute. They immediately called me in for an orientation meeting that Friday, then I met with my coordinator on Monday and started teaching on Tuesday. Right now I'm teaching 7 classes (about 16 hours a week) for adult professionals. I have 1-3 students in each class and the levels range from beginner to upper intermediate. I spent my first week playing ice breaker games, getting to know my students, and setting course goals/expectations. I also did some reading and speaking activities with them to get a more precise feel for their level. It feels nice to have classes that I can plan creatively and effectively using my own style of teaching. Right now the lesson planning (time that I don't get paid for) is adding another 6 or so hours of work a week, but I think with time and practice I will be able to cut down on that time. But my previous ambition to teach 30 hours a week has disappeared- this job is a lot of work, and having to plan for those classes would take up too much time. Ideally now, I would like to take on a few more classes, maybe work 20-23 hours a week teaching.

My other job is babysitting. I babysit a little 2 year old love named Ella most evenings. Sara found a post on BAexpats.org from an estadounidense family here in BA looking for a regular babysitter. I got in touch with them and met them for coffee, and now I see them 5-6 nights a week. They are taking 6 months away from the states to learn tango and live in a new place. It's really convenient because they only live a 20 minute walk (a 4 minute bus ride) from my house. It's been nice to spend time with a little kid too, I forgot how much I like kids and it reminds me of my days teaching swim lessons at the Y.

So teaching and babysitting equal out to almost 40 hours a week (more if you count the lesson planning part). Job # 3 is not very time consuming nor profitable, but it's something I'm really happy to be involved with. I have taken on the role of Internship Coordinator for the Argentina Autonomista Project. This program is the very same program I interned with the last time I was in Buenos Aires in 2007 and ended up writing my undergraduate thesis on. It is a program that invites foreign students from all over the world to come and learn about the Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas (National Movement of Recovered Enterprises) by inviting them into factories that were part of the movement and allowing them to learn about it firsthand from the workers. In a nutshell, it's a movement that happened in response to the economic crash of 2001 in which workers occupied factories to keep them from being sold off, and then ended up winning ownership of the companies and rebuilt them as cooperatives- without bosses. You can read more about the internship here.

Anyway, it is work that is close to my heart and made a really profound impact on me last time I was here, so I am so glad that I still get to be connected to the factory and the workers, and advise other students so that they can have an experience as positive as mine. I went back to visit the factory I worked at, Chilavert (a printing press), to introduce myself in my new role and I had such a warm reception. It was good to see everyone again, and (as they all commented) this time my Spanish is much better :)

Flooding!

2010-02-26T19:57:00.003-03:00

As newcomers to the city, we were unaware that the street we chose to live on, Juan B. Justo, is one of the worst flood areas of the city. Our street literally sits above an underground stream. In the 1930s, the government enclosed the stream in a pipe and built a major road above it. When it rains too much, the pipes are unable to contain all of the water, and the street floods.

Last Friday, 19 de Febrero de 2010 it rained 80mm (3.15 inches) in 2 hours! And the average historical rainfall for the whole month of Febrero is only 107mm (4.2 inches). Jill was at a store when the flooding began, but they kicked all of their customers out in order to erect a metal blockade in the doorway to prevent flood damage. Meanwhile, I was on my way home in the subway and was amazed to hear water toppling down onto the train as we sped along. Since it's still summer here and the subways aren't airconditioned, it's often unbelievably hot and stuffy, and everyone wants to keep the windows down. But on Friday, water came pouring in the windows, so people were both wet and sweaty on their unpleasant ride home. We had to skip a stop, Scalabrini Ortiz, because the station was flooded, but I was really surprised that the subway stopped at the Palermo stop because two massive waterfalls of rainwater were cascading into the station through the vents in the ceiling. I was really thankful I could get home via subway, because the streets near our apartment were closed and it would have been difficult to figure out the buses since they were rerouting themselves.

The flooding was really bad near an intersection about a block away from our apartment. Firefighters tied ropes between traffic lights and used inflatable boats to help pedestrians to cross the street. Officials cut the power in some areas to try to prevent electrocutions, and we lost power for a couple of hours. And since we didn't really want to venture out into the water, we lit a candle, cracked a bottle of wine, ate some cheese and crackers, and talked about life. The floods subsided within a few hours, but they left behind a slimy-dirt coating littered with trash and shoes that people had lost.

In the past when other streets of our barrio have flooded, and we gladly took advantage of the opportunity to be silly and jump in giant puddles! But since the floods have been so much closer to our door, the novelty has worn off a bit... Check the video and photos below to see it for yourself (if you're having trouble viewing the video, try a different internet browser)!

Nearly Pickpocketed

2010-02-11T18:46:00.001-03:00

Last night, Jill and I were riding a very crowded colectivo (bus) from our apartment in Palermo to Parque Centenario, where we were going to see a free Tango show. Near the end of our ride, a very short older man well-dressed in a suit got on the bus. He couldn't reach the horizontal bars above us so he kept inching over in front of me in order to hold onto a vertical bar. Shortly after that, he pushed himself in between Jill and I so he was right up against my side. Normally on a crowded bus, this wouldn't seem that strange because everyone is literally squished up against each other, but there was quite a bit of room in the back of the bus, so we weren't sure why he decided to crowd around us. Since we were getting off the bus so soon it didn't make sense for us to move to the back, so I was squished between about 5 people near the exit. Suddenly, I felt a hand in my pocket, and I yelled "hey" and grabbed at the hands because I thought someone had swiped my camera. The hand belonged to an older woman, who looked like she was probably in her 60s. She fell backwards and kept telling me that the man had stuck his hand in my pocket, and at the same time, Jill started grabbing for his hands and pockets. We quickly realized they hadn't gotten anything, and we got off the bus at the next stop. They both also hurried off the bus because the commotion alerted all the passengers to what they had just attempted to do. That was when we realized that they had been working together--he squeezed me into a tight space and she did the actual pickpocketing. We watched them walk around the corner, then turn around and go back to a bus stop, presumably to get on another bus to try again.

I had quite an adrenaline rush and shortly after the incident, I couldn't remember some of what had happened. I also began to question whether they had really tried to pickpocket me or whether I imagined the whole thing, but the more Jill and I talked about it, the more it became clear that it really happened. I felt really stupid for not being more aware of my surroundings on the bus, because I'm normally very cautious when I carry the camera. It was also a very hot day, and I wore shorts that had low-pockets which were much easier to reach into than the pockets of the jeans that I almost always wear. Anyway, Jill and I both felt very fortunate that we were targeted by sly pickpocketers and not violent muggers (which is much less common but can happen anywhere).

Our Apartment

2010-01-19T21:20:00.005-03:00

At the end of December, we signed a 6 month lease on an apartment located pretty centrally in Palermo. We're paying $500 USD a month for a one-bedroom apartment plus a comission. In order to get a $50 a month discount, we agreed to pay all of our rent up front, which was quite a hassle to figure out and a little scary to carry all of that money around. Argentinians, however, are not really phased by the idea of carrying $4000 USD in hand into a meeting. Since Argentina's currency was devalued by 75% in 2001, most Argentinians are weary of using banks. This means that most people store their savings somewhere in their home- hiding it in books, dvd cases, cookie jars, and under floorboards- and that most real estate transactions are done in cash. People literally carry hundreds of thousands of dollars into a meeting and sign the paperwork. So our landlord thought we were pretty silly for folding all of the money up tightly and stashing it in a money belt, but it gave us a little comfort. Carrying all that money around felt very sketchy, and we almost felt as if we were doing something illegal.

If we had ever questioned how present the machismo is here, it's annoying presence was confirmed by the actions of our landlord. He showed up an hour late to sign the contract and didn't apologize to Jill, Sara, or Sara's mom. As he showed us around the apartment again, his rude demeanor became more and more offputting. At one point, when Jill asked how the washing machine worked he brusquely replied "I don't know, ask a girl." As we were wrapping things up, Sara's dad and brother arrived to help move things in. Immediately, the landlord's whole tone changed. He firmly shook hands with both of them and began apologizing profusely to them for being so late that morning. He then introduced Sara's dad to our Portero (doorman) without introducing the Portero to either of us. It was pretty impossible to not pick up on the machismo, and Sara's dad even brought it up once the landlord had left.

Although moving in was a bit frustrating, we're really enjoying living in our new place. The place is spacious enough for us, gets plenty of sunlight, and is in a great location. We're a block away from a subway stop and a million bus stops, a 10 min. walk from parque 3 de febrero (this city's central park), a 15 min. walk to Palermo Soho (a trendy area with boutique shops), 2 blocks away from Jumbo (Argentina's version of a walmart supercenter + target + home depot all in one store) and in the center of a ton of the city's most diverse restaurants.

Come visit, and you can crash on our comfy couch.

The Holidays

2010-01-10T08:52:00.002-03:00

Spending the holidays far from home is certainly different and challenging, but also a learning experience. Culturally it's interesting to see the differences between how we celebrate.

So first we'll start with a belated recap of our Buenos Aires Thanksgiving:

The holiday doesn't exist here- so there's not much to compare. We just needed to find some fellow estadounidenses to share a turkey dinner with us and make us feel less sad about not being with our families- and we did! We are both members of an online forum called BAexpats.org. This is our go-to site for whenever we have questions about how to live in BA. Posting a random question or finding someone else who already asked what you wanted to ask usually bears some utilitarian nuggets of knowledge. Of course, you usually have to dig through a few annoying "I've been living here for 3 months and as an English speaking 'american' and am an EXPERT on Argentine culture" comments, but those are good for a venting reply or a laugh if I don't want to waste time responding.

ANYWAY- we looked on the forum for what to do on Thanksgiving and some people were already planning a big dinner! We signed up and took a train to a northern suburb of Capital Federal, Vicente Lopez, and found ourselves on the doorstep of an ornate mansion that was currently being occupied (and I think maintained) by some fellow estadounidenses. There were about 30 people there and plenty of food, wine, and even a champagne toast. The man who organized the event ordered 3 frozen Brazilian-imported turkeys and it was just enough. He also made a whole vat of mashed potatoes with gravy, and others brought delicious side-dishes like green-bean casserole, salad, rolls, and stuffing...mmmm. A recent arrival to BA even smuggled in some cranberry sauce- impossible to find here! It was a delicious meal and we met some interesting people. The crowd was a mix between retirees and older (and wealthier) vacationing expats, 30-something business entrepreneurs, recent law-school grads taking their tanked-economy job deferrals to travel, and some study-abroaders. We were pressed to find people that we felt like were in our situation: 20-somethings planning to stay longer than the average study-abroader and wanting to spend it by really getting to know the city, language, and culture on a tight budget. We are a small demographic here I think, but hopefully when classes start up we'll find some other people who are in the same boat as us.

Christmas:

The Munzingers were here to make these holidays happier and more familiar than our Thanksgiving. Kathy brought lots of supplies, including all the ingredients for making cookies (a Munzinger family tradition) as well as a 2-lb bag of brown sugar and a big jar of Peanut Butter for us to keep. Sara's parents also surprised us with Christmas stockings and Ethan brought along some Christmas music (that we listened to on repeat for most of the trip). They really made it feel like Christmas in the little San Telmo apartment we all stayed in together. Kathy made a delicious Christmas dinner- we had salad, twice-baked potatoes, a roast, roasted garlic and bread. And as Jill's family usually has a Christmas ham, Kathy and Sara specially glazed and cooked up a cut of ham for her. We spent the rest of the evening listening to Christmas music and playing games around our tiny Christmas tree-cone that we decorated with construction paper garland.

This scene was a stark contrast to the world outside our door. While Frank Sinatra sang about "White Christmas", children laughing and sleigh bells ringing inside our apartment, outside it was 85 degrees and the streets were empty. I have never seen the streets of Buenos Aires as eerily vacant as I saw them after 2pm on Christmas Eve. It felt creepy to be outside in the middle of the day and worse in the evening, because absolutely no one was around and everything was closed. It was like a ghost town...

But then came the fireworks! Right at midnight the city exploded with sound and light and came alive again. Fireworks were being shot off from every direction as far as we could see. It was really beautiful and I felt this sensation of connection to the rest of the city, after a day of feeling like we were the only ones around. Everyone was stopping at this exact moment to look out their windows with their families and celebrate- it was like watching the ball drop on New Years Eve. The fireworks lasted for more than an hour. Then the streets became loud again, as they filled with people lining up to go clubbing on the biggest night out of the year.

Christmas Eve is the bigger day for people in Buenos Aires. The streets are dead because everyone is inside with their families for Christmas dinner and then they all watch the fireworks together. After the fireworks young people depart and head out to go clubbing with their friends until the sun comes up. BA really is the city that never sleeps, but we are people who liketo sleep and felt strange going out on Christmas, such a family-oriented holiday in the states. So we could hear the festivities outside our window but didn't partake.

Christmas morning we had mimosas and a breakfast casserole, and Jill had some quiche (a Meade family tradition). Sara's parents had also laid out a stocking for each of us and we took turns opening them together. After this, Jill Skyped her family and opened the suitcase full of presents her mom had sent along with the Munzingers. It was nice to feel connected to my family and have some semblance of a normal Christmas by opening presents with them (virtually anyway). It really meant a lot to me that both my parents and Sara's parents would go to all the trouble for me. Later in the day we went to Recoleta Cemetery, one of the few things open and then had High Tea at a fancy hotel nearby. It was a happy BA Christmas with Sara's family here.

New Year's Eve:

They left on New Year's Eve, also Jill's Brithday, which was definitely sad. In BA New Year's is a more family-oriented holiday than in the states. The streets were eerily empty again which amplified our own feelings of being sad to see Sara's family's go- but we trudged on! We made a nice dinner and Sara made an ice-cream birthday cake from scratch for Jill. It was delicious. Again at midnight the city lit up with fireworks and we had a great view from our balcony. We sat in the dark and watched the fireworks and toasted the New Year. We were still feeling a bit down, but managed to stay up until 2:00am so that we could watch the ball drop in New York in another attempt at feeling connected to friends and family back home. Jill called her parents to wish them a Happy 2010, and then we went to sleep looking forward to what our 2010 in Argentina would bring...

The Munzingers Visit B.A.

2010-01-05T13:20:00.008-03:00

Sara´s family flew into Buenos Aires on Friday, December 18th. We really enjoyed spending time with them here for two weeks around the holidays. We had a great time relaxing with them but also did many touristy things together with them. Some of the things we did include:

● Took a double-decker tourist bus around the city, which gave a historical overview of some major tourist destinations and made several stops around town where passengers could get off and on.
● Perused the artisan goods at some of Buenos Aires' well-known ferias
● Checked out La Boca, a neighborhood that is famous for its colorful buildings as well as its high-crime rate
● Toured Palacio Paz, an ornate mansion that was built by the the family that owned "La Prensa" newspaper. Señor Paz built the home, with the intention of becoming Argentina´s President and using it as the Presidential Palace but that never happened.
● Toured Palacio Barolo, which was the tallest building in South America when it was completed in 1923 and it's design was inspired by Dante´s Divine Comedy. Originally, the Italian owner intended to acquire Dante's ashes after his death and to display them in the building, but that also never happened.
● Visited the Evita museum.
● Walked around the Recoleta Cemetery, where Evita and many other wealthy Porteños (Buenos Aires residents) are buried in mausoleums. Some of the mausoleums are meticulously cared for, while others next to them are crumbling in disrepair. Porteños make-out in public pretty much everywhere, but still, we were a bit surprised to see several couples making out at the cemetery on the stoops of
mausoleums...ew.
● Visited many leather shops
● Ate a lot of great food, including one meal where Jill´s parents treated all of us to an amazing dinner at "Cocina Sunae," a closed-door restaurant. Buenos Aires has several similar restaurants, where a chef opens their home to a limited number of guests each evening for a fixed menu. The meal was a Thai, Vietnamese and Filipino fusion, and we think it is the best food we have eaten here yet. We definitely want to try another closed-door restaurant soon!
● Saw a tango show at the historic Cafe Tortoni
● Went to Tigre, a popular weekend spot for Porteños that is located on a river delta just north of Buenos Aires. Tigre is made up of a series of islands that the river runs through, and most people are either sunbathing or taking a boat ride through the small channels of water.
● Took a high-speed ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, which was an hour-long ride from Buenos Aires. The sleepy town of about 20,000 is right on the river, and it really has maintained the look of an old Spanish fort and colony. The trip back from Colonia, however, was the scariest boat ride we've ever been on. A storm whipped up while we were in the middle of the Rio de la Plata and the boat pitched and rocked in every direction. The crew handed out cold presses and motion sickness bags and a ton of people on the boat got sick. When we finally, and thankfully, made it to shore we were told the waves were about 7 feet high. It was nice to be home...

Sara´s mom, Kathy, had also arranged for us all to make a trip to San Antonio del Areco, which is about an hour outside of the city and is known for its gaucho (Argentine cowboy) culture. Unfortunately, the day before we were supposed to go, San Antonio flooded because of heavy rains and illegal irrigation ditches built by farmers and 3,000 people were forced to evacuate. Needless to say, we didn't go...

The Munzingers also helped us move into and settle in our new apartment, which probably wasn't the most fun thing for them to do here, but we really appreciated their help!

Overall, we did a lot while they were here and had a really nice time getting to sightsee with them. We were sad when they left on Dec. 31st! They also made the holidays very special for us, but that's the next blog entry.

Trip Montage

2010-01-03T23:46:00.002-03:00

A compilation of videos we shot while visiting Argentina's lakes district in Patagonia (including San Martín de los Andes, Bariloche and El Bolsón).

El Bolsón

2009-12-17T23:39:00.000-03:00

Our trip to Argentina's lakes district ended in El Bolsón, which was a 2 hour bus ride from Bariloche. We hadn't planned to stay so long, but we were both so enamored by the small town (populated by 30,000 hippies) that we kept extending our stay. El Bolsón has amazing artisans, craft breweries, an incredibly clear river, lakes and waterfalls, and the town is nestled between the Andes that border Chile and the mountain Piltriquitron (pronounced pill-tree-key-tron). After visiting, we'd both rather live there than Buenos Aires, but unfortunately unemployment is very high.

When our bus arrived in town on Tuesday (Dec. 8), the two owners of the hostel we had booked generously picked us up and gave us a mini-tour of their town. They run a cute hostel called "Pehuenia," out of the house they live in with their two children. The hostel had a very friendly, laid-back vibe, which definitely contributed to our enjoyment of El Bolsón. The day we arrived, the hostel was hosting an asado, a traditional Argentine barbecue. We gorged ourselves with loads of steak, sausages, lamb ribs, blood sausages, bread with chimichurri sauce, and wine for less than $5 USD a person. The hostel owners hold an asado every three days, and we stayed there so long we participated in another one. For that asado, we were able to go to the butcher shops to learn about how to buy the right meat.

On our second day, we shared a remise up part of Piltriquitron mountain with a woman from Israel that we had met at the hostel. We hiked up the rest of the way to Bosque Tallado, which is a collection of more than 30 sculptures that were carved into trees that remained from a forest fire in 1978.

Four times a week, El Bolsón has a Feria artesanal, where all kinds of locally produced arts and goods are sold. Compared to the various ferias we went to in Buenos Aires, this feria had better quality goods and a greater variety of things for sale. Local artists were selling glass jewelry; art; puppets; homemade soaps; woodcarved housewares; hand carved mates; hand carved pipes and hookahs; shawls, scarves, hats and vests woven from sheep's wool; homemade soaps; regional foods; microbrews (with samples!) and homemade jams. El Bolsón is also crazy for organic foods--so almost every kind of food there was fresh and organic. We enjoyed the feria so much, we made it there everyday it was open and managed to buy all of our christmas gifts for our families there!

75% of Argentina's hops are grown in this tiny town, which has resulted in numerous breweries. We visited the El Bolsón Brewery with some beer-loving Americans from San Diego who we had met at our hostel. This brewery is the largest craft brewery in the area, and we were able to try several unique beers there including a hot pepper beer that literally includes a pepper in the bottle, a honey beer that really tastes like honey (kind of gross), a raspberry beer, and gluten-free beer brewed from corn.

One afternoon, we went rafting on the Rio Azul (blue river) in duckies. Duckies are smaller rafts that only hold 1-3 people--they seem more like inflatable kayaks. Because of their size they are much more agile on the water, and you can "play" around with them on the water. We were on an excursion of 6 people (including 3 instructors) so we got plenty of time to play on the rapids. Jill was pretty nervous at the outset, as she had never been rafting before, but felt fine after the first few minutes. She only fell in once, and was the only one to fall in. The water was so fresh and clear that when we were thirsty we would just lean over the side and drink.

At the end of our week in town, we decided to visit Refugio Cajon del Azul, a large cabin up in the mountains where you can eat fresh lamb and vegetables from an organic garden, drink homemade beer, and relax. We were a little sketched out when our taxi that was supposed to take us to the base of the Warton hiking area broke down about 2 kilometers from the base, but it worked out well since we ended up getting half our money back. From there, we hiked 4 hours to the refugio. We ran into some gauchos taking the route on horseback and some other hikers, but most of the time we were completely alone with nature. There were some parts that were a little scary, like the rickety footbridge that really looked like something out of Indiana Jones, strung across the rushing river with wooden slats falling off of it. There was also a part where we had to climb up ladders over rocks because it was so steep. When we arrived we found a completely self-sufficient farmhouse with sheep, horses, and organic garden. The refugio used only a small amount of electricity in the evening from sunset until midnight. We ate and drank well, played scrabble in Spanish, spent the night on the cabin floors and hiked back the next day, stopping to take a swim in the river.

We were sad to leave for BA at the end of the week since we loved El Bolsón so much, but our one solace was that we decided to upgrade our bus ride class for the 24 hour ride home--and it made quite a difference. The seats were wide and plush, we got pillows and blankets (the blankets we're big enough to cover us head to toe), the food was plentiful and the free booze was wonderful. Two out of three of the movies shown were decent, but the first of one was a voiced over Disney original movie called the "Princess Protection Program" where they also decided to play all of the extra specials features on the DVD, including interviews with all cast members, a music video, and a segment on what it's like to be a real modern princess. The whole time we were really wondering what kind of audience they were going for because there wasn't anyone on the bus who fit the demographic of 12 and under. We were surprised after having wine with dinner that we were also offered the option of champagne or whiskey as a nightcap. When the waiter came around to ask what we wanted we both said whiskey and he laughed a little and said "wow" as he poured our glasses. We slept very well.

Bariloche

2009-12-10T11:51:00.006-03:00

The section of Ruta 40 (Route 40) between San Martin de los Andes and Bariloche is a famous route known as "la ruta de los siete lagos" or the route of the seven lakes. Some who are strong enough to handle the steep climbs of the mountains bike the route over a few days. The sharp curves have no guardrails, some of the road is unpaved and rocky, and bicyclists must cruise down this road alongside cars, trucks, buses and grazing farm animals. We decided to do it the easy way and took a bus, which took 4 hours! We made sure that we had seats on the right side of the bus as it yeilded better views of the lakes and the mountains. The views were spectacular--the lakes were a beautiful aqua blue and the streams were so clear you could see right to the bottom. The dirt portion of the road was very bumpy and somewhat scary as there were times when we were so close to the edge of the road that we couldn´t see it from our windows--it felt like we might tumble off the road. Halfway through the ride we passed the the small town of Villa la Angostura, a quaint little town between two lakes, and we were a little sorry we didn´t plan a stop there for a few days. As we pulled up to Bariloche the mountains were jagged and snowcapped, which provided a dramatic backdrop for the city.

We stayed at hostel 1004, which was on the top floor of the tallest building in the city--the view was the reason we chose to stay there. We ate breakfast on the balcony everyday, and one evening we timed dinner so that we ate just in time for sunset. The view of the lake, Nahuel Huapi, with the mountains behind it was incredible. The service and rooms at the hostel however, felt more like a college dorm than other hostels we´ve been to. It was very crowded, there were lines for the bathroom, the computer and the kitchen--a great place to meet new people, because when you´re all crammed in you really have no choice, but not necessarily a comfortable stay.

Bariloche was definitely bigger than San Martin and had a lot more to do in and outside of the city. In the center of town there´s a main street filled with shops--lots of hokie, touristy t-shirts and souveniers, overpriced outdoor shops, and lots and lots of chocolate! We sampled quite a lot while were there. We also spent some time juggling in the park and playing fetch with a rock and a horde of stray dogs that were very sweet and happy to be paid any attention.

Outside town we hiked Mount Campanario, rated in National Geographic as one of the top 5 views in the world. We went with two Australian women (with much longer legs, and seemingly larger lungs) who we had met at the hostel. There were no switchbacks on the hike, just a path leading straight up the mountain. But at the top there was a great 360 degree view of the area, and it felt like we were on top of the world.

Our favorite part of the trip so far was our third day in Bariloche, when we biked the Circuito Chico. It´s a very hilly 30k (yes, everything is in kilometers here) loop around the lakes. We didn´t love the uphills and usually just walked our bikes up the more daunting ones. The dirt roads we rode on for about 5k were frustrating as well, but this was definitely the best way for us to really appreciate the beauty of the area. The best parts were cruising down giant hills after steep climbs on a road skirted with wildflowers and surrounded by lakes and mountains. We made a few pit stops along the way--a short hike through the woods to a hidden lake, where we took a refreshing (aka freezing cold) dip in, and an old swiss village, Colonia Suiza. The only access to Colonia Suiza is by dirt roads, which didn´t appear to be maintained at all, which made for a very bumpy ride. On our way to the village we had the good fortune of watching a Gaucho and his sheepdogs herd sheep and lambs across the road two feet in front of us. We stopped in Colonia Suiza for a quick lunch at a naturally constructed building that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings (Jill was obviously enthused while Sara appreciated the natural construction). Our wild boar panini was super salty but delicious and exciting (a nice change from the monotonous food of Buenos Aires)!

Overall, we appreciated the outdoorsy parts of Bariloche, and the constant spectacular view, but we didn´t love its commercialism. We´re excited to be moving on to El Bolson, which is full of hippies and supposedly much more laid back.

San Martin de los Andes

2009-12-05T20:04:00.004-03:00

We hopped on our double-decker semicama bus out of Buenos Aires on Tuesday evening. A semicama is Argentina´s coach class version of overnight buses--there´s plenty of legroom, the seats recline 140 degrees, and they feed you one hot meal and a couple of cold ones. They don´t, however, let you choose your beverage (Sprite was our only option) or give you pillows or blankets (luckily we had a blanket). The bus ride was 22 hours long-- and we spent the time watching the beautiful scenery change from dry grassy plains with tumbleweeds, to red dirt and rock with buttes and plateaus, to fertile farm land with streams and hills to rugged snow capped mountains with streams and lakes. Taking the bus turned out to be a really good way to see how varied the landscape is in Argentina and it reminded us a bit of what driving across the US might look like. We spent the darker hours of the ride watching cheesy music videos and bad US movies with Spanish subtitles. We finally arrived in San Martin de los Andes on Wednesday around 6pm and headed to one of the few hostels in town.

San Martin is a mountain town of about 26,000 people. The town booms with tourists during winter and summer, but we came at the end of spring. The town and hostel weren´t very busy, which meant we had a few nice relaxing days there. But it also meant certain buses that take you into the national park weren´t running and some activities weren´t available (we couldn´t rent a canoe or kayak to take out on the lake).

So we spent only two days in town. We spent part of our first day walking around downtown window shopping--most of the stores were closed since they close at about 1pm for lunch and siesta and reopen around 5. Afterwards, we hung out on the beach of the lake. The water was perfectly clear and beautiful, but way too cold to swim in. We also juggled a bit and ended up trying to teach a little kid how to juggle with our broken Spanish (Jill did a great job with this).

The following day, we went on a hike to the Mirador, which was a nice vantage point that allowed you to look out over the town and lake. The hike was relaxing and pretty. When we got to the top we could see how far the lakes and the mountains stretched-- all the way to Chile! To get there, we had to pay to enter the land of a Mapuche tribe. We walked around their village for a little bit. The parts we saw included a school, a restaurant, several houses, and lots of free range farm animals.

We spent 3 nights at the Babel hostel, where we met some nice folks from Mexico, Spain, and Denmark. It was really interesting to talk with them about culture and language differences, as well as politics. Now we´re in Bariloche, which is a much larger town, so we´re hoping more activities will be available to us!´

We´ve had some difficulties uploading photos, so we´ll get more posted as soon as we can!

Getting Out of the City

2009-12-01T16:13:00.000-03:00

A couple of weeks ago we found a great apartment in the Palermo barrio in Buenos Aires. It´s a great area, really close to the rose garden and this big beautiful park with a pond and paddleboats and swans and so much green. We´re very excited to be near a place like this - we even saw people riding bikes and rollerblading without fear of the crazy drivers in this city, it was inspiring. We´ll be moving there in the beginning of January. Until then, we´re heading out of Buenos Aires for 2.5 weeks! We´ll be visiting three towns in the lakes region (southwest of Buenos Aires), including San Martín de los Andes, Bariloche, and El Bolsón. We expect to spend time hiking, biking, eating and enjoying the beautiful scenery of the lakes and the Andes. When we return to the city, we´ll spend two weeks with Sara´s family - showing them around town, taking some day trips, and making the holidays feel a little more like home!

That´s our quick update for now, we promise to write again soon with pictures and maybe a vlog from Jill about our vacation.

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Vlog #1 Food in BA

2009-11-20T16:24:00.003-03:00

This is my first attempt at a vlog entry. I talk about our experiences with food in BA during our first three weeks here. Expect a vlog entry from Jill within the next few weeks!

La Marcha del Orgullo LGBT en Buenos Aires

2009-11-10T01:49:00.006-03:00

After our Circus Conventure (get it? convention + adventure...heh) we were exhausted to say the least, but wanted to gear up for pride. We got back to out apartment by noon and took a 2 hour siesta to prepare since people in Argentina party until the sun comes up. We got to the feria in Plaza de Mayo at 5, and it was really crowded. There were so many people- young, old, local, foreign, and from all parts of the sexuality and gender spectrums and their respective niches. It seemed much bigger this year than it was even just two years ago when I was here. There were all sorts of tables and stands where people were giving out information about centers, libraries, clubs as well as selling clothing and paraphernalia. We got ourselves some t-shirts commemorating the march. There was live music and rainbow flags flying high right in front of the Presidential Palace, La Casa Rosada (the pink house).

At every table there were petitions for gay marriage in Argentina, as the issue is currenlty in the supreme court and up for debate in Congress. The passing of law would make Argentina the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2002 Argentina became the first Latin American city to legalize civil unions between same sex couples, but we learned from some people we met at the march that these unions are only labels that come without tangible benefits (employee benefits, adoption rights, etc) and that they are only recognized within the city since it is an 'autonomous" city. You can read more about the issue here. It hit pretty close to home with all that's been happening in the states this year with gay marriage, but particularly with this week's prop 8-esque disappointment in Maine and the countdown to see what happens in New York. We'll keep you posted on Argentina...

After the feria the March began, but it felt more like a long rallying parade. There were open floats with as many people as could fit loaded up on them. There was cheering, singing, dancing, and drumming in the streets. We met up with a few people we had emailed with before, mostly Brazilians, some Argentines and one other Estadounidense from Framingham, MA - small world! We marched along with the floats in the parade drinking Quilmes beer and dancing in the street. The march went from the Casa Rosada to the Obelisk and ended at a political rally in front of Congreso (the capitol building of Argentina). We had such a fun time being at the feria and the march, and getting to hang out with our newfound friends. As hard as we tried, however, we just could not make it to the afterparty, as it wasn't even going to get started until 3am. Right around 1:30am, as we were each taking turns nodding off while trying to engage in Spanish and Portuguese (!) conversations at the apartment of one of these friends, we made the executive decision to go home and get some sleep. So, we vowed to go out with our friends another night, when we've had more rest and can actually enjoy the festivities.

Being here at this kind of event with Sara made the real distinction for me from where I was when I was here two years ago and where I am now. It's leading me on a path that's a bit more self actualizing than before, probably because I know more about who I am and what I believe in. I also feel like I have much more control over this experience and much more of an idea of what I want to get out of it. Last time I felt as though I was thrown into a sea of newness while still being very anchored to my life at home and it didn't leave me with as much room to swim around and explore. Now that I'm here, a little bit older and wiser, without the time constraints of a semester and a hyper-structured college life waiting for me back home, I feel so much more free to explore and confident that I can make this experience what I want it to be. It also certainly helps to have Sara here, someone who I love who is just as excited as me to be here and has just as much of an adventurous and curious spirit as I do.

13ª Convención Argentina de Circo, Payasos y Espectáculos Callejeros

2009-11-10T01:06:00.002-03:00

Last Wednesday, Jill and I headed to Argentina's 13th annual Circus, Clown, and Street Performer Convention. Before we left Capital Federal (the city of Buenos Aires), we rented camping equipment, and took the most terrifying cab ride of our lives--the lane lines here mean pretty much nothing. Then we waited on on Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest boulevard in the world, and caught a shuttle to Monte Grande (a suburb located within the greater Buenos Aires area). Monte Grande looked exactly like the way American movies stereotypically depict South America. I had thought Capital Federal felt pretty run down in some places, but Monte Grande was much more dismal. There was trash everywhere, it was dusty, there was no grass to be seen, the cars were all old and dented, and every now and then a local would ride by in horse drawn cart. In the middle of all of that, were the campgrounds where the festival took place. Things inside the gated campgrounds felt pristine and stood in stark contrast to the rest of Monte Grande.

We arrived just in time to set up our tent before sunset. Most of the convention was really fun. The circus shows were really good and I was pretty amazed at the quality of the performances for the little amount of money we paid to get in. The shows were emceed by clowns, but they weren't really like the typical clown you see in the U.S. They were more like hippie-clowns, and they all had both circus and music skills. One of the shows included an improv competition between three teams. Everyone in the audience received a ball they could throw at anytime when they disapproved of anything that happened during the show. Experiencing the audience was almost as interesting as watching the performers. People drank and smoked inside the circus tent, clapped in time and sang with the music, and booed if a performer was out of line.

Being at the convention really made me feel lonely for the first time here. It was really frustrating to feel like I couldn't really communicate with anyone at the convention. Thankfully, I learned fairly quickly how to ask in Spanish if other jugglers wanted to pass clubs. When I attended any workshops, I missed quite a bit of what went on since I didn't understand what anyone was saying, but because juggling is so physical, it was pretty easy to just try to do what other people were doing. One of the instructors knew I didn't understand Spanish, but he came up to me later to try to show me some things individually, which was incredibly nice and made me feel more welcome. I think Jill got a little bored at the convention, but it was very sweet of her to attend with me. She ended up learning how to juggle 3 clubs very quickly and got 26 catches on her second day of trying! She also participated in a workshop where a everyone danced with one juggling club.

We tried to go to sleep early on our last night at the convention so we could get up early to go to back to the city for pride, but a group of people camping near us began singing loudly and making lots of noise. Right now, Jill is really the only one who can communicate with Argentines. After getting up enough courage, she went out to ask them if they would please be a little quieter. Rather than doing that, Jill accidentally asked them to make more noise! They laughed a little bit but were kind and moved their festivities outside of the camping area so we could get some rest. I'm not sure how the Argentines do it--the official convention activities didn't end until 4 or 5 in the morning that day and people would be up by 9am! Anyway, we left the convention early on Saturday (it ran until Sunday afternoon) so we could make it to pride.

In Buenos Aires... Finally!

2009-11-04T11:59:00.008-03:00

Hola amigos y familia!

We arrived in Buenos Aires last Friday after two and a half very long days of travel. Our journey began on Wednesday morning, when we nearly missed the train we were taking from Boston to NYC. We literally jumped on the train as it was pulling out of South Station, which left us without enough time for proper goodbyes to Jill's family :( When we arrived in NYC, it was raining, and we had no hands free for umbrellas because they were tied to our bags. Jill's friend Bliss works near Penn Station, so we headed over to her office to say hello and store our 4 big suitcases and 2 backpacks. We decided to walk the 10 blocks or so in the rain--bad idea--we got soaked. We hung around Bryant Park and Times Square while we waited out the workday so we could get our last real US meal with Bliss and Jill's other friend, Steph. It was so nice to spend time with them and have some familiarity in our last rushed moments, and Bliss was super helpful in letting us store our luggage for the day and helping us get to the airport. Thanks so much Bliss for helping us out and Steph for squeezing us into your day!

We were pretty tired by the time we got to JFK, but our flight took off at 2 AM as expected so everything was okay so far. When our five hour flight landed in Mexico City, we figured out that Mexicana (our airline) had canceled our second flight without notifying us. Our flight to Buenos Aires was supposed to leave at 8 AM with only a 3 hour layover, but they had put us on a later flight leaving at 10 PM making it a 17 hour layover! We tried to figure out how we were going to spend 17 hours in the airport but soon found ourselves falling asleep in chairs at restaurants. Luckily Jill's mom had packed us some amazing food, which really helped tie us over, and Sara's mom used some hotel points she had built up to get us a hotel room, which allowed us to get some solid sleep and made the time go by MUCH faster! At 10 PM, we finally boarded our plane, backed out of the gate and the flight attendants went over the safety precautions. Shortly thereafter, we pulled back into the gate. A mechanical problem meant we had to deplane and spend another hour and a half in the airport until it was fixed. After we took off about two and a half hours late, things were smooth sailing until we landed in Buenos Aires...

About a month ago, we set up an agreement to rent an apartment for a month upon our arrival here. We had been in touch with the landlord through email but were unable to get in touch with him when we landed, so we headed over to the apartment. When we got there, we were lucky that the other tennant happened to be there. He let us into the apartment, but we couldn't get into our room because he didn't have a key for it and the previous tennant hadn't finished moving out. The apartment was supposed to have a phone that could be used to make local calls, but we found out it only recieved calls. So for about an hour, we went back and forth between a phone/internet cafe and the apartment to try to find a phone number that actually worked for the landlord. None of the numbers he gave us worked. We went to an art gallery near the apartment because the landlord's girlfriend supposedly worked there, but she wasn't there either. When we went back to the apartment to figure out our next move, the previous tennant showed up. Both he and the current tennant told us about how awful the landlord was. The wireless internet had been out for 8 weeks, the phone couldn't be used to make local calls, they had once forgotten to pay the electricity bill so the power got turned off, a balcony had flooded during a heavy rain and the landlord wanted to take any repairs out of the tennants' deposits, and the room had not been cleaned since the previous tennant hadn't finished moving out. We felt overwhelmed and stressed out to the max, so we fled to a hostel to get some rest and figure out our next move.

We decided not to live at the apartment with the sketchy landlord, but since it was Friday, we weren't going to be able to find real housing until the next week. We lived in the hostel for three days, and on Monday night we moved into the apartment we're staying in now. It's in San Telmo, a funky artsy neighborhood - it's a small cute studio with a seemingly great owner. We'll be here for a month while we find our more permanent housing and hopefully employment. So after a pretty hellish and hectic first coupld of days, we're finally finding our feet here in Buenos Aires.

A few glimmering moments from the last few days that kept us anchored here:

-Taking a walk on our first night in BA to get some food, we stumbled upon some local people juggling in the park - Sara joined in and passed with them while Jill cheered and tried to translate juggling terms on the side.

-Jill meeting up with Walter outside his apartment in San Telmo with a big hug and un beso where she used to hang out all the time with Betsy when she studied abroad, and then also running into Graciela, the director of the program she came with last time, hours before she had to fly back to the US.

-New potential friends, a Brazilian woman and a Colombian man living in BA (both gay), who originally emailed us about housing, and now have invited us to go to pride with them next week.

-1.5 liter bottle of local beer costs about $1 US and Superpanchos (Sara's new favorite snack) cost even less than that.

-The owner of this apartment works for Konex bomba, a really cool drumming show that happens every Monday night in BA and has given us free invites.

-Bidets in every bathroom, no matter how tiny. And they are better than you think they would be, actually kinda nice.

Es todo! For now, we're off to a circus/juggling festival for a few days. Welcome to our blog!