Busy Again

All of a sudden I am very busy in Buenos Aires. It is a nice busy though, after having been kind of a bum recently. The good news is that I was offered an internship position for a boutique company specializing in luxury vacation rentals. Check out the website:

http://www.oasisba.com/

The apartments listed are all stunning and in the best locations in BsAs. The office is made up of 4 other girls: 3 Americans, 1 British, and 1 portena. I got to attend a work party celebrating the launching of a new office in Brazil. The party took place in a chic bar in Palermo Soho. The most enjoyable part of the night was watching 3 hired Brazilian dances shake their stuff on the dance floor... one even forcing M G to dance which was pretty hilarious(pictures of the night are below).

Restaurant Review:

La Cholita: Rodriguez Peña 1165

Well I had my first true love affair with beef at this restaurant, next door to and under the same owner as Cumana. So far I had just had small tastes of M G's beef and have not been extremely impressed. Whatever he got here though was just incredibly tender, tasty, and juicy! Now I understand and now I actually want to go back and order carne carne carne! Once again though there was not even a choice about the side... papas fritas. I had a vegetarian quesadilla which was good but nothing spectacular. Obviously the best option at this restaurant is anything from the parilla which takes up the entire back of the restaurant. The atmosphere here is just like in Cumana: candles on the tables and always crowded without much space to move around.

Observations

• I thought America was lazy but here everything you could possibly need/want can be delivered. On most any store there is a sign noting the option for home delivery. Medication, alcohol, laundry(which by the way costs the same amount to have them pick it up and return it as it does for you to bring it to the place... why would anyone take it there themselves?), groceries etc. etc.
• Men here keep their hair shaggy to longish here. It is rare to see any short/buzzed hair. Many people have said M G looks argentine! Absolutely ALL of the women have very long hair... because that is what the men like they say.
• For the first time in my life I saw a homeless man pooing in the middle of a very busy sidewalk.

To Party like a Porteno

We had our first night out in the city this past weekend. There was a party arranged for expats in some popular club, which luckily happened to be nearby. Portenos eat dinner very late, compared to American standards, and do not go out to clubs until 2 or 3am and party on until the morning hours. So that is what we did. Seriously though what is it they do from the time they finish dinner until going out? I really doubt I will ever get used to this schedule. I was completely exhausted the next day. I will never be able to party like a porteno!

Restaurant Review

Don Julio:Guatemala 4691 and Gurruchaga, Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires - +54 11 4831 9564

We found this parilla, very close to our apartment, through various reviews online. Most everyone seemed to

name it one of their favorite parillas in Buenos Aires. I think we have been given too many ideas about how cheap Buenos

is because eating out is not as cheap we were thought, especially at a parilla style restaurant. Yes, the meat is much cheaper than in the US, maybe about $8-10, but then you have to order any sides, which are enormous, separately along with any sauce for the meat. This brings the cost up to about $15-20. The portions are huge so if you go with a group and split the meat, sides and sauces it is definitely worth it. We were disappointed by the choice of sides here, a variety of different fries or a vegetable plate. We got the veggies and which were basically just steamed with no flavor, not even salt had been added. M G was happy with his choice of meat, and my pumpkin and cheese filled ravioli was tasty(I am not a big meat eater). The atmosphere is nice, a mix of expats (since many expats live in the Palermo Soho barrio) and porteno families. It is surprising to see small children our so late, most of whom ended up falling asleep on their mother's lap.

Observations

• -Restaurants never give free tap water which is a pain. It took us a while to understand that we will only be given bottled water, costing about $2 each.
• -The food here really does not have much spice to it. I am already missing spicy food and my favorite Asian restaurants. The only Chinese restaurants I have heard about are in Chinatown (Belgrano) along with a couple of Thai and Japanese. There are only a few Indian restaurants in the entire city (and curry paste is really hard to find!)
• I have seen much less homeless people than in Paris or DC... Don't know how that is possible.
• I just witnessed an older woman attack a young woman, kicking and shoving her, in the street. I have no idea what it was about but am assuming the young woman stole something from the other. Of course, la policia was no where to be found.

Oh yes I have started taking Spanish classes and our classroom is in a beautiful old building with huge windows looking out onto a picturesque courtyard. I have just had my second day but am really enjoying it so far. There are 3 other Americans, 2 Icelanders, and one girl from Brazil. The teaching style is exactly what I was looking for, that is, speaking only Spanish in class and having no translations, also emphasizing conversation rather than grammar and writing. I randomly found the class on the internet through TEFL International, which costs $200 for one month of 15 hours of class per day. The best part is that I can walk there in about 25 minutes.

Below are various pictures from our stroll around Recoleta and Belgrano

First Impressions

We have only been here a couple of days and everything is so exciting, yet overwhelming at the same time. Yes, this city is HUGE! I knew that coming here but really it takes a full day to investigate even one "barrio" (neighborhood).

Here are some of my impressions so far:

• The people drive like crazy! Coming by taxi from the airport I thought we were going to be killed at least a dozen times. There ended up being some kind of strike (a few people completely blocking the entire 4 lanes of the highway) which caused crazy traffic. People started turning around on the grass, driving in the opposite direction on the freaking highway in order to avoid the road block.... even La Policia drove in the grass!
• So far the the majority of the people here are very nice to us. It is kind of surprising though that we have yet to encounter many people who speak English. This is a good thing since I am forced to try to speak the relatively few words of Spanish I know. Even those we stop to ask for directions seems happy to talk and talk and talk, but they have to know that we only understand about half of what they say.
• Many buildings indeed look very Parisian with the Haussmannian architecture. Downtown especially. There are also many modern high rise apartment buildings though that are not as appealing to the eye.

Restaurant Review

La Cumana: 1149 Rodrigues Pena, Recoleta

We ate our first meal out at this restaurant that was recommended to me by a friend, and also written about in my guide book. It has traditional Argentine comfort food. the menu contains a variety of empenadas, ensaladas, pizzas, and casseroles. We split a few empenadas (each costing 2.50 pesos), MG got a hearty stew with assorted meats and beans while I devoured a rice casserole covered in a creamy mushroom sauce con mucho queso. Muy delicioso! We have to return to try some kind of pumpkin casserole that is supposed to be good as well. In all, including our 20 pese (about $5) bottle of wine and chocolate dessert everything cost 80 pesos ($20)! We plan on returning! I still can't get over how cheap restaurants are here. I think I deserve it after graduating college I have lived in London, Paris and then DC (all VERY expensive cities).

Palermo:

We strolled around different sections of Palermo, starting with the botanical gardens. I had already read about these gardens and indeed there are cats everywhere! Apparently if you touch the cats you are bound to come down with an illness, so I resisted, but there are some terribly cute ones.

All well fed as well. Speaking of animals, dog walking here is one serious job. There is a ratio of one dog walker, usually some young guy, to about 10 dogs, usually big dogs!

That is why there is la mierda everywhere, especially around the park. I would not want to stop every 5 minutes either to pick up dog shit when I have to hold on to so may dogs at once.

Palermo is where many many expats live, but we actually did not see many foreigners during our walk. I personally really liked where we went next: Las Canitas. It seems a little bit more out of the way, but the residential area is beautiful. There are some amazing houses here and many restaurants and shopping to explore.

El Centro (downtown)

People everywhere! We took the subte down to Plaza de Mayo (by the way the subway is only 10 steps from our apartment and it only cost 1peso) and stepped out into a sea of people. Many people do not enjoy cities because of the feeling of being so crowded, but I have been craving the energy of such of vibrant city. This would never happen in the US: there happened to be a long line to buy subte passes so one of the workers got fed up and just let everyone go for free, hilarious!

Puerto Madera:

It takes about 10 minutes to walk from el centro to this port along the Tigres river which has only recently been developed with many modern restaurants (including Hooters) and apartment buildings. Most of the restaurants cater to tourists, which we try to avoid at all cost. We ended up eating where the locals eat. Some lunch stand off the beaten path that offers meat, meat, and meat. The cool thing is the table with about 15 different sauces and veggies that you add to your sandwich. We still don't know what kind of meat we were given as we could not really understand the cook.

Barrels of Argentine wine!President's House

Haussmann style buildings and Puerto Madero/Tigres