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Published: October 21st 2009
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asado by the beach
people would go and barbeque food on the coast in the weekends Just before I leave Buenos Aires alone I just want to note a few observations I made:
1. Argentineans love their sweets - there is a sweet shop on every corner and in between. They also have coffee black with sugar for breakfast and dulce de leche on toast- basically sweetened condensed milk! I have been consuming at least three times the sugar I normally do back home.
2. Portenos (people of Buenos Aires) are helpful if you are lost but always suspicious of others. 'go this way but be careful of the others' or 'that other way is dangerous'. They are a bit paranoid. There are police everywhere in BA and security guards even in cafes.
3. Argentineans are straight to the point. I didn't know they had a sense of humour until a week or two in. If they want to try your food they will, if they don't understand you they'll tell you 'I don't see your point'. Portenos especially will tell you themselves they are dry, short and cold in comparison to other Argentineans.
4. Meat, Parilla and Asado is a huge part of the culture here - where meat is cheaper than
vege and I know a vegetarian who came here and became almost a carnivore. Every house no matter how basic has a Parilla.
5. Portenos have changed the way Spanish is spoken which is not very useful for learners like me. Instead of chicken being 'pollo' with the ll being a jo sound it is now said like 'posho'. they also changed the verb forms and the nouns for a lot of words from Castillian Spanish.
6. The culture and the city is a mixmash of Spanish and Italian mainly and with a dash of French. They have short black coffees like 3 times a day, eat crossiants which they call 'medialunas' and use their hands a lot for expression. There is a lot of pasta on the menu and pizza (except it's weird the cheese is on the bottom instead of on the top). It's true still a small percent own the most land and there are many poor people but they don't just all beg - some try and sell you things you don't need, some beg and then some steal. It's a sad reality when education is free in this country.
NOW to Rosario. Rosiario is the second biggest city with a population of 1 million and only 4 hours by bus from BA. It was in running to become the Capital of Argentina in fact but BA blocked their access to the river canal and port and so it could not be. However, it still has the same ice parks and statues that BA has and one giant monument is even dedicated to the flag witch was created in Rosario. We spent two nights in this city. One day was spent visiting the various antique and second hand clothing markets - where I bought shoes for 20 pesos (NZ$8) as my heels had broken while running for a bus in the rain. The sun was also hot and strong which helped contribute to me tanning my front and shoulders to match my brown square on my back. One night over some cheapo Quilmes Beers we got chatting to a family from Santa Fe at the hostel and a couple from the Falkland Islands or the Malvinas as the Argentineans call them. These Islands at the bottom of Argentina were taken by Britain in the 1980s and Argentina is still threatening to reinvade. We were going to go to town but as Argentineans don't go out til 3am we just ended up taling, drinking and playing some sort of game where you saw the name of an animal in Spanish and everybody has go at making the best animal sound. surprisingly fun!
The next day we went on a hour cycle tour of the city and found out about it's history. Our guide later told us he purchased a nice apartment in Rosario for 5oK US cheap! and rents out one and lives in another while running the cycle tour business. Hmmm maybe I should thing about it... We wanted to go to the Island on the third day and camp but there were no boats so we bussed to BA again and transferred to Tigre - just accross from Carmelo in Uruguay - ready to cross tomorrow. So Goodbye Argentina or rather hasta la vista as I intend to pop back over in January as my family from Scotland is there then and see them on my way to Bolivia! Tango, Coffee, Chaos, Futbol, Meat....it's been nice
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David
non-member comment
Sweet
I enjoyed your Ba blog. I have just been here a couple weeks and am enjoying it but it's quite wierd. Rent abd fags are cheap but phone calls and aguacate or palta as they call here are cheaper in London. One minor point that I don't actually care about but were you joking about the Falklands? If so, it was very funny. If not, someone has been spinning you a story. Hasta la vista. David