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Published: March 10th 2009
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Hola amigos,
We've been here 14 days and I guess it's about time to report in. Our intention for the blog is to help remind us of our time here and to let anyone who is interested know what we have been up to. You may want to read our blog at night as a sleep aid!
We arrived in BA on Feb 28 after a pretty much hassle free 15 hours of travel. Our landlord, Silvanna, her friends Mercedes and Anita (we think she's about 12 and so eager to help us) were at our apartment to greet us. Mercedes and Anita speak english so communicating the ins and outs of our new home was a breeze. We love the apartment with its 12 ft ceilings, spacious rooms and decks. The neighborhood is nice, fairly quiet with several cafes (for morning espressos) close by and many great restaurants a nice stroll or just a short cab ride away. We have a nice balcony on the front of the building where we can watch the steet action and a beautiful terrace where we can bbq.
on our 2nd night here we went to a restaurant
(La Cabrera - excellent!) recommended to us by our landlord and ran into friends - Carla amd Don Lewis and his brother Clayton (he, his wife Dragana and 2 kids are here for 5 months)! Can you believe it? In a city of 10+ million people we see someone we know. Well...ok...we knew they were coming to BA but didn't know exactly when or where they were staying. So it was pretty incredible!
They invited us to join them on a guided tour of the city the next day. The guide, Macu, was a cute young woman full of energy and a fun and knowledgeable guide. It's such a big city we couldn't possibly cover it all but we saw some great highlights.
Since then we have seen a lot more fun things and have sore feet to prove it! Our favorites are:
- San Telmo (a very old part of town with cobblestone streets and colorful buildings) street fair and tango dancing on the plaza.
- The frigate at Puerto Madero They let you walk/crawl over this big beautiful ship. We don't think they have the same liability issues here!
- Beautiful parks. One we
walked through was full of cats! Hundreds of them...just lounging around in the sun. Yesterday, we were walking through another one and they had a big Jazzercise type class. All shapes and sizes dancing in the sun!
- The historic Tortoni Restaurant where all the famous Argentines have hung out. Lots of stained class and shiny wood. Authenic since 1858.
- La Biela Cafe - a big sidewalk cafe opened in 1850 that sits under a gigantic - like a 1/2 block gigantic - gum tree across from the Recoleta Cementery. Great people watching.
My niece, AJ, arrived here last Wed. She works for the State Dept and will be working at the American Embassy. We had a fun dinner out together and pedi and manicures the next day. Ok...the p/m was just Amanda and Molly.
Joe is having fun practicing his Spanish. Molly is thanking god he is.
Tomorrow, we are going to the northern part of Patagonia. We are spending one night in San Carlos de Bariloche and then going up into the mountains to a cute little lodge for 3 days. Joe wants to fish. Molly wants to river raft. We'll report in
LUNCH WITH LEWIS GANG
AT OBRERO RESTAURANT IN LABOCA BARRIO. when we return - we don't think we'll get internet service there.
Favorite restaurants so far:
La Craberra - beef, beef and more beef...but we had chicken!! And it was great! Huge portions and a fun crowd.
Gran Bar Danzon - very sleek with lots of sleek and pretty people. Food was ok...service was great.
Milion - cool restaurant in a beautiful old mansion.
Bar Uriarte - Fun, artsy restaurant with a cool patio with a big fireplace. Great salads. The beef dishes were pretty good. Don't order the fish - they just don't know what to do with fish in BA - which is funny because they have a huge coast line but it's all about the beef in Argentina.
Connieleone - We call this place the Godfather's sister. Cute little Italian place down the street. Good Putanesca. We enjoyed watching a NYC 911 concert on their big screen...weird but fun.
OK a few comments from Joe:
Surprising how much time can be spent just getting to know your neighborhood and taking care of a few necessities like finding a transformer for changing the electircal current for the various machines, getting laundry done, seamstress for
Recoletta Cemetery
Mausoleum city - 6400 of them. Some as big as my house! SPOOKY. some repairs, finding the best fruit stands, coffee shops, bakerys, finding a gym with a swimming pool, small grocery markets (supermdercados) and big ones, shoe stores for the feet, a few new short sleeve shirts and light jacket, getting Molly a new pair of prescription sun glasses and hair dryer, book store, etc. It can all burn up some time, and give a good exchange with people in the neighborhood, and all these shops are numerous and right around the corner from our front door.
The temperature has been great, 70-85, but with a little humidity and some days of thunderstorms and rainshowers. The warm clime is great for roaming around late to the cafes and bars in your short sleeves until 1, 2 or 3 in the morning. Love the hours they keep down here. Great to see so many people out doing it.
We've mainly explored our neighborhood (Palermo) and closeby neighborhoods (Recoleta, Congreso) but we've also been downtown a few times and down to the Puerto Madero docks area, which is now built up with high rise apartments and chi-chi wannabe bars and resaurants. Definitely a different feel in the downtown area. One geat thing
is that cabs are plentiful and cheap. $10 max from our place to downtown and usually $2-4 from our place to close by restaurants. Love stopping for a quick short espresso, cortado, on the go. These cafeterias or confiterias are many per every block. Some also have good small lunches or dinners. I have found one close by, which together with the bartender Nikolas, we are converting into a part time martini bar as well. Good chances to read the local papers. Wines are great and inexpensive. Another whole chapter for that. In general the exchange rate is very favorable right now, and the dollar stretches far. This is really great. The same items we would buy in Seattle are much less expensive here, about half. Completely the opposite of Europe.
We've had three good bbq's on our terrace: Good Argentine ground beef made into Ameriican style deluxe cheeseburgers with fruit salad; Chilean salmon with boiled potatoes and green salad; Argentine chicken with corn on the cob and fruit salad and toasted fresh bread. Nice to be able to cook at home and be comfortable in our place.
All for now.
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