Colonia del Sacramento

We had hopes and dreams of going to the beach, Mel and I. We'll go to Uruguay, we said, where the beaches are as pretty as the people who go are said to go there.

Foiled by chilly weather and dwindling time, we decided to scratch the beach bumming and check out Colonia del Sacramento, a historic colonial town of Uruguay, and only an hour away by ferry.

We went on a Saturday, taking the first ferry out in the morning. It was cold and gray - not the most promising or welcome weather for an excursion, not to mention for successfully getting out of bed on time - but we made it to the docks, found seats on the boat and napped our way across the water.

The ferry lets you off only a short stroll from the entrance to Colonia. The historic area is a small square of preserved colonial architecture - some used for galleries, shops and restaurants. It sits directly on the coast, making for a pretty river-side walking on the outer edge. We made our way around some of the perimeter, ducking down small lanes and into the occasional shop. It was quiet, as we'd arrived so early, but it was nice not to have to force our way through throngs of tourists, or see many, for that matter, while we were there.



All of the buildings are so small there that, paired with a ruin here and there, it was a funny flashback to Oxford for me. Though obviously from a completely different era, and settled by different people, it was the quaintness of the buildings and precariousness of the ruins (don't even ask about the horrifying climb to the top of the lighthouse...) that made me feel an unexpected familiarity.




We decided to stop for a bite to eat at one of the restaurants bordering the main square. We chose one of my favorite things to start -- a platter of meats and cheeses -- and found out too late that between that and our sandwiches, we were more than sufficiently fed. For the record, that platter was flippin' awesome. I miss cheddar cheese!! When the bill came, we got our first taste of what it means to have your currency drastically devalued. Our bill was a whopping $340 Uruguayan pesos!


When we were done, I wrapped up my sandwich, threw it in my bag, and we headed onward and outward, opting to leave the historic area and take a walk up the coast. There is a 5 kilometer stretch put together by the city of Colonia that curves along the coastline. Though there was a wide, pretty sidewalk at our disposal, we decided to do as much of the walk along the beach as we could.





As the afternoon progressed, the sun started shining more and more, making up for the chillier breezes coming off of the water. Though we're both ocean lovers and so are clearly biased, I think we both found the walk to be a really beautiful and soothing way to spend an afternoon. There was occasional excitement, like when I found yet another piece of fruit to add to my list of Random Produce I Find All Over The Place, but otherwise it was a calm walk that I would definitely recommend if you plan to spend a day or two in the area.

Returning sometime around 5, we decided that we'd pretty much seen and done all that we had wanted, so arranged to take an earlier ferry back. A packed boat meant we were forced to make the upgrade to first class, meaning our ride back was spent stretched out in cushy, wide, reclining seats. It was truly a travesty.

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, we met face to face with a ravenous rain storm. It was much better to encounter it on this side of the water than the other, though, and it made for one heck of a sunset as we dried off and warmed up back in the apartment.


All in all, it was a great way to spend a day. We didn't do the full round of the historic part, but we got a good sense of it. Between that, getting to work off some of that cheese platter, and a final layer of tan thanks to the unexpected sun, it was an altogether wonderful day.

Las Cataratas del Iguazú

My first major trek outside of the city was a three day trip with Mel to the falls of Iguazú, a system of 270 waterfalls that form a border between Brazil and Argentina.

The falls are a two hour plane right north, which we took first thing on the morning of Mel's third day here. We arranged for a taxi at the airport, and got a driver, Ernesto, who ended up being a great help for the remainder of the trip. It seems that the drivers there do some side work of their own, offering to essentially chauffer you from place to place, day or night, for a fixed fee. Any other trips are extra, but you have his number and can call whenever you want a familiar face to take you somewhere new.

Brazil and Argentina have their own parks dedicated to the falls, and between handing us a pile of maps and brochures, Ernesto explained the best way to visit both in the day and a half that we had in the area. After checking into our hotel, we called Ernesto to take him up on his offer: $80US for the duration of our stay, which meant the ride from the airport, across to the Brazilian park, to the Argentine park and back to the airport. We still had a whole half-day upon our arrival, so we chose to cross over to Brazil for the afternoon.

This in itself was exciting, because technically Brazil requires US citizens to have a $100US visa to cross its borders. My research online brought no clear answers, though the Brazilian embassy did reply to an email saying that we were expected to have the visa in order to visit the park, even for just an hour.

Someone was misinformed somewhere, because we went through a standard immigration checkpoint, filled out paperwork, got our passports stamped, and went on our merry way with no trouble at all.

And so it was, our first views of the falls were in Brazil, at the Parque Nacional do Iguaçu.

I've tried to stall on describing what we saw, because it truly is one of those visions that could easily be spoiled by a single word out of place. So, instead, this is what I'll do:







We made our way around the park by open-sided, double-decker buses that take you from one path entry to the next along a paved road through the forest. The entire park system, with paths that wind along above the perameter of the river and lookout points for great views of the falls, can be done easily within a few hours, assuming you aren't on crutches, 95, or lugging a pack of easily distracted children with you. If the latter is the case, though, they do have a cartoon map that is entertaining to 5 and 26 year olds alike.

Speaking of lunchtime, that's when we had a very up-close encounter with a coati, which resembles a raccoon, but has a long, ringed tail and elongated snout. They roam free throughout the park, but mainly surround the stops along the trails that offer food for the tourists. These little guys aren't shy about their begging...in fact, they don't beg at all, but jump up into your lap and/or onto your tray, then proceed to eat all of your food. There's virtually no shooing them, though park attendants will come through now and then to clap loudly, which seems to do the trick for a minute or two. Unfortunately they came too late for us -- we had to surrender a good half of our food to one coati that seemed to particularly like mayonaise packets and gatorade. (There is a video, but you'll have to go without until our internet stops seizing as soon as we try to upload to youtube...)

Mel and I have a game that I pretty much always lose, and that's sad because all that's involved is spotting deer. Seeing as how deer aren't exactly jungle animals, our game - which I STILL lost - revolved around various jungle-dwelling creatures. His first major win was a gorgeous toucan hanging out in a tree near the lunch area, which he managed to snap a picture of before it flew off.

On our way back to the hotel, we asked Ernesto for restaurant suggestions. "The Panoramic" was his immediate reply. The restaurant is actually called Doña Flor, but is housed in the Panoramic Hotel, a posh spread situated at the top of a hill that apparently has an amazing view of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers. It was too dark to see that part, but the hotel and grounds themselves were impressive enough.

The food was good (anything served in a coconut gets a gold star from me,) and after two months of Argentine-style restaurant service (also known as "bad service," in the US) it was nice to be able to relax and not wonder where everything was all the time.

After dinner we hopped into the hotel's casino - one of Mel's favorite vacation activities - but were disappointed that they only had a variety of slot machines. We went to another about 10 minutes away, but with no tables to play Mel's dearly beloved craps, we headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day was the big one: a full day spent trekking around the Parque Nacional Iguazú. Though the acreage (or hectare-age?) of the Brazilian park is significantly larger, the Argentine side has far more explorable area, (not to mention even more kick-ass views) and so takes a lot longer to work through. We had Ernesto drop us off there around 10:30am and arranged for him to come back at 6:30, which was only a smidgeon more time than we needed to walk the two major hiking circuits and see virtually all there was to see.

We signed up for the big adventure package, which meant we got to do all of the guided tours as well as our own exploring. We were in a group of about 28 other people for the first leg of the trip, an 8km ride through the jungle in an open-topped truck. Our tour guide alternated between English and Spanish, giving us a history of the park and pointing out various flora and fauna.

It was interesting enough, but I was preoccupied with trying to spot a monkey before Mel, so I think I missed a lot of important information. Oh well. The ride ended in a draw - no monkeys to be seen - and I learned about where hearts of palm come from, so all was not lost.

The next step was definitely one of the coolest things I've done, and I was looking forward to it for weeks before the trip. After being handed waterproof bags for all of our belongings and donning the ultra-stylish life vests, we all piled into a Zodiac-style airboat with twin 200+hp engines and headed up the river, straight on toward the falls. After stopping for a few photo ops, everyone was told to stow their cameras and prepare.

Because I happen to be a genius, I used Mel as a stuff-I-need-from-home mule and had him bring along the underwater housing I use for my camera when I go diving. So I kept my camera out, thinking "oh man, I'm going to take the best pictures ever!"

Well, I tried. The boat really does go right into the falls, or close enough to soak you clear through to the bone, so there isn't a whole lot of room for fiddling with camera settings or even aiming the thing properly, for that matter. I did get a few good shots, as well as a bit of video footage (on its way, on its way), so it was definitely worth it to have that housing.

It was a super hot day, so the water felt awesome and it was a blast just to listen to everyone screaming and laughing while being pounded by all this water, then cheering when they took us in for another round.

Important note for anyone planning to take the same plunge: either wear clothes you'll be happy to wear soaking wet for hours after the ride, or bring extra dry stuff with you. I have no idea what 75% of our boatmates were thinking, with their jeans and frilly little skirts, but apparently they didn't do their research before signing up for that trip. On second thought, you should just wear stuff you're willing to wear wet no matter if you do the boat thing or not -- a lot of the coolest lookouts are so close to the water that you get wet just standing there.

Moving along, we took a water taxi deal over to a small island, walked around, taxied back, then hit up the main walking circuits. These wind along the edge of the jungle to overlook the rivers and larger falls, but also dip back into the jungle so you can see more secluded falls and try to catch glimpses of the animal life. There were definitely a ton of lizards, some tiny and some large enough to block whole paths, which was pretty cool.

Back to the animal-spotting game, Mel made his biggest score yet toward the end of the day. This victory, however, was not one I was going to huff and puff about, because it was what I'd been waiting for the whole day:



OHHHHH YES, IT'S A MONKEY!!!

'Nuff said.

After a stop for some lunch and some more hiking, we took the jungle train (an eco-friendly touring train brought in from England) to the stop-off for the big kahuna: a 1130 km catwalk that leads across the upper part of the river, through a number of jungly bits, and finally stops with a grand overlook at the Garganta del Diablo, or Devil's Throat, arguably the most impressive and powerful system in the whole of the park. The overlook is right at the edge of the falls, which makes it an incredibly dramatic place to be. It's hard to see too much, as there's too much vapor and backsplash (from 80m down!) to catch more than the upper edges of the falls, but between the roaring of the water, the fizzy vapor and, of course, the rainbows, it's a really amazing experience.

We took the train to our next stop, which was the boarding point for our last big adventure - an eco-tour along the upper portion of the river. For this leg of the trip all we had to do was sit and listen, except that we were listening to a solid block of Spanish and so didn't glean a whole lot of information. It was a relaxing float, though by that time I was so tired and sunburned and HOT (at one point it was about 40 degrees celsius, which is just over 100 fahrenheit) that it was a struggle not to either fall asleep or "fall" out of the boat and into the cool river.

By the end of the day we were a pair of tired, somewhat testy tomatoes, but that's really a non-point considering all that we got to do and see. We called Ernesto to take us back to the hotel, got some drinks and snacks by the pool, napped for a bit and then went into town on another E-suggestion. This time it was El Quincho del Tío Querido, a traditional parilla joint that seemed to be as popular with locals as it was with tourists. I liked my whatever-I-had (sorry, I didn't write any of this stuff down), Mel was okay with his but not thrilled, but either way we left fed and happy.

We had drinks on the terrace of our hotel (thank goodness, a place that makes a proper mojito!!!) before heading to bed. Our flight left the next afternoon, and after a fruitless stop at the huge duty-free complex on the Argentina-Brazil border and a stressfully long wait in line at the airport, we made it back to Buenos Aires by early evening.

I don't think we could have done that trip any better. The hotel wasn't the best ever, but then again we were rarely in it, so in the end it didn't make much of a difference. Getting to see both parks was a great surprise, and while we agreed that the Argentine side is way better, it was nice to have the chance to even make a comparison. It was a perfect amount of time to see everything we wanted to see, do everything we wanted to do, and pause for enough time to soak it all in.


******
There are a lot more pictures of this trip on my Flickr site. Just click the link to my November pictures on the right side of this page.

The C-Lo Has Landed

Having a boyfriend literally hemispheres away is definitely not an ideal situation. If ours is not the epitome of a long-distance relationship, then I have no idea what one could be. Thanks to technology, however, it hasn't been as hard to take as it could have been. Between the invention of email, laptops, wireless internet, and now the glorious program Skype, the feeling of distance can be partially undone for a small pocket of time nearly every day.

As I said in my very first entry, I am a very lucky girl. For ten days, my boyfriend, Mel, visited me here in Buenos Aires - a major trip that took miraculously little prodding and nagging on my part.

***

He arrived early on Sunday, which meant that I had a handful of hours to drag him around before we had to watch the Colts v Patriots football game that evening. "This game is bigger than the Superbowl," he said, and I sighed. Okay, okay, whatever you want, dear.

That first day sort of set the tone for a lot of our time together. After checking into the apartment he'd rented for his stay, we went right out to the flea market in San Telmo. That extreme Argentine experience was then balanced out by a packed Shoeless Joe's, one of the city's most popular ex-pat destinations, thanks to a subscription to Sunday Ticket and a football-loving American population in BA.

Though I groaned when the game (not to mention the other two that week) was originally added to the itinerary, it turned out to be a welcome flash of home. Here I was, eating nachos, surrounded by my own language, sitting next to my boyfriend, who was shockingly good at splitting his attention between me and the television (well done, Mel, well done.)

The time we spent in Buenos Aires wasn't spent hiking miles and miles into every neighborhood, but rather strolling this way and that, as he was more content to relax than be hauled around to see the sights. He's not much of a city person, anyway. So we did fun little things with our days.

That first Monday, we met Liz to go to the zoo. Finding that it was closed, we headed over to my favorite park and decided to go paddle-boating, which was a wonderful way to spend an hour, if incredibly exhausting. I'd never paddle-boated before, but according to the other two, ours was the hardest in all of paddle-boating history to...well...paddle. Afterward we stopped for popsicles, which really do make any sunny day a million times more awesome, by the way.

That night was Monday Night Football, at which point we put Mel's cheffyness (I made that one up, do you like it?) to use with a pile of steaks, burgers and chorizo on the parilla. Another pleasant departure from the norm, even if the Ravens did end up losing... oh well.

Another day we went to the zoo, where I morphed into a 5 year old, complete with bucket of generic animal food, running from cage to cage and squealing when I got to pet the camels and goats. And don't get me started on feeding the tiny little monkey. Oh man, that was the best!

At night we'd flip through our stack of guide books for restaurant suggestions, trying our best (and often succeeding, which was a miracle) to wait until the requisite absurd hour to eat. We tried everything from the take-out pizza from down the street to Casa Cruz, often referred to as the best restaurant in Buenos Aires (it was definitely my favorite so far.) Between all the dinner feasts and breakfast pastries, his visit wasn't kind to my waist, but you'll hear no complaints from my happily fed tummy.

Tucked between these laid-back days and nights were bigger adventures, including jaunts to the falls in Iguazú and a day trip to Uruguay, trips that I will detail in separate entries.

***

Being an only child, I'm not a fan of sharing. But when it comes to experiences, the more people I can share them with the better. And when those people happen to be among the most important in my life, it all circles back around to luck.

It's difficult to sum up the whole visit without venturing into cheeseball territory. It was about as perfect as it could get. Such separations can often bring changes to a relationship that deteriorate their strength, but we have managed to slip by unscathed.

Sure, his departure ushered in another two weeks of intense homesickness, but that's a small price to pay for being lucky enough to have the opportunity to just unwind, show off my life abroad, and forget for just a moment that we were ever apart in the first place.

Day Trippin'

Not long after we arrived in Buenos Aires, Liz and Eriks sought out a church to attend together on Sundays. They were able to find one through the The Buenos Aires Herald, BA's English-language newspaper. Because services are held alternately in Spanish and English, the community there ended up being full of English-speaking expats who -from what I've heard- all sound quite lovely.

Among the congregation are Katie and Luis, a sweet pairing of Argentine man and British woman. After having them over for dinner one evening, they offered to take us out to San Antonio de Areco, a town that dates back to the 1700's and has been recognized by presidential decree as historic and of national interest. Encouraged by newly warm & sunny weather and the promise of some much-needed fresh air, we accepted their invitation for the following weekend.

We arrived around lunchtime that Saturday, and opted to sit down for lunch before doing the rounds. Luis suggested Esquina de Merti, which faces the town's main plaza. The restaurant, somewhat recently restored, is decked out in vintage ads for Quilmes (an Argentine beer) and antique tills. A severely broken-in upright piano stands in one corner, buzzing with energy of past players.

There I encountered something that could easily fall into Eriks's Surprise Series. Thinking I'd do myself a favor by ordering a few small bites to eat, I went ahead and ordered two beef empanadas and what was described as a potato and chorizo tortilla. What I have come to learn is that the word tortilla does not mean the same thing here as it does in, say, Mexico. Instead, apparently, it means something more along the lines of soufflé, as evidenced by my massive, fluffy-but-not mound of potato, egg and meat.

Between Liz, Eriks and myself we managed to get through approximately half, but had to throw in the towel lest our chairs break beneath our engorged selves. It was delicious, if something I'd expect more as some sort of shared breakfast dish rather than something to introduce an entire other meal.

From there we took a walk across town to the Museo Gauchesco Ricardo Güiraldes. The property, a preserved estancia (ranch) with the original house and stables, exists to educate visitors about the life of gauchos, or Argentine cowboys. The rooms of the building are filled with photographs, paintings and traditional gaucho clothing as well as accessories like guns, spurs and bridles and bits for their horses.

It's certainly interesting, especially the curious and somewhat unsettling wax gaucho models in the entrance, having a drink at the local pub, but to be perfectly honest I was just glad to be out in the fresh breezes, walking through big, wide fields of grass.

Next we made our way to the other side of town to visit the home/studio/museum dedicated to a late local artist, known for his depictions of gauchos on the plains. The operation is maintained by his...how should I put it? ...eccentric artist son. After paying our pesitos to walk through the house, we were greeted by this son, who wore a beret and was missing several teeth. He beckoned us to follow him to his desk, where he got rolling on a 30-minute ramble about how he draws horses, how he's very famous and has been invited into the city because of his work. He showed us other areas of the property - art was hung in the garden and in the guest house. Soon we came to a wall full of photos of him with people who are apparently important in some way.

Keep in mind this is all in Spanish, spoken through a gappy grin and in gruff Castellano, the name for Argentine Spanish. That said, I had no idea what was going on the entire time, other than he was showing us a lot more of his own work than his father's and that he was saying "horses" a lot.

At the end of the tour, he brought us back to his workspace and commenced making a sales pitch: 50 pesos for an original piece, complete with protective tube decorated with yet another drawing of a horse and his signature. As he worked it as hard as he could, Liz tried to take a candid shot, which only resulted in exciting him, at which point he pulled all of us in for a group picture. As you can see, he was a special man.


After letting him down gently, we headed to a small cafe for some tea before heading back to the city.

There is more to see there, more history to learn and artists to visit, but all in all it was a lovely break for the day. Katie and Luis are a sweet couple, the countryside was beautiful, and it was just nice to finally get out and see another part of Argentina, even if only for a few hours.

Teeny Bikinis

Back at home men and women alike are pulling out layers and breathing sighs of relief, letting their guts and bikini lines fall out of thier top priorities. Here, however, summer has been getting a move on for the past month. Sleeves are getting shorter and toes are peeking out of shoes. In the parks, bellies are being bared in hopes of some kisses from the sun, and clothiers are displaying their idea of acceptable swimwear in their shop windows.

It is true that Argentine women tend to come in significantly smaller frames than my American sisters. And when they aren't super skinny, they're trying hard to drop those pounds, whether in the gym or leaning over that porcelain bowl. (Eating disorders are rampant here, and it's easy to see why.)

So I'm not sure if it's a matter of actual demand, or some nasty idea of incentive to get these girls to drop the pounds, but my oh my are their bikinis teeny weeny!


Now I'll admit to a number of overtly girly near-obsessions. Shoes, bags, the usual. But bikini collecting has become an unintentional plague on my supply of available drawer space for years now. With the exception of this past summer, I have bought at least one (if not three) new bikinis every season, despite generally favoring the same two when actually putting the things to use.

Naturally, heading to a country where Summer No. 2 was just around the corner, and where they are known for their blooming fashion designers, I thought this place would be a goldmine for my guilty shopping pleasure.

I was wrong.

Fingering the racks of string-tied bits in store after store, my insides lurched at the idea of donning any of the micro-specimens offered. The tops? Tiny. Even for me, and I'm not exactly busting out up top. But some were do-able, which gave me a certain amount of hope. Hope that would prove itself false once I moved onto the...

Bottoms. Dear lord, the bottoms. No lower half exhibited fabric for the backside any larger than the fabric from the frontside. Meaning you'd better love your booty and want to share it with the world, because that's exactly what you'd be doing with those babies.

For kicks, I popped into a store clearly intended for the lower teen set, only to find that their offerings were even smaller than the rest out there -- suits so small that only the most anorexic of eight year olds could manage to pull them off.

And here I thought I was being somewhat risqué in my Victoria's Secret string number. Puh! It would be like showing up at the beach in a muumuu to these people.

What I don't understand - and what I assume I'll find out should I make the trek down the coast to the beach before I leave here - is what we normal-sized girls are to do? Are we supposed to bare our bigger behinds, even if they aren't steely and the size of two chicken breast filets? Or are we supposed to march directly into the grandma section with the skirted one-pieces, then hide behind the dunes, waiting for nightfall before tiptoeing out to the shore? Not everyone here is Vogue perfect, not by any means. So there must be some protocol.


Just for the sake of science (?) and out of some sort of masochistic curiosity, I decided to suck it up (though apparently not nearly enough) and step into one of the more modest suits (relatively speaking, of course) that had caught my eye. It was a pair of striped pieces, alternating between white and bright pink. The bottoms were a wider "boy" cut, though still missing at least a yard of fabric compared to those at home.


I cannot emphasize enough how bad of an idea that was.

I laughed, I cried. I took it off very, very fast. As I left the store, having handed the delicate thing back to the salesgirl with a chuckle masking my broken soul, I made a vow that I have steadfastly kept: no more bikini shopping in Argentina.

Blast!

MilkJuice update:

I have failed again. In the refrigerator is one box of orange milkjuice and one box of pineapple milkjuice. That last one is the heartbreaker.

Thing We Learned in Buenos Aires #2

If there's one thing Argentine people like to do, it's making out.

Not that I know from personal experience, of course, but because they do it everywhere. They do it on street corners, they do it on the Subte, they do it in restaurants (noisily, at that) and they especially love to do it in the park. Some couples choose to do it on the park benches, and others stop mid-stroll to suck face in the middle of the sidewalk.

But here's where it gets awkward: their most favorite activity seems to be doing it lying in the grass. This is the point where the words "doing it" stop simply identifying the act of kissing and instead take on their 3rd grade meaning.

It appears that they come to the park specifically to get as close to public intercourse as they possibly can, and no one bats an eyelash. That's not to say that they're groping and drooling -- in fact most of the time it's all quite tender and sweet -- but I think it's the sheer volume of attached faces that makes it so overwhelming.

Last week Liz and I picked out a nice stretch of grass to sit and read on, and within an hour there were ten lip-locked couples just in the 20'x40' area that we were sitting in. I felt like perhaps we were sitting in the making out section, and someone would surely come to us at any moment and ask us to move along unless we happened to be lesbians and simply taking a break.

My amazement is almost entirely based around the fact that it seems that none of these people were born with an ounce of inhibition -- something that I have plenty of. I'm all for holding hands in public or little hugs and kisses here and there, but all of this park-bound making out that seems to only barely fall short of foreplay is another thing entirely.

Then, of course, there's the romantic side of me. The part that, should I weave through the bodies on the right day, thinks it's the greatest thing ever.

Here, part an early entry from my journal:

People here love each other. Couples wrap themselves in knots on benches and spoon on blankets in the grass. But the kissing and touching is tender, sincere. Not sophomoric and obnoxious. They all at once command attention to their affections and respect for their privacy in these wide open spaces.

I suppose at times it gets a bit absurd, like the couple in the median of a pedestrian street who, as Liz put it, "Must not have been able to make it that far without making out."

Generally speaking, though, it's something like lovely, if a bit heart-wrenching for me. But unlike that typical lovelorn torment, I feel happy rather than sad - glad for these people and how lucky there are to be here in love, lust, or anything else that brought them together for those moments.

So I suppose one can look it it from several angles, and perhaps by the time I leave here it will no longer phase me to lie in the grass, literally surrounded by these doubled forms. But in the end, this will still be my favorite thought on the subject, delivered by Eriks the first day we discovered the phenomenon:

"They'll totally know we're tourists when they see us reading in the park instead of making out."

Beef

I'm just gonna cut to the chase here: the beef is flippin' good. Anyone who knows me and my affinity toward chicken above all other meats will understand why this is such a monumentous announcement, and admit it -- some of you may feel the need to print these words of mine and frame them as a tribute to my entrance into adulthood.

It all started at La Brigada, a parilla restaurant in San Telmo that we had heard was good and so visited one Saturday night. It was packed, which is completely understandable now that we've eaten there...twice.

While I went for some slab of chicken and Liz did some sort of beef, Eriks went directly for the T-bone, and asked for it rare.



As you can see, it was beyond rare. Aside from one dish of "steak and eggs" that the boyfriend had a few months ago, this was the rarest piece of meat I'd ever seen served to a human for consumption. I couldn't believe it. It was disgusting. It was so....red! It was sooooo gooooooood.

Yes, I ate a bite of that meat. I ate more than one bite. And when I went back to my chicken, I tasted nothing. It was the most startling realization I've had in a long time.



I guess now I'm ruined for life. I suppose this means when I eat with my parents upon returning home, the conversation will no longer go like this...

Me: Mom, what's for dinner?
Mom: Steak
Me: And what am I having?
Mom: Leftover pasta/pork roast/chicken/something else we ate two days ago that is not steak

So I may not be all about downing intestines and other midsection innards, but my tastebuds are moving along reasonably enough, allowing me to opt for something other than the grilled cheese wherever we go.... bad for the budget (though not here! Beef is CHEAP!), good for the being a grown-up stuff.

Get Your Reading Pants On: The Recap

So what have we been up to, you ask? A little bit of everything, I say.

More than anything, we've put a lot of wear into our shoes -- individually and together -- exploring our neighborhoods as well as other parts of the city.

Buenos Aires is huge. I'm not saying that just because I come from a tiny patch of non-state called Washington, DC. I mean it's actually humongous. Forty-eight barrios, each quite distinct, make up the fabric of the city, and also make it hard to get a grasp on this place as a whole. But we've made a few rounds, taken the trains, hopped on buses, and have seen why this place is known to be so dynamic.

These are just some of the bits and pieces of our lives so far:

Vinos y Bodegas

Around two weeks into our trip, we spent the afternoon in Parque Tres Febrero, the large park in Palermo. On our way back to the Subte (metro) later in the evening, we passed the Rural, which is an enormous convention center compound that has room for several major happenings at once, most recently ranging from High School Musical 2 (on ice!) to the open-air "Opera Pampa" to, in the case of that wonderful evening, wine festivals.

Vinos y Bodegas is an annual event centered around Argentine wines. For 25 Pesos (around $8) we were given engraved wine glasses and access to hundreds of cabernets, merlots, chardonnays, champagnes, sparkling wines, and Argentina's Big Deal, malbecs.


Between the three of us we know approximately nothing about wine, but we sure talked like we did, taking notes on each one. Needless to say, the impressiveness of our commentary diminished as the evening progressed, meaning we went from "oaky, with a nice depth of taste" to "it tastes like I just drank fart."

In any case, we had a fantastic night -- something that couldn't have come at a better time, as my own homesick nerves were dying for something big and exciting to happen.

Check out our end-of-evening commentary here!! (And please disregard our doe-eyed tipsiness!)

Café-ing

If one so wanted, it would be possible to spend an entire vacation touring Argentina's abundant cafés. Kind of like Radio Shack, you're never more than 10 minutes from a café here, and more than likely less than a block from one.

As Liz and I are quite fond of tea, croissants, and interesting places to write, we took to the sport of café-ing quickly, often arranging entire days around finding a new one to sit at for hours at a time. Sometimes we got no further than the bakery downstairs, other times we shlepped this way and that perching on the chairs of sidewalk cafés or hiding from the September rain and chill in downtown joints.

My favorite place for reading/writing/doing nothing is Plaza Dorrego, only two blocks from our old apartment. It's very European - a wide, brick plaza full of pigeons and lined on all sides by shops and restaurants. Those restaurants set up their patio tables and chairs out in the plaza itself, so close that it's hard to tell which tables belong to which place. There I spent time writing in my journal, taking pictures of the audacious pigeons that would stomp around my table, reading, and simply soaking everything in.

Since moving across town I've been doing far less café-ing, but I plan to start again. If nothing else, it makes me feel like I've accomplished something with my day, even if that "accomplishment" was engaging in a massive bout of YouTube procrastination and excessive tea-drinking.

Cooking

While not everything here is as cheap as we had expected, food has been a gloriously inexpensive thing to buy. Whether we're out to dinner at $10 per person (including a bottle of wine) or cooking for ourselves, eating is perhaps the least expensive part of living here.

Even so, we do our best to save our pesos for a night or two out a week, the rest of the time relying on ourselves for proper meals. Thankfully, Liz is an excellent cook and I'm getting the hang of mimicking my mom's talents, so we're generally lucky enough to have well-rounded, delicious meals.

I've never had much of a reason to cook for myself - when I lived in a campus apartment my last semester of college, my culinary endeavors rarely extended past scrambled eggs, frozen waffles and grilled cheese. But that's not to say I've never cooked actual food. If you know my mom and know me, you probably also know the epic story of how I cooked Rosh Hashana dinner in England. For everyone's sake, I will not repeat it. I also did that here, a feat I thought impossible considering the 2"x 2" kitchen we had in San Telmo. In any case, now that I'm cooking regularly rather than only in extreme circumstances, I'm growing to really enjoy the time I spend working in the kitchen to get those dishes on the table.

My proudest (if modest) creation so far has been My Beautiful Chicken. Sure, roasting a chicken is a painfully easy thing to do. But this was one fiiiiiiine roast chicken, with skin so perfect and crispy that I feel it warrants its own entry into this blog of Very Important Things.


Tigre

Tigre is a delta town about an hour north of here by train. It's built along the Parana River, the longest after the Amazon, and which leads out to a major delta that hosts thousands of islands and waterways. We had read that it's a favorite day-long getaway for city-goers, so we picked ourselves up one Saturday and got on our way.




Our plan was to rent kayaks and do a tour of the river, which leads to islands covered in sub-tropical vegetation and is supposed to be quite beautiful. Instead, we were so hungry upon our arrival that we decided to comb through the dozens of riverside parillas (grills) to get some lunch.


We had eaten in a parilla before, but never went for the major and more traditional format: the pile of meats. First you decide if you want the parilla for two, four, or six people. Then they grill up an assortment of meats and sausages and serve it all on its own mini-grill right there on your table. It's up to you to figure out what's what, which means navigating your way through ordinary cuts of meat mixed in with intestine, pancreas and blood sausage. Call me a baby, but I stuck with the familiar cuts and the chorizo, as did my dear companions... Aside from all that, though, it was a wonderfully tasty meal, accompanied by a chilled, sweating pitcher of sangria shared between me and Liz. Which brings me to the next step: nap time.

We all decided that we were feeling pretty slow, what with full bellies and the fact that we were out until 4am the night before, so we wandered further along the river, found a nice grassy spot in the sun, and I promptly fell asleep. Liz and Eriks played cribbage and read, and in no time the sun was slipping away and it was time to head home.

We missed a lot of stuff that day -- the open-air market and the outlying islands being the biggest. No worries, though. The trip cost about $3.30 Pesos, or about $1. We'll be back there soon.

Konga

Where to begin with Konga?? Well, it was a drag cabaret that we got free tickets to through a Catholic priest. Go figure.

When we accepted the tickets to the show, we were told it was a cabaret of sorts, but were given no other information. So, all gussied up for our night at the theater, Liz, Eriks and I met with the visiting parents of a friend of Eriks, along with their travel companions, one of whom was the priest.

Walking up the stairs, presumably to our balcony seats, the reality of it all became clear. Through breaks in the wall between the stairs and the room we were about to enter, I saw painted men draped in sequins, feathered and bejeweled headdresses exploding from their tops. A man in a hot pink suit and full makeup greeted us at the door, handing us dry beans and ushering us to our seats.

The seating was a pattern of small tables and chairs that allowed for a T-shaped runway leading from two back entrances up to the stage. While people were still arriving, taking their seats and giving their cocktail orders to the lone server, the performers pranced around, taking pictures with people and dancing with each other. Some were dressed as men, or not dressed, as was the case with one muscley little man in plastic gladiator armor, cheeky little bottoms and a masquerade mask. On the stage one queen spun a wheel of destiny on which patrons were to bet their beans, and in the back of the room sat the lone female of the group, looking much like a witch and telling fortunes.

The show itself was a funky mishmash of lip-synced show tunes, interpretive dance and strange re-enactments of movies we'd never seen or heard of. The number of costume changes was incredible, and while at times the acts were cheesy and/or downright strange, it was all-around pretty entertaining.

My take by the end of the night?

You haven't lived until you've watched a drag queen on point doing his rendition of Swan Lake while sitting next to a Catholic priest.

Conclusion!

That's kind of a wrap-up of the bigger happenings and doings, though there is plenty more to tell. I've been bursting with things to say, but I couldn't move on until I got you all caught up!

Now that you are, I'll be sure to drop some new notes in here soon. Until then, ciao!

Living

Our first apartment was adorable for a minute. It was in San Telmo, one of the older parts of the city, and one that makes clear why this place is considered the Paris of South America. The buildings are tall and slim with ornate wooden doors, iron balconies and deco sculpture. An indoor market full of butchers, veggie stands and cheese men stood across the street, and San Telmo's famous weekend flea was only two blocks away.


It was a lovely place to begin -- deep in the belly of Argentine tradition and history, not to mention directly above a bakery (!) -- but the charm wore off steadily through the month. We lived on a busy bus route, and our balcony doors did little to muffle the whistles and squeaks of their air brakes. Our "quaint" (read: small) kitchen was prone to flooding and our hot water heater was less than reliable. There was construction going on above us 6 days a week, which meant our entire apartment was perpetually filthy, both from tracking dirt from the hallway and the little bits of ceiling that would fall from the hammering and drilling.

Perhaps the trickiest thing to deal with, however, was the layout. The apartment was a funny, somewhat linear deal. When you walked in, you were in the midst of the dining room and living room area. Around to the right was Liz's and my bedroom, which was an awkward extention of the living room and had only matchstick blinds to separate it from that common space. Now comes the thorny part: to get to the bathroom, the kitchen and Eriks's's's's bedroom, you had to walk through our bedroom. So between essentially living in a hallway and not even having four proper walls, our patience had really worn thin.

We only committed to a month there, so between doing our tourist walks and lounging in cafes, a solid two weeks of email after email to real estate agents and Craigslisters was spent in search of a new place to live.

Now we're in a funky little apartment on the top floor of a building on the border of Palermo Viejo/Soho. It has two actual bedrooms, (ours with a great view of the sunset,) a larger kitchen, a proper dining room and a loooovely patio that gets lots of sun to help Liz's newly planted herbs grow. It's also in an area that is much more clean, safe and quiet. It's actually very much like my own Capitol Hill, with small tree-lined streets everywhere. It's a totally walkable community, with the grocery store a 15 minute walk from our door, lots of shops and restaurants within minutes as well, and blessedly close to a Subte stop. I think we're all a lot more comfortable and content with this place. When my next Hill Rag column comes out, you can read about how I'm working to make it (and Buenos Aires) like home!

Ciao for now...

Thing We Learned in Buenos Aires #1

I'm throwing this in early because Liz and Eriks have each covered it in their own way in their own blogs (see links to the right) and I fear there would be great imbalance if my own take on the events was not thrown into the ring.

This is an account of our first major lesson in Grocery Shopping 101, as told to mother and boyfriend in an email last month:

Dear Mommy and Mel,

It seems that in Argentina they have a thing for putting milk in their juice, which we discovered last week when we bought orange juice and it came out milky and similar to melted cremesicle.

A day or two later, Eriks went to buy milk and found that it's difficult to find in a normal jug. You have to have it in either the boxes of it that sit on the shelf unrefrigerated, which wasn't so strange as we've seen plenty in Europe, or you have to have it in a bag. BAGS OF MILK! It doesn't even make sense! How do you close it?? Who is drinking that much milk all at once? And they sit in the bottom bin like sad sacks of weirdness. Luckily Eriks did find a normal 1/2 gallon of milk, only it apparently was so thick that by the end of his meal of cereal he said "Well, I guess the next time I want milk I may as well just buy yogurt."

This morning was the best, though. Liz woke up feeling inclined to make us all French toast. When she came back from the store, she brought with her a box of apple juice, as she couldn't find any orange sans milk. She assured us all that she had spent a ridiculous amount of time making sure that she was, in fact, buying juice.
Except it wasn't apple juice.
It was apple juice flavored milk. Not even apple juice with milk. Milk with apple juice.
And while it did smell like apple juice, and it did look like milk (which is all weird enough,) it tasted like apple candy.
And just to make sure that we got as much nutrition as possible, it included fish oil for our daily dose of Omega-3.
So now we call it several combinations of apple/milk/juice/fish, the last and grossest being apple flavored fish milk.
Gross.

The end.

I honestly can't explain the sheer panic I feel when I think to myself "man, I could really go for some orange juice right now."


Update, October 14:

I went on a quest for milk and failed as miserably as the other two.

After what felt like hours staring at all of the boxes and baggies, trying to decipher which was yogurt-like, which had fruit and/or fish, etcetera, I decided upon the most non-threatening one in the whole milk area. It said "Infantil" and had a picture of Mickey Mouse. It boasted that it was fortified with extra calcium, vitamin C, and other things that would help a growing girl. How could I possibly be going wrong here?

I was going wrong here.

I got the bag home, poured it into a pitcher (Ah ha! Those milk bags are a pitcher-selling racket!) and took a sip. Mickey, that squeaky rodent, betrayed me. This was the sweetest milk I'd ever tasted! It was much like the leftover milk in a bowl of Frosted Flakes, except minus the Frosted Flakes. I'd be lying if I said that particular leftover milk is not totally delicious, but generally speaking I don't think bracing oneself for an oncoming sugar coma is the best way to start out a day.

As it turns out, the next ingredient after "leche" on the back of the bag is indeed "azucar," which means that until that damn pitcher is gone I'll have to limit my daily milk intake to four tablespoons, unless all my plans change and I feel like gaining 20 pounds and sprawling comatose on our couch for the rest of my time here.

Or, you know, I could throw it out. Oh dad, I know. Waste not, want not. I still don't know exactly what that means, but I guess I'm gonna drink the milk.

Sigh.

The Beginning

I.

Leaving wasn't easy. There were some obvious reasons. The only child leaving the safety of life at home, the girl leaving the boy behind. And there were reasons I didn't expect and couldn't identify.

I brought a leather-bound journal with me. It has that oh-so-sophisticated leather string to hold the front flap closed, and four folds of yellowish paper held together by string. I have intentions for this journal, dreams of making it fat with taped-in ticket stubs and letting it be stained with tea and worn with life, toted from park to café, woods to shore.

This is an excerpt from my first entry:


September 4, 2007

My dad said I'm lucky in life.
I got the airport wrong and we had to make a mad dash to Dulles about 45 minutes earlier than we had expected to leave. No traffic, 30 minutes in the middle of the afternoon. Lucky.
When we arrived, there was no line to check in. Both bags came in under 50 pounds and the security line was virtually nonexistant. Lucky.
I waded through the Euro kids and families and businessmen, heart pounding and tears drowning my eyes.
I kept thinking, People do this all the time. But don't they have parents? Boyfriends and girlfriends? People to miss and cry over in the airport?
I was the only person I saw crying. I couldn't stop the whole way to the gate.
What am I afraid of? I don't rally know. Yes, this is huge, but it's so amazing, and I truly am lucky to have the chance to do this. I'm lucky to have a mom who tells me she's proud of me just before I have to walk away. Lucky to have the ability to come right back home, and lucky to have people there who would be happy either way. And lucky to have such a beautiful friend waiting for me at my next stop.
I am a very lucky girl. There is no doubt.

II.

The first flight ended up going by quickly. Just a hop down to Atlanta, where I would meet up with Liz. Celebratory margaritas and mojitos were savored in the last TGIFriday's we'd be seeing in a long time (or so we thought...shocker!) On the flight we were blessed with an empty seat between us, meaning more stretching out room for the 11 hours of flight time we would endure.

(Click here to see our first video.)

And what did we learn in our time of confinement?

As cute as the novelty of Harry Potter Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans may be, going through and eating them one by one is not as fun a game as it may sound. If you choose to ignore that warning, at least make sure not to eat "pickle" and "dirt" back to back, because it really does taste like you just ate a really dirty pickle.

III.

The Buenos Aires airport is the easiest airport in the entire world. It took no more than 20 minutes to get from the airplane through baggage and customs and out to the general hallways of the airport at large. And it only took that long because of a mercifully short wait to have our passports stamped. Amazing.

A two hour wait for Eriks to get in included realizing we had flown down with the entire Argentine basketball team (click here for video 2) and my first interaction in Spanish (needed change for a 20 peso bill.)

IV.

By the end of the very long day, I was glad I was here. It was hard to leave, but it was the right thing to do. I knew it when I tucked myself into the bed, for that moment content with having no idea what was coming next.

Introduction

Why Buenos Aires?

There is a panic that sets in just after graduation from college that tends to elicit two particular reactions among those it strikes. I fall quite squarely within one of those categories. Rather than opting for grad school, where I could continue to loaf around between classes and the dining hall, I've gone ahead and signed up for a months-long excursion abroad on the pretense that it will change my life and give me direction.

In reality, every move one makes is life-changing. And to be honest, I have no more direction now that I've been here a month than when I came. But I suppose as long as I'm sleeping until noon in another country rather than in my parents' basement, it's something to be commended. Right?

Well in any case, I'm here, and I took a certain path toward my arrival:

After months of abstract schemes involving places like Thailand, the south of France and good old Florida, a nudge from a certain friend sent me headlong into a plan to head to Argentina. Her motives were as elementary as mine: to go somewhere new and write. After a few discussions and a bit of research, it seemed that for a long-term stay fueled by only a few months' savings, Buenos Aires was the most logical destination.

Who I'm Here WIth

I packed up and moved in with two friends made the last time I escaped across borders. Liz and Eriks were both part of a program that sent American students over to Oxford University for three months of lectures, tutorials, reading and papers. Also involved were late-night visits to interesting food vendors, unapologetic banana-throwing, frantic 5am paper-writing, whirlwind jaunts to London/Paris/Wales/etc and soccer in our dorm rooms at 4am.

Liz and I were roommates and quickly became best friends despite the fact that she originally feared that I was mentally imbalanced because of my affinity toward Creedence Clearwater Revival and I feared that she was going to try to introduce me to Jesus (both long stories, clearly.)

Eriks was the guy with the S on the end of a perfectly good non-S name who was growing his hair out for Locks of Love and frequently wore (and still wears) a bright pink shirt that says Snak Club. We three were part of a wonderful group of seven friends, and it seemed only natural to invite him along on our more grown-up, less lecture-infused journey.

What's Happening?

We all have return flights out of Buenos Aires for various points in the future. Eriks in mid-April, me a week later and Liz in mid-May.

It was a huge gamble to come to a city we'd never visited in a country -- continent, even -- that was unfamiliar to us all. So it comes as no big surprise (to me, at least) that our plans are all up in the air. I'm currently thinking of taking off somewhere on my own in January, and the other two are considering moving somewhere outside of the city for the rest of the trip after that. My reasons and theirs will surely be covered in later posts.

For the time being, we're surviving. Some days are spent wandering the streets of the different BsAs barrios, others in cafés sipping tea and doing writing exercises with Liz, and others being absolute slugs searching for TV shows in English while wasting time on YouTube and gorging on cheap cookies.

So I guess we ended up running towards life, after all. Sure we're technically jobless and our [laughably low] rent allows us to stay that way, but we've still bitten off a big chunk of the real thing. At the end of the day, it's a pretty good time.