Simple Life in the Countryside

A few days ago Don and I spent some time with friends at Estancia Bella Vista, which is about 170 kilometers from Buenos Aires. This delightful place is 60 hectares of natural woodland on the banks of the Salado River. It was so peaceful and so nice to trade in the city sounds for nothing more than birds chirping. For the first half of the day we were the only four guests in the whole place. Some more people showed up later but there were never more than about 10 guests. It was cozy and everyone talked and ate dinner together. Here's the entrance to our room at the Estancia:

Our favorite activity was the horse back riding. We were used to the slow guided tours where the guide is teaching you about everything around you and you move at a leisurely pace. This guide just let us break out into pretty fast gallops and ride as we pleased. Man were our butts hurting the next day! The guide rounded up a baby cow with a lasso like a real cowboy. It was actually kind of sad because the animal was running so hard trying to get away and all the other cows were mooing like crazy. But, that's life in the countryside.

Feliz Navidad!

It's Christmas Day here in Buenos Aires and it's a blazing 90 degree day. The morning was eerily quiet after all the families in the city partied hard last night. Christmas Eve is a very important night here and at midnight fireworks started going off all across the sky. Our whole neighborhood was filled with bangs, booms, and streaks of color. But we really missed the Christmas movies that we would have watched in DC. The cable service we have in our apartment just wasn't providing the right stuff! What's Christmas Eve without watching "A Christmas Story"?

As our celebration today, we went to the Alvear Hotel for a long beautiful brunch. We, of course, met another couple--as we always do--and proceeded to tell them about all the best things that we had learned about this city and other places to see in Argentina. There is so much to do here and always so little time!

Boca Futbol

So, we finally made our way to a soccer (futbol) game and it was yet another interesting segment in the Don and Marie drama of living in Buenos Aires. This is a city where spontaneity does not breed success for us and everything must be carefully pre-planned with tons of questions. Well, we had let our soccer planning fall to the wayside so when a last minute opportunity arose to see Boca Juniors play in the last game of their season we jumped at it. Let's just say that everything we had planned to avoid about watching a live soccer game here in Argentina happened to us that day. Instead of the private car transportation we were expecting, we ended up on a school bus. No joke. And, when we were handed our tickets we realized that we had paid 10 times the face value for the "general admission" area. That means you are crowded in a bleacher-like section with no assigned seats with several hundred very passionate, screaming Argentinians clawing their way to see the action and push you out of the way. Oh, how we missed the Verizon Center at that moment. At least we won a raffle to get an authentic, Nike jersey of one of the most popular players.

We tried to make lemonade out of lemons and we held our ground in the crazy crowd. Did I mention that it's a dry stadium? We didn't even know those existed. It's not hard to imagine why when you see how crazy everyone is even without alcohol. The opposing team's fans have to sit in a special section and they enter and depart the stadium before the Boca fans. We ended up making it through the first half and we saw all 3 goals that Boca scored that day! Part of the fans' aggression was pretty contagious and we screamed and clapped with every goal. Even really old ladies, mothers, and little children squeeze into this suffocating madness and jump all over the place. We've never seen one crowd know so many different songs--and every single lyric--all devoted to one team. When four year old boys with their dads are screaming "putos" (bitches) at the other team, you know you're at a Boca game in the rowdy, low budget section. All in all, Boca beat Colon and we took great pleasure in that. I hope you don't think we got back on that school bus to go home. Fool us once...

Anniversary Tango Show

December 9th was our 3-year wedding anniversary and we decided to celebrate with a romantic tango show in San Telmo. We went to a place called La Ventana inside a historic, refurbished building and it was very charming. The evening started out with a gourmet 3-course dinner and we were seated right at the front edge of the stage with a good view. When the show started we immediately loved the band of musicians playing the piano, cello, violins, and bandoneon (which we always thought was an accordion). The dancers were all pretty exceptional, too. It was more of a traditional style tango show than we we had seen at the Faena and we couldn't help but compare things. But, in the end, the styles of the two shows just represented different interpretations and we enjoyed ourselves just as much if not more. We captured some video of the dancing:

Overall, however, the star highlight of the La Ventana show was not really the tango dancing or singing but rather the two artists representing northwest Argentine folk music and dance. Don was most impressed with the guitar player and I really liked the guy who played the Argentine drum or Bombo leguero. We hope to post videos of those acts elsewhere on the blog. It was a fantastic night and we definitely need to make our way over to San Telmo more often. Maybe this Sunday for more tango and shopping...

Kosher Night

As always, Don and I are on the constant look-out for new restaurants. We keep our eyes trained on new signs and fliers in Palermo searching for something new and interesting. Well, since we got here in September, there has been a huge purple wall announcing the arrival of an Asian steakhouse on Cordoba Avenue. We've waited patiently and walked by every week or so to monitor the progress of the construction. Finally, it was open! We tried to go there for lunch one day and ran into a security guard in an ill-fitting black suit standing near the elevator entrance. It was then we discovered that the restaurant was open only for dinner and that it was "Jewish food" as he called it. Kosher-style Asian only, so we probably wouldn't want to eat there, he assumed. Don and I are no quitters so we politely informed him that we would return at a later time for dinner. That dinner came a few days ago and we ran into him and yet another security guard. After a lengthy conversation about us 1) not having a reservation, 2) not being part of the "community", and 3) being from the United States and aware of what Kosher means, we were finally allowed to take a seat in the restaurant and order dinner.

The duck rolls were rather tasty but didn't really surprise us. Don was a bit reluctant to order the deep-fried gizzards but we relented after the waiter insisted. They tasted like sweetbreads wrapped in dough as one would imagine. But man, oh man, did we get a big surprise when our rack of beef rib steak came out. It was a massive sight to see. They like to serve the meat on the bone here a lot and this thing looked like it came from a brontosauras and it was covered in barbecue sauce. A little overcooked for us but we were so excited just to figure out how to eat the thing. A successful Asian Kosher dinner if we may say so ourselves.

Don't you see the resemblance?

Feeling Festive and Stuffed Like Turkeys

The past few days have been full of fun and FOOD. Wednesday was Don's birthday and we hit up two of our favorite places, La Cabrera and Osaka. He's been going to the dentist a lot lately and we were afraid that he wouldn't be able to eat. Luckily, he felt okay so we headed out to make the best of it and had a great time on a blazing hot day. It turned out to be a wonderful birthday for him despite experiencing our first black out here. Not a thing worked in the apartment, including the air conditioning, so we didn't stay in long. Here's a snapshot of some of our feasting:

Oh, and then there was Thanksgiving on Thursday... Another blackout all day. So, of course we were missing our family and we decided to have a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant called Kansas. We had turkey with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, glazed carrots, broccoli, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, the works! It was wonderful. We even went to two more American-style places (Casa Bar and The Alamo) to watch football and have seconds with yet another Thanksgiving day dish, which we shared. We ended up seeing the Dallas Cowboys win, wrapping up a great day for Don, no doubt.

And, if we hadn't had enough...we baked homemade macaroni and cheese and brought it to our friend's house for another Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Yes, you read that correctly. We baked. Macaroni and cheese. Just a big pan of scrumptious, creamy cheese! We love the holidays.

Patagonia III: Villa La Angostura

Hotel Correntoso in Villa La Angostura was the perfect way to end our tour of Patagonia. We were intending on staying at Llao Llao but our apartment owner suggested this alternative and he was right on target. After tons of excursions we needed a relaxing way to decompress with less people around. We ended up getting 4 days of much-needed spa time, fine dining, and beautiful lake views. They knew us really well in the spa as we had different treatments 3 days in a row and they couldn't keep us out of the pool! Las Balsas restaurant deserves a special mention here because our lunch there was exquisite and we had our first encounter with a really helpful sommelier. We both think the food was probably the best we've had since being in Argentina overall.

We did drag ourselves away from the hotel to take a private boat tour along the Nahuel Huapi Lake and a walk through the Arrayanes Forest. The picture above is one we really like of an old bridge that is near the entrance to the national parklands where the boat docks. It was much different having a small boat and a gourmet lunch to ourselves versus being on a catamaran with hundreds of people and a tour guide trying to speak English over the loud speaker! But we feel like we got a full spectrum of the Patagonia experience.

Click on the title of this post to see our picture slideshow.

Patagonia II: El Calafate

After enjoying bright sunny beach days with penguins, whales, elephant seals, sheep, and guanacos, we moved on with a little under 2-hour plane ride to El Calafate. This area of Patagonia is known for its world famous glaciers and we planned two full days of excursions to see the best ones. The first day we went on a big catamaran from Punta Bandera Port and sailed along the Argentino Lake to reach the Upsala and Speggazini Glaciers and Onelli Bay. The boat was surprisingly comfortable with nice leather seats and a bar and we didn't get any seasicknesses even though it was a full day tour. Here you'll see some of our favorite views from the boat:

This short video shows the view as we pass by the Spegazzini Glacier. It's the highest glacier in the National Park and it's a rather amazing view.

The second day's excursion was the real highlight of our El Calafate trip: trekking over the Perito Moreno glacier, which is the most famous of the National Park and the only one that is not receding. We took a boat to a small landing area in the woods near the glacier, put on our snow trekking shoes, and started on an hour and a half walk across the glacier. This experience is somewhat hard to put into words and the pictures don't even do it justice. The air was so fresh and crisp and you could hear running water whenever you stepped over a crack in the ice. After the trek, we stopped at a part of the glacier where the guide had set up Patagonian whiskey and he served it over freshly cut glacier ice!

Next and final stop on our trip will be just 80 kilometers from Bariloche. Stay tuned!

Patagonia I: Puerto Madryn

Our second trip outside of Buenos Aires was to the Patagonia region, first stop: Puerto Madryn. When we heard that you could take a boat out and go whale-watching and walk through groups of penguins, we knew we couldn't miss this area. What a nice surprise it was to arrive and realize that we were right across from the beach! Somehow we had missed that piece of information and it made our walk along the sand just that much better. Not to mention Hotel Territorio was a major treat with its spa jacuzzi overlooking Gulfo Nuevo.

Our first excursion was to Puerto Piramides where we saw two Right Whales, a mama and her baby. There are only 7,000 of these whales left across the world. The whales were amazing because they are very curious creatures and not afraid at all of boats and people. In fact, the mama led her baby over to us and they swam right under our boat so they could figure out what we were! We were able to film a mini video where you can hear the whale breathing and the guide talking.

We also saw a bunch of big elephant seals on the beach, which were really funny to watch. This map shows the area that we traveled during that first day:

Our second excursion was just penguin heaven in Punta Tombo. They were everywhere and walking all around us! We were lucky enough to see a mama penguin feeding her baby, which is quite rare. The first chicks had just hatched the day before we arrived. This picture shows how close we were able to get to the penguins, who don't mess with you unless they feel threatened we suppose - since we did see one of them snap at a guy's leg when he passed by!

Here's a video of some penguins, too:

Abroad and Proud of America - Obama/Biden '08!!!

OBAMA!

President-elect Barack Obama! Wow. Don and I were literally speechless huddled around the laptop last night crying and watching the final results come in. We stuck it out for quite a while at a huge Democrats Abroad party but then decided to go home where we could really take it all in. I feel like we've been holding our breath for 21 months awaiting this outcome. We still cannot believe it's real...thank God for live, streaming video over the internet. How we wish we could have been dancing in the streets of our wonderful Washington, DC. But we were certainly there in spirit.

The Argentines have been so warm and friendly about Barack Obama since our first days arriving here with me walking around wearing an Obama t-shirt and pin. People would just stop me on the street or in stores and say a few words of approval or speak at more length about their support for Obama's candidacy. This world is clearly anxiously awaiting the new dawn of American leadership.

Here's a look at the front page of a major newspaper here in Buenos Aires that I picked up today. Of course all of the major dailies are commenting on Barack making history by becoming the first black man elected president of the United States.

We can't forget to congratulate our friend Gina for her winning t-shirt design selected by Democrats Abroad Argentina! Si, se puede! Yes, we can!

Ready for Summer...with a Pool!

Don has finally gotten another one of his many wishes with our apartment here. Today we went to Easy and bought a mini pool for our rooftop terrace. We wanted a really big one but the owner was afraid that the ceiling would come crashing down (although he did joke that we could get the biggest one possible if we were willing to swim in the ground floor garage!). So, we settled on a nice size that will comfortably fit Don and I, but that could fit more people if we don't mind getting extra cozy! Now, at home we might think of this as a kiddie pool, but we've had to modify our expectations somewhat for our terrace in Buenos Aires. It gets just as hot here, if not hotter, as in DC so we are set with a cool relief for those humid days of 100 degrees that are sure to come around December. Now all we need is a blender and we are poised to have some fun days, and funny stories, with this pool. Anyone up for a dip during the New Year's Eve party?

We also just met our neighbors across the way - Jonathan and Beverly - and they invited us over for an asado. We had a lovely time drinking wine, eating pollo a la parrilla, homemade bread by Bev, and homemade guacamole also by Bev. They are both obviously great in the kitchen and fantastic on the grill. Not to mention we have someone else who feels our pain about the incessant dog barking in this neighborhood. It's pretty much the only noise that could be prevented that people just will not step in to stop. Oh well, you can't have everything.

Sunday at Feria de Mataderos

After hearing so much about this great fair in a part of town called Mataderos, we decided to check it out with our friends Layne and Angela. There was a stage with dancers, tons of arts and crafts, and all types of tasty treats. Of course, we loved the places that offered free samples, especially the dulce de leche and this yummy mixed berry jam we bought. For lunch we tried two cuts of meat that were new to us, vacio and bondiola. Both turned out be tender and grilled to our liking. Other than some loser snapping at me for taking a picture of his ugly little llama and pony without tipping him, it was a beautiful and sunny day!

We watched a horse competition for quite a while but couldn't quite figure out what the game was trying to accomplish. There were a bunch of competitors racing down the road and trying to push a stick through a loop at top speed. We think...but it was difficult to figure out the difference between when someone was successful at it or not. I'm sure I could look it up and educate us. In any case, we ended up just clapping when everyone else did. Homework for us: figure out what exactly is the object of that competition?

One of the funniest parts was this horse-riding dog that yapped at everything that passed by him. He rides this horse every week but just could not stop barking at other horses, dogs, and people as if he had never been out in public before!

Sounds of Jazz

What a lovely Saturday it was. The 2008 Buenos Aires International Jazz Festival on the rooftop terrace of the Recoleta Cultural Center was quite a treat. There's not much we like more than free live music outdoors. The turnout was amazing and when seats ran out there were tons of people standing up in the back or just sitting on the ground. This picture is of Roxana Amed, a very important figure on the Argentina jazz scene. She opened her set with a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace.

We had a nice dinner in the Unicorn Room at the Faena Hotel -- where we saw Julia Stiles hanging out. Wonder if she's filming a movie here? In any case, after dinner Don finally got what he had been waiting for...a trip to the floating casino in Puerto Madero. As luck would have it, we won big! We had a lot of fun and walked away with a big stack of pesos.

Is Spring Here to Stay?

After several more days of rain and clouds, the sun appeared on Thursday and Don and I jumped at the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors. We went to the Botanical Garden and had a leisurely walk around the area. The garden has hundreds of cats living there and they like to come up to you, probably hoping that you have some food. There were tons of people laying around on the grass and relaxing.

After the garden we went over to the Park Hyatt in Recoleta, which was even more beautiful than the one we visited while in Mendoza. We had afternoon tea and scones and listened to a harpist. It was a very peaceful way to enjoy our late afternoon merienda (snack) during the downtime. Whereas at home bars and restaurants are jumping around happy hour (5-7pm), nothing really happens here in Buenos Aires. People are at home having family time and dinner doesn't get going at most places until after 9:30pm.

I can't say enough about the fabulous Vietnamese dinner we ate at Green Bamboo. A new version of chicken satay that, instead of just wooden sticks, the chicken was skewered on sugar cane sticks. Add pork rolls and duck confit to the mix and YUM...

We also successfully booked our next trip! On November 9th we'll be heading to the Patagonia region to visit Calafate, Puerto Madryn, and Bariloche. We can't wait.

Party Time!

Don came up with the idea of having an omelette and champagne party at midnight on Saturday. I was somewhat intrigued so I sent out a small invite and went along with it. Don loves my omelettes at home so much that he has dubbed me the "Omelette Queen." Let's just say it's not the same when you have a hungry audience in the kitchen! The omelette making turned into a true team effort. All in all, they came out really, really well. Around 3 am things started getting really funny...such as Martin's so-called "breakdancing" on the floor and my attempt at a very unattractive mix of tae kwon do / capoeira. Good times.

OK, who is that behind the monkey?! Javier...?

Everyday Life

The past few days have been pretty normal and mostly low key for us with few exceptions. We've tried some really great restaurants like Standard for Argentine asado, Pregiatto for pasta and Sudestada for southeast Asian. I was disappointed that I forgot to bring my camera to Sudestada because I had the most delicious and beautiful looking dish. The chef carved out half of a huge, fresh pineapple and filled it with chicken, pork, shrimp and a spicy-sweet sauce. Don also loved his spicy pork dish and we definitely plan to go back. However, we've only made it to the gym once this week so you know where I'm going with that...

Thursday night we hung out with Linnea at Milion, which we had seen on the Food Network when Rachel Ray visited here. It's a cool bar/club in an old mansion and the website is really cool, Milion. The place is also known for its black cat that roams around but no one could seem to find him for us. We haven't really stayed out late here so we decided to keep the night alive by going to Club 69 or Niceto Club. It was very much like what we'd do in DC by going to the upper VIP level and getting champagne. We had a great time and stayed out really late.

To recover from our late night out we had a lazy day in the park for a picnic on Friday. We got some choripan and went to La Rosedal or the rose garden. At least we tried to get into the rose garden but it was closed so we sat on the outskirts. The weather was fantastic and we just lay on our blanket and relaxed. A group of geese tried to attack us for our food and it was hilarious watching Don try to hit them with his baseball cap. The geese would even try and eat the blanket!

I won't even go into detail about our trip to Jumbo Easy today, the equivalent of Wal-Mart here. Big shopping trips drive me crazy even though it was relatively empty and we didn't even have to wait in line for very long. Plus they deliver everything to your house, which is good considering we bought enough to last us for the next six months!

USA Day!

We voted today! The embassy had a really nice event for absentee voters with food, music, and a speech by the US Ambassador. And, of course, they served Starbucks coffee! Our Washington, DC absentee ballots haven't arrived to our apartment - no surprise there - so we had to complete a federal write-in ballot. It was a lot of fun being there at the embassy and we got there before the line became over an hour long wait.

Funny thing, we were feeling so "American" that we did something we swore we wouldn't do. We left the embassy and we ate at McDonald's! The quarter pounder with cheese burgers were actually really good...and we saw tons of other Americans there who had just left the embassy, which made us laugh. The McDonald's fries never taste the same outside the US but the burgers were really close to the real thing. Can't wait until November 4!

Check out CNN's coverage of the political events we've attended: video clip

La Recoleta Cemetery

We ate lunch in Recoleta today and visited La Recoleta Cemetery, which is a common touristy thing to do and is where Eva Peron is buried. There are hundreds of mausoleums for famous, wealthy, and influential families from Argentina. As we had read before arriving, the mausoleums and walkways are arranged somewhat like city blocks. Here's a typical view:

Some of the mausoleums are in horrible disarray, which was sad to see. But, for the most part, walking through the cemetery is a nice experience. It was difficult to get a good picture of Eva's mausoleum because of how it was situated but here's a part that shows "Evita".

Mendoza Picture Slideshow

Click here to see a slideshow of our pictures from Mendoza.

Mendoza is a very large wine-producing province. It is the 5th largest in the world and domestic consumption has, for a long time, easily absorbed production.

Mendoza, South America's Napa Valley

We have recently returned from 3 nights in Mendoza and it was not long enough! As soon as we arrived on Thursday afternoon the hotel staff handed us 2 chilled glasses of Torrentes white wine and all thoughts of busy Buenos Aires cleared out of our minds. It was sunny and warm and we had a great lunch on the terrace of the restaurant. The food during our entire stay was fantastic at restaurants like Francis Mollman's 1884.

That night, we attended a wine tasting at the lodge. We tried 3 types of wine - 2 red, 1 white - and played a guessing game of "essences" found in wine. Smelling the little bottles with various essences turned out to be quite difficult! Some examples we had were cloves, grapefruit, grass, coffee, black pepper. Sounds easy but it's not. The lodge grows the bonarda seed grape and sells it to other vineyards for producing wine. It only makes 2,000 bottles a year of its own for its guest to drink while staying there. The bonarda grape is deep ruby red and has a full taste.

On Friday we visited two bodegas or wineries - the first was Vistalba by Carlos Pulenta and the second was Achaval Ferrer. We got to taste wine directly from a French oak barrel, which is what our tour guide is pouring here.

Somehow, Don woke up early and took a mountain bike ride around the estate before our Saturday spa day began. And it was amazing. We had a treatment together called Winetherapy that lasts for 2.5 hours! We had a 50-minute massage, a crushed Malbec seed scrub, a Bonarda red wine bath, and a Torrentes wine wrap. Pure indulgence. We miss Mendoza already and are thinking about returning when the grapes are ripening, even though we found the weather so perfect now.

We just sent an email slideshow of our pictures from the trip. Post a comment here if you didn't get it.

Rain, Rain Go Away

It's been raining and chilly for 3 days and I'm fighting a stomach virus. Not too fun so we haven't done much except for eat out when I can "stomach" it. Luckily, we've had some good food experiences, mostly after realizing how difficult it is to get anything delivered on Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. Most of the best restaurants here will deliver to you, unlike in DC, but you can mostly forget about it until Wednesday rolls around at the places we tried.

Monday night we went to Sarkis just a few blocks from our house, which some call the best Mediterranean food in Buenos Aires. The reviews didn't disappoint. We absolutely loved the tabbouleh and the lamb kebab, and we had a tasty Cabernet-Merlot blend. The hummus was better than the one we had to throw out from the grocery store but still not as good as some of our favorite restaurants back home like Zaytinya or Lebanese Taverna. I tried to get a picture of the belly dancer with Don but it didn't turn out too well as you can see! I had a great time eating away but my stomach made me pay for it all night long while Don slept soundly...

We leave tomorrow for Mendoza to stay at the Cavas Wine Lodge. Stay tuned for details of our adventures in wine country!

Our First Parilla

We did it! It took a while to get things rolling but Don and I have successfully accomplished our first Argentine asado. We made rib eye steak, sausage, chicken stuffed with ham and cheese, red peppers, corn on the cob, creole sauce, and potatoes. The day was sunny and beautiful on the terraza! Other than our outdoor table umbrella almost blowing off the building, there were no major mishaps. Everything came out just as we wanted. Buen provecho!

MEAT - Parilla al Carbon

We love the meat here. Bife de lomo, bife de chorizo, morcilla, asado...we love it all. Click the title of this post and it'll take you to a link with meat cut definitions (US vs. Argentina). It took us a while to figure it out but we can order at a restaurant or a grocery store with confidence now. So we have an asado - Argentina's barbecue grill - on our roof top terraza. Don and I are just learning how to use an open flame carbon grill so we went over to Gina and Javier's for our first lesson. Javier is definitely what we'd called an expert so we're learning from the best. And Don is fabulous when it comes to American barbecue so expectations are high.

Here's Javier at the asado and a look at the food.

We had choripan, a popular sandwich here taking its name from the combination of chorizo (sausage) and pan (bread). Hence, choripan. Our sausage was the tasty morcilla - or blood sausage - on grilled baguette. Que rico!

We'll let you know how it all turns out when we try it on our own (aka with Javier's help)!

Debate Night in Buenos Aires

First debate of the presidential general election season! We went out to an event hosted by Democrats Abroad to see Barack Obama's performance in a friendly atmosphere. The venue, a restaurant/bar called El Sacramento, was absolutely packed! One big screen showed the debate in English and one in Castellano, the form of Spanish spoken here. There were probably a few hundred people there and I gave a rambling interview to some poor guy who wanted me to speak in Castellano about what Obama will do for Latin America for his online blog. Ha ha!

In any case, the event was much better than the one we attended back in May when we were here. We just preferred the new venue and, of course, this debate had generated a lot of interest so people were really excited.

Who do you think "won" the debate?

After the debate we went to a great late night party in Palermo thrown by our friends Linnea and Colleen. They had a lot of really fun people over to their apartment. Unfortunately, Colleen is leaving for Chile to work for a while so we'll only get to know her for a short time. Linnea should be around a bit longer and we're going to another party tonight, this time in San Telmo. We'll write more about the San Telmo area of Buenos Aires later.

Ciao!