The First Gentleman of Argentina

Nestor Kirchner, the former president and first gentleman of Argentina died on Wednesday morning after suffering a heart attack.  From what I can tell he had been in poor health but this was sudden and shocking to everyone.

The current president, Cristina Fernandez succeeded her husbands presidency and is in office for another year.  They are both very strong politicians and have each served a term as president. The plan was for him to re-run for president in the next elections and they would continue to switch off.  Obviously the plan has changed and it's left a lot of Argentines speculating what will happen next.

As for now, the whole country is grieving as well as celebrating his passing.  The casa rosada is the white house equivalent here and it's the gathering spot for all things political.  So, yesterday I went to the plaza and took about a million photos and videos.  Posted below.



These are posted all over the city



There is a very strong sentiment of Evita still here in the city as well as Peronism.  

Grafiti saying "Thank you Nestor"

Roses and paraphenelia galore being sold on the streets

everyone came out to put their pesonal messages on the gate around the Casa Rosada

more personal notes.  The wall was full...

Sushi!

Know what this means/is??

An empty restaurant?  Well kinda...

It's a sushi place down from our house.  AND sushi means...I got a job!!

There are only about a million sushi restaurants in Buenos Aires and close to half of them are on my block.  Fitz Roy is the home of sushi restaurants, or so I feel.  Daily I walk by these elegant, dimly lit restaurants and start salivating.  I decided when I got a job, a real, full time, salaried job, we'd celebrate with sushi. 

I carefully picked out the right one (among the hundreds) and couldnt wait. 

Well...I got a job!! I dont start until Nov. 1 so it leaves me a little extra time to sleep late, walk the city, and enjoy free time.  However, I'm really ready to start to have a normal routine, get out to meet people, and feel like I'm not just draining my savings. 

The job is with Expedia.  I dont know too much yet (more to come) but I do know that I'll be calling the states.  I'll be talking with people who have bought flights to Argentina and helping them with general questions about Buenos Aires.  What to do, where to go, what to see, etc.  I make commissions if I sell packages of tango dinners, city tours, etc. 

So, I'm a telemarketer?  I hope it's not that bad and just as rosy as I think...

Typical/Interesting Argentine things

So, still walking quite a bit.  I decided to take some photos to document the strange/typical things one might see on a walk in Buenos Aires.

As I've mentioned before, delivery is huge here.  This is a picture of a guy delivering groceries.  Coto is a pretty big chain of grocery stores in BA.

For about 7 pesos, or 2 dollars you can have your groceries packed into these little cooler kind of lined crates and have them brought to your house.  I guess the reason is not everyone has cars and if they've done a big grocery shop they might not want to carry them home...

I think they are pretty successful with it.

I was thinking of things to take pictures of that are common and I realized I had to take a picture of the street vendors selling flowers.   

I also realized that I havent ever seen a physical flower store.  I mean a store that you can enter into and buy flowers.  Perhaps they exist, but I have a feeling most people just buy their flowers from the street.

It's always a pleasure to walk by because it smells so good. As one might imagine, Buenos Aires is not the cleanest city, therefore bringing not the cleanest smells.

Which actually brings me to my next point.  A photo I've decided to omit-for everyones sake.  It's poop.  Nobody seems to care where their dogs poop or about cleaning it up.  Word to the wise-be very careful when walking through the city...

The next is hotdogs.  Maybe I naively thought hotdogs were "All-American" therefore eaten mostly in the US...very wrong.

They LOVE hotdogs! I dont know what the reasoning behind it is, but here they are called panchos.  I would be willing to bet a typical Argentine consumes 1-3 panchos a week.

I cant say I blame them though.  They are rather delicious.  I don't know if the picture shows it, but they really load it on.  The best part is they put these kind of potato crisps on the top which makes it kind of crunchy. 

This particular photo is taken at a kiosk.  There is probably at least one kiosk every block, and 99% of the kiosks sell hot dogs.  Additionally, there are hot dog stands.  The smart ones strategically place themselves outside bars at 3:00 am...

Okay bad picture, but I think maybe you get the idea...

Sweets!!! They are huge here.  About every two blocks there is a sweet shop/bread shop.  They make their treats daily and they are so pretty. Lots of cakes and pies. 

A typical Argentine breakfast is a croissant.  So, naturally these places have tons of croissants as well. 

Dog Walkers!

I dont know if it's because I've never lived in a city, but I've never seen dog walkers like this.  This guy in particular is walking close to what? 10 dogs.

He saw I wanted to take his picture (typical gringa taking pictures of street life) and turned around and gave me a thumbs up.  Unfortunatley he turned back around before I could get the shot. 

Anyway, it's pretty hilarious to see one person walking so many dogs at once.

This one happens to be a two for one.  I'll start with the fruits. 

This guy has impromptu set up a stand with strawberries and asparagus.  I guess they have just started coming out now that it's spring and the weathers nice.  Just about anywhere in town you can find a stand with strawberries for 6.99 a kilo.  Which is pretty much like $1.50 US for 2.2 pounds of strawberries.  Needless to say we've been eating a lot. 

As of this week I've seen a couple add peaches too! yum. 

The second part of the picture is the newsstand.  Nearly every block is a newsstand with magazines, newspapers, comics, etc.  Super common-nice place to get anything from Newsweek to Knitting Weekly...

This particular picture might not be doing it justice, as there are only about 4 busses in the picture.  But, the theme is public transportation. 

Obviously in a city so grande it's going to be necessary to have a pretty well thought out public transportation system. 

They kind of have that.  The subway (the subte) is fairly reliable (only breaks down about once a week) but isnt very far reaching.  Thus, lots of people take the bus.  They are always crowded and are always running.  This causes quite a bit of road congestion.  I'm SO glad I dont have to worry about driving here.  It would possibly be a nightmare.

Roomies!

I guess it's easy to become a "family" with your roomates when you dont know anyone in a city of 15 million except the ones you live with and cook together, study together, go out together...etc. and you all happen to be foreigners.

But, our roomate situation here really couldnt be any better and sometimes does feel like a family.  Since there are 6 of us it's not often that all of us are in the same place doing the same thing but on Thursday this week we all happened to be hanging out and snapped these pictures.  None of them are exactly award winning (ha) but I guess that's us. 

A park!

We are very fortunate to live close to a park in a city so big (roughly 15 million)!!  I have been spending a lot of time in the park walking and running.  As you can see in the pictures they have a running and walking track built around a lake.  At just about any time of the day you can find people walking, running, biking, skateboarding or rollerblading on the track. 

This weekend John and I spent time both Saturday and Sunday in the park.  The weather here is getting SO nice that it’s hard to not be outside enjoying the sun.  We had a picnic on Saturday with some things from the local stands.  On Sunday we went with some friends for ice cream and then hung out in the park for a while. 

On that note-ice cream here is a major part of the culture.  We both think that it has something to do with the large Italian influence.  Whatever the reason is, I’m glad it’s here!  Along with the delicious pizza and homemade pasta everywhere you go…