Not in Kansas Anymore?

At first when I started traveling I thought it was kind of cute and funny when the "you're not in Kansas anymore" jokes were made.  Haha, I'm from Kansas...and there was a movie about Kansas once...

Now it's old.  No, I don't have a dog named Toto and no, I don't have ruby slippers.  Alas...the jokes will continue, and I will probably continue the courtesy laugh and smile. 

However, a big however, the other day when John said I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, it made a lot of sense, and was rather funny - I'll explain:

We went to the Eco reserve here in Buenos Aires.  It's a beautiful, huge park at the edge of town (literally backs up to the river) that has walking and bike paths and large overgrown trees and grasses.  Sunday was a beautiful day and we spent a long time walking around the park and taking in the nature.  I was going kind of crazy with the camera taking photos of the fields when John remarked "I guess you know you aren't in Kansas anymore when you are taking pictures of fields."  It was funny to think that for really, most of my life I have lived near fields.  There was nothing special about a field - in fact, it was boring before moving to Buenos Aires.  Now it's a treat, it's a great escape from the streets and noise and bustle of a city. 

Some of the pictures, however, I took as an interesting juxtaposition - it shows the fields, grasses and nature, backlit by the skyscrapers and tall buildings of the city. 

Just Around the Corner

Keeping in line with the idea that we'd be trying out great new places and doing "cool stuff" we ventured out on Friday to try what was supposed to be a great place in our neighborhood for pizza.  We, unfortunately, failed at finding the place we were looking for; however, we did find what is potentially a new favorite.  The place couldn’t be any more Porteño. We sat down outside (as there were actually no tables inside) and the waiter (eventually) brought us our menu...a 5 foot chalk board with a few options for pizza, pasta and meat.  He did explain, however, that most of the options were no longer available, and that really, the option was pasta or pizza.  That was really just okay with us, because we wanted pizza anyway...

We were given the option of margarita pizza, mozzarella, or "of the chef," we decided to go with the chefs creation.  He asked if we had any limitations on what the chef could put on it.  We figured it was just whatever was left in the kitchen, and were slightly worried, but went ahead with it. 

It turned out to be excellent!  Below are a few photos from one of our new favorites.



A rotating menu I'm sure...



John, a bottle of wine, and a contraption that carbonates water instantly - a big hit here in BA





Pa´los que se atrevan

Well, we are off to a running start!  Neither John nor I felt like cooking last night, and thought we should take advantage of the last warm(ish) nights to sit outside somewhere and get some dinner.  Thanks to our handy organization system, we knew exactly the place to try out.  It was close enough to walk home, and we´ve had our eye on this place for some time now. 

La Fabrica del Taco or, The Taco Factory in English is a fun and what we thought to be, authentic Mexican restaurant.  We both agreed that the owner has got to be Mexican because the flavors are so spot on!

Today I actually happened to find an article on www.wander-argentina.com that did indeed confirm the owner’s nationality: Mexican.  In the article it reads, “First and foremost, we will always be about tacos,” says owner, Federico Lobeira, who aims to recreate the feel of the Taquerías in his hometown of Monterey, Mexico.”  Perfect, we were right!

We both started with Negra Modelo beers (not common here) and a plate of guacamole.  The guacamole was Johns favorite part I think- It was fresh, and creamy…oh so good.

We also both ordered Tacos al Pastor (a personal favorite), piled it on with spicy sauce (on the bottle it reads: for the brave-and not for argentines) They were delicious!  We both agreed that it was better than a lot of the Mexican food we get back home. 

Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so these are some of the photos I´ve lifted from the internet. 



Oh so classy neon front...





Al Pastor meat for the tacos, yum!



Hard to see, but the hot sauce bottles read: For those who dare, For the Mexicans, and for the Argentines.  Argentines are not known to like spice...

Ger er Done

Well, it´s been about seven months since we´ve been here and we realized we´ve fallen into a bit of a routine.  We are living in a HUGE city, with TONS to do, and we often find ourselves hanging out in our neighborhood and even going to some of the same restaurants.  Why?  There are only a million restaurants here in town, all worth trying!  We´ve made it a goal to take advantage of where we are and really get to know more about the city. 

We started off by scribbling down some things on a piece of paper...a "to do list" of sorts.  That got too confusing, so we separated it by neighborhood. What to do and where to eat in each neighborhood. 

I told John yesterday that I had digitalized our list and put it into word (for conveniences sake).  His reply was, well hell, put it in excel  (ha, that rhymed).  So today I´ve started a new organization project of things to do. 

Half of me feels like this is totally anal, why are we organizing things to do and places to eat in an effin excel?  wtf.  However, the more I think about it, the more sense it starts to make.  Because of the huge huge multitude of restaurants, things to do, all with different hours, different times, etc. it does kind of make sense.  Also this way, we can sort it by type of food, by barrio, etc.

I think maybe John has taken over my logical side...

Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit!

I can't believe how long it's been since I've written-I'm seriously slacking! 

I tried to write this post quite a long time ago, but our internet has been so terrible (falls about every 30 minutes or so) that I've had trouble loading the pictures. 

There is a nice, very small, but nice Chinese neighborhood here and when it was the Chinese New Year John and I thought it'd be fun to go there and see how they were celebrating.  We have a friend who's working here in Buenos Aires from China and she was going to be dancing in the festival, so we thought it'd be fun to go see her too!

It was a really nice Sunday afternoon and the streets were packed with people celebrating the year of the rabbit.  Below I've posted some pictures.  There was tons of food, drinks, trinkets, you name it. 

I think my favorite part was the dragon.  There were several men who made up the dragon and it visited all of the local stores and businesses to bring them good luck in the New Year.  I also really enjoyed the singing and dancing.  Unfortunately my battery died before I could get video of some of the best acts, but this should give you an idea.

If it was my country...

I found out about this site from a friends blog and was so intruigued by her comparison between Argentina (her current country of residence) with Russia (the country she is from)  that I wanted to do it for myself.

I did it for the United States and Argentina and these were the results-very interesting!


If Argentina were your home instead of The United States you would...

have 80.94% more chance of dying in infancy The number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in Argentina is 11.11 while in The United States it is 6.14.

use 80.78% less electricity
The per capita consumption of electricity in Argentina is 2,400kWh while in The United States it is 12,484kWh.

consume 76.53% less oil
Argentina consumes 0.6197 gallons of oil per day per capita while The United States consumes 2.6400

make 70.26% less money The GDP per capita in Argentina is $13,800 while in The United States it is $46,400

spend 82.07% less money on health care
Per capita public and private health expenditures combined in Argentina are $1,205 USD while The United States spends $6,719 USD

have 28.34% more babies The annual number of births per 1,000 people in Argentina is 17.75 while in The United States it is 13.83.

die 1.48 years sooner The life expectancy at birth in Argentina is 76.76 while in The United States it is 78.24.

3.23% more chance of being unemployed
Argentina has an unemployment rate of 9.60% while The United States has 9.30%

16.67% less likely to have HIV/AIDS
The number of adults living with HIV/AIDS in Argentina is 0.50% while in The United States it is 0.60%.

experience 1.56% more of a class divide
The GINI index measures the degree of inequality in the distribution of family income. In Argentina is 45.70 while in The United States it is 45.00.

Lujan

We had been told that there's a great church about an hour or so outside Buenos Aires in a town called Lujan.  We decided a Saturday would be a perfect time to go visit the church and get outside the city for a day.  So, we gathered our (currently our only roomate) and a friend of Johns from work and took the bus to Lujan.  We didnt really know what to expect, but it honestly blew my mind!  It was a giant, beautiful church...kind of in the middle of nowhere! 

All around the church were relics and offerings (of very high quality as you can see).

Lujan is supposed to be full of parillas (grills) so we decided to stay for lunch and enjoy a parilla.  It was an all you can eat-literally translated to "free fork."  We had empanadas, salad, bread, potato salad, meat, meat, meat and ice cream.  I dont know if we ended up choosing the right one, nobody else was really there...

It was a great day all the same.  Getting out of Buenos Aires for a day was nice and seeing a new part of Argentina was lovely!