Montevideo

Last weekend John and I had a three day weekend and decided to get out of the city and explore somewhere new.  We landed on Montevideo, Uruguay.

Buenos Aires is right on the Rio de Plata (the widest river in the world..eh eh) and it's the river that separates Uruguay and Argentina.  There's a ferry you can take from Buenos Aires to a town in Uruguay called Colonia in just an hour.  So early on Saturday morning we boarded the ferry and rode over to Uruguay.  Once we arrived in Colonia we hopped on a bus to Montevideo.  The bus ride was about 3 hours-I slept the whole time and viola we were there!

Once we first got there we were so impressed at how tranquil it was.  We were even considering spending some time there after our year in Buenos Aires because it's such a lovely place.  The architecture is quite similar to that of Buenos Aires and the streets seem to be laid in in the same fashion.

 When we got to the bus station in Montevideo we stopped at the local tourist info place to get a map of the city and directions on getting to our hostel.  It wasnt particularly far so we decided to walk.

It was so low key we realized how "break neck" Buenos Aires really is.  

We set out stuff down and started walking towards the old city-we walked along the beach.  Very pretty!!
 

Saw a HUGE display of strawberries.  A little under a dollar a kilo which is like 2.2 pounds...pretty good deal!  

On Sunday we went to a market in the middle of the city, they had EVERYTHING.  From Electronics (that probably didn't work) to household appliances to food to tiles to retile your bathroom.

We were really trying to find something to buy kind of like a souvenir but we didnt find anything...it was all either too practical or too old and non functional.  ha!  

The center of the city was really pretty!

Time flies

Wow! I can't believe I haven't written for almost a month!  Time seems to have sped up now I have a job.  

My job is really turning out to be cool!  I'm kind of working for two companies.  One is Gray Line Argentina and the other is Expedia.  They have both partnered to start a new program-a calling program.  Last year Expedia sold (I think) about 30,000 tickets from the US to Buenos Aires.  Reasonably thinking, a lot of those people want to do city tours, see tango shows, etc etc.  So the position was created for me to be their contact.  I think at the beginning of December I'll start to be trained on calling.  As I understand it, i'll be helping them make travel plans and tour plans.  I'm pretty excited about it!

In the meantime I've been able to write a mini guide of things to do and see in the city.  It's an awesome way to learn about the city and the 139+ museums that I haven't seen!

Additionally, I've had the opportunity to go on all the tours that Expedia and Gray Line offer to get a "first hand" experience.  I've had so much fun getting to see a new side of Buenos Aires.

One of the tours I got to do was a "Gaucho Tour."  Since the majority of Argentina is indeed just like Kansas and full of farms and ranches, a tour that travelers can take is to go to a farm outside the city.

I honestly expected it to be really silly but it turned out pretty cool.  It was so nice to get outside the city for a day and see some green and not hear the noise of traffic and people.

We were served a great lunch of a typical Argentine asado which was grilled over the fire.  Argentina is famous for their meat and for good reason!



The picture below shows chicken, beef and sausage on the grill.  Hard to see, but included in the grill is blood sausage.  John and I were daring enough (once) to try blood sausage and it's certainly not something I think we'll try again!

 The Gauchos showed off their skills and did lots of pretty cool and impressive horse tricks!

 I also had the opportunity to go outside Buenos Aires to a city called Tigre.  Tigre is on the Parana River and about an hour outside the city.

It's a really interesting place.  The people honestly live on the water.  All the houses are built on the water and rather than cars, they use motorboats.

This is someones house.  I guess a lot of people live in the houses year round.  Some, however, have them as weekend or vacation homes.  I think the more wealthy of Buenos Aires get out of the city and come to their homes here.

Because they actually live on the river they have market boats that bring them their goods.  This boat, for example, carries produce, meats and dairy, charcoal, wood, shampoo-etc.  They just buy directly from the boat.  How crazy!

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…