Opera Pampa

All jobs have their perks - some are better than others.  When I interned at VML we had half day Fridays, free bananas and apples, free soda, free beer ON TAP…the list goes on.  Obviously, VML has its perks. 

While at the current job we do not have free draft beer, nor do we have half day Fridays, we do have the chance to go to the shows and tours throughout Buenos Aires.  My coworkers and I love to take advantage of our passes to tango shows, kayak tours, city tours, etc.  Because there happens to be somewhere around 100 tango shows in town, it obviously keeps us rather busy J.

We recently went to a show called Opera Pampa which really turned out to be a great show and evening. 

The evening starts at “La Rural” right in the heart of Palermo.  You are escorted into a large room with horse stables, a giant dining area and some local artisan kind of shops.  The smell of horses and hay is immediate and instantly transports you (mentally anyway) to a farm outside the city.  The people are dressed like gauchos and offer wine and empanadas.  The empanadas were humita and carne and so so tasty, we all had three!

After the reception it’s on to the show!  The show tells the story of Argentina from its history.  The performance bounces back between a traditional stage and a large arena.  They incorporate dancing, singing and horsemanship, yes, I said horsemanship!  The arena is quite large and in order to help tell the story of the original natives being taken advantage of and murdered, it’s best done with horses and men dressed in military uniforms.  Both the Indians and the “white men” show off some excellent horse skills and kept us all very entertained. 

After the show we went to the dining hall and had a really great meal.  We started with chorizo and morcilla as an appetizer.  Well, I didn’t start with morcilla because it makes me gag, but everyone else did.  Then we went on to ribs, steak, salad, and dessert.  Of course the wine is flowing the whole time too. 

Overall it was a really lovely experience and I’m excited to be able to recommend it to my clients.  The only downside is it’s all in Spanish.  I think anyone gets the general gist of the songs and story-but obviously subtleties are lost with the language.  Maybe that’s part of travel though, no?

Dear Argentina

For the good and the bad, Argentina has things that are different from what we know in the States, or anywhere else for that matter.  Being a foreigner, this seems to be a topic of at least half the conversations.  At work I have a rather eclectic mix of co workers from all over the world-France, South Africa, fellow Americans, Finnish and a few Argentines.  Its always interesting to see their views on things and compare our ideas of “normal.”  The other day I was introduced to a game called “Dear Argentina.”  Dear Argentina basically goes like this:

Dear Argentina,

Oh, actually I was planning on wearing that coat again next season…

Sincerely,

Lindsey

We’ve found that clothes here are not always never made at the best quality standards.  I don’t think I have one thing that still has all its buttons, loops, stitching, etc. that it originally came with. 

My coworker had:

Dear Argentina,

Ketchup does not belong in bags. 

Sincerely, William

It’s funny that he mentioned that, and was frustrated with it because it’s not something that even crosses my mind anymore.  It is, however, funny-nearly all the condiments here are in bags.  This includes mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, barbeque sauce…

One that I think about nearly every day while walking around is:

Dear Argentina,

Way to go with the marketing tactics, love the empty jug on the car!

You see, it’s very interesting the way people go about selling their car here.  With so many cars on the street it’s often hard to know which ones are for sale and which ones are not.  The general public has devised a scheme to identify “for sale cars” really easily-just put an empty jug on the top of the car!  If you are in the market for a car simply look for jugs on cars.  There are two ways you’ll be able to get in touch with the owner after you have seen the prospective car you are after.  Sometimes a really crafty owner will have cut a hole out of the jug and put little scraps of paper in it with their contact information; it’s kind of like the pieces of paper where you rip off the number at the bottom--but cooler.  The other way would be from the eco friendly owner, who doesn’t want to waste scraps of paper-he just puts his phone number on the window of the car and hopes for calls.  Either way it's a nice way to advertise the car and draw attention 

One year later

Well the plan was to stay a year here.  We thought a year would be the perfect amount of time to get a good grasp of the city, learn about Argentine culture, learn some spanish, eat some beef, drink some wine...etc etc. 

It looks like maybe the (excellent) beef and the (excellent) wine has gotten to our heads, because we aren´t ready to leave! 

Last Wednesday John and I celebrated one year living in Buenos Aires by going out to one of our favorite pizza places nearby.  The crust is thin and almost crispy, the toppings are always fresh and hearty and the service is outstanding.  Anyone who´s spent any amount of time in Argentina knows that service is not part of the culture.  Coming from a customer service driven society this makes it rather trying at times...

We had a great meal and we talked about our time here, what we had learned, and our life here.  From what I can remember from our conversation (and a lot of personal input) these are our top things in no particular order:

1. We´ve learned patience.  Learning a new language is difficult, living in a new culture is different, and living with people of different cultures and backgrounds is different.  Wandering the aisles of the grocery store trying to read labels and closely looking at spices-is this thyme, rosemary, dill, or maybe something I´ve never heard of-it takes time.  

2. We´ve learned to be social.  Making friends is never easy-making friends in another language is also never easy...We´ve learned that making friends here has been trying and very rewarding.  The more you see people, the more you go out, the more social you are-the better friends you make.

3. We´ve grown up some.  We both feel like this experience has kind of cut the proverbial umbilical cord.  When the lights went out it was an expensive call to dad...we had to figure it out on our own.  (I still call both mom and dad for stuff all the time, however)

4. We have learned patience- Did i already say this?  We´ve learned to be patient with travel and travel times.  We´ve learned in a big city you can’t get anywhere in under half an hour…and that´s pushing it.  We´ve learned that taking the bus and then taking the subway and then walking 10 blocks is the way it is and to just enjoy it. 

5.  We have learned what it means to have a good work ethic.  I won’t go too much into this.  Let’s just say that we´ve learned that in the US the work ethic is probably much more rigorous than in a lot of places in the world.

6. Conversely, we´ve learned to take it slow.  Life goes by fast-it´s not all about work, it´s not all about money and it´s not about having a list of a million things to cross off every day.  It's also definitely not being connected all the time. 

7. We´ve learned to be night owls.  Dinner at 10:00, bar at 1:00, night club at 3:00 to bed at 7:00...7:00am that is! 

8.  We are learning about food.  We have learned that natural, organic-like, grass fed, etc really does taste better-it also makes you feel better.  This wasn’t noted until returning to the states to really see the difference in the way we eat.

9. We have learned about health and exercise.  This may be me more than John, but we have learned that walking to and from work is a blessing.  It´s a 30 minute walk and so wonderful.  In the states I would have NEVER dreamed of walking 4 miles a day to get to and from work. 

10. We have learned some Spanish?  I felt like I had to come up with a 10^th.  To be honest though, our Spanish has drastically improved.  We both feel comfortable in just about any situation-often times we don’t even realize how many sayings and words and things we say to each other in Spanish while having a conversation in English. 


11.  PS:  We've learned to be accepting of others.  We have both said that when we get back to the states one day we will be just as patient with foreigners as they have been with us.  We both have learned that empathy goes a long way.  


The pictures of our night didnt turn out too well due to a dying battery, however, here's a few:

Tenemos que ganar...

Soccer here is life-period.  Anywhere you go, anything you do, there’s always an influence in some way from soccer.  In fact, the mayor of Buenos Aires used to be the president of one of the largest teams in Buenos Aires…

A friend of ours invited us to a River game and this is what ensued:

The crowd was hurriedly rushing towards the stadium singing and chanting, the last of the ticket scalpers were calling out prices, the smoke from the grilled chorizo sausage was tempting everyone’s appetite and city buses roared in at about three times capacity, River fans seeping from every corner singing, chanting and dancing.  As we walked up to the stadium there was a thick cloud of red smoke all throughout the streets from smoke bombs being set off one after another (the River colors are red and white).  We make it to the first checkpoint-we are sent into different lines for men and women and receive the first pat down.  This is the step everyone chugs the last of the beer and the ambiguous liquid in water bottles –no food or drink allowed in the stadium. 

At this point we are running- we run around the stadium, under a bridge, through an area that appears to be blocked off and into a line of 200 people smushed into a space that holds about 50.  On either side of the line are metal bars that look like they are going to topple at any minute.  Police are positioned on either side of the metal bars as to keep us contained.  As you can imagine, this line is also singing, chanting and jumping-there’s also a lot of “Dale” resounding from the crowd-something loosely translated to “hurry up, come on and what the hell” all in one word.  After a good 10-15 minutes of shoving we make it to the front where we are again separated into groups for men and women for a second pat down.  Directly following this pat down is another-but now we are actually entering into the outside of the stadium. 

We go to the first line of ticket takers-it doesn’t appear as though it’s moving and the front of the line has incited a bit of a scuffle with the riot police - we move on to the next line.  Here again we are singing, chanting for River and screaming our “dale’s” to get the line to go faster.  We, once again, are separated between men and women.  Silvia’s ticket doesn’t seem to be going through the machine in front of me, so the ticket person takes mine and asks us just to go through the turn style together…sure-why not?  We get in and are looking all around for the guys-we can’t seem to find them anywhere, they must have not made it in yet. We run up the first set of stairs to see the crowd below, it appears as though the whole crowd has rushed the ticket takers and everyone is jumping the entrance and bombarding through-the police look as though they have reacted and a fight has broken out.  We don’t spot the redhead anywhere so figure John has made it in-we’ll go up to the top and wait because standing in one spot here on the stairs is sure to get us trampled. 

There’s no sign of John or the rest of the group-maybe they got in through another entrance?  None the less, the game is starting and we need to follow the crowd in.  We are pushed through what feels like a sausage casing-straight up through the crowd, can’t see anything, have no control of where your body goes or how it’s moving…you just keep moving up.  We make it to a place where we can stand and see the game-somehow we’ve lost another of the girls and it’s down to Silvia and I-oh well, the game’s starting and we have to join in on the chanting-maybe we’ll find them later.  I try to text John but signals out, too many people in one place trying to use phones. 

We are standing, screaming, cursing, smoking (everyone around us that is), jumping, dancing, and singing.  Sitting here is unimaginable as is eating or drinking.  Our next three hours are nothing but insanity-learning the songs, jumping, screaming, throwing old newspapers… 

The stadium is cut into four sections, North and South and East and West.  Each section is physically separate from the other sections-that’s to say, the entrances are different and there is actually a physical gap between the two of probably 100 feet-there’s no way of crossing into the others.  In between each N, S, etc.  There are 50 foot metal fences to keep the fans contained between the sections themselves…riot control. 

As the game ends and River loses (a monumental loss in fact) the whole stadium (less the South) sits down.  I am beyond myself as to why we are all sitting down…the game is over, we haven’t sat down for the last three hours?  Evidently the opposing team fans are escorted out by the police first.  Once they have a good half hour lead, they start letting us out.  As we leave there are undoubtedly fights, people still yelling and cursing and of course singing.  They have a song for “that’s okay, we lost but we still love you-we’ll come back next week to watch you play again…but you are an idiot and shape up.” 

Back on the street the food vendors are packed and everyone wants a hamburger or a chorizo sandwich.  The buses fill up and we keep walking back to the subway.  Of course because 60,000 people all at once are leaving a stadium there’s bound to be a subway full of River fans…and there were-the chanting, singing and jumping continued into the subway cars.  Oh, don’t mind us, we’re just River fans and soccer is life. 

Salta, La Linda

Well, it´s been a long time since I´ve written.  It’s always in the back of my mind, but I seem to never get around to it.  This time I´m going to write so much and post so many pictures that I think it´ll help make up for some I´ve missed J

My dad, Harrison and Karen recently came down to visit us and we took a trip to the Northwest of Argentina, most specifically to the town and region of Salta.

Before going to Salta I read lots of blogs and used tripadvisor quite a bit, read guidebooks, etc.  I was excited and thought it´d be pretty but I really had no idea HOW pretty it would be.

Unfortunately, about 3 months ago a volcano erupted in Chile that was right on the border of Argentina.  It spewed ashes into the air and has caused serious trouble for air travel in Argentina because basically the whole country is covered in ash clouds.  We sadly lost a day of travel because of cancelled flights due to ash, but luckily it was only one day-for many travelers it´s been way more of a headache!   



On our first day in Salta we walked around the town a little (the picture to the left is one of the emblematic churches in Salta).  We decided that day to rent a car. For us this was a really tough decision because we thought maybe the roads would be impossible, we´d be nickel and dimed at the rental agencies, etc etc. For us, it worked out SO smooth and just like a dream.

Having the freedom of our own care was invaluable. We were able to stop when we wanted (which happened to be every 5 minutes to take pictures), be on our own schedule, and were able to see things and places that we otherwise wouldn’t have been able to see.

I´m going to be throwing in names of towns, etc. that won’t mean much…but say them all the same.  The drive from Salta to Purmamarca is winding, and by far the hardest roads we encountered, it´s very small and very winding but beautiful. I expected Salta to all be red clay and rock, and this was going through the lush green forest!!  At one point we got out of the car and Harrison and I stood fingertip to fingertip and spanned the WHOLE road!

We were the only ones on the road, I think we only passed two cars the whole drive!

 

Mountain of seven colors



We stayed the second night in Purmamarca which is a small little pueblo with probably 500 inhabitants. We stayed at a hotel that had a room on the second floor with a view of a  mountain called the mountain of 7 colors.  We got up early enough to watch the sun come over the mountain, every 5 minutes or so a little more of the mountain was exposed and was illuminated like nothing I’ve ever seen before- really really spectacular.  After watching the sun rise we went to the local market and "ood and ahhd" over all the local artisan goods.





  





That day we went to the Salinas Grandes which are huge salt flats.  Evidently at some point long ago there was a salt body of water that has since dried up.  It basically looks like a huge desert of salt-it´s also really interesting because depth perception is way off and if you run only 100 feet away you look really tiny!


The thin strip of white is us coming up on the salt flats

The next day’s plan was to go to a place called Cafayate-Well, we didn’t make it to Cafayate because the drive was much longer than expected but it didn’t matter, we ended up staying in a little town called Cachi, which was really nice and charming.  Right outside of Cachi we drove through “National Cactus Park”.   The park was UNREAL, if you were to turn your head in a 180 degree perspective you would see anything from flat, grasslands to red mountains, to snowcapped mountains, to cacti…it´s hands down one of the prettiest things I´ve ever seen.

We stayed in Cachi that night-rented a cabin, cooked out on the grill, and went back to Salta the following day.

I´m attaching a few more random photos here below. Also, to give credit, all the pictures are taken by John.  He recently got a new camera and has become quite the photographer, he has some really nice shots and I think is really developing an eye for photography!

  

Asado!

One of the things John and I were really happy about in moving to this new house is having some outside room.  Our bedroom opens right onto the balcony!  We have a great parilla (barbeque grill) and almost immediatley made use of it when we moved in! 

We invited over some friends, all threw meat on the grill and ended up with some great barbeque!  We weren't exactly sure how to go about lighting it, using the charcol, etc. but really, it's not that different than the in the states. 

A really common (and very cheap) thing to grill here is chorizo sausage.  They grill it and eat it in a sandwich with some salsas and maybe mayo, ketchup and mustard and it's delic!! We had several choripans that night as well as some steak, ribs, and other meats!



mmmmm



View from our balcony.  Sorry it's kind of dark

A New Home!

I´m late in posting this, but about a month ago John and I moved houses.  We only moved about 15 blocks, but it seems like a huge move!  The neighborhood  is still Palermo but it´s now "Palermo Soho" and not "Palermo Hollywood" whatever that means...

It´s a huge move in the sense that it has a totally new feel.  The neighborhood is a little bit older, a lot more residential and a lot busier.  We live on the 8th floor (the top floor) of a strange architectural building and have a parilla (argentine grill) and couldnt be happier! 

We live with a French couple and a guy from Mexico.  When we moved in we lived with a Mexican guy named Rodrigo-he moved out and another Rodrigo from Mexico moved in-weird!

The kitchen-small, but does the trick

The living room-notice the HUGE window that spans one whole wall!

Hallway-nothing too special here

Living room again-not the nicest, but it works!