Monday, March 19, 2007

Last Day in Bs As

It is St Patty´s Day in Bs As--other places too I guess.

We decide to do some shopping and see a few things we missed.

We hit Calle Florida. It is an pedestrian access street with tons of shops and street vendors. We lunched at a chain cafe called Aroma--where we both fell in love with the guy making our food. The Argentine´s are gorgeous and I was falling in love every other minute--Phil was a little more discriminate. It must be the missing of the races back in the day--Italians with Spaniards with natives. For whatever reason, they are stunning.

I bought some CDs--Alejandro Sanz, Reik, and Chambao--for about 28 bucks. Phil was on the lookout for jeans. He finally found some he liked, but the sizes were weird and they didn´t have them all. He did get a good pair of the highest style brand for about 65 USD.

After lots of shopping, we hit the Plaza de Mayo. Here is where the Casa Rosada is located--which is where the president works but not lives. It also has the Evita balcony. There are a bunch of other important buildings here too. It was like 80 degrees, so we hung out in the sun for a bit watching some kids play soccer.

After that we visited the important Jesuit place called Manzana de las luces.

Gotta run. Tell you more soon.

Continuing On

Where was I? Ah yes. Palermo.

So Palermo is where a lot the aristocrats had their summer homes--we later learned that their winter homes where only like 2 miles away. Now Palermo is an area with a lot of hip restaurants, bars, and exclusive shopping. Even in American dollars it is pricey--like $80 for a tee shirt. It was funny too because both the tour guide and the guy who helped us into the city from the airport mentioned how there are a lot of Transvestites in the park here at night. They both thought it was the funniest thing ever. LOL

We saw a lot of maids and dog walkers in this area too. The dog walkers were insane--each with like 10 dogs.

Later we visited La Boca. This is an area where all the Italian immigrants had moved into when they came over to work in the port area (puerta madera). This area is clearly for the tourist with lots of street vendors and little restaurants. The houses were crazy too--still original from the early 1900 and late 1800´s. This area is one of the poorest in the city and not safe at night.

We were hungry so we stopped to get some sandwiches which consisted of some nasty ham, cheese, and dry bread. One of the breads was even molded. Blegh.

Back on the bus, we past the shantytown area of La Boca which made the little houses we saw earlier look like mansions. This area had no plumbing, no roof, and lots of people outside starting fires to cook. It was really sad.

We learned that the Rio de Plata is so contaminated that drinking a cup of it would kill you within 3 hours! If anyone would like to order a glass for their foes, let me know. Ha

We finished off the tour and did some more shopping on our own. We also went to Solo Empanadas for lunch. It was great. We need this franchise in the US. They were bustling busy. We decided to eat our food in the park near our hotel. A little girl came over asking for money but we gave her an empanada instead. Later we learned we gave her one of the nasty ones that we were not able to eat. Oops.

After a quick nap, we met up with a friend of one of my co-workers. We met Maria in Palermo at a restaurant called La Dorita de enfrente--called that because it is in front of the other La Dorita. Clever, no? Maria was really fun. She had invited a friend of her´s Beatriz to come to dinner too. Beatriz spoke little English and Phil little Spanish--so it was fun. We had a great meal consisting of salad, meat, and wine--again for about 45 USD for the four of us. Later we headed to a bar called 878. It is a whiskey bar--which was cool for Phil. I had a mojito. It was dark and loungey. Very cool except the ceiling was leakng from the rain on me. Our 4 drinks cost me 13 bucks!

After saying goodbye, we took a cab back to the hotel and watched some TV. The channels are about half English and half Spanish. In Bs As, they are showing the same movies as in the US.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Segunda Dia en Buenos Aires

After waking up and having a light breakfast of fruit and a medialuna (halfmoon=croissant), we were whisked away for a morning of tour bus shenanigans. Our tour guide Romita was great except her English wasn´t so hot. I think Phil had an easier time understanding her in Spanish than in English.

First we drove the area of Recoleta which is essentially where our hotel is located. In Recoleta there is a park that was the focus of our tour. Some bust of a really brawny man is located there, as well as a really huge metal flower that opens duing the day and closes at night. It was definitely cooler than a big stationary bean.

Further up ht etrip was Palermo barrio. Palermo is the largest barrio and is broken down further into about 5 areas.

Gotta run. Will write more later.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Primera Dia

Day one in Argentina was awesome. We arrived to the airport--which was simple as we didn´t check any bags. Our guide and ride to the city Max was waiting for us. He was very helpful. He was also very Italian-like: mannerisms, language, incessant use of "eh" after completing a thought. Our drive into the city was really great. We got to pass through the province area outside of Bs As.

Our hotel is on Carlos Pellegrini Avenue--which is a little outlet of this huge street Avenida de 9 de Julio named after the Argentine Independence Day. The room is tiny and we each have our own twin bed, but there is a bidday (have no clue how to spell that). The room faces the street--so while loud--we have an amazing view of the Avenida and the Obelisko.

After settling in a little bit, we decided to start exploring. Evita and her mausoleum was the first stop. The Cementario de Recoleta is very close to our hotel, so we walked through the tony little streets of Recoleta to arrive at the Cemetary. The streets are like something out of Paris including the ridiculous price of goods and clothes within them too.

The Cemetary was really great but totally different that anything I have seen. There is no grass and the dead people are not buried. Each family that can buy the expensive plot has there own Mausoleum and within it are the caskets, urns, and in a few cases leftover bones of their loved ones. Evita was with her paternal family the Duarte´s. Some of the mausoleums were in horrid conditions--broken roof, shelves falling in, caskets popped open. In one we saw a wooden casket made from cheap plywood that had bones in it! It was open and we could see the bones. I promise--we have pics! There are so many homeless cats living in there too.

After that we went to find some lunch nearby. We ate this cute little Italian restaurant called La Strada. The Italian food here is great because many Argentine´s are Italian through immigration a number of generations back. We had a delicious pizza, salad, and a bottle of wine for about $15 each. The bottle of wine was one of the nicer ones too!

On the way back to the hotel, we wondered the streets visiting every pharmacy we could to find batteries for my pump. We finally found some. Yay. I can live. One of you was really close to getting a call asking you to overnight me some AAA batteries to Argentina.

We came back to nap (Phil) and shower (me). Later we decided to visit an area called Puerto Madera--which is the commercial shipping and port area. There is a university there and lots of restaurants. The place we were headed too is called Siga La Vaca (Follow the cow). It is a priced fixe place where you pay 36$ pesos for all you can eat including vino. 36$ pesos is about 12 bucks. Insane--as was the wait. So we headed into San Telmo--the birthplace of Tango--to find some food.

We ended up eating at this great little Parrillada--grill place. It was awesome. We got a Parillada para dos which included various meats. I didn´t realize that would mean kidneys, intestine, and congealed blood (OH MY). Phil enjoyed those while I stuck to the steak, chicken, and sausage. We also got a salad and two bottles of delicious wine for about 100$ pesos (yep that is about 33 USD).

Drunk, we walked home and went to sleep.

What adventures will the new day bring?

Stay tuned to find out.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Venice with Liz


DSC01310, originally uploaded by MGanino.

Just testing how to put a pic up...

Feeling South America

We are off--well, almost.Phil and I are about to embarck on--what I hope will be--an amazing journey to South America.

First stop is Buenos Aires, Argentina. We will be hanging with the PorteƱos for 3 nights before heading off to Montevideo, Uruguay for 2 more nights. We round out the trip with a stop in Santiago, Chile.Stay tuned to this webpage. I will be posting from the trip to share all the adventures as the ensue!

Also, visit www.flickr.com/photos/mganino for pics and such. There are no South American adventures posted yet--but past vacations are there for your viewing pleasure.