11 days later
We've got a lot to write about. Christmas and New Year's eve both passed. We are in Spanish classes. Staying out until 4am is now "calling it an early night"...
We've been here over two weeks already. Our apartment is great and we've saved a lot of our now near non-existent money (after 2.5 months of traveling) by buying groceries and eating meals at home. We've spent several days on the rooftop at the pool. We've spent a lot of time walking miles around the city shopping and just seeing the sights. We've had ice cream delivery at 1am. I don't really know where to start.
I guess with Christmas eve. I mentioned in a blog way back when we were in Buenos Aires for a few days in November that we met this girl at our hostel named Vicky. Well she was so nice that she invited us to her family's house in the suburbs for Christmas eve. She knew we had nowhere to go and nothing really to do. The city practically shuts down at 4pm and doesn't come alive again until December 26th. I guess that isn't all that much different from home, but what is different is how they celebrate. In the US its all about presents and Santa and lights and huge fancy dinners. Here its totally different. The commercialism surrounding Christmas is practically non-existent. A few places have a tiny fake plastic Christmas tree up, but not many. There aren't 3 different Santa Clauses in each shopping mall, and they don't even do presents on Christmas morning. We had someone say that Christmas and New Year's here is like our 4th of July. It really is. The typical Argentine Christmas eve is a dinner at home with family, but they eat cold foods since its normally really hot out. Then at midnight, they all toast and everyone lights of fireworks (they also have these funny miniature hot-air balloons. Its basically a balloon made out of paper with a flaming ball inside that makes it rise. Seems crazy and we saw a lot of them burst into flames and fall into trees, but apparently they aren't illegal... yet). Its really strange because its not like at home when fireworks are kind of going off sporadically. Literally the clock strikes twelve and boom, thousands of fireworks are going off everywhere. Its really insane. After some more drinking of wine, all the younger people go out around 2:30 or 3am to bars, street parties, or house parties. We first went to a bar then went to a house party. It was really strange, this house had very high ceilings inside and there were strangely dressed mannequins all around, some with fans for heads to keep the rooms cool. One room had a huge projection screen showing a weird old silent film. Music was blaring in all the rooms. It was a blast. We stayed out until the sun came up, and finally went to sleep after 7am there at Vicky's house. We woke up around 1pm, and after a long bus ride, subway trip and some walking we finally got home around 4pm. It really just felt like we never slept or that day didn't happen. That day nobody really does anything. They may meet up for brunch or something, but thats pretty much it. We watched movies :O)
We had such a great time. Vicky's family was super nice and welcoming like we'd known them for years. Her grandma had a crush on me too and said I was "muy lindo" and for Coraleigh to hold on to me. hahaha. Vicky's mom was so nice too and even gave us a ride to the bus station in the morning. Her cousin and sister, Carola, who both came out with us are awesome. Hopefully we can see them again sometime.
So what comes after Christmas? Bike crashes! Haha well there's a little story there obviously. We tried to go on a bike tour of some famous neighborhoods of the city called Puerto Madeo, La Boca, and San Telmo. San Telmo and La Boca are known for being the birthplace of tango. Bike tours are usually pretty cool because you cover a lot of ground, they aren't boring, and the tour guides a lot of times are more geared toward fun. It started out really fun and we had a big group of around 25 bikes. It was a strange weather day, though, and when we went into the subway it was sunny. When we came out it was cloudy and looking nasty. They decided to send us off anyway. Of course after 5 minutes it started to rain and we eventually took shelter under a parking garage entrance. We tried to wait out the rain, but they decided it was going to stop. It definitely didn't. On our way back it started absolutely pouring. I hit a bump and my chain fell off so I was on the side of the road fixing a greasy chain. The rain made traffic horrible and it was close to rush hour. We had to take a shortcut back so we were crossing major streets or riding on the sides of them which is nuts in this city. Then when we were crossing a street with some railroad tracks Coraleigh went through a puddle in which were some railroad tracks and into which her tire fell. Her tire was stuck and she ate it right in the middle of the street in the pouring rain. We were soaked, she was bleeding, it all seemed a failed day.
Later, though, we found a cafe and she cleaned out her cuts and we had some submarinos (hot milk with a chocolate bar that melts to make hot chocolate) to warm us up. Then we went to this mall that is painted something like the Sistine Chapel on its roof. It was pretty cool to see. By that time the sun came out and we finally dried off by the time we got home. haha
So on to New Year's eve. What a hassle that was trying to find a place to go. Of course we didn't know about it beforehand, but Buenos Aires is not really the place to be when the clock strikes 12. Maybe because its summer or because no one really goes out that "early"? The only things open are for tourists because, just like Christmas, everyone spends the night with their family until around 3am when the finally go out. Restaurants all have fixed price menus with just limited options of their normal food, but they charge quadruple or more over their normal prices. Its a real scam. All the fancy hotels host parties, but they are really expensive too. The cheaper ones are around US$200 per person, but those were "all sold out weeks ago". Some we found were over $400 per person. We ended up eating here in our apartment. Tacos. Weeee!
Oh well, we had some good wine and then went to this party that was organized last minute by a local company that runs pub crawls. Sounds lame, but it was actually pretty good because they said that everyone had to be dressed up and so they were. It also meant that everyone there was travelers from all over the world because they had nowhere to go on New Year's eve. We met people from Japan, Israel, Australia, the US, and other places. The party was at a place called Koh Lanta which is like a trendy Asian restaurant with an open terrace and rooftop bar. That's where we spent almost the entire night and from up there we had a good view of the fireworks (which are like 10x what Christmas eve is!).
Since we had to dress up and Coraleigh already had a nice dress, I was "forced" to buy myself a new suit. AAaannd, since we are in basically the shopping mecca of the southern hemisphere of course I was able to find something awesome. We looked online and found that Christian Dior and Christian Lacroix both have outlets here in Palermo. (Palermo is completely packed with small shops with original designs). We went to both, Lacroix sucked and nothing fit right. I think it was suits for fat guys or something; they were all huge with short sleeves. Christian Dior was another story, the first suit I tried on fit perfectly and was way nicer than Lacroix. The place was really weird, just a small unmarked door where you had to ring a bell and were ushered in. The salesman was awesome and had me in and out in about 20 minutes. That's my kind of shopping. A Christian Dior suit for just over $350? I'll take it. That's less than they charge at like Men's Wearhouse. Retail is almost 2g's on these. Woohoo, go Captain Thrifty.
Yada yada yada and it was sunrise. Time for bed. Happy New year! hahaha. We went home early; people were still at it in the bars. Someone told us today that they woke up early on January 1st and went to breakfast around 10am and people were still in the bars drinking and partying. Crazy.
January 1st was another dead day and so were we. I think Coraleigh finally rolled out of bed around 4pm and finally finished getting up at 8pm. Does that even count as a day?
On the 2nd we went to a town called Tigre which is about 30km north of the city. We tried to meet up with our German friends Christian and Daniel there, but they had taken a boat to a restaurant so we never crossed paths. Tigre is a town on a delta at the mouth of the Parana and Tigre Rivers. It was really nice and very touristed, but not really by tourists like us. They were tourists from Buenos Aires looking to get out of the city. It was really really busy with lots of families taking boat rides and stuff around the twisted channels of the delta. It reminded us of something like Georgia with lots of colonial homes on the waterfront of a brown river. We took the boat ride; Coraleigh fell asleep. Boooooooring. The market, Puerto de Frutos, was huge. It spanned several blocks and had everything from wicker baskets to housewares to huge wooden dollhouses. It was more directed to Argentinians so that was interesting to see instead of millions of mate gourds and leather belts like usual. The train ride back around 9pm was horrible as we were packed in like sardines standing for an hour and then had people boarding with tons of bikes to make it even worse. Apparently its quite the popular place to go; we thought it was ok.
I guess while we're on the topic of markets we can talk about the San Telmo Sunday market we just went to. I thought the market in Tigre was big. Holy crap this puts it to shame. 15 blocks long, plus offshoots on side streets. 1.5 miles of market crowded with thousands upon thousands of people. Original art, antiques, everything. It really was the biggest market I've ever seen. I bought myself a handmade mate gourd and bombilla for only 50 pesos ($13). Coraleigh got a cool hand painted tea box and she also found what she's been looking for forever. An antique necklace. It's called a cameo and we tried doing some research online. We think its from around 1850, maybe, but still pretty awesome. The two stones on the sides are dark purple (maybe amethyst or something?) Anyway, she loves it and is ecstatic. It was only $80 too and similar ones online are around $400 or more.
Let's see what else... Oh we went out with Christian and Daniel a few times which was totally fun. We went to dinner at this place called La Cabrera. They only take reservations for 8:30 and those fill up like 2 days in advance so we just put our names on the wait list and showed up at 10 when the first group should have been leaving. We arrived to a huge crowd outside the restaurant like it was a nightclub. We waited for an hour and a half before we finally got it, but they had free champagne out front on a cart so it was ok. Haha. I can see why the wait was so big, though. The food was incredible. It was one of the best steaks I've ever had, better than all the previous ones we'd had in Argentina even. The entire table was completely covered in food and all these little side dishes. The steak was a good 3 inches thick. Coraleigh and I split it and were still totally full. We must go back there. All the great food is in Palermo too; I'm really glad we are staying here. Anyway, they left on Monday so we went out Sunday night for an early night (4am). Lets just say waking up for a 10am class may sound easy, but not on Argentina time.
Our Spanish class is going really good so far too. I know we are doing it in reverse order with the vacationing in Spanish speaking countries first then learning it right before we go back to America, but we still want to learn anyway. Plus it helps having learned previously; the course is pretty fast paced. We are doing 2 weeks, 5 days a week, 4 hours a day at a place called the Lucem institute. We are in the class with just one other person, this guy from Australia so its a good way to learn. Coraleigh is being a good girl and doing her homework as I type this.
Finally I will just leave you with some tips for visiting here.
-Eat steak, duh.
-Watch out for dog crap. It's on the sidewalks EVERYWHERE. Walking in the dark is not scary due to people, its due to dog crap.
-Get ice cream, or have it delivered. We did and it was fantastical. Chocolate temptation with brownie chunks, walnuts, and dulce de leche (an Argentine obsession, basically soft caramel). Mmmmm
-Get your groceries delivered from the store to your house, free.
-Drink wine, but the grocery stores sell almost pure crap. Buy it from a wine store.
-Book early, especially in summer (Nov-Mar)
-Learn as much Spanish as you can beforehand
-Go shopping in Palermo
-Go to the San Telmo market on Sunday
-Stay up late
-Don't eat the Argentinian-style pizza. Its gross. They love it, you will likely not. No tomato sauce, weird toppings like onions, eggs, and watery cheese. I can't even look at the pictures of it anymore without gagging.
-Use the subway and stay close to it, its great just like in New York. Cabs are cheap too, though.
-I'm sure everyone is saying "Tango!!" We haven't done that yet. That's tomorrow :O)
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