Oct 2008

We have a serious addiction. Not one day has gone by that we haven't had an empanada. Our favourite kind is carne (meat - or more specifically, beef). We really love the the carne picante... especially when it has egg in it and a whole olive (pit and all). Here is a picture of 3 different empanadas. You'll notice that each one is "folded" differently:

You see, the food selection in restaurants and cafes in Buenos Aires is pretty limited. Rather, there is quite a big selection on the menu, but it is the exact same selection you will find on every menu in every restaurant in the city. Those selections all revolve around beef (and then chicken and veal) and pasta. When you order meat, that's all you get. This means you need to order side dishes. Home-cut french fries are very popular. You can also order a salad, a thick slice of grilled "provoleta" cheese, or mashed potatoes/pumpkin. If you are only going to a cafe, you'll likely have a cafe con leche with two or three media lunas (a croissant that is nothing like the French version, although very tasty).

After reading this paragraph, you might be able to better comprehend why it's quite difficult to maintain "regularity"... if you get our drift. Protein, protein, starch, protein... aaaaagh!!! For this reason, we were on a mission when we went to the grocery store yesterday. Fibre. Must. Buy. Fibre. We bought oatmeal, All-Bran, and dark bread. See, All-Bran makes you happy:

We also stopped at the fruit/veggie stand.

Back to the empanadas and where this story was truly leading. We left the "matinee" milonga a little early (at 11.15pm - it ends at midnight... that's an early milonga). We were walking the 20 blocks home when we passed by a cute little pizza/empanada place that had many different empanadas on the counter. YUM! We walked in, ordered 2 each of: beef, chicken, roquefort, and "vegetable" (i.e., cheese with spinach), and waited while they were heated in the oven. While we waited, we observed our surroundings and K said, "If all of Buenos Aires looked like this place, i would be in love with the city. This place isn't pretending to be something it isn't and i love it." To this, Jorge nodded his head in agreement.

We often hear and have read about foreigners who LOVE this city. We do not love it. We really like it, but our adoration stops there. This little empanada place brought about an epiphany for us. We couldn't understand why we didn't love the city. Was it because the city was so filthy? The air so polluted? The people so poor? No. We LOVE Bangkok and that city is extremely filthy, polluted, and surrounded by poverty. What was it then? Standing there in the empanada shop, what we saw around us were dirty floors, an open cage door, old delivery bicycles, a tv perched high up on the wall, ugly counters, some young bare-minimum employees, and a quiet empty street outside. We felt like we were in some small town in Mexico or the like. A place where people weren't rich, but they had what they needed. A place where people were making a living. A place that sold empanadas in a town that was just a town. Instead, this empanada place is in a city that is pretending to be a rich European city. A city with its beautiful architecture that has been soiled by all its pollution. A city inhabited by people who do not wear all of Europe's latest fashions, but rather grey-toned clothes that appear to be many years old. Yet when a night out at the milonga calls, out come the handsome suits and leather shoes.

It is a city of contradictions, extremes, and make-believe. We loved the Buenos Aires we saw in the empanada shop - not the one the lays next to the Obelisk.

(Afterthoughts: This epiphany allowed us to begin falling in love with the city that is Buenos Aires)

And that summarizes our daily living here in Buenos Aires C:

Our internal clocks have been shifting every day as we eat dinner somewhere between 9 and 10pm (restaurant kitchens generally open at 8pm at the earliest), go out dancing until 1 or 4am, and sleep in until 3pm. K. actually has had trouble falling asleep when attempting to go to bed anywhere before 3am!?

We are super happy with the apartment we have rented and will now rent it for four out of the six months we are here. At $750 USD per month, it is a tourist price, but it's a decent tourist price. It's a one bedroom apartment with a very comfortable bed, a tv/dvd/cd/radio player with surround sound speakers, hardwood floor with the space to dance, a nice kitchen area, a well-functioning shower with plenty of hot water, and our own closed in terrace with table and 4 chairs (we're on ground level).

Here's a view from our terrace:

The neighbourhood is great and feels safe. We are very close to the main streets and two subway lines (which are only good to use in the day since they stop running at 10.30pm), but we are in a very local area. This means restaurants are cheaper, cafes are cheaper, haircuts are cheaper, life is cheaper... as long as you don't get ripped off somehow.

We talk about some of these rip off situations in our Tango blog (http://movementinvitesmovement.wordpress.com/) since the biggest rip offs (and attempts) have happened in tango settings. However, in general, we always have to be completely aware of what we are buying and how much it costs. We stick out like sore thumbs here and it makes us obvious victims for those who feel the need to make money off the "rich" foreigners.

Which brings us to our next topic. Our budget. We have a budget of approximately $100 Cdn per day. In general, this has been more than enough. It would be excessive if 1/4 of our budget didn't go to our rent (which is cheap in Canadian standards, but we are living in Buenos Aires). We do not take taxis, rather we walk almost everywhere and take the subway/bus when we need to go anywhere further. We enjoy the cafe scene here daily, but we don't necessarily eat out every day. Tango can be cheap or more costly depending which milonga you go dancing at. The same can be said for Tango private lessons. Here are the various prices we've been quoted (we'll quote in USD for this purpose): $100, $50, $40, $35, and $20. Obviously, we aren't interested in paying our whole daily budget for a private lesson. Actually, we were very surprised to be quoted the $100 for a Tango teacher who was a very big stage tango name and learned from some of the Tango "greats" (social dancers), but who is unknown to the majority of Tango dancers.

Regarding the bus system here... well it rocks! There are many different bus companies, all competing against each other. This competition keeps the buses running frequently and all over the city. However, figuring out the bus routes is insanity. It took us an eternity to figure out which bus would get us across town and back. The way to figure out the buses is by looking at a gridded map and corresponding the bus numbers in the grid you are starting from with the bus numbers in the grid you want to go to. You find out which bus shows up in both grids and then look up that bus number at the back of the bus guide. There, you are told which streets the bus travels down. It's quite the hellish process - especially when you don't know the names of the streets and where they're located on a map!?

We're certain many of you are wondering where all the pictures are. Well, there aren't very many yet. We are still trying to assess the safety of this city. Our guidebook described Buenos Aires as an electrifying city with a third world twist. We are very much in agreement with that description. You should then understand why we haven't felt comfortable carrying around Jorge's camera. That camera sticks out in this city far more than our fair hair and fair skin. That camera is one of the most valuable things they could steal from someone since it is an electronic import.

We have felt comfortable walking almost everywhere in this city and travelling by bus to the edges of the city at all hours of the night. One of the biggest reasons for feeling safe is knowing that we are carrying the minimum amount of money we need, we are wearing no jewelry, and we are dressed down. We stick out as foreigners, but we don't stick out as rich foreigners.

We are currently in the process of finding an apartment for the months of December and January. The apartment we are in is already rented during those months, plus K's parents are coming for a month (possibly longer). For this reason, we are looking to rent a 2-bedroom apartment.

Now a word about Argentina's dessert of choice. Dulce de Leche. It is caramel heaven... however, we will get sick of it. Here's a picture of the sweetness:

Now here's a picture of 4 different desserts Jorge bought:

Little did he realize that EVERY one of them had dulce de leche in them!? Come on! We are complete fans of the various dulce de leche ice creams though... yum. yum. yum!

That's all for now. Hasta luego!