On a real horse I ride...

Yesterday's excursion was a first for me, though it really shouldn't be considering where I come from: My first time on a horse. As BA has been a little short on tourist experiences, we decided to try one, which ended up being a trip to an estancia, Cabanas Los Dos Hermanos. It was a day in the countryside, about an hour outside of the city, which included horseback riding, a swimming pool and asado (traditional barbecue of steaks.)

A driver named Alejandro came and picked us up. He didn't speak any English so Bryan practiced his seventh and eighth grade Spanish to the appreciation of our driver throughout the ride. When we pulled up and saw about 20 dogs jumping from behind a fence, I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. We were greeted with breakfast (some croissants and coffee) by our young host Rosario. After a short conversation we were soon putting on chaps and helmets, assisted by a gaucho named Don Juan, who didn't speak English . Before I knew it Bryan was on a horse and I started to feel pretty nervous. I got one foot in the stirrup and was afraid my jeans would split as I tried to mount the horse, but they didn't, and there I was, no turning back. Rosario demonstrated a trot and a gallop, but I was plenty happy just to walk. I should say that for some reason, while they usually end up with groups of about 15 to 20 people, Bryan and I were the only guests that day. This gave me a slight sense of comfort.

The ride itself was pretty flat, no real hills. It was a beautiful day with a blue sky and big, fluffy white clouds. We saw some beautiful birds along the way - bright yellow and bright green. The highlight was an area with many owls. There were some really pretty beige and white ones, and these scary little black owls with yellowish-green eyes that popped their heads out of holes in the ground. I could see how relaxing horseback riding could be, though I didn't really shake my nerves til almost the last half-hour of the ride, when Rosario started riding alongside me and asking me questions about court reporting. Once I started talking, I loosened my grip a little and relaxed.

When the ride finished, we had a fantastic lunch served to us on a little grill brought to the table. We had three different grills of chorizo sausages, Argentine short ribs and sirloin steaks brought to us, as well as salad and dessert (bread pudding with dulce de leche, a caramelized milk concoction.) After lunch we cooled ourselves off in the pool. While I had the option of getting back on a horse and going for an afternoon ride, I decided to let Bryan go and learn to trot and gallop as I made myself at home in a shady hammock with my book, which I never even got to crack open because I was sound asleep the minute I settled into it. When Bryan got back from his second ride, we had coffee and scones fresh from the oven (tastier than anything you'll ever get from Starbucks.) It was one of the nicest days of my life.

Unfortunately, the one day that we had to get up early on this trip was also the one night we had to experience some nightlife. So Bryan was able to catch a very short nap when we got back to the city before we were out again. We met two local strangers who are fans of my band at a rock bar called the Red Bell Saloon at the embarrassing hour of 10 p.m. (folks here usually don't go out til 1 and stay out til daylight.) The girl is Argentinan but grew up in California so is very fluent, while the guy (a Vince Neil lookalike) didn't speak any English. Bryan again used his very adequate Spanish skills to communicate, and we managed to stay out with these folks til 2 a.m. The first rain we saw was as we were leaving the bar, and it was a downpour. I had finally taken the umbrella out of my purse a day or two ago, deciding that it hadn't been of use, so we were bathed in rainwater for a block before we caught a cab home.

We just enjoyed our last day of sleeping in and now must pack. Maybe some pictures will come when we're back in NY and dreaming of big steaks.

Steak, Steak and more Steak

There hasn't been a day that's gone by that we haven't had it in some form. For me our best night out was Thursday. We took a suggestion on where to go for dinner from a friend of a friend living here, which ended up being La Cabrera. It's sort of Buenos Aires' answer to Brooklyn's Peter Luger's, except maybe a third of the cost at the end of the night. We were told that the place is always booked solid, and your only chance of a getting seated is to get there at 8:00 p.m. sharp and just wait and maybe get a cancellation.

Bryan exercised his Spanish skills with the wait staff and we weren't entirely sure what went down, as they didn't speak any English. Nevertheless we sat on a bench trying to figure out whether we should go somewhere else or how long to wait to find out if they indeed took our name for a reason and what exactly that meant. In probably no more than a half hour we were seated outside. We were trying to decide on whether to get a steak to share or each of us get our own steaks, when we saw a table next to us and decided that one was plenty. We were dining outside on a beautiful evening (which was pretty much the case every evening) and the waiter brought the man next to us his feast. The steak came with about 10 sides, everything from apple sauce to mashed potatoes to eggplant and mashed olives. We heard their interaction and noticed the man's English so we asked him where he was from: Dublin; Blackrock, to be exact. As that was the town we used to live in, we spent the next few hours in a lively conversation with him, all the while eating some of the best meat in the world, drinking some fine wine and then capping the meal off with a delicious dessert.

We did try to venture out of the meat zone one night and went to a Peruvian/Japanese fusion joint called Osaka so I could get some ceviche (raw fish cooked in different acidic juices), but I still ended up getting some bife de lomo (tenderloin) for my main course (in teriyaki sauce, though.) We also ate at Don Julio, another place known for its steaks, and the rest of the meals involved either pizzas or empanadas. Sadly, the pizza did not come from a hut. Maybe next time.

Shopping in a Time Warp

I like to save my clothing shopping for vacations, but Buenos Aires is not the destination for wardrobe upkeep. Here are some things that I have seen on people in the streets, as well as in the shops:
-Harem pants, and their masculine boyfriend, MC Hammer pants.
-Mullets, and their very evil cousin, the rat-tail. I've even seen the kind of tail that is dyed blond and braided, as well as the multiple tails to one rat look.
-PacMan fever has struck here - several different styles of PacMan t-shirts.
-Bright colors, like fluorescent pink, bright yellow, Barney purple and bright green.
-Jeans in the above said solid colors.
-Jeans with zippers at the ankle (though sadly I'm starting to see these in NY as well)
-And while shopping, I've heard just about every track off of INXS' 1987 classic album "Kick."

We had spent the week scouring different neighborhoods (Palermo, Recoleta; hoods known for their shopping) for just one piece of clothing that I could wear proudly on the streets of New York. I finally got a tip from a fan of our band on where to find the rock'n'roll fashions in this town and we found the Gallerie at Bond Street (or something like that, since it's not on Bond Street), which is pretty much a clone of London's Kensington Market, i.e. a little mall that houses tattoo shops, punk clothing stores, record shops, etc. I did manage to walk away with one pair of jeans (with a few paint speckles, keeping in line with the '80s theme) and two t-shirts. Just another reason this is a sudden "budget travel" destination.

Lazy summer days

This is kind of a different vacation for us. Buenos Aires is a typical city vacation, but it's a city without a lot of famous sights or historical landmarks. So far our highlight has been eating dinner and marvelling at how much cheaper an equal meal would be in NYC. The steaks here are so big that Bryan can't even finish his meal and has been bringing the extra home and cooking steak and eggs for breakfast.

A note about subways. The subway system here is pretty easy to navigate, and cheap (about .30/ride). However, they don't really run to any of the neighborhoods worth visiting. So to use the subway, you usually have about a 20-minute walk to get to your destination. They also aren't air-conditioned. So as usual, we've been doing a lot of walking, and then usually taking a cab back. The city has an extensive bus system, but the buses require coins and we have yet to find a bus map anywhere. Yesterday we walked through the neighborhood of Recoleta and visited a cemetery with many above-ground vaults that house the caskets of whole families. Eva Peron is buried there and some other famous political figures from the region. We later found ourselves a lackluster shopping mall and made our way back to get ready for the evening.

I really wanted to try out the tango, but Bryan is self-conscious about the height difference and doesn't really want to humor me on it, so we did the next best thing and went to my dream hotel to see a tango performance and have a fancy meal. The Faena Hotel and Universe is where rock stars stay when they come to town and would run about US$550 for an average room. It's a Philippe Starck typically gaudy, over-the-top and kitchy, yet still elegant piece of architecture that I had to make sure we visited. We got dressed up and had dinner with bottomless wine and champagne in a room with dark reds and low lighting and listened to the sexy sounds coming from the piano, accordion and string section as beautiful people danced for us, legs and skirts flying about. After the show we stuck around and had some more wine near the beautiful pool, with more red lights illuminating the scene.

Miscellaneous facts about Argentina worth noting: Even old people eat dinner at midnight on Sunday nights (and I mean really old, the grey-haired senior crowd.)
-Watch where you walk. The sidewalks are lined with gifts from local dogs.
-Some corner stores advertise that they're open 25 hours. No wonder I'm still jet lagged.
-Bry and I have been pretty lazy and relaxing a bit, maybe suffering from steak-induced comas here and there throughout the day. Hence the lack of plentiful updates.

Welcome to Buenos Aires

I guess it's day three of our trip, though I started out the trip a little mixed up. As a testament to how busy our lives had been and how little homework I'd done, I had thought that Buenos Aires was two hours behind. When we got on the plane and I looked in the magazine, I learned it was, in fact, two hours ahead. And just to throw a little spice into the mix, I don't think they're on the same daylight savings schedule we are, so it's three hours ahead. Needless to say, we've been blissfully sleeping in til noon for the past two days.

Our usual travel pattern includes a stay at either a hip boutique hotel or a national chain with a government discount, depending on our budgetary situation. This time we are trying something completely new, and renting a one-bedroom apartment in Palermo for the week. It is surprisingly cheap (less than US$60 per night) and very comfortable. There's even a pool on the roof we haven't gotten to enjoy yet. Aside from the initial trepidation felt as we hopped in a cab having no clue where we were headed, we quickly made ourselves at home without the help of any front desk and soon headed out on foot to check out our new neighborhood. First stop: ATM. Buenos Aires is pretty short on these handy machines. We walked for probably a half-hour before we found our first one, which was not surprisingly out of order. We finally stumbled upon a mall with one and found out the limit is about $US100/day. We found ourselves a nice little steakhouse in Las Canitas for dinner and were pleasantly surprised that you can get a steak here for between $10 and $12, depending on the cut. So dining here has thus far been a pleasure.

Yesterday we woke up late and went exploring the San Telmo Sunday market. As we're in the Southern Hemisphere, we're just about starting summer, so it was about 87 degrees out yesterday. Many shops about town were closed but the side streets and antique shops were bustling. I picked up a ton of great CDs mixing bossa nova and tango styles with popular bands like the Beatles and Guns'n'Roses; always one of my favorite souvenirs. There were some tango demonstrations closer to the square, some with professional performers and some that appeared to be tourists trying out their new dance moves. We could have spent hours there but we had a rock show to go to.

This past summer a girl in a band from here came to one of our shows. We stayed in touch, and last night her band, Nobarbies, was opening for the Donnas. The Nobarbies are an awesome all-female metal band and our friend Steffi on guitar looked like a punk-rock female version of Slash. After the show, she complained in broken English about not getting the right sound on her guitar, which is kind of cool to see that we're all the same as musicians. This was our first foreign concert since the Huey Lewis incident of 2000 in Copenhagen, and I really enjoyed it. I was also reminded of the fact that the actual concert tickets outside of the US still are real keepsakes with pictures on them, vs. the green and white Ticketmaster ones that we now get at every concert. We'll get more savvy with posting pictures a little later. The sad part was leaving the show, only a few steps from the venue, I saw the first homeless family I've ever seen - meaning three beautiful children with dirty faces sleeping on a mattress with their mother. We ate at a pizza place then got taken for a ride by a cab driver.

Today we explored Palermo's shopping district on foot. Much to my dismay I didn't find anything that suits my style at all. I'm just up from a nap, and Bry is still napping. We haven't figured out what we're doing tonight yet. Navigating menus with our un poco Spanish skills has been a little challenging. Neither of our dictionaries has been very helpful, so we try to put our combined knowledge together and guess at things. We unforutnately tried a tart today that was a quiche. Empanadas are cheap and awesome and pretty easy to figure out, so we'll probably eat a lot more of them before the trip is over.

As a side note, I discovered a great snack, chocolate and peanut butter chex mix. Lucky for you, this snack is not of Argentinian origin; rather, I picked it up at JFK. Go find some pronto (is pronto Spanish or Italian?) Adios for now.