Eating My Way Through The Weekend

Eating Cuban food and listening to salsa makes me want to go to Cuba, can they lift the no travel restrictions for Americans yet? My passport does expire in 5 years maybe I can go right before it does? But eating Cuban while listening to the music will have to do for now and I can tell you it was delicious for the tummy and the ears. A big group of us went to Oye Chico, for an amazing 4 course meal of Pulpetines (or hush puppies stuffed with veggies and chicken), Cuban chicken for the main, flan for dessert, followed by a cafe, all accompanied by lots of mojitos and wine and some great Cuban music, now only if Nick had been here so I could have danced, because it’s a bit hard to dance Salsa with only girls. The night ended across the Atlantic Ocean in Ireland….well after dinner we headed to a pub and were entertained by an Irish Folk band, talk about a twist of music!

We strolled around the street fair of Plaza Serrano in Palermo on Saturday. It’s like all the street fairs in BsAs but, smaller and the main draw is the cheep clothing stalls in the buildings surrounding the Plaza. They were so interesting, people just hang up whatever it is they are selling and stand near their rack, a few places have cash registers but, most you just pay the person whose rack it is. My favorite part of the day was lunch. I have a blog on food to come, but I have started eating more vegetables that I ever have before, I guess I am growing up (tear). But I had a phenomenal baguette with grilled tomatoes (yes I said tomatoes), eggplant, zucchini and carrots, it just melted in my mouth it was so tasty. I took the bus to Palermo Alto, or the mall, after just to check the area out, and I found my first Starbucks, but since I am not a fan of Starbucks I didn’t purchase anything. The mall was very much like one in America, it even had a Friday’s, in the future I will stay away from this place, but I had to see it for myself one time.

The evening revolved around more food, I just love 1810 for local food. Except this time the waiter forgot my order and didn’t seem to care so I made sure to not leave a tip…I can’t stand bad service, at least in America they would apologize and take it off the bill or give a free desert. But when there is only a table of 6, you shouldn’t forget an order. Ugh…..oh well I washed the bad taste out with many beers afterwards at the birthday party of my Spanish professor Camila.

After a lazy morning (or just sleeping in) I met some friends and we traveled out of town (well we took the bus 30 minutes into the suburbs, I wouldn’t really call it out of town as the landscape of buildings didn’t change, they just weren’t as tall) to the Feria de Matadores, or gaucho fair. A gaucho is an Argentine cowboy. Again it was full of craft stalls, the same as in all the fairs in town, except they had a stage with live entertainment, a bunch of people dressed in full gaucho gear (I think the fair-goers just liked to dress like this) and the best food ever! This fair is not really a tourist fair, more of a local thing, which was great because the food was tremendous. We started the day with Vacio sandwiches (steak sandwiches), had some delicious fried Jamon y queso empanadas, a taste of humita, a fresh homemade alfajor (dulce de leche cookie), and delicious artisan ice cream….I needed to be rolled out of there, and if I don’t gain 10lbs before I leave I will not have eaten enough. Mmmmmm……

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Long walks, lessons and a feliz cumple

Sunday was lovely, I spent the whole day walking. I took the Subte to Plaza Italia and was headed to the Japanese Gardens when I saw a huge park with lakes, so I detoured and found my favorite spot in Buenos Aires, Parque de Deportes or the Palermo Lakes district. It’s beautiful, there are some small lakes, a beautiful rose garden, large grass areas, and the whole perimeter is closed off on the weekends for people to rollerblade, bike, walk and run…I loved it. After walking for about 2 hours my nose too me to a street vendor selling the best churrasco sandwiches, or grilled steak sandwiches with queso, egg and onions on top. Heaven. The Japanese gardens were somewhat of a disappointment, but I think after you’ve been to the gardens in SF all Japanese gardens would disappoint unless they were in Japan, it’s the same philosophy I have with zoo’s, after going to the SD zoo, I don’t need to go to another because they are just disappointing, even Steve Irwin’s Zoo in OZ. I might just be picky. Plus the gardens were over crowded with tourists and it was a place more for kids to buy fish food to feed the coy than it was for tranquil or beautiful gardens.

This week has been a bit tranquil, have been working on more online research to get Vos a higher web presence on-line. Some of what I am doing is investigating travel websites, blogs, and government sites and trying to contact them to get more advertising or partnering information.  Spanish classes are going well. Some days I feel confident and some I lose it all…I really just need to keep practicing. I have all the tools, I just need to start remembering them and thinking in Spanish, I understand conversations better though. And have been asked for directions on the street because I look local which is nice. A side note, the Argentines look more European than you would think, they have a lot of German, Italian and other European blood, so a female with a bit of olive in her skin with brown hair would look like a local.

Monday I went to CineClub at Vos, we watched El Aura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Aura. Weird but interesting at the same time and a bit easier to understand than some of the other movies because there wasn’t much talking. Wednesday was my Spanish school’s 3^rd birthday so we went to After Office “literally happy hour” but they don’t have a Spanish word for it so they say “After Office” at Godoy, a bar in Palermo. It was a great time but a late evening. At least classes were put off until the afternoon the next day so I could catch up on my sleep.