studiodio

Tres Bocas in Tigre and a fond farewell.....

2010-12-05T03:04:00.000-08:00

Paula and I took the one hour train ride to Tigre and then a water taxi to the Tres Boca area.....I had been here before on a day trip and thought it would be a good place to stay....a little community with path ways and bridges....sure enough, while we were standing on this bridge taking this picture, a local directed us to a place that had cabins for rent....

and here is the cabin we rented!

Kitchen, living room, bedroom, patio with barbe.....all for less than 40 bucks a night!

The owner and her son have two cabins for rent and lots and lots of bees.....

the bee hives, like all the cabins in the delta are up on stilts due to flooding in the winter...

Here is a typical older house in the delta....

It felt so different from Buenos Aires, and only an hour away...

The owner of our cabin introduced us to her neighbor, who has lived in the Delta for years. He took us for a boat ride up some of the canals and told us the history of the place....

Then he took us back to civilization and the town of Tigre.....

There are two trains that come into Tigre from Buenos Aires.....the regular train out of Retiro station, and the "tourist" train that goes along the water and fancy neighborhoods....we took the tourist train back and spied your art shot for today at the station in Flores....its a mural done by one of my drawing teachers, Sr. Ragazonni.....

For Paula's last meal in BA, we returned to my favorite Japanese restaurant on Independencia...their lunch is perfect food....

The Jacarandas are in bloom again.....they reminded me that it has now been exactly two years since I moved to BA and started this blog....and it seems like a good time to stop with entries ....I will be traveling back the long way for a visit in the USA....three weeks in Spain, 6 weeks in Thailand, then Oregon and California before returning back to Buenos Aires. So, to all the viewers out there, I thank you for your attention and support, and would love it if you sent me some words or pics about how YOU have figured out how to spend your time on this planet..here is my email: studiodio@yahoo.com

Besos, Besos, Jamye

Rosario and back to BA.....

2010-11-26T02:07:00.000-08:00

Paula and I took a bus down from Colon and met up with Dave in Rosario. We were jazzed to see Luis Salinas preform and had got tickets two months in advance...we were also jazzed to stay at Palermo Art Hostel in the old part of town. The hostel had great art throughout the old place....but that first night, kids playing what sounded like trash cans and drums kept us awake till 5 a.m. , so we moved down the street to an old nice hotel that was far quieter.....then got all dressed up for our big concert, only to find that the show had been cancelled! Dave and I have visited Rosario three other times, and always thought that it might be a city we would move to with Buenos Aires got to hectic.....but this time, it didn't look so great.....The thing that Paula disliked most was all the stray dogs slinking around looking ill. The thing that bugged me the most was that none of the side streets had traffic or pedestrian lights, so it was a nervy crap shoot to decide when it was ok to cross any street....

this is one of Dave's favorite buildings, right downtown on the promenade along the river...its the school of engineering, with a stairway going over the whole thing.

and here is Paula's favorite place!

Unlike Buenos Aires, where there is little public access to the dirty ole river La Plata, Rosarians use their river alot...canoes/kayaks/ rowing sculls....lots of restaurants and play areas are all up and down the shore...

if you look behind these handsome guys, you will see the giant freighter going past...

We found the Museo de Arte Decorativo by accident, housed in a great old mansion...

there is nothing like having out of town guests to get you off your rear and see stuff you always meant to go to but never did....the Japanese gardens in Buenos are few blocks away form us, but we just never got around to seeing them til Paula came to town ....

a nice visual treat in the middle of the city....

Your food shot for this week is taken in the central courtyard of favorite italian restaurant, Prosciutto...

besides a ham decor, they have grand food! (on the corner of Salta and Venezula, in Montserrat).

Colon Argentina

2010-11-13T04:54:00.000-08:00

We took a long bus ride west from Montevideo across inland farm country to the Uruguay/Argentina border, and crossed the Uruguay river via taxi to the spa town of Colon. Colon reminded me a bit of Florence, Oregon maybe 50 years ago...the main industry is summer vacationers from Argentina and Uruguay, who come for the miles of river swimming, fishing, the thermal hot springs in town, and the near by Parque El Palmar. We went to the park mainly for bird watching....

But the big surprize were the carapinchos (or capybarras) we got to see...the largest member of the rodent species, in the guinea pig family....

and they were BIG! they can weigh up to 150 pounds....shy, slow moving guys....

We hiked along the river in the park, through willow and swampy areas, feeling like we were explorers in the jungle, when we came around a corner and found a photo shoot going on.......

We stayed for 4 days in Colon at the old original hotel of this city, Hosteria del Puerto and had a grand time. We had a newly painted room full of antique furniture, with private bath, private balcony, big breakfast, all for 38 bucks a night (off season rate- everything goes way up in Dec/Jan/Feb). The public hot springs pools (13 of them with different temps in each) were just down the road one direction, and the other direction led to the town plaza with lots of restaurants..... Colon is only a three hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, and I plan to come back.

Paula wanted to take a boat ride to explore some of the islands in the middle of the Uruguay river, and we found a guy willing to take us for 2 dollars.....we thought that sounded awfully cheap for a nature tour...turned out he just took us to the biggest island and dumped us off- told us to wave this flag when we were ready to be picked up.....so we made our own tour on a trail through the jungle..

Your food shot for this week is from an outdoor lunch we had on the plaza in Colon........

Uruguay .......

2010-11-09T02:44:00.000-08:00

Paula and I decided to make a get away from bustling Buenos Aires, and took the Buquebus (a fancy hydrofoil ferry) across the huge La Plata river to Colonia, Uruguay, then a local bus to the small town of Colonia Suisa. The owner of Hostel El Galope took us to his spread in the countryside. Note the traditional reed roof on his house, and the surrounding fields with a few sheep, horses, and LOTS of birds....I was disappointed that the horses at the place were only for "expert" riders (I had taken classes in riding in anticipation of this trip...still no way was I an expert)... but the hike to the little town, all the variety of birds we tried to identify, and the appearance of 100's of fireflies at night made up for no riding....

We read books, cooked simple meals....

The owner's dog and cats kept us company as we watched good sunsets...but after two nights we were ready for city life again and took a couple hours bus ride to Montevideo, the biggest city in little ole Uruguay squished between giants Brazil and Argentina....Uruguayians seem to be very proud of the fact that they broke away from Argentina, seem to see Argentina as chaotic, crime ridden, and full of themselves....

I have seen some amazing churches in my day, but seldom venture inside, feeling like I am intruding with my pagan beliefs... but Paula was raised Catholic, and has dragged me into some amazing churches during her visit.....

Tango is alive and well in Uruguay. We made the mistake of asking if Tango originated in Argentina....the answer we got was that the deep water port at Montevideo with its first immigrant worker population was the TRUE start of the tango..........

We found a basement Jazz club....the music by Las Cabas was a great mix of blues, celtic, tango, jazz...with sit in artists playing everything from pan pipes to bag pipes.....

The taxi driver didn't want to take us to Palermo Art Hostel, in the "bad,black" part of town....but we had no trouble there....had a great time with all the young kids....

And the art throughout the place was great! Here is a Mardi Gras kid that greets you....

Street art is alive and well in Montevideo...lots of the sidewalks all over South America have missing tiles (home owners own the sidewalks in front of their place, not the city)...I found lots of this artist's work of filling in missing tiles with mosaic...what a grand idea! .....

some building graffiti that caught my eye....

Some good graffitti....

And here is our best dinner in Montevideo found down at the Montevideo port market....great tenderloin about 3 inches high with 4 cheese sauce, or wild mushroom sauce...Paula's served on a bed of onion rings, mine on a bed of grilled potatoes......

The tourist bus tour of the city.....

2010-11-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

Please excuse my failure to make any posts for the last two weeks....Canadian friend Paula and I have been out in the wilds of Argentina and Uruguay without much access to computers (check for details of our adventure in future posts) ....Before we left Buenos Aires, we took the open air double decker tourist bus all around the city....it was my third time, and I still find it fascinating....especially how one goes from fancy downtown areas to funky ole Boca in less than an hour.....

We got off the bus in the Boca neighborhood......

And found some great little places tucked away in alleys....

Made a stop at the former home of artist Benito Quinquela Martin.....here is my favorite painting of his of La Boca during its hay-day as the main port of BA ....

We also went to Fundacion PROA museum in Boca to see some contemporary art... Ruben Borre's stuff was pretty great.....

This week's food shot is from Restaurante Shi Yuan, Tagle 2531 off Ave. Las Heras....this place continues to get our vote as the best Chineese Resaurant in town with moderate prices....the top dish is three kinds of wild mushrooms surrounded with baby bok choy. We repeatedly order the bottom plate (noodles/veg/pork/shirmp/chicken, all in a complex/smokey sauce) with the deceptively simple name of "Chao Mien Mixto."

Fuerza Bruta !!!

2010-10-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like having guests visiting to get one out and about....I had been meaning to see Fuerza Bruta... the group of 6 Argentine performers puts on a show that knocked my socks off....most creative theater I have seen in years..imagine combining Circ de Soleil with a circus fun house and interactive theater and you get kind of the idea....a surprise every turn ...the show is on for one more week, so you still have a chance to see it....

Visiting friend Paula and I share a love of art, so I took her to Central Cultural Recoletta ...and the current shows there of Argentine artists once again reminded me of why I moved to BA....huge beautiful old vaulted rooms for each artist...the above was a favorite from a lithograph show, and the piece below is from Leonel Luna's showing of new works (that is not a real person standing there)

We also went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and, although I have seen their permanent collection many times, I had never spotted this cartoon strip by Picasso....

Here's Paula eating her first Argentine steak ......

And here is the plate we shared of my favorite desert, "Volcan..."

(the "before" photo of the volcan....warm chocolate cake with a creamy filling, accompanied by ice cream and berries)

Those Lovely Strutting Gaucho Men!

2010-10-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

I'm a few days late with my weekly post due to being away on a 5 hour bus ride south of Buenos Aires to attend a three day Gaucho Rodeo out of internet connection (and out of cell phone/electricity except by a gas generator).....it was amazing!....

Kinda like the county fair, but much more macho,,,,(you can see all the gauchos working with the horses way over the great hardwood fences in the distance)

There was horse competitions like an American Rodeo, but lots of time in between where guys were really struttin their individual stuff...The gear they all wore was "regulation"....hat (a special barrett or a felt sombrero), gaucho pants that are pleated at the top and buttoned at the bottom), a belt that is either a woven patterned wrap around strip or a wide leather belt with silver coins or decorations, leather riding boots or canvas casual pull ons, hundreds of neck tie variations, hundreds of special hat-holder-on bands (silver chain/horse hair, etc) and each guy had his own combination of variations of the basic ensemble ..(and fancy long knives stuck in the back of their belts for cutting off hunks of asado (or fighting after too many beers).

this young guy had a very fancy belt he was proud of....

The above photo was taken among the concession stands....a stand that did big business was one that had all sorts of plastic play guns and machine guns made in China...it was the big hit among the kids...note that each boy has a plastic gun....

And here is my token girlie photo....but she placed second in the barrel races!!!! I only saw one other woman competing.....

The pampas in Buenos Aries Providence are beautiful.....so flat, so green, millions of birds....and clumps of beautiful shade trees and border planted Poplars and Eucalyptus.... and I found out that every tree you see has been planted (no native trees in the Whole country of Argentina!!!!). Perhaps that is why they are much more respectful of trees and do not cut them down because they might "make a mess""....

OK your food shot for this week is Grand!!! The true Argentine Asado at the Rodeo....there is beef in the foreground, amazing strings of sausages grilling in the background, and spread eagled lamb cooking in the middle....so goood!

Drunken Trees and Big Juicy Steaks....

2010-10-03T04:47:00.000-07:00

There is a big old hospital (Hospital Rividavia) across the street from us that is scheduled to be torn down (previous posts showed aerial views of the workers protesting its demise....it's full of beautiful old buildings with lots of green areas and grand trees...the tree in the center with the bulbous trunk that hasn't got its leaves yet is called "Palo Borracho"....it's covered with huge thorns and, after flowering, forms pods full of a silky fluff that used to be used to stuff pillows....I hope this all doesn't become an asphalt parking lot...

About a block and a half away from my place is the Museo de Decorative Artes....I go there mainly for the great restaurant in the courtyard outside, but revisited the inside this week....it was originally a private mansion and this portrait of the owner's young son is my favorite thing in the whole fancy place....

Here is the dining room.....

I also went to my first play in spanish (I understood some of the lines, but mainly enjoyed my fantasies of what was going on). The woman at the far end dressed up like Cleopatra is the mother of my spanish teacher.....

But the best find of this week was the restaurant Don Chicho (Jujuy 136, Once)....Now that so much of the cattle breeding stock have been slaughtered due to the long war between the government and the farmers over export tax increases, and now that much of the pasture land has been converted to soy bean production making feed lot beef be the norm, most of the steaks I find now have been expensive and flavorless (kinda like the steak in the USof A). For 20 pesos at Don Chichos, I got a huge steak with that nice yellow fat and great flavor that cries "range fed!" covering one dinner plate, and a second dinner plate of fries with two fried eggs on top...(I know, I will have to eat salads for days to balance out this meal)! And on top of the fantastic food, this place had the great old waiters, and pride of place that I remember as the best part of the traditional Argentina Parrilla.

Spring is here!

2010-09-26T04:54:00.000-07:00

The first day of spring came along with green leaves erupting on all the trees below my balcony ..

The parks are filling up...this guy did amazing dances around all those paper cups on the road....

I got invited to a fashion show put on by the wives of the embassys here....much better than I thought...each country paraded their native costumes, did dances or sang or carried on .....

The countries of Africa seemed to know how to dance and party best....

And my what-is-this-about? weird prize goes to the United States entry below....

Dave has been a focused artist dervish of late He's been working on this Happy Buddha Pig that he wants to cast........

And putting in lots of extra hours working on his stone sculpture at the Central Cultural Recoletta terrace...

I have been focused on grand lunches...I found this little mid eastern snack stand in Almagro...

and fancier fare at the Tea Connection in Recoletta. There are several of these throughout the city, with exotic organic fruit/tea infusions being sipped by fancy city ladies...I had lemon/green tea/ginger/honey and a great "tortilla" (potato/carmelized onion/egg in layers and baked)

videos and more!

2010-09-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last week, I not only finally figured out how to get videos on this blog (I promise I will learn how to also edit them soon) but I also achieved one of my dreams....to canter on a horse (the wind blowing through my hair, the horse and I as one, zooming through the landscape, etc etc)... Adrian Di Stefano of Caballos A-La-Par (www.caballos-alapar.com) picked me up in BA and we went out to a National Park in Buenos Aires Providence for the best horseback ride of my life! -Well, I have only been on three others, and then just got brief instructions of how to hold the reins, stop and go. Turns out riding a horse properly is like hitting a golf ball. Everything...how you hold each hand, position of knees, foot, heal, how fast or slow you lean forward or back...makes a difference. Adrian has been riding in this National Park all his life, and seems to have a passion for having his students be successful....

And by the end of the lesson, I was not only cantering all over, but able to do it without using the reins! I won't tell you how my whole body felt for the next two days...it doesn't matter...it was worth it....

I include this next video for the ending......

This week, Central Cultural Recoletta had an opening for showing of works by Argentine political cartoonists active in the 60's and 70's....dramatic times down here then....the folks gathered for the opening made us think of Oregon (lots of grey pony tails)......

I have spotted El Pici before on a Santa Fe street corner....He turned up again while I was reading a book at an outdoor cafe and I watched this guy for 30 minutes or more...he never turned on his microphones or did any kind of act....just waved at cars and talked to people who came up to him....does any one know what his deal is????

This week, you get three food shots! I tried a new restaurant for lunch...Vinos y Sabores, Laprida 1805 in Recoletta.....my favorite thing is to eat my biggest meal at lunchtime...taking advantage of Menu Executivo"...(much cheaper than the same thing at dinner time)....this place even had an entrada (starter course) of spinich with a big sun dried tomato/three types of olive on a toastee.....

Main course of Caesar salad with chicken and cheese rolls....

And melt in your mouth warm apple cinnamon strudel....
with aqua con gas....total 35 pesos....

Palacio San Martin, Ballet Contemporaneo del Teatro San Martin, and more...

2010-09-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

BAIN (Buenos Aires International Newcomers) hosted a tour of the Palacio San Martin this week...General San Martin didn't build it, a rich cattle family did back in Argentina's hay days...Now, it"s owned by the government and used for formal presentations, meetings of heads of state, pomp and ceremony type shindigs. Its a hodge podge of styles, but still comes off stunningly...

In the back yard was a piece of the Berlin wall....

The next day I was walking near Recoletta Cemetary and stumbled upon a small museum on Guido Calle...A meeting of train buffs was going on, and I found out that the train from BA to Rosario was up and running again...I cant wait to go

In another room was a display by textile artist Silvina Trigos....this piece above the piano was my favorite..

Ballet Contemporaneo del Teatro San Martin continues to wow....We saw three diverse pieces...with my fav being the haunting Syracusa....

I have been taking Spainish lessons with Maria for over a year ...and now we spend an hour a week with her grandmother painting pics...Grandmama is housebound and getting preety drifty, but still remembers how to hold a paintbrush and how to make a joke.....

This week's food shot is from a great little cafe for girlie lunches and pastry on Azcuenada near Las Heras....curried chicken wrap with a fine little salad...

Art Dealer's Showcase....

2010-09-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

La Rural once again was home to some knock your socks off art this week.....unlike ArteBA reviewed a few weeks ago (a showing of top selected galleries in Buenos Aires), this showing was of selected art dealers' favorite artists...

This guy Milo Lockett seems to have made the big time...he had a huge center space and sponsorship by Honda and Hewlett Packard, among others.....

These ladies are totally carved out of wood.....

If I could vote, I would give "best of show" to the sculptor below.....each piece was about 5 feet tall....

Drinking Liberally club is up and running again (the southernmost outpost of Drinking Liberally International, for liberal thinkers of all types, "no fear, just beer").....every monday night, starting at 7:30 pm at
Danila Restobar , Bernardo de Irigoyen 82. Despite the cold, over 20 people showed up this week...portenos, yankees, people from all over the place, including Texan Larry Rogers, who has started a salsa company (El Tejano, eltejano3.blogspot.com) down here for all the folks who miss HOT on their food....We ordered chips and wings and he slathered on the sauce.....

Here is Drinking Liberally founder Mike with Larry the salsa maker

After all those rowdy guys, I was ready for some woman time, and met friends Mia and Roxana for lunch at Viejo Agump (Armenia 1382) That's Roxana, a Porteno pharmacist returned from working at the U.N., drinking some yogurt concoction (I had a beer in memory of Drinking Liberally). They serve grand Armenian and Middle Eastern food in Palermo Soho area. Its just the way I love to eat...lots of different tastes in little plates, followed by kebobs... Up til now I have kinda avoided Palermo (I think of it as where all the tourists live), but I may reconsider.....tree lined streets with single and two story houses, and lots of restaurants and designer fashion stores to gawk at....

protest....

2010-08-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

I spent another week inside due to cold weather and the end of the flu....reflecting on the current news events. I am certainly no expert on the politics down here (or anywhere else for that matter), but President Christina and her guys have me worried....It was bad enough that her declared personal income has more than tippled since taking office, that her new policies for export have driven farmers to sell off much of their breeding stock of cattle and use feed lots now instead of range feeding, but now she appears to want to curtail freedom of the press. There is only one paper mill in Argentina, jointly owned by the two main newspapers in the country and with a smaller share held by the government. This week it was announced that due to paper being "of national concern" the government wants to take over the mill and control who gets the paper. Ever since the two main papers (Clarin and La Nation) came out against the government's handling of the farmer crisis, the government seems to be out to get 'em. Also last week, the government ordered Fibertel ,the largest internet server down here, to shut down. Is it a coincidence that Fibertel is owned by newspaper group Clarin? I keep having images of Venezuela and Chavez......

On the micro level, below is a shot I took from our balcony of a protest group in front of the hospital across the street. The hospital workers are striking for higher wages.....Public protest is alive and frequent, despite the average Porteno being somewhat fatalistic about government and the possibility of change (no wonder, they have been through the wringer for the last 20 years).. Every Porteno I have had a political conversation with wants a new head of government, but when I ask WHO they want instead of another 4 years of a Kirchner, they don't have an answer...Next year and the election could be interesting times down here.....

Well, now onto lighter stuff...My big outing this week was down the street a bit to a neighborhood restaurant for lunch....Cabillito on Las Heras...my new neighborhood is much more upscale than past barrios, and this woman in her white cashmere coat caught my eye...(a white coat for me would last less than a day I bet)...

My lunch special was sauted vegetable crepes in a three cheese sauce (with wine and desert-28 pesos-7 bucks)...

At home with the flu......

2010-08-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

I was stuck inside all week with the flu...so you only get more photos of my view....

I still can't get over the difference from all my past home windows, which usually looked out on nature at ground level......

And your food shot for this week is one dinner that Dave made me to speed on recovery....

If you know Dave, this gigantic amount of lasagna he made for only us two will not surprise you greatly......

A week of Music...

2010-08-15T07:02:00.000-07:00

We went back to Babette restaurant (Las Herras y Billinghurst) Saturday night...and this time all the tables were reserved but one (thank goodness)..again great music and this time lots of audience participation....what a fun evening!

Even a conga line at the end....

I loved this guy's look....

But the music this week that knocked my socks off was by Federico Fico de Castro...I first met him as a tango teacher at Hostel Sol several months ago....Dave and I went back last Monday for a class and afterwards spent some time with him...He hasn't been teaching tango long, but has played music all his life, makes his main living playing at some of the big old tango clubs in town...also has done jazz, rock n roll.....he talked of his new project of using multiple looping, and invited us to his second preformance using this technique....note the board with 8 pedals at his feet....he kept adding lines and it was truly amazing....I made a video and have been stymied by trying to download it, even tried first loading it to youtube....but finally gave up....you will just have to imagine it till I can master videos.....

We have spent much time this week in our apartment due to the cold windy weather....but the views entertain nicely.....I spied these guys on the 15th floor on the next building...what a job!

the top floor of the building in the foreground intrigues me ....There appears to be some sort of workshop on the left and the elevator shaft on the right.....

Your food shot for this week is lunch at the Museo de Arte Decorativo....great food and service...in the foreground is a mild chicken curry inside a puff pastry , great onion soup on the side, and wild mushroom risotto in the back...yumm!!
mushroomrisotto in the back.....

Lujan Argentina...

2010-08-08T05:48:00.000-07:00

The first thing you see from miles away entering Lujan is the huge church....and the woman in this picture is not kneeling in prayer, but traveling down the length of the church on her knees....

Religious tourism is the big thing here, with several blocks of stalls hawking all sorts of glow in the dark Madonnas ...

The main alter of the church decked out with Argentine banners in celebration of the Bi Centennial...

Behind the main alter was another chapel....

My preference was the Museo Municipal de Belles Artes of Lujan, which had a great showing of 4 Buenos Aires artists (Boim, Ajler, Menza, and Destefanis)....

Instead of your regular food shot for this week, you get the whole restaurant! We found this place across the street from our new apartment (Babette Restaurante, Las Heras y Bustamente)....besides great simple food, there is music every Saturday night with all the locals dancing and carrying on.....

Teatro Colon and a Polo resort....

2010-08-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

For Dave's birthday, we got tickets for an opera at Teatro Colon....just reopened after years of restoration work....billed as second only to the opera house La Scala in Milan....

After all that elegance, we decided we needed some nature and wide open spaces to contemplate it all, so we cashed in Dave's coupon he won at a silent auction for a day and night at a polo resort an hour out of Buenos Aires....

The resort was a bit of a disappointment for me....the food and room and drinks were great, but I had pictured myself galloping around on the polo fields, maybe whacking a ball or two, mingling with polo folks....instead one was only allowed to slowly WALK older horses around the perimeter of the polo fields....

...and despite the place being filled with families on winter break, the only person that would engage in conversation with us was this little girl....

Besides her, the other thing we loved was all the squawking coming from the giant parrot nests in the eucalyptus trees around the place....

Your art pic for this week is a teaser for next week's blog entry of our time in the nearest town to the resort, Lujan...Alejandro Boim and three other artists had a great show at the Lujan Museo de Belles Artes

And for your food pic, Dave's birthday meal of a typical parilla plate.... barbecued steak, pork, chicken, sausages and other assorted meat served with lemon and chimichuri sauce, kept warm over a brazier. I wish this pic was scratch and sniff for you....

A week of bird's eye views....

2010-07-25T05:02:00.000-07:00

From our new balcony:

The view out our kitchen window with the river and Uruguay on the horizon....

Back towards city center...

The old hospital grounds across the street:

Uptown:

Down Las Heras calle:

We did finally leave our new view and visited friends Robin and Eric's apartment view above Recoleta Cemetery:

We also got out to see the Mapplethorpe exhibit at MALBA...

And had lunch at MALBA's fancy restaurant ....this was a small starter taste of shrimp au gratin....

That night, I had a "submarino" (hot milk served with a rich bar of chocolate that one mixes in) at a fancy coffee bar near our new place....One big screen TV had sports on, and another had fashion ....so everyone was entertained.

Our new view!

2010-07-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

In between packing to move to our new apartment "up town," we managed to squeeze in a trip to the city museum in Montserrat....these great cars were in the old toy section.....

Dave wanted to see the last world cup futbal game at a Holland bar he found, so we went a couple of hours early to get a good seat...but we were way too late! this is the scene outside the pub, complete with TV crews and lots of people in strange orange costumes...

Friends Robin and Eric from Canada were down to visit BA again and inspired us to do a night on the town...We finally got to go to Torquato Tasso for a show....we had gone several times before to find shows sold out....we got to see a great double billing, with Mariano Otero's jazz group to start it off. He is a wild base player, also head of the Jazz music department in Rosario...

Sexteto Mayor followed..what amazing tango music! and the two very old violin players were my favorites...

But the star by far of this week is the first night's view from our new apartment! the apartment is pretty tiny, but the balcony makes up for it...we are on the top of the building, 15th floor....I have never lived above the second floor in my life!

To celebrate, we went out to dinner with friends Mike and Alicia despite 0 degrees Celsius (it even snowed the next day in parts of Buenos Aires Providence) !

This was a return trip for all of us to family run Dobar Tek (San Juan and Bolivar in San Telmo), and it was just as yummy and hearty as the first time. Great rich Croatian food, with all kinds of home made streussels, sauerkraut and sausages.....The family closes this restaurant in the hot weather and opens up their Patagonia place so try it before summer.

A week of Architecture and Art

2010-07-11T05:48:00.000-07:00

In our search for our next apartment, we have been spending some time in the Congreso barrio...what great architecture it has!

We have gawked at the building behind the red cupula for quite some time, and decided to investigate...

this is the back entrance!

And this is the main lobby. Turns out it is the Palaco Barolo, now home of the facility of Architecture and Urban Design of the city....a fitting match I would say.

This is a church on Defensa right near our old apartment ....that's Christopher Columbus on the lower left.

Here are some building details from around town....

Now for Art....every year Buenos Aires hosts a huge exhibition of the top gallery's art with more sales happening in that week than the rest of the year combined (ArteBA). Last week I showed you the "best of show." These charcoal drawings were my second pick.

But my favorite place to see art is still Central Cultural Recoletta....they always have a great mix of up and coming plus established artists. This first piece is three dimensional, layers of photos and paint.

The other great thing about Central Cultural Recoletta is that the place is huge, with lots of rooms, so each artist gets a lot of space for display...

Food shot for this week: Forget the fancy restaurants! nothing beats a barbecue on the 4th of July! Friend Kevin invited us out to his country place for asado on the grill to celebrate with other Yankees.

a week of ART (and futbal too, of course)

2010-07-05T02:30:00.000-07:00

I know I usually end posts with my favorite food shot of the week, but last night, I had the BEST and most amazingly artful meal of my life! So I am starting off with small restaurant, Aramburu I found on line in the Oleo restaurant guide. It turned out to be just 4 blocks away from our apartment in Montserrat. The menu for the night was "samplers," 10 small courses, each one more surprising than the last.....

First course: The small glasses had "hot and cold" soup...(the top was a warm squash soup, with cold mandarine splash in the bottom)... The bent spoons held two kinds of pate, duck and beef. The rock on the left held different shaped chips of mandioca with pimento de murcia cream in the cone shaped ones.

Second: A "breakfast course of poached egg in an amazing sauce, with mini hash browns, ristreto and bits of ham "parma," accompanied by a mini toast and jelly sandwich...

course 3: It was so amazing, I forgot to take a picture! Rabbit cooked basque style for 8 hours at a very low temperature, with pine essence and other amazing stuff that I can't remember 'cause I don't have the pic to jolt my brain....

course 4: "Salad of the sea," bits of salmon and other seafood in grapefruit rosado, toped with sea foam...

course 5: this plate was making all sorts of sounds when it was delivered...turns out there was a blazing hot rock on the plate that sizzled the langostinos in Sauvignon sauce to prefection.

course 6: Black Merluza fish from Patagonia waters ....

Course 7: the pork course with a fruit sauce

Course 8: The asado course...one of the best bites of tenderloin I have ever had , accompanied by sweatbreads, a strong garlic roll, grilled vegatables..

Course 9: the first desert....

Course 10: the second desert....(the crumbled bits were super cold (done with dry ice?) pistachio

And a bonus course of spun sugar with frost of cardamom, homemade marshmallow on a stick, and a chocolate drop to finish ....

Here is the staff of Aramburu (since they were so creative with my meal, I decided to take creative liberties with their photo)....I hope you can visit soon....email me and I will go too!

Where the passion has been this week is Futbal!!! Dave watched the German England game with limey friend Daniel at the Sugar Bar (that's the Germans in front...they wooped England)

And we watched Argentina tromp Mexico at Nuevo Gogy (that's our favorite waiter on the right getting ready to jump across the room)

In finale, is my pick of the best showing at ARTEBA2010, the yearly presentation by the best art galleries in Buenos Aires. Reportedly, they sell more art here than in the rest of the year combined. Nicola Constintino's project lasted more than 9 months, from finding out she was pregnant, to delivery of the baby. After she found she was pregnant, she made an exact replica of herself with moving parts.... made a movie and still shots....truly amazing...google her up to see more (and excuse my poor photo with light reflections off the glass)

can you tell which is the artificial nicola?

Winter in Buenos Aires....

2010-06-26T03:22:00.000-07:00

The trees are now bear, days of thunder, lightning and downpour, and i have even worn my longjohns a few days....the winter blas hit me and I watch far too much TV... but then the sun comes out and I continue apartment hunting. This time we are setting our sights higher, holding out for a place with a view, lots of space, fully furnished, for under $1,000 a month all utilities included......

This place had great views and three balconies, but no furniture or utilities.....

This place also had a terrace to use full of cages of parakeets a flight up on the roof , but the apartment was really small...

The outdoor drawing class had already left for the park when I finally arrived....I never found the class, but I did find these remote controlled sail boats, and an exhibition of installations at Palace de Glace that was outrageous!...one of the prize winners was a TV setting on a stand....with an artist working in his studio on the screen....I walked up and the artist looked up and waved at me, and held up a sign saying hola! we talked for a while.....

The singer in the hat is our new friend Mickey, who had a show at jazz club Notorious celebrating his 75th birthday, not only did he have a great voice, but he sang some old haunting ballads that I had never heard before....

and this is just a little shot of a subway detail....

and this is just a detail of a pastel I did in life drawing class....I gave it to the model cause she wanted to use it as her face photo on Facebook.....

Prosciutto on Salta and Venezuela wins my food photo again this week with their Pollo Relleno con Camerones...delicioso!

Back in BA.....

2010-06-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

We got back from Salta just in time for the week of celebrations for Argentina's Bi Centennial...The star of the shows was The Colon Opera House, just opened after 4 years of stalled renovations. I can't wait to get inside this building!
The main biggest street in BA, 9th del Julio, was closed to most traffic for more than 10 days, with bandstands, exhibits, and parades with a 12 block long flag of Argentina! The Immigrant parade was amazing...groups and bands from almost every country in the world costumed up and dancing down the streets...but what was with the USofA not having any entry? Was the US embassy too paranoid about terrorism, or booing, or what? anybody out there know?

A great hour long program of the history of Argentina was projected onto Teatro Colon...

After the Bi Centennial, we started the search for our next apartment, hopefully in a new barrio, and high up with a view....something in this building would be nice.....

This week's art shot is this pop out picture of restaurant Empire Thai, owned by friend Kevin...

Along with very artistic puppets from the Puppet Museum in San Telmo

We tried a new Japanese restaurant that had amazing decor...but mediocre food....

So this week's food shot goes to our old Montserrat neighborhood standby, Prosciutto. Broiled Merluza white fish in an almond sauce, and brochettes of shrimp, both served with a great rice concoction and calamata olive bread.....

Last days in Salta.....

2010-06-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Bi Centennial celebrations are gearing up all over Argentina, and Salta had a mini parade around the plaza the last day we were there (and I have no idea what these costumes were all about).........

We stumbled onto this church dripping with decoration (the white drapes above the doors are carved out of marble)....

The architect seemed to like combining many styles...

Here is the only graffiti I saw in Salta, and it's on a wall across from an art school....

Our last night in Salta was a gallery walk night...this was Dave's favorite piece..

And this was mine......

For our last meal in Salta, Dave had his favorite lentils, and I had a lamb stew with homemade potatoe chips on top......

Salta

2010-06-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

We took the 4 hour trip from Tucuman north up to Salta...lots of this kind of land on the way....then, we start seeing signs of green and civilization....

There was a tram car right near our hostel that gave us a view of the whole city....

But my favorite shot from the tram was right before we got back down, peeking into people's back yards, yes yards! (Buenos Aires doesn't have too many...)

Salta architecture is different too...much more Spanish influence (Buenos Aires seems to have mainly Italian influence)...Spain's big dream of finding riches and establishing themselves in the "new world," didn't seem to get as far south as BA...

We spent quite some time in the main square of Salta...it truly is the center of town...

We also spent time near our hostel, which was more off the tourist track..with great neighborhood restaurants and parks full of folks into the night...

Dave got this girl to pose by buying her candies....

At the big modern art museum on the main plaza, we found an exhibit of Silvio Fischbein, a Buenos Aires artist. We had seen one of his pieces before, at Palace de Glace, but this time we got to see a whole room full of his stuff....if you look closely, you will see that he mainly uses millions of plastic tiny baby dolls....all different colors...

My favorite was this free standing piece, with stacks of old books and baby dolls sleeping between the pages...

I wish I could remember what this is I am cutting into!...I know there was lamb in the center of this big brown ball, and I know it was delicious...note the sauce containers...most restaurants up north serve at least two sauces with each meal, a green one and a hot red one...usually made on site...we filled our suitcases with pop bottles full of the ones we especially liked and were able to buy....Buenos Aires has many of the things I love, but no hot sauce except sometimes a bottle of Tabasco.....

The Ruins of Quilmes, and Hector Cruz.....

2010-05-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

The Quilmes Indians were the longest hold outs to the Spanish, hanging in there for 30 years before they gave up and were marched down to BA provience.....

the huge maze of connecting stone foundations went on up the hillside....

Several families would live in one foundation, with roofs of cane around the edges and an open courtyard for working in the center....as we went up the hill, the dwellings became more elaborate and smaller...for the head honchos ...

And here is an example of their main source of food, milk, clothing, hauling, and music (they made flutes out of the bones)......you can see the nursing baby's feet in back of mom....

The biggest surprise of the day was on the road back to Tucuman...This amazing place was built by artist Hector Cruz....it went on and on, with a museum, gallery spaces for his work, and all these courtyards.....

he had piles of rock of every color and texture laying around, that he used for all the designs....

He has had some of his designs woven into tapestries for sale like this one....

Our guide talked of a huge controversy between this guy and the Quilmes Indians...Back in 1992, Cruz got a ten year concession for $110.00 at the Quilmes ruins site, and was supposed to pay the Indians a percentage of the profits. He built a big hotel and ran it, without paying a dime to the Indians up until 2007, when the Indians were finally able to eject him. He still lives and works at the above museum site, with bitter feelings flying around...if there is not another side to the story, I have such a hard time imagining such a "bad guy" making such beautiful art.......

And your food shot from Tucuman for this week is special! I had a great tamale and corn muffins in the foreground, and dave had mashed potatoes, cheese tart, and a llama steak....he described it as similar to venison back strap without the gaminess, with a hint of sweet.......

Tucuman turismo

2010-05-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

I had read that Tucuman had some great archecture, and it lived up to the review....

There two buildings are on the main town square .....

Unlike Buenos Aires, most of the city is only two stories high....

we walked all over the city the first day, and took a break in the big town park designed by Carl Thies...what are those things on this tree?

I know what these things are...we saw a net work of little paths all through the park, and when we looked closer, the paths had been made by millions of red ants ....

We signed on to an outing to see the ruins of Quilmes, and on the way, our guide asked if we wanted to see "the phallic rocks"...of course we said yes....these carved rocks had been found all over the area and put in this little park to stop the theivery...some were combinations of penises and female genitals....and some had symbols ......no one seems to know for sure what they were all about....

We saw lots of horses and carts in Tucuman, but in the little town with the penis park, horses roamed freely all through town.....

But my favorite town by far that is near Tucuman is Termas de Rio Honda, south of Tucuman..this town has hot springs all through it, with every house having hot water, and lots of public pools of different temperatures...I found this statue on top of the oldest hotel in town, Hotel Roma......

And we paid three dollars to spend as long as we wanted in these public pools down by the river...there must have been 10 or more pools, all of different temperatures, with different amusements at each one...dave is lounging in the hotest one he could find.

Another favorite thing we did in tucuman was eat! and eat hot spicy amazing food! Tucumaians are very proud of their peppers and chilis, and tamales, and locro.....

next week, the Quilmes ruins and Salta.....

The Tucuman Train

2010-05-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

The train from Buenos Aires up North to Tucuman has been shut down for over 20 years, but a month ago it got going again, and that convinced me it was time to explore the north country...

The train cars were built in 1990, in Cordorba, Argentina by Fiat...Some of the details reminded me of European art deco, Hercule Poirot style...

We rented a private room, but spent much time in the dining car...and unlike American trains, the food was very fancy... and cheap...dinner was pollo relleno, chicken pounded out and rolled around a vegetable and egg filling.

For an hour or so, leaving Buenos Aires, the view was of great graffitti on high concrete walls ...

Then the view opened up to vast soy fields and pasture land...and as we approached Tucuman, sugar cane, orange and lemon trees took over...

As we got farther north, closer to Bolivia and Brazil, the folks at the stations along the way had more and more indio/spanish features...we began to see more horses...horses pulling carts.. there was home made breads and goat and sheep cheeses in big rounds, and more gaucho hats and baggy pants...

homes got simpler, with no surrounding concrete walls....

Here's our little room after the beds were pulled down...the 26 hour trip with private room costs 400 pesos for both of us ($100), and I loved the whole adventure ..For Dave, however, the click click of the train going over the rail connections kept waking him up, so he was not quite ready to sign up for another go.

Here's to more journeys and adventures....

Planning an adventure....

2010-05-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

I have had a case of the fall dull-drums....and my favorite cure has always been to plan another trip..so Monday we head for the North of Argentina...on a recently reinstated old train to Tucuman...the listing says it is a 25 hour ride, but Porteno friends roll their eyes and hope we get there in 40 (trains have a bad reputation down here). We booked a sleeper car, and will bring lots of books and lots of wine in case there are delays..

It's getting dark much earlier now, and my inner clock tells me its time for dinner at 7 or 8....but everyone else in the city still doesn't go out till past 9...we do get excellent service this way..

We tried to find a small concert being held in a private old historic home, but the concert turned out to be "private." This building being restored was across the street...

Your art for this week is a big wall mural in friend Kevin's restaurant, Empire Thai.....

That's all for this slow dark week, but much more coming up next week!

The Circus has come to town...and not just one!

2010-05-02T06:16:00.000-07:00

Buenos Aires has always been big on circus...with schools all over the city...and for the next week, circuses from all over the world have come to BA to show their stuff...There are performances all over the city, but this park is the setting for most of the events, with 4 giant tents and a huge metal dome for trapise...

If you are in BA, look up the schedule on the Buenos Aires gov tourism site to get the complete schedule...we went to two performances so far....And our favorite hands down was Loft, by The Seven Fingers of the Hand, a Montreal group...

.Some of the audience enters through the refrigerator on the stage set (above), the underwear clad cast distributes snacks to the audience, and,besides being a very quirky funny show, the circus feats they preform are truly amazing....

My spanish teacher and Dave both believe they were dogs in their former lives....

I believe I was a tree...

I went back to the museum of Xul Solar for a guided tour this week ...He worked with Paul Klee and Kandinski for years before coming back to Argentina and holing up in a family building, making lots of fantastical art....hanging out with Jorge Borges....developed two languages/games/music that were linked to the cabala, astrogology, sanscript ....he was out there...

But the art work of this last week that I like the best are these horses that Dave has been blistering his hands making....they are for a benefit luncheon to get school supplies for poor kids, held at the Polo Club....

Sorry there are no food shots this week...my best meal was a beautiful lunch at our favorite Japanese restaurant on Independenca in San Telmo, but I ate it all before I remembered to snap a shot! Besos to all, Jamye

Fall Fashion in B.A.

2010-04-26T11:39:00.000-07:00

All the girls have pulled on their boots now with the cool weather....Dave has been enthralled with the healthy look of all the young college students that stream by his neighborhood hangout...he thought this was a great example.....

And here is my favorite!....this girl boarded the subway with all her giggling friends...was it street theater? did she loose a bet? no, it turns out that throwing eggs and flour all over a person is a tradition here for when a person graduates from school! this girl just graduated in accounting.

When the rain stopped, Dave and I went for an architecture walk...

Dave had been raving about the next building on Calle Sarmiento for a week, and wanted me to see it(he dreams of renovating it with some friends)...it appears to be abondoned now, but used to house the Society for the Italian Opera....

here's another view of the same building..I think it would entail a bit more effort to make homey than I am up to right now....

Due to rain, my landscape drawing group met inside Retiro train station this week...that's Professor Carlos on the right....

And here are some of our drawings ...

Half a block from our house, some people did make the plunge and renovated a wreck of a big building. Alma del Plata Hotel, Santiago del Estero 727, just opened and the restaurant has become our favorite. The two chefs are from Northern Argentina, and the food is carefully prepared and a fusion of many cultures.

I had chicken breast rolled and seared in a mild curry like coating, served with a cous cous to die for. Dave had a bowl of braised goat, then simmered with tomatoes/onion/garlic, accompanied with a side bowl of creamed corn oven finished with provolone...fantastic and less than 10 dollars each.. Every time we have gone there, we are the only customers...so if you are in BA, give this restaurant a try (so we keep our local favorite alive0.

Nora Sarmoria and RAIN

2010-04-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

Before friend Peter went back to the Isle of Mann, he took me to a back door jazz place in Belgrano (Casa Pedraza) that I had been wanting to check out...we arrived at 9:30 when the music was scheduled...were getting ready to leave at 10:45 cause still no music, when Nora Sarmoria's group finally filled the small living room..and I am so glad we stayed! Her compositions are complex, lilting and just plan great...check out her web site to find out where she is playing around town....

That's Nora in the center at the piano.....

Peter left and the rain and cold came....fall in BA.... no more cafe society! (tears trickling down ....mournful jazz in background)

what to do on a rainy day? Dave and I decided it was time to take care of unfinished business and headed down to the Immigration office and have another stab and getting our DNI expedited...Dave looked up and spotted where our paperwork is probably nestled....

This month the Museo de Sivori in Lagos Palermo park has a "don't miss" exhibit of paintings, drawings and sculpture put on by the City of Buenos Aires....the scope and skill is truly amazing...I had tears in my eyes in front of several pieces, they were that good....one of the best exhibitions I have seen here...

Before Peter left, he took us to a restaurant he had heard about in barrio Bodeo, Pan y Teatro, Las Casas 4095...it used to be a flea market, then art studio and bakery/theater, but now its devoted to great northern Argentine cuisine...

the stuff in the crockery bowl was a rabbit/polenta/squash casserole that was rich and sweet and spicy... and the pastry wrapped lamb was fantastic too...

After the rains came, I had a hankering for comfort pizza and we returned to the very first restaurant we ever ate in in Buenos Aires, Senior Telmo on Defensa...They have a great thin crackly crust in the "piedras" style....

Here's to surviving fall in comfort...

Horses on the streets!

2010-04-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

Argentina has a long tradition of being "horsey".....here's a great old tile mural I found in one of the older subways

but its not just in bygone days that horses galloped the streets of BA...this week saw hundreds of horses racing around for the Bi Centennial horse exhibition/auction/contests....

Horsey folks came in from all over....this truck is painted in traditional "fileteado" designs...

here's the front of the same truck....

Friend Peter from the Isle of Mann came and stayed with us a few days this week.....

returning in time to go with us to the Australian Embassy fund raising cocktail party....we didn't win the door prize of two flights to Aucland, but did get to hob nob with fancy folks and eat amazing little fancy nibbles...

We also took Peter to an art opening of Ignacio Delucca's new paintings...we had seen his work before...very powerful abstract stuff, but his new works are quite different-light and lyrical ...inspired from his homeland in Misiones, up in the northern jungle of Argentina, full of animals and amazing plants...

Your food shot for this week is a great gazpachio I found in a small Spanish restaurant a few blocks away from our place in Montserrat....the topping is their house speciality...a calamari cervechi....the perfect light lunch on a hot day, recouperating from so many champagne parties this week....

Eats and Art....

2010-04-03T07:11:00.000-07:00

I wanted to plan something special for the last night of the relative's visit to BA, and since they are big "foodies," I looked in the Guia Oleo (a restaurant review site for Buenos Aires) and picked the top ranked restaurant, Casa Coupage. It's a small private dinner house, beautiful setting, with impeccable service and surprising taste combinations.....in between courses, the owner talked of different wine bouquets...passed around scent bottles from France, asking us to guess what each one was....a thoroughly enjoyable evening on the "fancy" side....

Before their flight back home Sunday morn, sister mentioned regretting not seeing any tango, so we went down to San Telmo's Plaza Dorego and watched some pros....

Dave and I often go to Los Arboles on Plaza Dorego to hear great free jazz (with envelopes left on the tables for tips), and we usually see Senior Martini there...a great man who seems to know everyone that walks through the door...he has amazing stories about musicians and artists and a gigantic heart...

Enough partying, it's time to get back to work!....Dave continues to chisel away at his big stone on the Plaza of Central Cultural Recoletta...

but I decided my tiny stone woman was done.....enough chiseling for me...

I am back in a plein air drawing group through the extension courses at UBA...

and trying to go at least twice a week to Association Estimulo de Belles Artes for figure drawing...

and we always make time to eat well in this town...

On being a tour guide for six days in Buenos Aires.....

2010-03-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

I now have a new great appreciation for tour guides....Sister, brother in law, and niece came for their first trip to Buenos Aires for 6 days only. I had a great time researching all the things I wanted to show them, made lots of lists, time tables and calendars. I thought I had it all figured out, except some things turned out to be closed, or I hadn't figured in transport times, or how tired our feet or brains got, or contingency plans for the one day it rained....Here are some of the highlights of last week:

The double decker tour bus leaves from Florida and Avenida Roque Saenz Pena every hour. You can get off and back on at stops all over the city. I thought this might be boring for me because I had walked all the areas it covered, but being high up and not having to watch your step gave a whole new perspective, as did the audio guide, in the language of your choice. Be sure and check out how well your head set works before the tour starts as some had bad connections.

;

The Recoletta Cemetery-again, I had spent lots of time here before, but it is so varied and vast that I was again wowed.. an encapsulated mish mash of architecture, sculpture and history... It's like peeking into people's living rooms at times....each plot tells a different story...

Some are fancy, some filled with decorations and paraphernalia, others long neglected...

We took a bus ride out to Temaiken, a bio reserve that was far more amazing than I thought it would be...Tuesdays its half price (25 pesos). Each area was more spectacular than the last...(I thought this guy's knees were pretty cool)

But the best thing of last week was a night at The Pale Blue Door. London set designer Tony Hornecker

and his crew came into town a month ago and set up an amazing unique space in an abandoned San Telmo old mansion, gave us a great meal and outrageous entertainment....they served some of the food via buckets on a rope and pulley system....

and the featured entertainer had multiple costume changes, danced like crazy and got the whole restaurant doing greek dancing by the end....The group just left Buenos Aires and will set up new dinners in Toyko, Berlin, New York, and maybe your town...check it out via Tony Hornecker or The Pale Blue Door web searches.

Art shot for this week is of a three D painting I was captivated with in one of the galleries on Esmerelda street...

And your food shot for the week was taken in a Chinese restaurant near the British Ambassador's residence at a luncheon of rowdy expats....

Our new digs in Montserrat, Buenos Aires

2010-03-19T17:46:00.000-07:00

New friends Tony and Umberto bought this 100 year old apartment a few years ago, and have been fixing it up ever since. They just finished the remodeling and were kind enough to rent it to us for the six months they will spend in their other home in Costa Rica. Pretty fancy for us Oregon bohemians, but we are adjusting....

I think Dave's almost finished sculpture finally has the right setting. He has been hauling this piece around for more years than I have known him. He has strapped it on the back of motorcycles... and when he decided to bring it down here, I thought for sure the airlines or customs would not allow it. He wrapped it up with his golf clubs in white plastic and tied the whole thing with lots of rope. It really did look just like an Egyptian mummy... it was the talk of every airport we lugged it through. and even brought smiles to the customs agents.

Dave is in heaven with this fancy kitchen....

Here's the evening view down to our street. this particular building, probably 30 years older than where we live, has these strange, not gargoyle, things sitting on the balcony rails. better picture of those guys later. but, the rain that falls on the balconies runs down to the street through little critters that seem to be beagle puppies. i'm just going to have to get closer. when the doors, windows are open, it seems that the ceilings are 18 - 20 feet tall. yes, i'd live there, but, we do have 1500 feet to wander around in here, and, did you look at the photo of the kitchen? nuff sed

and the apartment across from us

There are six apartments in the building, and everyone has use of the roof top terrace...Here is a shot from the terrace looking down on the places in the interior of the block next to ours....Montserrat is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buenos Aires, and over the years, people have added on apartments in what used to be their interior courtyards, making interesting hodgepodges of dwellings...

and a bigger view from the roof...

And here's your food shot of the week...our favorite new neighborhood restaurant..."Prosciutto," on the corner of Salta and Venezuela...great Italian food, and as the name implies, famous for their many varieties of Prosciutto..you can see them all hanging over the bar...

And last of all, your art for the week...a painting I just finished that I have been working on, off and on, for over a year....based on photos of friends...note that it is painted on a fine reed window shade so it can be rolled up...in the tradition of Japanese scrolls....

The end of our adventure...

2010-03-12T05:17:00.000-08:00

Every coffee table book of Argentina includes a pic of Mount Fitz Roy in Chalten right near Calafate, so I will too (especially as it took me 3 days to get it due to obscuring clouds and rain)..

Time to head home...We passed through tourist haven Bariloche on the way back north, with Dave's nose for great bars finding this little hip hostel (Hostel Patanuk) on the lake shore tucked between the high rise hotels....

From Bariloche, we took our first plane ride of the trip... I am kinda proud of going the overland way for most of this journey...Paul Theroux's sentiments regarding a slow approach to destinations does hold true (although I did whine a bit after a 12 hour bus ride or two).

Here's the lake of Bariloche with the Andes and Chile fading in the distance...

and bam! after the lake ...flat brown for miles. But brown is so boring I had to tweak colors just a bit..

so after an hour of brown, we came into Perito Moreno and Los Antiguos...

They have water from a big lake that is channeled to each farm plot...the area is famous for its fruits and berries, and every plot was surrounded by Lombardy poplars to cut down the constant WIND..

We liked hanging out in Los Antiguos after all the glitz of Bariloche and Calafate..People seemed to have a good time doing their thing without alot of tourists to cater to.

And they had great carefully prepared food too.

Guachito Gil

2010-03-07T05:12:00.000-08:00

I kept noticing tiny little shrine-like buildings along the roadways down south and figured they were honoring people who had died there in auto accidents....

But then I started noting that some were painted red and had red flags ...some had piles of bottles, other strange stuff piled around them. So I started asking locals I met and found that these red places were all about Guachito Gil (Cowboy Bob?)...Each person I asked seemed to have a different story about who Guachito Gil was....a young boy who was studying to be a priest and got killed trying to save a child, a young cowboy who got killed by a jealous husband..a pious cowboy who is a saint now and grants cures and wishes....One very fashionable woman sniffed and said all that Guachito Gil stuff was superstitious and she didn't like it one little bit (too pagan for her?). For little ole me raised watered down Presbyterian, it all seemed spooky, strange, and quite touching....all the thought put into these little spots in the wilderness.

I still don't get the cigerettes, coke, full bottles of wine, etc....are they offerings or a tradeoff? "I will quit drinking coke and smoking cigerettes if you grant me this wish"?

If anyone out there knows more about Guachito Gil, adds some comments please!

The Food of Patagonia...

2010-02-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

OK, I know I said in the past that I would try to have one food pic in each entry, but I got so wrapped up in other aspects of Patagonia that I lapsed....however, now you get a WHOLE entry devoted to the food of Patagonia...And it is well deserved...Fresh lamb, finely grilled or smoked deer and wild pig that is Fantastic! smoked and fresh trout and salmon...All sorts of berry compotes and glazes..... of course we had many " ho hum" meals, but I think there is a truism that in places where there are many months of cold, lonely/no tourists in site, no work except keeping the fires going, people develop their creative cooking skills to a higher level.

My favorite place was this woman's little restaurant in Puerto Deseado...no menus, she only had the special of the day...amazing stews, pork with homemade spetzel, and, as usual down south, too much of everything.

This guy used to be a famous singer in Buenos Aires...now he and generations of family run a great little place in Puerto Deseado

A simple pizza and fettucini with wild pig

And here we are accompanied by Oregon friends Denny and Annie in Calafate's most recommended Parilla... The next shot is of my plate of lamb...amazingly tender and delicate considering how large the chop was..maybe they should have called it sheep?

It was Cherry harvest time while we were down south...a nice way to end a meal or a post!

Los Glaciares National Park- Calafate

2010-02-21T09:38:00.000-08:00

One of the main reasons for our six week tour of Patagonia (besides avoiding the sultry Buenos Aires heat of December/January) was to use our three night stay at a fancy Calafate hotel (Hotel Kosten Aike). Dave won our stay at a silent auction at the charity ball at the British embassador's residence ( 400 people ) last spring, and from the champagne welcome to the phones in the shower, this place was indeed luxurious. After lots of bus travel and trudging our rolling suitcases over cobble stoned little towns, Calafate was like arriving in Vegas after crossing the desert on mule back. Lots of European 20 year olds, fit and outfitted to the max in the latest climbing gear....Calafate is the gateway point of lots of major trekking in the Andes, both the Argentina and Chile sides...We met up with Oregon friends Denny and Annie and had some great fancy food, spent much time at outdoor cafes, and instead of trekking off into the sunset, rented an airconditioned car and rode out to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. Los Glaciares National Park has been designated by UNESCOas a World Heritage Site and I can see why...This glacier is the only one in the world any more that is advancing .....- approximately 3 inches per hour - The size of it is truly overwhelming, along with the SOUNDS when ice breaks off and plummets into the lake. for an additional thrill, google earth for the patagonian ice fieldwith a dozen glaciers moving out from it. a journey for the younger and tougher.

I took this shot from a cruise boat that got right up close...I couldn't get over the color . The ice is swimming pool blue. A guide said that eons of compression drives the oxygen out of the ice. Lack of oxygen somehow effects how light rays are perceived....the more blue it is, the older it is.

this cavern is formed by the slight current between the two lakes, actually one lake, until the ices blocks it. then one half, with a larger feed system starts forcing a channel through, under, the glacial block.

Right in the middle of this pic is where the glacier meets the land and keeps breaking off...sometimes forming a bridge that then collapses..

And this is my favorite arty pic of rock (and what amazing colors of rock!) halting that slow glowing flow of blue glacier ice....

Puerto Deseado...off the tourist trail....

2010-02-13T04:54:00.000-08:00

now, for some ocean and river stuff. puerto deseado, home to the huge ships of the calamari and langostino capturing industry. one of our primary reasons for the visit was eating some of same, fresh and lots of it. not a tourist place at all, not many hotels, restaurants, but a pretty brisk excursion business via boat for dolphin, penguin, and, sometimes, killer whale watching. it's just a couple hours from more touristy zones, and , yes it's pretty cold, and we are getting more south all the time. the best fresh fish restaurant in town looks out on this not so spectacular residential scenery.

of course, it did have some moments of architectural uniquity

But the very best, most wonderous thing to do in Puerto Deseado is to go on a pontoon boat up the river. The place is teeming with wildlife...dolphins chased the boat...we saw two kinds of cormorants, South American Sea Lions...

and thousands of these guys, not at all people shy, as they get visited by a good hundred humans daily

A young french illustrator, with drawings and subjects all in one photo

this is the one that jamye danced with for half an hour. and back at the dock, a representative of the local tourist bureau greeted us.

This little town is definetly trying to be tourist friendly... I kinda hope it stays small and quirky...

Esquel, Piedra Parada and the Canyon de las Biutreras

2010-02-07T05:20:00.000-08:00

Esquel is south of El Bolson and the Lakes District, still at the edge of the Andes.

It's a hub for Chubut Province business and tourism, so seemed a bit more worldly than other neighboring towns we passed through. Dave got real excited when he heard there was a huge rock out east of town in the middle of the pampa. There were no buses that went there, but he found a guide with a car....After two hours of driving on a bone racking gravel road across a very barren, flat, gravel plane of nothingness, here is what we found:

so, this is the place called Piedra Parada; literally, rock stop. it's maybe 200 ft. through and 500ft. tall. Apparently, it was a cooled hunk of lava that suddenly burst through due to internal pressure and a weakening of the surrounding rock. so, instead of rock stop, maybe rock plug is closer. This was kind of impressive, but only shrunk in comparison to the next batch o' geology.

We got to hike and marvel in Canyon de las Biutreras, about a mile from the rock.

that's probably me, part way up one of the narrow draws. all of these strong and sudden formations bespeak geology at it's most unbelievable suddenness. it seems as if all of this exploded from the center of the earth at once. cultural history made it a perfect weather and game trapping spot for the original Indians.

this particularly large protected opening has been the site of ongoing archaeological digs. lots of bone tools and flutes, plus remnants of basket weaving and cured hide clothing and shelters.

took a hundred or more photos, will go back here again some day for a thousand more.

although this is a federal protection zone," no cussin', no spittin', no campin,'" there are two areas where rock climbing enthusiasts are allowed. the little tiny white dot in the lower quarter of the center photo is of a guy, very slowly moving up. click on the photo to see him bigger..

and here we are, feeling very small.

Over to the Atlantic...Playa Union, Puerto Rawson, and Trelew

2010-02-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

I apologize for not keeping to my schedule of a post every Sunday due to lap top explosion three weeks ago while on the road. But we are back in Buenos Aires now, settled into a new barrio and a new apartment, with a computer up and running.

Our 6 week tramp around Patagonia reinforced my belief of "good travel" .

The touted tourist destination towns and attractions are indeed easier to navigate, with better service structure (taxi's and ATM's and English understood). The researched and planned trip, reservations made, does make for more relaxing, less harried travel. For me,though, the most memorable and thought provoking are the towns, people, restaurants and sights off the tourist path, the unplanned event, the times when one is stranded and stymied and has to work out the next step.

We had scheduled the first 20 days of our trip pretty tight, but after the Lakes District and El Bolson we had 16 unplanned days to meander down South to Calafate. We opted to take an overnight bus back to the Atlantic coast to Playa Union ( barely mentioned in guide books), just south of Puerto Madryn. Puerto Madryn is in ALL the guide books for seeing whales and other marine marvels, but we had seen enough whales in Oregon. Playa Union turned out to be full of tourists, but mainly Argentine ones. Its a vacation beach town with a long board walk, with the Atlantic on one side and on the other, rows of tiny bungalows interspersed with restaurants and ice cream stores. I loved walking down the boardwalk in the evening, peeking into the living rooms of all the bungalows, being a voyeur of argentine vacations. That's were we saw the guy at the top of the page...he was sipping a martini, watching the people go by. When I gestured through the window asking if I could take his picture, he leaped up and came outside, told us his story, then puffed up a bit for his photo.

The town of about 1,500 full time folks seems to be doing pretty well, with lots of fancy houses going up...

And here is what the other side of the boardwalk looked like... lots of kids on their summer break, and the big group down on the sand was watching the regional team hand ball playoffs.

We found this great old dance pavilion in the bigger town of Trelew, a Welsh farming settlement, a 15 minute busride from Playa Union.

And a 20 minute walk got us to the tiny fishing port of Puerto Rawson, where the one restaurant gave us our first good seafood of the trip....

San Martin de los Andes and lots of fish!....

2010-01-11T14:46:00.000-08:00

Bariloche was a city stretched out around a great lake of about $30,000 population. It's grown fast and furiously with tourism. Our next stop, San Martin de los Andes, is a bit smaller, is a tourist town too, but sure felt better to me.... it still felt like a town, with different neighborhoods..better laid out, with the town folks putting restirctions on high raises etc. It's a town with lots of roses and gardens and stone and timber houses, and all the food we had seemed to have more care taken in preparation.... again lots of wild game and berries and great locally brewed beer...

this was just too much like Oregon, no? but there is far more variety in trees and plants due to long hard winters and less chance of one species taking over (like the variety you see in Northern Alaska). This house was right across the street from our old classic hotel, Hotel Tourismo, $30 dollars a night with breakfast.

We signed up to go fishing with these two brothers (pic below,http://www.caleufutrip.com.ar/ ) in the Lanin National Park....about an hours drive from San Martin de los Andes. This is the volcano in the park, taller than Mt. Hood.

yeah, well this is one of about forty fish caught. rainbow, brook and german brown. we were in a 12 foot pontoon boat and it was blowing a little much for heading to the middle for deep down trophy browns. trolling the shallows - with great huge wet fly streamers - was great. we pulled over in wind protscted coves and were equally succesful with dry stuff. nobody goes to this lake. There are 50 lakes and 50 miles of stream within a half hour of the city, so, why drive far?

On our drive to the park, I saw my first authentic gauchos at work..... 4 or 5 batches of cowboys and maybe 200 head movin´on up tp the high ground summer grazing.

...just another regular fish. our guide fishes some very southern argentine streams that empty through chile into the pacific with his dreams on the really big chinook. felt bad about not having some show off photos.

Dave was in heaven. jamye still caught more fish

da lake, looking towards chile, yes it´s summer and cold.

art is maybe best when it´s fun.

so, this is the red deer of south america, of course, a life size likeness, but seems to me to be a smaller elk. saw some huge racks on retaurant walls. it is also available in restaurants. some are farm raised, some hunters with special licensing shoot, process and sell to restaurants. same with the wild boar. and is that a great taste treat. on the way to the south coast for, hopefully, giant prawns and langostinos caught the same day.

Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes... Lake Tahoe like area of Argentina?

2010-01-02T14:05:00.000-08:00

Last week I got sidetracked with the amazing scenery on our bus trip from the Atlantic coast to the Andes and the Lakes District. We stayed in Bariloche in a small cabin for 6 days, then another amazing bus ride and 6 more days, including Christmas, in San Martin de los Andes. Down the hill from our cabin in Bariloche was the lake and the highway, with a bus running every 20 minutes. This year's weather has had everyone baffled, as instead of mild summer days, we had torrential rains, grand wind storms , followed by sun... all in an hour or two....

(Dave's words in italics)

this place is kind of lincoln city, pretty dressy, lots of rentals, lots of things for tourists to spend on, pretty spendy. gorgeous mountains and forests and huge deep lakes. like the high cascades except our trees are bigger and our mountains are but speed bumps along side the andes. but, moving on.

downtown bariloche, sidewalk table, 90% tourists. that doesn't mean foreigners but people from buenos aires taking their drawn out summer break in the mountains. like i intimated, good stuff ( the food ), very dressy, and a bit more expensive than it warrants. hell with it, we're vacationing too.

the classiest buildings in the city, real stone, real log construction are all government spots. the fancy hotels, restaurants etc. have the look without the constructivist detail and necessary skilled dudes. this government takes care of itself first!

the tiny cabin at the very top middle right below the ridge line was our place. little fridge, two burner gas cooker with one cubic foot oven and a view that most people would try to buy immediately. 300 feet sbove the lake, another 500 feet to snow level ( this was, after all, the first day of summer ) and about 20 kilometers from the city center. - the bus comes by every 20 min., two kilometers in each direction encompasses maybe a dozen restaurants. all for us, the bloody tourist life blood of this naturally brilliant place.

next stop, san martin de los andes, christmas eve. a capella quartet, really excellento, performing christmas tunes in the street. german, italian, english, spanish - all that they sang was in the language in which it was writ, terrific. we are on the terrace of an ok restaurant across the street and the music turned the meal into a very special treat. the day after next, we go fishing at the foot of a volcano, but more about that later.

And here was our best holiday meal ...it knocked my socks off.... everything beautifully done that this region is famous for... roasted wild boar and patagonia lamb.. subtle yet rich sauces, fantastic.

The Lakes Region, Patagonia is like Oregon on steroids....

2009-12-26T15:49:00.000-08:00

You can probably tell that I messed with the color a bit on these pics, but I couldn't help myself... these views were so beautiful I had to play for a while with each one of them....

Last night party in Buenos Aires, First night in Bahia Blanca

2009-12-20T08:20:00.000-08:00

We reserved a table for ten at a great Armenian and Middle Eastern restaurant on Balcarce 600 block (if you can remember the name, please put in comments, as the ambience, food, service and prices cant be beat!). The Congolese Embassy was having a party downstairs for the comming of age of the Embassador's daughter, so our group got an upper bird's eye view.

One thing I love about Latin culture is how children are included in events... even late night ones... you see kids with their parents out on the town late at all hours, and they get to run around too... Our friend Daniel's kids soon had joined in with all the kids from the Congo party, jabbering away in a great mix of languages, playing all over the restaurant..

ON THE ROAD

The bus ride to Bariloche in Patagonia is 20 hours, so we decided to break it up and went to Bahia Blanca, the southernmost town in Buenos Aires province, for the first night. Bahia Blanca is an old port town of 300,000, with lots of suburbs of one or two story single houses.

No, all the houses are not like this... in fact, most in town are quite modern. But on the outskirts, as in most of the world, living is rougher.

5 years ago, i would see the cardboard collectors with their horses and carts in Buenos Aires, but not now.

Our 100 year old hotel turned into hostel was right near the train station. At one time, trains went all over Argentina. But, like the US, the powers that be opted for more road for autos and shut down many of the lines. There is talk of a new line from Buenos aires to the Andes area. We can only hope...

Bahia Blanca is preety damn quiet... this was the only street art I could find...

But we did find the theater that was our reason for picking Bahia Blanca as our first stop. During one of our many trips to the Immigration office, we met an Argentine couple that were on their way to Bahia Blanca. They were both dancers, and the man had just accepted the post of Director of Ballet del Sur with this great old theater as their home.

Notice the three floors of individual boxes

We didn't get to see the professional dance company the night we were in town... Instead we got to see all the dance school's classes' end of the year preformances...

A reminder that I greatly welcome comments and corrections, questions, whatever from you the viewer..I installed a viewer counter about a month ago just to see if anyone was still looking, and so far 700 views are recorded....I am so curious, where are you all from?

No more city life for us...

2009-12-13T06:03:00.000-08:00

No more nights out on the town for us! Our one bag each is packed with hiking boots and polar fleece underwear. We plan to get as far south as we can in 40 days. One would think that we will make it all the way to Antarctica , but I once took 90 days to make it from Seattle to Los Angeles, We will see where our feet take us. I managed to squeeze in a laptop in my bag and plan to keep up postings every Sunday, if there are internet connections. If there aren't, here's to 2010!

Great Jazz, Contemplative Art, and, maybe, a Terrorist Hangout?

2009-12-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

So, when Dave and I showed up at the terrace of Central Cultural Recoleta to chip away at stone sculpture, we found a huge stage, and great jazz music going on! The Jazz Festival lasts 5 days, has musicians from all over, and most all the venues are free! The hard part has been deciding what to go to, with at least 4 different locations each night....

That first night, at Central Cultural Recoleta terrace, we got to see Fats Fernandez on trumpet with Paublo Raposo on piano. They had knocked our socks off several years ago at Club Lounge on Reconquista. We then raced back to San Telmo and La Trastienda Club to see a performance of a commissioned program by composer Fernando Torres Noneto, Tributo a Astor Piazzolla, and a free concert with the tab picked up by the city and corporate sponsers. The Buenos Aires city government is taking a lot of heat lately, but my hat is off to them for all the support they give to artists and culture (opps... down here Culture is with a capital C). We went back to La Trastienda Saturday night for a late night (yes! I stayed awake past midnight!) jam session of changing preformers from many of the groups that was the best yet... the festival goes on through Tuesday night.... try to catch some of it!

Earlier this week, I went to see the In the Time of Art exhibit in the newly renovated PROA academy in La Boca. Pieces from the 16th century were along side contemporary work, grouped by themes, "allowing for reflections on the major concepts afflicting man: power, quotidian, body, mind, life,death, love, and hate."

For me, the strongest juxtaposition was in the "Body" section, with a potrait of a dying anoerxic teen next to a 16th century representation of voluptuous beauty.

And low and behold, in the mind section, I found another strange hanging sculpture by a Brazilian artist that I had appreciated in the past... maybe you can tell that she uses panty hose filled with different spices and grains....

After a late night at La Trastienda, we found this FANTASTIC Armenian and Middle Eastern restaurant three blocks from our house... and yes, thats a small orchestra playing in the back! The prices were low too... the only disconcerting thing were all these huge guys in black suits and sunglasses, standing around the pereferie with their hands behind their backs... I figured it was maybe a rehab place for ex-terrorists to give them something to do while they were in hiding in Argentina? (remember, it was very late at night for me).

Argentine Sculpture and Drawing Exhibition, and Parties!

2009-11-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

I missed the National Exibition of current Argentine painters, but made it to the Palace de Glace for the sculpture and drawing competition... this ceramic lady won second place (I would have given her first).

I go with the choice of the first place drawing... this, and most of the other drawings were HUGE....5 feet high..

This big drawing was done on stretched blue flowered fabric, painted with a white ground.

One night, we stumbled into a birthday party at a sidewalk pizza joint. The one year old poodle got a pink chiffon cape, lots of toys, and a slice of pizza...

On another night at an outdoor cafe, a seemingly spontaneous parade happened, lead by musicians going home from work at the sunday outdoor San Telmo fair. The guy with his back to the camera was a fire eater, and seemed to be the leader.

This week's food shots are, of course, a Thanksgiving feast! Betty and Mike from New York invited 21 very cool folks from all over....

The man in the center is Umberto, one of our new landlords! He was born in Nicaragua, has traveled all over, and will soon be returning to Costa Rica with Tony to their house there. Tony and Umberto rented their just renovated 100 year old apartment to US! The woman with glasses to the right is a fireball Argentinean that had me in stitches, and the woman in the teal dress (Bonnie) has her joyous and irreverent finger on the pulse of all sorts of groups of expats down here. I am SO thankful to be here!

Wow!!!

2009-11-25T06:39:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that this courtyard was half a block from my apartment and I just now noticed it....

November is the time the Jacaranda trees put out their amazing periwinkle flowers... they are native only to Argentina, and Portenos are very proud of them....

November is also time for the National Polo Championship...This is my 4th November in BA, and I still can't figure out how no one gets clobbered when the ref throws out that tiny pine ball...

The dome and two towers behind the grandstand are part of the lavish Islamic Cultural Center.

Cultural Center Recolta has an exhibit honoring the landscape architect Carlos Thays who designed most of the amazing parks in BA. For the opening of the exhibit, hundreds of butterflies popped out of their cocoons, and they are still fluttering around inside the screened in central courtyard...

Here's a view of the outer terrace of Central Cultural Recoleta... if you kept walking past the distant figure, you would run into Dave and Gabriel chipping stone, and if you turned to your right you would get to the butterflies...

We went to an Expat party at Art Factory Hostel two streets away from our apartment in San Telmo...Great art by artists from all over on every wall... I recognized some from their street graffiti... the top floor bar walls were all done by a local stencil artist...

i loved this wall...

The food shot for this week comes from a private dinner house. The chef serves 5 courses and 5 wines to 12 guests two nights a week , with a different menu each night. Our night was Brazilian night, and my favorite course was the fish course...A small Atlantic sole fillet covered with a maracusha sauce and topped with lightly poached zucchini shreds.

Drawing and Dancing...

2009-11-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

I found my dream place this week for figure drawing. Association Estimuto de Belles Artes, on the corner of Cordoba and Maipu, has lots of classes with models every day of the week, from 10 minute poses, to poses over a 4 week period of 2 1/2 hours each, and you can pay per class ( 20 pesos). I loved this woman's feet.
Central Cultural Borges had a great show this week of Belgium artists' fantasies about Patagonia...some very funny stuff.. Lots of jokes about the wind in Patagonia... you probably can't read the script by Adam's head, but it says "tirame del dedo," (pull my finger)...

I loved this one... it's a three D sculpture of a building...when you push the button below, the building slowly raises up and folds back to reveal...

a small 3D man facing a long road into Patagonia.

It's hard to believe, but this is me in a beauty parlor of all places....getting my hair done for the British Ambassador's Ball!

First the receiving line, then
champagne and tidbits brought to you as you mingled....

Then tidy up before going out to the gardens and the big tents for dinner and dancing....

It was a much more fun night than I expected.... two good bands that played everything from fox trouts to the Beetles, great conversations with folks from all over, and a very grand meal (no dry convention chicken breast served here)! The desert was a fruit compote topped with meringue bits, mint and a passion fruit sorbet.

A week of extremes...

2009-11-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

We have had 85 degree (F) days, days of 45 mile an hour winds, torrential downpours...one must lug around all sorts of extra clothing, and expect to be surprised.

This first pic was taken in Plaza Dorego around midnight on a weeknight. I think this was a drug deal going down, with some other guys sorting through the garbage? shooting dice? It was still 75 degrees, jazz had just ended in Del Arbol and we were strolling home.

We have now lived in San Telmo long enough that we recognize and are recognized by some of the locals... I have watched this old guy several times now in the evenings..he is always dressed to kill, and very slowly hobbles out into the center of busy Defensa and waits for a cab ... i am tempted to follow him some night.

One evening we were walking downtown on Reconquista and spied these two contrasting buildings.... I wasn't using trick photography... the modern one really is curved...

On one of the torrential rain days, I managed to make it to painting workshop at Central Cultural Recoletta. The workshop is held in a great room in the top floor, and this is a view out the window. Central Cultural Recoletta was originally a catholic monastery, and this great cemetery (Evita is buried here among other famous folk) was originally the orchard of the monastery.

its a truly amazing place...
full of cobwebs and parts of skeltons, amazing sculpture...

and to top off a week of extremes, comfort food of lemon cake with candied lemon peel and savayon.

Cheers!

trips to the US Embassy and suburbia

2009-11-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

I had gathered up documents, filled out forms, and had a new photo taken in preparation for my passport renewal appointment at the embassy....i waited in line in the pouring rain, finally got inside and up to the window to find there was now a NEW form... so i filled that out and got back to the window, only to be told that my photo was the wrong size... now they wanted a BIGGER photo. I was working up to a nice ugly American tizzy fit mood...then was told to go to the guard at the front entrance who would direct me to a photographer. Back out in the pouring rain, the guard pointed up the street and said i would see a black car with black windows, and to ask there for the photographer ("what is this??? is there a CIA guy looking for terrorists that will take time out and take my picture??"). Sure enough, I found the black car and knocked on the window. A smiling old Argentine man was eating a sandwich, listening to tango music. He hoped out of the car and got a bag out of the trunk and gestured for me to follow him into the park...He walked up to a big tree and hung a pull down screen from a handy nail in the tree, reached behind the tree and pulled out a stool, wiped it off with the towel he had in the bag, handed me an umbrella and told me to sit (all the while laughing and joking). Five minutes later, he handed me my photos, and I gave him the 20 pesos he requested plus a 2 peso tip. As I walked back to the Embassy, I contemplated my abrupt mood change, and vowed to remember the very patient old Porteno waiting in his black car when i felt frustration looming.... and then I heard a shout, and turned to see the old man running through the puddles after me, waving my 2 peso note, saying I had given him too much!

Dave wrangled two tickets to a fancy ball at the British Embassy! What to wear, what to wear? So we went down to the Retiro train station ...

and got two tickets for suburbia...past the fenced luxurious President's house in Olivos, to Acassuso...

... to the home of one of the few good second hand clothing stores I have found....its run by some great British ladies, and full of fancy clothes...

Instead of a food pic to end this week, you get a movie of a singing taxi driver ( who also tried to fondle my ankle, ...but that's another story).

It felt like the tropics this week...

2009-10-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

This week, we have alternated from sundresses to raincoats. Big winds with lightning and thunder one night that was exhilarating to be out in... streets around us were blocked off Saturday for a marathon... 15,000 runners zoomed by...and the IMF(International Monetary Fund) announced it again has no plans to even consider letting Argentina back into the fold....

It stopped raining for the "Internations" party, so we were able to move tables onto the sidewalk....and along came a guy I had to admire for his entrepreneurial spirit..he had affixed his photos to magnetic sheets...true refrigerator art...

This week's food shot from the neighborhood french restaurant makes me salivate with memories...three chilled scoops of chocolate mousse (dark, milk and white)..and a truly grand mousse with lots of egg white and cream....

Technicolor Buenos Aires

2009-10-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

No, I am not now using exotic South American drugs...just having fun with my new photo editing program....I bought it on line along with a new camera on Argentina's version of Ebay, and picked it up near the presidential palace....here's some of the buildings surrounding the palace plaza.

And here is a shot of just one of the rooms in our local gymnasium (SUTERH, Sindicato Unico de Trabajadores de Edificios de Renta y Horizontal).....its a beautiful old building, three stories high, build during Avita's day for the city workers.

There is a huge swimming pool, roller skating, aerobics, gymnastics, a restaurant, and even boxing for girls!

On the political front, here is a scene of the same Plaza de Mayo that's in front of the presidential palace, but instead of looking up at all the buildings, I am looking at several groups of demonstrators.... I counted at least 6 groups that day....

And my food shot for this week was taken at the interior patio restaurant of the Museo Sivori, in Lagos Palermo Park...the big pitcher was filled with mint ginger lemonade... Dave had chicken with a lemon mustard tarragon sauce accompanied with a great chutney....I had a salad (but couldn't stop eating Dave's chicken..

lots o rock...

2009-10-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

For the last month and a half, Dave and I have been whackin' away at rock every Saturday on the plaza of Central Cultural Recoleta...its a great place to work. Every now and then people stop by and talk... there's a big fair out front selling snacks and crafts, and the slow, rhythmical chipping away is a surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable process... it reminds me of why I like knitting or weeding.... the repetition of the activity seems to allow my brain to

float and clean out the cobwebs...

This photo was taken when Dave had just started on his rock...

Dave is now putting in extra hours besides Saturdays, and this is what it looks like today...

Here is another side.....

And here is the tiny rock I am working on.... it's only about 7 inches long.... and if you are having trouble figuring out what i am going for, its a woman lying down sleeping... the big bump in the upper left is her butt, and the smaller bump in the upper right is her shoulder....

spring !!!

2009-10-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

Although there are still yellowed leaves from last summer on this tree, it's decided to wake up and send out giant balls of seed down... note the two green big pods that have not opened up yet in the lower left hand corner... they are about the size of baseballs... i have no idea of the name of this tree....

carving by Dave, painting of the Andes by Jamye.....

Right down town is a memorial for the 649 Argentines who died in the war against the UK over ownership of the Falkland islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ....This war lasted 74 days in 1982, ending with Argentina surrendering. The war hastened protests in Argentina against the military government and contributed to its downfall . Argentina is still trying to negotiate with the UK, but so far no talks.

Right after I shot this pic, my trusty camera died , so you will have to imagine the food shot for this week.... we were in the Man San, a great blend of Peruvian and Chinese cooking, with most plates under 15 pesos....i had grilled duck with noodles and different peppers , and Dave had roasted duck....it was raining, so we had the extra treat of two musicians from Peru who got out of the wet....

first prize, great jazz, good food with friends...a good week!

2009-09-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

Dave and friend Fredrik from Sweden went to a fancy golf course (complete with three polo fields, lawn bowling, grass tennis courts, cricket field, large elaborate english style club house built in the 1830's) and played in a fund raising tournament for a local hospital... and they won first place! champagne and a trophy with a clock in it!

We found a great little restaurant at Plaza Dorrego near our house that has no cover music every night of the week... and good music too... and unlike most clubs with music starting at 10pm, music at Del Arbol starts at 7pm....

Mike and Alicia took us to Parilla Rincon near Parque Lazama ... the paella was amazing

A new find was restaurant Prosciutto on Venezula street in Montserrat... three floors, great home made pasta.... and one of my favorite deserts: flaming rum apple egg pancake

But one still cant beat the chorizos cooked on the street... this guy is cooking up a bunch in front of the Blues Club in Bocca neighborhood, getting ready for the big Bocca soccer crowds...

here is a fan waiting for his sausage....

last,but not least of all this week... our new dream apartment building, on the corner of Defensa and Indepencia....

workshops galore....

2009-09-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

ok, you probably can't tell that what i am holding in front of me is a monkey puppet... but you had to have been there! Three doors down from our apartment, an art gallery holds workshops in the evenings, and "puppetry" turned out to be first a long dialog by the teacher regarding "getting in touch with your inner child," then walking around the room loosening up, then finally making a form out of newspaper and tape to "bond" with. Being a "child of the 60's," I felt I didn't need any more loosening up, and had hoped for a more left brain technical workshop dealing with making intricate marionettes...but hey, it was great fun. I am also taking a life drawing class here, and the teacher has fulfilled my desire to "tighten up" by helping me get more accurate with drawing. He is from Georgia (the Soviet Union, Georgia), down here getting a Masters in Art, and has that technical background I never got while throwing paint around in my university days... we have been working on the same portrait drawing for two sessions now, quite a change from 15 minute poses like I was used to.

At Central Cultural Recoletta, Dave and his sculptor friend talked me into taking a stone carving workshop due to the class needing one more student. I started out with a stone that was about two feet high, but after spending two hours making a 1/2 inch curve, I switched to a stone I can hold in the palm of my hand. One of the best parts of this class is where it is held, out here on the patio overlooking the city.

Here is Gabriel the teacher with the one other student besides me and Dave.

Just a little arty shot of two beautiful young girls yaking away while sitting on the step of this restaurant.

This type of little cafe is all over the business sections of town, where folks can run in for a quick snack. In the glass case are stacks of "miga" sandwiches: bread, ham, and cheese all sliced super thin and multi layered. They are what I imagine fancy english tea sandwiches look like, and you get a big plate of them for less than a buck.

Out on the Streets......

2009-09-13T05:12:00.000-07:00

After we have fed our new pets (8 to 10 doves) on the windowsill... its out on the streets!

About 5 streets away from our apartment the old shipping canal of Puerto Madero has been all spiffed up with high rise apartments and a huge park... the big container ships now go up river a bit to unload or pick up....

San Telmo and Boca next door are the oldest barrios in BA, around the port where the city started. Most of development with high rises and skyscraping office buildings then moved on to "down town," bypassing many of San Telmo's beautiful old 2 or 3 story buildings....

Most weeks there's at least 2 or 3 protests, marches or strikes, all pretty peaceful to my knowledge..... I took this pic out of a taxi window at night. The driver said it was a protest by university students, but he didn't know the issues involved...

This week the dock workers marched, subway workers shut down the subways for two hours, doctors at one state hospital marched due to the government not paying them since June, fisherman blocked a bridge demanding a subsidy due to some bans on fishing, and farmers have had an ongoing protest for several months.... After the 60's, folks in the USA seem to have opted out of demonstrating as a means to bring about change.... perhaps because many ended in violence? I don't know, and I don't know how successful the ones down here are in reaching their goals...

Meanwhile, I followed another big tradition down here and spent many hours at a local cafe... the woman on the right was raised in South Africa and just got here after several years of working in Saudi Arabia ("never again will I live in an Islamic country!"). The woman on the left was raised in Ireland and just got here after loosing her employment in Paris.... both are hoping to find some kind of work here, take a break for a while from the high achievment track....

And this week's food picture is not of fried onion rings, but squid rings, sprinkled with garlic... the small plate at the top was a freebee appetizer of squid marinated in lemon and oil .

It's been a full week, but before bed, a movie!

Mafalda, Real Estate, Art and Eats

2009-09-06T03:14:00.000-07:00

I had been seeing this cartoon character around town... on tee shirts, posters, like "hello, kitty" in Japan, and I didn't think much about it....then this statue appeared last Sunday in the square half a block from our apartment, and people (many with tears in their eyes) started gathering for a ceremony to honor her creator, Joaquin Salvador Larado. Mafalda is her name, and her comic strip has been described as "Doonesbury meets Peanuts in Buenos Aires." The series ran from the 60's to the 80's, during military dictatorships, repressive times... and for many, Mafalda's questionings struck a personal chord. The ten books of her strips have been translated into 20 languages..so I bought one in Spanish and have been stumbling through it... what a great way to get better with the language..

Larado is the grey haired man on the right...

An Argentine friend let me tag along as he checked out an old hotel building he is considering buying that is a block away from our place... right now there is a business on the first floor and 14+ apartments on the second and third floors, two huge interior courtyards, and a huge roof top patio... some of the 20 foot ceilings have plaster relief decorations, marble stairs..beautiful old tile floors, all for $150,000!.... His dream is to remodel into 11 apartments, adding half lofts in each for bedrooms... but to do that he will have to install plumbing, wiring, fix all the cracked marble and tile floors, etc. etc. and ECT., plus somehow get the current tenants out (not an easy feat down here).

The view out to the terrace and down into one of the interior courtyards....

view from the court yard up to the third floor...

Second floor mezzanine looking out into interior courtyard...

After yet another trip down to the port area Immigration office for another stamp for another three month wait on our permanent visas, we saw this sailing ship that is part of the Argentine Navy. She goes around the world each year with graduate sailors.

this is the part I liked best.

This week's food shot is our new favorite neighborhood hangout... most of our neighborhood joints are pretty fancy, but I spied this place next to a car park down the alley... back in the patio, there's a BIG outdoor grill and great daily specials.....

But they can't beat the french restaurant on our corner for onion soup and fancy deserts... this is a piece of apple pie...but not so simple... and I think the apple slices were poached separately in liquor based syrup? , then placed on a shortbread crust...

Bon Appetit!