Winter in Buenos Aires....

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.....

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.....

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

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.....