Last Adventures of Buenos Aires

Another amazing night of dancing the tango in Buenos Aires.  I finally have the basic steps down pat and now I have to leave the city.  I plan on learning the traditional dances of Colombia very soon.  This is with my official Tango Partner Kate de Londres.

On my last day went to Chinatown in Buenos Aires.  It is in the barrio of Belgrano.

There are a lot of stores that look like this.  A great place to go to buy cheap trinkets and spare parts to furnish your place.

Had this donut.  It reminds me so much of the Simpsons.  To be honest it probably wasnt as good as Tim Hortons but it is fresh.

Also in Belgrano found this statue replic of the "statue of liberty".  Buenos Aires sister city is Paris though and not New York.

This is the best pízza place in all of Buenos Aires.  It is on Corrientes ave at about the 1200 block or so.  It is too bad that I found out about it only hours before leaving.

Now I Vamos to Bogota, Colombia

My first Asado... And my last. Plus other Restaurant Adventures on a Rainy Day

 Had lunch with my friend Pavlo from Uruguay.  Watched the Boca vs. River Game.  These are the two biggest teams in the Argentinian league.  Everyone in the restaurant was tuned to the game including the waiters.

 Here is the shot with my friend Pavlo.  I met him on the buquebus here.  In true original gypsy style fashion he does not look at the camera when the Mozo took our picture.

 Picture of the soup I had for lunch.

 Went for Argentine Asado with this crew.  Asado is another word for a BBQ.   On the right are my friend Heinrik from Germany, and my friend Franco from Argentina.  Franco is a performer of Balet at the prestigious Theatro Colon here in BsAs.

 And here it begins.  All this delicious meat.  Lots of good steak and chicken.

-

at the end of the meal this was all the meat that nobody wanted to eat.  Top left we have Morcipan which is sausage made from pigs blood.  Bottom left we have intestines.  Bottom right we have liver.  I did try all three and my favorite was the liver least favorite the instestines.

 

for five people the price was 400 pesos.  about 6 dollars US per person using the black dollar rate.  This one was in Monserat which is a good neighbourhood to go for more traditional meals.

That being said my stomach is more upset today then even after eating dirty street food and non-stop empanadas and pizza.  I think it was the cows blood and intestines.  Franco the Argentinian ate it all and was not grossed out by it at all.

My Instagram

I have been making an instragram about all the amazing graffiti art I encounter while in South America.  Check out my profile and follow me at:

http://instagram.com/_yycstreetlife_/

Dancing the Tango and other adventures

Back in Buenos Aires now.  I can tell I am back by the beautiful sidewalk decorations. 

Went to a tango lesson.  Bellow is a picture of my Jedi master and Sensai Patricio.  He teaches me to dance the tango, I have taken three lessons from him.  I am his star beginner pupil. Usually he is very critical of all of his students but he absolutely loves me and the way I dance the tango.

 

Here I am dancing the tango in the above three pictures with the lovely and beautiful Nez.  This girl is truly badass, a true original gypsy in South America if I have ever met one.  Delicately dancing the tango in the boots she has been travelling the world with, you can tell by her style she is an expert at not just the tango, but the original gypsy traveller tango as well. She is from Australia.

The Tango is an amazing dance.  It is very serious and you have to be very focused and maybe even a little sad while dancing it.   My tango Jedi Master Patricio sometimes gets mad because when I make a mistake I will burst out laughing.  "No", He says angrily in Spanish.  "The tango is a very serious dance and you must respect the art, passion and history of this beautiful dance."  I am lucky to have such a good teacher to immerse myself deep in the true culture of this country.

 

If you are in Buenos Aires and you want to have good Italian food you need to go to Pippo.  Its owners have operated it through three generations in true Italian fashion.  It is located within half a block of Montevideo and Corrientes, On Montevideo. 

 

This was my freshly made spaghettie noodles with Bolognese Sauce plus a chorizo sausage on top, fresh parmesan to boot. 

 

I filled up on bread pretty hard before the meal.  _Unlimited bread and this pesto dip with garlic and butter.  Plus a decent sized double coffee.  All in all this meal came to 130 pesos, approximately 9 US dollars using the black market exchange rate. 

 

Buenos Aires is a city of many leaflets and pamphlets.  So far these are all the leaflets I have collected during my stay here. 

 

Apparently Larry David is the coach of the Boca Soccer Team down here in BsAs. 

Montevideo Day 1

Alright.  arrived in Montevideo from Buenos Aires.  if you travel to Montevideo you have three options for transport

1. Buquebus
2. Seacat
3. Colonia Express

I found Buquebeus to be the cheapest.  Although it did mean taking a ferry from BsAs at midnight and arriving in Montevideo with no sleep  at 6am.  my return home will be two hours shorter because i paid extra for a fast ferry.

Colonia Express Is the cheapest if you are just going to Colonia.  But I wanted to see the big capital city of Montevideo. 

The secret to getting the cheapest fare with Buquebus is to book through the Uruguayan website, because everything iS more expensive when you pay in Argentinian pesos.  For Colonia express you have to book through the Argentinian website so that made it a little more expensive.  All in all, round trip with ferry and bus costs 60 US.

It was all very smooth sailing on the ferry.  This ferry had the best video game arcade collection I have ever seen.  Some real arcade gems from the early 90s.  I played a lot of Bust-A-Move AKA Bubble Bobble.  i would have set the High Seas high score World Record on the machine but I was forced to disembark the ferry before my game was up. 

I used AirBnB this trip to stay in a house with three others.  it only cost me twenty US dollars per night.  here is a link to the house i am staying at with some pictures. 

I realize my camera has no batteries left and i left my charger in BsAs.

The only picture i do have is of the bust-a-move machine.  in bust-a-move when you have three balls the same color they are supposed to explode.  Here there are three colors of blue that all look the same and my balls weren't exploding. 

Regardless of the lack of pictures, i can assure you i am in montevideo, uruguay.  i have the passport stamp to prove it. 

The other photo i have is of scotiabank.  My bank in canada!! They are known for buying banks in latino america.  unfortunately they are still charging their canadian carhokding customers a $6 US withdrawal fee down here.  Really bogus if you ask me!!! Gonna load up on American dollars here and bring them back to Argentina to exchange on the black market.  I will have to do a post on how the illegal black market of currency exchange works.  it makes argentina so friggin cheap!  seriously, do not pay for anything in advance when you come to argentina, besides your airfare, and bring lots of euros or american dollars.  Everything will literally be almost fifty percent off.  i will show you soon.

-MARC

Amazing Night out in Buenos Aires

 All this for just over 100 pesos.  About 7 dollars US using the black market exchange rate.  The drink on the left is Fernet.  You mix it with the coke cola on the right.  The beers in the middle are Isenbeck, my favorite cheap beer in Argentina.

 This is my buddy Jan, born in Germany but living in France.  Here he is teaching me how to make Spaghettie Bolognese.

 Sunny day, time to have a delicious Alfajores.

 Disgusting McDonalds.  A triple bacon goes for 25 pesos apparently.  I still havent eaten here in Latin America.  I cant remember the last time I ate at McDonalds in Calgary,  not counting McFlurries.

 Here is a shot with some friends in Boca.  The part of town made famous for the recent backpack theft video.  You can see Pia on the left and me on the right bending our knees to look shorter next to the Latino American crowd.  Otherwise this photo might give people other reasons to fear Boca.

Here we are buying some churros from this guy on the bicycle.  He sells three for ten pesos.  Best churros in the city.  I am sure you can find this guy at the Boca Market every weekend.  I was at the hostel not doing anything and Livia on the left asked me if I wanted to go to Boca for a free dance show.  Seeing as I had no money and nothing to do, I was down.  Unfortunately once we waited for all the Argentinos, who run on Buenos Aires time, always soooo late, the dance performance was over.  Still a great afternoon in Boca though.

 Next day went out for dinner in Palermo with this crew.  Palermo is the nice part of town that is very high class.  So safe, nobody will steal your packpack.  Police enforce they area quite well to keep property values high, which they are.  Went to an awesome American style burger place on Borges Avenue.    Didn't have enough money to buy a burger and fries so I told the lady I just wanted fries.  She told me that if I bought a burger I would get free fries because she really thought I had to try their burgers while I was in Buenos Aires.  I took her up on her offer although to be honest it was the second time I had had one of those burgers.

The guy standing on the very right is Daniel.  Funny story.  I hung out with Daniel with another group of completely different friends the week before at a dinner party.  Then I show up to meet these guys for burgers and Daniel is there and he knows my other friends.  Such a small city considering there are 13 million people that live in Buenos Aires.  Daniel is from a small town near Rosarita, Mexico which is a small town near Tiajuana, Mexico.  I visited Rosarita a couple years back.  Another random occurrence.  At this rate I think I may run into Daniel randomly again at some point this trip.

 Fell asleep on the streets of Buenos Aires.  Don't worry it was in Palermo the safe neighborhood.  Woke up and someone had drawn a mural of me on the wall.  But I think whoever painted the mural also stole my Isenbeck.  At least they were nice enough to leave my backpack.  The best street art in this city that I have ever seen, So Next level!

After burgers in Palermo we went to this random little Arabian restaurant to smoke Hookah or Sheesha (dried fruit and tobbaco... not drugs mom).  Julián Álvarez 1272 is the address.

The restaurant was nice on the inside.  It was a Sunday night so it was quiet.  But during our stay a lot of people came and went.

 We got to smoke outside in a beautiful courtyard on a patio table all to ourselves.  The stars were out, all two of them in ever polluted Buenos Aires.  And beautiful plants and flowers growing everywhere.  It was very nice.

 Beautiful elegant Hookah.

Look at some of these luxuirious rose.  They even had a lemon tree too (not in photo).

 Came back home and got one last picture of me in front of my hostel in the theater district of Buenos Aires. Time to go to bed... or is it¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

Was chilling at the hostel writing some emails ready to go to bed when Augusto came and told me we should go and party.  I didn't know enough Spanish to explain to him that I was tired and had to write emails; so I ended up just walking out of the hostel with him and the beautiful girl he was with.  We walked to a few bars and clubs but everything was closed because it was Sunday.  We hopped in a cab and Augusto instructed me not to talk.  This is always a smart move because if taxi drivers hear a whisper of english they automatically assume you have money and take the longest route possible racking up the meter.  We went to one Boliche (spanish for nightclub) but it had just ended because it was 230am.  Out front people gave us wristbands for another nightclub that was apparently still going.  We went but it was completely dead.  So we went to a chill pub and had a few beers.  After Augusto paid the bill I assumed we were going to walk home because it was 430 am... But no.  Back to the dead Boliche.  This time it was really bumping!!!  Really good party for a Sunday night.

Here I am with Augusto on the left and Vivina on the right.  Augusto is from Usuyayia which is the Southern most city in the world at the bottom of Argentina.  The only place further South is Antarctica.  Vivina is awesome. If all the Women in Argentina were this amazing, beautiful and nice I would be applying for teaching jobs here tomorrow.  I only wish I knew more Spanish so I could get to know her better.

On a side note, a lot of Argentinan's ask me what I think of Argentinian Woman.  I always lie and say that I don't know too many Argentinian woman and that my hostel is full of Europeans, Brazillians, Chileans and Paraguayans; which is true.  However I do know a few Argentinian Woman.  They are very nice and easy to get to know quickly.  They are so friendly and will go out of their way to track you down to hangout.  However I have met a few that are crazy, immature or mooches (they borrow your beer for a sip and they drink half of it). Immaturity makes sense.  Argentina is a very difficult place to transition out of high school or University to finding meaningful employment because the economy is harsh right now.  That transition was even hard for me in Canada.  But here I can understand more why young people don't want to grow up and be adults, because the prospects aren't great.  I have met a lot of other amazing Argentinian Women though that are so nice and friendly.  Are they better than Canadian woman?  That is a loaded question.  I can be in a better position to answer that if I spend another month here at some point and especially once I know Spanish.

Walk home on the streets of Buenos Aires at 6am.  Downtown in San Nicolas.

The Beers of Argentina

 (Stella Modelled by Pillar from Paraguay)

European Beers are common in Argentina.  This is a Stella Artois.  You can also find the Stella Noir and Heieneken very easily.  I try and stay away from the European beers because they are slightly overpriced.  They are still brewed in Argentina at the Quilmes factory.  All the best beers come in 1 liters.  This beer will set you back around 25 pesos-35 pesos.

(Quilmes modelled by Vivi from Paraguay)

Quilmes is a nasty beer.  I like it but the Argentinians and the Brazillians think it is disgusting.  The shitty beer in Argentina is still way better than the shitty beers in Canada (Boxer, Lucky, Bow Valley etc.)  Expect this beer to set you back 13 pesos for a 1 liter.  Its better than Corona because it actually has a nice body.  Its a great beer to share with broke ass friends and to use while playing beer pong.

(Imperial modelled by Claudia from Paraguay)

Imperial is my favorite Argentinian beer.   They have about five different brands of it.  This is a new one I forget the name.  My favorite is the Scotch and the more typical Amber Lager.  It is a classy beer that you want to bring to dinner parties and classy nights of good times.  This one will set you back 20-25 pesos but it is definitely worth it.  Be careful drinking this beer.  Everyone will ask you if they can have some because it is so good.  Giovanni in the background is poking his head into the picture to ask Claudia if he can have some beer.  In true Argentinian fashion she shared it with him.

This is a shot of the beer in a store in Chinatown.  Some very delicious Argentinian Beers to be found here.  And good prices too.  I would definitely recomend Chinatown as a good place to go to save a couple pesos on beer.  Look at that Imperial for 19 pesos.  The beeres for 33 pesos near the bottom left are the only micro-brews that are common to buy in Argentina.

Living the Cheap Life and Having Fun in Buenos Aires

 Today me and some friends from the hostel decided to use the free bicycle services of the City of Buenos Aires.  After a 2.5 hour bureaucratic nightmare of walking around town to different Bicycle Stations to find one that had a camera to take our picture for registration (there are over 40 stations in the city each with two staff and dozens of bicycles), we came to our fourth station and had some luck.  Once you are signed up it is a breeze and you can freely rent bicycles at your pleasure.  You only have them for an hour but you can renew that hour by visiting another bicycle station.  They operate on a three strike rule so you are allowed to be late three times before they take away your services.  I plan on pushing the limits on this policy during my final ten days in Buenos Aires.  Here I am with my friend Pia who works at my hostel, she is from Austria.

 Here is a picture of me in the Ecological Reserve of Buenos Aires.  The water behind me is the Rio Plata.  You can see straight out forever which is hard to find in water in Buenos Aires because there is land everywhere.  Keep in mind its a very short ferry ride to Uruguay.

 The beautiful beaches of Buenos Aires.  In order to swim you either have to go to Uruguay or South to Mar Del Plata.  Spring just started but all the nearby locations are all still too cold and windy to swim on almost everyday.  That is why I am going to fly to Colombia next.

 Beautiful nature views in the Ecological Reserve.

 Me and my friend Cesar from Venezuela with some backdrops of skyscrapers of Buenos Aires inside the ecological reserve.  Cesar is giving me all the best tips on how to make it on my next stop in Venezuela, after my short stint in Colobmia.

 Palm trees and awesome trails for riding.

 A sign that says do not swim.  Always listen to the signs in Buenos Aires.

 This sign says don't feed the crocodiles.  Cesar promised me that next time we come back I could strap steaks to him so we can see the crocodiles.  The crocodiles do not live in the sea, but in the nearby lagoons.

 Returning the bicycles to the estacione.  It can be difficult because everyone wants to ride bikes and there are long lines.

 After a good workout on free bikes decided to order my first set of Super Panchos.  Two super Panchos and a 500 ml pepsi set me back about 32 pesos (2 dollars).  They are hot dogs essentially with Papas on top (essentially hickory sticks).  The best part is all the sauces.  Mine had ketchup, Spicy sauce and mayonaise.

This picture is for my Mom and my coworker in Calgary Lorna who asked me to take more pictures with me in them.  In some ways I feel that super panchos are more than just a food, they are an essential way of being a human, kind of like Mate but not quite.  The other day I was walking home late at night and there were a bunch of kids eating super panchos in front of a late night tienda.  They were having a very merry time and singing songs about Super Panchos.  I learned a lot from these kids about the culture and lifestyle of this beautiful country.  (The avenue in the back is Av de Mayo and Piedras Street.)