Recoleta Cemetary, Live Music and Ceviche...Days 66 and 67

This weekend was a lot of fun.  I did all the normal stuff like walk around and explore the city, attend my Spanish class and practice yoga and I also did a lot of fun things like go to the Recoleta Cemetary, listen to outdoor music in Palermo and eat ceviche for the first time.  And the weather was perfect for all of it!  A beautiful fall weekend in Buenos Aires.

All of the fun things were done with a co-worker who was here from the States for two weeks.  It was so nice just to have someone to explore with.  Sure, exploring by yourself can be fun, but exploring with someone else is better!

The first place we went to (and the only place I have pictures of) was the Cemetary in Recoleta.  People had told me I needed to go there, but I was skeptical - I mean it's a cemetary, what's to see?  And honestly, I'm not sure I'd have ever made it there if it weren't for my co-worker being in town and wanting to see some of Buenos Aires on Sunday.  It gave me the motivation I needed to come up with a day full of "must sees" and the cemetary was on it.  We weren't disapointed!

I decided the above photo is how I'd like to be remembered when I die.  Just me and Petey.  Chillin. 

The cemetary was HUGE.  You could easily get lost in it.  We kept looking around for a map to tell us where Evita's grave was, but there were no maps to be found.  We also tried just looking for graves where there were a lot of people looking at it to see if it was here grave, but every time we found a crowd they were in front of another famous Argentinian grave.  Turns out, between Leontin (my coworker) and I - we only knew one famous Argentinian - Evita.

Luckily, we were able to use my super amazing Spanish skills (ha) and follow a group of adorable older ladies to the grave.  It was completely hidden down one of the long rows.  We never would have found it on our own:

After seeing Evita's grave, we decided to leave the cemetary and head over to Palermo Soho which is one of my favorite parts of Buenos Aires.  It's really colorful and full of life.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a single picture.  I was having too much fun playing tour guide to be bothered by such things as a camera.

We walked around a bit and then sat down at an outdoor cafe to enjoy some live music and some beverages.  There were people standing in the middle of the street playing music.  The crowd was really lovely and the whole scene was just great.

Once it became a reasonable time (to us) to eat dinner (8pm) we headed to "Ceviche" at the suggestion of a friend.  Of course, at 8pm we were the very first people there, but as I've learned, just because a restaurant is empty at 8pm doesn't mean it's not good, it means you are eating 2 hours earlier than anyone who actually lives here eats.

The food was amazing.  I don't think I've ever actually had ceviche before, and it was excellent.  I wasn't sure about it when we ordered it, I mean, it's raw fish, without all the trimmings of sushi.  But turns out, it's wonderful.  The lime juice kind of cooks it and the flavor and texture is amazing.  I'm a big fan of lime and that probably was a big part of why I loved it so much. 

The rest of the food was really good too, but it was the ceviche that stood out.  The dinner was the perfect way to wrap up a beautiful day touring the city.  And it was all completely worth being totally exhausted on Monday for :-)

Coffee, Lomo and Yoga...Days 61-65

Days 61-65 were the Monday through Friday of what felt like a really long week.  It wasn't a bad week, but a long one!  Work was actually a bit slow, which probably contributed to the "longness" of the week.  I find that when work is crazy busy time seems to fly, and when it's a bit slow time can drag on a bit.  I think that's a pretty common thing though.

We had visitors in town from the states, one of whom was my old boss, so I was lucky enough to get to accompony here and a few other visitors to dinner one night.  We ate in Puerto Madero, where they were staying, and the food was fantastic.  I had the lomo con gorgonzola and it was just what I wanted.  Steak with a flavorful sauce.  Flavor can be a bit hard to come by here, so it was a welcome surprise when the sauce had a quite strong taste to it.

There are a lot of ships in Puerto Madero, and below is a poor quality phone photo of one of the ships.  I thought they were really neat!

One of the things I love here the most is the coffee, or more particularly the presentation of the coffee.  I'm not a huge coffee drinker, but on any given weekend you can find me ordering a "cafe con crema" and sipping it while reading a book or doing my spanish homework.

Below are some examples of the coffee I've drank since I've been here.  Maybe you'll think it's boring, but I think it's pretty cool!

Cafe con crema - probably my favorite, a tiny coffee with real whipped cream, it's amazing:

Cappucino - very common in Chile:

Butter Toffee Coffee - or really, any fancy coffee:

Every time you order coffee or tea they always always bring you a tiny cookie or brownie or some other treat to go along.  I think it's the cutest thing ever.  Love it.

In other news, I'm really enjoying my yoga studies here in BA.  I am so spoiled and love having a teacher come to my house.  It's basically awesome.  And I'm even practicing on my own!  It's slow going, but I think I'm actually making some progress.  Slowly but surely is the name of the game for me.

A big milestone and a tiny funk...days 57-60

So, 2+ years ago, this blog actually started out as a weight loss blog.  I had reached an all time high weight that no one my height should really ever reach and I was finally ready to do something about it.  And for the last two years, six months and six days I have been doing something about it.  Writing down what I eat every single day (with a few notable exceptions for vacations and holidays of course.)  Doing any number of different diets (you name it, I've tried it.)  Doing any number of exercise regimes, from absolutely nothing to marathon training and everything in between.

And finally, two years, six months and six days later, I have finally reached a weight that is deemed "healthy" by BMI standards.  Which, after doing the math, means I have lost on average about a pound a MONTH since I started.  I think this might qualify me for the slowest loser of all time award or something.  But I'm trying to focus on the positive here, which is even though it's been ridiculously slow, I haven't given up.  And that I think is the real victory here.

My journey is far from over.  And I don't intend for this blog to serve as a weight loss blog.  I have a lot more fun talking about my traveling adventures!  But for a milestone this big, I felt it worthy of posting.  If for nothing more than nostalgic purposes for me, myself and I.  I still have a ways to go, so it feels good to celebrate the small (or big!) victories along the way.

In other, less exciting news, I've been in a bit of a funk the last few days.  I'm not sure if it's homesickness or post Chilean holiday sadness or loneliness or what, but I've been in less than stellar spirits the last few days.  And on top of that, this weekend I felt pretty bad, some kind of stomach bug or something, and well, I don't have a single interesting thing to blog about!

BUT, I've decided that tonight is the end of said funk.  Tomorrow, I'm going do whatever it takes to get a better attitude and get back to my general feeling of gratitude at getting to live down here for three months.  Granted, that's a lofty goal for a Monday, but I think I'm up to the task!  Tonight I'm free to feel blah about living in a hotel room and miss my dog, but tomorrow it'll be time to focus on all of the wonderful things about living here, and the fact that I'll see Petey in 32 short days.

Better posts to come, I promise!

La Playa, the Andes and Friends....Days 54, 55 and 56

Ok where was I?  Probably professing my undying love for Chile.  Did I mention I love Chile?  Because I do!  I completely fell in love with Chile over the four and a half days I was there.  The people, the food (I am SO mad at myself for not taking photos), the landscape - for a girl who grew up in the midwest, with the mountains and the beach so far away, to be in a city where you are quite literally an hour away from the Andes and an hour away from one of the most stunning beaches I've ever seen, well, it was incredible.

On our third full day, Oscar took me to the coast.  Unfortunately Maria Louisa had to work, so it was just the two of us for the day.  I think we did ok for ourselves though.  The beach is my most favorite place in the world, and I think these photos at least somewhat adequately capture my happiness to be there:

Crappy phone photo, but even in it's crappy-ness, it was too beautiful not to post. I would have stood in this spot all day had Oscar let me (I'm glad he didn't!):

The water was really sparkling as much as this photo shows, it was stunning:

With the beautiful landscape, comes some risks.  Tsunamis being among them.  There were signs like the below everywhere.  Apparently, if there is an earthquake of "size" and you live on the coast, you need to book it inland as quickly as possible.  I say "of size" because apparently earthquakes are quite common, and its only the bigger ones you need to worry about.  Suffice to say, had I felt even the tiniest tremble I probably would have begged Oscar to book it as far away from the beach as possible.  This midwestern girl isn't used to earth quakes or possible Tsunamis.

Below the girls are drinking mate on the beach - a typical Argentinian thing to do.  Mate is a lose leaf kind of tea, that you put directly in your cup and then use a special straw to drink it that has a filter on it that makes sure you don't drink up the leaves.  It's extremely popular here in Buenos Aires.  In fact, every single day at work my coworkers drink mate around 4pm.  The first time I joined them I was a little shocked to learn that not only do we all share the same glass (!) we share the same straw (!!)  In an effort not to be the fuddy-duddy girl from the states, I of course pretended not to be grossed out and joined in.  (for those of you who know me well, you know what a big deal this is!)

Ok, enough about mate.  Back to the beach, which was so beautiful, it literally took my breath away.  The water was so many different shades of blue and green.  And so rough!  It hit the rocks and splashed everywhere.  I was completely mesmerized.

Oscar and I even got a photo together!  I can't say enough good things about him and his wife.  Loved them.  Also, it looks like we dressed purposely to match the water...which I didn't notice until just now. Makes for a nice photo!

You know what else made this beach amazing?  The sea lions!  They were SO close!  We got to watch them climb and then play with one another and then jump off spectacularly back into the water.  It was amazing.  Again, I could have stayed forever and just watched them.

But eventually we did have to leave.  We had dinner plans!  But not without embarrassing myself completely before we left.  As we were leaving, the below girl said "hello" to us, which is code for "Hi! I speak English too!" So we stopped to talk to her while she did all manner of crazy yoga type stretching.  Since I've started doing yoga too, it seemed only fit that I'd pose in a photo with her and show off my new moves.  I obviously have a long long way to go eh?

The drive back to Santiago was beautiful.  Of course, I didn't get any photos.  I really thought I got photos of everything, but when I started writing about this trip, I realized how many things I didn't take photos of.  Trust me, the sunset reflecting on the Andes is something worth seeing!

That night we went to a dinner party.  It was fantastic.  The food, the wine, the company, it was all amazing.  Three of the four guys in the photo knew my dad, which was a big part of the reason we all got together.  I so wished he could have been there!  But we had a lot of fun without him!

See?  Fun...I'm pretty sure that was the look my face most of the night, when I wasn't stuffing my face with shrimp or avocado:

And now onto my last full day in Chile (sniff sniff!)  We drove up into the Andes, to where Oscar and Maria Louisa ski.  Let me tell you, it was quite a drive.  I was mostly terrified.  Oscar is a fantastic driver, but the curves were SO steep, and there were no less 8 million bikers out on the road, which added another dynamic to the whole driving up the side of the mountain thing.  But the view from the top?  Completely worth it!

You will probably notice, that similar to yesterday, I am sporting the biggest, cheesiest grin known to man kind in every single one of those photos.  I really couldn't help myself.  This is what happens when  I am blessed enough to spend time with wonderful people at some of the most beautiful places I've ever been to.

We walked around a bit after we reached the top and then stopped for lunch.

We were actually quite lucky to be able to have lunch.  Since it was a national holiday, literally almost everything in Chile was closed.  But the main restaurant at the ski resort was open, which was great, because I was starving!!

It was crazy warm while we were at the restaurant.  The sun was SO hot.  There was snow everywhere, and yet you can see in the photo above the Oscar was in short sleeves and below I was in a sleeveless shirt.  It's crazy how warm the sun can be when you are that high up, notice the snow right next to me:

I think the below is the only photo I have of the three of us!

Oscar and I and the Andes.  The mountains were so dang beautiful.

Maria Louisa received an iPad for her birthday, and spent the greater part of our time in the mountains trying to figure out how to use the camera.  It was pretty darn amusing.

Since it is just newly fall in South America, there was no skiing for me while I was there.  And honestly, it was probably a good thing, because I am a terrible skier, and probably would have broken my neck on those slopes.  I didn't see anything resembling a "bunny hill" while we were there.  So this photo of me in the ski lift is probably about as close as I'm ever going to get to actually skiing in the Andes.

Since its fall, and the ground was really really muddy where the snow had melted, all of the vehicles were covered in mud.  I like to pretend that I am tough and go off-roading in my truck just for fun.  Convincing no?

One last gratuitous shot of the Andes.  I miss them already!

We ended my last night in Santiago with another dinner party.  These lovely folks were also friends of my fathers at one time or another and now live in Costa Rica.  With as many friends as my dad seems to have in Chile, it appears that he's a likable guy or something.  Who knows.

Ok ok, fine, yes, my dad is a likable guy, with really fantastic friends who I had the immense pleasure of spending a few very memorable days with.  Oscar and Maria Louisa, I can't thank you enough for the visit and I hope someday to be able to repay the favor back in New York!

I think the below photo sums up my trip pretty well.  Beautiful landscape.  Lots of laugher and wonderful memories...

I miss you already Chile!

Air Canada, Santiago and Wine...Days 51, 52 and 53

Let me start out by saying that the four and a half days I spent in Chile were some of the most amazing I've spent in my time here in South America.  Before actually going to Chile I had no idea what I was missing out on, and let me tell you, I was missing out on a lot.  Chile will forever hold a special place in my heart.  I hope I can go back someday soon!

My journey started out pretty great.  Turns out, flying within South America is a whole lot easier than flying within the United States.  Bottle of water?  No problem!  Hair products of any size?  No problem!  I kept waiting for someone to stop me and make me throw away all of my offending items, but it never happened.

And then, on the plane, on the less than 2 hour flight, I was pleasantly surprised by a very yummy (and healthy) gluten free dinner:

I arrived in Chile, and only had a slight snafu in the customs line, something about me getting the wrong line (opps) and needing to pay a hefty fee to enter the country ($140!!!)  But after that was said and done, my dad's best friend Oscar was waiting for me right outside and after a few weeks of emails, I finally got to meet him.  We had a pretty quiet evening, I got to meet his wife, Maria Louisa and we went to bed early because they had a lot on the agenda for the next four days.

First thing on the agenda?  Shopping!  Oscar took me to a true Chilean farmers market, and let me tell you, it was AMAZING.  Honestly.  The picture below does it no justice at all (you will probably find me saying this a lot throughout the course of describing this trip.)  The produce was so beautiful, fresh and cheap.  Everything cost between $1-2!  And it tasted amazing as it looked.

After our shopping excursion, we met up with Maria Louisa, walked around a bit, and eventually headed to a little cafe for cappuccino.  I'm not much of a coffee girl in the states, but down here it's different and I've really come to like it quite a bit:

That night we had a barbecue.  It was fantastic.  The food was amazing, the wine was great and the company was great.  A lovely evening!  A few of us around the dinner table:

The next day we went to a vineyard called Santa Rita.  I was so amazed that one minute you could be driving along in Santiago, and the next you could be in what feels like the middle of nowhere.  This vineyard was so close to Santiago, and yet so secluded.  Oscar snapped a photo of me trying to explain just how beautiful I thought it was (yes, I really do talk with my hands that much):

There were butterflies everywhere!  Flying all around the field of lavender you can see in the background of the above picture.  They were so lovely!

We had to wait a little bit for our lunch reservations, so we busied ourselves by taking photos.  Below is Oscar and I:

And then Maria Louisa and I tried to find some grapes that the harvesters had missed:

I was pretty excited to find a little bunch!

Then we found a walnut tree, and ate as many walnuts as we could crack open (wow do they taste amazing straight from the tree!) and put the rest in my purse for later. 

My gracious hosts, love them:

We had a fantastic lunch, which I completely failed to take any photos of, and then took some more photos.  The main building on the vineyard actually served as a hiding place for soldiers many many years ago.  They had a reenactment in the basement:

The main building was really beautiful, and long:

On the edge of each row of grapes there was a rose bush.  Apparently, they try to use as little pesticides as possible, so they put rose bushes at the end of each row to serve as a "warning."  The rose bushes succumb to pests much earlier than the grapes, so if the rose bushes start to look bad, then they know they need to do something, I thought that was really neat!  In the background are the Andes Mountains:

At  the very end we found some grapes that hadn't been harvested yet.  I was very very excited:

And then the below was my view the entire way home.  The snow capped Andes.  It was so beautiful I felt like they couldn't possibly be real:

And we ended the second day by having tea at a polo club.  It was beautiful as well.  You get the idea, everything in Chile is beautiful.  Literally everything.

Next up?  The beach and the mountains...

$15 Laundry and Yoga...Days 49 and 50

So after the whole $200 laundry debacle, I found a sweet little old lady two blocks from my hotel who washed/dried/folded my three loads of laundry for the bargain basement price of $15!  She also was super nice about my horrible Spanish.  So needless to say, she will be getting my business for the remainder of my stay here in Argentina.

But the bigger news (at least to me!) is that I had my first yoga class on Thursday.  Ive unfortunately been dealing with my running related injuries more than I had planned on while Ive been here.  Especially considering I only ran the first two weeks I was here.  Its been super frustrating to say the least.  But instead of burying my head in the sand and using said injuries as an excuse to not do a dang thing, I decided to put my big girl panties on and follow my physical therapsists advice and look into some (heavily supervised, per my PTs advice) yoga. 

I found a fantastic teacher, for a fantastic price, and loved every minute of our first session.  Granted, it was extremely hard and my insanely poor shape was evident, but man, it was good to be back exercising and challenging my body in ways that dont harm it.  So I bought a package and will be doing some pretty intenstive yoga studying for my last 6 weeks here.  Im really excited and hopeful that this might be a really good thing for me not only right now, but in the future.  Maybe this will be a first step in finding a type of exercise I can really get into that wont injure me.  How great would that be???

Next up, my trip to Chile!!!

$200 Laundry, Friends and Carne...Days 41-48

Time is flying! I can't believe I'm already halfway done with my trip. Although while in some ways it feels like I just got here, in others it feels like I've been here forever. Strange how that works.

Once again I've been bad about taking photos. Really bad. Apparently I need visitors in order to take photos, otherwise I just wander around telling myself that I'll take photos later. Except eventually later will mean I'm back in the states, so well, I need to be better about the whole photo taking thing.

The last week has been a busy one. Still really liking my new neighborhood. Tons of restaurants, lots of people, parks, etc. Not really loving my hotel though. Granted, it doesn't smell like the old one did, but other than that, I don't like it very much! The internet breaks every single day/night. And it takes them varying amounts of time to fix it. Which I suppose isn't really that big of a problem it's just that it's annoying EVERY DANG DAY.

The internet issue though is nothing compared to my biggest issue there - the lack of laundry facilities. They have no washer and dryer for long term guests to use, ok fine, I get it, not everywhere has a washer and dryer. And they told me they did have a laundry service, which they do. However, when I went to inquire about said laundry service, I was told that they would charge me per article of clothing and that the average charge per item is TWENTY PESOS. Twenty pesos per item! As in almost $5 per article of clothing. Even if I just washed some of my clothes, it would cost me over $200 to do laundry. To wash my clothes! Not to dry clean. To wash. And they have NO other options.

Of course, I can go to a laundry mat, but they don't open before I leave for work and I am rarely home at night before they close. So that means this week, I'll be washing my laundry in the tub. Yep, hand washing my clothes in the tub. Because heck if I am paying that much to have my clothes washed. A few washes and I could just replace my entire wardrobe!

Ugh. I know, even this isn't really a big problem. But their attitude about it is just so arrogant. And normally I'm all, la la la, I love it here, they are so laid back, it's the culture, blah blah blah. And I mean it. I love it here! But apparently I'm also a little homesick for some good old fashioned the customer is always right type of customer service.

Besides the laundry debacle, this week has been filled with fun times with friends. Last Wednesday I checked another "must do" off my list and had a good steak here in BA. I went to La Cabrera with some friends here who are expats as well and yes, the steak was fantastic. You didn't even need a steak knife. It was just excellent. So "have a good steak in BA" is complete!

I also went up to the north, beyond the city of Buenos Aires with a coworker and his wife last Sunday. We had a meat filled lunch on the water which was delicious. Except for the cow's stomach, which they made me try and which still gives me the willies when I think about it. I failed to take photos of the river when the sun was shining, it was really beautiful. Instead I waited until after lunch and got photos like this one:

This does absolutely no justice to how beautiful it was when the sun was shining. The water was sparkling. The sailboats were everywhere. But during that time I was too busy stuffing my face with meat and cheese to get up and take photos.

And yes, the meat is good. But I'm learning that I'm not actually a very big fan of meat. I was a vegetarian for a while, and I missed meat a bit during that time. But truthfully, given the choice of eating meat for almost every meal, every day, and never eating it again, I'm pretty sure I'd choose never eating it again. But being a gluten free vegetarian here just really isn't an option. So I'm embracing the culture and eating meat like it's going out of style.

Next up on the agenda, a trip to Santiago to check another couple things off my list! Got to love the random Argentinian holidays that allow for long weekends in other countries :-)