Posts Tagged With: Palermo

Last Impressions of Buenos Aires

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Phil

We’re wrapping up our time in Buenos Aires and getting ready to head out to the Argentine countryside as our trip around the world enters November. November? That amazes and delights me. Have we really been traveling for that long? The calendar does not lie. Our first stop after Buenos Aires is the popular wine region of Mendoza. We’re not entirely sure what we’ll get up to in Mendoza and nearby Maipu, but rest assured that it includes drinking lots of wine. With any luck, well also get Brooke riding a horse for the first time in her life. Man, plans that can be best described as a few days of drinking wine in Argentina is the epitome of why we decided to embark on this RTW adventure in the first place. From Mendoza we may take a bus west to Chile or just had directly to the beach in Mar Del Plata.

Wherever we end up, I’m having no trouble getting behind this lovely spring weather. Our Spanish is holding up okay around the Buenos Aires. When people ask us where we’re from and after we respond “Nuevo York, Estados Unidos” we’ve been getting a lot of comments and questions about Sandy. Our friends and family in New York and the Northeast have been on our mind and in our thoughts over the last few days. It’s been nice that coverage of the storm has been widely available down here. Judging by social media and e-mail, luckily it looks like everyone we know made it through the storm of the century okay. So, good news there.

We only managed to kick around a few neighborhoods during our time in Buenos Aires, but it was interesting to see the stark differences in an area like San Telmo compared to that of an area such as Palermo. We spent our first two days in San Telmo at a quirky but lovely hotel called the Ayres Porteno Tango Hotel. Complete with life-size mannequins of Argentine greats such as Eva Peron (it’s hard to convey how much they love this woman), Diego Mardona and Carlos Gardel.  Like many buildings in the neighborhoods, the hotel was likely once a grand, old 19th century mansion broken up and converted into a small hotel after an outbreak of Yellow Fever. San Telmo was made up of beautiful doors and facades scattered across a sort of beat up, mostly unremarkable neighborhood. The notable exception were some playhouses and hidden dinner spots. However, you also get the impression that there are some real gems hidden behind these outer walls.

Balconies and homes typical of San Telmo

We also spent time staying at the awesome Tango Lodge  in the Palermo section of town. We discovered the cute storefronts and cafes of the fancy upscale neighborhood of Palermo Viejo. Graffiti and homelessness found in other areas was replaced by quirky and stylish high end shops with outdoor street fairs and vendors on the weekends. Palermo, which has become incredibly popular in recent years, has been subdivided by real estate developers into Palermo Soho, Palermo Hollywood and more. The area is packed with cute stores selling everything from Tango Shoes to designer toddler t-shirts. While I have a slightly better overall impression of Buenos Aires than Brooke does, I do agree that I would have liked the city even more if we began our stay in Palermo. That being said, I’m glad that we stayed in and explored both areas. No matter where we were, it was hard to ignore the native love for Dulce De Leche. I’m pretty sure a healthy heaping of Dulce De Leche factored into just about every breakfast we had. One change I would suggest to the government of Buenos Aires is that I might not hurt to add cross walk lights for pedestrians on all FOUR corners of an intersection. When you only have walk/don’t walk signs on two corners, it can make it incredibly confusing for those determining when the safe time is to cross the street. Just a suggestion.

Brooke checking out clothes at a shop in Palermo

We’ve found Buenos Aires to be a bit of an ironic name for this city. With unregulated emissions from both cars and an infinite number of city buses, the air in this metropolis is anything but good. In some areas, the city’s solution to congestion has been to build roads that are eight to twelve lanes wide which, surprise surprise, only generates more pollution and smog. One frustrating element of the city is that B.A. is too vast and spread out to be considered walkable and too poorly served by public transportation to be able to move from neighborhood to neighborhood quickly or easily. While buses criss cross the city, the Subte shuts down around the shockingly early hour of around 11:00 PM. This is both baffling and counter intuitive in a city where dinner often begins around 10:00 PM and bars are hopping till 4:00 AM. To be fair, the system starts up again around 5:00 AM and the fare to ride the relatively reliable system is only about fifty cents. And since Brooke and I have become mavens of Public Transportation during our travels, our new Kollineiser motto may be that there are no buses nor trains nor taxis we cannot conquer.

Brooke and I have fun on this trip. We really do. Many days are full, enjoyable, involved busy and memorable. Other days you just hang out or perhaps ride a bus for 14 hours and then plan to siesta for another three. Ah, it’s hard to believe that it’s officially winding down. But we’re going to make the most of our next few weeks! We still have a lot more of Argentina to see! As always, more tomorrow.

-Phil

Flowers for sale outside a giant Buenos Aires cemetary

Another picture of the colorful things you find in the Boca area of town!

This is Floralis Generica- a large, metal flower statue in the middle of one of BA’s most popular parks. Complete with gears, it is supposed to open at sunrise and close at sunset just like a real flower. Currently it is stuck in the open position.

This claim can be found on the marque of a popular convenience store across town. It left us wondering if the math regarding the number of hours in a day works differently in Buenos Aires.

Categories: Argentina, At Night, Uncategorized, Wine | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Voting, Bus Stations and The Argentina Reciprocity Fee

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Phil

Hello again from Buenos Aires! We’re continuing to explore the expansive Argentine capital as we spend time in neighborhoods like San Telmo and Palermo. We’ve traded in one comfortable hotel for another across town in order to check out another section of the city and we’re quickly mastering the Subte (Subway) system. Our plans were thwarted a bit when had some big rain roll through the other night which ended up causing some flooding throughout town. But the storms really just made for a good excuse to stay in, order delivery empanadas and watch Three Amigos and Shawn of The Dead on television. Yesterday, however, we packed in a full day that included everything from Tango Classes to a visit to the US Embassy.

A real highlight of the day was that we managed to take part in one of the most patriotic actions an American citizen can do: We voted in the 2012 United States presidential election! Hell yeah. Brooke and I have never missed a big election but we were fairly certain that our four month trip around the world was going to cause us to forfeit our votes for this one. Bummed about potentially missing out on our chance to be part of the democratic process, we had looked into the possibility of voting absentee before we departed NYC. But since our departure date was so far in advance of the election, absentee voting was a difficult, unlikely and cumbersome proposition. The woman at the board of elections seemed to have no clue as to how we should proceed.  At that point, we gave up and figured we would probably have to miss out on voting.  Not willing to settle for this, we took a long walk down to the United States Embassy of Argentina to see what could be done.

The expansive US Embassy was more like an administrative compound than the lovely, grand mansions we’ve seen in some of the smaller European capitals. The guards directed us to a bank telleresque window where we were quickly assisted. To our surprise, it turned out to be an incredibly simples process for us to vote in the 2012 election! A pair of passports, two registration forms and a blank ballot for writing in choices were all we needed. High fives commenced! It felt like an awesome win and left us with a strong dose of American pride. I’m ready for my screaming American Eagle tattoo on my bicep. In retrospect, we should done a little bit of research on our local New York ballot in order to be more informed about local and state issues, but we were honestly so pessimistic about actually being able to vote that we never took the time. Our embassy guide told us that we just missed out on “Voting Day” a few weeks earlier that was made up of giveaways from American companies and a speech from the ambassador. I think for years we’ll remember how for this particular election our ballots were cast in the middle of Buenos Aires at the US Embassy.

From the Embassy, we made our way over to the central Buenos Aires bus station – La Terminal De Omnibus – to secure our bus tickets for our travel to Mendoza. Ever since Argentina’s government dramatically cut back on train subsidies in the 1990s, buses have been the preferred method of traveling from city to city across South America’s second largest country. Knowing all that, we weren’t surprised to find that the main bus station is absolutely massive. We’ve seen plenty of airports in our travels that are much smaller than this behemoth three-story station. Our first mission was to determine which of the 100+ ticketing windows best suited our needs. Once at the correct set of windows, we were able to adeptly apply our very broken Spanish to determine bus times, cost, service class, arrival and more. Brooke and I are actually feeling pretty strong about our abilities to hammer out the basics in conversation using the little Spanish that we know. For these long haul bus rides, there are several different classes of service. We decided on “Ejecutivos” which is somewhere between Semi-Cama, Cama or Suite. If we’re understanding the counter people correctly (fingers crossed), our ride should be in seats equivalent to Airline Business Class seats that lay at a 160 degree angle complete with in-seat meal service from a bus attendant. Snazzy. In short, it ain’t Greyhound. I’m a little apprehensive about doing a fourteen hour overnight bus ride to Mendoza. But then I remember some longer journeys in the states in which I’ve been in much less comfortable seats. And then Brooke stated that she didn’t realize she had married such a wimp when it comes to riding on a bus. So, I  got over my concerns pretty quickly.

Brooke celebrates after successfully securing our bus tickets….all by using our Espanol!

Speaking of traveling, we wanted to mention the dreaded Argentine Reciprocity Fee that we had to pay when entered Argentine the other day. Fellow travelers we talk to are always a bit amazed by this, so we thought we would share our experience. In order to enter Argentina, citizens of America, Canada and Australia have to pay an entry fee which is in place as an equivalent “payback” for the cost of a visa application that an Argentine citizen is charged to enter those three countries. The cost? $160 per person (recently increased by $20 a pop). Not a small amount when you’re circumnavigating the world on a budget.

When we landed at EZE, the imigration lines quickly diverged for visitors like ourselves. A friendly cashier soon invited us to pay the fee using cash or a credit card. Lucky for us, We had been aware of the fee long in advance and had budgeted for it accordingly. But there certainly seemed to be some people stumbling off a 10-hour overnight flight who received a rude awakening when they learned that they have to fork over the cash before getting any further. The real pain of it is that this relatively new fee is ONLY enforced at the two Buenos Aires airports; the fee is not collected at any other entry point in the country. For what it’s worth, the fee is good for ten years which I guess might be beneficial somewhere down the line. Brazil and Chile also have similar policies. We’ve also read that by the end of 2012, all visitors must pay the fee online in advance of your arrival rather than at the airport. Good times.

Somewhere along the way between trips to the bus station in the rain and voting, we managed to cram in an amazing Wine Tasting, Tango Lessons and drinks with fellow ex-pats in a pub San Telmo – all which Brooke will write more about. All in all, today was a great day to be traveling around the world.

-Phil

Brooke enjoying a legendary South American treat: Buenos Aires Ice Cream!

Our swanky room at The Tango Hotel

Categories: Argentina, Destinations, Self Guided Tours, Surprises, Tango, Uncategorized, Voting | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

¡Buenos Días, Buenos Aires!

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Brooke

After 10 cold, cloudy and often rainy days in Scotland, we were delighted to wake up to the sun beaming brightly through the window in warm Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Still adjusting to the 5 hour time difference, we were up bright and early, ready to see a new city!

One of the reasons we were excited about Argentina is because Phil and I both know a very small amount of Spanish.  Normally, one of the first things we do upon arrival in a new country is ask how to say basic phrases, like “hello”, “please”, and “thank-you”.  However, thanks to a few classes at good ‘ole Miami University (and of course having lived in New York City for six years) we are both able to crudely communicate basic ideas and we can even understand quite a few phases in Español.  I was so proud when I was able to buy subway tickets and not use any English at all.  The ticket agent even asked me a question and I was able to respond.  Wow! What a change from struggling through Eastern Europe.  However, one of the things I find interesting is that there is far less English spoken or on signage here than we have seen in almost every other country.  Luckily, we are able to manage our way through Spanish well-enough to figure out where we are going, but if we didn’t have any knowledge of the language, Buenos Aires would be quite a struggle.

We originally intended to start our day with a hop-on/hop-off bus tour in order to get an overview of the city.  After searching for the bus for a bit, we finally found a line 25 people deep waiting to board.  When the woman who worked for the bus company, clad in bright yellow, informed us the next one would be in about 40 minutes and we’d just have to wait in line until then, we decided this wasn’t going to be the best option.  We didn’t want to waste so much time just waiting around and clearly with lines like this, they don’t have enough buses in operation.  We decided instead to explore some tours suggested by our hotel.  We found the Tangol office at the end of Florida Street and chatted with Enrique.  We lamely tried our Spanish, but we all found English was much easier to communicate with.  Tangol offers all kinds of tours and excursions, from a 6-hour walking tour, to an all day Gaucho expedition.  We inquired about various city tours and their Argentinian Fútbol trip.  We had tons of information swimming in our heads, so for starters we decided to go with a 3-hour city tour on a small bus.  We figured this would be just as good, if not better than the hop-on/hop-off tour because this time we would have a live guide who could answer all of our questions.

After killing some time walking up and down Florida Street, the pedestrian only shopping street, we boarded the bus.  We discovered that we were the only 2 of 16 passengers who spoke English; the rest spoke Spanish and Portuguese.  Once again reminding us how inferior we feel in the language department, our guide Fakundo, gave the tour in all 3 languages.  However, we often felt his translations into English were a bit of an after thought.  We could pick up a few words in Spanish here and there–enough to know that he wasn’t giving us all of the information in the English translation.  Still, we managed to glean some new information and see some new neighborhoods.  We drove down the avenue Nuevo de Julio, the widest avenue in the world at 140 meters across. (Correction: we’ve since found out that Argentians just like to SAY it is the widest avenue in the world. Turns out that there is a much larger one in Brazil. Don’t tell the Argentians.)  In the center of this avenue we saw the Public Works building with an iron likeness of Eva Peron on either side.  One side looks in anger and seems to be speaking with vehemence toward the wealthy area of Buenos Aires.  The other side is a friendly iron portrait, smiling down on the lower class sections of the city.  Images of Eva Peron can be seen everywhere, and the people still speak of her as a true Argentinian hero.

As we continued our drive, we saw the elegant and sophisticated neighborhoods of Palermo and Recoleta. We then drove toward an older futbol stadium which is home to the Boca Juniors.  Driving through this area immediately reminded us of Wrigleyville in Chicago. Every shop and storefront had jerseys, team colors, flags and mascots hanging from the windows.  This area is clearly centered on their love of this team.  It is situated right alongside the colorful neighborhood, La Boca.  This used to be one of the poorest neighborhood in Buenos Aires.  The materials for the tenements were leftovers from other buildings and the paint used was whatever leftovers would be handed over to the people.  Because of this, the whole neighborhood is a mish-mash of colors and textures.  It has become a center for bohemian and art culture; streets are lined with paintings, cafes and tango dancers.  Although perfectly safe, our guide warned us that you wouldn’t want to stray too far from this neighborhood at night.  There is still quite a bit of poverty in Buenos Aires and in fact they have 3 shanty towns inside the city.  Apparently outside the city there are many more.  The largest one in Buenos Aires lies very close to the wealthy area and holds 60,000

One set of protesters wanting acknowledgement and benefits for their part in the Falklands War.

squatters.  Our guide explained that they have been there for decades and it is almost more like a neighborhood than a shanty-town.

This overview of Buenos Aires was certainly interesting.  Phil thinks this city has one of the biggest dichotomies between rich and poor that we’ve seen.  To be honest, I’m not really seeing the wealth.  I see poverty everywhere, buildings covered in spray paint and protesters in at least 2 spots in the city.  There seems to be struggle and unhappiness.  At the same time, there is also great pride in their heritage–signs for tango shows, classes and clubs are everywhere.  We have only just arrived, but I am interested to dive a little deeper and see how my impressions of Buenos Aires evolve throughout our visit here.

–Brooke

Categories: Argentina, City Visits, Differences, Landmarks, Reflections, Surprises, Tours, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

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