either/or

is to help old ladies across the street. They’ll talk your ear off.

One of my favorite books.

“For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead. It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can. At such times it seems that the conversation is spoken by automatons who have no choice in what they say. I hear myself or someone else saying things like: “In my opinion the Russian people are a great people, but–” or “Yes, what you say about the hypocrisy of the North is unquestionably true. However–” and I think to myself: this is death. Lately it is all I can do to carry on such everyday conversations, because my cheek has a developed a tendency to twitch of its own accord.” Walker Percy

Paliacio Barolo

This is a modified version of what i’ve started to send to friends who visit. I thought it might be useful to post. This is a short list of the things i’d recommend doing if you have a few days here.

First, from a friend who lives here:

Being in Buenos Aires:

The three most important rules for my Buenos Aires guests: 1. Watch out for dog droppings on the sidewalks at all times. 2. The moment you let your guard down in maintaining a code-red state of heightened vigilance is the moment you will step in a huge pile of it. 3. No, seriously, remember the Eye of Sauron from The Lord of the Rings — ever watchful, never sleeping, always searching, hunting for that accursed ring? You may be talking with someone. You may want to take in all the beautiful sights. That’s fine. Just don’t take one eye off the sidewalk for even a moment, especially in the fancier neighborhoods where more money means more dogs and more dogs means, well . . .

Websites/Resources

Here are some websites i would recommend -

This site has a lot of good links to activities and ideas - http://www.allaboutar.com/ba.htm
This girl does a good job talking about obscure restaurants that she begs taxi drivers to take her to - http://www.taxigourmet.com/
Good english language site with articles/news on argentina - http://www.argentinepost.com/
Good Morning BA- http://www.goodmorningba.com/

http://guiaoleo.com.ar/ - good restaurant guide but all in spanish

Ideas for things to do

First, get familiar w/the Barrios (neighborhoods) you want to visit. Since you only have a few days, you won’t have a lot of time to see everything- BA is 2/3 the size of manhattan so it’s a bit overwhelming. I would recommend visiting Recoleta (for the dead people), Palermo (for the feeling of swanky but shabby elegance), Boca (if you see a game or to see the incredible way the neighborhood is constructed - but only in the day), San Telmo (for the outdoor market on Sunday), and “el Centro” for some of the architecture, shopping, and the feeling of being in a metropolis.

I would recommend doing some or all of the following:

0. Plaza Dorrego - San Telmo Sunday market - if you just say ‘Feria de San Telmo’ - a taxi will take you here. THis runs Sundays until about 5pm. Probably going early-afternoon is best.
1. Go to Recoleta cemetery - it’s in the heart of Recoleta and really shouldn’t be missed. I’ve been to a number of cemeteries in the world and nothing compares to this place - it’s astounding.
2. Visit the Plaza de Mayo, and Congresso
3. Find some cafés to eat at. Cafe Tortoni is the most famous but I don’t find it that worth waiting in line for.
4. Eat at a few Parrillas. (see below)
5. Spend some time in Palermo Soho, walking around. Start in Plaza Serrano and wander around for an afternoon, there are art galleries, a real focus on industrial and interior design in lots of shops, lots of outdoor cafés, etc.
6. Visit the MALBA - which has quite a nice collection of modern artists from Argentina, Italy, and Spain Botero, Gaudi, etc. It’s on Alcorta in Palermo
7. Go to the ice cream shop “Persicco” which people say has the best ice cream in Argentina, and many people say rivals the best in Italy.
8. Take a walk or at least a taxi down Ave Libertadore - one of the widest streets in the world and many grand apartments line the sides as it winds down toward the downtown area.
9. Go to the Rosedal in Parque 3 de Febrero - a beautiful Rose garden (also in Palermo)
10. Take the subte - it’s easy, cheap (90 centavos or so, though i think it just went up) and it’s the oldest subway system in the Americas. Line A is actually cool because the cars are old and made of wood! Most of the system is quite modern.
11. Tango shows -  I’m not the best for knowing where to go here.
12. Take a bus - it’s one of the craziest systems around where you can only pay with coins, you have to look for the bus by its paint job, and you better move quick because they barely slow down for you. But it’s a cool adventure that you don’t want to miss.

Buildings/Architecture
13. Cool bookstore in an old theater - El Ateneo - 1860 Santa Fe Avenue
14. Palacio Barolo in Buenos Aires - Av. de Mayo 1370 - Based on Dante’s Inferno http://www.pbarolo.com.ar/
15. “Water Works” building -  Also called Obras Sanitarias - at Cordoba and Riobamba

Restaurants

My favorite Parrillas are:

“Parilla Peña” on Calle Rodriguez Peña 682 in Barrio Norte (near Recoleta)
Don Julio, in Palermo Soho - Guatemala 4691 and Gurruchaga

The beef cuts you should try over the course of your visit are the Bife de Chorizo (which has nothing to do with Mexican Chorizo - forget the association-it’s just a good cut similar to a New York Strip), Asado de Tire (think beef ribs cut the other direction, like little cross sections of beef rib bones that you can eat the meat around, Bife Lomo (like a porterhouse). The sausage, called “Chorizo” here is quite good and is nothing like Mexican chorizo.  Argentina is not known for it’s fish but there is a great restaurant here that serves Pácu (listed below), which is a “River Fish” from Brazil and is incredible, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that restaurant unless you wanted to try something different and wanted to carve out the time.

Other Restaurants you would be totally excited you visited:

Sarkis - Thames 1101 - Delightful Mediterranean/Lebanese foo
Jangada - Bonpland 1670 - Palermo Hollywood - ONLY go here for the most incredible, rich, delicious river fish - Pacú

Or if you make it as far north as Belgrano (unlikely) check out one of these cafés:

Maru Botana (Belgrano) 11 de Septiembre 982 between Olleros and Gorostiaga - Great little cafe with scones, cakes, tostadas, etc. On a cute street in Belgrano with nice architecture.
Oui Oui - Nicaragua 6068 - Lovely French cafe

Soccer

There is an english language Argentina soccer site - argentinesoccer.com which has a lot of information but is not well laid out.

Messi and the Argentine Team were absolutely brilliant last night in a 4-0 win over Venezuela.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9QLlZoEG4w

Argentina on two steaks a day.

Eating too much meat may shorten life.

persiccos in buenos aires, for example.

If you are a US citizen, living in or visiting Buenos Aires, and you need to visit Brazil, there are some steps you’ll need to go through to get a visa. You may be aware that Brazil’s visa policies (and fees) are a retaliatory response to the Visa fees that the US imposes on Brazilian citizens who want to visit the US. On the Argentina Brazilian Consulate website, it even states that the USD $130 fee (as of October 2008) is a reciprocial fee equivalent to the US charge.

Here’s what you will need:

• A passport picture.
• Your passport, with enough pages in it to get a Visa. Mine had four remaining blank pages in it, which is not enough. The lady told me to go to the US embassy to get pages added.
• Travel plans- copy of your hotel reservation, copy of your plane ticket reservation. If you don’t have a return ticket, MAKE ONE UP - just make sure you have something that looks like a valid e-ticket summary from a website. They don’t particularly look closely at these documents.
• If you are getting a Business Visa, you will need a FAX from the business you are going to be working with when you are in Brazil stating the purpose of your trip, and what you will be doing. It is also important that the fax state that you are not working for that company while you are there.
• They told me for the fax that it must come from Brazil, but it turned out this wasn’t possible for me (their fax was down), so I just had the company fax me the letter, and I re-sent the fax from my own fax account in the US. They did not have a hard time with this.
• They did not ask for bank account information but they say on the website that you must provide this.
• When you enter the Consulate, go straight up to the window in the center. They speak English if that’s an issue for you (I tried Castellano for five minutes and finally the woman had mercy on me.) First, tell them what you want and show them all of your paperwork. The reason for this is that if you are missing something, you won’t waste the 10-15 minutes typing up your application on the computer only to find that you don’t have the necessary items.
• If you don’t have a picture they’ll give you directions to a Kiosko around the corner that will take it for 13 pesos.
• Once you’re sure you have what you need, go to the computers to the side of entrance, and type up your information. You’ll need mother’s/father’s names, address of your hotel or residence in Brazil, phone number where you can be reached, etc.
• Then get in the line to the far right for Tourist Visas.

Important things I learned during my FIVE trips to the Consulate:

• If you are going for a conference DO NOT tell them this - simply say you are going as a tourist. According to the Brazilian consulate in the US, attending a conferences is OK under a tourist visa, but according to the Brazilian consulate in Argentina, this is a business activity and you need a business visa. So, if you want to avoid hassle, keep it touristy.
• Unless you have a DNI, DO NOT tell them you have residency in Argentina if they ask. You will then be forced to show your residencia, etc. This is especially true if you are getting a business visa, because then they will want proof of your company in Argentina, (ie do you work for an SRL - like an LLC in the US). If you simply put your US address on the application, they won’t ask any of these questions.
• You don’t need to bring any money, they will give you a receipt and directions to the Banco Itau where you can pay. You must bring this receipt when you come back to pick up the Visa.
• The Visa takes 3 days. I dropped mine off on a Tuesday and they told me to pick it up between 12-1 pm on Friday.

Realizing that many of my posts may be construed as not covering the positive aspects of our stay here, and having been here for four months now, here are a few things, mostly meaningless, that have affected me.

1. You can buy anything one at a time at a kiosko. I have a mouse with a dead battery. I go outside to the kiosko, and I buy one AA battery. Super convenient. It’s everything Costco isn’t.

2. Cheek kisses. 

3. Politicians can talk for 40 minutes, with 75 microphones, cellphones, and tape recorders jammed in their face, and TV stations run the whole thing. Sure politics is dysfunctional here, but it’s a different sort of problem. Argentina is not a ’sound byte’ culture in some respects, or at least Argentine TV news doesn’t tend to pressure political dialogue in the same way that US news coverage tends to.

4. Cafe culture. Beef.

5. That asados just happen all the time, you get invited, then random people show up. Like the guy who painted our house invited me out to hang out with his band while they played one night, mostly covers, at this house that is essentially uninhabited except for when they practice. So while they were playing, their eighty year old neighbor comes in and takes the microphone and starts singing a tango ballad from the 50’s.

6. Friendliness from strangers when you are clearly a foreigner. First, one day when I was here in January just visiting, I needed to get some clothes washed. I didn’t speak any spanish at that point and looked up what to say in my phrasebook, walked next door to the Lavadero and basically butchered my sentence. There was this customer there, an older woman, who spoke english and helped translate for me. The next day I was about 10 blocks away at a restaurant and the same woman was there. So she comes up and starts helping me order.

Second, and not from a stranger, but still, we posted on an online forum here that we needed help mounting our TV on the wall. A friend of a friend basically saw the post, helped translate and find a local store that had the part we needed, and found someone who could do the work. 

7. Bus drivers who open doors for you when you’re not at a stop. And open doors when the bus is still going 20 kph, and let you kindof half navy-seal it out the door, then keep going. OK, i have mixed feelings about this one, but on days when I feel like i’m in the rhythm of the city and enjoying the bus, I like it. 

8. That Porteños think its funny that Americans eat while walking. Now that I think about it, I used to always eat while walking in Seattle, but there are all kinds of barriers here to prevent this combination of activities. Like coffee is practically not purchasable ‘to go’. If you buy a pancho or choripan from a street vendor, generally people just stand around right there and eat it.

9. That the neighborhood parilla comes over to our office, rings the bell, and to tell us when ‘hay disco’. El disco is this big disk cooked on the parillada with either beef or chicken - somewhat like a half roast beef/half stew. 

10. The fact that people are willing to protest at the drop of a hat. I’ll take that over the numbness and emasculation of the US public any day.

Since I’ve been in Buenos Aires, i’ve had mate a few times. First, by myself just to try the flavor, and the first legitimate time - because you can’t drink mate by yourself and call it ‘legit’ - with a friend who i’m sharing an office with here in Palermo. The mate i had at home was bitter and reminded me of tobacco, but the mate they have at the office is pretty good - much smoother, and I really enjoyed it.

But last weekend we went to the park and I just had to try it again, but i didn’t bring any of the accoutrements necessary to partake. So i bought a ‘mate listo’ (ready mate) - it includes a plastic bombilla, a plastic cup, a styrofoam thermos and the yerba mate itself. One thing that is clear is that the quality of mate really varies depending on the source as with any other tea or herb product. The taste was incredibly bitter, like smoking a cigarette that you found under the passenger seat of your pickup, then making a stew with the used filter and gargling the broth.

Americans are vaguely familar with the Faulkland Islands war, but not as familar with the impact on Argentine history, nor with the fact that the Islas Malvinas, as they’re called in Castellano, have their status as Argentine territory written into the Constitution. Further, that the war, triggered by the occupation of South Georgia by Argentina in March of 1982, was a huge boost to Margaret Thatcher. Of course i learned this mostly from Wikipedia, and from this really nice guy I met on craigslist who came to buy some of our furniture in Seattle. He was a walking encyclopedia on the whole war.

I found this Elvis Costello song today and though I think i’ve heard it before I never realized the subject was the war, and the fact that the BBC calls it the most lyrically deft and intelligent protest songs ever written.