...de dia

Saw the Make out Monument by day today. Nice view of the river, eh? And by day it's not so much Make Out Monument as it is Teenage Hangout.

Saw this sign on the way to get ice cream after work tonight. It's painted on the wall. I like it. It says wine, cheese and some word I don't now and am too lazy to look up. Night!

Make-out Monument

Tonight Debbie, Marina and I went to the National Flag Memorial. I'd read about it online before I got here and thought I'd stop by to see it, but didn't give it a lot of importance. Then the other day we drove by it in a taxi. My eyes popped out of my head when I saw it. It's enormous. Much larger than I had imagined it would be. (Point!) Seriously though, it's massive. It's like a Washington D.C. style monument. Very impressive. If you look towards the bottom of the above photo you may be able to see the people standing in the courtyard between the Lincoln Memorial-type square part of the monument (behind the photographer - me) and the Washington Monument-like tower. If you can see the small little people standing there in the dark, it may give you some sense of the scale of the thing. Very impressive. Turns out they just added the blue lights last year and I think we can all agree it was a very good idea.   Apparently the monument is very convenient for make out sessions - in case you were wondering.  Not that I made out with anyone, mind you, but there were plenty of couples having quite the good time tonight.  

We went to dinner at a nice Italian-type restaurant tonight. Marina and Debbie and I were laughing and laughing and laughing during dinner (New Guy/Bob joined us later). Then when it came time to order dessert, I was opening the menu to translate some of the desserts for Marina when I totally knocked over my water glass and spilled it all over Marina and her place setting. She quickly stood up once she realized she was wet and Debbie threw her a napkin. The waiter and I, however, couldn't stop laughing. The waiter couldn't even help her clean up the water...he just walked toward the kitchen laughing. Probably went back to tell the cook about the crazy American's at table 6. Marina didn't eat a lot of her pasta but kept sneaking the tomatoes out of New Guy's salad. When the waiter came to take the salad and the remains of Bob's steak away, Marina quickly took the salad from in front of Bob and put it in front of her, just as the waiter was reaching for it. It was hilarious...the look on the waiter's face was as if he were thinking...Wow! Does he not feed her? Then when it was time to leave the restaurant Marina had some Braxton Hicks and didn't stand up right away, but was instead rubbing her pregnant belly. The waiter looked at Marina and said: That's what happens when you eat so much. Hi-LARIOUS. He was a fantastic waiter. I love it when waiters in formal restaurants relax a little around the edges and laugh with their customers.

Question of the week: What exactly is Servicio de Mesa? I understand that it means Table Service, but does that take the place of the tip?

Tip of the day: Don't say "coger" in Argentina. Coger, in Spain, means "to get."  Think about how many times you say "I got robbed at the club last weekend." or "Let's go get some Pomello soda (super yummy, fyi) from the corner store." or "I'm going to get diseases from this water." in a day. I used it a lot during the past week. Then a few days ago someone looked at me funny when I said I was going to get my sister (at the airport). Turns out that in Argentina "coger" is the F-bomb. And means "to F-bomb." So you can imagine why I got the funny look! So instead of "coger" we are to say: "buscar (to find-ish)" or "agarrar (to grab-ish)"...I'm looking out for you.  

Enjoy more of the enormous monument below. Besos!

Plastic wrap = theft deterrent

One of the first things I noticed at baggage claim in Buenos Aires was that some bags appeared to be wrapped in plastic. At first I thought that they were brand new bags being shipped and instead of putting them in a box, they just decided to plastic wrap them. Then I noticed more and more people with the plastic wrapped bags. What was the deal? Yesterday I saw one of the machines that does this. People get out of their cab at the departure gates and instead of going to the Sky Cap, like a lot of us do in the States (or the Unites as my cab driver told me they call the United States for short), they go to this machine and pay to get their bag plastic wrapped. I asked someone why...was it that they didn't want their new bags to get scuffed? Kind of. Apparently this is a theft detterent measure. The bags wrapped in plastic are less likely to be robbed (by thieving airport workers, I guess). So here's the deal...some people only get one out of their three bags wrapped. If I were a thief...I'd target the wrapped bags and just make them dissappear. Probably why I'm not a thief. What happens if secruity/customs needs to search the bag? I may get this done to one of my bags on the way home, just to see what happens at security/customers (Please note, the wheels have been cut out of the plastic so they are fully functioning, which is an awful nice touch).

Saturday morning we went to La Boca, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Absolutely colorful. Lots of people trying to get your attention. The main tourist trap is called Caminito. A few streets of colorful bars and shops with fake Tango dancers out front that only tango for $. And there's also a guy that looks like a famous Argentine soccer player who is offering to get his photo taken with people so they can tell their friends they hung out with a famous soccer player while in Buenos Aires. Whatever. And there was a totally smelly dock. It smelled like I would imagine hell to smell like...imagine the most disgusting smell you've ever had to endure and multiply it by rotten eggs and putrid standing water and you'll just about have what the smell was.

After a quick nap we went off to the Feria (Flea Market) in Recoleta. There were tons of stands with hand made crafts. So much fun to see it all. And then there were a bunch of kids from the local University doing things University kids do...try to get attention. This guy was practicing for Cirque du Soleil. Others were learning to walk tight rope and there was one random guy dressed like a US Founding Father walking around playing a recorder. It was just amazing fun. So much to see. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

From there we went to Happening for dinner. It's in Puerto Madero, an area that used to serve as the main port of Buenos Aires but as Buenos Aires grew larger they probably had to get a larger port. It's buildings have all been refurbished into restaurants and such. There's a nice walk along the Plate River where you can still see the cranes that were used to unload the boats. And lots of people just walking along the banks, enjoying the evening breeze. Gorgeous.

Today we went back to Recoleta and the Feria. After some shopping and a trip to the local ice cream parlour (have I mentioned how delicious the mascarpone ice cream is here? I need to find some in the Unites...how will I ever be able to live without it, now that I know of its deliciousness?) we went to the Recoleta Cemetery. We were told it was 200 meters from the Flea Market stand we were at, but being stupid Americans, we had no idea how far 200 meters was. I figured it'd be a few streets away. After walking for about 2 minutes and just as we were arriving at a corner I asked someone where the cemetery was, he said it was 30 meters away. Surprised at how close, I said: Really? Stranger: Yes, it's just the next doorway down. Me: Are you sure? Stranger: Yeah, you want me to take you there and show you? So...turns out the cemetery is completely enclosed, unlike the cemeteries I'm used to, that are essentially large, open fields. Another tip: if you're looking for the uber-expensive and older than anything in Idaho cemetery in Argentina, it's behind that building that looks like a government or school building. The cemetery is chock full of crypts/mausolea. Absolutely amazing and overwhelming. You have no idea what to look at. Many are in disrepair (imagine that!) and New Guy swears he saw some bones in an open coffin (Gross!).

Welcome to Argentina Debbie

Debbie made it here this morning and it's been a non-stop fun day in Buenoes Aires with Debbie, New Guy and Marina. We'll spend 1/2 the day here tomorrow then head back around 3 pm our time. More on that later. Here's a "borrowed" foto of the bridge we walked across tonight. It's in a wonderful area. (Thanks for the restaurant suggestion Maribel! It was fantastic.) Based on today, I think I could quite happily live in Buenos Aires for a few years.

Flowers and Fruit Stands

It's warm here.  Very warm.

These purple flowers are on trees everywhere here in Rosario.  They are gorgeous.  I love the light purple color that pops against the old buildings.

And the fruit stands are around every street corner.  Love that.

Off in a few hours to pick Debbie up in Buenos Aires.  Look for fotos on Sunday or Monday.  

Besos! 

More on the dogs...

Some of my co-workers from the States (the night shift) went out to a steak house last night and got the left-overs to go so they could feed the stray dogs that seem to follow them back to the hotel every night.  Strangely, no strays last night.  So they brought the meat along this morning hoping to see some strays along the way.  We did.  So the co-worker dropped some meat in front of one dog, which caught the eye of another stray who came wandering over to see what was up.  Not wanting to start a dog fight, the guy gave both dogs some meat.  You would think the stray dogs would've devoured the meat.  But no.  They just stood over the meat and glared at each other.   Don't know if they ever did eat the meat.  Could be they're like the North-going and South-going Zax...just staring each other down still.  Crazy dogs!

Here's my room service from tonight.  It's a steak sandwich.  Ingredients: slice of bread, mayonnaise, tomatoes, deli sliced ham (the same kind of ham they have at breakfast and my co-workers got in their pasta for lunch), melted cheese, steak, lettuce, melted cheese, sliced hard boiled egg, mayonnaise and bread.  And then french fries.  It was good...but took too much effort to eat.  So after getting about 1/4 of the way through...I picked it apart and ate the steak off of it.  Mmm...mmm...good!

We had a crazy cab ride again at lunch today.  I don't think there are traffic rules here.  Not as bad as what I see on The Amazing Race in India, but close enough to make me very glad we didn't rent cars here.

Macdono

If you ever find yourself in Argentina and want to go to McDonalds you must tell the cab driver you'd like to go to "Macdono."  Saying McDonald's will get you nowhere.  I tried several variations of saying McDonald's with different pronunciations...the cab driver just sat there.  I happened upon "macdono" and the cab driver said:  Oh!  Macdono!  Hay varios a qual quieren ir? (Oh!  Macdono!  There are many...which do you want to go to?)  Just a little tip from me to you.

I got a grilled chicken sandwich, which was actually better here than in the States.  It was a proper chicken breast, not chicken breast pieces.  The fries were o.k.  I did have one heck of a yummy ice cream today on my way home from work.  Wish I would have gotten a foto of that.  Oh my gosh it was so good.  No clue what the name of it was...Mascarpone algo (something).  I asked the girl behind the counter which she liked and she gave me a sample of it.  So delish!  It's Mascarpone cheese ice cream with some sort of berry/fruit mixed in.  Heaven.

I'm really enjoying it here.  I think I'm going to head out tomorrow morning before work and see a bit more of the city.  We took a cab into the downtown part of the city to get to Macdono and it was gorgeous.  What continues to surprise me is how half the city is abandoned and the other half is thriving.  The abandoned part is intermingled into the thriving part.  One business doing well (like Macdono) right across the street from another (a cinema) that obviously hasn't been open for 15 - 20 years.   It's like this all over.  People say it's due to the unstable economy here.  It's certainly nice for the US exchange rate 3 of theirs to 1 of ours.  (Though that exchange rate didn't really matter when we decided to look up the price for the Madonna concert in Buenos Aires the weekend we're there:  $210 American.  Man...that's a lot.  So no Madonna concert for us - How much fun would that have been and in Argentina?!)

Here's a foto from the little elevator that takes me up to the roof (see foto below).  I feel that the reason children under 12 cannot ride in the elevator is because they don't want to risk killing the young...the thing is so rickety I think the cable will snap each time I'm in it.