Because the Internet at the apartments I’ve stayed in has been spottier than a cheetah in polka dots, I’ve sometimes been forced to go to cafes to use their Internet. Luckily, Buenos Aires has a profusion of cafes (Argentines do love their coffee and pastries) and you only usually have to walk a couple blocks from your house to find one. Surprisingly, for a city where getting Internet in the home is apparently quite difficult, the Internet in cafes here is really fast and you can get free wifi in almost any restaurant or cafe. Oh Argentina. How you confuse me sometimes. Also lovely is the fact that you will never get hurried out of a cafe, or given any awkward looks if you’ve only ordered a coffee and are still in the cafe four hours later using the Internet. No pasa nada… as with everything, Argentines are very relaxed about time.
Anyway, my favorite cafe that I’ve found so far is a place called Bardepán, a wonderfully cute hidden gem in the Colegiales neighborhood. I hate having to use a cliche like hidden gem, so we’ll say undiscovered spot, but it really is just that. Because foreigners and visitors rarely hang out in Colegiales, it’s totally off the radar here. I was only introduced to it by my former roommate, who had passed by it on a walk. Bardepán, along with the restaurant that it’s connected to, La Prometida, is a perfect place to linger over croissants and coffee, or, as I did one day, over a huge bowl of delicious curry beef, vegetables, and rice, and homemade bread and hummus. Check out my little cafe office:
If only cubicles could be this inviting...
The cafe’s atmosphere is perfectly quaint and warm–not so chic that you feel like it’s catering to a shi-shi or touristy crowd (ahem–I sometimes think very stark, minimalistic spaces are like this), and not so precious that you feel like it’s trying too hard. The decorations and artwork are all very interesting; everything down to the lighting and the jars of various items lining the shelves look like they were very purposefully chosen. It has the look of a cafe that you would find in France (except I am making that assumption because I can’t actually recall what the cafes in France looked like, and it was almost ten years ago that I was there). But, since a picture says a thousand words, here are some photos of the place for your viewing pleasure: Keep reading →
Also in Langkawi, we made friends with a guy who looked like a Malaysian rastafarian poster boy–long dreadlocks, lots of jewelry involving beads and shells, flowy pants, a chilled out ‘tude, and you guessed it, a pet monkey. What’s that you ask? Yes, he had an adorable pet monkey who would climb all over you and play with you. Here she is pretending to smoke a cigarette.
Silly monkey! Cigarettes are for humans!
And then we decided to eat some robster dishes. The Malays know how to do a robster right.
Hola faithful (and one-time) readers! I’m sorry I’ve let the blog fall off in the last week. But since I’ve currently come down with Buenos Aires’ own version of the Black Death, I have a little more time on my hands, and thus hope to churn out a couple new posts soon. For now, since I am heading out to the grocery store to stock up on all things liquid to both drink and eat (quick poll here: my Chicagoan roommates say “eat soup” rather than “drink soup.” Is that normal? Or is the way I say it–”drink soup”–weird?), I’m going to just quickly put up a few pics of someplace I’d rather be right now: the beach in Langkawi, Malaysia.
Langkawi’s a small island off the northwest coast of peninsular Malaysia with a few nice resorts that attract vacationers from all over the world. Though more commercial and slightly less dreamy than some of the beaches along peninsular Malaysia’s east coast, such as The Perhentians, during late October, when we were in Malaysia, the eastern coast is shut down due to monsoon season. Langkawi turned out to be a pretty decent alternative though:
Pantai Cenang beach, Langkawi, Malaysia
more palms, beach, perfect blue sky, and fluffy white clouds....
It’s high time for another post about food. And I am pleased to announce that this post is about one of the best types of food ever: mashed potatoes (yes, I already referenced my deep love for them in the post about expat Thanksgiving). But how much do you want to eat this right now:
stop it. heaven in a bowl. nice toast you got there tommy... sucka!
Maybe it’s just me that’s obsessed with mashed potatoes and melty cheese. In which case, I’m sorry for the rest of you. Anyway, this was a pic taken at a little open-air street-side restaurant called Artisan’s Pizza on the island of Langkawi in Malaysia. Even though it was across the street from our guesthouse–staring us in the face every time we left–we hesitated to eat there the first couple days we were in Langkawi. We had tried a few different places on the popular strip of restaurants along Pantai Cenang beach, but didn’t have much luck finding any good food. Finally, we relented and decided to try Artisan’s (besides, Tommy has rarely gone three days without eating pizza… kidding! Or am I?), and it ended up being one of our favorite places to eat.
You might be thinking to yourself–and rightly so–why would you eat pizza and mashed potatoes when you’re on an exotic island in Southeast Asia? Keep reading →
Thanks to my friend Stacey, I found this great, reassuring video with Ira Glass from public radio’s “This American Life.” He talks about what a lot of people who pursue careers in radio, television, film, writing, photography, art, fashion, etc. know–which is that it’s definitely not for the faint-hearted or easily-discouraged. I’m endeavoring on a “creative” career path now. I have zero delusions that it will be anything but difficult and a lot of hard work (mixed with–hopefully–finding the right contacts). But here is Ira Glass, having already made it to the top of his game, having already achieved as much as one could hope to achieve in radio, assuring me that it WILL take a while, that I WILL fail, and that I WILL produce some pretty god-awful stuff.
Take Ira himself, for example. His voice is actually horrible for radio–despite it being very recognizable. But it’s not at all the type of voice where someone would tell him “you should be on radio.” But he pursued what he loved to do (despite being pre-med in college), and with a lot of persistence, became very successful doing it.
Fortunately, I am actually pretty confident that I have good taste (ha, but don’t most people?), so to quote a favorite rapper of mine who passed before his time: “See you chumps on top.”
So I’m being ambitious today. And by that I mean the complete and utter opposite. I am hungover. Though technically I feel okay, my body is all but comatose. I’ve sat in the same spot for the last four hours and though my brain wants me to move, my muscles and ligaments and bones just don’t feel like it. I’m lazy as f*ck today and goddammit, I’m going to keep being lazy. I meant that I’m being ambitious only because I’m posting several blogs in one day, and on a day like today, that deserves a gold star sticker. I’m behind on everything that I wanted to write about from my trip to Malaysia, and my trip from last summer to Southeast Asia, so bear with me. Though I really really should be packing and cleaning my room (because I’m moving to a new apartment tomorrow with my two new friends from Chicago, Jackie and Tessa!), quite frankly, packing’s just not really my bag right now (ha-punny), and writing is a much more appealing task.
So why am I so hungover? One word: boliche. It means “club” in Argentine Spanish, and they are one hell of a hilariously good time. Keep reading →
Salud! A Thanksgiving dinner under the stars on the wonderfully spacious terrace I have at my current apartment.
As someone who is unabashedly obsessed with food, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. But not just for the food (which happens to include one of the greatest foods ever invented–mashed potatoes!), but because the holiday celebrates gathering with family and friends and being thankful–and all the better with a belly full of great food and drinks.
So imagine my surprise when I realized that many of my American friends down here didn’t have any plans for Thanksgiving! As a last-minute decision, I decided to host my first ever Thanksgiving dinner, and I’m happy to report that I not only pulled it off–it was a success! And with people I’ve only known for a week or two, and in Buenos Aires (with ovens where you can’t control the temperature, and stores that don’t carry anything remotely close to turkey, cranberries, gravy, or cornbread). But we did have roast chicken (a pretty good substitute if you ask me), mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, sweet potato casserole, salad, deviled eggs, bread and cheese, homemade pecan pie (very impressive given that brown sugar and pecans are nearly non-existent here), and lots and lots of wine. Luckily I didn’t have to prepare all the food for all 18 people who came–this was definitely a potluck affair. But how do people pull off Thanksgiving dinners when it’s not a potluck?! Good god. Hats off to our mothers and grandmothers and aunts.
the sweet potato casserole in the foreground was bomb. dot com.
And don’t worry, I made everyone go around and say what they were thankful for–a proper initiation for the Dutch, French, British, and Argentine friends who were Thanksgiving first-timers. I may or may not have said I’m glad I had the “cajones” to move to Buenos Aires–hey, I had to try to use Spanish somewhere in there. Other people offered up some other non-traditional toasts: one of the Brits was very thankful for wool socks… (of course…), a friend gave it up for the free and very awesome Skype, and another was happy she was going to get the chance to go to Machu Picchu before she went back home. So here’s to many more gatherings with my new friends!
I kept thinking of the old (and hilariously ridiculous) Grey Poupon commercials when I went to a polo match the other weekend. Never have a I seen such a large group of people who looked like they all stepped off the set from shooting a Ralph Lauren ad–and this coming from a girl who went to Georgetown. I had to wait outside the polo field for a while, waiting for my friends to get there, and nine out of every ten people who walked into the venue were a) beautiful, b) well-dressed, and c) looked like they probably had servants, or at least very nice cars. Anyway, it was an interesting event. Unbeknownst to me before I went to the match, the best polo players in the world, and thus the best teams, are Argentine. In the words of two American guys I met who actually play polo (professionally! WHAT?!), the Brits and the Aussies only try to keep up with the Argentines. I’d say polo is a totally boring sport, but perhaps that’s because I know nothing about the rules, so I’ll just leave it at this: I probably won’t go to another one any time soon, at least not without some adult beverages to accompany me. It’s a much more slow-moving game than I expected, especially given that it’s played on horses. But it was fun seeing how many people showed up for the event, and it’s also interesting that it’s kind of a big deal here. Another Argentine cultural event down.
We fit in pretty well, what with the large floppy sunhat, and the Asian girl....
this is NOT where i live. although i do have a couch and coffee table.
I recently came down with a bad case of the “first worlders,” or as some might call it, “Americanitis.” That is, I was complaining because the Internet wasn’t working; and my room was hot, but I couldn’t open the window because then I would get eaten bit by bit by mosquitoes because they don’t believe in screens here; [and I was feeling kind of unsafe because I might have gotten robbed], and I had to light the stove with a lighter, instead of it automatically lighting, or being electric (and I have a really REALLY big fear of matches and lighters).
But hooooold up. Am I sounding like a prissy American who’s acting like it wasn’t HER idea to move to Argentina in the first place? Exactly. I had to check myself before I wrecked myself.
I had also apparently forgotten that the entire time I traveled around Asia, I had no Internet at all and had to pay to use it, everywhere was blazing hot and waaay more humid, the mosquito situation was worse by at least ten-fold (I counted 115 bites on me AT ONE TIME once), and well, I never used a stove there, but the bathrooms lacked a certain er… cleanliness. (We’ll call that a fairly even trade, because I seriously have a level 10 fear of matches and lighters.) Keep reading →
Of course you all know (or I hope you do) that along with steak, malbec, and a flair for rewriting the rules of Spanish grammar, tango is another one of Argentina’s claims to fame. Having originated in Buenos Aires, tango is inextricably rooted in the culture and consciousness of Argentines, and especially of porteños (a native or resident of BA). Unlike other Latino dances–such as salsa, lambada, and merengue–that are more vibrant and celebratory, tango is undeniably sultry, but in a somber, powerful, and mesmerizing way.
So, apropos (ha, I love that word) of living in Buenos Aires, I went to go see a tango show last week. Although there wasn’t any tango dancing, it was a tango band show, and it rocked. Literally. Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro, made famous by a documentary film that won tons of awards, is tango music meets grungy rock band. They played classical instruments with an impressive passion (albeit at times I thought some members of the band took the whole rock band persona a little too seriously). The show was set in a stylized warehouse-turned-performance room, with tables and bleachers, where you could buy drinks and–of course–delicious empanadas. A cool experience for my first exposure to tango music. With dramatic lighting, smoke curling up towards the spotlights, and the shrill bandoneón (the instrument that looks like an accordion), the intensity of the music was palpable. Get a taste of it in the video below. Enjoy!
[EDIT: So, it turns out that with the crappy wifi connection that I currently have in my Argentine apartment, it is impossible to upload video onto the Interwebs. So, as soon as I get to a snazzy cafe with faster Internet service, I'll put that video up. But for now, here's a video from Orquesta Tipica's website, which actually has much better shots of the orchestra members playing, b/c believe it not, I wasn't allowed to go up on stage and hold my camera in their faces.]
