Yet More Things I've Learned In Buenos Aires

- They have a healthy dislike of having stop signs at four way intersections. Not the big city intersections, but the smaller ones off the beaten path. Sidney and I spent a Sunday afternoon on a cafe patio near one of these intersections waiting for an accident, nothing life alternating, just an entertaining fender bender. After many near misses, there was no such luck. We decided the bigger vehicles had the right of way, no matter what directions they come from.

- Not having ever been to a big east coast city, which I'm assuming Buenos Aires most resembles, I don't know how people are there, but here, they are not the friendliest people in the world and in some cases, down right snooty.

- Movie theaters leave something to be desired, at least the one I went to off of the very popular Florida Street. I've been to people's houses that have a nicer entertainment center.

- It's kind of fun to be able to say whatever I want around people and there is a good chance they aren't going to understand me. Of course this has a chance of biting me in the ass one of these times, but for now, it's been fun.

- I'm sure this isn't restricted to Buenos Aires, but four different taxi rides to the barrio of Palermo have equaled four different ways to get there.

- Women wear skin tight pants. This can be good and bad. Tight pants are a privilege, not a right. But (no pun intended) there are some women here that could put J-Lo to shame, and I'm not even a butt guy....I'll leave it at that.

- They have a healthy fear of ice in drinks. I've heard this is common in other places, but it's still kind of weird.

- Speaking of food and drink, portions here for the most part are rather small, which probably explains the small percentage of over weight people. They don't skimp on meat though, steaks and fish are good sized portions. You won't go hungry, let's put it that way...

- It's funny to watch dudes gathered around TVs in bars watching soccer. 60 minutes to watch a couple goals....no thanks.....

- Their Federal capital building is pink....no really, it's pink, like pink pink. There are some rumors behind why this is, but still....pink?

- In this particular area (downtown), there is almost a 50-50 split between cabs and regular cars on the roads. Even in the other parts of the city I've been in, we've never had a problem getting a cab. Well there was the Saturday night we went to Palermo and the bars were starting to empty. Neither of us had a skirt on, so it was kind of hard to get a cab to pick us up. My bare legs don't exactly scream "hotness".

- It's freakin humid here...and somewhat chilly from time to time. We've only had one day with much rain (at least that I've seen, I spend most of the daytime inside).

- You don't see a whole lot of homeless on the streets here. Sure, it's here, but for a city of 13 million, I was kind of expecting to see more. It's when I see kids or a guy in a wheel chair with a cat on a leash that it gets to me too much.

- They call the barrio of Recoleta the "Paris of South America". While it's nice, if that's what Paris is like, it's a disappointment. Maybe I didn't rub enough shoulders with the rich and famous that are supposed to frequent the area.

San Telmo

This night out went down last week. My connection is horrible in the hotel so going beyond email and facebook is more trouble than I really want to deal with most of the time. It's been nice to be separated from the modern "conveniences" these past couple weeks, but that might be a topic for another time down the road. I'm half way through my time in Buenos Aires, and have really enjoyed my experience here. I spend a lot of time walking around town, seeing the sites, experiencing new things, and just enjoying the time here. It's truly been a once in a life time trip, one which I will always be fortunate to have experienced. I have more stories and experiences to share, I just need to sit down and write them out one of these days.

We went to this old part of town called San Telmo. It's the oldest barrio of Buenos Aires, and full of old buildings, bars, shops and that kind of thing. I even found a place that sells vinyl records and I was told that the markets on the weekend have some vinyl to be found. I'm so there. Anyway, my friend and co-worker Sidney got in contact with an old friend, who has been Beuneos Aires for the past month. The friend, Vlad, wanted to take us to a part of town that Sidney wasn't all that familiar with.


They swing by my room and we catch a cab out in front. As I mentioned San Telmo is an old, artsy, former industrial part of town. It's kind of shady in the dark, but in a good sort of way. I had a good vibe of the area, but there was a lot of trash and graffiti, you know, the unsavory types of places back in the states. We get there, and Vlad from what I understand, has being staying in the area. He gives us a quick tour of the surrounding sites, showing us a plaza type of thing that is supposed to be happening on the weekends. It has singing and dancing and sell lots of things. From there we walk around and he shows us a couple of the nearest blocks. We then go into a small store that was selling beer and wine and I bought a liter of beer and they bottle a bottle of wine and we went over to the plaza, where you can just sit and drink. So we sat down and opened our drinks and I listened to Sidney and Vlad talk about their adventures.


Both Sidney and Vlad travel as much as they can. Sidney has been pretty much all over Europe and South America as the same with Vlad. I don't know how they do it, but I guess they work just long enough to go overseas, then they just travel around where ever they go to. For example Vlad has spent a good chunk of time (at least a year) in South America. He works a bit, then will go hike in Patagonia. He even lived six months in Bogota. I don't understand how they make money to do this, but they do. If I was younger and had a chance to do it over, I'd probably would do the same thing. I see the appeal of visiting other countries and cultures. Anyway, this Vlad guy was a pretty cool guy. Kind of a feisty, sneaky (and I mean that in a good way), and a survivalist. I sat and listened to Vlad and Sidney talk about some of their experiences traveling abroad, everything from animals fighting outside of Vlad's tent in the Patagonia while camping by himself, to getting robbed in Colombia, to Sidney collapsing on a hiking trip in the Andes, to his travels around Morocco. It's was really interesting to hear the stories, both of them could write books on their travels.


After Vlad valiantly defended their bottle of wine from a bum asking for a sip, we walked on to another old bar. There we walked in and had a liter of Heineken and bullshitted some more. After Sidney argued we had to get back to the room because of our early morning, he got talked (I was all for going to another bar) walking a few blocks down to the "Red Door" which was literally a bar, no sign, with a red door. They had these HUGE flight of stairs to get to this bar that had couches all over the place, with really cool American soul music playing. Funny thing though, I think I saw more Americans in there than I have anywhere else this whole trip. There was also some hot girls there that kept coming from the back of the bar. I don't know what was up with that, but it was interesting. Vlad latched on to some young cutie when we left him. We took a taxi back to the hotel to wrap up a entertaining evening....

More things I've learned while being in Buenos Aires

- If you go out to eat here, plan on it not being a quick thing. They are not in a hurry to get to you once you sit down, they are not in a hurry to get you out after you finished your email. Us busy Americanos will more than likely have to ask for the check, otherwise it could be an hour or more after eating.

- They just throw bags of garbage on the sidewalk, which a garbage truck comes and picks it up in the middle of the night. And people have no problem going through the garbage bags either. Not just homeless people or whatnot, but people that look like they don't need to be going through sacks of garbage.

- I think people have fun just coming up to me and rambling a bunch of stuff in Spanish to see my lost expression. I know some words and phrases, but they are usually speaking so fast, that I have no clue what was just said.

- Cheese, they love their cheese. Lunch has cheese involved in almost everything. That and beef.

- We are getting coke in glass bottles here. I'm tying to limit my soda intake, but since they don't have ice tea here (they look at me weird when I ask for it), I've had a couple. Coke is better here than it is back at home.

- In a disappointing turn of events, most of the beer here is imported stuff that can easily be found in America. Heinken,Guiness, Corona, and Budweiser have all shown up. The only Argentine beer I've had so far is this stuff called Quilmes Crystal (they have other varieties as well) , which tastes like a mellower Red Stripe. It's good, but I was hoping for more. That's one of the missions this weekend, to find some good Argentine beer.

- When walking on the sidewalk, don't do it too close to the edge, or a big ass bus will come by and clip you with one of it's mirrors.

- People on Motorcycles and mopeds have a death wish. They will go between cars, around them, through them, whatever it takes.

- Everyone is horn happy.

- There must be a lucrative career in the magazine business, there is a newsstand on every street corner. Seriously, every corner, and they have every type of magazine you could imagine. EVERY kind....

- They still stand on busy intersections and panhandle, but they have some creativity to it. One kid I saw, would busily rush out when cars stopped, dropped a bunch of envelopes on the cars windshield. I guess he would time it out, then he would rush back and collect the envelopes. I didn't see many people using the envelopes, but some people appreciated the effort. Another time, I see a guy do a juggling act out in the cross walk while cars were stopped at the light. He stopped in time to get money from people. Gotta like it....

- No one wears shorts. I mean no one.

- Not many people wear hats either. Of course I'm always wearing one and will continue to do so, but not often you someone wearing a hat.

A Typical Work Day in Buenos Aires

:The first work week is in the books. I'm starting to fall into somewhat of a routine finally. The nights still seem earlier than they actually are here. Work goes by pretty fast, not really sure why which leaves us with plenty of time to go out each night for dinner, walks and drinks. I've been trying to keep myself busy so I don't miss home too much, which except for a few moments here and there, hasn't been a problem yet. Most of my day is centered around this hotel, so it's a good thing it's a pretty nice hotel. It's a bit old in some places, but it could be a whole lot worse without a doubt. Without getting into the exciting details of work itself (note the heavy sarcasm), I'll run down what a typical day is like here so far for me...

7:45 a.m. - 8:00 a.m. (Local time of course)

Attempt to hit snooze, only to realize that the snooze doesn't work. Then turn on a light to set the alarm back 15 minutes, hoping I did it right. Then I throw a pillow over my head and attempt to get more sleep.

8:00-8:15

Take a shower. The bathroom is pretty nice. It's got marble floors and counter tops. The shower is also a jacuzzi bath tub, which I have yet to use. The shower itself is kind of weird; there are no curtains, and only a small glass divider that goes about a quarter ways length wise down the tube. Just enough so anyone taking a shower doesn't completely soak the floor, just enough for a small pond on the bathroom floor. I'm still afraid to use the bidet (sp?), anything that shoots up water high enough to be classified as a small geyser, I think I'll skip.

8:15 a.m.-8:30 a.m.

Get dressed, set my fantasy baseball teams, send out any emails that need be, and check facebook. It's my relaxing time before the rigors of work.

8:30-8:40

The commute to work is kind of a bitch. It consists of waiting for an elevator. Now, I know what you are thinking, "Trav is bitching about waiting on an elevator?! Waaaaaaaaaa." Now mind you, these elevators only hold three grown size people, there are 14 floors, and everyone seems to be going somewhere on the elevators at that time in the morning. One morning, I did wait almost ten minutes, only to get on, and have it take me to every floor above me except for the one I wanted. I did finally figure out where the stairs are, I would have been toast if we would have had to evacuate this place. From here on out, it's the stairs for me.

8:40-8:59:55

The hotel offers breakfast for guests. It's got cereal, muffins, toast, breads, eggs, ham, fruit, yogurt and a bunch of other stuff. I usually snag some eggs and throw some chopped ham on them, nothing extraordinary about the eggs, bummer. Then I get some fruit. There is a lot of fruit, some which I don't know what it is. The grapes have seeds in them, as I found out the first morning as my first bite into the grape went "CRUNCH". The oranges are a bit more sour than what I'm used to. There are some pink fruit, which I think might be grapefruit, but I haven't been brave enough to check out yet. I stick to pears, peaches, apples and that kind of thing. The yogurt is a bit more runny than the stuff we have in the states, but it's pretty good. It's not a big breakfast, but enough to get me going.

8:59:55-9:00
Run down a flight of stairs to the conference room that we are using for our work. It's tough, but convenient.


9:01 a.m.-1:00p.m.

I cuss at printers mainly, and think of new, creative ways to call something a piece of crap. We are in a big conference room, which has to be kept in a climate controlled environment for the work we are doing. It hasn't been too bad yet, the temperature (23 degrees Celsius, +/- 2 degrees) has been around what we need and the humidity (50%, +/- 10%) has been bouncing around, but pretty much within the requirements. The maintenance people love it when we ask them if they can raise the temperature one degree.

1:00-1:30 or 2:00 p.m.

Eat lunch. Part of the deal when we got our rooms and conference room was that we would get free lunch as well (except for the weekends). The first few days, we got them catered down in our conference room. They would bring tons of food, and stuff that was more Argentine in nature. Lots of cheese, lots of vegetables, meats, breads, more food than we can eat. We were feeling guilty for wasting a lot of it. Then once you fill up on that, they bring the main course, which was steak for a few days, served different ways and is always good. Yesterday was chicken, but it was good as well. For drinks, it's water, and if you want plain water, you ask for "sin gas", or "without bubbles". It's always served in bottles, always from the same brand, everywhere I've been so far. Then they have Coke served in bottles, that's pretty much a city thing as well, at least where I've been. And everything is served in wine glasses. It's not a hotel thing either, pretty much everywhere I've ate, use some version of a wine type glass for water and pop. Even our drinking glasses they supply us are wine glasses.

2:00ish-5:30ish

After fighting to stay awake the first few hours after a huge lunch, and having Sidney flip me shit for yawning more times in one hour than should be humanly possibly, I try to learn colorful words in Spanish to express my displeasure of what I'm working on.

5:30-5:32

After work commute is better than the morning commute. Go up a flight of stairs, go through the bar area, head into the lobby to the elevator, push floor one, and walk into my room.
5:32-6:00

Plug in the laptop, and catch up on emails and facebook and anything else I might have missed. The hotel has wi-fi, but it's painfully slow. It might as well be dial up as fast as it is. So the half hour is about ten minutes of actual productivity.



6:00-7:00ish

The five of us (my lead, Chris, our boss, Joe, his daughter, Sandra, my coworker, Sidney and myself) head out to find someplace to eat. We usually ask the front desk on our way out to suggest something. We've had Italian, Spanish, and Argentine meals so far. The food has been beyond great. I can't say we've had a bad meal yet. Everything is so fresh, prepared well, and they make sure you don't go away hungry.

Last night was our night to an Argentine steak place. You walk in and it's like a big, long room, with a ton of tables in it. Argentinians eat dinner later, at least 8pm, and even later on Friday, so we are always before the crowds. So we are the only people in this steakhouse. At the front, the are slow cooking meats and that grabs you immediately. Succulent meats that look like they could melt of the bone. Then you go to the dining area, and there are stuffed animals all over the place. Peta's nightmare, but it didn't bother me a whole lot, I just wanted some dead cow. The place looks like it's straight out a Argentinian mafia movie, the winters, all older with their dark hair slicked back, look like they could pull out a tommy gun from under their trays and lay the place to waste. You order, and like most food establishments here, they aren't in a hurry to get you your food. Then the food starts coming, with baskets of bread. Then comes the empanadas, which is a beef filled pie kind of thing. They were amazing. Then my salad comes, and it's not a single salad, it's a big bowl of it. They shovel some onto my plate and sit the rest of to the side. It's lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions all tossed in some kind of vinaigrette. It was great as well. Then finally, my ribeye comes. The meat is tender, cooked exactly the way I like it, and better than most any steak I've ever had. It's huge as well. I end up giving a part of it to Sidney, but I'm more than full by the time I'm done.

7:00ish-to whenever

We've been walking around after dinner, taking in the sights and sounds of our local area. Sometimes we come back to the hotel, then go out a bit later, or just walker around right after dinner. Whatever it is, it's always interesting to take everything in. We to different areas as much as we can. It's amazing how different areas can change in only a few blocks. I've seen everything from homeless people laying in cardboard beds, to seeing Broadway like shows and an Opera house, all with in five miles of my hotel. Sidney and I have got out for drinks two different nights and both were different experiences. One place was a kind of hole in the wall type of place, but the people were nice and the drinks were cheap (seven bucks for a beer and a rum and coke). Last night was to a more crowded area, where we hit up a few different places. It also had tons of people sitting outside on the patios, soaking in the warm nights here. We ended up spending some time in an Irish bar, go figure, but it was a lot of fun. I also find it ironic that all the music in these places was American, everything from hip hop, to 90's to piano bar type music.

Whenver I get back until bed time

When I get back and now I'm in for the night, which has been usually after 11pm, I catch up on the internet again, and try to find a channel with american TV shows. I need something familiar around this time, just so the reality that I'm clear on the other side of the world doesn't kick in. I usually find Two and a Half Men, which I've never watched before, but it works for what I want.

That's a day in the life of Trav in Buenos Aires....more to come....