Bye, City!

Hi from Puerto Iguazu!!

Our last few days in Buenos Aires were spent getting ready to leave the city, buying bus tickets and booking cheap places to stay. We made sure our last full day was a memorable one, and it was definitely one of our favorites.

We perused Jardín Japonés in Palermo which pleasantly reminded us of our meeting place, Fo Guang Shan, Taiwan. We can't believe it was almost a year ago! After enjoying a pot of green tea at their tea house, we ventured on to MALBA to take in some of the best Latin American art South America has to offer.

Our last dinner in Buenos Aires was exquisite. We originally planned to return to Las Pizzaras, but were bummed to find the menu unchanged and a party of 20 seated right before us. Sad, but excited to try somewhere new, we took a look at the candle-lit, posh Lelé de Troya. This restaurant was huge and each room was painted a different bold color. We could have chosen yellow, purple, green, or orange, but picked the red room sporting red velvet couches. They had a great selection for us Veggies, including creative salads of goat cheese, pear, mango, avocado, arugula, and a peanut dressing. Seth had pumpkin/basil fettuccine and Jackie had a mushroom risotto with fresh vegetables. It was quite the treat.

We left the next evening for Puerto Iguazu on a huge sleeper bus. We arrived around noon the next day and settled into our hostel. The next morning we headed for the falls. HOW AMAZING! More pictures later..

Bu, Bu, BuqueBUS!!!

Our last week in Buenos Aires was quite the eventful one. We didn't do a great job on keeping this updated, so here's a big post with everything!

Friday, 6/19, we visited San Telmo again, sans Sunday street fair. We enjoyed a lunch in Centro on the way there that reminded us of home: California Burrito. It is Buenos Aires' own version of Chipotle which was a great switch up from the beans and rice we'd been making at home.

After exploring, we went home and got ready for a concert unlike anything we've seen before. The band, Tremor, (to quote their site) merges "different types of Argentina folk music by using various digital techniques, electronic music, and everyday objects". Have a look & listen.

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Another day, we returned to Palermo Viejo and checked out neighboring Palermo Hollywood, its 'other half' across the railroad tracks. This more residential area was shabby/sorta chic and had more stores and restaurants that were out-of-business than IN business. We still liked it, including the cool street art.

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It's not every day that Jackie and Seth wake up at the crack of dawn to take a day trip to another country...but that is exactly what happened on the 23rd.


Colonia, Uruguay is a mere hour across the Río de la Plata by boat from Buenos Aires. We woke up at dawn to walk to Puerto Madero and caught a "Buquebus", a huge ferry that felt more like a cruise ship than the barge we expected to be thrown on.

There it is! We were pleasantly surprised!

After a very relaxing three hours (the cheaper option) across the river, we arrived in Colonia. This town, founded in 1680, looked like little time had passed.

We climbed a very scary spiral staircase to the top of the Faro (lighthouse). From there we could see the whole town, and far out to sea!

It was a bit scary on our way down, but we made it.

And of course, Seth made friends with the local cats...

After a long day, we said goodbye to Uruguay and got back on the Buquebus! Their catchy theme song (that they played non-stop both ways) is STILL stuck in our heads.
Overall: Colonia was a great little get-away.

Our Home, Recoleta.

As we're getting ready to leave Buenos Aires, we thought we would post a few pictures of the gorgeous house and neighborhood we had the privilege of calling home for the last 18 days:

There it is!

¡¡Feliz Dia del Padre!!

Love you, Dads!!!
We're thinking about you and wishing we could spend today with you. Play the video!

New Yorkers --> Porteños!

Tonight we felt like real Porteños as we ventured back to Palermo (using the Subte for the first time!) with no plan or destination in mind. We scratched out ideas for shopping and instead decided to sit in a few cafeterías and catch up on our books. Lately we've been feeling quite comfy in this city!


Here's Seth at a cool, independent bookstore/bar/cafetería that we found. We spent several hours there paging through photography books, enticed by the some musicians warming up on a small stage in the background. We stuck around anticipating some kind of Celtic bagpipe-and-mandolin concert, but instead were stuck listening to a book talk in Spanish which neither of us could follow. After squirming our way through the crowd, we wandered over to the store's cafetería for some good cheese and good reads.


For dinner, we decided to try a place that we had passed on our last trip to Palermo, Las Pizarras. We had read intriguing reviews online which talked of a one-man kitchen with a menu of innovative dishes that change regularly according the freshest ingredients available. Of course, we feared the usual: mediocre vegetarian options. Boy, were we wrong!


The menu was not presented on paper, but instead on huge 'pizarras' (chalkboards) on the walls. Each dish description was accompanied by a cute chalk sketch of the main ingredient, including little pigs and mushrooms. After a complimentary shot glass of peppercorn-garnished pumpkin soup, we enjoyed our appetizer of croquettes of corn and cheese, dressed with a tangy, spicy, tomato salsa. Seth's entrée was pumpkin ravioli in a lemony-butter sauce with loads of parsley. Jackie enjoyed falafel curry with basmati rice.

The atmosphere was very homey as we were one of the 3 tables enjoying a meal late into the night and our helpful (and conveniently English-speaking) waitress chatted us up about the house music.

As you can see from Jackie's facial expression, WE LOVED IT! ...and we're going back for Seth's early birthday celebration. AND this million-dollar-tasting meal cost us just a fraction of what it would have in New York. Thank you, Buenos Aires!

VEGGIE HEAVEN!!!

Stickin' to our vegetarianism has been quite the challenge in steak lovin' BA. Many of our meals have been homemade attempts at stirfry and many many meals of the same pasta, baguette, and salad. :(



BUT TODAY we tasted a little bit of heaven. A cute little Taiwanese buffet (which brought us back to just a summer ago with monks, humidity, and silent meals of fake meat) quenched all of our veg cravings... if only for a lunch. Double mmmmm!!



Veggies of Buenos Aires...unite!

El sur también existe.... San Telmo!

After about a week of trekking around the city on our own and avoiding the touristy areas at all costs, we decided to give in on Sunday and spend the day in San Telmo. As we headed south towards this barrio, we passed the Plaza del Mayo, a spot famous for its political history. Pictured above is La Casa Rosada, the presidential palace known for Eva Perón speaking to the throngs of Argentines who gathered below its balcony.

We decided to visit on a Sunday when the neighborhood is known to be the most alive. Street musicians, artists, coffee carts, puppeteers, performers, drum lines, and souvenir vendors bustled about the cobblestone.

Here is more of what we saw...

... political art... (caption: "El Faraon")

a man tangoing.... with lifesized doll...

We listened to a full jazz quartet after watching tango dancers and perusing blankets full of antiques and homemade art. Touristy it was, (someone bumped into us and said "Excuse me" in English!!!!!) but well worth the kitsch.

After all of the craziness and slight claustrophobia from the crowd, we stopped (of course) at a cafetería for cafés and Pizza Napolitana, one of the few vegetarian delicacies Buenos Aires has to offer. mmmmm!!

Posh Palermo

Hello everyone! It's been a couple of days since our last post and we've been having lots of fun here. Yesterday we ventured Northwest of our neighborhood to visit the trendy Palermo, district of great fashion and nightlife. We still haven't tried out the Subte (metro) yet and have chosen to walk everywhere instead (to stay in shape in preparation for our climb in the Andes). Here we are taking a break from our walk, with coffee, of course.


We also enjoyed medialunas, Seth's favorite sweet croissant snack, and some people-watching.


We continued meandering our way via Avenida Santa Fe toward Palermo. It was dusk when we arrived, but not surprisingly, every store and café was open and bustling with shoppers and end-of-the-week unwind-ers. There was everything from street vendors to high fashion, laid back cafés to black-lit clubs, and, of course, restaurants to please any palate.

Funny pics of us with some graffiti art in Palermo...



After stopping for a snack and realizing how tired we were after walking nearly an hour to get there, we promised ourselves we'd return for a full day later in the week.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend! Miss you all so much!
San Telmo to come...

We're HERE!!

Getting adjusted to Buenos Aires. The apartment here is beautiful (pictures coming soon) as is the neighborhood where we are staying, Recoleta . Annamaria, the woman who lives here and takes care of the house is so sweet. We took a little time to get used to the whole language and finding our way around the neighborhood but now that we're settled we're starting to have fun.

This is perhaps the most common sight here, which we have been enjoying several times a day with the locals:

The café (espresso, always served with a shot of sparkling mineral water and some cakey or cookie-ish snack) is a staple of the Porteño (citizen of B. A.) lifestyle. Being coffee lovers, we have had no trouble adjusting to THIS custom.



After settling in, and a little trouble finding the entrance, we got to see the famous Cementerio de la Recoleta (Recoleta Cemetery):




It's like an small city of tombs.


Jackie got to work shooting some B+W film.



The tombs were stunning . Some were like mini elegant palaces for the dead, some were old and dilapidated. Many, such as this one, had statues of the deceased. We thought this one was particularly creepy and cool:



Notice the kitties at the feet of the statue? There were tons of them all around the cemetery, which I figured to be the perfect kitty habitat with all of its ledges and hideaways.



Soo cute!

Terminal Illness

So after waking up at 5 a.m. for our flight to Miami...


...we've spent all day in the airport waiting for our flight to Argentina.
Oh well. It's giving us some time to catch up on sleep and to eat some last minute gourmet American (a la Pizza Hut).


¡¡!!See you in Buenos Aires!!¡¡