Jul 08

Classes completed and a quick weekend getaway to Cordoba, we were left with a few days before we made the dreaded long haul flight back to the States. What to do? What to do? As the starting topic of every previous entry, we went with our stomach and to a nice dinner at Puerto Madero.

The day leading to our final night had been dreary, cold, wet, and blah, but the moment we entered the expensive restaurant of Cabaña Las Lilas, it all melted away. As we sat there at our table, we had that odd feeling that there were absolutely too many tourists, and that the wait staff was constantly occupied with removing every dish from your table that even thought about being dirty. It was quite possibly the swankiest restaurant we had ever set foot in. Minutes later of aimlessly searching through the wine list, which was literally 100 pages long, we decided on a nice, and the cheapest, Cabernet Sauvignon available. The wine actually turned out to be very good wine with bold flavor and with a notable hint of vanilla and chocolate undertones (that is what the wine list said).

As the last night in Argentina, we both agreed that the only item we could order from the menu without being extradited would be some variation of steak. So steak it was. No Panchos (hot dogs), just pure Argentine beef. What landed on our table was unconditionally the best steak that either one of us has ever tried. Succulent, tender, flavorful. Any adjective you could possibly think to describe steak or a Texan, it would also describe our dinner. We did with this steak what we should all be doing everyday in life, enjoy every drop of it.

So this trip has ended, like many others before, but this one separated itself in a few major ways. Primarily, it was our first international trip with a 11 month old daughter. And most likely, it's the first and last we will do with a child that is under 3 years of age, which is the new cutoff age for international travel.

We found that traveling with an infant proved to be a constant challenge of balancing the desire to visit sites and finding that perfect moment when diapers were clean, a little belly was full, and eyes that weren't too tired. Thus, the amount of sightseeing on our part was very limited.

In addition to the excellent food that I apparently didn't notice my two previous visits to Argentina, we were super impressed with Argentine's cariño for babies and children. It wasn't only the females, but also the males that were crazy for babies. We'd enter the subway, people felt honored to give up their seat to us since we had a baby. They didn't hesitate to do the same for elderly people. Who knows, they might even given up their seat for a New Mexican, because they would have felt sorry that he didn't receive a proper education. Within seconds of stepping on a bus, a group of teenagers let go of their cool image, and played peek-a-boo with our daughter. Argentines taught us a great lesson in their treatment of the little and frail ones, and reminded me of a quote from a former Argentine president that I had heard, "the only privileged people in Argentina are the children."

Our return flight to the USA was a breeze compared to our initial flight into Argentina, Sophie slept 4 out of the 8 hour flight. We still returned home tired, but not completely exhausted. We now sit with a week to rest before returning to our jobs in education.

Hope all are well and we'll see where the next adventure takes us.

John, Nadine, and Sophie

Inside the Museo de la Ciudad

One man presided over the ritual. He filled the hot brown gourds and the green liquid frothed to the neck. The men fondled the gourds and sucked at the bitter drink, talking about mate the way other men talked about women.
- Bruce Chatwin 'In Patagonia'

There is always meaning lost in translation, or shall we say, a lack of looking at the minor details on packaging at times. This time it happened to be on my part.

Every morning I would attempt to enrich my diet and breakfast experience with some tasty 'frutilla' yogurt inside that purple packaging. This had been my regular morning routine for 4 weeks. Then surprisingly one day, Jimena asked me how I was feeling. Was the food bothering my stomach? Was my body not used to the Argentine food? Quite the opposite. I loved the food and I felt fine, like a regular guy. She then asked me why I eat that Activia yogurt (if you click on this link, I suggest that you watch a few commercials to fully understand how great I felt in Argentina). I told her that I liked strawberry yogurt. Softly, she said that Activia yogurt is for people with irregular bowel movements to help them become more "regular." You can imagine my relief and surprise to have been eating a yogurt that's been helping "regulate my digestive system by helping reduce long intestinal transit time." Maybe that is the reason I have felt like a 'regular' guy here in Argentina.

Cultural misunderstandings happen all the time. I've committed quite a few in my travel life, but I'm not the only one. Companies also are responsible for a few. Mitsubishi came out with a line of vehicles called the Pajero, the Pajero Mini (obviously named after a New Mexican), the Pajero Junior, and the Pajero mini SUV. This is where you have to increase your Spanish vocabulary. If you can not find out why this is so funny, please feel free to email me at jwhit003@gmail.com.

Tango. The vertical dance of the horizontal desire. Your mind thinks of a guy in a black zoot suit dancing with a girl who's red dress has a slit up to the hip as they glide across the dance floor. We decided to see this dance that originated from Argentina at the famous Café Tortoni.

Upon our arrival to Café Tortoni, the bouncer of the café (yes, a bouncer for a café), told us to go down the stairs and follow the winding staircase to the dark room at the bottom. In the staircase we found a room split in half with pillars and 2 dozen tables facing a single stage. The waiter led us to our table that we would share with two other people.

After ordering our dinner and wine, the Tango show began. Three guys walked in with their slicked back hair and watched as three girls sitting at tables on stage waited for a slight nod, the invitation to dance. But like any good show, to increase the crowd's anticipation, they played out a few hypothetical Tango situations before the actual dancing. Thus, Guy A flirted with Guy B's girl. The fake fight between A and B while Guy C walks up and dances with Girl A. Guy A and B are now surprised about the turn of events. Somewhere in between all that, they all start dancing and sliding across the stage.

Over the next hour and a half, they danced the tango, the band played, guys played an ancient weapon, a rope with rocks attached at their ends, as musical instruments, and the MC sang. After we left Café Tortoni strolling among the lights of Avenida 9 de Julio, Nadine felt that this was by far the best experience of the trip. Even better than the yogurt!

While traveling through South Africa during our Around the World trip, we met this Argentine while he made his first trip abroad. During a bus ride, we chatted it up in Spanish so Nadine and Melissa wouldn't be able to understand us, and he offered to meet up with us if we ever made it back to Argentina in the future. Well we did make it back to Argentina, and we both kept our word from South Africa by making the weekend trip to the city of Córdoba. A rare thing happened, when Carlos met us early in the morning at the bus station, two travellers from different parts of the world actually met up again.

Our international hiking group

Over the next 36 hours, he showed us the historic center of town, La Manzana Jesuítica, and for the first time, a glimpse of life outside of the city. Carlos rounded up a few of his friends and all 7 of us set out for the town of Rio Cebollas. Over the morning and afternoon, we enjoyed the silence and absence of tall buildings, filled only by the bad jokes shared between friends as we hiked through the hills.

Our time left in Argentina is limited to a couple of days enjoying a little more asado, empanadas, and helado.

Enjoying some of life's simple pleasures

A classmate asked me if I had tried any Argentina helado. Empanadas, absolutely. Pizza, no doubt. But Argentine ice cream, not yet. I hadn't actually seen any ice cream stores. Then the girls in my class deemed it their responsibility, no, their duty as a classmate to introduce to me Argentine helado. Once I had that first taste of Freddo's dulce de leche ice cream, it was over. Since that point we've consistently visited our local ice cream store every couple of days. Now that we know what we are looking for, there happens to be two ice cream shops within a block of our apartment.

Nadine reading the Omaha World Herald on Avenida 9 de Julio

As we pass through life, it's easy to notice the bad events (high gas prices) and habits of people and places (the entire state of New Mexico). But I have to say that in our time here in Argentina, it's been quite easy to observe lots of good qualities about the country, especially the general friendliness of people here in Buenos Aires, a very large city. In addition, upon entering the metro when it was crowded, partly crowded, or even sparsely crowded, someone has always eagerly offered up their seat so that either Nadine or myself can sit down with Sophie. At this point, one of us sits down with her, and Sophie earns her seat privileges by smiling, waving, and cooing at everyone around her.

Traveling wears Sophie out

With a window of free time on the weekend in which Sophie was fed, not tired, not carrying a load in her pants, we searched for the widest road in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio and the Recoleta. Fortunately we found Avenida 9 de Julio with ease, as it is a block wide. We didn't have much trouble finding the neighborhood of Recoleta either with its famous cemetery. As it was a warm sunny day, everyone was outside selling trinkets, souvenirs, and soaking up the sun in front of the famous Recoleta cemetery.

Views of the Recoleta

After several hours of strolling among Avenida 9 de Julio and Recoleta, Sophie deciced to drop her pacifier on the ground out in front of the Recoleta Cemetery. As I was carrying Sophie in the backpack, Nadine promptly grabbed the pacifier, went to rinse it off over by the grass. During that time, I began to chat with this Argentine lady about our baby backpack. Without thinking, Nadine walked up and rapidly tried to put the pacifier back in a mouth. The mouth just happened not to be Sophie's, but mine. You can imagine her surprise as this foreigner's wife tried to put a pacifier in her husband's mouth. We all had a good laugh with that one, except the little lady riding on my back wondering why her dad had the pacifier and not her.

A favorite to do well in the upcoming Olympics is the Argentina basketball team who won the Gold medal in the previous Olympics. In preparation they have been playing games against other countries (Mexico, Poland, Uruguay) in various parts of Argentina. Saturday night, they played a game against Mexico that I made a point to attend. The atmosphere was truly Latin American. They had 60's American music blaring between current Argentine hits while a DJ was yelling into a microphone between every pause in the game. In the end, Argentina, with a few of their NBA players, easily beat México.

A little point of interest, the newspaper back in Omaha is running a summer photo competition looking for people to take pictures of themselves in different parts of the world while holding a copy of the Omaha World Herald. Nadine and I have been taking pictures at various points during our trip with someone holding the newspaper. So every Thursday, they put up all the photos to be voted on at http://travelsnaps.omaha.com. Thus, if you feel so inclined and would like to vote for your favorite photo, feel free to vote for ours. And, you can vote as many times as you want. So I would even encourage you go to the site several times a day. If we win the overall prize, we will come visit you. So go to http://travelsnaps.omaha.com, click on July 11 - July 17, and go to the third page where you will find our picture. We will also add a photo to the July 18 - July 24 competition.

Nadine walked into the bedroom with Sophie in her arms and sat on the bed, and greeted me in Spanish, "¡Feliz Cumpleaños!" With a look of concern on her face, Sophie first glanced at Nadine, and then at me, and calmly uttered, "Uh-Oh!" The wisdom of children.

In celebration of my 31st, my heart was set on dinner at a sushi restaurant. In Argentina, Saturday night also happens to be a fashionable night to go out for dinner, or for that fact, anywhere else in the world. It's also common to eat dinner around 10 o'clock at night.

As we nonchalantly walked up the stairs to this hidden sushi restaurant, I mentioned in jest to Nadine that I hoped we didn't need reservations to eat there. As any reader can see coming, we walked into the nearly vacant room, the host asked in a heavy accent if we had reservations. Doh! With a look of horror, I responded that we didn't, but I did state that it was my birthday. She very politely responded that the place was fully reserved for the night, birthday or no birthday. Dang my inability to plan ahead. I asked again, this time with a slight wink and flash of a 5 peso bill, if there was any possible way we could eat. She glanced us, stepped back, poked her head around the corner, and cooly asked the owner if it was possible to let these "two-no-reservation-making-gringos" indulge in a little raw fish. Our ultimatum arrived. If we were able to finish our dinner by 10, we could stay. At this time, it was only 8:30. We could absolutely finish by that time. That's more than enough time for me to consume my weight in rice, seaweed, and salmon.

The sushi was sumptuous.

Depending on where you are from, this statement is either very strong, or somewhat strong. Either way, don't fart around with people's food. Great sign to intro the next paragraph

Continuing with the theme of food in Argentina, Nadine and I have obviously found empanadas, pizza, and asado to be quite tasty. We've also found that in between every parilla or empanada outfit, there is a panadería offering a varied assortment of pastries, cookies, sweets, and breads. And it equally seems that every single panadería has been above average. I mean 'above average' when I reference U.S. standards for breads, possibly just average for Argentine standards, and probably subpar for the French. In my eyes, it's all good. Yet, there has been one common ingredient between all that flaky goodness, gooey brown sweetness ofdulce de leche. Good ol' sweet dulce de leche.

Sophie here in La Boca with her hand in her "boca"

Italian immigrants arrived to Buenos Aires and the work they often found was repairing and painting boats. It wasn't a lucrative living. Thus, when it came time to paint the house or feed the 11 bambinos, food took priority, and there wasn't money left for paint. To compensate for the crappy looking exteriors of their homes, and at no cost to the homeowner, they would take the extra paint left from a hard day's work, carry it home, and paint their house with it. If you have been to Italy, you realize that no Italian is going to settle for bland when you can have spectacular. So there on the Buenos Aires' docks, Totto's boat was going to outdo Giovanni's yellow boat, his would be neon pink. As one can imagine, every house, in the neighborhood known as La Boca, is a smorgasbord of colors, making it one of the most colorful (pun is intended) parts of Bs.As.

Is that story actually true? Not sure, since I was told 3 different stories by locals about the origins of the various colored houses, before I decided I liked a photographer's story the best.

A neighborhood even more colorful than Nadine's shirt

Travel for Nadine and I has now changed, reached a new stage. We can't just decide to go somewhere anymore without considering whether or not little Sophie has been fed, is fully rested, and free of the contents of a dirty diaper. So initially we assumed we would go over to Colonia, Uruguay with the energizer bunny in tow. Yet after a few weeks of answering to her every whim, picking up the pacifier for the fifth consecutive time, contorting our faces to prevent her crying in a public place, we were ready for a break. We left Sophie in the expert hands of her more than capable niñera Jimena, and crossed the River Platte delta.

Historic Colonia

In the early morning, with high anticipations we jumped on a high speed boat. Soon as we sat down and Nadine positioned her head into that contorted state that allows her to sleep on any form of public transportation and prevent embarrassing drooling, we were navigating the historic streets of this World Heritage Site.

To pay for breakfast, we sat calculating the best exchange rate between Argentine pesos to U.S dollars, U.S. dollars to Uruguayan pesos, Uruguayan pesos to Malaysian ringgits to Indian rupees to New Mexican green chilis (the weakest of all mentioned currencies) and finally back to Uruguayan pesos. Finally we strolled the city. The sites and our high anticipations were slightly dashed by the rain and cold wind blowing up my shorts. Fortunately a quality lunch and heater prevented the weather from making a completely crappy day.

Most photographed corner of Colonia

We have another 2 weeks before we must make our return to teaching knuckleheads, so we still have time to experience more of Argentina.

A little grandparent fix

Challenge of the Week - Insert best comment to accompany this photo Nadine insisted we add to this blog entry

Empanadas, Yes we will talk about food again

Two weeks of constant supervision and care of little Sophie and her emerging personality left us needing some time off. So, Thursday night was as good of night to go out for a few hours to enjoy another side of traditional Argentine gastronomy, parilla and asado. Basically, parilla is a piece of meat that has been grilled over an open fire to just the right flavor. Our juicy parilla and asado full of flavor didn't leave us disillusioned.

Just as I had started classes at the university, Nadine started hers as well. Unfortunately for her, that class wasn't a block and a half away from our apartment; it's located all the way downtown. To make it more challenging, her school prefers to be hidden, so that they don't have too many people attending their classes. So that little sign hanging outside their office directing prospective students to their Spanish school was missing. Her first class was scheduled to start at 2:00, but the fact that it took her an hour and a half to find the entrance, caused her class to be pushed back a few minutes until 3:30. Since that day, her only two obstacles have been using public transport to arrive on time and successfully conjugating her verbs.

Signs of protest in front of Congress

While Nadine navigated the Buenos Aires metro, my class took to the streets surrounding Congress to interview farmers, Socialist representatives, and supporters of the government. Let me give you a little background to what is currently happening in Buenos Aires. At I write, Argentine farmers are participating in a national paro while 'diptados' fight about a tax in Congress as different factions fill the streets around the Congress building. They are discussing the large tax increase that was unexpectedly levied by the government against farmers' exports of soy, meat, corn, and wheat. This began a little over a 100 days ago.

The Argentine is on the left, the gringo on the right

My presence in front of Congress leading up to the showdown was not to:

A) be the unforeseen mediator of peace between farmers and government officials, but you could imagine the conversation in my imperfect Spanish.

Me: What would you like me tell her, I mean him, no I mean the government official Mr. Farmer?

Farmer: First, a sudden increase in the export tax of agricultural products is unacceptable and will we continue striking until every cows' udder are painfully full with milk.

Me: First, Cristina, Mr. Farmer here wants you to put in the trash, (as I flip through my dictionary for the word taxes, but accidentally find another word) all tax evaders from foreign lands. Then, the farmers might find this acceptable to painfully kick all cows in the udder.

Cristina (Argentine President): That is the worst and most illiterate demand I have ever heard. These farmers are idiots.

Me: She says y'all are dumb and farm like idiots.

B) Bring home the point that Texas was indeed great and push for a Texas embassy in downtown Buenos Aires;

C) And New Mexico isn't that great anyways. They would never be able to afford an embassy in Buenos Aires since they've already blown all of their disposable income for the year on fireworks;

D) But to learn from those directly involved in the struggle their point of view and why, and come to an educated decision all while improving in the language.

So what did I learn from all my time interviewing all sides? In addition to their valid points about democracy and fair representation of all Argentines and fair taxes, I found it more interesting that I can't understand at all some Argentine people's Spanish when they speak. Also, the government bussed people in from the poorer neighborhoods and paid them to march in a parade in support of the government. You gotta love Latin American politics.

Paid to Protest. The lady in the lower right hand corner brought her shopping with her.

Since our arrival to Argentina on June 18th, we had remained in Buenos Aires, so after the end of our first week of classes we took off on a day trip to the marshy suburb of Tigre. 40 train minutes later, we were in Tigre and had arranged a boat ride along the streams flowing through the small inhabited islands close to the River Platte Delta.

Nadine and Sophie sharing a moment

When we stepped onto the boat and began navigating the various streams, the overall sentiment wasn't, "Wow! This is pretty cool," but more along the lines of "that little girl is so cute as she tries to walk while this boat rocks." We spent the majority of the time chasing her.

Sophie was more interested in this kid's cell phone than all of the islands surrounding her

Ironically, we moved past beautiful, elegantly decorated houses, even as the populace waited by the river waiting for the boat to drop off their fresh water for the day. It seems to me it would be a little adventurous to live out in the marsh at anytime, but especially when it came time to interact with neighbors. So in order to borrow some sugar from your neighbors, you would have to throw on your bathing suit, swim across the stream, knock on the door soaking wet, grab the sugar, and swim back to your house using only one arm and try avoiding swimming in circles.

Up to this point, the most amusing aspect of living here has been one specific piece of currency. Argentina has minted currency from the 5 centavo coin to the 100 peso bill, but there is one that is hard to obtain, the 1 peso moneda piece. This one peso moneda is worth roughly 33 American cents, but it is the most commonly used and accepted coin for busses, laundry, and trains.

Noone is quite sure why they aren't as abundant as they were three months ago, but the local news hasn't allowed the mystery to pass without some attention. There was a news segments detailing how people now will save their one moneda pieces and sell them on the "silver" market for 5 pesos. While doing some personal reconnaissance, I went to a bank asking them if they could exchange my 10 peso bill for 10 monedas so we could wash clothes. They regretfully informed me that they could only give me a maximum of 4 monedas. From a bank, what?!?! I even asked local merchants why monedas are scarce. The funniest and most interesting response was that the local Chinese supermarket owners are hoarding the monedas and shipping them back to China to be used for metallurgical purposes or natural resources. So everyday when we are back home, our first question now isn't, "How was your day?", but more importantly, "Did you score any monedas today?" I guess we are slowly becoming indoctrinated into the Argentine culture.

Here are the only three moneda that we have

Life is good.