Halloween?

Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year but sadly they do not celebrate it in South America. It has apparently been growing in popularity over the past 10 years so you see a small candy section for it in the grocery stores and the bars are definitely advertising it for the tourists, but no one is carving pumpkins or trick or treating. I decided to let this holiday go (this was very hard for me to do, I'm all about tradition) and to just act like it was any other day.
It was supposed to rain during the afternoon so we had rescheduled the polo day we were excited for to Saturday. Instead, we decided to go to La Recoleta cemetery, which is famous for being the place where Evita is buried. We took the metro down to Palermo and walked the rest of the way to the cemetery. I really like cemeteries as it is, but this one was particularly beautiful. All of the wealthy families had built their own mausoleums and the different architecture and art that came with the different heritages and time periods was amazing. We wandered around for a while, locating Evita's family mausoleum and taking in the enormity of the cemetery before the rain finally drove us out. All in all it was a perfect Halloween activity.

It was raining so much that we couldn't do anything else in the city and needed to make our way back to our hostel. We had taken the metro there but since it was an 8 block walk back to the station, we decided to take a bus back. Once on the bus, the sky really unleashed the rain and we were happy to not be caught in the downpour. We stopped at the grocery store on our way home to grab some cheese, apples and croissants and then opened one of the bottles of wine we had purchased in Mendoza to have a little rainy day picnic inside the hostel.
We had chosen to eat the small lunch because we were going to an early dinner at "La Cabrera". It is a parrilla which is basically a restaurant that serves grilled meat and it is all the rage in Argentina. It's restaurant has a special, un-publicized happy hour from 7:00-8:00pm where they offer a 40% discount as long as you have paid your check by 8:00pm. I couldn't pass up this opportunity for the city's most delicious steak at half price! We took the bus in the rain back down to Palermo and hurried the few blocks to get to the restaurant by 6:45. There was already a long line and we were worried that we wouldn't get the full our to finish our meal but the German girls in front of us in line invited us to sit with them, so the four of us sat down together.

The girls were really nice and great company. I ordered the steak with Roquefort cheese which was to die for! You didn't need to order any sides because they bring you tons of little tastes. The whole meal was delicious and we finished with barely a minute to spare!

At dinner, we ran into an American couple that was staying at our hostel. We had originally met them in Mendoza when we were wine tasting and had randomly stayed at the same place. We all decided to head into Palermo Hollywood (that's what one of the party districts is called) to get a drink. In the spirit of Halloween, we ended up at a bar called "Brujas" which means witch in Spanish. It was a lot of fun chatting with everyone and the German girls even invited me to stay with them when I come to Germany.
The girls had an early morning so we all said goodbye after a drink at that bar. Alyssa and I were going to walk around and check out the rest of the neighborhood when a girl came up to us because she heard us speaking English. Her name was Emily and she was from San Francisco, studying Spanish in Buenos Aires for a month. We invited her to come with us for another drink and all sat down in an open air patio between all the major hotspots. I had seen someone order the Stella Artois Noire at the last bar and had to try it. It is soooooo good, I have to find it in the states!
While we sitting and talking, a young boy in a mask from the movie "Saw" came up behind her and yelled. She totally screamed when she turned around and it was hilarious! I'm glad someone was taking Halloween seriously, lol. After one drink, we realized that we were out of cash so we had to call it a night and head back to the hostel. Unfortunately, there is no bus schedule and no way of knowing which exact bus you need and where it will drop you, but after some trial and error, we got a bus to take us back to the right district and luckily the GPS on Alyssa's iPhone always makes sure we know when to get off. Not the most eventful Halloween but a great night nonetheless!

Posted with Blogsy

Walking Tour

We woke up just in time to grab breakfast at the hostel and join the 11:00am walking tour. The tour luckily met in the Plaza Congresso which is right in front of where our hostel is located. Our tour guide told us a bit about the tumultuous history of the Argentinian government and how things operate. They are currently in their longest period of democracy in their history: 30 years. Prior to that they were fluctuating between dictatorships and have had a lot of violence and unrest in the country as a result. Apparently there is not a single day where demonstrators are not protesting something in the city, which I thought was crazy!

The people staying in the tents were protesting Monsanto being in Argentina.

We walked by the pink house which is where the presidents' office is located. It is most famous as the balcony that Evita Peron gave her speeches from (think of the movie "Evita" staring Madonna, lol). Apparently a smaller flag is flown on the flag pole beneath the country flag when the president is there, which according to our guide is not often because she never works...lol. They had their presidential election while we were in Buenos Aires and their current president was not re-elected which everyone seemed thrilled about.

May 25th plaza is in front of the pink house and is definitely a location for protests. The plaza's name commemorates the May revolution of 1810 which started the process of the country's' freedom from Spain. On October 17, 1945, mass demonstrations in the Plaza de Mayo organized by the CGT trade union federation forced the release from prison of Juan Domingo Perón, who would later become President of Argentina (Evita's husband). During his time as president, the Peronist movement gathered every October 17 in the Plaza de Mayo to show their support for their leader. Since 1977, the plaza is where the "Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo" have congregated with signs and pictures of their children, who were taken by the Argentine military in war that started their national reorganization process. People perceived to be supportive of having left-wing ideas would be illegally detained, abused and tortured, and finally murdered in secret. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo took advantage of the symbolic importance of the Plaza to open the public's eyes to what the military regime was doing. They still meet every Thursday at the plaza and walk around the plaza for an hour in memory of their loved ones.

After the walking tour, we headed to "Cafe Tortoni" for coffee. This is a historic cafe that opened in 1858 and is well known throughout the city. Our coffees were delicious and just what we needed after a few hours of walking.

We decided that we would also go on the afternoon walking tour, since that tour covered a different part of the city and then we would have an entire city overview. The afternoon tour took us through the more affluent areas of town where we could see a lot of European architecture and influence. The pictures below were originally single family homes but have since been turned into boutique hotels or embassies.

After we finished our afternoon tour, we decided to head back to Pallermo for dinner. We were able to catch the metro down there (which is very easy and we have no idea why the girl who works at the hostel said she would never take the metro) and though we had planned to go to a Mediterranean place, we saw "Chipper" as we were walking and decided it sounded good. They served fish and chips...which sounds so weird to eat in Argentina but anything different sounds good when you eat the same kind of food every day. The place was owned by a guy from the UK and the food was delicious!

Afterwards, we went out in search of a bar. Everything seemed dead, but we stumbled upon "La Viola" which seemed to have some people so we stayed for a drink. No one spoke English, so we hung out watching old music videos on the flat screen before heading home for the night.

Posted with Blogsy

Buenos aires

I don't even know if I slept on the bus...it was definitely one of those sleepless bus nights. We didn't arrive in Buenos Aires until the afternoon and after the brownie they thought counted as both breakfast and dinner the night before, I was definitely ready to get off the bus, get settled and get some real food. We had to take a cab to the hostel because there was no metro or bus station close and the cab ride took forever. When we arrived, the meter said $86 pesos which was astronomical! We knew we were being swindled but having just arrived, we didn't know how much it should cost so we just paid it. We had the cab take us to "Rock Hostel" which was located in the city center instead of Pallermo (which is the more popular area of town), so the rooms were a little less expensive. When we asked the girl working at the hostel how much our cab should have cost, she said $20-30 pesos so of course we were pissed and determined not to use a cab for the rest of our time in Buenos Aires. We were able to get a private room in "The Doors" room. All of the rooms there are themed after a different band and painted with their lyrics which I thought was a cool idea.

We went out in search of food and found a cafe where we could get coffee and sandwiches and decompress a bit. Alyssa also needed to get cash and we were depressed by the official 1 to 5 rate that the ATM will give you. Apparently you can exchange American dollars at a 1 to 10 rate on the "blue market" but we didn't have any more cash to exchange so we were stuck paying the higher prices. After lunch, we headed back to the hostel to figure out our plan for the evening. We wanted to try to go to Pallermo, but for being such a large city, Buenos Aires had very confusing public transportation. They have a metro but it doesn't take you everywhere in town and stops running at 11:00pm, so that's not always a good option. We decided to try to take the bus. You needed a bus card called a "Sube card" in order to take the bus or change; they didn't take cash. Ironically, getting change in Argentina is extremely difficult as they really don't have enough. Usually when you buy something, the cashier ends up just rounding up or down to avoid the whole change issue. Luckily, the receptionist at our hostel was able to give us some coins so that we could get there. There is a website that tells you which bus to take based in your start and end points but there is no bus schedule. The bus comes whenever it wants, so you could be standing there waiting for 45 minutes. There was a huge protest going on where our bus stop was supposed to be, so the bus route had been diverted and we couldn't figure out how to make the bus pick us up with no stop. Finally, someone flagged the number 60 bus, which was the one we needed and we got on board. You needed to tell the driver where to go so that he could charge you according to your destination but of course we didn't know that, so the driver took pity on our obvious ignorance and let us get on board for free. He did however, want to talk to us the entire ride which got pretty annoying but we obliged since we didn't have to pay.
We got off on the main street and began walking toward another hostel in the area that we had heard of. We thought it might be a good idea to move to Pallermo since the transportation back and forth was proving to be difficult, but sadly we could not find the hostel. In fact, we couldn't find anything! We wandered the area for over an hour trying to find somewhere to eat but came up with nothing. It was so confusing because everything we had read about Buenos Aires said that Pallermo was full of bars and restaurants; we clearly were in the wrong place.
Finally, we decided to turn around and head to the main street where the bus had dropped us off. We found a little cafe where we could order pizza and a salad and ate dinner feeling slightly defeated. As we ate, a local guy began talking to us in English. He said he could tell we weren't from around there based on how we ordered (ie because we clearly have no clue what we are doing, lol) and asked if he could help with something. He marked the areas in our map where the restaurants were located and we determined we'd have to come back the following day to check it out since it was already after 12:00am. We paid our bill and caught the return bus, using our change to pay this time. It was quite an adventure and we were beginning to understand how to navigate Buenos Aires. The first day is always confusing but then before you know it, your new city feels like home.

Posted with Blogsy

Biking and drinking

We had reserved bikes through our hostel but to pick them up, we had to get to Maipu which is a city outside Mendoza where the wineries are located. The guy who worked at our hostel said it was really easy to catch a bus, we just had to walk down two blocks to where the bus station was. The Irish boys and the guy from Switzerland had agreed to come wine tasting as well, so we organized our motley crew and set off. The Irish guys had come home from the clubs around 7:00am and had barely gotten two hours of sleep, so they were still drunk and in danger of some bad hangovers if they didn't start drinking soon. However, the walk to the bus was not two blocks but rather a 45 minute walk of wandering and asking directions. It was incredibly frustrating when I was sober and well rested so I can only imagine how they were feeling, lol. Luckily, we found the bus station, bought tickets and got the boys beers for the ride and all was well. When we got to the "Maipu Bikes" store, the Irish boys selected tandem bikes and the rest of us got singles. I thought for sure the boys were going to kill themselves but they actually rode very well.

We made it to the first winery and did a tour of the facility. We really care a lot less about the tour than the tasting part though. Their wine was really good and though you pay $50 pesos for the tour, you can use that $50 towards purchasing bottles of wine, so Alyssa and I combined out funds to buy 3 bottles. Luckily our bikes had baskets so we could carry them around.

We had a map but it was still hard to find the wineries since none of them had signs. We decided to stop at a beer garden along the way to get some lunch. They had great pizzas and empanadas, not to mention locally crafted beers. The Irish guys were so much fun but also really intelligent. I was surprised that they all had real, serious jobs back in Ireland and we had a lot of political and philosophical conversations.

Back on the bikes, we headed to the next winery. It was beautiful weather so we were happy to just cruise along through the vineyards.

We did quite a few tastings and then started ordering full bottles. Alyssa and I were on a bit of a time crunch because we had an overnight bus that left at 10:00pm that night, so were keeping tabs on the situation. Finally, we had to start making our way back to Mendoza.

Not ready to let the fun end, the boys bought giant Coronas for the bus. I had clearly had a lot to drink, so it was only a matter of time before the bottle of wine I was carrying ripped through its bag and burst open in a bus station. Alyssa's face of judgement couldn't have been more priceless, but the boys are quick to deal with any situation and had the bottle cleaned up before I even knew what had happened.

Once back at the hostel, we only had two hours to get packed up, showered and head to the bus station. I was too busy saying goodbye to all our new friends at the hostel to do anything but pack and before I knew it, we were off. The owner of the hostel offered to drive us to the bus station which was so nice; I really liked staying there! We got on the bus, where we had the front row, top level seats that I prefer. I watched "Pride and Prejudice" on my ipad trying to remember that we were off on a new, fun adventure. Sometimes it is very hard for me to leave places. We meet such great people and the hostel starts to feel like your home. I could see how it would be easy to get stuck in a place. But for better or for worse, we have a schedule to keep and adventures to be had.

Posted with Blogsy

Picnic in the park

There is absolutely nothing to do on a Sunday, but especially not on voting day. All of the stores and restaurants were closed and it is illegal to buy alcohol or consume it in public. Because of this, we decided it would be fun to put together a picnic and go to the big park in town to have a relaxing park day. We invited two of the guys staying at our hostel: an American from Texas and a guy from Switzerland. The park was huge and really beautiful. There were tons of other people out doing the same thing and we sat in the shade for a few hours people watching and discussing our respective adventures in Las Vegas, which seemed to be something we all had in common.

After our picnic, we decided to stop at the grocery store and pick up some provisions to cook dinner later. We settled on burgers, rosemary potatoes and salad. Back at the hostel, we met up with the four Irish boys who were also staying there and began chatting over beers. Luckily, the alcohol ban was lifted from the city at 9:00pm, so Alyssa ran to the store to grab red wine and the Irish guys bought some food and we all grilled together. The food ended up being delicious and the Irish guys were hilarious so they quickly turned a quiet night into a party. They had chosen a giant slab of beef at the store which took over an hour to cook but basically melted in your mouth. Apparently beef is very expensive in Ireland so they never eat it and were really living it up in Argentina. They ended up going out to the clubs around 12:00am but since we were going wine tasting the following morning, I decided it would be better to get some sleep and headed to bed.

Posted with Blogsy

Tired, tired day

Since I had gone to sleep at 7:30am, I was excited to sleep in a bit. Sadly, my body had other plans and I was awake at 11:00am. I woke up and decided to head out for some coffee and breakfast since I had missed the one at the hostel. I went by myself because I really needed some time to think. My relationship with my sister had come to such a head that I can no longer remove it from this blog. I think traveling with anyone for long periods of time is challenging. But it is certainly more challenging when you fundamentally do not understand the other person. We have always been from two different worlds; we find different things important and react differently in situations. I think this is usually a strength for us but lately it has been a curse. It is not that we do it care about each other; the truth is quite the opposite, we love each other very much. And I think because of that love, we try to cater to the other ones needs which actually pisses them off. We've spent the last week in relative silence and now it has really all come out. Alyssa said that she is going to go back to Tucson; I wasn't sure if she's serious or if she was bluffing but I can't say that I blame her. We aren't having fun anymore- it's not worth spending thousands of dollars to be miserable. I really hope that we can work through this and move forward. My feeling is that if she leaves on this note, this is all we'll ever be. We'll live in different cities, in different states, have jobs, families and different lives. We will be those sisters we said we'd never become, with our children only barely knowing each other, seeing each other only on Christmas. I really do not want this and I hope we can make a change.

Besides the sad circumstances, the coffee shop I'm sitting at us adorable. I am having a double espresso and croissant which is what they eat in Argentina for breakfast. Missing the free hostel breakfast usually vexes me but I knew that would happen this morning. Luckily, it is a little warmer here so I am perfectly comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. It gives my one long sleeve shirt a much needed break.

Once back at the hostel, I met up with Alyssa and we went to check out one of the streets in Mendoza that is known for its cafes and live music. We ordered salads but ironically they contained mostly cheese and rice...lol. Lunch gave us a good opportunity to talk and discuss our situation openly. For my part, I have decided to try to not think of her as my sister, but as a fellow traveller. Somehow, this alleviates some of the pressure and stress from the situation and gives me a little more space from things. The talk was really good and I hope that moving forward we will not have any other issues.

We walked around during the afternoon, checking out the shops and eyeing things that if I actually had any space in my backpack I wold love to buy. We also exchanged our Chilean pesos for Argentinian ones. Apparently the official exchange rate for USD to Argentinian pesos is a 1 to 5 but there is a very well known black market where you can exchange them at a 1 to 10 rate. I guess this stems from the fact that Argentinians know their currency is unstable so they want to buy up American cash so that they have stable currency. Knowing this, we wished we had brought more cash into the country to exchange! I really like Mendoza and was happy to stroll around the city even though I was so exhausted. I was definitely making it an early night!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Hostel BBQ

Today we had a very lazy day. We decided to walk down the main street (Avenida Colon) and do some shopping. Unfortunately, Argentinians do not work very often (this is a well known fact) so all of the shops were closed from 11:00am-4:00pm and there was actually nothing to do and very few restaurants to chose from. We ended up at a Mediterranean place called "Cocina Poblana" and while Alyssa got a gyro, I decided to have a giant beer for lunch...it was a great call, lol.

We hung at the hostel during the afternoon and luckily, everyone staying at our hostel had decided to throw a BBQ during the evening. The hostel has a great open patio in the inner courtyard with a big grill, so there was plenty of room for everyone to congregate. We went to the store with the girls who we share a room with to get some chicken to grill and vegetables for a salad. They do some things very differently in Argentina- for instance, they don't sell pre-made salad dressing so we had to figure out how to make it ourselves. It actually turned out delicious since we just added ingredients based on taste instead of trying to decipher the instructions. The boys grilled all of the meat which was nice so and the rest of us just hung out, drank wine and chatted.

We ate pretty late in the evening and kept drinking wine even once we were done eating. Once we ran out of wine, we switched to beer that we could purchase at the hostel since stores don't sell alcohol after 11:00pm. Alyssa snuck up at one point to go to bed, but I was having such a great time I stayed. It was an eclectic group of people: a gay couple from Texas, a guy from Holland, a girl from San Francisco and two guys from Australia. We decided that we were all going to go out to the club (even though it was already 2:00am) because the clubs in Argentina just start getting good around that time. We had an amazing time dancing and just being ridiculous and when we decided to leave the club, I was sad because I still wanted to dance. But then I looked at by watch and realized that it was 6:30am...and we were the first people to leave the club, it was still in full swing! I was in bed by 7:30am, just as the girls we share a room with were waking up for their horseback riding lessons, lol. I had a great time but I knew the next day would be a rough one!

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Bus journey to Argentina

Today I woke up early despite staying up late the night before. I find that am needing less sleep to function although I'm not sure why. We packed up and the nice German man who ran our hostel called us a cab. The cab tried to gouge us on the price to the bus station, saying that the cab is "rented" as soon as he gets the call to come pick us up which is why the price was $2000 pesos more than it should have been. We argued with him about how ludicrous that was and he finally agreed to let us pay the $4000 that the ride should have costed.

We got on our bus (which was practically empty) and settled in for the 8 hour bus ride. I was in and out of sleep for most of it and would be astonished when I woke up to see the Andes or a beautiful vineyard. It was definitely a picturesque drive.

When we got to the Chile/Argentina border, the bus entered a giant warehouse where it could be searched and all of the passengers had to get off and get into line to get their exit/entrance stamps. Our bus driver had us line up, but not in a line that went anywhere, just a line against the wall. We stood there for 45 minutes, growing more and more angry as other buses unloaded and got into lines that were actually going to result in a stamp in their passport. Our bus driver started dragging us around to different windows, trying to get a border employee to open a new kiosk and stamp our passports. Finally, they agreed and we started moving through. Of course, for everyone else it was smooth sailing but when Alyssa and I got to the front, we needed to pay a $160 reciprocity fee. They cannot take cash or just charge your credit card, you need to sign up on their website and pay online. They took us to a back room where they had an old computer connected to dial up internet. It took forever to make the payments and for a while their internet was down and the immigrations guy told me that if my payment didn't go through I couldn't leave the country on the bus...I'd just be stuck at this border crossing in the middle of nowhere...great. Everything finally worked out and we got back on the bus to head into Mendoza.

When we arrived at the bus terminal, some other backpackers recommended that we stay at "Alamo Hostel" which was ironically the one I had looked up. The other American who had been on our bus said that was where he was headed too, so he graciously offered to pay for the cab down their since we had not yet found an ATM to get Argentinian currency at yet. When we got to the hostel, they didn't have any private rooms available, so we settled for a four person dorm with two other girls. The girls were very nice so we felt like our stuff was safe with them, although there was no lock on the door so I was really more worried about theft from people who were not staying in our room.

We went out to dinner at a restaurant that we thought would have a good salad but we ended up ordering a pizza and a burger...lol. Luckily, they have really cheap wine in the restaurants so a cup of great wine is $2000 pesos or $4 USD. We headed to bed early, exhausted from our long day of travel but excited to be in Argentina.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy