Part Deux: Como say dis day "deaf" en espanol?

Apparently, I should be glad to be alive. After Mark and I had a lovely, and relaxing day perusing antiques and the flea market, we went to the Boca football game at the stadium. Now, anyone who is a) not a U.S. citizen or b) retarded knows that people outside the U.S. take their soccer/football totally serious. I don't watch sports, so what the f do I know???

So, the animation company we are working with asks if we would like to go to a game and we are like "si, si!", we figure just another experience while we are here, right? They aren't able to take us, but hire this guy who takes groups of people to see the game. They told us everything was paid for, he would pick us up and we would have a grand time. So, we get in a van with people from Portland, Vancouver, Malta, Italy, etc...and head off to the stadium. My co-worker, E. had given me some tips "wear only gold or blue. don't take anything you would not want stolen and get ready to stand the whole time". Piece of cake.

We get to the stadium, are frisked and start heading to "our section". Now, I know how wonderful our animation company has been and as we are getting seated, I am thinking these just might not be the right seats. We are literally in the "thick of it" with dudes with no shirts, flags, banners and a band right next to us. The game starts and it is like nothing I have ever experienced. The band is playing songs, flags and banners are waving and EVERYONE is singing songs the whole game. Don't bother asking what they are saying, cause we all know that this Garcia is no comprende.

People are standing on posts, jumping, and for one minute I picture the show "Most daring" and think this whole damn place is gonna collapse, but I enjoy it and am like, holy crap, I am with "the fans".





Anyway, we win the game 3-1, go out with everyone for sausage and chimichurri sandwiches (yums, just keep pilin on the pounds!) and Mark and I get free jerseys.
As we are leaving, the guy was like "just tell "F" you felt safe" and I am now thinking ok shit is not right so I make him give me money back cause I think he tried to pull something on us.

I post the pics on Facebook and the animation company sees and FLIPS OUT. They had asked for the "best, no danger seats" and apparently we were with the craziest "die hard, possibly out-on-bail fans". These fans are called the "12th player" and literally, the whole stadium has to empty out before them so they can get to safety before these guys shoot or beat up the opposing team. We were so well protected by the people we are with, we would have never known. We were like this is insane, and the greatest thing ever, but we are deaf.

Anyway...we live to tell....and eat more steak and malbec.

Hola. Soy ALF!

Last night, before I went to bed I was flipping channels and Alf was on in Spanish! I laughed my ass off. I used to love that show, even Alf spoke Spanish in a character voice. I couldn't really understand anything they said, just enjoyed watching Alf chase the cat and Willie (the dad) with his kick ass sweater vests and hige coke-bottle glasses.


Today, Mark and I explored an area called San Telmo, which is a really cute area with antique stores, cobblestone streets and tango shows on every corner. On Sunday, they have a flea market so we went wandering around the area. Every steet was covered with pictures, knick knacks, and performances. Like Chicago, there was a guy covered in white paint who stood very still and asked for money for pictures. There was many tango performers, almost a whole orchestra with an opera singer, people dressed in crazy costumes entertaining. It was really cool!






Of course, my favorite thing I saw was my first Arentinian TRANNY. Mark pretended he was being subtle taking my picture, but really, we just needed a pic of my new "lady friend".

Barf on bread

I can't do it anymore. I cannot eat any more bread, aka "pain", as they call it here in Argentina. Hmmm....that word totally makes sense! My jeans are totally busting at the seams. My stomach physically hurts so I either have an ulcer from drinking too much Malbec or my jeans are are so tight they are crushing some of my vital organs. I'm pretty sure I look totally sexy when I have my pants unbuttoned and I am making horrible noises because I am too damn full.

The other day, Heather and I went shopping. Yes, again. The area of Palermo has some fantastic stores. They call it the "Palermo Soho", as it resembles the area in NYC. Worth noting, they also have a Palermo Hollywood. Maybe I should scope it out and see if there are any celeb sightings there.

Tuesday night, our friends at the animation company took us to the dinner and tango show at Tango Porteno. It was amazing. The dancers were so beautiful looking, the set and costumes wonderful. I couldn't stop thinking I would have snapped my ankles in the shoes they were wearing. Heather disobeyed the "no flash" rule and took these cool pics.






Of course, I was stuffing my face with the delicious dinner as they were burning ten's of thousands of calories dancing their little butts off. Muy naughty-o.

I apologize...for being so damn funny.

Hola amigos and amigas!

Today, we did some more sightseeing. I am learning many things about the Argentinians. For example, most of them smoke. I have determined that this is why they stay so skinny. Any country that brings you a bread basket for breakfast, doesn't serve veggies at any of their meals and cheese, coldcuts and steak are staples on their menus has to do something to stay so slim. Don't worry Buenos Aires, I've taken one for "the team" and gained 5 lbs for you. Damn your malbec!

It's funny. I wonder if I appreciate their archetecture so much more because our buildings aren't anywhere as near as cool as theirs. The people I have met that have been to Chicago love our city - and comment on how cool Michigan Ave is. It makes me laugh. For example, our Ralph Lauren doesn't look as cool as their's does!



Tonight, Mark had a great idea to break from his "10 steaks in 10 days mantra" and go for some sushi. Yeah!!! I did not know The BA would have such good sushi, but they did. Of course, the odd things were no edamame (cause they HATE veggies here or somethin) and all the rolls were salmon or tuna. Guess they don't love unagi as much as we do. They had different rolls than I have had before, but they were all so yummy. Clearly, we found things we like, as evidenced by these pictures. The place itself was called "SushiClub" and it was a really cool looking restaurant.





Heather and I got a little loopy at dinner, and could not stop talking about colonics and other weird crap. You know when you totally can't stop laughing and anything you say makes you laugh, that was how we were. Maybe it started when I busted out the Argentinian Flashdance look. I think Mark is totally over us.

Food - NO MAS!

Today I realized Spanish TV can actually be fun to watch. For example, "Jon and Kate plus 8" is really quite humorous watching it dubbed in Spanish. Or watching "Girls Next Door" with spanish subtitles, or even fashion TV in Spanish entertained mm for a good two hrs.

After spending the morning watching Spanish TV, we went to the Recoleta outdoor market. It's an outdoor market in the park next to the cemetery. Vendors sell all kinds of things there from purses made of newspaper to leather shoes, tea pots and painted tango pictures. You could spend hrs walking around the hundred's of booths.




On the way home, we stopped at Un Altra Volta, which is an ice cream shop a co-worker recommended. It was the best ice cream I have ever had. I tried a cone with American Cookies (basically cookies and cream) and dulce de leche grazinado. Even their cones tasted better. Muy bien!



After an afternoon siesta, we went to a restaurant recommended by some of my co-workers called Piegari. The restaurant is located underneath a highway underpass in an area called La Recova.

Holy crappers was the food good. It was Italian with portions big enough to share, but of course we got our own. We started with the best calamari ever. Unlike the states, it didn't come with cocktail sauce, but rather with a mayonnaise based cream sauce. We decided to be "Healthy" and get a side of broccoli to share. (A side note, Argentinians don't eat that many veggies. I can count on one hand other than salads, veggies offered with a meal. They have no veggies, and serve a bread basket with EVERY meal, including breakfast. Carbs overload!). The broccoli was so good and I admired that they didn't burn their garlic, the way I do every single time I try to saute something. For my entree, I had Ravioles Negros de Salmon. Black ravioli (which I've never seen) filled with salmon and covered with cream sauce, almonds and mushrooms. So fabulous and so rich. After dinner, we had to have dessert of course. So we ordered profiterole and Torta de dulce de leche (or Cheese Cake). At this point, I was stuffed beyond capacity. Here's a photo of Mark, who looks like he is the "pregnant man".



Of course, the night ended like all the other ones have, with several glasses on Malbec and my promise of "no mas food". Yeah right.

Rain, rain go away...

It feels a bit like Chicago here today, meaning it went from hot, sunny and 85 yesterday to pouring rain, chilly and in the 60's today.

While all of you were still sleeping, Mark and I went out to a cute little breakfast place and had croissants and omelettes. Some interesting things that I have learned about BA. One, you have to pay tip in cash, you cannot charge it to your card and that even American coffee here is strong as heck. I only had one cup and was bouncing off the walls. Think Starbucks coffee times 3.

After breakfast, we walked down to Florida street which is a pedestrian only street with shops and restuarants on either sides and then Galerias Pacifico, which is an indoor shopping mall. They had a mixture of American stores like Tommy Hilfiger & Timberland and other stores like Prune (which I doubt the name would fly in the States) and numerous Mr. Sweater stores. I felt at home when I saw McD's and Burger King. How come our BK doesn't look as cool as this one. The King would be outraged!





As it poured rain and we walked back to the hotel, we saw these cool looking murals in a boutique hotel. This one is of Eva Peron. Turns out it is made of bread! We also stopped in a park and saw this enormous tree. I think it would take 5 or 6 people clasping hands to fit around this tree. For scale, here is me standing in front of it. It looks like I am bald. Ha ha.







There is so much amazing archetecture in this city. Here is a gorgeous place that is around the corner from our hotel. We dubbed it "Casa de Familia Myers" because apparently, this is going to be Mark's new home.

Don't cry for me Argentina....

Today was a great day. With the exception of abruptly trying to put myself on BA's schedule to fight jet lag. Yikes!

Today, we walked down to the Recoletta area to view the famous cemetery where Eva Peron "lives". Um, yeah, I know this isn't the right word.

On the way there, we saw some great looking archetecture. One we dubbed "Miss Havesham's house" because it looked like no one lived there. It had some cool looking wrought iron fence and sweet doorknobs that looked like heads.




The cemetery is amazing. Nothing like anything I have ever seen. Rows and rows of these amazing "plots" with ornate limestone and statues. Inside some of them, they have pictures of the people and dried flowers & candleabras. Oh did I mention you can see the actual coffins. Yeah, you can. It's a little creepy, but still beautiful.















Eva's grave is actually not one of the more ornate ones we saw, but it was certainly the most decorated with flowers by her fans. Of course, one of my favorite parts is that the cemetery has many resident cats who keep the mice and rats away. You know I chased after those kittlekins!