Apparently I spoke too soon

The following dispatch from Julie:

Tequila Poached Pears
(made by Anna for Navidad dinner)

4 pears picked from a neighbor’s tree
1 cone pilonchillo from the local mercado
2 cups bottled water (this es muy importante if you don’t want to spend Christmas on the commode)
1 cup (more or less) good quality tequila
1 stick canela (that’s cinnamon to you and I)
1 lime picked from the tree in your garden

Melt pilonchillo in water over high heat. Don’t worry, the water will never boil because we are at about 6,500 ft. Peel and core pears and submerge them in the sugar syrup along with the tequila, canela and lime. Simmer (since that’s about the best you can do at this altitude) for about 15-20 minutes until pears are soft. Serve with vanilla ice cream and toasted pecans.
Muy rico!

FAIL Blog hits a bit too close to home

Sorry about the lack of posts. We got busy. The long and the short of it is we're having a great time (wish you were here!) and will be home in less than 48 hours. So, you know, if you know us give a ring or something. Drop us an email. I will post more pictures to flickr tomorrow but, I think this is it for the travel blog. We're too busy sipping cafes and walking the streets to write.

(For those who do not get the "Fail" reference, try this.)

happy christmas!!!

Tales from the crypt... It's THE MUMMIES

Day three is beginning in the only way it can. I'm sitting on the patio drinking coffee and reading the news/writing this. It looks like another warm, sunny day and, all in all, perfect weather for Christmas Eve.

Yesterday was a busy day filled with very little. We were warned that when the cleaning couple came the husband would want to sing us a traditional Mexican welcome song. When they arrived just before 10 we made ourselves look very busy (eating eggs) and got out of the awkward situation of standing in a room grinning while an old man sang at us. Once breakfast was done we immediately hit the streets in case he had any ideas of a late morning song.

Guanjuato is famous for a few things. The Cervantes Festival, silver mining and, for some reason, The Mummy Museum (there are probably others, but these are the big three that come to mind). We decided to see The Mummies -- or, Momias. After a long walk (the signs and maps are one dimensional and don't show a thing about unbearably steep hills) we found the museum, paid our way in and, well, saw some mummies. It's kind of a shitty museum. There's very little about what these mummies are doing there and only about a quarter of the posted information is in English so there was really no context for us. They're quite unattractive but are, in fact, mummies so I suppose if you have to put them somewhere a museum that houses mummies is the place for it. Interestingly, the signs that were in English were all translated in to the first person so it's this quite bizarre narrative... "Hello. I am Raul Diego Martinez. I was mummified in 1932 after falling ill with..." Strange. Engrish anyone? Also -- to protect our calves, we took the bus back. Not quite Argentinian, but still a bit scary.

In the afternoon we went for a drive up the hill with my mother and Hank to have lunch. On the way to the restaurant we saw some of the old silver mines and even one that had been turned in to a gag golf course. That is -- there's a place to tee off and there's a green with a hole. Inbetween the two is just ruins and brush and rock. If you don't get it on the green in the first shot you lose. Odd.

The restaurant where we had lunch was one of the nicest places we'd ever been to. A gorgeous outdoor patio and the food was presented quite beautifully. But, with everything, there is a downside. It took about 45 minutes for the food to come out and when it did come it wasn't very good. But still -- AMBIENCE!

Today, there are Christmas parties and probably more walking around. I'm sure Julie will go in to greater detail with the food and I'll try to post more tomorrow.

mummies at the museo momias.The old silver mine/golf course

Dead baby mummy.

A note about the food from Julie

Hello blogoreaders!
This is Julie and I will be commenting on the food related parts of this journey since, as you know, I am very interested in the subject. Our first breakfast was had at a lovely little hotel café with seats outside on Guanajuato’s main plaza. I had chilaquiles for the first time. Here’s what you do: Take a layer of homemade tortilla chips. Add a layer of salsa verde. Add a layer of crema. Add another layer of queso. Top it all off with a fried huevo. And slap some refried white beans on the side for good measure. It was tasty and hearty and gave me plenty of “andele” for all the walking we did yesterday. I will try to get you a picture of this dish later, for I intend to order it again if given the slightest opportunity.

We wandered through some terrific food markets with all kinds of fruit, veg and meat stands. Of course with any market comes the wonderful food stalls selling all kinds of tamales, tortillas, menudo… everything made my mouth water (even though my stomach was saying “no mas” after the chilaquiles). There were all kinds of grilled and roasted pieces parts being offered, wrapped up in a tortilla with salsa, cabbage, lime, etc. Robin even commented on how delicious everything smelled. Until I informed him that they were innards, that is. (They still smelled good. -ed.)


Outside, there were lots of ladies making gorditas on a giant iron platter set over a makeshift grill.


On the street we saw a lady offering steamed or roasted fresh garbanzo beans. I’ve never even seen a fresh garbanzo bean. I always assumed that garbanzos were plucked off the old garbanzo bush looking pale and beige colored and ready to stick in a can. Anyway, it's kind of like an edamame deal. She pours some into a plastico bag and then douses them with fresh lime juice, chili sauce, and salt. Popping them out of their shell isn’t as satisfying as edamame and not much comes out but they are a great vehicle for that lime/chili combination and were fun to snack on while taking in the sites.

That evening, after dos margaritas and empanadas for cocktail hour, Anna made us an amazing stuffed chile for dinner. Roasted poblanos stuffed with pork, plantains and raisins in an almond-sherry cream sauce. *burp*
More later, amigos!

Arrival

Dear Weather Gods --

Hey, it's Robin. I hear you totally dropped a ton of snow on the Northeast the other day. That's so cool. We saw a lot of it when we were driving to the airport. It was awesome. We got to drive 40mph on the highway so we wouldn't crash. Thanks a lot for saving the worst of the storm until after we got off the ground and were on our way to Cleveland. That was so sweet. Anyhoo -- yer the best. Thnx again for letting our plane take off etc.


Hugs!
Robin

______________________________________________


Our hosts, my mother and step-father, insist that it's quite impossible to get lost in Guanajuato. This seems highly improbable. "See -- there are the high roads and the low roads, and then there are the alleys. No matter where you are you can just go back up or down and you'll be back where you need to be. If you think you're lost you can just hop on a bus or take a taxi." There are also in-between roads and strange little tunnels that you can walk through. There are also alleys that shoot off of alleys and low roads that intermix with high roads that make you wonder what is high and what is low. It seems everyplace you walk there is something higher than you so how does a novice tell the difference? I don't know. This will be learned at a later date. Today we walked through tunnels and high roads (and possibly a few low roads and alleys!) with our hosts and let them guide us around. I was lost within 10 minutes but frankly it didn't matter. The streets are cobblestone (flip flops possibly a mistake!), windy and gorgeous. They, along with almost all buildings, are built right into the hills. The majority of exterior walls are just shaved off mountain with cement, many painted in bright, cheerful colors.

The city is filled with The Christmas Spirit. There are mangers all over the place and what seemed to be an entire marketplace devoted to DIY Home Manger Scenes. You could get straw reindeer, clay chickens, live ducklings, papier mache donkeys and numerous baby Jesuses in a variety of poses. Tinsel trees and ponsiettas are all over the place and the general populous seems quite excited for Christmas. This is nice to see as it's a bit odd spending the holidays in Mexico when there's so much snow and "traditional" Christmas weather back in Saratoga. It turns out that I'm OK with missing it. Something about an entire city going out shopping for their manger scene is much more exciting than the chance of a White Christmas.

So -- while we might get quite lost, the city is in fact quite walkable. We look forward to doing a lot more exploring and strolling as the days go on. It's 4:30PM local time now and about time for the first margarita. Probably more to come tomorrow.... Some pix are below. There are many more at Flickr.

The Fruit and Veggie Man

Either the high road or the low road.

Krismus!

The view from the house. It's a bit hilly.

Making tortillas.

A house built into a hill built in to the street which is built in to a hill.

Street view.

a short post for very late at night...

we are here.

OK... Let's GO!

Julie and I leave for this place tomorrow morning. Hopefully. There might be 435 inches of snow coming tonight. Fingers crossed. Will try and write amusing things with proper grammar and good punctuation over the next 9 days.

More anon... back to packing and things.

wedding pix

pix! video! music!

we're a technological inspiration

My mother and stepfather will be blogging about their time in Guanajuato. Who'd a thunk it?

Please visit this site for the unlikely internet travel tales of Hank Noordam and Anna Adams.

we're back.

phew.

The cool stuff mall

One of the coolest places in Buenos Aires is a shopping mall called "Buenos Aires Design." Imagine a shopping mall filled with (somewhat) competitively priced modern furniture and housewares etc. Now imagine Julie and I drooling. Now -- get that last image out of your head and go back to imagining the cool modern chairs. OK.
The store that stands out the most is actually an art gallery. About 20 artists had their work on display, much of it very good and all of it quite affordable. Some of you maybe very familiar with the Skidmore Senior Art Show held at the Tang Museum every year. It's that caliber of work, if not better. It struck us as a genius idea for a store -- bringing quality, original artwork to everyone. Sadly, we have fears of being unable to fit all of our stuff in the suitcases so we did not get any. Still, a very cool idea. Does such a place exist in NYC?

One of many modern furniture stores


EGG CHAIR (in the Nokia sponsored cafe)


An old cigarette machine converted into an "art" machine. I'd read about these but had never seen one. Very, very cool.


The view from one of the many cafes around the Design Mall.

today is our last full day

and we're kind of sad about it.

Julie just went out to get Churros, I'm doing the laundry and then we're going to go walk around and see the sites for 10 hours.

Colonia del Sacremento

One of the day trips that most guides suggest is a trip to Colonia del Sacremento, just a quick hop across the river in Uruguay. So -- why not? Get another stamp on the passport, be able to say you've been to Uruguay and get out of the big city... sure.
To make this trip you need to book travel on some sort of ferry called Buquebus. Seems easy enough. Go to their site and book your tickets. That's great until instead of a confirmation screen you get a plain blank page. Oh well -- let's just give them a call. They'll sort it out. We call many times and get disconnected many times. The "voice" of Buquebus sounds exactly like Kramer when he is pretending he is the MoviePhone man. "Welcome to Buquebus!"

Finally we get through, pay for our tickets and we're done.
Except for when we got the Buquebus station and they told us that they must have written the credit card number down wrong. No tickets and the Buquebus is filled so we have to go the next day. We wound up getting seats on the boat 2 hours later and sat in the station for much of the morning reading $8 copies of American fashion magazines (All they had, honest. Gotta say, that Catherine Zeta-Jones really comes off as a spoiled bitch in the In Style piece...).

Finally, after many hours in the station and another hour at sea we made it to Colonia.

Meh. It was cute and looked a lot like Portugal, which makes sense seeing as it was founded by the (wait for it...) Portugese. I don't know if it was the highlight of the trip but we got massages at a day spa while we there. The massage itself was definitely not a highlight but the wack job masseuse definitely had us laughing for a good 20 minutes.


We just bought a huge suitcase so we could do a practice pack to see if we had enough room to bring back all the stuff we've bought. We do. Time for more shopping...

Argentines LOVE David Hasseloff

Knight Rider dubbed in Spanish is pretty amazing.

Jorge Newbury Aeroparque

Domestic travel in a foreign country. Interesting.

In the airport are 15 gates with flights departing about every 20 minutes. The gates are solely used as a guide for while you are inside. Once you get out of the gate you hop on a bus which takes you to your plane someplace else. The fun part is figuring out which gate you are supposed to be at. Essentially, about 5 minutes before the flight is scheduled to depart the departures screen will tell you what gate number and start to flash "BOARDING." At that point everyone makes a mad dash to the gate, small children and cripples be damned, and the first one there is the first on the plane. A strange system that actually seems to work. We left on time.

The town of Iguazu...

The town of Iguazu contains one very good restaurant and a lot of schlock. We ate at Agva twice and both times had delicious meals. I had a $50 steak (in the states...) for about $9. For $50 (with tip) we had 2 apps, a bottle of very good wine, a steak, a fish and it was all fantastic. The second night we had the same waitress and she gave us Limoncello. We are all friends forever now. I think that's about all I can write about the town center. There were tons of hippies and a lot of Germans. Need I say more?


On our last day in Iguazu we had to check out of the hotel at 10AM. Our flight home wasn't til mid afternoon. We'd noticed a sign for botanical gardens down the road so we thought we'd give that a try. Closed. Lucky for us there was also a home made sign for "La Casa de las Botellas." Given that we live near the Bottle Museum of Ballston Spa we figured we should stop in. And, really -- how could you not go to the House of Bottles? We walked through a sort of shanty town (no doubt where most Iguazuans live...) and there it was. A House made almost entirely of plastic bottles. We got the tour from Alfredo, the man who made everything, and he was obviously very proud of his creation. He'd even created a way to create solar energy with black bottles taking in the sun and heating cold water. This, he told us, was what he was most proud of. Alfredo was a cross between Al Gore and Salvador Dali. This man had built entire structures out of plastic soda bottles. It was quite impressive. There were bottle chairs, bottle bed, even bottle flower arrangements on the bottle coffee table. Very cool. It was very sweet and a bonus find in a town that doesn't have much going for it except for the waterfalls and the knicknack stores that go with it.

The flight back to Buenos Aires was great. We arrived at the airport with 2 hours to spare (they insisted) only to find that our flight had been delayed for 3 and a half hours. We were put on a waiting list for the morning flight (which had been delayed for 4 hours!) and told to wait and see if we could get on it. Ours were the last names called and we wound up leaving 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave. And, somehow, in the process we had been given first class tickets. Sadly, it was just a short flight and the only benefit was more legroom. Still, these days that's a pretty big plus.

Out of the city

I think lots of places call themselves the '8th Wonder' of the world. I don't really know what the qualifications are for such a title but I'd reckon that astronomical amounts of water falling over a cliff while people, monkeys and birds watch should count as one. The Iguazu Falls that border Brazil are pretty damned spectacular. The Argentinian side is a gigantic nature preserve that is filled with treacherous catwalks above rivers and paths through the woods. I think we did what they call "eco-tourism." Although I don't think traditional eco-tours have a cafe every 2 kilometers filled with beer, salami sandwiches and ice cream. So, maybe it wasn't eco-tourism. Maybe we just went to a big water park. With toucans. And ice cream. But, the waterfalls were quite stunning.

After walking though most of the park we were invited to go on "La Gran Aventura." It involved a boat and a 4x4 jeep. Hell yeah! We put on our rain panchos (interesting side note -- pancho here means hot dog. Huh.), paid our money, got a life jacket and went down the side of a mountain (aventura #1) and waited to be led into a boat. It turns out that all Argentinian drivers must graduate from the same academy before they are handed the keys to a car, bus or boat. Perhaps you've heard of La Escuela Official por los Conductores Locos? These guys almost went Ethan Allen on our asses. It started off all nice and calm as we rode towards the falls and then it just went wrong. The driver kicked up the speed to 200 knots and started going in sharp circles (aventura #2) so that our cheeks could skim off the rocks in the water. Fun! Then we plowed into the falls and sat there for a bit and got drenched (aventura #3). More fun! Some guy videotaping the whole thing (no, we did not purchase a copy) asked if we wanted to do it again and enough people did. So, we did it again. After the second drenching we flew down the rest of the river like I don't know what and got out. Amazingly, the sheer speed of the last leg of the journey dried us out by the time we got to "port."
The 4x4 jeep ride was kind of boring. We saw a "heart of palm" tree which was slightly interesting for about 30 seconds but the next 6 kilometers were a bit dull. Some Columbians in the front row said they saw a guinnea pig but we didn't see it. Not sure that it would have made the trip more exciting.

We did see a mashuga swarm of South American bees that ruined our lunch. No amount of swatting or slapping was getting rid of these things. One landed on my sandwich just as I was about to take a bite. Mmmmm. Bee sandwich. The wait staff at this cafe seemed uninterested in our problems. Julie wound up sacrificing her coke and half of her pizza to them. At least they didn't have any interest in stinging.



Stay tuned tomorrow for the 9th Wonder of The World: The House of Bottles!
And a runner-up prize to The Orquedias Hotel for having $20 spa treatments. We love the peso!

El Transportation Publico

Oh sure, it looks harmless...

Here is a copy of an email Julie sent. She's right. The driving here is batshit insane. They make Italians look like the Amish. Ever made a left turn from the right side of a major seven lane street?

Ok. Take a bus, take your life in your own hands. We decided to take the bus back from La Boca to our neighborhood because the subway doesn't go to La Boca. The bus drivers here are insane. They are really just trying to get to their final destination as fast as possible and it's just an annoyance to actually have to stop and let passengers on and off. They will literally start moving even if you just have one foot on the bus so you better be prepared to hang on and get the rest of you inside! Also, everyone runs to get off the bus because there really is no need to make complete stops to let people off. They drive like they are in a race especially with other buses. They pass on the left, on the right, and somehow in between. They cut off taxis, cars, and pedestrians. It's amazing. I have a newfound respect for the buses here and will be much more careful about crossing the street if there is one coming. Because they ain't stopping!

Also, the taxi drivers are completely mental. Well, everyone here drives like a maniac but the taxis especially. Lanes markers? Who needs them?? Stop signs? Merely a formality! We took a cab to La Boca and I seriously though we were going to get squeezed into oblivion a few times when our driver decided to make his own "lane" between a couple larger vehicles. Then there was a protest that blocked all traffic to where we were going. This really set him off and a high speed chase ensued taking us tearing around the streets of Buenos Aires. I'm telling you, New York cabbies have nothing on these guys. At least New York has a grid and people generally obey traffic laws.

As for the subways they are very nice and efficient. A simpler layout than New York though not as extensive. We have used it many times and it goes to just about every place we have wanted to see. It gets crowded at rush hours which seem to be about 10:30-11 in the morning (that would explain the late night dinners these people have) and about 5:00-6:00 pm. I guess most people have a 6 hour workday...? Anyway, we love subways and this one is great. And, unlike New York's $2 fare, here it is a much more manageable 23 cents. Take that gringos!

take that Niagra

We just bought our tickets to go the Iguazu Falls on Friday. Apparently they make Niagra Falls look like a bathtub. Buying the tickets was not the simplest chore. I wrote earlier about having to take a number to purchase yarn -- this system seems to apply to many other things as well. First we were trying to go to the Peninsula Valdes -- but all the tickets were sold out until next week. To find this out, we waited in line at the Aerolina Argentina building (can you imagine going to the Continental office to buy tickets?) and no luck. Then we tried another airline office and no luck. It's amazing how used to just going online we are. Too much human interaction! Finally we found a little travel agent and a friendly guy named Frederico who helped us buy tickets to the Falls. "You come back tomorrow around 2:30 and get your vouchers." Well -- OK. It's quite an ordeal, really but it seems to be the way things get done. Why we couldn't just get the tickets yesterday is beyond me. Hopefully the place is still in business and our vouchers will be ready. Also, we hope that "vouchers" translates to "airline tickets."

Julie has just gone off for Round Three in the yarn district and I'm enjoying me cafe con leche in the Jorge Luis Borges Plaza (now with WiFi!)

Last night we went back to that Italian restaurant we went to our first night here -- but they did not give us shots of Cosmos this time. Oh well. It was still very good and we will have to return before we leave. The owners joked with us and gave us a good Marx Brothers slapstick routine. They called their cook "Peppo -- the fifth Marx Brother." They were glad that we came back and did not seem to be doing very good business so if anyone comes across this site while researching their own trip to Argentina do go to Capo Ristorante if you are in the Palermo Soho district of Buenos Aires. Delicious bruschetta and perfectly cooked pasta.

We are managing well. We lost our phrasebook after the first day here but we continue on with "mas despacio" (slower), "con permiso" (excuse me) and "Que es el precio?" (how much?). That combined with the smiling, nodding and thanking has gone a long way.

weird

Interesting weather we are having here. To us it looked like "mostly sunny." But, what do we know?

I think we walked about 20 miles today. It's nearing 9PM and there's a good chance we might not be the very first people in the restaurant for dinner tonight. We're getting the hang of it.

the yarn district

Never in either of our lives have we seen this much yarn. I'm talkin' yarn like you wouldn't believe. Probably about 20 stores in a two block radius -- each with more yarn than you could shake a knitting needle at. TWO knitting needles. They operate much like a delicatessen where you pick a number and wait to be called. It's quite a system, but pretty necessary as these stores are all packed to the gills with people. Needless to say, we will be purchasing a new suitcase to carry home all the yarn.

The pix immediately below are from a store that sold all sorts of handmade and dyed paper. Pretty, we think.

Some paper in a paper store...

More paper in the paper store...

One of many, many yarn stores in the "Yarn District."

More yarn.

curb your enthusiasm

Not so much with curb laws here with regard to dogs. The streets are covered in little brown presents.

I Predict a Riot

Julie and I saw our our first riot today. It was probably a 2 or 3 on the riot scale (Watts being a 10) and we were never in any danger. I mean, it was a bunch of artists -- how bad could it get? Anyway -- we're not 100% sure what the people were so upset about but it had something to do with the artists being oppressed. Fittingly, it was at a plaza on a street called Jorge Luis Borges, right in the heart of Palermo, Buenos Aires (7 blocks from our apartment!). The locals seemed unimpressed and just pushed past the rioters and the police. Our Spanish was not good enough to explain this guy to them.

Best. Honeymoon. Ever.


She was PISSED and screamed an taunted the police as they retreated (for a bit).

This was just before they started fighting back for a bit.

The aftermath...

a few notes...

A few brief notes.

1. It's harder to find a leather jacket here than you'd think.

2. It's pretty frickin' cold.

3. The food is amazing and mind numbingly inexpensive.

For dinner last night we went to an Italian place around the corner where we were greeted with a shot of something pink (cosmo?) and a friendly guy who talked to us in broken English while we responded in broken Spanish. We talked for a some time and then he came out with these little pizza thingies with a slice of eggplant and made some suggestions for us. We had delicious focaccia, 2 huge glasses of wine, 2 very good antipasti and 2 huge portions of pasta (raviolis and something else with mushrooms). Then some nice espresso (you look at a waiter and shape your thumb and forefinger like you are holding a coin and PRESTO! Espresso!). $40 with tip.

We've had several cases like this but tonight we are pooped after walking around all day. We bought some tortellini at the supermercado and tonight we cook for ourselves and watch season 1 of Weeds. Tomorrow we explore our neighborhood more and try to find out how to get to Patagonia.

Lynn's pix from the wedding are now on Flickr.

Days 1-3

Hello! Not really sure how much we'll keep up with this but, why not give it a try? If not for others then, at least, we'll be able to remember things years from now that we might forget.

So... here it is. The whole things started rather auspiciously when we arrived in Houston and were told that our flight to Buenos Aires had been canceled. Apparently, the first snowfall since 1918 had paralyzed the whole city. Definitely the most interesting reason a flight of ours had ever been canceled. Much more interesting than a faulty wing. So, off we went to the Airport Mariott on Continental's dime, food vouchers in hand. Not, by any means a night to remember, but our vouchers got us a salad and a beer at CK's Flight Lounge and Revolving Restaurant. Score.

The next day we went off to explore Houston. I think, the least said about this the better. We were in our newly purchased "I love Houston" t-shirts in 100 degree heat and no idea what there was to do in the city. Turns out, not much. After a one hour bus ride into town we saw the "Rome" exhibit at the Museum of Natural History (not very interesting), a 3D IMAX movie on fish (very cool) and bought some clean socks at Payless Shoes. We then decided it would be best to spend the next 5 hours in the Houston Airport. I think the airport was the best part of the city.

So, we fly, it's uneventful, we land, change some money and take a cab to our apartment in the "Soho of the South," Palermo. After a nice nap we went out for dinner around 7. Or so we thought. They don't seem to eat dinner til around 9 or 10 here. Most restaurants were closed with only a few showing a sparse waiter setting tables. And so we walked. We found a cafe where Julie found her (first) new favorite drink -- a cup of steamed milk and a chocolate bar that you throw in and stir around -- and I got my first cafe con leche. Then we walked some more. Perhaps some of you know that little flea market in NYC on Broadway next to Tower Records. We came across the Argentine equivalent of that where they were selling very Eighties looking sweaters and some of the vendors were dancing around to "Happy Hour" by The Housemartins. I knew I was going to love it here. After a lot more walking (it was about 9PM now) we decided to find ourself some dinner. We found a sign that said "Futbol -- Pizza Free." The Copa America is a big soccer tournament going on now and Argentina is kickin' ass. We went in for the Pizza Free and stayed for the futbol. The pizza turned out to not be free -- but it was pretty good and Julie found her (second) new favorite drink -- Dr. Limon -- the Argentine response to Mike's Hard Lemonade. Argentina won the game and they're off to the finals on the 15th. Dinner (3 beers, 2 Dr. Limon, 1 bottle water, 1 large pizza) cost $20 w/ tip.

Today we explored the Recoleta neighborhood. There are areas that are quite beautiful and areas that are not so much. The streets are huge and the driving is awful. Often corners don't have stop signs or lights let alone a "walk, don't walk" sign. The traffic lights that are in place seem to be more of an option than a demand for drivers. "We were thinking that it might be nice if you stopped here for a bit and gave your right foot a rest. But please, don't feel any sense of obligation." The traffic lights are more art installations than they are safety warnings.

There is definitely a language barrier here but we are getting better and feeling more confident as we go on. The best course of action is pretty much smiling, nodding and saying, "Si! Gracias." They usually smile back and give us beer or coffee or something.

The long and the short of it is -- we love it. We're figuring it out and look forward to more and more exploring.

Artsy Fartsy

Going down the escalator to the subway!

DOGGIES!!!

Evita's Grave

All of this for a buck and a half. We likey.