a chocotorta and two skinned knees

i don't like to think of myself as accident prone, but the evidence is stacking up to prove that maybe i am. as a child, i typically always had at least one skinned knee and there was probably a band-aid somewhere on my body covering a recent accident.  and now as an adult it's still pretty common for me to have black and blues from where i have accidentally walked into stuff or knocked into something.

since coming to buenos aires i have had the following "accidents" which have needed some level of first aid:

1.  i sliced the side of my hand on a broken glass while doing the dishes.  had this wound been on a different part of my body, it probably would've needed stitches, but since it was in such a weird spot there wasn't much to be done.  so now i have a nice v-shaped scar on the base of my thumb.

2.  while taking an outdoor fitness class, i slammed my shin onto the ledge of a concrete wall causing a large gash in said shin.

3.  and today, while the bolshevik and i were out on a pleasant saturday afternoon bike ride, i had a little biking accident.  you see, there are some lovely bike lanes here in buenos aires, but the problem is that they don't all connect properly.  so there's this area by the waterfront where the bike lane dies for a bit and all of a sudden you're left to fend for yourself in this shady industrial area.  first, there's a part where the bike lane actually spits you out into oncoming traffic.  great.  then after that there's this weird area with all these old trolley type tracks crisscrossing over the street.  so i was riding over the tracks and my tires hit the tracks the wrong way and my bike slid out from under me.  not cool.  and i did this little number to my legs.  (please note, there is actually one more bruise on the side of my right leg, but i couldn't get it into the picture. not only that, but i fell in a way that i actually re-opened the injury listed above in #2!)

so now i'm laid up in bed with a swollen knee.  grrrrr.

and of course, we were far from home when this happened so we had to stop by a pharmacy to get first aid supplies.  and then the bolshevik decided the best thing to do was to take break before riding back home, so we got some ice cream.  claro!

we got a chocotorta sundae from freddo ... it was divine.  for those of you who don't know, a chocotorta is a dessert typically served at birthdays, consisting of several layers of booze soaked chocolate cookies alternating with layers of a dulce de leche and crema.  the freddo's version has dulce de leche ice cream and big hunks of crumbled chocolate cookies. i highly recommend it regardless of whether or not you have sustained an injury.

buenos aires: everyone shall have ice cream, and everyone shall have a maid

it's been quite a journey, dear blog readers, but we finally made it to buenos aires!  (la paz was rather boring and unworthy of a blog post)  you're probably asking yourself, "self, were miss dewey d and her bolshevik greeted with a parade to welcome them to argentina?"  well, dear blog readers, the answer is yes.  (if by parade you mean upbeat political protest). 

anyway, as soon as we arrived we hit the ground running (after a day of napping), and began the search for an apartment.  who needs to find a job first?  we need to live somewhere, no? 

it seems that in buenos aires there is a huge number of furnished apartments that are rented out on a weekly/monthly basis, so that was a bit of good news.  and the rent prices cover all utilities, including electricity, internet (usually wifi), cable, local phone ... some apartments even come with a cell phone that you just need to add money to.  what luxury!  nyc could learn a thing or two from buenos aires landlords.

apartments here also seem to include maid service.  at first, being the members of the proletariat that we are, we looked down upon this.  surely we don't need maid service.  we will gladly pay less money and clean the apartment ourselves.  but this turned out to be an impossibility.  even the cheapest apartments come with weekly maid service.  at one point the bolshevik asked a prospective landlord if the apartment came with a maid, and the landlord looked at us as though we had asked something really obvious like "does the apartment a door?"  si, claro!  of course there is a maid!

now apartment hunting is hard work, so often we had to stop at freddo between viewings.  it's a rough life, dear blog readers.   for those of you who have never been to Bs As, freddo offers a variety of delicious fresh ice cream flavors, and typically you get two flavors per cone.  the bolshevik and i have decided that not only will we make it our mission to try every flavor available, but we will also rank the flavors and try to determine what the best flavor combinations are.  in the week that we have been in buenos aires, we have already had freddo 4 times. we're off to a strong start.  

in the first weekend we looked at about 10 apartments.  we found a rather tiny place in a very nice neighborhood, and decided to set up shop there.  it's a loft of sorts, with one small room with a kitchen, table and chairs, and bathroom on the bottom floor, then a spiral staircase to a bedroom above.  there isn't much room, but there's a cozy charm to it and it's super cheap. 

we have already found our "it" apartment (more details to come), but we don't move in until mid-july.  but do not fret dear blog readers, because both apartments come with maid service.  phew!