happy 112th anniversary

what?  what do you mean that the buenos aires botanical gardens is reusing the sign from their 110th anniversary?  that's crazy!  obviously this sign was made specifically to celebrate their 112th anniversary.  shame on you for even thinking otherwise.

the blog of bad pants revisited OR seen in san telmo

apparently, cusco is not the only south american locale plagued by bad pants ... as we see here, bad pants can be encountered right here in fashionable buenos aires.  let's examine the offense more closely, shall we?

1.  oddly fitting bright day-glo orange pants
2.  random thick yellow strap used as a belt
3.  white crocs (i do not know what is worse, the pants or the fact that they are being paired with crocs)

c'mon people, get it together!  we can dress better than this.

not quite a hanukkah miracle

so not to be rude or disrespectful, but i've been noticing that things here in argentina are made in a way ... oh, how to say it politely ... like crap.  we have this thing in our kitchen called a calefactor.  the calefactor heats, or is supposed to heat, the water in the apartment.  it is a simple idea, really.  there is a pilot light which is to remain lit all the time as a signal that gas is not leaking into your apartment slowly killing you.  then, when it is time to use hot water, there is a great whooshing of flames inside the calefactor which immediately heat the water you are using.  simple, right?

here are the problems:
1.  often the pilot light goes out for no reason.  we have told numerous handymen this, but they say that the problem is not the innocent calefactor but the fact that the calefactor is so close to the kitchen window.  obviously, it must be a breeze from the kitchen window which we keep CLOSED AT ALL TIMES that is blowing out the pilot light.  i ask you, why put this thing near a window then?  and why is  it constructed in a way that a small passing breeze could blow out the flame in the first place?  sometimes, and this is my favorite, when someone tries to use the hot water and the calefactor actually works, the whooshing of the flames is so intense that the wind that the fire creates (or lack of wind?) actually puts out the pilot light.  ironic, isn't it?

2.  frequently (usually in the morning when i am trying to take a shower before work) even if they pilot light is lit, the flames do not catch, and then the gas is going but it's not on fire, and therefore it is not heating the water.  when this happens, you need to go over to the calefactor and turn the knob ever so slightly, testing it out in each position, until you are able to find that magic spot where the gas will actually catch fire (please note: the magic spot is different every time).

so recently we had a handyman in to "fix" the calefactor.  and for about 5 days we actually didn't have any problems.  the pilot light stayed lit, and when we turned on the hot water, the calefactor automatically began heating the water, without any fidgeting or fussing.  AMAZING!  it was, as the bolshevik brought to my attention, quite nearly a buenos aires hanukkah miracle.  but as we approached the eighth day, with fingers crossed that the pilot light could stay lit for eight whole miraculous days without needing to be attended to by us or a technician, what happened? ... the calefactor failed us!  and now we are back to this (several times a day) ...

spare room buenos aires: the exciting conclusion OR the bartender and the bolshevik

living room with cable television
 (not just a physical cable,
but also a connection to a
paid account that transmits
television programming
into the tv for us to watch!)

you may be wondering to yourself, "self, i wonder what happened with miss dewey d and her apartment dilemna?" well, we were able to find a very nice two-bedroom apartment only a few blocks away from our old apartment. it's good because that way we still know where everything is in the neighborhood.  and i am happy to say that our new landlady appears to be a non-psycho. say what? yes, it's true.

1 out of 2 balconies

and get this, when things are broken in the apartment, she promptly sends people to fix said things.  now, that is not to say that these people actually fix the things that are broken ... on no, that would be expecting too much.  but they do show up with tools and tinker around and make loud clanging sounds as though they're hard at work.  and even though that isn't quite as good as actually having things be fixed, i appreciate the illusion that they're creating.  

living room

anyhoo, we've been living here since november and i think it is safe to say that we will not be moving into another apartment during the remainder of our stay.  (fingers crossed!)  for those of you who may have lost track, this is now the third apartment we've lived in here in lovely buenos aires.

the apartment has a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms, and two balconies (one off the living room and one off the master bedroom).

master bedroom

you may have picked up that we do in fact have a spare room in our apartment.  what on earth on we doing with this spare room you ask?  well, the bolshevik and i have taken on a flatmate who will hereby be referred to as "the bartender."  the bartender is someone we knew from nyc (yes that's right all the cool kids from nyc are moving to buenos aires) and he has a tendency to make us cocktails.  not a bad trait in a flatmate if you ask me.

kitchen (with the world's
weakest washing machine)

so all in all it's pretty amusing here in the new apartment, much like an episode of three's company, except that none of us are pretending to be gay in order to live in the building.

the bar

this brings me to a question that has been plaguing me as of late ... why did people have to pretend to be gay (or cross-dress) just to get an apartment in the 70s?  was the housing market that bad?   i think we can assume that television was accurately portraying a serious societal issue here.  i'm so glad that we live in a time where people no longer have to live a life of deception just to get a decent place to live.

adventures in vino

cute little guest house

hola chicos, i do so apologize for the blogging delay.  but if you are a reader of this blog, you know that my blogging schedule is sporadic at best.  disculpame.

entonces.  maybe you are wondering how our trip to mendoza was.  i hope that you are because that is what i am going to write about today and you will be sorely disappointed if you were expecting something else.  here goes:

pool within a vineyard

mendoza is awesome.  and after a few ho-hum trips to uruguay, this was a well-deserved real vacation.

our first night there we stayed in a little guest house at a vineyard.  it was super cute and we had access to a little swimming pool surrounded by plum trees and olive groves.  adorable!  and the plums were delicious.  easily the best plums i've had in my life.  and for breakfast we were served fresh peaches with our tostadas which were also quite delicious.

the only problem with staying in a cute little guest house at a vineyard is that you are very far away from civilization.  we made the mistake of staying there on a sunday and then we were sort of stranded there and the one nearby restaurant was closed.  extremely hungry, we took a bus into town.  of course, everything in town was closed too, so we wound up buying gas station snacks, and much to our dismay, the girl at the counter refused to give us any change for the bus back.   due to this moneda shortage, we found ourselves unable to collect enough change to get back.  apparently they sell a metrocard type card for the buses, but all the kioskos that sold this card were closed on sundays.  so we went from store to store begging for change.  now, when i say "begging for change," i of course do not mean that we were asking for a free handout.  i mean that we were begging people to give us coins in exchange for bills.  often we even offered to buy something.  but it took quite a while until we were able to scrape together enough change to return to our cute little guest house.

exclusive bike parking

but once the week began and we returned to the land of the living we were able to hoard our change and ride buses and dine at fine restaurants and everything was peachy keen.

so what can you do in mendoza?

you can ride bikes to wineries and drink lots o' wine.  they even have special bike parking at all the wineries!  this biking and wine combo might seem like a bad idea, as we did have a little problem with this one time in uruguay, but the biking in mendoza was lovely.  the roads are all perfectly flat, and the drivers there seem accustomed to having tipsy tourists biking from vineyard to vineyard, so it all was very safe.

wine tasting + baked brie

we visited many vineyards, and learned a lot about how wine is made.  we also were able to visit a place that grows olives and produces olive oil, as well as a place that makes various chocolates and liquors.  but our favorite place was a vineyard called tempus alba.  they had this gorgeous roof terrace where they served food and did wine tastings.  we went there twice we liked it so much.  i recommend the baked brie if you go there .... deeeee-lish.

and of course we went on exciting adventures.  one day we did a rafting / biking combo.  we spent the morning white water rafting, and then we biked through the mountains.  while we were biking a small torrential downpour began and we needed to take cover in a tree.  yes, in a tree.  we found a tree with a nice opening in it (kind of like the tree the gummy bears live in) and we hid inside it.  we were then joined by a stray dog, also looking for shelter.  let's just say that three's a crowd when you're hiding inside a tree.

biking through the mountains

once the rain let up we resumed our biking and our canine friend began running alongside me, much like people used to run alongside departing trains in the 1950s.  have i mentioned that i do not really love dogs very much?  well, this dog was freaking me out running alongside me, and then all of a sudden he ran straight into my front tire.  i have never seen a dog do this before.  thankfully i was able to swerve out of the way without falling, but i ask you ... is there any other person who could possibly have a biking accident with a kamikaze dog?  no, only yours truly.

el bolshevik rappelling
off the side of a cliff

moving on ... once the rain subsided we saw many beautiful sights on our ride back.

on another day we decided to do a hiking/rappelling/hot springs combo ... we hiked up a mountain for about 45 minutes and then we rappelled down using ropes and harnesses and things.  now, we had done this once in belize, and you may remember that i had a minor freak out and refused to walk off the side of a cliff.  well, i was much better this time.  i'm an old pro at walking off the sides of cliffs!  so we rappelled off a few cliffs and then we walked to a nearby hot springs.

a "not that hot" hot springs,
but at least there was a view

this hot springs was way classier than the ones we visited in Colon ... it was built into the side of a cliff with lovely pools where you could sit and relax and look out on the "pre-Andes."  pretty cool.  of course, most of them were not all that hot (much like Argentine cuisine) but what can you do?  it was pretty awesome all the same.

and that was our trip to mendoza.

happy chocotorta

many of you may know that i am not a fan of cooking.  i am however a fan of baking.  so when i first learned of the chocotorta i was compelled to find out how to make one.  i actually found a very helpful youtube video that gives helpful instructions.  and it turns out baking is not even required!  what could be better?

the other day i was discussing my love of chocotorta (the desert, the ice cream flavor at freddo, the sundae at freddo, etc) with one of my bosses, and she said that she has a friend who puts banana in her chocotorta. brilliant.  although typically served at birthdays, i decided that i would make one for my friend's christmas bagel brunch.

here's how it works ...

ingredients:
chocolate cookies
dulce de leche
crema
chocolate flavored liquor (or coffee flavored liquor, or cold coffee mixed with the booze of your choice)
bananas (optional)



step one:
empty the dulce de leche and the crema into a mixing bowl and mix until smooth.  it should be a 1:1 ratio crema to dulce de leche.

step two:
take each chocolate cookie and dunk it in the liquor, then place at the bottom of a large baking dish

step three:
spread the crema/dulce de leche mixture in a thin layer over the cookies

step four (optional):
create a layer of sliced bananas (i did this in the middle, which then made the above layers a bit wonky.  it may be better to put the banana layer on top.  however, bananas are not traditionally in a chocotorta at all)

step five:
repeat layers of cookie and crema/dulce de leche until you run out of cookies.  end with a layer of the crema/dulce de leche mixture.

step six:
take any leftover cookies and crumble them on top of the dulce de leche in a decorative fashion.  (or do other creative decorating with any extra cookies)

step seven:
refrigerate for at least 2 hours

happy holidays!!!

uruguay: quite possibly the most boring place on earth

november 2010 - visa renewal trip

the bolshevik and i seem to have a little problem picking the most boring parts of uruguay to visit when we have to do our visa renewal.  since we've already been to montevideo and colonia, the two "big" tourist attractions, we stubbornly choose to explore new parts of uruguay, believing that there might be some hidden gem to discover.  why do we do this?  i don't know.

so last time we needed to renew our visas i stood firm on the fact that we needed to go to punta del este or punte del diablo, both of which are supposed to be fun beach towns that are non-boring.    we even found a cheap flight to montevideo, then an equally cheap bus connection to punta del diablo.  we're set, right?  no. sadly we waited too long to buy the ticket and then they jacked up the price and we could no longer afford it.  damned it!

and that is how we wound up spending the weekend in colon (argentina) and paysandu (uruguay) ...

now before i begin my kvetching, let me tell you that colon wasn't so bad.  it was about a 4-5 hour bus ride from buenos aires (they have luxury buses here, which i will describe later), and the town was okay.  it had a couple of main streets with lots of little shops and restaurants and bars.  they also have quite an active art scene apparently, which includes intriguing street art such as this (more street artists need to pay tribute to slash!) ...

a parilla on the beaches of colon

anyway, once you leave the main strip, it's all little houses on dirt roads.  but the town is right on the water so it's got some charm.  there are some beaches to hang out at, and overall it has the feel of a sleepy little beachy town.  it's probably good for families who want to go away but can't afford to do anything too extravagant.

you may be asking yourself, "self, how the hell did miss dewey d and her bolshevik choose this town to visit?"  two words: hot springs ...  and border crossing.  okay, that's four words.

our not-so-trusty guidebook told us that there were hot springs in colon.  let me tell you, the bolshevik and i love us some hot springs.  when we were in costa rica (our first trip together!) we went to this gorgeous hot springs that had several lovely pools filled with spring water heated by a nearby volcano.  we were surrounded by beautiful lush plants, a delicious and healthy spa lunch was included with our admission, and there was a bar where we could order cocktails and then drink them while relaxing in the hot hot water.  awesome.

the hot springs in colon were similar to going to your local public pool.  you pay a very small amount to get in, there's a bunch of cement pools painted bright blue, filled with what we were told is extremely healthy mineral-rich water that was the same temperature as a warm bath tub (hot springs should be hot, damnit!)  and there was a snack bar with fries and soda and simpson's themed ice cream pops.

ok, so maybe these were not the dreamy costa rica hot springs we were expecting, but the bolshevik and i can roll with the punches.  we had a fine time at the hot spring, even though we were among the minority of hot-spring goers who were under the age of 75.

the next day we took a bus to paysandu, which is a short 12km ride across a bridge into uruguay.  paysandu also has hot springs, so we figured we would try out their hot springs and if the town seemed at all interesting we would stay overnight.

well .... it took us 2.5 hours to get to paysandu.  say what?!  it took as about 10 minutes to reach the border crossing.  then the bus driver took all the passenger's passports to be stamped.  we wound up sitting on the bus for about TWO HOURS waiting for everyone's passport to be stamped.  urgh.

then finally when it's time to move, the bus leaves the border crossing about goes about 20 meters before stopping to let someone off randomly at the side of the road.  then the bus drives in a large circle and doubles back to the border crossing.  at this point i was really confused.  weren't we just here?  then three guys get off.  why didn't they get off the bus during the TWO HOURS we were waiting? i don't know.

so we finally get on our way and we are on a large entrance ramp to the highway and it's our bus and  motorcyclist on the road.  no one else.  just us.  and i swear to you, for no reason at all, our bus just swerves into the motorcyclist, knocking him off his motorcycle.  it was almost like the bus had hip-checked him.

exciting metropolis of paysandu

then of course the driver stops and gets out of the bus to yell at the motorcyclist as though it could possibly be his fault.  after about a half hour of confusion a local bus comes to pick us up.  now the problem here is that we have no idea where the local bus goes, but we get on it anyway because at this point we're kind of furious and annoyed ... and really hungry.

finally, we get to "downtown" paysandu where absolutely nothing is open.  saturday at 2 pm ... everything is closed.  maybe it was siesta or something, but we really didn't care.  we decided we had to get the hell out of uruguay.

after wandering around for 30 minutes wondering how to get to the bus station, we finally stumbled across an open "restaurant" that sold very basic fare: meat, fries, empanadas, and beer.  so we took a quick lunch break (mmmm, empanadas and beer) and then finally got some legitimate directions to the bus station.  but not before encountering the most fascinating sight of paysandu, uruguay ... nevada cigarettes.

yes, this american blend of cigarettes may double your risk of erectile disfunction, but don't worry, it's only if you're between 30 and 40 years old.  everyone else can smoke away!

we had to wait a couple of hours for the bus back, but we entertained ourselves with crossword puzzles and beer at the bus station.  then we went back through the border (which this time only took about 45 minutes), back to colon, and back to our hotel.  the following day we visited a different hot springs ... this one was fancier and had a little spa (which sadly was all booked up), and it had water slides!

although we did get a little heat for being the only child-less adults using the water slides, we slid down those things for quite some time anyway.  and honestly, this trip needed some water slides or else it may have been a dud.

conclusion 1: water slides make everything better.
conclusion 2: 90 days from now we will get our act together and go to punta del diablo

a lonely jew on christmas ...

on my way to punk some rope
in palermo park

as a cultural atheistic jew, i am very strict about not celebrating christmas.  for example, i've never had a christmas tree or eaten christmas turkey or hung stockings or anything like that.  however, one time i lived with someone who was a unitarian and we had a "holiday" tree with dreidels and buddhas and an oddly charming christmas pickle, but that hardly counts.

anyway, often i get pitying looks from christians as though mine is some sort of awful scrooge-like existence, and that i am in some way spiritually and culturally depraved.  (this is not an exaggeration dear blog readers, i could quote many stupid mindless things that people have said to me in respect to this over the years)  mind you, i do enjoy looking at christmas lights, eating cookies, and drinking festive cocktails as well as cleverly named seasonal drinks from starbucks.

so save me your pity, because i actually love christmas.  want to know why?  because it's usually two non-weekend days in a row in which i don't have to do anything!  i have no obligations!  not only that, while all you revelers are stuck traveling to go visit your families i am usually hanging out with a merry gang of jews and heretics doing super fun things like eating korean bbq, going to movies, drinking mimosas, going sledding, or even playing ping pong!  ahhhh, christmas is such a very special time of year!

however, here in BsAs i've noticed that things have a tendency to shut down completely on holidays.  and since christmas is a much more holy than say, national census day, i was a bit worried that things might be closed:

me: i want to have jewish christmas!  you know with a movie and asian food!
bolshevik: i doubt anything will be open.
me: but they have jews here!
bolshevik: (silencio)


well, apparently the bolshevik was right because as it turns out movie theaters are actually CLOSED on christmas.  and on christmas eve the last showing is at 1 pm or so.  what the hell?!  what are all the jews going to do?

anyhoo ... the bolshevik and i decided that we will travel to mendoza for the holidays to drink wine and hang out in the andes.  but not before stopping at a friends for a christmas bagel brunch (thank god for other jews!).  yes, that's right, they do have bagels here.  although not quite a new york bagel, quierobagel probably does the closest thing you can get to an authentic bagel.  ahhhh, a christmas miracle.