About jen

My name is Jen Ransom and I am a recovering consultant. Now I study Spanish and Argentine wine. It's better.

The 5 major food groups of Argentina

Posted on June 8, 2010 by jen

In the US, we have a food pyramid with recommendations on what we should eat; it looks something like this:

5 basic food groups (US version)

In Argentina, they have a similar system, though it looks a little bit different. From what we can tell, this is a relatively accurate depiction:

Our best stab at the Argentine food pyramid

People rave about the food in Argentina, especially the beef, and we agree. We absolutely loved the food when we first got here, but after 3 months, it’s gotten a little repetitive. Pretty much every day when we’re trying to decide what to eat, it comes down to a few options, which we have categorized into the 5 major food groups of Argentina:

Carne. This one’s obvious (not to mention one of the reasons we came here). The steaks are spectacular, and we go out for a steak dinner at least once a week. More to come on some of our favorite spots to practice carnivourism, but we’ve already told you about our neighborhood gem El Estrebe.
Pizza. As close to 60% of Argentina’s population is of Italian descent, pizza is big here. You can find a pizza place on nearly any block in the city. Our favorite pizza right now is either pepperoni or ham, covered with lots of cheese, fresh tomato slices and roasted red peppers. It looks something like this . . .
Puts Domino's to shame

And tastes amazing. One odd thing that we’ve noticed here is that they almost always finish your pizza off with a couple of olives (usually green, but we got some black ones last time). It’s not necessarily listed as an ingredient in the pizza, but there it is nonetheless. Go figure.
Pasta. Again, due to the Italian heritage, pasta is big here, especially fresh, stuffed pastas (e.g., ravioli, cannoli) – seems that they look down on dried pastas a bit, and actually list them separately on the menu. Our experience has been a bit hit-or-miss but generally good overall. If anything, the pastas can be a bit softer (think squishy, overcooked) that we’re used to back home. And there’s something going on with the olive oil here. Not sure exactly what, but it tastes (and smells) slightly chemical-y. We always just cross our fingers that the pasta we ordered is light on the oil.
Fresh homemade sorrentinos stuffed with ham and cheese and covered in fresh bolognese
Empanadas. Best invention ever. Although the term isn’t the most appetizing, I think “meat pie” is actually the most accurate description. It’s a stuffed bread in a half-circle shape stuffed with a filling – beef or chicken are most common, but there are lots of varieties. As mentioned in other posts, this has become a staple meal for us, eaten at least once or twice a week. And they’re cheap – 40 pesos (~$10) buys a dozen that lasts for two meals. Not bad.
Different shapes for different flavors
Dulces. Dessert is its own food group in Argentina. We read somewhere early on in our time here that Argentines lead the world in their consumption of meat (obviously) and sweets. Sweets are available everywhere, and at all times of day – sweetened mini-crossaints for breakfast, dessert is included in most set lunches, more bakeries per capita than we’ve ever seen. They even have a special meal that’s basically just an opportunity to eat more dessert: merienda is the meal in Argentine eaten between lunch and dinner, most like an afternoon snack in the US. Understandable, since dinner is so late (10pm is common). The most popular things to eat for merienda are a coffee and a torta (cake) or other dulce. We’ll be writing more soon on our favorite dulces, but for now the most important thing to mention is dulce de leche. Made basically just from milk and sugar, it’s a thick caramel that’s eaten in every way you can imagine – stuffed between two cookies and covered in chocolate (alfahores), on top of flan or ice cream (helado), or on its own by the spoonful.
Homemade flan served with a side of dulce de leche - perfect finish to a light afternoon lunch!

Basically, just about anything you could eat in Argentina will fall into one of the above categories. And the interesting thing is that almost every restaurant you visit will offer all 5 food groups! Even though you’re at what seems to be a pizza place, they probably still have steak on the menu. And the empanada place may offer pasta. But, that doesn’t mean you should order it. The key is learning what to order in each type of restaurant, which we’ve learned through several strategic ordering errors. Just because it’s on the menu doesn’t mean that they do it well, and it’s critical to learn quickly what to order (and what not to order).

Another thing we learned right away: Argentines don’t like spice (to the extent that you have to specifically ask for black pepper in most restaurants), which can lead to a lot of pretty bland food. But all in all, we think we’re pretty lucky with the food options here. We’ll continue our diligence and provide additional detail on each of the 5 food groups defined above, as well as our favorite restaurant picks in each category. But now, we’re off to dinner!

Our 10 favorite things about our life in Buenos Aires right now

Posted on May 30, 2010 by jen

A quick reflection about our 10 favorite things about our life in Buenos Aires right now (in no particular order):

Dogs: We’ve told you about this before – they’re everywhere. It’s a little strange that they don’t seem to have the slightest interest in talking to us or being pet by us, but just seeing them makes us happy.
Empanadas: This is one of our greatest discoveries here. At first, we’d stop into one of the dozen empanada shops in our neighborhood and wait while they got our order ready. Now, we’ve evolved to become professional empanada-orderers, calling in our order for delivery (in Spanish – go us!!) and having them delivered to our front door 30 minutes later. It’s become one of our favorite (and cheapest) meals – we eat this for dinner at least 2x week.
Learning Spanish: When we came, Ryan hadn’t spoken his high school Spanish in years, and the only Spanish Jen knew was from menus in Mexican restaurants (and they don’t really even have Mexican food here). We’re not exactly fluent now, but we’ve come along way (reference the note about ordering in Spanish above . . . seriously, we’re really proud of that one, and no, it doesn’t matter that we had to ask for a script from our Spanish teachers). Sitting in a cafe and reading the local newspaper this morning was gratifying. We didn’t understand everything, but being able to understand anything at all felt like quite an achievement. Then we went to a Spanish movie in the afternoon . . . and were promptly reminded that we still have a long way to go!
Walking places: Buenos Aires is a beautiful city with amazing architecture and a plethora of parks. We love not only being able to walk to our school and most other places we go, but also just going for walks in general with no particular destination. Especially now as it’s turning to fall, the air is crisp and clean and it’s invigorating to get out and walk around this beautiful city.
Carne: The steak here is unbelievable, unbelievably cheap and available everywhere. When is the last time you paid $12 for the best steak you’ve every had? We ate red meat maybe once a month in the US; we eat it at least once a day here. Yum.
Vino: It’s good, it’s cheap and if you know us, you know we like to drink it. Looking forward to getting out to Mendoza (the main wine region) sometime soon . . .
Being able to take a half-empty bottle of wine home from restaurants: This is the best rule ever. Apparently, it’s tacky to ask for your leftover food to go, but if you ask for your leftover wine, they’ll whisk it away, wrap it up for you and off you go. Too bad it’s illegal to take an open container in the US . . .
Argentine culture of appreciation for the good things in life: You may have noticed that a lot of our favorite things involve food and drink – turns out that’s something the locals here really value too. On top of that, they value beauty (made clear in the architecture, the many parks, and of course the well-groomed dogs), family and relationships – witness the closing of shops for the afternoon siesta and the fact that you can’t get coffee to-go. The culture here seems to have a better set of life priorities than in the US, and despite the crazy ups and downs they’ve lived through over the last century (govt, economy, etc.), the Argentines set a great example of how to appreciate all the wonderful things in life.
The people: We don’t know a lot of them yet, but those that we do know are incredibly gracious and welcoming. We can’t wait until we can speak intelligently enough that they’ll actually want to talk to us too!
Having time to spend with each other: Cheezy, we know. But hey, we’re newlyweds, and it’s wonderful to be able to have so much time to do nothing other than just enjoy life together. It’s pretty amazing that after essentially 24-hours a day for 3 months straight, with virtually no other friends to spend time with (note #9 above), we still enjoy spending each day together.

Review: Patios de Cafayate

Posted on May 29, 2010 by jen

Patios de Cafayate is a boutique Starwood property located in Cafayate, a town in the wine country of Salta province. It’s a beautiful property with only 30 rooms in a great location – the landscapes surrounding Cafayate and on the drive down from Salta city are stunning (check out our Salta trip review). We were excited to stay here on our trip to the northwest, particularly since we were able to use those hard-earned Starwood points to pay for it.

We arrived and were greeted very warmly by the front desk staff, then shown to our room. We walked through an interior courtyard connecting to several other patios (go figure, considering the name) and a grand common room with a view out to the pool. Our room was massive and beautifully decorated. The hotel used to be the family home of a winemaker, and the winery still operates next door, on the same property. As such, the hotel sits in the middle of vineyards, making for a beautiful view.

Despite the idyllic property and location, from our perspective it seems that management is missing the mark on a couple of basics that could make Patios truly exceptional. Instead, it feels like a pretty building that’s trying to be a hotel but not quite getting there. Here are a couple of observations that lead us to think that:

Overall feel of desertion

We noticed right away that the hotel feels deserted, as we’d read in several other reviews – there were almost no other guests, and we seldom saw hotel employees while we were there. Most of the rooms are located along a long, grand corridor, and only every 3rd or 4th light down the hallway was turned on – strange. We went to sit in the main salon one afternoon and spent a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to turn on the overhead lighting, to no avail.

The main salon, which looked out onto the pool, was lovely and furnished with antiques. If only we could figure out how to turn on the lights . . .

On our first day, the main salon and other sitting rooms were completely silent – no people, no music playing – which made it feel that much more like we were trespassing somewhere we shouldn’t be. The second day (when we made use of the living room), a TV in one of the adjoining salons was blaring music from the 40s. It seemed like they were trying but just hadn’t figured out quite how to pull off the ambience they were going for. The lack of lights, music and other people gave the hotel a feel that it wasn’t really open for business.

Spider guts (yes, seriously)

When we arrived, we were shown to our upgraded room and were impressed with the size and the quality of the furnishings. The room was quiet and looked out onto the lawn and beyond to the vineyards. The walls had been painted a beautiful sage green color and highlighted the classic crown moldings (which I love!) and the high ceilings.

Pretty nice digs, huh?

However, it appeared that the hotel had a spider problem (which we’d seen mentioned in other reviews on TripAdvisor), and evidence of such problem was left smeared on the walls in both the bedroom and the bathroom. We’re not sure if this was carelessness or an intentional warning to other spiders that may dare to follow.

I'm pretty sure I can make out a leg . . .

If the purpose is to scare off other potential invadors, it’s not working – found another fallen soldier in our shower in the morning. If it’s just a lack of attention to detail, I might suggest that the relatively marginal effort it would take the housekeeping staff to wipe up any such “messes” would more than pay off by improving the experience for guests staying there (especially those who, like me, don’t exactly love spiders).

Hot tub/spa

On our first afternoon, we took a walk around the property to explore and found the spa – a relatively modern-looking building located to the side of the main hotel. We were excited to take advantage of the lovely indoor hot tub, so we ran back to our room to change into our suits and came back. The water in the hot tub wasn’t warm – the woman working in the spa said she had turned it on/up when we first came (we’re not quite sure which), but even 30 minutes later the water was only lukewarm. Which I guess is ok, because it was less like a hot tub (you know, the kind you would SIT in) and more like a pool of warmish water 5 feet deep, with no seats – guess this is a standing-room-only tub?

Hotel hot tub was pretty (though not hot, nor did it have seats) - apparently it's actually a standing-room-only warmish tub. Or, possibly another Devil's Throat...

While we were waiting in vain for the water to warm, we relaxed on the fancy-looking lounge chairs . . . where we noticed all the cobwebs gracing various surfaces in the spa. The floor-to-ceiling windows were streaked with dirt and cobwebs, and the lounge chair next to us had cobwebs hanging off the back.

Windows in spa at Patios de Cafayate image

The late-afternoon sunlight streaming through would have been lovely . . . if not for the shadows cast by all the dirt and grime

And the otherwise-classy-looking candle set on the table next to us (as well as the others placed around the room) was not lit and instead seemed to be a repository for old garbage – yuck.

Table with candle at Patios de Cafayate image

Looks nice, right? Perfect for relaxing and enjoying some of the local wine

Um, ok . . . but you could have just brought in a garbage can

Breakfast

Breakfast here was better than we’ve had at other hotels in Argentina (sometimes no more than coffee and bread). There was a buffet with various meats, cheeses, fruit, cereal, as well as coffee/tea/juices. And as soon as we sat down, the server brought out a lovely 3-tiered tray of baked goods and offered us eggs made-to-order (which were pretty tasty and a nice touch)! The cookies included in our baked goods tray (yep, cookies for breakfast) were the same ones we’d seen at the small coffee/tea set up in the main salon in the afternoons. We were a bit confused by the little cups of ketchup and other unidentified sauces in the middle of the trays of meats and cheeses, but maybe that’s just an effort to cater to international tastes – we’re not quite sure. Despite that, it was pretty good and gave us enough to go on for our wine tastings later in the day.

Value for money (or Starpoints, in our case)

This hotel was priced at $240/night or 12,000 Starpoints. As we are currently unemployed with no near-term income prospects, we opted for the Starpoints. In retrospect, though, we’re not sure it was worth it. We’ve previously paid only 6,000 points/night for a room in the W New York over the busy holiday season, which would have cost ~$600/night if we’d paid in cash. It’s unclear why the ratio of points to cash is so different here than it is elsewhere, or if it was just this hotel in particular, but this didn’t seem to be the best use of our Starpoints.

Our takeaway

Overall, we’re glad to have had the experience of staying in Patios de Cafayate. It was a lovely retreat in a beautiful location with thoughtfully-appointed rooms. The lack of attention to detail we’ve noted here would be relatively easy to fix and would make all the difference between the pretty good stay that we had and the truly phenomenal experience this hotel could provide. Maybe we caught them on an off-week or during the slow season, but it would be great to see this hotel really take advantage of all it has going for it.

Trip report on Salta and northwest Argentina

Posted on May 25, 2010 by jen

We just got back from a weeklong trip to Salta and northwest Argentina, and let’s just say that we’re very appreciative of all that Buenos Aires has to offer. We’ve heard that the rest of the country thinks porteños are snobby and that, in reverse, porteños think people from the provinces are unsophisticated and that Buenos Aires is far superior. Got to say, we’re starting to feel more like porteños every day . . . .

Our itinerary took us to see the top sights in northwest Argentina: Valle de Calchaquí, the wine-producing town of Cafayate, the salt flats of Salinas Grandes and the small village of Purmamarca (as well as the two biggest cities in the region, Salta and Jujuy). As you know from Ryan’s previous post, we made the mistake of using a local guide for the first two sights, then covered the rest on our own.

Salta

After our epic 20-hour journey on FlechaBus, we were very eager to arrive in Salta and check in to our hotel. We had heard that Salta is a beautiful and charming city, so we were excited to see it for ourselves. It has a wonderful central plaza surrounded by colonial buildings that are artfully lit at night. But we were somewhat surprised to find that the city is dirty, noisy and really polluted – Buenos Aires is a far bigger city, but the pollution was much worse in Salta.

Salta's main plaza is surrounded by lovely colonial buildings. They've got the lighting thing down for sure.

The Salta region is famous for its empanadas, and we ate them at least once (sometimes twice) every single day that we were there (to be fair, partly because they were good, and partly because there weren’t many other appetizing options). The best we had by far were at the Doña Salta restaurant just down the street from our hotel in Salta – yum!!

We love to eat empanadas as much as we love to play with them!

Valle de Calchaquí

The scenery on the drive to Cafayate through the Valle de Calchaquí is truly amazing – a beautiful landscape as far as the eye can see. Some parts were red, others dusty brown and even green. The colors kept changing around every turn.

These hills had just about every color you could imagine

The drive takes somewhere around 3 hours, depending on how often you stop. We stopped to explore the Garganta del Diablo (interestingly, we’ve identified at least 3 other places in Argentina with the same name, including the crazy 3-sided waterfall we saw at Iguazu) – a huge canyon in the red rocks right off the highway. Ryan climbed up a ways, and I graciously offered to stay below and take pictures (had nothing to do at all with my fear of heights).

Um, this is really high . . . not sure how I'm going to get down

Wine country of Cafayate

Once we arrived in Cafayate, we checked in to our hotel – the Patios de Cafayate (a Starwood luxury property) that used to be the estate of a winemaker’s family – the winery is still operating and is attached to the hotel. The property is absolutely beautiful, but they’re definitely missing the mark on some of the basics to make this hotel truly as spectacular as it could be (review of Patios coming soon).

We like pretty hotels

Cafayate is one of Argentina’s wine-producing regions, known for having fuller-bodied wines than those produced in Mendoza – one of our favorite everyday wines is from Cafayate (Quara malbec, 14 pesos/bottle – that’s around US$4). We tasted at two wineries in Cafayate chosen by our guide and were underwhelmed by both. Domingo Hermanos is located right in town and had a very basic tasting room pouring very mediocre wines (and only 2 of them!).

Wine by the gallon - got to be good

Finca de las Nubes is located just outside of town at the base of the hills. Their property is charming and has a great view, but their wines leave something to be desired. Impressively though, the entire winery is operated by just 5 employees – we saw them applying labels by hand while we were there.

Not a bad view from the winery, even though their wine sucks

Despite our disappointing tastings, we did discover a few great new malbecs while we were there – we haven’t seen these wines in Buenos Aires (though we didn’t know to look for them) so bought a few bottles to bring back with us just in case. Interestingly, we learned that the wines that are available in Buenos Aires are actually significantly more expensive in Cafayate (we saw our aforementioned-standby Quara priced at 25-30 pesos in the wine shops vs. 13 pesos in the big city). Wouldn’t you think they might be cheaper closer to the source, before all the shipping and logistics expenses? Clearly not.

Cafayate itself is a small town – the central plaza is quaint, surrounded by restaurants and shops. We ate at Colorado (owned by 2 Americans who relocated to Cafayate) and Terruno (located on the plaza, relatively good food). There are a handful of wineries/tasting rooms in town and a shop selling homemade alfahores – you can’t miss the massive sign from the main plaza. We bought an assortment to take back to our Spanish teachers in Buenos Aires for our ongoing debate over the best alfahores and conitos.

Alfahores and conitos from Cafayate image

Ok, so we bought more than a few, but it's for research!!

One other unique activity in Cafayate is to visit the goat cheese farm on the outskirts of town, where we met some of the producers. Our tour of the farm in Spanish was ok, but turns out our goat-farm vocabulary isn’t that great. Go figure.

Hello - I'm a goat and these are my friends

Renting a car

After heading back to Salta for one more night, ditching our guide and reserving a rental car, we were ready to hit the road and explore the region north of Salta. Neither of us had driven in foreign countries before (Canada and Mexico don’t count) and were a little nervous about renting a car and driving to the middle of nowhere. We were lucky to quickly find a car available through Alamo, who we’d read good reviews about. The employees we dealt with were all great – excellent English and very good customer service. It was a bit scary driving in Salta and trying not to get run over by buses, but once we made it out of the city we were good to go.

We hit Jujuy on our drive up to Purmamarca, our base for the next two nights. While some friends rave about the city of Jujuy, to us it just seemed like a biggish, mediocre city in the mountains. We stopped and had pizza for lunch at Chung-King (yep, that’s actually a pizza place, and no, they don’t serve Chinese food at all) and that was enough of Jujuy for us.

Purmamarca

Purmamarca is this cute little village up in the mountains. It’s one of the most popular places to overnight if you’re visiting the region north of Salta, partly because it’s developed a bunch of restaurants and hotels, and partly because it’s situated right at the base of this really pretty hill.

See, I told you it was a pretty hill

And our room on the top floor had a view of the hills (and a broken shower . . .)

Salinas Grandes

We’d read that the massive salt flats were not to be missed and also that they were best viewed toward the end of the day, after all the tour buses have left. So we cut short an intense game of chess in a café in Purmamarca and hit the road. And not just any road. It’s a 1-hour series of switchbacks straight up the side of the mountain to 12,000-ish feet. With tour buses and big trucks barreling down at us. Fun.

So after this lovely drive, we made it to the salt flats just as the sun was going down. Here’s our take on the famous Salinas Grandes: big, wide open space that’s white and crackly-looking. Kind of cool? Yes. Worth 2 hours of driving on scary mountain roads, the last bit in the dark? Maybe not. But we did take a few of the obligatory pics while we were there.

Hello from the really tall shadow people

Probably the most fun part was sneaking in to use the fee-for-use porta-potty after it was closed, then being confronted by a grumpy saltminer wanting her 1 peso on the way out. We were happy to pay, but it’s not our fault she didn’t have change for a 5!

You know this is going to be a classy bathroom with a sign like that

Humahuaca and Tilcara

These are two of the town that are regularly mentioned as destinations on any tour of the northwest. The drive to visit them was interesting, but if you’ve spent time in Northern California, Washington state or anywhere with mountains, I don’t think you’d be blown away. Maybe people get excited by the drive there? To us, it was ok, but not exactly a must-see.

It's a nice change from the city, but it's not exactly the most amazing landscape we've ever seen . . .

Maybe it was the towns themselves? We didn’t even stop in Humahuaca – just drove through and were ready to head back. It was interesting to see an Argentine pueblo, but there are plently of those that aren’t hours from anywhere. Tilcara was a little better. After walking for 10 minutes or so, we had pretty much seen the town so found a place to have lunch (empanadas – what else?) and a café, then headed back to our base in Purmamarca.

Heading home

On Sunday, it was time to make the trek from the small pueblo of Purmamarca in the hills all the way back to the big city of Buenos Aires. Our drive to the Salta airport took ~3 hours, leaving us with plenty of time before our flight. After our previously-posted experiences with FlechaBus and Aerolineas Argentinas, we were done taking chances on our transportation and booked a flight back with LAN. And what a good decision that was!!!!!

In comparison with our experience on Aerolineas Argentinas: LAN promptly checked us in (no waiting in line for 45 minutes because the computers were down and they were trying to come up with a back-up plan on the spot – see AA post). They made announcements in Spanish and English, didn’t combine our flight with another flight going to a different city, didn’t cancel all seat assignments, didn’t even land in another city that wasn’t on the itinerary (in case you’re wondering, yes, every one of these things happened when we flew with Aerolineas Argentinas to Iguazu). Instead, we boarded our flight on time and in an orderly fashion and actually pulled back from the gate 3 minutes EARLY. We landed in Buenos Aires, promptly received all of our checked luggage and were on our way home.

All in all, it was a fun trip and nice to experience a different part of the country. At the same time, it didn’t quite measure up to all the hype that we’d read and heard. It’s a great place to see if you’re in the area, but I wouldn’t call it a must-see international destination. Some of the landscapes are beautiful (valley on the way to Cafayate) and it was wonderful to visit a few villages that are on the other end of the spectrum from life in BA.

Buenos Aires, we missed you.

Vacation #2 . . . via 20-hr. bus ride???

Posted on May 16, 2010 by jen

After hearing so many great things about Salta and the northwest of Argentina, we’re off this evening to check it out for ourselves. Planning the trip has been fun so far – we’re hoping it pays off when we get there. More to come, but in the meantime, here are a couple of thoughts on the major parts of trip-planning so far:

Decision #1: How do we get there?

The two options are flying or taking a bus. Our default would normally be to fly, but after our last experience flying with Aerolineas Argentinas, we’re open-minded about other transportation options. We’ve vowed to avoid Aerolineas whenever possible, and flights on LAN (the only other carrier covering the route) would have cost us almost as much as our monthly rent. Which leaves the bus.

Going to Salta is like crossing the entire country of Uruguay . . . 3 times

Now, you may not realize that Argentina is big. Really big (see map). We’re about halfway down the east border of the country, and we’re going to the far northwest. That’s a long way. Hence, it takes ~20 hours to get there from Buenos Aires. Yep, that’s almost a full day. We board at 6pm tonight and get in sometime around 1 or 2 in the afternoon tomorrow.

Apparently, bus travel is great in Argentina. They have numerous classes of service, including the “cama suite” that we opted for – supposedly seats that lie completely flat, have full curtains and includes all your meals (and wine with dinner – yay!). So we’re giving it a shot – will let you know what we think on the other end.

Decision #2: On our own or with a guide?

Turns out that a lot of the stuff you go to Salta to see isn’t really in Salta. It’s an amazing region with incredible landscapes and natural wonders, but they’re all spread out and all take a full day to visit. So our choices were to (1) rent a car (crazy expensive), (2) join a bus full of tourists (could be fine but we’ve heard it feels a lot like cattle herding for the Salta tours) or (3) hire a private guide to take us around for a few days. After reading unanimously positive reviews about one particular guide in the area, we decided to book her. We’ve had a bit of trouble connecting on email so don’t really know what our itinerary with her is going to be, but we’re trusting all the good reviews on tripadvisor and hoping she’s booked our hotel for us by the time we arrive (after the aforementioned 20-hr. bus ride – think we’ll be excited for a room and a shower by that point).

Wish us luck on our epic bus journey – we’ll post more from Salta!

How to find a Spanish school in Buenos Aires (we love ours!)

Posted on April 21, 2010 by jen

One of the major reasons we wanted to come to Buenos Aires was to learn Spanish. We didn’t realize at the time that Argentine Spanish is a bit, shall we say, special – they use “vos” instead of “tu” to mean “you”, and they pronounce everything with a lovely Italian-sounding accent (you may be familiar with the word “pollo” – pronounced “poyo” through most of the Spanish speaking world but “posho” in Argentina). So, it’s not exactly your standard Spanish, but it’s lovely just the same and we were super excited to start studying.

After a few days settling in to Buenos Aires, we started our search for a Spanish school. There are well over a dozen different schools here in Buenos Aires, most located in or near the center of the city. The standard schedule is 20 hours a week, typically with classes running ~9am to 1pm-ish, and the schools usually have classes at various levels running each week. Prices range from $150-200USD/week, and pretty much every school offers a small discount for paying for multiple weeks upfront.

We started our search by reading through posts on the various BA expat blogs and google searches. We found a few schools to visit that were recommended and had decent prices – we wanted to check them out in person, and Ryan needed to take the placement test (pretty much every school has you take a placement test if you’ve ever studied Spanish so they can place you in the right class for your level – go figure). We decided to visit IBL, expanish and Vamos Spanish. Here’s our quick takeaway on each:

IBL: Located in a cool old building turned into a shopping arcade and office building on busy pedestrian Florida Street. Let’s just say that we weren’t in the best mood after battling the crowds on the street to get to the building. The school is located on an upper floor in the building with an enclosed patio area used for breaks and for a smoking area. The staff (which seemed to be mostly locals) was friendly and said most classes had ~5 students. Overall, the school was fine but didn’t particularly wow us, and we weren’t excited about the daily rush-hour subway commute to get there. Cost: $175/week.
expanish: Definitely the busiest and most commercial of the schools we visited, expanish is a volume operation. They have great marketing and a bustling space with a central “living room” area (they’re strangely proud of the countless pictures of students sleeping on their couches that are plastered all over the walls – we’re not sure exactly what’s up with that). There were at least 15 students/prospective students hanging out in the common area while we were there. The school offers the standard 20 hr/week class schedule and is also located downtown-ish, just off the massive 9 de Julio street. We got the sense that this is the choice for backpackers and younger, single crowd looking to meet other independent travelers through classes. Cost: $160/week.
Vamos Spanish: We wanted to visit this school because it was pretty much the only one we found in Palermo, walking distance from where we were living. The school occupies its own antique building, with a common room on the ground floor and classrooms upstairs. It’s a smaller school than the others we visited, typically with 10-15 students in a given week. The mostly-foreign support staff is very friendly, and we got a good vibe that the experience was a bit more personalized here than the other schools we visited. Cost: $160/week.

We decided to go with Vamos (partly because we really liked the feel of it and partly due to location) and have loved our experience so far. We’ve spent more than 80 hours each in class (we’re in the running for the title of longest-running students ever!) and have learned a ton over that period of time. Class sizes are small – my classes have each been 1-4 students (including one week where no other students were at my level, so I got private one-on-ones with my teacher), and the curriculum is customized. The teachers adapt the topics covered and the materials used based on the needs of the specific students in the class, unlike other schools that follow a fixed teaching plan (e.g., colors day 1, telling time day 2, etc.). The school develops its own teaching materials, and we’ve found that the teachers are great at finding the right exercise to help with your confusion over este vs. esto vs. esta or correct use of direct object pronouns. As you might guess from our backgrounds, we’ve both been through quite a few classes and educational programs at top schools, and we’re both very impressed with the teaching style and talent of our teachers at Vamos.

Outside of the classroom, Vamos puts a lot of effort into offering additional activities to its students. These range from practical post-class “workshops” (e.g., how to recognize and prevent getting stuck with counterfeit bills, how to navigate the crazy BA bus system) to weekly “intercambio” language exchanges for practicing your blossoming Spanish with locals to advice and assistance on booking tourist activities and trips. One of the employees formerly led trips all over South America and is a great source of recommendations, and she’s more than happy to help you with as much of the booking/planning process as you want. The school has a strong community vibe, and we really look forward to seeing the staff as well as the other students each morning when we arrive.

While we’re clearly very satisfied with our choice, there are plenty of good options in Buenos Aires. Key things to think about when choosing your school:

Location: Morning rush hour sucks. Especially if this is your vacation. And especially if you haven’t been waking up to an alarm clock for a while – it’s a rough transition back to having a schedule. Figure out how you’re going to get to and from the school and make sure you’re actually going to do it.
Volume of students: There are pros and cons here. Fewer students generally means a more personalized experience. It also means it might be harder to get a class together that’s at your level (becomes more of a problem as you get to more advanced levels). We went with a smaller school, and it’s sometimes been a challenge for them to pair Ryan with compatible classmates.
General vibe: The schools vary a bit in terms of the type of environment and students they attract. Some are definitely geared more toward backpackers or those who want a 1-2 week basics class, while others draw an older student group or people living in Buenos Aires for longer. The vibe from the staff and the academic director are also good indicators of what a school is like, so pay attention to these.

All in, we think our 80/20 approach to finding a Spanish school was quite successful! I went from not knowing how to introduce myself to telling stories in the past tense (which anybody who’s studied Spanish before knows is way more painful than it sounds), and still more to come. Let the adventures in Spanish continue!!

Grilled cheese, please

Posted on April 8, 2010 by jen

When I say grilled cheese, what comes to mind? Maybe a gooey toasted sandwich on Wonder bread with melted Kraft singles . . . maybe a diner-style sandwich on a hearty country loaf with classic cheddar? Ask for “grilled cheese” in Buenos Aires, and that’s exactly what you’ll get – a slab of grilled Provolone cheese locally called a “Provoleta”. Yum.

We had heard about this enticing inclusion on the Argentina parrilla menu, otherwise dominated by beef, beef and more beef (and the token chicken or pork option). Can we really order a massive piece of cheese that’s been sliced thick and thrown on the grill? Seems so decadent and outrageous, but we figured that if we could quit our jobs, get married and move to the other hemisphere all in a matter of weeks, we should be able to handle this. And turns out, we did just fine – a nice crust on the bottom and ooey gooey bubbling goodness on top – yum! We’re not saying we’re going to order this as our main dish anytime soon . . . but on the other hand, we’re not saying we won’t either.

Miranda: Top quality lunch at a great price!

Posted on March 30, 2010 by jen

Success!! I think we’ve mentioned in some of our other posts that our dining experience in Buenos Aires has been a bit hit-or-miss thus far. We’ve been to a few restaurants that are great, and just as many that are mediocre (as well as one or two we wouldn’t let our dog eat at, if we had one).

Today, after a long morning of getting our heads back into Spanish class after a weekend off, we were starving and headed over to Palermo Hollywood to check out a Mexican restaurant we’d heard was good (Taco Box – it was closed, so we’ll have to give it a try another time). By the time we walked the 30 minutes there from our school, we were starving and quickly ran into Miranda. Every table on the sidewalk was full, and they had a decent lunch special, so we thought we’d check it out.

Our server initially only gave us the regular menu (which didn’t include the special lunch set menu) – not sure if this is because he was trying to up-sell us or because it’s the only menu in English – we’re giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming the latter. Once we asked for the daily menu, it took us no time at all to choose from the multiple options offered (did I mention that we were starving?). We each had impressive appetizers (yay chorizo!), big main plates (chicken and veggie skewers for me, steak sandwich for Ryan), drinks and coffees for 90 pesos (~$23 US), including tip. Just to put that in perspective, one of the aforementioned restaurants we wouldn’t let our dog eat at cost us closer to 150 pesos (~$40 US) – granted, that was dinner, but Miranda was far better in terms of ambience, food quality and service.

All in, Miranda is a winner in our book. We’ll definitely be back again to take advantage of their great lunch deal and plan to put it in our dinner rotation as well!

Random observations on Buenos Aires

Posted on March 22, 2010 by jen

Some early observations from our experience so far in Buenos Aires – to be added to periodically:

They love their dogs. We’ve never seen a major city with so many dogs (as pets, not strays), especially so many big dogs. Seems that the favorite breeds here are golden retrievers, boxers, labs. There are some small dogs, but not nearly as many as in San Francisco (thankfully). They’re all exceptionally well-behaved – many aren’t even on leashes and just trot along right next to their owners. They don’t chase after other dogs or even seem to have interest in people other than their owners (for example, me – who wants to pet every single one of them). Very impressive obedience training. And the dog walkers are all power-walkers with 8-10 dogs on average.
A consequence of the plethora of dogs is the “dogpiles” on the sidewalks – everywhere. Apparently it’s not a norm to pick up after your dog . . .
Everything starts late here. Tonight (Sunday) we went out to grab a quick dinner and get to bed early before getting up at an ungodly hour (read: before 11am) to start Spanish classes tomorrow. The Mexican restaurant we wanted to go to was empty when we walked by – we thought maybe they were closing, until we overheard them telling another couple that they didn’t open for another half hour. At 8:30 on Sunday night. Wow.
There’s graffiti everywhere. Everywhere. On the sides of buildings in our (quite upscale) neighborhood. On the walls of the cafe where we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast the other day. On the bases of statues in the city parks. They’ve had to fence in some of important monuments and statues to prevent them from being graffitied.
Perhaps offsetting the last observation, there are trees everywhere. We are currently living in Palermo Soho, right near a number of the city’s parks, which are all wonderfully green. But even walking around exploring different neighborhoods and wandering down random streets, they’re all lined with trees (see our pics).
Most of the aforementioned city parks are fenced in. For example, the park that was the site of the attempted purse snatching is completely fenced in, with only two entrances/exits. Seems like that might make it less than ideal for an illegal grab-and-run operation . . . We’ve come across one park so far that’s not surrounded by a fence – beautiful Las Heras Park. Haven’t yet figured out what necessitates the fences at all the other parks – let us know if you have insights here.
Cheap wine can be good wine. We ordered a half bottle of Malbec at dinner tonight and paid ~$4 . . . at a restaurant . . . and it was good. Seriously. Given the amount of wine we drink, we may well save a few hundred dollars a month on wine alone vs. what we would be paying at home!

Our first tango show (and lessons!)

Posted on March 21, 2010 by jen

To mark our one-week anniversary as porteños, we decided to get our first exposure to the sensual dance that started right here in Buenos Aires – tango. Our language school recommended Complejo Tango (which offers an evening of “lessons”, dinner and a show for ~US$60/person), so we got all dressed up and headed out across town to the theater. We were a bit surprised to arrive right on time for the lessons and find only 4 other people there. The room slowly filled up as the buses sent to pick up tourists from all the hotels in town arrived, and we started half an hour late (not bad for Latin America!). We quickly learned one basic step and then practiced while trying not to step on the toes of all the other tourists crammed into the tiny dance studio. While we’re hardly pros now, it was fun to get a taste of what dancing the tango might be like, and we’re hoping to try out real lessons once we get settled into a routine here.

We were highly skeptical of the food that would be served in a small theater prior to the show, but we were pleasantly surprised. As we’ve noted in previous posts, our food experience has been somewhat hit-or-miss so far. But this easily ranked in the top half of dinners we’ve had thus far- and the endless wine helped too! The show was entertaining – walked the audience through the evolution of tango over the last century, using different costumes for each period. The live band was a nice touch, and while we heard a bit too much from the lounge singer between dances, the dancers were incredible and solidified our resolve to learn to tango while we’re here.

Argentine tango involves dramatic costumes and a lot of leg

While this definitely had the potential to be a cheezy tourist trap, all in all it was a fun introduction to tango and a good evening out. Next, it’s off to the milongas!

Consulting Rehab

The first step is admitting you have a problem… (then take a break and travel!)

Author Archives: jen