Lesson learned #2: Which faucet do you use to get hot water in Buenos Aires?
Anyone? Read on for the correct answer…
Anyone? Read on for the correct answer…
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.
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!
We’ve officially been Argentinian for a full week now! Soon, we won’t even remember how to speak english.
We’ve been bad about updating the blog, mainly because we’ve been mostly out exploring, and then the little time we do spend online has been prioritized for one or more of the following:
-Researching spanish school: We start on Monday at Vamos Spanish
-Looking for a longer term apartment: There are roughly a bazillion apartment rental companies and it is a bit overwhelming to sort through all of the options–I think we spent 8+ hours researching yesterday alone. We are going to visit our first couple of apartments this afternoon, so we’ll see…
-Trying to figure out where to eat: We had some good and some very bad luck with walking into random restaurants on the street. I think we don’t yet know how to recognize a place that sucks, so we’ve been reading more reviews lately.
–Using Google Translate: To prepare ourselves to go out and do things like drop of laundry: “Para lavar y sacar. debemos regresar manana a las 11?”
-Using our spanish learning software Fluenz: Expensive, but really good!
-Trying to figure out what futuristic Argentine technology makes this possible:
Anyway, we promise to post more regularly and do more than just bullet point summaries (especially once we have a more comfortable apartment), but for now here are some pics from our first week: Buenos Aires Week 1 pics
Ciao!
We have been lax in posting over the last couple of days, and we don’t have much time now, but we thought we should do a quick summary of some highlights of our first couple of days here in Buenos Aires (with more details to come later):
-Our apartment is just ok, but it is in a cool neighborhood
-Jen found a cockroach in the bathroom; this is worrisome.
-There was a failed attempt by 3 hoodlums to steal Jen’s purse in the park yesterday–we will definitely write more about this as it was quite comical
-We went on a cool free walking tour and saw Retiro and Recoleta; we also learned that if you have private health insurance here (~$120/month) you get one free plastic surgery each year. Our guide pointed out all of the artificially enhanced locals along the tour.
-It seems that Argentinians walk very quickly as we frequently get passed on the street which didn’t happen back in SF–though, this could be because Jen is always gawking at a building
-We have had some very good food and some VERY bad food so far–walking into random places off the street has not gone well for us; we will seek out recommendations going forward
-The wine is good
-Tomorrow we start spanish school and have to be across town by 8:30am–this will be very hard seeing as though we have not yet woken up before noon.
-We don’t have to go to work tomorrow, do you 🙂
More to come, and pictures!
You can drink the tap water in Buenos Aires.
Yay, first world plumbing.
Lesson learned.
After spending a surprisingly relaxing and enjoyable day in DC, we headed to the airport once again last night and this time had no trouble with our flight – flight 847 was on time, had a friendly flight crew and was surprisingly easy despite the nearly 11 hours it took. And at last we have arrived in BA! Our apartment is small but sufficient and very well located, just 2 blocks from Plaza Palermo Viejo, which is packed with restaurants and cafes (see our apt. here: http://www.4rentargentina.com/buenos-aires-apartments/palermo/malabia-and-guatemala-i-1530.html).
We went out for a fabulous Italian dinner that cost us a whopping $46, including a bottle of wine and dessert (for reference, a comparable Italian restaurant we frequented in North Beach in SF was typically ~$130 for the two of us). Tomorrow will be spent wandering through our neighborhood more, investigating Spanish schools and of course trying out more local restaurants – we’ll keep you posted!
Things have been getting better today-united seems to realize that they were bad and is doing a decent job of recovering.
Having a glass of wine before we board and then we’re off on our 11 hour journey
See you on the other side
Jen did some swat web research on this and it turns out that lotion and shaving gel are both good substitutes that will get the job done if all you have to work with is hotel amenities.
So far, the lotion in my hair is working quite well, maybe I’ll switch…
No response from United yet…
We did manage to wash some of our clothes using hotel shampoo and they may even be mostly dry by the time we have to put them back on, so things are definitely looking up.