As I’ve mentioned previously, the financial situation in Argentina is a bit nuts.  Thanks to the collapse of the economy in the early aughts, it is not that easy to get cash quickly.  ATMs are routinely out of money and there aren’t that many to begin with in certain barrios.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that certain enterprising entities have been established to fill in the gaps.

Today the official Forex for Argentine Pesos per 1 US Dollar was 4.92.  However, on what is called the “blue market” (named after the rate that major real estate deals are based on) it was 7:1.  Quite the difference!  While there are places you can go with USD cash to get that rate, there’s also a high chance some if not all of the bills you receive are counterfeit.  That’s where Xoom comes into play.

Xoom is a service that allows someone from the US to send someone in various countries money.  The catch is that the sender has to have a US bank account or credit card, to avoid those pesky money laundering issues. There’s also a limit of $2999 per transaction as well as monthly caps to make sure it’s for personal use.  The interesting wrinkle with Xoom in Argentina is that they use a rate in between the Forex and the blue rate.  In my case, it was 6.4, which meant I was getting 20% more pesos than from an ATM!

I had read mixed reviews of using the service, and the nearest location to me was about 20 minutes away by cab.  Still, the rate was too enticing not to at least try it.  I signed up for the service, which only took a few minutes and linked my Bank of America checking to my Xoom account.  Once that was done, I decided to try sending myself $600 in pesos. To do that, Xoom would charge me $17 (very reasonable) and then send the cash to the pick up place.

That meant instead of getting $3000 pesos, I got $3845 or a net gain of $845, which translated back to the Forex gave me $168 USD extra in pesos.  Floored by that savings, I completed the transaction and within an hour got an email that the money was ready to pick up.  That was yesterday but I didn’t get a chance to go get it until today.

I was more than a little nervous to potentially carrying that much cash as well as my passport – hola los roberos!  Still, I knew that the location was pretty safe and decided that going there at 2:30 PM would probably be the best bet.  The place was called More Money and consisted of 2 windows with a friendly clerk waiting for me.  I had also read about the long lines there, and having seen what the typical bank line looks like (not good FYI), I braced for a long wait.  Fortunately, no one else was there.  All I had to do was present my passport, sign a couple of forms and I was out of there in 5 minutes.  Couldn’t have been easier.

As a reward to myself for being so financially savvy, I plan to go back to that wonderful restaurant Unik on Thurs and sit at the chef’s table.  Post of course to follow…

After almost 10 fun filled days and nights with mi amigo Chris, it was time to fly solo for the rest of this adventure.  Chris took off for Rio to complete the rest of his trip and I found myself alone for the first time since I started this trip.  It was probably a good thing that yesterday was purposefully going to be a quiet one so I could digest this change.

The situation almost became a lot worse when the A/C unit started making what at first sounded like death rattles.  Given that it was almost 90 out at the time, this was not a good time for that to happen.  I turned off the unit and waited a few minutes, hoping that whatever had happened was temporary.  When I turned it back on, thankfully, that proved to be the case.

Surviving that potential disaster, I decided to continue to walk around my new surroundings.  It was still fairly warm around 8PM but a slight breeze made it OK.  I was surprised how many people were out and about – walking their dogs, sitting at cafes, enjoying the warm night.  I wasn’t sure what restaurants would be open so I decided to try the nearest one that was.  That turned out to be a place called Dacacondo, a typical neighborhood parilla.

I wasn’t entirely sure how the menu worked and wasn’t going to get much assistance from the impatient woman waiting for my order.  I decided to wing it and get the pollo champignones, chicken with mushrooms.  It was incredibly cheap – only 36 pesos – so I wasn’t sure the portion size or exactly what I’d get.  After about 15 minutes of watching this young guy work a very cool old school brick oven, my order was ready and I took off.

I was very curious to see what exactly I ordered and was surprised when I saw this:

I was pretty sure that wasn’t chicken with mushrooms, let alone cost only 36 pesos.  Still, given that I had been craving empanadas earlier that day but was denied as the place was closed, I took this as a sign that the food gods that they wanted to fulfill my wish.  And who was I to deny that?  The empanadas were delicious and huge (each was about the size of my hand.)  All in all a very good first evening flying solo.

Given the long night/morning as noted in my previous post, Sunday was not going to be an action-packed day.  We had decided to watch the NFL playoff games while recovering and then head out to dinner after that.  We also had a craving for a burger, and it turned out for some unknown reason, the local Burger King delivered.  Fascinated to see how that process would work, I called the Palermo location to place an order.  Unfortunately, a deadly combination of my tiredness, a terrible phone line and their lack of English led to this being a very arduous process.  After being passed off to three different people, they finally told me our address was outside of their delivery area.  Oh well.

It was hot and humid once again so finding a place close was paramount.  I spotted a cool looking cafe only a few blocks away called Local and after looking at the small but intriguing menu, we sat down to eat.  I love small, local restaurants so this was perfect for me, made even better by The Beatles Greatest Hits playing in the background.  Our very cute waitress turned out to speak almost flawless English.  She was from Spain so her accent had a slight British quality to it.  She suggested we try their wood oven specials and both of us chose the chicken.

By now, I’m used to waiting 30 plus minutes for the meal to arrive.  I don’t mind this as long as it was and Local would prove to be exceptional.  The chicken arrived with stunning plating and an aroma that made me want to eat it right away.  The skin had been roasted to crispy perfection with a healthy dose of fresh herbs.  The bones had been removed and the breast was perfectly juicy.  It was quite simply one of the best chicks I had ever had.  I will come back here multiple times.

All of that for a mere $16

By the time we got back to the loft, it was time for the first playoff game.  However, as we changed from channel to channel it was nothing but the other kind of futbol.  As it turned out, the first game was terrible so we took advantage by having a much needed siesta.  We assumed that at least the second game would be showing but nope, even more futbol.  D’oh!

Trying to find something to watch, we stumbled across one of the local new stations – C5N – which was doing an exhaustive live remote from Mar del Plata to talk to people at the beach.  What followed was one of the most bizarre live news segments ever.

The main reporter was wandering around the beach interviewing/interrogating women – mostly asking if they were single and if they would off their bikini for the camera – very creepy.   Other hard hitting interviews included a group of people using their car battery to power their portable speaker and other random questions to people who clearly didn’t want to be bothered by this weirdo.  The cameraman was either focusing his lens on asses, looking at a boat on the water, or trying to peek down the bikini tops of the women being interviewed.  This went on for over 20 minutes, broken up occasionally by the main anchor, back the in studio, asking the reporter questions.  It was awesome to watch.

We wanted to catch at least the 2nd half of the Redskins/Seahawks so we took the short cab ride to a place called Sugar, which was a sports bar for ex pats near Plaza Armenia.  There was a lively group of Redskins fans and a lone Seahawk fan that were enjoying the game on a projected screen.  The feed was DirecTV’s online option so there were occasional buffering issues but still decent overall.  Still craving a burger, we both ordered the Sugar Burger and began tempering our expectations that it would be a good one.  That turned out to be the case as the burger arrived after almost 40 minutes and was average at best.

After the game, we walked over to a craft brewery I wanted to try called Antares.  Before the trip, I had pretty much resigned to not having any beers as weak tasting lagers would be the options.  However, it turned out that Antares had several varieties including IPA, Barley Wine, Porter and Imperial Stout.  I selected the barley wine and the imperial stout as half pints given their high ABV.  The barley wine was pretty damn tasty, just the right amount of hops.  There’s another Antares in Las Canitas that I will check out soon.

Both exhausted from the long weekend, we called it a night and I went home to do some blogging, including the article you are reading now…

It was hot and humid day so we decided to stay relatively local and go check out the neighborhood called Las Canitas.  One of the hottest spots in all of Buenos Aires, Las Canitas is a relatively small area that borders the polo fields and the upper north part of a large park.  Apparently lots of celebrities and notables live there, and I can see why as it’s quite beautiful.

It was just a short walk around the railroad tracks to get to the ensconced snazzy enclave and although it was almost 2PM, the streets were almost eerily quiet.  That changed slightly when we approached Las Canitas’ epicenter, a street called Baez, which was lined with shops, restaurants and bars.

It was still fairly subdued but it was readily apparent that this area must be seriously hopping during prime time.  I had read that a place called Novecentro was a good brunch option so we headed there.  Again, the restaurant was fairly dead but we decided to try it anyway.  I opted for my all time favorite brunch item – eggs Benedict – while Chris went for the scrambled eggs with ham.  Simple but nicely done for both.

We continued to walk around the area and I fell in love.  It reminded me a lot of some of my favorite neighborhoods in Spain and I vowed to return in a few days to check out the nightlife there.

Military academy

After some needed siestas followed by watching the 2 Saturday NFL playoff games – both stinkers – we decided it was time to go check out the local club scene.  Known as boliches, they can range from tiny, personal clubs to massive venues.  We had met a local who recommended one but when we got there they wanted a fairly steep cover.  Since we were just checking things out and because the door guy was being a prick, we opted to go to the club next door called Tocka.  Alas, it wasn’t open yet but they said it would be any minute.

The corner where the club was located had quite the scene going on so we waited until it opened.  Finally, the door man signaled it was OK to go in and away we went.  It was a small club with terrible acoustics and a deafeningly loud sound system.  Since it had just opened (this was 2AM BTW), there were only a few people there, clustered together in small cliques.  It felt like we had wandered into a random house party where everyone knew each other and we were the party crashers.

Still, we were so fascinated by the scene unfolding we wanted to see where it things would go.  There was a small bar with a pretty large list of cocktails and spirits, and we agreed that alcohol was much needed.  Chris got the vodka naranja, which he said tasted like Tang, and I got a mojito.  It was pretty much the worst mojito I had ever imbibed but it was loaded with rum so I slowly choked it down.  By now the club had started to fill up a little but we were still essentially being ignored.  We found a free couch to chill out and that gave us a pretty nice view of the action.

At around 3AM, the club finally started to spring to real life.  Chris had his second drink and I finally finished my mojito, ordering a vodka “Tang” to see what it was like.  It was strong and did indeed taste like Tang but it would do for now.  By this time, both of us were feeling socially lubricated so we started to try to engage with people.  Chris dared me to go talk to these 2 women at the bar, which I eventually accepted.  However, the blaring music and their general disinterest in chatting anyone else (many other had tried to penetrate their fortress so to speak) made this a fool’s errand.

Chris, however, had more success, chatting up a girl with Skrillex hair who spoke pretty decent English.  In the meantime, people finally started to realize that damn, that hombre es muy alto! and came up to me to chat.  The vibe in the room was in pure party mode and both Chris and I started to really unwind.  It was time for a 3rd drink, so I chose the Tocka – which was a monstrous combination of Malibu rum, vodka, gin, orange juice and triple sec.  That led to having picture taken such as this:

The oh so chic Daffy Duck hat was part of the trinkets being passed out to make it more of a party – masks, hats, streamers, leis, you name it.  The clock struck 5AM and the club was now kicking into overdrive.  We had a blast chatting with various friends of Skrillex girl as well as other randoms, such as a guy who is studying at Texas Tech and a dude almost as tall as me, acknowledging our tall guy status with knowing nods across the room.

The rays of the rising sun started piercing the shaded club but yet the party kept going.  I danced a bit with the chica in the picture above before being told her boyfriend was right behind me.  Fortunately, he was cool with it and I apologized by bequeathing my oh so styling Donald Duck cap (plastic BTW) to him.  It was now past 6AM and although the party was clearly going to go on for awhile, we decided to leave.

Having given up my normal rule of going to sleep before sunset, I had revised it slightly to be asleep before 7AM.  In this case, I got in just under the wire.

As I’ve settled into my temporary casa for the next month, I’ve also re-established a working schedule.  Friday was my first real day of work with real office hours so Chris decided to go explore downtown BsAs while I stayed in working.  The fact it was 90 degrees and humid out made that trade off a bit more bearable. Still, since writing about work is about as much fun as doing work, I’ll let Chris take over a bit with some cool shots he got on his trek.

After braving the heat and humidity in addition to his lingering cold, Chris declared himself down for the count.  That scuttled the planned trip to Puerto Madero for dinner but as luck would have it, the weather was about to turn pretty nasty so staying local proved to be a wise choice.

I had read about the Uruguayan specialty “chiviquitos” – basically a steak sandwich with a lot of extras – and it turned out there was a well-known place called La Celeste that featured this, only a few blocks from here.  We first needed to get some cash so we went over to the ATM located at the metro station only 2 blocks from here.  Unfortunately, as I’m quickly beginning to realize, just because there is an ATM doesn’t mean it has any cash.  This proved to be the case here but there was an actual working ATM only a few blocks further down the street.

We arrived at La Celeste a bit before 9, which meant basically no one was there.  That was fine though as we were both hungry and in Chris’ weakened state, an early dinner was necessary.  I saw that there was a Stella Artois “Noire” black ale, which I had never seen before so I had to try it.  Basically a maltier, more flavorful version of their standard blonde ale, it was a great choice for the monstrosity I was about to eat.

The menu had an entire page of chiviquitos from which to choose.  This ranged from their signature “la canadiense” to a basic steak sandwich.  The La Canadiense clearly was the way to go as they had a quote from Anthony Bourdain about it as well as a helpful diagram to show the various layers of it.  It consists of:

– Flank steak
– Roasted tomatoes
– Red peppers
– Lettuce
– Ham
– Mozzarella
– Mustard
– Chopped up hard boiled eggs

Incredibly messy to eat but oh so good.

The aftermath

As if on cue, as soon as we finished our meal, we began to hear massive rain falling on the makeshift cover they had for the outdoor patio.  Within minutes, the streets were flooding and huge bolts of lightning danced across the sky.  Although only a few blocks away, we decided that trying to walk or even run in this downpour wasn’t a good idea and grabbed a cab for the short trip home.  Thoroughly drenched by the time we made it back to the loft, we took it as a sign for us to call it a night and just relax.

After 6 days in rather cramped digs in Palermo Soho, it was finally time to get some elbow room at my second loft in Palermo Hollywood.  Even better, the new building has a pool, which will be sorely needed as the mercury begins to climb again over the next few days.

We met up with the owner Marcos, a very friendly guy, who went over the various aspects of the loft.  Located on the 8th floor, it’s a substantially larger loft than the last one and had much better bedding for both Chris (an actual mattress in the sleeper sofa) and me.

Floor to ceiling massive windows look out onto a nice aerial view of the surrounding area.  There is also a small balcony with 2 chairs and a table for alfresco dining or just lounging.  On the 10th floor is a rooftop deck and pool, offering pretty spectacular panoramic vistas of the city.

We took a quick walk around the ‘hood and had a nice lunch outside at a cafe that opened in 1905.  I had a fantastic ham and melted cheese sandwich on a very tasty “Arabe” bread.  It was a nice introduction to my new surroundings.

Poor Chris was still feeling the lingering effects of his nasty cold so while he slept, I settled in to do some work.  The one drawback I had read about this loft was its proximity to the subway.  City noise like that has never really phased me so I didn’t think twice about it.  However, around 3PM or so, the occasional lulling roll of subway cars going by was punctuated by a loud PA announcing the next train.  This was followed by several dogs barking and a kid crying for his mommy.  Ah, life in the big city!

One interesting side note about the cacophony that had been gradually forming was what seemed to sound like a parrot.  Chris and I sat on the balcony trying to figure out what was the parrot and what was the kid.  It turned out, in fact, there is a parrot across the street as his owner came back for feeding time – along with her 3 dogs and 3 cats – quite the menagerie!

Buenos Aires has the most Italians in the world besides, well, Italy, so I wanted to try a local Italian spot.  Marcos recommended a family place that was a few blocks away called La Trapiche.  Around 8:30, we made the short walk to the rather large restaurant, which was almost completely empty.  The menu was almost as big – with multiple dishes offered multiple ways.  It was quite overwhelming.  Both of us decided to go simple.  Chris went with the lasagna and I chose the chicken ravioli.

After about 20 minutes or so, the restaurant began to really fill up with local families and shortly after 9, it was almost completely full.  It was interesting to see the dinner window be defined so rigidly but we were glad we got there when we did to avoid waiting in line.  The food was classic Italian – nice comfort food although not exactly world beaters either.  Still, it was a perfect way to start the next phase of this adventure.

After our epic walk through Recoleta and of course the requisite siesta, we headed out for dinner at a restaurant that had me really excited.  The owner needed somewhere to display his massive modernist furniture collection and decided to open up a place called Unik.  As our waiter said, if there was a fire, it would be one of the costliest restaurant fires ever.

It was a really stunning layout, with Eames chairs, Jacobson lights and an open kitchen where a small team of chefs were working on various dishes.

It was a pretty small but refined menu.

I’m a sucker for good bread and the fresh out of the oven bread they served alongside with a compound butter with smoked herbs was exceptionally good.

Chris decided to go for the bife de ojo organico along with smoked mashed potatoes (the owner had created his own smoker for it) and greens.

I chose the locally sources pork loin with mille feure of potatoes and bacon with homemade BBQ sauce.  It was fantastic.

I fell in love with this truly awesome piece of cutlery, which is custom made from a place in Cordoba. I barely had to move it to slice right through my pork loin.

We had a nice Bonarda from Mendoza along with the meal and the full thing, tip included came to about $100 USD total – worth every peso.  I plan to go back before they close for some repairs on the 12th and this time sit at the chef’s table to get a close up of their magic at work.

After a morning of doing actual work (hey I have to make a living to pay for all of this, ya know), Chris and I headed out to the Recoleta section of the city.  It’s the “old money” part of town and that was readily apparent from the architecture and general vibe.

We stopped at a place called Cumana for lunch, which specializes in Argentine cuisine.  Everyone seemed to be eating the cazuelas (casseroles) so I asked our very cute waitress which she preferred.  She gave me 2 suggestions but in an apparent mixup, didn’t order the right one, which should have been the loin and vegetables.  I instead got one with pumpkin, corn and melted cheese.  It was quite good though so I had no complaints.

After i swung and missed horribly trying to pick up said cute waitress (necesito mas practica), we began our walk around Recoleta.  The area was by far the most European that I’ve seen in Latin America, from the architecture to the vast avenues that connected it.  The sheer size of everything was almost overwhelming.

We made our way to the famous Recoleta Cemetery – my one decidedly touristy thing to do on this entire trip.  I bristled as we walked by the cafes and shops that were there to snag tourists but began to lighten up as we entered the cemetery.  It was a truly spectacular place.

In seemingly endless rows were massive mausoleums, ranging from wealthy private families to major leaders of Argentina’s past.  You could hear multiple languages being spoken and the sound of cameras going off everywhere.  For good reason, as you can see below:

I knew in advance that the Eva Peron mausoleum was under her maiden name and that it was relatively subdued compared to the opulent temples elsewhere.  We weren’t entirely sure where it was so we waited until a tour guide passed by to find out. It turned out that’s where they were going next.  The older Jewish couple (“Tuscon by way of Noo Yawk”) asked us if we were actors.

Chillaxin in the park

After an hour or so, we left the cemetery to start walking around the beautiful surrounding park.  The weather was a perfect 75 and sunny so that made our trek around the grounds even more enjoyable.  There were people everywhere also enjoying the break from the hot weather, relaxing in the grass, playing soccer and walking their dogs.

The Florida Generica

We eventually came across the ginormous Floralis Generica sculpture.  Shaped as a giant flower, per the plaque in front of it, every morning the 18 ton metallic petals unfold like a real flower (my Spanish reading comprehension is about up to par again!)  It was really beautiful and I bet under the right sunlight would be even more incredible.

Scale to show how big this is

Given that NYE festivities lasted well till after the sun up, it wasn’t exactly a surprise that the next day was pretty much a wash.  I was dead to the world until Chris woke me up to tell me he was going to get food.  He planned to go back to Magdalena’s Party but I was skeptical it would be open.

Fortunately, his hunch proved to be correct, and he said the place was packed.  However, given the holidays, they were out of pretty much everything except “pancakes and chicken” as Chris reported.  I decided to go with some chicken tacos, which turned out to be surprisingly good.

After doing some blogging about NYE, I fell back to sleep but finally got up for real to go grab some dinner.  I was once again being Debbie Downer, insisting that almost nowhere would be open and that beggars couldn’t be choosy.  And once again, I was dead wrong.

We walked towards Plaza Serrano and it was full of life and open restaurants.  I picked the pizzeria and ceverciera Gonzales, which I had read had good pizza.  That sounded like the perfect recovery meal and the fact it was cool out made their outdoor seating particularly appealing.

The one thing that I did guess correctly is that the service would be even worse than usual.  I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted but Chris was hungry and ready so he ordered.  I decided on their special beer, pizza and dessert combo for only 95 pesos but my order was separate.  That meant my meal actually showed up 30 minutes after Chris’.  D’oh!

While we were waiting for our food, we started chatting with the two guys at the table next to us, who had also been complaining about the slow service.  One of the guys was from Argentina and asked if they had to travel to Northern Argentina to get his ordered empanadas.  Misery enjoys company and these guys turned out to be great company.

The other guy at the table had just finished a 10 month stint as the head videographer for Madonna’s last world tour.  He told us some great stories, such as going to Medellin, Colombia surrounded by hundreds of cops armed with machine guns.  My pizza finally arrived and was quite delicious.  The locally cured sausage that came on it was particularly good.

While I was waiting for my dessert, a guy approached Chris asking for a light.  It soon became clear though that he was some sort of street magician – a deaf one at that.  He proceeded to do about a 10 minute routine using cigarettes and a lighter.  Chris caught part of it on video and I will upload a clip later.

All and all, it turned out to be a very fun night, full of unexpected pleasures, which is quickly becoming part of the norm here in Buenos Aires.