HOT HOT HOT
Born in the Northwest, I am not used to hot weather. These past few days have almost been unbearable. Not only because of the heat, but because I know its going to get much hotter as the summer wears on. Today, the 31, was the hottest day on record for December in the last 8 years, reaching over 100 degrees F. Yeah, I still don’t know Celsius yet… but supposedly that means about or more than 38 Celsius. By the time I am done here I hope to have the metric system perfected.
On a lighter note, the Peake’s place has air conditioning, which has been my savior. That and icy agua con gas… oh and gelato. Yummmm.
Editors note: although cam was also born in the NW she LOVES LOVES the hot weather, although she did sweat a bathtub yesterday at lunch. That’s all. yummmmm
Girls’ night out…and Nico
Nico took the three of us out to dinner for letting him stay at our apartment for the week. Cameron and I decided to go back to Standard, as the last time we went left us wanting more. The three of us got properly dressed up for the evening. Nico looked like a pimp.
We were not disappointed upon our arrival, as we were seated rather quickly and had refreshing drinks prepared quickly. For dinner, Nico adventurously ventured to try brain ravioli, and I must admit, it wasn’t so terrible, but I couldn’t get past the idea that I was eating a cow’s thoughts. Cameron ordered the same thing she got the last time we were there (boring) but it was just as good as before, fried chicken and mashed potatoes. I tried the black rice, which was cooked in fish juice and accompanied by squid; it was delicious. Paige ordered the lamb, and although a bit salty (mom you would have LOVED it) it was also amazingly delicious. Along with our food we ordered two bottles of wine and endless bottles of agua con gas… making the evening even better than it already was. Nico was forced to listen to about two hours of girl talk, and although he seemed a little uncomfortable, I am pretty sure I saw him taking notes under the table.
We also ordered an apple pancake with papaya ice cream; oh oh oh it was good! We ended up shutting the restaurant down and we were the last customers to leave. The waiters liked our friendly attitudes and hearty appetites.
We will be back soon I am sure!
Christmas for 2,000
A few days before Christmas, I dragged Cameron, Preston and Paige to a L.I.F.E. (Luchemos por una Infancia Feliz y con Esperanza) volunteer meeting. The organization was organizing a Christmas party for slum children who would otherwise have little to celebrate this time of year. This specific event was organized for over 2,000 children, providing them with Christmas presents, food and new shoes. Although the meeting was a bit boring, rushed and not too informative, everyone decided to volunteer their time and we were even able to convince Zach to join. The celebration started at 9, but we were scheduled to arrive at 11… You all know how much we like our sleep.
By the time we arrived (actually 12, because the cab driver took the longest route ever, costing us much more than we ever intended on spending) all the children were there. It felt like we were in a zoo, with little people (or… children) running around everywhere. All the presents and shoes had to be blocked off, as the children are often so eager they wouldn’t have been able to contain themselves and would have headed straight for the presents. As soon as we arrived children were already asking when the presents would be handed out, they were obviously excited. Although there were tons of people there, we were able to track down other volunteers because of the Life T-shirts we all wore. A few of the “leaders” quickly gave us positions.
Cameron and Preston were assigned to recreation. The children were supposed to sign out the toys they borrowed so they were sure to be returned and although it worked a bit, it was more confusing than anything. The toys consisted of basket balls, baseballs, tennis balls, paddles.. etc. For the girls there was also nail and face painting. Cameron was asked by a young girl to paint a star on her face. After painting a beautiful little star on the girls cheek, she informed Cam that she wanted it to cover the entire face, Cameron tried her best, but in the end, there were a few more points to the star than there were supposed to be. The little girl didn’t care, she was just happy to be there. In the end, it probably didn’t matter- it was so hot that the paint was forming pools in their containers and dripping off of everyone’s face.
Zach and I were in charge of handing water out to the 2,000 children plus parents (it was about 90+ out that day). The only problem was that the business that was supposed to donate water backed out at the last minute. Instead of having sanitized bottled water for everyone, we were forced to fill and refill large buckets with water from the bathroom faucets. Needless to say we felt a bit guilty dipping cup after dirty cup into the same buckets of semi-brown water for the children and their parents. Another small problem was that there were only about 50 cups, so we were forced to ask for them all back once they were used. This means that the 2,000 + people had to share about 50 cups. (I hope no one got sick…but those chances seem slim to none). Eventually Zach and I were forced from thirst to join the others and drink from the buckets. The most frustrating part was filling the buckets up with water from the public restroom sinks, and dragging the full and heavy buckets back to the group of thirsty children waiting for some water. A few times the bucket would almost be full and a little girl would run up after using the bathroom to wash her hands in the flowing water above the bucket, causing me to have to pour all the water out and start again, the filling process takes about 20 min in total.
For food, Life provided hamburgers with rice and mayo salad (not a good combination in 90+ degree weather). Anyhow we were all pretty hungry, so the burgers didn’t taste bad after all. I was in charge of putting together burgers for a little while, (before the water job) there were many people volunteering in the food section and I was feeling a little stuffy. Paige on the other hand worked so well in the food section, that the coordinator placed her as head food manager. She was in charge of all the food volunteers and together they had to get the food prepared and handed out to the children. A job she did well!
After the food and games, the children were all lined up to receive their new pair of shoes. Tom’s shoes donated all 2,000 pairs. Toms are traditional Argentine shoes (called espadrilles-very popular here) that have been branded and exported to the US. For every pair sold in the states a pair is donated to Argentineans in need. (BUY THEM… Toms.com) We all have a pair of similar style, although not Toms. I can attest they are about the most comfortable shoes ever, I think I will buy about 5 pairs to take back to the states with me. Anyhow, Tom and his family were there to hand out the shoes and get some publicity shots as well. I had been waiting all day to help out with the shoes, as I truly love shoes in general and this type in particular. I was unaware that I would have the duty of keeping children in line, and out of the shoe area. They were so excited about the shoes that they would run past the taped off section and grab shoes. I am probably the worst person for the job, as I felt guilty keeping the excited children from shoes. They would run past me, and I hardly had the heart to tell them no… but as time wore on, I got more and more forceful. Eventually catching them as they tried to run past me and shoving them back outside of the boundaries. The little twerps got annoying after a bit. Although I am not sure how much of it was the shoes, or to see if they could get past us gringos. Even though there were some frustrating children, who can really blame them, this is the most exciting time of the year, or one of them. All I can say is that I am glad I wasn’t handing out the presents.
After the shoes, we all felt so tired and dehydrated that we decided to call it a day. Around 6 we arrived back at the apartment for a well needed nap.
Some of the kiddies lined up to meet santa (poor guy it was way to hot to be wearing that!)
Although it was a bit chaotic, I am excited to volunteer with LIFE again.
navidad aka the day of never-ending champagne
It’s hard to say where Christmas started or ended for us. While Christmas Eve (or, La Noche Buena, as it is called in Spanish) deserves its own blog entry, I will briefly summarize. Our friend, Nico, decided to take on the task of reserving us a table for dinner, and he picked a parilla (an Argentine grill restaurant) in Puerto Madero (which is possibly the most expensive area of the city). While he assured us it would be an average-priced meal, we ended up being locked into a fairly pricing prix fixe menu. We decided since it was all you can drink wine until midnight, we might as well take advantage, and we ended up downright jolly by the end of the meal. (On a side note, we ate crocodile– apparently they eat it in Northern Argentina).
So, after a relatively late and long christmas eve, we awoke the next morning around 1 to exchange stockings. Emma had been indescribably giddy all week about the stockings, and when we ventured out Christmas eve to search for materials, we found all the fabric stores were closed. So, Emma cleverly purchased soccer socks from a tourist area of town, and she took the initiative of sewing the two socks into one for a total of 7 people. (Nico, Cam, and Preston also helped). Her hard work was not unappreciated- everyone was very happy with the stockings, gifts, and effort (possibly most of all Paige and Lyel, who opened their first stockings ever– they are Jewish).
We did start the morning off right, frying up hash browns (two types!) It was really special since potatoes are not eaten here for breakfast and we have been going through a three month withdrawal. Then we topped it off with mimosas, which continued until we had finished all the Champagne in the house (another stocking stuffer from Emma). Finally, we decided to mimic Cam’s family tradition and cook an ethnic food for dinner- we, like the Peake’s chose Moroccan. However, because we were unable to find chicken before the stores closed on Christmas Eve, were forced to eat vegetarian and make some substitutions– most notably eggplant in place of chicken and pineapple in place of dried apricots. However, the meal (topped off with lentil soup, sweet potato fries, and a cucumber salad), while not traditional was delicious (and served to a total of ten people!).
Now we have decided to go on a alcohol and carb detox for the next few days… at least until cam’s parents arrive on friday.
Gypsies and Midgets
As it turns out, anytime that I (Emma) say I can’t stay out late, and that I am tired,,, I end up getting home around 7 in the morning, or later….
Cameron, Paige and I decided to have a night out just the three of us, actually our first one since Paige arrived. Paige and I were determined to show Cameron the Flamenco bar, and although we didn’t know exactly where it was, were able to find it with relatively no problems. When mentioning this famous flamenco spot in a past entry, I forgot to mention that one of the owners is Gypsy, or… Roma if you will. Apparently there is a huge Roma community here in Buenos Aires, and it seems that about half of them frequent this bar. As soon as we arrived the owners recognized Paige and me, ushered us in and quickly gave us a table, and a pitcher of sangria, accompanied with peanuts and olives. They sat with us for a bit, and we were disappointed to learn that we had missed the live music. But luckily the flamenco they have as bar music was almost as amazing. We were there for about two hours and again, got to talk with most of the staff. Cameron decided to head home and I was on the verge of leaving.. But something told me I should work through my tiredness, and push through. I was later very pleased with this decision. As Cam left more and more people, or gypsies started arriving, and dancing. Paige and I decided it was probably time to join them, so we found two older men,,, (about 70) and started dancing with them… they loved it. We danced for what seemed to be about half an hour, but turned out to be three or more hours. Those Gypsies know how to get down, it was a little intimidating, but I was able to hold my own… probably because it was with an old man, and next to him, I looked like a pro.. jeje. As my feet were starting to tire, we decided to leave. We stumbled out of the bar, and lo and behold it was completely daylight. I turned to Paige and said.. “Lets get a beer”, she was more than ready to comply.
This is me,,, shocked that it is so early in the morning.. or rather late…
Paige and I
As we were leaving a car pulls up with two guys,,, they apparently also wanted to grab another drink, and so we meet up with them at a bar down the street. What we were unaware of, is that when a midget (or is it more PC to say little person?) is in a car, you can’t tell they are a midget, but once they get out of the car, it becomes very apparent. (Note to midgets, if you ever want to pick up girls,,, do it from your car! ) Anyhow this pleasantly surprised us. The midget was with his cousin, who was more than friendly towards me…. For some reason I told them I was from Sweden, and I am pretty sure they were impressed by this, they kept asking Paige and I if we spoke the same English, and were surprised that we could communicate so well.
The two paid our cover and bought us some drinks, we danced for a bit and decided to head home… the midget insisted that he drive us to our doorstep, so we accepted. By this time,,, it was bout 9 am… as we get out of the car.. I turned to Paige and said.. “Lets get a beer”. She once again was more than happy to comply, but we decided first to take a little nap in the park.
We went up to our apt, grabbed some blankets,, and of coarse, I brought my pillow. We set up bed in the park and laid there as the sun continued to rise. Out of nowhere two Colombian boys stroll up to us and start chatting, Paige, in an attempt to get them away told them that we were lesbians, and that they could only sit with us if they bring some beer… at this point, I fall asleep. I am awakened by a little nudge and the two are back with beers. I again fall asleep, but Paige continues to talk and drink with them until well into the morning… about 11. At this point she also falls asleep, but was not quite as smart as I was… As I slept, I covered my whole body with the blanket, but she slept outside of the blanket… needles to say, she had quite the farmer’s burn…. Pretty funny actually. Once it got too hot, we went inside and finally had a good “nights” sleep.
I have a feeling that you will hear about 1. The flamenco bar, 2. The Colombians (they have already invited us to a few gatherings) and 3. More crazy nights of Emma and Paige in the near future. And I can only hope that the midget contacts us, although we only gave him our email.. we shall see.
Full House at Casa CandE
We are currently housing two guests, Nico and Paige, so Casa CandE has been crowded and busy lately. We have to clean about 5 times a day and figure out how to manage the sets of keys between us, but it also means that there have been constant activities.
Last night we went to Orquestra Tipica again (see here for our last adventure there). It was probably better than last time because we had a table, more people, and Ariel wasn’t there to be creepy. We also volunteered all day yesterday (Emma will blog about this later today), and overall have been neglecting our faithful readers… so this entry serves as both an apology and an excuse– and we promise we will have more entries up later today!!
un beso enorme a todos!
cam is now a working woman (2x)
cam has been semi-absent these past few days because she got not just one, but two jobs! They are both freelance writing jobs for websites based out of Argentina (and pay correspondingly), but at least she is gaining an income. It will probably just cover her coffee and wine habit.
The first job is to review new websites at a site called Killer Startups. I am currently writing four articles a day (so don’t judge my writing by the fourth… my head is most likely pounding). The site is actually worth checking out– it posts analyses of about 30 new websites a day, and some are really cool. It also feels like an accomplishment that I can add reporter/ freelancer to my resume…
The second job is something that particularly interests me. It is an online resource for tourists called Argentina’s travel guide. I am in the process of writing five articles for them, and if they like my work, they’ll keep me on for longer. It is actually very similar to what we are doing for the blog, but I obviously need to direct my voice towards a wider, more anonymous audience (and shell out a little more advice). I wrote an article that should be posted pretty soon about a design fair in Plaza Serrano, so everyone should check it out (I’ll link to it when I know that it is up).
I am in the middle of reviewing a website about social networking for stock brokers, which I should probably continue to do… but this is just to let you know that I have not fallen off the face of the earth!!
Sea Tigers
Ok. So we have a few more posts about Punta Del Este…
Our third night at the Moby Dick, Zach and I decided to show Cameron and Preston where the Uruguayans took us the night before. We walked along the docks, looking at boats and planning how we could somehow get into one without getting into trouble. We were then more than excited to stumble upon two very large South American Sea Lions. The Uruguayans kept referring to them in English as Sea Tigers, and it never ceased to entertain me that night. South American Sea Lions are HUGE and kinda crazy looking. Their faces look exactly like that animal in Never Ending Story. EXACTLY. Although, (as stated in an earlier blog) Cameron has a dislike for large animals, Zach, Preston and I were more than happy to get close to them… but I got the impression that they didn’t like us interrupting their sleep (I can’t blame them… I’d be so annoyed). Anyhow they seemed a bit grumpy, but maybe sea lions are just always grumpy, I’m really not sure. We spent a good forty-five minutes attempting to get close to the semi-sleeping beasts and we have many pictures to prove it. Looking back, it might not have been the smartest thing, getting so close to wild sea animals, but at the time we thought it was the perfect thing to do… I guess Moby Dick has that affect on people.
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| Sea Tigers |
MOBY DICK
While in Punta Del Este, we became regulars at a bar, appropriately named Moby Dick. The name was so fitting as it was full of old sailors, with long white beards… and eye patches… (Well actually not the latter, but I wish). Anyhow, the mix of sailors and young hostel dwellers was enough entertainment to fill any night. Cameron was on the constant mission to find anyone with a sailboat who would take us out… she is always scheming… or shall we say, networking. She worked her magic and found one old sailor who was out drinking with his thirty-something son. He was interested in talking boat-talk until… she brought him back to a table with two boys (Zach and Preston). Where he promptly lost interest, but not before describing in detail his very own whale story. Supposedly his boat once hit a huge whale, sending the whole crew flying…if I only understood Spanish a bit better, I think I would have gotten a very interesting story. The son later informed us that his father tends to exaggerate; either way, I appreciated the enthusiasm. Besides looking for old men with boats, we also perfected the game Kings without cards… we later realized how we probably looked really funny playing a card game, first with little pieces of paper that represented cards and later scraping the paper, and just going in order from A-K around the table. For those of you who are too old to know how kings works, don’t worry, it’s not that exciting, you really aren’t missing out (Mom). Anyhow we spent every night at Moby Dicks and on the second night, we were “picked-up” by a Uruguayan girl who could tell we were speaking English. She invited us all over to her table to have some drinks and talk with her and her friends. They wanted to practice English. Apparently Zach and I were the only ones who wanted to practice Spanish, because at this point Preston and Cameron decided to head back to the hostel. Zach and I ended up spending the rest of the evening with Augustina, her baby’s daddy and his brother. They were the MOST KIND people I have ever ever meet. A little voice in my head kept saying… “No one is this nice… I they are going to mug us” luckily I didn’t listen to that part of my brain, and instead decided to blindly follow these strangers. Sometimes people are actually genuinely kind! They paid for our drinks, took us on walk along the boardwalk and showed us their favorite places to sit near the ocean, away from the public eye. It was a beautiful space and since we were so far away from the city, the stars were amazing; I didn’t know how much I had missed seeing the stars…. Big cities do have some drawbacks.
Overall Moby Dick really came through, Firs of all it provided drinks… a place to play games… old men who had run-ins with whales, and native Uruguayans.
This is what happens to you at Moby Dick…
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| Moby Dick |
hysteria, hip hop and hair at personal fest- oh my!
Friday night cam went with preston, zach, and their friend eve to personal fest, a two-day outdoor concert at club de amigos in Buenos Aires (we only went for one day). After arriving late (club de amigos is a bit farther than we had planned for), we were only able to see 3 acts- Gotan Project, B Real of Cypress Hill, and Snoop Dogg (and the end of Tego Calderon).
Gotan Project was amazing– and it was quite the experience to be able to see them in Buenos Aires (they are a tango electronica group, which I highly recommend. Here is their website if you want a taste of their music).
We then saw B Real. He was the frontman of the 90s hiphop group Cypress Hill, however, he played about two Cypress songs (neither one of which was “Tequila Sunrise” or “Latin Thugs”) and stuck to his own music– not recommended.
At this point, cam noticed that, going along with the publicity theme for the festival, about 30% of the festival goers were wearing bright-colored wigs. She decided that she had to have one, and raced to the other end of the park in a quest to get one. Unfortunately they had all been given away, but she was able to convince a group of people with an extra wig that, since they had never met anyone from Oregon, that they should give her the wig. I’d like to say it made more sense in spanish, or at the time, but I don’t think it did. Anyway, I now own a bright red afro, and I’ll post photos when I upload them.
We then pushed our way forward to see the headlining act, Snoop Dogg. Even advancing as close to stage as we did was quite a feat- there were thousands of people at the concert (there were 5 different stages and 30,000 people came— but remember, Snoop was the main attraction). Obviously it was standing room only and we were wedged up against all of our neighbors. After waiting for Snoop to come on for over an hour, standing room only, our feet began to hurt. we decided that we really needed to move when two 15-year-old boys squeezed up who smelled like they hadn’t showered in months. So we decided to move to the back and wait for the show to start.
And luckily we did. We had not been sitting more than 15 minutes when we looked up and saw those thousands of people– the same ones that we had been standing with before- running towards us. I can only compare it with a stampede of horses, and we only had enough time to stand up and grab our things before we were part of it and running towards the back. People were climbing over fences and cowering in corners, and, at the time, the best we could gather was “nada paso” (nothing happened). However, the stampede occurred two other times. Luckily Snoop then came on and the show resumed, but we were left wondering what happened.
What appears to have passed was that people were angry at the delay and throwing bottles, one of which stabbed a concert-goer. Out of that, the crowd, angry and frustrated at the delay, overreacted, and total chaos ensued. People literally fell down and were trampled on. It is so so lucky that we moved to the back, because we would have been in the middle of it all, and believe me, we were scared enough. what is interesting is that none of the major news organizations covered the debacle. One site claims this was because journalists covering the event were threatened by personal (the cell phone company that sponsored the show) that their VIP rights would be revoked for the next day. Some bloggers have extended the blame up to Kirchner (and his failure to require more security at big shows- even though no liquor was served at the event and a 15 block “liquor-free zone’ was erected around the show so no one could buy alcohol) but I think that what took place was frustration at the delay, and a spontaneous reaction by a crowd.
