November update

I wanted to post a quick update before I head back to the States for a month. November was a wonderful month! The weather was near-perfect almost every single day, there were tons of beautiful flowers and trees, and more outdoor festivals and fun in the city as the weather got warmer. On a personal note, we were feeling more settled, making connections with new and old friends and my Spanish was finally making some progress (slowly but surely!).
November started with a birthday dinner for our friend Claudio along with his wife Luciana and adorable daughter, Paloma. Luciana is the founder of a wonderful news blog called Medios Lentos. Claudio is a neurosurgeon and was just appointed as chief of neurosurgery at Hospital Italiano where Fer works, which is great news!

 Paloma was the perfect Spanish conversation partner for my beginner level Spanish :)

One of my Spanish teachers organized for a group of us to go see "Breaking Dawn" on its opening day. I'm not a huge Twilight movie fan because the acting is just awful (in my opinion) but it was fun to go with friends and practice Spanish. Manuela and I couldn't pass up an opportunity for a silly photo op ;)

With Jelle (classmate from Holland), Manu (classmate from Switzerland) and one of my teachers, Leila:

 For one of my classes, we had to do a short presentation in Spanish on something we know or do really well. So naturally, I did my presentation on how to make Challah! ;)

 Some of my friends/classmates from ECELA. I definitely feel like the old lady at school with most of the students ~20-25 years old.

 My teacher, Leila was a huge fan of cupcakes and her favorite was chocolate with dulce de leche so for my last day in her class I brought these tasty treats:

The chocolate cupcake recipe I used is so good, so easy and so strange! Check it out: Simply Recipes. The ingredient list almost threw me off but I'm glad it didn't because they are fantastic! I love Simply Recipes, I use it as my default online recipe search. Once the cupcakes cooled I cut out a chunk in the middle which I filled with dulce de leche then filled with the amazing frosting from this recipe: Dulce de leche swiss meringue buttercream

Aren't my classmates lucky that I bake for them?! ;)

Finally, I tried another delicious recipe from Heidi Swanson's "Super natural every day" cookbook. This time I made the "White beans and cabbage recipe" which was quite tasty although a bit bland looking. I have to say it tasted better on subsequent days when I reheated it for my lunch.

This next month is going to be a busy one for me: I start in Chicago for a few days to catch up with dear friends then head to my parents' house for another few days to celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. I can't wait to see everybody and hold those babies! After that I am flying to Baja, Mexico for an intensive yoga teach training at Yandara Yoga Institute. This is a dream come true for me. I have been trying to carve out time and money to attend a program for the last year and a half and I am so happy to finally be able to make it happen! And I am so glad that I will also be able to finish it in time to make it to my nephew's Bar Mitzvah in DC before I fly back to Buenos Aires mid-January. It will be great to spend time with Fer's side of the family before flying back to BsAs. It's going to be a whirlwind month full of great things. Just not my Fer :( I will miss him so much! We have a trip to Punta del Este in Uruguay planned with the kids right when I return so that will be a fun reunion. 
I have lots of packing and prep work to do for my yoga course so I better end here. If I don't see you during my busy time home in the States, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

El dia de acción de gracias (Thanksgiving!)

On the actual day of Thanksgiving, Fer and I went to a Thanksgiving Luncheon held at the American Club downtown. We were invited by Mark and Mary Beth who are fellow Chicagoans that spend about 4-5 months every year in Buenos Aires during the Chicago winter. It was a very fun lunch but the food just left me craving more authentic North American holiday foods. The apple pie was particularly sad: it more closely resembled apple jello than a delicious, juicy, cinnamon-y apple pie from home. Fer and I had been wanting to do our own Thanksgiving so we planned it for the weekend immediately after to share it with Sofi and Martin. We asked them to each invite a friend and they made a sleepover out of it since the next Monday was a school holiday.
Fer and I had lots of fun cooking the whole day although it was HOT! Now I think I know why the majority of large holiday meals take place during fall and winter- you aren't meant to have the oven and stove going full blast on a 90 degree day. Especially in a kitchen with no AC ;)

 Challah is becoming a staple here. Martin is particularly in love with it, as he told his friend "es demasiado rico!"

Thank goodness Fer loves to carve the turkey! I wouldn't know where to begin.

 Getting ready to eat: Marti, Sofi, Frederico, Martin and Fer

My family tradition is to go around the table and say what you are thankful for from the last year so we did that with the kids this year. Hopefully it is one of many traditions we can make as a family in our new home.

Getting back in the kitchen

One of the things I love most about living in Buenos Aires and having more time on my hands is that I can get back into the kitchen to cook! I have been having fun trying new recipes and am currently in love with this cookbook:

My friend Allie gave it to us as part of our wedding gift and it has been a fabulous addition to our kitchen! Everything I have made from it has been tasty, healthy and not very hard to make. I'm only bummed because there are ingredients for some of the recipes that I haven't been able to find here in Argentina (yet).  I have a long list of items I am planning to buy in the US and bring back with me :)

My current favorite recipe that I want to shout from the rooftops because I am so excited about it is Broccoli Gribiche. Here are the ingredients:

After roasting the potatoes and broccoli, you mix it with a delicious dressing containing hard boiled eggs, dijon mustard, capers, shallots, and red wine vinegar...

 Yummm!! Here it is on one of the cute little plates that was the other part of Allie's gift:

This was a delicious and easy lunch for me for the last few days. I definitely plan to make it again soon! Next time I plan to switch out some of the broccoli for asparagus (in season here now) and add in some roasted leeks.
I highly recommend this book! Thanks Allie! :)

La visita de Enrique y Raquel

Este blog post es en español para mis suegros :)  (English translation below)
Hace dos semanas nosotros tuvimos el placer de recibir los padres de Fernando: Enrique y Raquel. Ellos viajaron del Chaco, el estado donde Fernando nació y creció. Me encantó que ellos se quedaron por una semana; tuvimos mucho tiempo para conocernos mejor y yo tuve muchas buenas oportunidades para practicar español! Yo aprecié su ayuda con mi español y con las cosas del departamento. Nos divertimos muchos juntos y yo espero que finalmente pueda visitar la gran metrópolis de Villa Angela en Chaco!
Lamentablemente, no tenemos muchas fotos de su visita, pero acá van las pocas que tenemos...

This blog post is in Spanish for my in-laws :) 
Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of hosting Fernando's parents, Enrique and Raquel. They traveled from Chaco, the state where Fernando was born and raised. I loved that they stayed for a week: we had lots of time to get to know each other better and I had lots of good opportunities to practice Spanish! I appreciated their help with my Spanish and with things around the apartment. We had a lot of fun together and I hope that I can finally visit the grand metropolis of Villa Angela in Chaco soon! Unfortunately, we do not have many photos from their visit but here are the few that we have...

Raquel y Martin preparan una ensalada
Raquel and Martin preparing a salad 

"No más fotos, por favor!" ;)
"No more photos, please!"

Durante su visita, Fernando, Sofi, Martin y yo fuimos a Pilar para una gran fiesta de uno de los amigos de Fernando. Fernando pudo reunirse con viejos amigos de su residencia médica.
During their visit, Fernando, Sofi, Martin and I went to Pilar for a big party for one of Fernando's friends. Fernando was able to reunite with old friends from his medical residency.

La fiesta continuó hasta 4 a.m. pero nos fuimos alrededor de 2 a.m. Como puedes ver, estábamos con un poco de sueño :)
The party continued until 4 a.m. but we left around 2 a.m. As you can see, we were a little sleepy! :)

Enrique y Raquel: esperamos que ustedes nos visiten otra vez pronto!
Enrique and Raquel: we hope that you can visit us again soon!

Buenos Aires in bloom

Spring has definitely sprung here in Buenos Aires. Although if you are a native northerner like me, it pretty much feels more similar to summer in the Midwest than spring. The weather has been near perfect for the last few weeks: upper 70s-low 80s and sunny almost every day with cool evenings down in the 60s. The leaves, flowers and accompanying pollen are out in full force. I love the mix of trees and plants here- there are palm trees and tropical flowers next to types of trees that I would see back home.

My favorite tree is the Jacaranda. It has the most beautiful, vibrant violet colored flowers that brighten up the city. The only thing that could make this beauty even better would be if it smelled as good as it looks! As far as I can tell, the blossoms do not have any scent.

There are lots of other pretty things that I see on my walks/runs through the city:

Unfortunately, the one day I went to "El Rosedal" (a beautiful park nearby that has a gorgeous rose garden, lake, and walking paths) with my camera it was closed. This is as close as I could get to the roses before a guard blew a whistle at me and yelled something in Spanish.

The ants here seem much more ambitious and organized. They create what looks like a highway system of tracks to/from their nest. If this happens in parks in Chicago, I never noticed it before. Perhaps the grass is just shorter and more sparse here so it's easier to spot?

The purple fleck in the bottom right corner is an ant carrying a piece of a Jacaranda flower along one of the tracks to the colony. I thought my mom would enjoy my keen attention to nature and appreciate this detail about the ants! :)

 There are some beautiful, exotic flowers along the walkway to our building. The pink and red flowers remind me of Hawaii.

I almost forgot that today is Thanksgiving! Although it doesn't feel like typical Thanksgiving in the States, I am thankful for the warm, wonderful weather and beautiful surroundings in our new home!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Change of plans

Some days don't turn out the way you expect them to...
Today I woke up with a long list of plans that started with taking the bus to a new yoga studio in San Telmo (near the downtown area). I thought that surely 50 minutes would be enough time to commute from our apartment. Ha! After 45 minutes, I was less than halfway there on the bus. I guess I should have allowed 1.5+ hours to commute, which is just ridiculous. In my opinion, the traffic here almost always varies from "bad" to "terrible". After getting frustrated with missing my yoga class due to traffic and thus throwing off my intended plans for the day, I decided to abandon the bus and walk around Recoleta, the neighborhood near my school. Thankfully I remembered that my mother-in-law, Raquel had mentioned a wonderful bookstore nearby where I quickly directed my steps. I've been happily surprised that bookstores are still thriving here in Buenos Aires, perhaps because fewer people have e-readers at this point. Although I don't know much about the history of El Ateneo except that it used to be a theater and is now a large bookstore and cafe with lots of comfy chairs for lounging, reading and... completing Spanish homework :) It was a perfect change in plans for this cloudy day. If you come to visit Buenos Aires, I hope to take you to this lovely spot. 

Catching up on October

October was our first full month together in Buenos Aires (BA). It was simultaneously a very good and also a very hard month. Since we were settling into a new apartment, a new job for Fer, a new country and language for me, and new dynamics to our relationship with the kids there was lots of potential for stress and uncertainty. One huge highlight of October was having Alice come visit! There are some photos below from her week long visit. She came at just the right time. It meant so much to me to have someone here who knows me (and Fer!) so well during such a vulnerable time for me/us. And the kids LOVED the goodies she brought! ;) 

Other big highlights from October were starting spanish classes at ECELA where I go for 4 hours each day Mon-Fri and also starting yoga classes regularly at BuenaOnda Yoga. More about that in a future post!

Not surprisingly at all, Fer has done extremely well at his new job. We love that he no longer carries a pager (!) and doesn't get called during the middle of the night. He is still very busy, juggling 2 jobs between the one here at Hospital Italiano and maintaining a part-time position at University of Chicago. Plus he has been helping me acclimate to the new language and culture, which could be a part-time job on it's own sometimes ;)

This first photo is of the BA marathon that I woke up to see on a cool, misty morning early in October. Fer told me that the BA marathon is always on the same weekend as the Chicago marathon, which is a fun coincidence. It felt good to cheer on runners in South America while many of my friends were running back home the same day.

Below are a few pics from an auto show that Fer, Martin, Alice and I went to one weekend in San Isidro, a pretty town just up the river from BA.

Fer and Martin checking out some of the antique sports cars.

My favorite! I love the color.

Alice took this adorable pic of two random kids at the auto show. They were having such a great time and were hilarious! I love the happiness beaming from their faces.

Back at the apartment we had a fun Halloween themed night that evening. Alice brought LOTS of treats from Chicago for us. Here's the table decorated (and Martin is in the background, doing his new favorite thing: playing on the iPad) :)

We even dressed up for the evening. Alice had to coax me a bit. :) Martin was Harry Potter and Sofi was Dr House. Alice and I were being silly and each dressed up as one of the kids: Alice is Martin and I am Sofi.

Alice and I hid halloween candy all over the apartment for the kids to find on a quasi-easter egg hunt of sorts. Halloweaster??
Did I mention that they can be competitive? :)

Alice also brought things to make cupcakes which is one of Sofi's specialties. Here are the lovely ladies with their yummy treats:

Alice: Muchisimas gracias!! We loved having you come visit and appreciated your patience with our almost empty, "gypsy" apartment. We can't wait for you to visit again!!
 

It is common for girls here to have a big party to celebrate their 15th birthday, or "Quince" and Sofi has had a lot of these parties to go to lately. They start ~8 or 9 and last until 3 in the morning or so. True Argentine style. :)
Que hermosa ella esta!

The kids have been helping us cook a lot more recently, which is really fun! Here, Sofi and Martin are helping us make guacamole and tacos for dinner.

Through my spanish school, I have met some wonderful people, many from all over the world. This has been refreshing since I thought that the school would be comprised primarily of people from the states. It's been a great way to learn about more cultures in addition to Argentina's.
In particular I got to know two lovely ladies from Holland: Marlies and Marianne. I am missing them a lot since they left for Brazil to travel for ~1 month before returning to BA in early December.
One night they came over to cook dinner together and we made fajitas. I miss my Dutch girls! :(

 

Sofi has taken a particular interest in baking, which I love! I made challah a couple of weeks ago and she helped me quite a bit. She really does a great job and is especially good with the creative side of baking and decorating.

Martin helped with the kneading as well... :)

Fer's parents are visiting this week but I hope to get another post up before too long!