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!

Our neighborhood

We live in Palermo, which is a very vague statement if you know much about Buenos Aires since Palermo is a huge neighborhood with lots of sub-neighborhoods. More specifically, we live in the part of Palermo that is closest to the rio de la plata and parks, near the zoo, botanic garden and Plaza Italia. Since I have been here I have not heard a Porteño/a use north/south/east/west once to describe location or direction. Instead, locations seem to be described by what's around them. This seems to make some sense since the vast majority of streets are not on a N/S/E/W grid.
I absolutely love our neighborhood! It's been perfect for us. Lots of park and green space close by. Plenty of cafes, shops, restaurants, etc. nearby but not the typical chaotic din of Buenos Aires roaring in the streets. We are close to Plaza Italia which is a major transportation hub and we are on one of the main streets of BA so it's pretty easy to get to where the kids live. Plus we have one of the city's fabulous heladerias (ice cream shops) less than a block away!
This is the view of the park across from our apartment:

This is where I typically run since the side streets can be dangerous. Cars definitely have the right of way here so you have to be careful, which can be difficult to do when you are running. So I just try to avoid the cars as much as possible.

The view of Avenida del Libertador, the street that our apartment is on:

 Crossing Libertador can be an adventure since it has 10+ lanes. The cars are just waiting to have a chance to try to run you over! ;)

The delicious and super close Volta heladeria: dangerous. I'm in love with their special $5 (peso) single flavor cone.

 The Evita Museum is super close for all of you who come to visit:

 There's lots of these school buses cruising the streets full of children jumping around unrestrained. I'm 99% sure these buses do not have seat belts. Seat belts definitely seem optional here.

 One of the many verdulerias in our neighborhood (vegetable and fruit stand). The produce has been SO good here! And on the whole, much cheaper than the states.

 A pretty boulevard that I love...

 My new favorite cafe: Voulezbar

 One of the many confiterias/panaderias close to our place. There are so many delicious treats in these bakeries. And the aroma of all the fresh baked treats is hard to resist.

 Another new favorite:

 New Garden is one of the many "dieteticas" sprinkled throughout the nighborhoods of BA. The name "dietetica" was mis-leading to me at first, but it essentially consists of gluten-free items, hard to find herbs, sweeteners and foods, lots of dried fruits and nuts and random other things including the closest version to brown sugar that I have found here (azucar rubia and azcuar negra).

A local fish shop where Fer can get sushi-grade fish for making sushi.

 There are many heladerias in BA: Volta, Persicco, and Freddo are the biggest chains and we have at least one location of each within 4-5 blocks of our apartment plus other smaller chains. Delicious ice cream is never far away!

Getting started

"The best is the enemy of the good." I often need to remind myself of this quote, including getting this blog up and going! I keep tweaking things and it's time to just let got and get started. So here we go!
I will take you on a little tour of the wonderful apartment that Fernando found for us in Palermo:

 

This is the view of our apartment from the park across the street. Our building is the one on the right.

Our main living/dining room area when we first moved in. Notice all the many mirrors- almost every free surface in our apartment is covered with a mirror. The owner of our apartment must *love* mirrors! 

Here it is after all of our stuff from Chicago arrived. Chaos!

Here we are after unpacking (most) of our things, putting those many mirrors to use to get a rare picture of the two of us.

La Cocina:

We are still working on filling up that wine rack :)
The very important converter so we can use our Nespresso, Kitchen Aid mixer, etc.

 After some time, the oven and I are on better terms... we had a rough start to our relationship.

Since the apartment is a bit older and bigger, it has maid's quarters by the kitchen. Obviously we do not have a live-in maid (some days I wish that was the case!) so we converted the extra room into an office/guest room.
Here's Fer painting the little room a very pale aqua blue:

 And here it is at the end, ready for guests!