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. 

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!