New York to Nomad

A note on Buenos Aires fashion, from a backpacker

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Archana

Everyone raved about how stylish everyone is in Buenos Aires, so Eaman and I were a little skittish about how our decidedly grubby backpacker clothes would fit into porento life. Within two days of moving into our apartment, we promptly headed to the mall (yes, there is one) and cheap outlet stores to create some semblance of a normal wardrobe. We didn’t buy much — jeans were my most significant purchase — just enough to avoid cargo shorts and yoga pants 24/7.

But since we came from the fashion capital known as New York, once we settled into BA, we found that the moda was a little, um, unremarkable. I didn’t expect much out of most barrios (neighborhoods), but I expected a whole lot from the nieghborhood we call home — Palermo. It’s known for its hip style, well-edited boutiques and sidewalks that double as runways. But, generally speaking, the Palermo-ites’ fashion was — how shall I put it? — a little…yawn.

Their outfit of choice, as I have now deduced, is an 80s-style crop top (preferably floral), skinny jeans, top knot bun and fringe purse. It’s like Urban Outfitters came to BA, vomitted and left without cleaning up. (The other uniform is booty shorts and barely there tops…at any time of the day.) Where’s the diversity? The experimentation? Even the Zara stores were a good two seasons behind on trends.

Now, I’m definitely not strutting around in hot-to-trot outfits, but I think my 55L backpack and I have a valid excuse. And I’m no professional fashion critic, but I do enjoy and appreciate interesting fashion. I hate to be harsh, but I guess I just had high expectations. I couldn’t help but dwell on fashion — a seemingly irrelevant topic considering our style of travel — but people had built it up to something it wasn’t.

That being said, the are some lovely boutiques and funky pieces few and far between, so I said I would allow myself one nice fashion piece from BA, something that would immediately strike me. (Yes, yes, I know, this trip is like one big treat. But let a girl have her fashion, mmkay?) Despite the dearth of style, I had a feeling I’d find something…

…and this dress, by Argentine designer Kosiuko, did the trick:

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires, Fashion | 2 Comments

An ode to Buenos Aires meriendas

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Archana

Yesterday, I shared with you the major food groups in Argentina. But there’s one food tradition I left — for good reason. It’s the merienda, and it deserves its own post.

I’ve fallen in love with this evening snack ritual — usually a cafe con leche and 1-3 medialunas, or croissants — that was incorporated into the Argentine diet to hold you over until their definitively late dinner time.

Sometimes I plan my day around our merienda. Sometimes I map out where next week’s meriendas will be. Sometimes they involve coffee and dessert. Sometimes they involve just dessert. Sometimes I think I’d rather have three meriendas a day than three meals a day.

So come with me on a visual tour of some of my favorite meriendas. I promise, you’ll fall for them, too.

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires, Local food, Merienda | 3 Comments

What we’re eating in Buenos Aires — not just steak!

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Archana

I couldn’t figure out when the best time would be to post about food because there’s a continuous influx of more and more delicious stuff. This usually goes for any city we travel to or live in, but particularly here with all our free time, we’re constantly mapping out our next meal, geeking out to other people about what we’ve been eating and/or passing out in bliss from said meal. Alas, I finally decided to put down the fork and share a bit about our culinary adventures here in Buenos Aires.

Everywhere else in Central and South America, you’ll find rice, beans, plantains and other traditional Latin foods. But Buenos Aires is more European than Latin, and so it’s a cosmopolitan hodgepodge of goodies. The best way to explain those goodies is to break it down by the seven Argentine food groups:

Steak. Clearly the most important element of a portenos’ meal plan is the world-famous steak. Asado, vacio, bife de chorizo (Eaman’s new favorite) — they love it all. Eaman’s main mission upon arriving in BA was to eat as much steak as humanly possible. As a flexitarian, my mission was to eat enough to get by, and fill up on bread and dessert the rest of the time. Both missions accomplished. Though, considering I usually never eat red meat in the U.S. — save for Shake Shack burgers in New York City — I have to say — I actually liked the carne in BA. Not only is the meat better quality than that faux corn-filled crap we get in the States, but it’s also one of the most significant aspects of porteno culture. They’re as passionate about their steak as they are about their futbol! (Fun fact: Argentines use only salt to season steak. But obviously with our spice-craving palettes we also piled on chimichurri.)

Eaman, not in a garage, but in La Leyenda, a totally off-the-map parrilla in Palermo that we visited on our first night. We’ve since had better quality steak, but there’s definitely no better ambiance:

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires, Steak | 6 Comments

The one day trip from Buenos Aires you need to take

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Archana

There are a few day trips everyone recommends you take when you get to Buenos Aires: Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay), Tigre (a delta city north of Argentina) and Colonia del Sacremento (a charming small town on the western Uruguayan coast). (There’s also Punta del Este, a beach town in Uruguay that becomes super sceney for the holiday months of January and February. Sounds fun in theory but is probably more like the Hamptons meets Miami a.k.a. ego meets flash.)

Everyone — from our friends to our landlord — raved about Colonia, so on Wednesday Eaman and I got up bright and early to catch the hour-long ferry to the coastal town.

Categories: Uruguay | Tags: Buenos Aires, Colonia | 1 Comment

Learning Spanish in Buenos Aires: Like speed dating, but harder

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Archana

There were two dilemmas that arose from renting an apartment in Buenos Aires: How would we meet people and how would we improve our Spanish (with the growing number of English-speaking expats with meet each day).

Since Peru, my Spanish has gone from rapidly improving to virtually nonexistent. I credit that decline mostly to the different variation of Spanish here, known as Castellano. (As I mentioned, portenos use different vocabulary, speak with an Italian-ish accent and talk much faster than Peruvians.) Perhaps it was because my Spanish was already shaky, but when faced with the new linguistics challenge, I basically threw my hands up in defeat.

As terrible as it sounds, I began to question how much I cared to really learn Spanish. As much as I love traveling, I’m not one of those people that picks up languages easily, so speaking a foreign tongue is always an uphill battle. But to put it more simply, I got lazy. One day in a boutique, a shopgirl asked me a question, which was probably, “Can I help you with anything?” and not knowing how to respond and too nervous to even say, “gracias,” I pretended I didn’t hear her and walked away. Not my finest moment.

I knew this was a slippery slope, and thanks to Eaman’s desire to actually improve his Spanish, which he constantly practices with any local he meets, we found a solution to both the friends problem and the language barrier.

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires, Spanish | 2 Comments

Random musings on Buenos Aires: Bums, child thieves, gym instructors and more

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Archana

Some stories aren’t worth entire blog posts but that’s not to say they’re not worth mentioning. Here, a few vignettes from recent Buenos Aires life.

There is a homeless local man who has set up shop on one particular corner on the edge of our neighborhood, Palermo. But he is the most hooked-up bum I’ve ever seen. His nook is outfitted with two twin-size mattresses piled atop each other and a working TV, which he’s always watching when we pass. If he gets HBO, I might just complain to our landlord about our lack of channels.

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires | 1 Comment

When the nagging life questions bug you on the road…

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Archana

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three weeks since we plunked down in Buenos Aires. In that time, we found a beautiful apartment, visited the famous Sunday San Telmo market, tried pizza at one of the city’s most famous pizzerias (it wasn’t that good), toured the Recoleta cemetery where Eva Perron is buried, visited the opulent El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore housed in an old theater, went to a soccer match between two local club teams and have made some great connections with new friends.

Playing dead at the Recoleta cemetery:

San Telmo market:

El Ateneo:

But we’ve also done a whole lot of less marquee activites, too. We eat, we read, we watch Netflix, we walk around our neighborhood, we buy fresh pasta for dinner, we sit on our balcony, we people-watch. It kind of feels like we’re living normal daily lives in New York without jobs–or an income. (That’s partly because we’re staying in one place for an extended period of time and partly because Buenos Aires doesn’t really have sights to see.)

Sitting in a cafe, eating an alfajor cookie and reading my Kindle — isn’t that the life? Well, if you’re anything like me — someone who struggles with enjoying the present, someone who’s always putting pressure on herself to be doing “something” — then you know that living in Buenos Aires, when not total paradise, has been somewhat of a test for me.

Categories: Argentina | 6 Comments

La Bomba de Tiempo: Buenos Aires’ coolest attraction

Posted on November 8, 2011 by Archana

On Monday night, Eaman and I partook in a porteno (slang for Buenos Aires locals) tradition and hit up the weekly percussion jam session known as La Bomba de Tiempo. The 17-member group, whose music sounds like a mixture of Latin, African and dhol music, plays in an open-air space in the city with a new special guest each week. We were lucky enough to come on a week when the group welcomed Brazilian beat-boxing, rapping, melodizing sound machine Marcelo Pretto.

Categories: Argentina | Tags: Buenos Aires, Spanish | 3 Comments

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