Argentina: Favorite Things Part 3

I definitely need to blog about my weekend (which was truly bizarre), but first, one more post about Argentina. The one thing my friend Sejal was insistent that we do before we could leave the country was take tango lessons. We were we all pretty excited about doing that when we were still in the States and it was just a funny idea; however, everyone's enthusiasm (except Sejal's) had severely waned by the time we actually got around to taking the lessons.

Nevertheless, Sejal dragged us all to the Academy of Tango where Rosalinda the Tango Teacher tried to teach us the basics. We all did pretty well, and I think we were even feeling like pretty hot shit until we looked up and saw the students in the advanced class, spinning and dipping and wrapping their legs around each other like they were playing a serious game of Twister.

Me and Rosalinda the Tango Teacher

I don't know that I'll ever get to that level (although I'm thinking about keeping up the lessons here in the Bay Area), but I felt pretty good that I managed to let the guy lead, didn't step on anyone's toes and never once was at risk of tripping and falling on my face. I think that's about as good as it gets.

See? I'm not stepping on his feet!

And it helps that we all looked hot, too. A little overdressed (OK--a lot) compared to our tango classmates, but I like to think it helped my dancing skills.

This is Jeff, the middle-aged close talker from Mill Valley.

4 Hot Women and a Tango Teacher

Argentina: Favorite Things Part 2

So I want to talk more about yummy food. And yummy wine also. Seriously, the food and wine were so good that they merit multiple blog posts.

Argentina is known for its beef, and rightfully so. I took it upon myself to eat beef at least once a day (and sometimes twice!) while we were there, in search of the perfect steak. I discovered it, paired with a nice 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, at the Ruca Malen vineyard in Mendoza.

This is a picture of me with the best steak I've ever had in my life. See how happy I look! While eating at the vineyard, I also got to experience a tower made of chopped beets and covered with a dusting of parmesan cheese (actually kind of gross, but paired with a really amazing 2004 Malbec--I brought a bottle back that's just begging to be opened) and some sort of flan made of dulce de leche. Now I don't like dulce de leche because it's too sweet. And I have the sweet tooth of champions, so I feel like that's really saying something. I also don't like flan (because the texture is yucky), but I would happily continue to eat this flan for every dessert for the rest of my life if they would let me. It was that good.

Sejal and the beet tower

Gorgeous

While my friends were most excited about going to Buenos Aires (from here on known as BA), I was more excited about Bariloche, a Northern Patagonia town in the lake district of Argentina, and Mendoza, in the wine country of Argentina, located at the foot of the Argentine side of the Andes.

Neither disappointed. Mendoza looked and felt remarkably like home, with its dry climate, craggy mountains, and lack of vegetation (other than grape vines, of course).

We took the opportunity to go white water rafting on the Rio Mendoza while we were there. And by white water rafting, I really mean brown water. Because the water was moving so fast, it was stirring up all the sediment washed off the slopes of nearby mountains, making the water brown. And we're talking about a lot of sediment in this water--I was wiping brown grit off my face for the rest of the day. But it was totally worth it to get a fast river with non-stop rapids.

Bariloche was pretty awesome also. Cold and super windy, but gorgeous nonetheless. This photo was taken from the top of Cerro Otto, one of many "mountain" peaks in the region. (Mountain goes in quotes because as anyone who knows me well could tell you, I have pretty stringent standards for what I think should technically be considered a mountain, and Cerro Otto definitely falls short. It was still pretty though.)

I should point out that we actually went to the top of Cerro Otto twice. The first day we climbed to the top (because the gondola to the top wasn't running yet), but it was overcast and yes, snowing, so none of my pictures turned out that well. We had no intentions of going again, but when we awoke the next morning and found that the gondola had suddenly decided to run, we thought we'd try again to get some decent photos (and also to witness from above how ridiculously steep the previous day's trail to the top had been).

Forget switchbacks--this trail went straight up the side of the mountain!

Oh. One more thing about Bariloche. I'm convinced it's the hippy new-age capital of Patagonia. The Berkeley of Argentina, if you will. We saw Pilates studios and incense burners everywhere. And then we saw this guy, juggling/interpretive dancing in the street.

It reminds of me the first time I drove through Berkeley, and as I stopped at a red light at the corner of Ashby and College, a guy on a unicycle carrying rainbow streamers wheeled out into the intersection and did a little streamer/cycle dance until the light changed.

It's good to see that some things are universal.

It's a sock. It's a Flip-flop. No, It's a Sock-Flop!

One more example of a horrifying fashion trend that seems to be taking Argentina by storm. . . . the Sock-Flop.



And, here's a photo to prove that you can even wear your Hammer Pants on the hottest of days, because they come in shorts too!

Argentina: Favorite Things Part I

So now that I've gotten the ugly out of the way, I can focus on the fun, fantastic, hillarious, and yummy. Let's start with yummy. Argentines are big on the concept of afternoon tea (even though they don't actually drink tea at tea--mostly they drink coffee). I think this may be the best concept ever. Especially considering that they don't eat dinner until 10 or 11 at night--a late afternoon snack and some caffeine is definitely in order.

In our extensive study of afternoon tea, we came across several options that were always big winners: Medialunas and submarinos. Medialunas are little baby croissants, most often glazed ever-so-lightly with some sugary stuff, but I guess they can be savory with cheese and ham also. We liked the sweets ones. This is my friend Brianne, expressing her feelings about medialunas (with, coincidentally, a medialuna).

Now submarinos (yup--Spanish for submarine) are the perfect beverage pairing with sweet medialunas. The basic deal is that a submarino consists of steamed milk that comes with a small bar of chocolate, that you then dunk in the milk and stir up until it's melted, giving you a slightly less rich, less sweet (but still fantastic) version of do-it-yourself hot chocolate. And while that's already a pretty awesome beverage concept, what makes it even better is that normally, the little bars of chocolate are actually shaped like submarines. (Get it? You're submerging your submarine into the liquid, just like you would with a real one! So smart!) Below, Sejal and I demonstrate the appropriate submarino submerging/mixing technique.

The steamed milk and "submarine" chocolate

Submerging the "submarine"

Stirring up the submarino to prepare it for consumption

Argentina: First the ugly

I'm back from Argentina. It was a fabulous, hillarious and all-together too short vacation with friends I love dearly, and I have tons of great fun stories to tell. But since I'm still feeling a little lazy after all the turkey consumption yesterday, I thought I'd start with something short and fast: the ugly parts of Argentina.

In no particular order, here were the things about Argentina (and Buenos Aires in particular) that I found less than appealing:

1) The men. Actually, that's not quite true. The men were fine; it was the hair that was the problem. It seems that faux hawks, mullets and yes, rat-tails are the hip and trendy look in Argentina right now. It was a little like being trapped in a bad 80's movie starring Billy Ray Cyrus. (And here's some even worse news for other mullet/rat-tail hating women of the world: my hairstylist just got back from some big hair conference and she tells me that mullets are the next big thing in men's hair styles here in the States. I'm shuddering in horror just thinking about it.)

2) Hammer pants. Yes, not only are mullets and rat-tails staging a comeback, but Hammer pants for women are also coming back. (For those of you who were asleep--or not yet alive--in the late 80's and early 90's, Hammer pants were made popular by one Mr. MC Hammer, and consist of baggy pants with a very roomy crotch and tightly bound ankles. They were often found in garish colors, or in gold and silver. And I'm sorry, I know MC has gone on to be a pastor at some church in the South Bay, but there is no number of souls he could save that would un-do the fashion travesty that was--and apparently still is--Hammer pants.)



This is my friend Sejal trying to rock the full-length hammer pants, but even more horrifying were the Hammer shorts that we found on sale all throughout BA.

3) This is probably the worst. According to my new BA-inhabiting friend Angie (and TimeOut Argentina Magazine) the thing to do when you're short on cash but still looking to get something waxed (because apparently Argentines are very big on waxing away body hair--at least on women) is to go for second-hand wax. That's right. That means that they re-heat the wax that has already been used to yank out god knows which hairs from some other woman before they apply it to you. I'm all for saving a buck, but that's seriously disgusting.

A Small Blog Hiatus

I am leaving for Argentina in T-minus 9 hours. Wooohoo! And in remarkably un-Claire-like fashion, I am already totally packed. No crazy drunken packing. No scrambling to throw stuff in a bag at the last minute.

But alas, the downside of going to Argentina is that my blog will be taking a hiatus. But just a baby one. Hardly noticeable even. Certainly shorter than the ones that network television stations take right smack in the middle of the season so you're left wondering if Meredith Grey got blown up by a bomb in the OR. (Or fill in the blank with whatever television show you are embarassingly and unreasonably addicted to.)

I'll be back in the country on Thanksgiving Eve, and the first thing I'll be doing (after consuming ungodly amounts of turkey and pie) will be blogging. I'm planning on having great adventures, doing ridiculous things and taking good notes while I'm gone, so I'm sure there will be plenty to blog about.

See you on the flip side of November. . . .

Argentina: variations on a theme

So here's the difference between Sejal's work friends and my work friends when it comes to planning vacations.

Sejal's work friends are suggesting that we go to the wine country of Argentina and check out some vineyards.

My work friends are suggesting I go to Bolivia (because there are more people organized into unions than anywhere else in the world) and check out one of the factories that's been taken over by workers and made into a collective.

And on a different note, Brianne bought her ticket for Buenos Aires this morning. Anyone else interested?