Hola Chicos!
Oops, so it's been almost a month since the last blog post. I guess we've been so busy planning and booking for the trip in January! We've changed the plans a bit, skipping Peru/Machu Picchu as the flights were going to cost an arm and a leg (almost as much as it costs to fly here from Australia)! So instead, we're focusing on Argentina (and a little bit of Chile and Uruguay).
Anyway this is the last month in a nutshell...
I had a quick two-day trip to Brazil (Belo Horizonte) for work. An eye-opener as to how different Spanish and Portuguese really are, some beautiful country-side, hot weather and great food!
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| Belo Horizonte |
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| My dinner - So I order what I was told was steamed fish. After eating I was immediately informed that it is actually Eel! Nasty!! |
We finally went to the zoo! I love zoos but have heard bad things about the Buenos Aires zoo - it's located right in the centre of the city, in a relatively small area and with very old infrastructure. So, I would guess, very small, concrete cages with all the pollution of the city and some very sad animals. So Osc and I skipped that experience and headed out for the day to Temaiken - a nature reserve in a town called Escobar, about 1 hr drive from the city. We have pretty high 'zoo standards' coming from Perth but Temaiken was incredible. The animals had very large, natural enclosures that were mostly open air. Also, I think even if there were no animals, it would still be a beautiful park to walk around!
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| Albino wallaby |
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| Osc was so happy we got to go in the room with the bats...me not so much |
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| Happiest shark ever! |
The city put on a great (and free) Jazz Festival.
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| Jazz Festival |
We've tried plenty of new restaurants/bars.
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| Nachos! |
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| Owned them! |
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| Bife de Lomo at the ol' favourite - Rodi Bar |
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| Brunch at Le Pain |
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| Mixed Fajitas |
This Friday night we spent at 'El Gato Viejo' - the warehouse/studio/restaurant/bar/junkyard/gallery of artist Carlos Regazzoni. It is located right next to the train station and the entrance to the main city slum. So, walking off the main street, down a very dark alley way lined with junkyard scrap and some big, manky dogs definitely felt like we were on the 'wrong' side of the city. But it made for a great night with some nice art, good company, interesting live music, very 'different' crowd and good food with vegetables grown on-site.
I had an interesting brush with a not-so-nice group of Argentinians. Finishing work at 6pm on Tuesday I started walking home and quickly realised something was up when I could cross the main avenue '9 de Julio' in one change of traffic lights (it ALWAYS takes at least two, sometimes up to 4 if you haven't perfected your crossing technique). Last year, the fans of local futbol team Boca Juniors had created their own day of 'celebration' and they were back at it again this year. All of the main streets were shut down so no taxis or buses and there were tens of thousands of crazy fans at the obelisk -setting off fireworks, jumping up-and-down (naked and/or drunk) on traffic lights, fighting the riot police, breaking and vandalising everything in sight (including the obelisk, the brand new city 'Metrobus' and the big, beautiful Argentine flag that usually flies next to the Obelisk), and breaking windows/completely trashing all the nearby businesses. All in all I think one fan was killed, 10 police were injured and lots of damage was done. So sad and embarrassing for everyone else, and all for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Oh, and of course, I got home safe, I was extremely lucky to have left just early enough to miss the worst of it and, going to the office in centro everyday, I am getting pretty skilled at avoiding angry protesters (there's a skill to put on my CV along with my mad traffic light crossing skills).
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| The obelisk (photo from internet) |
On a completely unrelated note (haha I promise this has absolutely nothing to do with futbol fans), we're coming home!!!! When we moved here we had no idea how long we were going to stay but we thought roughly a year. So the original plan was to be leaving the end of May 2014. However, the crash of the mining boom seems to be following me around the world and the project I came to work on has been halted for at least a year. I have been offered a position at the company here indefinitely, but, as work is starting to gradually pick back up again in Oz, I think it's a good time for us to be heading home. So we are heading back to Perth at the end of February - a week or so after my family return home from their trip here, and just in time for Osc to start uni and also to be there for the arrival of our new niece (or nephew, I guess). Seems like the timing is right. We're both a little sad to be leaving so soon as the last 6 months has gone very quickly and we do really love it here, but we are also tremendously excited to be coming home (and to start planning our next trip)!
What else? It's ridiculously hot and humid, Oscar's birthday is coming up this week and we're also going to be apartment/cat-sitting over Christmas and New Years - it will be great to have some furry friends for a while. Then my family will be here January 18 (yay!!!!) and we will set off on our travels of Argentina.
And for some random photos...
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| 'Love is in the Air' |
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| Christmas at Recoleta Village |
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| ?! |
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| Device for filling bananas with different flavours?! Really?! |
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| The dulce de leche aisle |
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| Lunch with some SRKers |
