Buenos Aires

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What a lovely day I’ve had!

Today was lovely! I got up early even though it was quite cold. I put on my puffy jacket for the first time this season, and that made it OK to sit having breakfast outside the cafe — because right now we are not allowed to eat inside.

Later in the morning I met Venetia at a lovely place that serves a good brunch. It’s quite a nice brisk walk for us both, being halfway between where we live. Here’s a photo of the waffles with berries I had, and it was every bit as yummy as it looks. Actually even better, because I asked for cream on top—how could that not be delicious??

After brunch we walked along Avenida Santa Fé, one of the best shopping avenues in the city. I really need winter clothes, and I did quite well with nice warms sweaters.

But what to do about dinner, that was the question. We have to be home by 8 pm because of the curfew, and the waffles, delicious though they were, couldn’t serve as my one main meal of the day. So I decided to go to one of my favourite parillas for merienda, but have something more substantial which could serve as dinner. Just as I sat down at my table, I heard my name called, and it turned out to be three good friends, Marcia and Cliff, and Silvia, who were quaffing champagne! Turns out this is their regular Saturday haunt, and they invited me to join them. It was lovely!

Here are some photos of the group, as well as sunset over Recoleta Cemetery just across the road.

Life is good!

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Saturday Afternoon Tango with Gustavo!

On Saturday afternoon a few of us went up to our favourite people-watching haunt, La Biela. As on other occasions, there was a professional tango dancing couple doing their thing. I asked the guy, Gustavo, if he was willing to dance with us and he said of course. So Lina and I had a go.

A word of explanation. The word milonga has two meanings. It’s the place where you go to dance tango, but it’s also a dance in its own right, or at least a variation of tango. While tango tends to be quite slow and dramatic, and usually melancholy, milonga is a faster happier dance. It’s also quite tricky. When I asked Gustavo if we could dance milonga, he suggested we dance a tango first—Lina and I agreed that he wanted to be sure I could keep up first before he risked milonga! Anyway, I must have passed his test, because he was happy to lead me in a fun, upbeat milonga too.

As I told him Lina was a better dancer than I am, having danced tango much longer, he just went straight into the milonga with her.

We were both ecstatic about the whole thing. We are missing tango so desperately we are considering going up there every weekend and giving him a big tip just to dance with us!

I hope you enjoy our videos—thanks to Jayne for taking them!


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Eco Parque

The old Buenos Aires city zoo was closed a couple of years ago. I think it was mainly because it was outdated and the conditions were not best for the animals. The good news is that over quite a number of months, they have made a lot of changes, and the grounds have once again opened, this time as an ecology park called Eco Parque.

I went there recently with Venetia and Sally. It’s a wonderful space for both flora and fauna, and we had a great day for it. We are into fall now, but the weather is still more like late summer, with temperatures in the mid-twenties and lots of sunshine.

I took my sketching things with me, but I had a commitment afterwards and didn’t have time to stop. I did, however, resolve to go back there soon to sketch.

Meantime, here are some photos I took.

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I can’t believe it’s almost the middle of April …

… and I haven’t posted here since the end of March! The reason is that I’ve had painters in my apartment for three weeks and it has disrupted everything completely.

When they told me it would take three weeks to paint my apartment I couldn’t believe it, but in fact it was three weeks on Friday and they still have to come back tomorrow to finish. Of course, as a friend said to me the other day, whether it’s painters, plumbers, carpenters, electricians — they always have to come back!

The first couple of days were OK as they started in the kitchen and passageway, so I could sleep in the bedroom. But then my friend Cecilia had a health issue, and I went to her place for a few days to be with her. Because her upstairs bathroom is being renovated, and anyway it was difficult for her to get upstairs, she was sleeping on one couch in the living room. To make sure I was close to her during the night, I slept on the other couch. I was there for four days.

Then I came home, only to find the painters had started work in the bedroom, so I had to sleep on my own couch — I was beginning to feel like a couch surfer. I’m still there. Although the bedroom is almost finished, my bed is still under plastic wraps and the paint smell is too strong to sleep there anyway.

One good thing is that I had someone come in on Saturday to give the place a thorough clean (except for the bedroom of course), so it’s no longer thick with dust and I’m not feeling as if I need a shower all the time. And the upside of all this is that the apartment is looking nice and bright and clean. By midweek I should be back to normal — from my mouth to God’s ear.

Yes, we are in the second wave

The numbers of Covid infections has now soared to the point where there’s no longer any doubt we are in the second wave. The regional responses across the country are varied. In Buenos Aires, they are trying to shut down as little as possible in order to preserve what’s left of the economy, which I believe is a good thing.

In theory, public transportation has only been for essential workers all along, but we have all been using the buses for weeks. However, now they are back to enforcing the rules, so no buses for a while.

Restaurants, bars and cafes remain open, but must close at 11 pm as there is now a curfew from midnight to 6 am every night. So we can still eat out and support the restaurant industry, and since we can’t use the buses we are also supporting the taxi industry!

Today I’m joining half a dozen friends for an Indian lunch, and then probably a stroll around the artesan market in San Telmo — although there’s a distinct autumn feel in the air today so it might be a bit chilly for that. We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s it from me for this week. Hopefully as the painting is finished I will get back to posting more.

 

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Lovely New Place to Eat

Last night a small group of four of us went to a beautiful little restaurant called Roux. It’s very expensive, but worth every peso!

They gave us one of only two tables downstairs in the wine cellar, which was very cozy. The service was great and the food marvelous.

This particular small group is exploring some of the more “fine dining” venues in the city, and this was our first outing — we all voted it a success!

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Just Walking in the Rain!

I woke up to heavy rain this morning, but the thunder that passed over in the night had stopped. So I decided to do my usual walk and stop for breakfast at Cafe Bogotá.

When I was in Scotland just before I moved here, I happened to find a great little lightweight raincoat with a hood, and it has come in very handy here, so I zipped myself into that, stepped into my yellow wellies and set off.

I call them wellies, but they are really just rubber ankle boots. I had forgotten that the less-than-perfect drainage here in the city makes for large, quite deep puddles at the corners of some of the streets. Oh well.

Even I’m not daft enough to sit outside the cafe in the rain, so I moved indoors this morning. Here’s a photo of what it looked like. When I arrived it was still quite dark, and the rain on the streets and people with umbrellas reminded me of those paintings of Paris in the rain!

 

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El Preferido

Last night a few of us went out to try a new eating place. It’s what’s called a bodegón here, a kind of traditional restaurant. They used to be more casual but now many of them are being upgraded, which unfortunately sometimes takes away from their charm and ambience.

Not so with El Preferido. We enjoyed the ambience, the food and the conversation as always. Thanks to Venetia and Jayne for taking the photos.

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Milonga!

Finally, tango is back! Actually, most of the milongas that are operating are open air ones, and I only know of one traditional indoor one that’s open again. That’s because it’s big, and can support a crowd of a third of the usual capacity. You have to make a reservation in advance, but fortunately, they have taken off the restriction of only being able to dance with one person. Of course, you have to wear your mask when dancing, and there are spray bottles of alcohol to use each time you come off the dance floor — a small price to pay!

I went with my friend Susan to one of the open air milongas and it was delightful. It was in one small corner of Plaza Congreso, and I think there were only about 25-30 people there. It was a mixed age crowd, and very informal. My knees can only take dancing on a terrazza floor for a certain time, but we packed a lot of tango into that time!

There are some who say this is too dangerous, and they could be right. But the government has decided to allow the milongas to open as long as they follow the protocols, and so far I feel OK being there. And oh, it feels so-o-o-o good to be dancing tango again!

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Lovely Couple of Hours in the Jardin Botánico

This was a beautiful day, bright and sunny, warm but not too humid, so I wanted to do some sketching. I haven’t been to the botanical gardens for a while, so I chose that as my destination.

Last time I went there to sketch, all the seats with good things to sketch were in full sun and it was way too hot to work, but today I was much luckier. Mind you, I sat on the wall at the edge of the pool to do the water lilies and I came within an inch of dropping my sketchbook in the water — that would have hurt!

Anyway, here are the two sketches. I’m almost at the end of this sketchbook, so the double page spread ones are difficult to photograph — sorry!

I saw some seats set out in front of the greenhouse, so I stopped to see what was happening. Unfortunately I couldn’t see the performers so I still don’t know, but the music is interesting!

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Productive Afternoon in the Plaza

Yesterday was one of those perfect days when the sun was shining in a blue sky with absolutely no humidity, and the temperature was in the high twenties. I decided to go down to Plaza Rodriguez Peña, a lovely square that’s quite near me but for some reason I don’t go to often. I took my sketching stuff with me as well as my Spanish binder, thinking I’d decide when I got there. It was so beautiful I did both!

First I did the sketch in the park part of the plaza, and then I moved over to in front of this lovely building called Palacio Sarmiento, which belongs to the Ministry of Education. I never get tired of all the gorgeous buildings in Buenos Aires! I sat in front of it and let it inspire me as I worked on my irregular verbs!

Sorry the photo of the sketch is a bit weird, but I’m nearly at the end of this sketch book and it won’t lie flat any more.  I’ve been a bit lazy about sketching, so I’m happy I was finally able to produce something!