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Family Asado — and Andrea Bocelli!

Last Saturday Cecilia held an “asado” or barbecue at her house. She invited some of her family, as well as Venetia, Raul and me.

As you’ll see, I tried to switch to the wide view of the video – only to learn that you can’t switch horses midstream. I’ll gt the hang of this yet.

As an aside, for a month during the summer, there are outdoor concerts in the plaza beside Teatro Colon. They are not live concerts but broadcast from famous opera houses and concert venues around the world, and they are free. There’s nothing quite like sitting under the stars on a warm summer night watching these concerts.

Someone mentioned that the show of the evening was Andrea Bocelli in concert from Central Park. As one, we decided we should go, and before we knew it, Adriana, Raul, Venetia and I had all piiled into Cecilia’s car and headed down to Plaza Vaticano. The last clip of the video is from there.

I hope you enjoy the video.

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Eternal Bulgaria

Huh? Bulgaria? I know, not my usual subject matter. But a few days ago I received information about an event called Bulgaria Eterna that was taking place last night in San Telmo. So I went along with my trusty friends Cecilia, Raul and Venetia.

We listened to the usual speechifying by the Ambassador and various others, and then we had wine and nibblies as we all mingled. Not hugely entertaining, but I did find the information about Bulgaria interesting, mainly because I didn’t know anything about that part of the world. There were various posters and information pieces around the walls and I read most of them. The travel posters showed that Bulgaria is certainly beautiful, but what interested me were the people I read about.

Did you know, for example, that the person credited with inventing the computer was Bulgarian? Me neither. John Atanasov was born in the USA of Bulgarian parents.

Did you know that yogurt originated in Bulgaria? Me neither. Dr. Staman Grigorov isolated the bacteria that causes fermentation in yogurt. The strain is called lacto bacillus bulgaricus, in honour of his homeland.

See, the reason this interests me so much is that Bulgaria is a country that’s not all that well known in the rest of the world, apart from adventure travelers maybe. And the three countries I claim as my own — Scotland, Canada and Argentina — also fall into that category. Scots have invented many things we all know today, including penicillin, the telephone (yes, Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot who emigrated to Canada — like me!), the steam engine and so many others I can’t remember. (Just Google “invented in Scotland” and you’ll be amazed.) But how many people know that? Not a lot.

In terms of universal acknowledgement, Canada suffers from its proximity to its huge neighbour to the south. I’m constantly amazed at how little people know about us. Just this week, a taxi driver asked me if Canada was a state of the US. He wasn’t being rude; he just didn’t know. Interestingly, everybody here seems to know we have an “English part” and a “French part”.

And then there’s Argentina. This wonderful country that captured my heart takes up a huge chunk of South America. It is physically beautiful, its people are lovely and I can’t say enough about the tango. Yet all most people know about it they learned from Andrew Lloyd Webber! Or they think it’s still like fifty years ago during the “Dirty War”. It’s not.

So I was interested to learn just a little about Bulgaria.  By the way, its capital, Sophia, will be the European City of Culture in 2019.

I also learned about Vasil Levski, probably Bulgaria’s greatest hero — at least that’s what people told us last night. I love the words this poster says about him:

TODAY

We do not remember your death

We show our devotion

As long as Bulgaria exists

You will live eternally!  1837-00

Look at the dates — they don’t remember his death! Is that not beautiful?

Here are a few photos of the exhibits, as well as one of us, of course!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bulgaria. Hmmm. Who knew?

 

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Sick Weekend, but…

On Friday night I came down with a rotten cold, woke up with streaming nose, sore throat, the lot. Obviously I wasn’t going to the milonga on Saturday as planned. Funny how a summer cold can make you feel like death heated up.

I stayed close to home and behaved, mainly because I wanted to be well enough for Sunday night.

First, I had what was supposed to be the last class in my Fileteado Porteño class. I didn’t want to miss that, because I didn’t know when my teacher would be able to take me again. So I stayed at home again all day, and in the early evening I took a taxi to his studio. It wasn’t easy, painting and sniffling at the same time! And the charming Martin didn’t say a word, happily bringing me water to take my paracetemol!

He had a friend drop by and, in true Argentine style, he just stayed and we all chatted while I learned! The friend also brewed up some mate, so that was another element added to my struggles — although I did enjoy it. Tango in the background, painting Fileteado and drinking mate with two good looking men — doesn’t get more Argentine than that!

As it turned out, I didn’t quite get my painting finished, so I am having an extra class in two weeks to get it done. I’ll post a picture of the finished product.

Fortunately, the next event of the evening wasn’t far away from Martin’s studio. My friend Raul was having a birthday, and it’s kind of a tradition that a bunch of us celebrate birthdays and other events at La Gran Parilla, a fantastic parilla, or steakhouse, in San Telmo. Raul, the birthday boy, is the one on the right with the big smile on his face!

I have to say I didn’t do justice to the wonderful steak, and Venetia expressed her amazement that I didn’t finish my champagne. “You must be sick!” was her comment.

But it was fun, and I’m feeling a bit better today. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to go to the milonga next weekend!

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Video of the Week: Caminito

Here’s a little taste of the lovely day I spent yesterday with Venetia, Raul, Amir and Efrat in the lovely Caminito. In my opening clip I refer to it as a tourist part, but it kind of sounds like a tourist park. I don’t want you to think it’s a park of any kind. On the contrary, it’s part of La Boca, a very old, historic barrio with its own fascinating history.

I hope you enjoy the video.

 

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Today’s adventure — locked myself out of my apartment!

What a comedy of errors this was! I was leaving late this morning to run a couple of errands, and needed to get back quickly as I was in the middle of doing some client work. As I was leaving my apartment, I was distracted trying to kill a mosquito, and without realizing it I closed the door — with the keys inside!

I went downstairs and sat in the lobby while I thought. We do have a doorman, but he is not always there, and besides he has been in hospital and is on sick leave. His sister is filling in, but I have no idea how to reach her.

Fortunately, I always carry the business card of my rental agency in my purse, so I was able to call them. The girl was very nice, saying she would call the owner and call me back. She asked for my phone number and I gave it to her. At least I thought I did. When I didn’t hear from her after a few minutes, I went to call her again, but when I saw my own number on the phone I thought, “That’s not the number I gave her.” No, it wasn’t. I had had the agency card in my hand, and had read their own number off to her as mine!!

OK, no problem, I’ll call again. Nope. My SIM balance had run out and the call wouldn’t go through! Fortunately, the phone company keeps sending me messages that they will give me a small credit in these circumstances, so I found one of those messages and followed the steps. Success!

I got back through to Vanessa, and she laughed when I told her what I had done. Anyway, she told me the owner had contacted the doorman and he would be down to fix the situation. Poor Julio. I don’t think I got him out of his sick bed, but I felt guilty anyway. But he laughed it off too. Of course, when we got up there, he couldn’t get the key in because my own key was still on the inside! After a bit of finagling, though, the door finally swung open — thank goodness!

I don’t usually carry my extra set, because the keys here are ginormous old brass keys that weight a ton, but I think I’ll put them in the bottom of my bag because I don’t want to do that again!

Now I’m off to top up my phone!

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This Is A Half Portion!

Yesterday I went to an early evening event of InterNations, which involved meeting about a dozen people and sitting outside on the terrace at La Biela. It’s a lovely way to spend a summer evening.

But when it was over, it was about 8 pm and I didn’t feel like going home to cook a meal. So I walked down the street to Clark’s, one of the oldest parillas in the area.

Just look at this steak! This was what they call a “half portion” — can you imagine what the full-size looks like? I cut it in two and brought half home for today’s lunch — which is a good thing because I’m going out tonight with another group and dinner will be empanadas and other picadas (snack foods). It’s all go in Buenos Aires!

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Went Out Last Night with My Two Moviegoing Friends

Venetia, Raul and I went last night to see the new Woody Allen movie, Wonder Wheel. It was at Cine Lorca, one of the many movie and live theatres on Avenida Corrientes. I love the street, as it has a great vibe.

It’s kind of an interesting experience to watch a movie in English with Spanish sub-titles — it’s usually the other way around.

I quite enjoyed the movie, but I didn’t love it. Visually, it was wonderful. Set in the 1950s on Coney Island, the background of the amusement park on the beach seemed to me to be an authentic representation of time and place. Although the movie had Woody Allen written all over it, there were also lots of places where Tenessee Williams peeked through, particularly a scene near the end that strongly evoked A Streetcar Named Desire.

The acting, I thought, was a mixed bag. Jim Belushi and Kate Winslet turned in credible performances, but I couldn’t make up my mind about Justin Timberlake. Was he playing a guy who was not very bright, or was it bad acting? I don’t know.

It did occur to me several times throughout the movie — and Venetia and Raul both agreed — that they sometimes looked as if they were acting on a stage instead of in a movie. That may have been intentional on Woody Allen’s part, as he does tend to have these quirky ideas.

I’m used to Woody Allen’s comedies, which I usually like, but this was dark and very different.

Worth the night out — but I enjoyed the wine and cheese with my friends after the movie better!

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A Full-on Argentine Evening — and a Surprise

Yesterday I went for my second Fileteado Porteño class at 6 pm. As I said last time, Martin plays tango in the background as we work, which already adds to the Argentine feel of it all.

Just around the corner from his studio is a lovely old square called Plaza Dorrego, and every Sunday night when the weather is fine they hold an open air milonga. I’d never been, and I decided to give it a try. (Mind you, I don’t think I’ll do it again until my course is finished, because I had to go there dressed for tango and I kept worrying about dropping orange paint on my black skirt!)

Anyway, the milonga was lovely. This barrio, San Telmo, is very old and steeped in tango history, and yet it had quite a contemporary feel to it. Instead of older people dressed in more traditional tango gear, there were lots of young people in shorts and shirts — although I honestly don’t know how you can dance tango in flipflops or Birkenstocks!

The best thing I saw there, and in fact the best thing I’ve seen in a long time anywhere, was this young woman in a wheelchair “dancing” tango! This picture shows just one of her partners, as she was whirling around the dance floor for every dance. Isn’t that fabulous?

But I have to tell you about my surprise. When I arrived, lots of people were watching, but it was actually a tad early to dance, so I decided to walk back to the main part of the plaza where there are tables and have a glass of wine. As I approached the area, I saw a woman waving frantically at me and calling my name.

It turned out to be Lena and Bulent, the couple who run the tango school I went to in Toronto in the summer of 2016! Can you imagine? I had no idea there were there and they didn’t know I was here, and what were the chances of us choosing the same milonga on the same night? Actually, they were just having drinks and were going to a different place, but it was so nice to find familiar faces like that. Small world, eh?

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More New Friends!

I had an email from one of my readers recently. Her name is Charmaine, she’s from England and is currently visiting Buenos Aires for the first time with her friend Samantha.

As they were keen to have authentic Argentine food, I recommended La Gran Parilla, my favourite place for steak, and they enjoyed that very much. Another staple of the food here, though, is the empanada, and El Sanjuanino is a little, very old, place quite near me that is famous for them. It’s also very old-world, and that’s why I love it. Here’s a photo of us there after our empanadas. They serve the house Malbec in these cute penguin jugs — and the quantities are quite generous!

The second picture is a sketch I did of El Sanjuanino last year, and the third is the selfie I took of us after breakfast this morning.

I set Charmaine up for a tango lesson with my lovely teacher, Alejandro, and she now plans to find a place to take lessons when she gets back home!

I’m always happy to help visitors have a great experience of “my” city!

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One of those Cool Places in Buenos Aires

I’ve never been in a city that reveres books and authors as much as Buenos Aires. There are still many, many “old fashioned” bookstores, ie they sell only books — no candles or keyrings or all the stuff North American bookstores sell.

I found this place on my first visit. I woke up one day to a pouring wet day that looked as if it would stay that way all day. I Googled “what to do in Buenos Aires when it’s raining” and this is one of the things that came up.

I really must learn to shoot video that fills the whole frame — maybe by next week!