Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes and La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires

[J.] The weather in Buenos Aires greeted us with clouds and rain and it remained to do so for the last two weeks. That's the kind of weather where you either cosy up at home on the couch, having rich and comforting food and watch one movie after the other. Or alternatively, you visit a museum. The latter was our choice for this Sunday while the clouds were hanging thick and low over the city.

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes is located in Recoleta, a barrio (neighbourhood) of Buenos Aires of "great historical and architectural interest, mostly because of the Recoleta Cemetery" as per Wikipedia. The museum does not charge any entry fees, features an international collection of paintings from the Middle Ages up to the 20th century, and contains a collection of paintings by some of the 20th-century Argentine painters.
We had a stroll around the various halls of the exhibition for about an hour. The paintings and sculptures and art presented in this exhibition are interesting and I really liked the high ceilings and interior design of the museums itself, but overall I would not say it is one of the better art collections shown here. In my opinion, the exhibition lacks a more precise guiding theme and more detailed explanation. The titles and explanations are sometimes only in Spanish, something that might be considered acceptable but not what I expected of an national museum located in the capital of this country. In addition, it presents paintings of international artists from France, Germany and so on, without explaining why they are considered important for Argentinian art. Overall, the guiding theme was not as present as I would have wished for such a museum.

Anyway, with more time on our hands than expected after visiting this museum, we decided to further walk towards the famous Recoleta Cemetery.

And it really did not fail to impress us, I have never seen such a beautiful cemetery before. According to Wikipedia, this cemetery "contains the graves of notable people, including Eva Peron, presidents of Argentina, Nobel Prize winners, the founder of the Argentine Navy, and a granddaughter of Napoleon. [...] In 2013, CNN listed it among the 10 most beautiful cemeteries in the world." Due to the rain, the cemetery had quite a depressing atmosphere to it, I really would have wished for the sun to come out showing a nice blue sky. On the other hand, one might argue that a miserable, dismally, rainy day can be considered very suitable for a cemetery visit (something, I strongly disagree with).

I Latina... Fine dining in BA

[J.] We have a big love for food and we love going out from time to time enjoying a fine dining dinner or lunch. I still remember how I thought about it years ago. "Spending so much money for food? For dinner?" - were only some of the few non-believing questions I would have asked.
So, what actually fascinates me so much about fine-dining and why do I have no shame in spending money for great food from time to time? I would say, it is a combination of different things that create three to four hours of perfect entertainment and food:

Husband and I after some glasses of wine at the I Latina

1) Quite obviously, the food itself is the main part of enjoyment and there are four ways of preparing a dish that is so magical to me.
a) If someone talks about a sandwich with cheese and tomato, everyone can easily imagine how such a sandwich would taste. Right now, while reading this, you can for sure imagine eating such a sandwich, because we eat such sandwiches a lot and we easily remember how it tastes and especially how the combination of cheese and tomato and bread tastes. But when going out for fine dining, it is so likely that various courses bring (at least for me) unknown flavours together. A combination of ingredients you have not eaten before and that's what makes it such a great new experience (and to be honest, for me its magic as I just cannot combine flavours with each other in my head). Do you know for example how great prawns and pineapple are working together and how it would taste like? Or baked peaches and aniseed ? Bingo... And from my own experience, it is always worth trying to get a bit of everything presented on the plate onto the spoon or fork or into your mouth at the same time: So often, the course is the best if you bring all of the ingredients together instead of nibbling at them one after another.
b) The deconstruction and/or recomposition of classic dishes. For example, the classic tomato and mozzarella salad with basil leaves. Now, imagine having it as a clear pre-appetiser drink, different look but totally the same taste!
c) Perfect cooking skills and food execution: I am sure, everyone knows more or less how rubber-like a bad prepared and cooked octopus can be like when chewing on it. But just yesterday, we had a pulpo that was so soft and so well cooked, it just dissolved on our tongues; unbelievable! So, although you know how such a dish would taste like, it is the actually preparation skill of the food ingredients that makes the dish such an enjoyment.
d) The structure of the food ingredients itself in another delight, I would say. If everything on the plate is a mush or pap, the whole course won't feel too appealing while eating it even if it tastes amazing. On the contrary, a dish is much better when you have a bit of everything structure-wise: soft parts, crunchy parts, melting parts and maybe even hot and cold parts at the same time. And so often, without you even noticing it, the chefs generally make sure that a course has different structures to it.
e) The presentation: Not much need to be said about this point, presenting food in a great way makes a course way more fun compared to a plate where everything is just shoved onto. And fine dining restaurants generally simply nail it.

2) In addition, I so enjoy the people working at good restaurants; those you are likely to most interact with: the waiter and waitresses as well as the sommelier.

Cocktail for starters!

a) The waiter and waitresses are of course presenting each course to you and are making sure you have everything you need during your lunch/dinner but I also like to think about them as those people who are making sure you are enjoying your time and being entertained. So often, they are witty and funny and just good entertainment, and we generally interact a lot with them over the course of our dinner, asking this and that about the course/food on the plate, other random things and husband tends to make really nice jokes with them. Yesterday at the I Latina, one waiter asked us if we are speaking English or Spanish. We mentioned that estudiamos espanol for two weeks now and that we only understand un pocito. So he was like "Okay! - let me introduce the courses in Spanish and we will see how it goes!" Of course, we were all up for it, had a lot of fun together and really understood more of what he explained to us in Spanish than we thought. And he also taught us some Spanish words, like 'Estuvo delicioso/divino!'. Really nice guy...
b) I do not know a lot about wine and grapes. But what I know is that the skills of a sommelier are the last ingredient to make a course really good. And pairing the wine to the food is something that I would say can separate the really good courses from the outstanding ones. I especially remember one sommelier at the restaurant Rust en Vrede (http://rustenvrede.com/restaurant/) in Stellenbosch, South Africa, with whom we had so much fun (and I like to think of him having had fun with us as well as the wine glasses were always extra full for every course; I seriously cannot recall the food after the seventh course) and who paired the wine so perfectly, for me it was the most outstanding experience during that evening (and the food itself was already more than just an experience). For example, one wine we had for a course that night was so not appealing on a stand-alone basis, smelling and tasting like salty fish water with algae; but when it was paired with the food it was the most delicious combination, way beyond what I could have imagined. Totally fascinating.

Then of course there are other components that contribute to making an evening eating out really worth for me:
3) Good company and great conversations. I believe that food is one of the best occasions to share stories and connect with people. It is so much easier to prepare food, eat and drink and just get the conversation going. And still, how often do I look around me when sitting in a restaurant and I see couples that are silent for most of the time during a dinner. Or they text on their phones. Or frankly, look bored. It is so sad to watch.

4) Relaxing and simply enjoying the evening. I remember my first time at a fine-dining restaurant. Worried about etiquette and behaviour and style and what else. Truth is, for most of the occasions it simply does not matter (however, sometimes it really depends on the location and occasion). The last two times we went out fine dining, I was wearing running shoes because that is the only pair of shoes that I currently have (pairing them with an overall casual outfit). Not even once did the waiter and waitresses blink or gave me the feeling of not being welcome. And indeed, it should not matter in the first place (as long as I am not dressed totally out of line). I am going there to enjoy the food, not other perfectly styled customers. Fact.

And then of course the most important factor: 5) You have to love food. You obviously don't need to be a cook (I am certainly not), but you should love to eat. 

I Latina; view of the kitchen from the dining area

So, 'I Latina' - a Latin American restaurant (http://ilatinabuenosaires.com/). It is located around the corner of where we currently live in Buenos Aires, the suburb of Villa Crespo. Based on various information available on the web, the restaurant is run by three siblings from Colombia, but their food draws on influences from all across South America. The tasting menu included seven courses as well as snacks, breadbasket and coffee and we choose to go with the wine pairing for this evening. More information can be found on their web-page, also featuring a lot of lovely food pictures.
We were the first people to arrive that evening. So German, haha! But then, the Argentinian people like to eat late and made their reservation for a later time that evening. Which I liked because we had the whole restaurant for ourselves for a few minutes... The whole atmosphere of this place, the really nice people working there, the open kitchen (would have wished to sit right next to the kitchen in the back of this picture) and lovely decoration made it easy to enjoy the evening. And the food, well... the menu was really well balanced, every course was a super delicious, individual dish in its own and every course met the expectations raised by the previous courses. The wine pairing was also great, and we especially liked that they were all Argentinian wines and no imported ones. Maybe, we will visit this restaurant again before leaving Argentina in some weeks time. Will see, but definitely a recommendation should you be around :)

In the meantime...
1) During this week, I had one of the worst mornings in a long time. Just imagine a morning, where literally everything is going wrong... The day started of with husband and I oversleeping. We were rushing through our morning routine to get out of the house as fast as we can. It was raining heavily and hence, we decided to take the bus instead of walking (no umbrella at hand). While waiting at the bus stand, which was elevated slightly above street level, an emergency vehicle was driving past the bus station at high speed, through a puddle of water which turned out to be one of the biggest right in front of me. I did not expect the splash to be bad at all, because of this elevated bus stand. But it hit me with so much water, I was basically dripping wet. Noooo! After getting out of the bus and on the way to the class room, a kiosk wasn't stocked with cigarettes I felt I really needed being all wet, then my rain coat got caught in a motorbike parked close to the pavement and made me slip badly on the wet surface and if that was not enough yet, the moment I walked through the door of the class room, someone literally slapped the door into my face unintentionally and only missed my nose by a few centimetres. Coffee normally available at the class room was out that day and, because I overslept I did not prepare my homework which I had left for the early morning. Boy, it was not even 9.30 and I was already done with the day.
2) This week, it was six month ago that we left South Africa. And we still miss this country and Johannesburg so much. But I guess, that's a whole different story and for sure deserves its own blog post.
3) Our Spanish is really improving, something that I would have never thought to happen so quickly. We have little day-to-day chats with people we meet in the elevator or at the shopping stores. Or even yesterday with the waiter at the I Latina. So cool to actually see how we are improving! And the whole process of learning this language and how the brain is processing it, is fascinating to me. After a lot of information we were provided with last week and we all understood quickly, there were one or two days at the beginning of this week where we felt like our brains are cramping. Everyone in our class felt like that. I mean this moment, where one is learning something new and the body and/or brain is still in the process of automating it. One knows how things work, in our case some basic grammar rules and words, but during exercises the brain just seems confused of where to find the information, let it be vocabulary or grammar rules. For me, this have been the one or two days where I was constantly using French words I did not even know I would ever remember from school. I have not spoken French for more than 20 years but now and out of the sudden my brain thought it might be a good idea to throw all sorts of French words and expressions at me... Wow.

Our first week in Buenos Aires

[J.] It was a week ago that we arrived in Buenos Aires. And this first week felt like one of the toughest weeks in a long time besides us being all excited about actually being here. We were seriously jet-lagged and started the Spanish course at the same time. Maybe not the best idea, but well... how often do we really know how things are going to work out before we are actually doing them. Our day-night rhythm was seriously messed up although we both tried different strategies to exactly avoid this. The trip from New Zealand to Argentina resulted in about extra 12 hours for one day. Husband thought it might be a good idea to sleep during the flight and so he did. I on the other hand thought, naaah, it will work out better if I stay awake during this flight (and enjoy watching five movies in a row), then really going to be tired on our arrival in Buenos Aires and consequently, I will easily sleep through the first night. And although we both slept relatively well during the first night, the combination of having a jet-lag and starting the Spanish course at the same time was a real killer! Every day when we finished class in the early afternoon, we were dead tired and simply had to take an afternoon nap. We basically were already sleeping while still walking home. During these afternoon naps, we were sleeping so deeply that it was a mission to wake up again in the early evening. It then took maybe another two to three hours until we were fully awake again and not feeling any more as if a truck had been running over us. Which then resulted in us being awake for most of the upcoming night, clearly not ideal. And of course, in the early morning when it was time to get up and attending the Spanish class, we were super tired after only managing to fall asleep again around 4am in the morning... Uuurgh. We felt like being stuck in a bad circadian rhythm.
And learning a new language is a lot of fun, but soooooo exhausting! I simply was not used any more to concentrate for four hours in a row, something I was absolutely used to while working. I felt like my brains' threshold of the maximum intake capacity was reached after three hours, which just added to the feeling of being tired. But the Spanish lessons are really good, the class size is between three to five people and the teachers generally only speak Spanish with us. And they make us speak Spanish as well, although still very rudimentary, but that's the whole purpose of us taking this class, right?! No chance to hide in the back of the classroom and hope to get away with trying to be invisible, haha!

Therefore, we were really looking forward to this weekend, to a) having the chance to sleep in on the Saturday and Sunday morning and catching up on some sleep and b) finally starting to explore the city. So far, we have not seen a single thing of Buenos Aires besides the streets around our apartment on the way to the supermarket or to the Spanish class room!

Husband and I during our first exploring trip in Buenos Aires

However, we are feeling so comfortable being in Buenos Aires. I like how the streets and bars and restaurants look like, they are so inviting and the food is great. Husband is having a lot of fun buying cold cuts and fresh ingredients. The kitchen in our apartment is also well equipped, so cooking is a lot of fun. On Wednesday, we had our host Carla and her boyfriend over for dinner. Husband made a typical German dish ("Rinderroulade") and Carla prepared a typical Argentinian dessert. It has been a really nice evening with lovely food, chatting about Buenos Aires, Argentina and general travels, while drinking wine and sipping on Fernet con Coca: The Fernet is bitter and aromatic and while it might not be everyone's favourite straight, it enhances the spice inherent in Coca Cola. Carla told us that the Fernet is actually an alcoholic Italian drink, but for whatever reason, everyone in Argentina loves it. And it is indeed a very nice drink, which I am for sure we have not had for the last time...
Last night, we went eating out for dinner for the first time since arriving here. Finding a restaurant that opens before 8pm is not the easiest thing to do; Argentinian people like to have dinner very late compared to what we are used to! We went to a restaurant around the corner and really like its atmosphere with all the wine bottles stacked up along the shelves on the walls. And it was fairly crowded, whole families and various friends coming together for dinner; something, that Carla also confirmed when she described Argentinian people: social and warm-hearted with a love for food. We took a photograph of the restaurants' menu earlier that day and headed home translating all the dishes so that we would have an idea of what to order. Argentinians love "Parrilla" (pronounced "parischa") which is similar to the barbecue for Germans or the braai for South Africans. Husband tried a typical local dish made of pork intestines, which had a quite a specific taste to it, a little bit like liver. New culture, new tastes! I also cannot wait to try the Mate tea, which is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused drink, particularly in Argentina. When I was looking up more information about it on the web and how to prepare and drink it, I found out that Mate tea is defined by law as the "national infusion" in Argentina... Seriously, you have to love this country :)

In the meantime...
1) I am experimenting with natural cosmetics. This is something I wanted to do for quite some time now. So, for the last two days, I was cleansing my face in the evening with a mixture of honey, milk and curd (which I could not really find around so far, so substituted it with a light fresh cheese cream). The nice thing is, that it cleanses and nourishes the skin at the same time. It felt so weird putting this mixture onto my face for the first time! - I was joking around the whole time of how Cleopatra-like I will look after some days... My skin is very dry and normally I struggle with cleansing products commercially available because I always have to apply a rich cream afterwards for my skin not feeling like being two sizes too small. And wow... with this milk-honey mixture, my skin felt really nice this morning, and even husband was saying that my skin does look so smooth! Maybe, he was just trying to be charming and maybe, it has also a lot to do with the extra hours of sleep I got over the last two days, but told you: Cleopatra-like. :)
2) I am very keen to get my grasp on yoga. All people I have met over the years that are doing yoga are people I really like. No exception. So, yoga must be something that I for sure will enjoy a lot?! I was looking up yoga classes offered here in Buenos Aires and found a nice looking studio that is doing the courses in English (not sure I would master Spanish classes yet). So, that is something I am looking forward to do while we are staying in this city. Actually, this city feels like I want to stay here for much longer than only the four weeks in total we have planned for so far....
3) It is raining the whole weekend! So much for our plans to get out and about this city!!! Bleeh... Double-bleeeeeeh!!! But around three o'clock in the afternoon today, we managed to sneak out and hop onto a tourist bus taking us around the city. And the city is huge! The tour provided us with a first good overview and orientation of the city... Oh, I so like it!

Arriving in Buenos Aires

[J.] Finally, we start relaxing in an absolutely lovely little apartment very close to the suburb Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And what kind of a 36 hour day was it to make the trip from New Zealand to this big city. We are both sitting now, tired and exhausted, in front of our computers. Husband is playing an online action role playing game and I am trying to summarize this day into a blog post while constantly sipping on a glass of whiskey which we bought at the duty free at our departure. Buying whiskey really seems to be our preferred way of spending the last cash amounts left when leaving a country. And I would say, that it is well spent money and such a good treat for ourselves when finally arriving at a new destination - being all smiles.

The day started very relaxed, packing up in Christchurch where we spent the last two nights in New Zealand. We could check out a bit later than the usual 10am time and arrived at the airport in the afternoon, dropping off the rented car when the guy from the check-in counter explained to us that we were risking being denied entry in Argentina without having proof of a return or onward flight, which well... we had not. We both looked at each other, checked all our Argentina visa and entry requirement information we had at that time again to make sure we have not had overlooked something. But we were left with shrugging our shoulders as no information we had was pointing at such an entry requirement. Luckily, we were checked through without providing such a proof of a return or onward destination. While waiting for the boarding procedure, I checked the web for further information in this regard and indeed, there are web-pages pointing out that apparently some airlines require their passengers to show such proof. But it seemed that it is rather an airline requirement instead of being an Argentinian entry requirement as the costs of returning tourists who are denied entry to Argentina are left with those airlines who checked them through. And indeed, on our arrival in Argentina, the officials did not even asked for such a proof of next destination and we were granted a 90 days tourist visa. Puuuuh, we felt like the first hurdle was taken! And a 90 days visa!! Oh, this country is going to see us around for some time!!

The 12 hour flight itself was a very bumpy ride; one that I have never experienced to such an extend before. Every now and then, the turbulences were quite intense and the air-plane was shaking a lot; or, at least it felt like that! However, all was good in the end; only husband left the plane with my finger prints on his legs. I did not even noticed I was clinging onto him to such an extent! Haha...

When we arrived at our AirBnB accommodation for the next four weeks, we were welcomed by our host and had a really nice chat with her. And it turned out that she is an actuary too!! How small is this world :)
We quickly did some grocery shopping, organised some dinner around the corner and figured  that speaking English might be helpful in this country, but certainly cannot be relied on. This will give our Spanish knowledge some proper improvement opportunities over the next weeks!
By the time of heading home for a late dinner, we were already awake for more then 36hours with only some random naps in between and thought of a really relaxed evening that was lying ahead of us. Well... don't count your chickens before they are hatched! Plugging in an adapter to recharge our devices caused a proper power circuit and suddenly, we were sitting in the dark. Wooooah! Finding the power board was easy, but turning all power switches into the upper position did not change anything and darkness was still surrounding us. No internet and no phone roaming connection... absolutely great situation being all dead tired at 10pm in a foreign city. Doooooh!
With a lot of luck, gained roaming access after turning off and on various devices and a really quickly responding host we found the solution and power came back. What a relief! Sometimes, I really think that angels are with travellers... :)

In the meantime...
1) Getting more and more drunk on whiskey.
2) Knowing that we have to get up early tomorrow morning starting our Spanish course for the next four weeks, four hours every day and homework on top of it, does not seem too appealing. And I am not sure how I am going to cope with this new daily structure. The other day, I almost felt already exhausted by noon just because we made a longer breakfast... But finally being in Argentina does feel so good and I know I am going to love this country. Argentina, buckle up... here we are. :)
3) You have to like a country who's rugby team is called 'Los Pumas'