Wine Country Baby!

Nothing can be wrong with a small town on the foothills of the Andes serving up the worlds best Malbec wine.  Mendoza the city isn’t anything special but the wine tours and inexpensive prices make up for what the city lacks in charm.  Originally started by Italian immigrants that brought their wine growing skills to the region Mendoza Malbec is the new hit of Argentina.  Over 1,000 vineyards with most of the wine being consumed in Argentina since you basically can’t import wine from outside of the country, more on this backwards ass government later.  After a few great days of wine tasting and eating Argentinian BBQ meat (know here as Parilla) in the vineyard’s kitchen, it was time to settle down in Buenos Aires for a few weeks.

Ahhhh…our own apartment where I (I…meaning Linda, but Greg did cook too J) can cook our own food, unpack and chill for a while plus get back to working out regularly.

The Boca area of Buenos Aires

So, what’s up with the rat-tails?  I mean a tiny sliver of hair down the back is the cool style in Buenos Aires, really???  Somehow I think it never left here from the 80’s and the town decided to keep more than just rat-tails from this wonderful era.  Also, roller blades aren’t just a popular sport here; they are also used to deliver food.  The differences in this world are what make it so great, so I’m not hating – just educating. Built from waves of immigrants from Italy, France and Spain, the food tells the tale (pun intended) and so does the attitude.  It appears the people here are stingy with their smiles and come across as a bit smug…but they probably think we Americans look like blissful dorks wearing big wide toothed grins all of the time. Obviously my stereotypical remarks don’t deserve the weight of the paper (or blog) they are written on, but it’s still true :-). A bustling city built for the nightlife…and be sure when you do get up in the morning to not miss your four hour lunchtime coffee at one of the hundred sidewalk cafés. It reminds us of a little baby NYC with rows and rows of buildings with an occasional park breaking up the concrete jungle, but these rows of buildings are 30 stories not 130. Distinct neighborhoods are here…from rich aristocrats, to poor immigrants that hopped off ships at the docks back in the day make up the diversity.  Compact black and yellow taxis litter the street without regard to lanes or anyone walking across the street.  In this town the cars honk and don’t slow down, it is expected that the pedestrian will get out of the way – or BETTER get out of the way if that don’t want to get flattened. Like in NYC, it’s best to not look where your cab is going if you want to make it out without a panic attack.

Tango anyone?

Berries anyone? I love blue, black and raspberries but you won’t find them here. You have no idea what a city of 15m doesn’t have. I can only imagine it’s due to the political stance of protectionism which has made everyday products very difficult for vendors to import.  In Mendoza, aka wine country, the vineyards told us they have trouble getting the glass bottles to make their wine. The US government shut down for a few days is nothing compared to Argentina basically being crippled long-term due to the government’s philosophy. Anything that can be imported is too expensive for 99% of the population. For instance, Levi’s are not just the popular jeans but they don’t even have brands like Guess, Seven, etc. On that note, I (Greg) bought myself a fine pair of 501’s for $116 US dollars, when in Rome…

Forget about finding higher end beers or liquor.  An occasional store will carry Grey Goose but Absolute is about as good as it gets here. What’s this world coming to when a man can’t even make a top tier martini on a lazy Sunday afternoon to watch football or fútbol, yep either version of the game will do. Prescription medications are bought over the counter without a prescription.  I occasionally take an anti-inflammatory for my 70 year old knee.  In the US the medication costs $300, yet I walked into a Pharmacity here is BA without a prescription and no insurance it cost me only $10 USD.  Time to stock up!  Yep we Americans are getting robbed by big pharma, but don’t worry Obamacare will fix it. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

TIA is a term we heard from a restaurant manager we were put in touch with via a friend back in the states (shout out to Lil Buddy).  When things go wrong or just don’t make sense they say T-I-A, which stands for “This Is Argentina”!  Meaning, don’t surprised by anything.

Can’t figure this one out…it’s difficult to eat healthy and we are really trying. For instance not a single salad bar or organic market can be found, but everyone is skinny. Hmmmm…maybe it is due to not having processed foods or minimal fast food joints.  So, maybe every grocery store IS organic and that is the norm, not the exception.  Whatever it is, we need to takes a page out of this chapter of their book!

Language barriers exist even in the biggest of cities.  Don’t underestimate the frustrate n of not being able to successfully communicate. We are really surprised that basically no one speaks English.  If an Argentinian came to the US would they be surprised we don’t speak Spanish since half the world now does?  Probably, since American’s are notorious for being mono-linguistic. Either way, try this on for size – imagine being in a store where you need to buy something but there is nobody to communicate with and you can’t read the labels in the store. A recent trip to the grocery store yielded poor results. Our milk purchase turned out to be cream, our crackers were cookies and we couldn’t find any peanut butter.  Never mind almond, cashew or any other nut you can grind yourself in the grocery stores in the US.  When we order in a restaurant we think we got it right, but for the first week we didn’t get what we expected a single time.  Do we get points for getting close?  Perhaps? We ordered fajitas for two and got back little tiny crepe things that barely were enough for one.  Of course our expectation could just be us expecting enormous US sized portions…again, another reason why you don’t see so much obesity in Argentina.

Linda’s two cents on the grocery store…

Everyone knows I need my Mexican food…refried beans with cheese and salsa is a staple in my house.  I was surprised how hard it was to find anything resembling Mexican food.  Salsa is nowhere to be found (or when it is, it’s only bc the word ‘salsa’ means ‘sauce’…it’s not really salsa like we think…another food purchase mistake).  When Greg found some refried beans he took all two cans off the shelf as soon as he could.  No chili powder, no cumin, no ground turkey for tacos, no taco shells, etc.  I went looking for tortillas so we could make sandwich wraps and I found some…or so I thought.  They turned out to be some thin crepe thing.  They were really good, but not tortillas. It then really hit me how much our Mexican friends have influenced our every day US cuisine.  Thanks Mexico!  I do need to give a big shout out to the Parillas here…the BBQ…no propane gas ever used!  Hot coals, wood chips, etc. make up the REAL BBQ.  Another page we need to take out of this BA book and I will give them our Mexican page.  Oh…and the beer!  The most hilarious booze thing is that beers only come in bumpers…you know, the old school 64oz beer bottles that homeless dudes drink out of brown paper bags.  Yup, that’s the norm.  Ha!

Back to Greg…

“Almost” only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades.  Getting lost, forget about it. We quickly learned to write down where we were going and where we lived, like a child being sent to the bus stop with instructions from Mommy. Frustrating without question but that’s part of life and this trip. We can only fault ourselves, but why do that. We just keep reminding ourselves to turn it into an experience, like when we went to 6 stores to try and recharge a prepaid cell phone. I won’t bore you with the details; in summary it took half a day. Not complaining, just sharing. I will however complain about the three cackling hens in the coffee shop today, openly giggling and staring at us. Shit…all we did was walk in and a counter chick ran up and gestured with the universal “to go” signal. Yes, of course we planned on getting a coffee ‘”to go” like any good westerner – always on the fast train to nowhere.  At least Ozzie Osbourne was on the crazy train, and don’t forget he had a rat tail as well, so once again the 80’s live on. But how did she know that WE were the only ones not prepared to sit and sip a cup of coffee for the next two hours before we even spoke?  The gringo “to go” cup was 8 oz, which was much larger than the in-house cups but 10% of the size of your typical Starbucks triple grande mocha-chino light flapagringo no whip yada yada yada.   I guess we need to start slowing down…really…where is it that we need to rush to?

As mentioned previously, this town is made for the nightlife with dinner being served when most everyone in the US is in bed on a school night. It leads to a change in schedule and formality. Start late (or whenever you feel like it) and end late. Our guide book says being late 30 or 45 minutes is no big deal, I’m laughing as I write because in my high strung days I used to have a self imposed 15 minute late alarm for dinners. At 16 Minutes I would start ordering food with or without my dinner mate. So some balance is probably needed on both ends of this spectrum. Like most big cities (except a few)…a town with great nightlife can be good for a weary traveler because it’s not all about sightseeing it’s more about the vibe and culture.  This was perfect timing since all we have done up to this point is sightsee and some adventure stuff, so it’s nice to fall back into a more “normal” lifestyle of; cooking at home, working out, catching up on paying bills, reading, talking with friends. Yeah that does sound normal doesn’t it?  It’s better than using the word “reality” which in previous blogs you heard us rant about the concept of going back to reality after vacation. Not sure where this blog is going, interesting that when we are running around climbing “stuff” and seeing “things” what to write about comes easy. On that note, chao! –  and for those of you who have already given me a hard time about my email signature saying chao, it’s the correct spelling. Don’t confuse it with the Italian version spelled differently (ciao).   That’s my language lesson for the night; finally I can give someone else a lesson.

Spain and Latin America • Chao – a Spanish language parting phrase for “bye” or “goodbye”

Wait on the end of your seat for the next blog.  We have a surprise guest blogger that will be enlightening your day!

Chao!

PHOTOS: Mendoza

Photos main page to see all photos: All Photos