T.I.A. – Buenos Aires guest blog by Dave & Krissy Lindy (Saturday, 9/21 – Saturday 9/28, 2013)

Tango baby!

The title of this blog is T.I.A., which means: “This Is Argentina”, a saying we picked up that describes the un-describable or is the universal answer for questions about Argentina that have no answers.  For example, why all the napkins in the city are made of wax paper? Why there is so much graffiti in the city, which seems to be accepted by the government.  And why black jack dealers deal their second card after all the hands are played.

Day 1 started off with a bang when after an overnight flight (we slept the entire night, luckily) we cabbed to the Diamonds penthouse apt on the 18^th floor of the Recoletta (upscale, shocker) neighborhood and celebrated our arrival with a home cooked Pud breakfast w/ mimosas.  We cant decide who was more excited to see us…Linda – to have someone to speak English to other than Greg.  Or Greg – to have someone for Linda to speak to other than himself.   They had a two day start on us in BA, so we were quickly bought up to speed and learned that English is not a second language in Argentina.  Thus, I had to dust off the four years of high school Spanish.  After I mistakenly locked all of our valuables and passports in our safe without setting a code to open it back up, we set off to the “Alamo”, a local American owned bar (Thanks to Little Buddy’s friend Ed for hooking us up) to change our US cash for Argentinian Pesos on the black market.    They were expecting us at the old Alamo, so of course we had to be social and order drinks.  2 hours later after becoming BFF’s with Sabrina, the manager/bartender/owner’s girl friend from the Dominican Republic, we were set with recommendations for restaurants, tours, day trips and night clubs.  She became our personal BA travel consultant.  We then changed our money at the rate of 9.25 AR Pesos to $1 US as compared to the bank rate of 5.5 to 1 (nearly twice the amount!)  We then set off to hit the city and start checking things off our newly planned “things to do in BA” list…

Although the first 3 days were filled with a ton of fun, great food and great company, we had yet to take a tour of the city or see any sights.  (This is what happens when the Lindys and Diamonds are reunited, stay out until 5am and sleep all day) I should mention, however, that we did take a bus trip to a true Argentinian soccer game to see the Boca Jrs, who are BA’s home team.   The game was away at the cross town rival the Argentinos and after almost missing the bus, offering to buy everyone on the bus beers if the driver would stop (he wouldn’t), we learned that the entire neighborhood and inside the stadium, no alcohol was being served because the fans are so passionate/violent.   They don’t even let visiting team’s fans buy tickets or attend the games.  Needless to say, to the surprise and dismay of our guide, we left at halftime for wetter pastures.

Hanging at the Boca Jrs v Argentinos fútbol game!

Here are some of the highlights of our time in BA in no particular order…

•  “Linda is Krissy’s Barbie” – Since Linda only packed lesbianic clothes, Krissy (who packed more for 10 days than Linda did for 8 months) gladly loaned her shoes, pantalones, and all accessories to match

Barbie wearing all of Krissy’s clothes…and even sporting Krissy’s hairdo!!

•  “Red Red Wine” – At our very first dinner, which was one of the nicer steak houses in BA (Argentina is known for their beef), Krissy accidentally knocked over her glass of red wine (Argentina is known for their Malbec grape), which landed all over Greg’s white shirt, which was very funny until I realized that Greg was wearing my shirt (He was my Ken doll)

•  “Excuse me, Pardon me, Pardon me, Excuse me” – After a very loud and obnoxious dinner at the steak house, we jumped in a cab looking for the Crobar (nightclub) – the cab driver dropped us off at the address we gave him, but we couldn’t find the club.  Just as we were about to give up and Pud was flagging a cab, I said “wait, I feel something inside me” Sure enough, I followed the beat to a tunnel which was the entrance and had no less than 1000 people in line.  In typical American style, we bum-rushed to the front with Krissy leading the way.   She found a bouncer and started declaring “Estados Unidos, Unidos Estados” which got us right to the front and into a club of 5,000 dancing Argentines (funny note, 95% of the music is from US)

Club Crobar!

•  “And the beat goes on” – We learned that every Monday there is a tradition called “La Bomba de Tiempo” which is basically a band of no less than 20 percussion players who improvise on a stage at a cultural center.  Think Grateful Dead meet Harry Krishnas.  We rolled up and bought beers on the street, but we couldn’t take them inside.  We went inside and bought beers, but we couldn’t take them into the room with the stage…why?  T.I.A.

•  “Day 4, still no tour!!”  After 3 days and nights of soaking up the Argentine nightlife and talking about what we should do during our stay, we finally agreed to take a bus tour of the city.   When we got to the ticket booth, we were told it was sold out!  There is an upside…Our fearless leader (and now world traveler), Greg suggested we stop in a hotel to see if we had any other options.  We ended up on a semi private 3 hour bus tour of the entire city.

• “I see dead people” – One of BA’s most popular attractions is a cemetery in the middle of the city.  Here, the Argentine’s upper class are buried in very elaborate mauselium type buildings which can house as many as 20 family members.  These mini townhomes of death are passed on from generation to generation and are sellable…so, if a family is in need of money, they can sell the real estate and have their dead family members moved to a less desirable cemetery and pocket the cash.  Evita Perone is buried here in her families plot, but it took her many years (and countries) to get there (google it)  Quote from Greg, “I cant believe they would build these things to spend the rest of their lives in” to which I replied, “Dude, they’re dead.”

Cemetaria de la Recoleta, Buenos Aires

• “Day Tripper” – Finally, after many discussions about where to go outside BA, we agreed to visit “Tigre”, which is BA’s version of Annapolis.  An hour and a half train ride out of the city took us to an interesting working port-side city with shopping, restaurants, a casino and an amusement park.  This is where the Argentines weekend.  We took a boat tour around the “Delta” (thousands of square miles) which are waterways containing all homes that are only reachable by boat.  We learned that they use sanitized river water to bathe and do laundry, but they have to ship in bottled water to drink and cook with.  Some of these were nice, but most of them were run down and falling apart – why don’t they take care of these homes?  T.I.A.  – Upon using the boat’s bathroom, we learned that all deposits made are returned to the river, thus probably contributing to the reason why they can’t drink or cook with it.

House on the Tigre

•  “No Sleep till Brooklyn” – Argentines have their version of the siesta which is a nap between lunch and dinner….Greg and I have our version of the siesta which was a nap during or after dinner and at most bars and restaurants we went to.

Siesta tiempo!

Although we had our “American moments”, we feel like we represented the USA in a positive light, spreading humor, friendliness and lots of money throughout the city.  We made friends, we laughed, we cried, we learned and lived and most important – we loved!  Thank you Greg and Linda for hosting us during an epic adventura!

“No fiesta grande in este taxi, no tengo zapatos y no tengo pantalones!” –  Dave Lindy

MORE PHOTOS: – Buenos Aires