Don't Cry for Us

I have always wanted to go to Argentina. I don't know exactly why, but I'm sure it has something to do with reading a lot of Borges in college, seeing Evita during the impressionable high school years, and having a slight and inexplicable Argentine accent while speaking Spanish, prompting my farmworker patients to ask me more than once if I were from here. Argentina also happens to be the home of Ben's and my favorite red things: meat and wine. And coincidentally, B.A. has a familiar nickname - Big Apple. Unsurprisingly, we feel very at home here.

As soon as we arrived and walked the many blocks from the airport bus dropoff to our hostel, we were amazed by the grand architecture of BA. As a whole, the city feels more like Paris than any other non-Paris city I've ever been to - every balcony is gorgeous wrought iron, and every corner is graciously curved and ornamented. There are heroic statues at every turn, a magnificent theatre, avenues with 12 lanes in each direction, and lively neighborhoods, each with a distinct character. Buenos Aires feels like an anomoly in South America, in that it's completely modern and European in structure and New World in attitude - it's basically New York on the cheap. I think I could live here.

We started our stay off with a dinner of steak and wine, because that's what you order in Argentina, and were satisfied (though not thrilled) with both - that's what you get at your neighborhood pub, I suppose. However, two nights later, we went for a proper steak dinner at a renowned restaurant across town, and we both had the best steak of our lives. It was absolutely incredible - a filet and a ribeye, sides, wine, dessert, etc... total bill: $35. Have I mentioned that I love Buenos Aires?

It has also been a fortunate turn of events that we chose a hostel in San Telmo, the tango neighborhood that most closely equates to the East Village - slightly scruffy but with a lot of art and character. We have loved walking around San Telmo, which happens to border a marshy ecological reserve with miles of running paths with distances marked - perfect! We've been running just about every day to make up for the steak and wine.

Our first major tourist stop was the Recoleta cemetery. Recoleta is the posh, wealthy area of BA where the upper crust live, and the cemetery is where they are buried. It's a fascinating city of the dead, with mausoleums towering up on either side of the walkways, topped with angels and sayings. It appears that each little "house" belongs to a family, and the caskets are all stored underground, except for the few that we could see through the doors on street level. Plaques are added as people are added, so some families have dozens of names, all laid to rest in the same place. It's an odd tourist attraction, but so interesting to see how dynamic a cemetery can be. Plus, Eva Peron is buried there, in her Duarte family mausoleum, so we had to pay her a visit.

Recoleta also has plenty of shopping, enabling us to spend a leisurely afternoon walking through shops and learning to tango in the street.

The next day we explored the parks and shopping of Palerma, which is the trendy, hip neighborhood. Palermo has a few enormous parks, including a zoo, botanical garden, and a Japanese garden, so we spent the morning paddling around the pond and strolling over the Japanese bridge.

Conveniently, Palermo is also known for shopping, and I have been keeping a keen eye out for Argentina's famous leather goods. We wandered the streets for a few hours, happening on a couple little shops, but nothing impressive. Finally, after the sun went down, I asked a shop girl where all the other shops were, and she handed me a Palermo shopping map! Turns out we had been a few blocks away from the good stuff the whole time, so we scrambled over and crammed a day's worth of (window) shopping into the last hour before closing. Then we had steak to make up for it.

San Telmo, our neighborhood, is known as the birthplace of tango, and there are still dozens of tango-related activities throughout the streets. We've seen one couple perform during dinner, and have listened to live music just about every night, including one tango-themed concert.

It's an absolutely amazing dance, so graceful and strong, and I am dying to take a lesson! Ben's next post will tell you whether or not I was successful in dragging him into one.

We still have a few more days in Argentina before moving on, but I already know this will not be my last visit here. Even as we turn for home, we are still very much in the moment and enjoying our last few adventures!

Chile today, hot tamale!

We're back on the road again and are already drawing to the end of our time in Chile - the first of our South American stops. The flight from Auckland to Santiago was the longest we plan to take on this trip and despite the best efforts of LAN Chile (which may well have snuck the bamrtw favourite airline award away from BA), too many movies and glasses of red wine meant we arrived with our first serious case of jet lag. We found our hostel without too much difficulty but resigned ourselves to a very steady first afternoon which was just as well as the rest of the city seemed to have gone home in preparation for the upcoming independence day celebrations. Santiago is reputed to be one of the easiest Latin cities for travellers to get to grips with but when we eventually dragged ourselves up for a walk-around we decided that was travel-book speak for being a bit underwhelming. Our hostel was a beautiful converted villa and there were some other interesting buildings in our neighbourhood but much of the center could easily be any rundown US or UK city with its pedestrianized shopping precinct lined with McDonalds, banks and department stores. This hilly park was one of the most interesting features though the bland concrete tower blocks in the views are much more typical of the city at street level:

We slept in again the next day awaking at almost the exact time the rest of the city officially shut down for the holiday and only a few hours before we were due to attend a barbecue laid on by our hostel. We strolled the empty streets again and this time were rewarded with our first view of the astonishing Andes which surround the city but are generally obscured by the smog. We got a complete view a few days later from a bus but in some ways they seemed even more ethereal this time when completely divorced from the city scape below:

After the Andes and the tens of thousands of stray dogs the most notable thing about Santiago is the private bus system which runs gleaming modern coaches throughout the country incredibly frequently and reliably. The next day we spent $6 and 2 hours traveling to the port town of Valparaiso - Chile's 'cultural capital'. Arriving in the evening to yet more underlit, empty streets our first impressions were not very favourable. Our host assured us that there was a big fiesta at the other end of town but as we trekked in the direction she'd indicated we couldn't help but notice that most of the shops looked more locked-down than closed and that every surface was covered in graffiti. After almost an hour we finally began to hear the distant thump of traditional music and a short while later found ourselves looking down with relief on an enormous fun-fair! The main attractions were enclosed dancehalls where huge suited bands tried to outdo each other for customers keen to show off their merengue and salsa moves. For the uncoordinated westerners there were meat sticks, enormous beers and the usual range of impossible sideshows to lose money on:

Thankfully Valpariso by daylight had a much less sketchy atmosphere than the nightime version and the view from any of the hills that form the natual ampitheater on which the city is built was quite beautiful. One of the highlights of our exploration was the poet Pablo Neruda's house 'Floridita'. The building is filled with artifacts from the nobel prize winner's life and does a great job of conveying what an interesting man he must have been.

The graffiti - by day some of it was astonishing:

We started our final day in Valparaiso riding the famous furnicular 'ascensores' - rickety stairlifts for the town's commuters which had been installed when the town was at its economic peak at the start of the century. After a huge slap of chocolate cake as reward for all the stairs we'd just avoided we found a traditional dance performance in one of the town squares and whiled away a peaceful hour before we had to leave for Santiago.

We have friends who have spent months exploring Chile and knew when planning this trip that a brief visit like ours was unlikely to offer anything more than a gentle introduction to South America. Even with such modest expectations however I have to say that Santiago has been far from our favourite stop to date. The people are extremely friendly and the city is surprisingly modern, clean and prosperous though, if anything, it is a less interesting (and more expensive) destination as a result.

Kiwi Mix

This post will be another short one, I'm afraid, as we have still done little more than sleep late, eat 5 meals a day, and stare at the computer, but we've continued to have a wonderful time in NZ despite our thus far unsuccessful search for jobs and an apartment. We did occasionally get out of the house, especially because the weather remained absolutely gorgeous, sunny, and unseasonably warm, perfect for a run through the Botanic Garden, a visit to a couple wineries, or a spin in a vintage Austin Healy.

As luck would have it, such a car lives in the garage, and Simon was kind enough to take me for a ride.

Ben and I also made time to join in a local "Self Transcendence" road race sponsored by the international Sri Chin Moy group. The route was dotted with oddly motivational signs telling us runners that success is achieved only through knowing yourself, or something like that, but they must have worked as Ben took home the prize for the half marathon (with a course record, to boot!) and I ran a respectable 10K. Ben is so far 2-0 in races on this trip, and feeling quite pleased. Too bad we'll just miss the NY Marathon when we get home!

We were fortunate enough to time our trip to coincide with the annual Christ's College Black and White Ball, which was a lovely event in appreciation of the school's board and parents. It was the first time I've ever name dropped my new last name to get an impressed reaction - the benefit of now being related to the headmaster! It's hilarious to me to think about the extremes of our trip - climbing through dirty jungles in Vietnam, attempting to sleep on a dusty, non-air-conditioned bus in India versus sitting at the head table and drinking champagne at a black tie event and gliding through Hong Kong harbor in a privately chartered boat, again sipping champagne. Luckily we're traveling with a versatile wardrobe. I knew those heels would get some use!

Another favorite sight has been the college itself, which Simon took the time to show us around. The beautiful Victorian stone campus buildings are impeccable, and all the boys heading to class in their suits were very well-behaved - impressive!

We did actually get out of Christchurch, once, in order to walk on Fox Glacier, about a 6-hour drive away. My abilities at driving on the left continue to improve, so we made the drive through an incredibly beautiful mountain pass and along the west coast without any problems.

The town of Fox Glacier consists of one bar, two cafes, and glacier-walking guides, but we were able to get a cheap motel room and a decent dinner. Our glacier walk the next morning was beautiful - another sunny day counteracted the chilly glacier breezes and although our actual time on the ice was rather short, the 4-hour hike to get there and back was a lot of fun. The glacier itself was quite impressive, a huge expanse of ice that pours down from a narrow valley into a wider plain and ends at an expanse of rocks and small ponds, left behind as the glacier has receded in recent years. Without the pressure of the ice, the sides of the valley are rather unstable, and we even saw some boulders come crashing down the hillside (a safe distance away!) which apparently happens every day. Once on the ice we were able to trudge around with crampons on our boots and get some beautiful views of blue ice and the valley below.

Sadly, we knew our comfy time with the family would have to come to an end, and we are now in the Auckland airport heading to Chile. Between Jane's amazing cooking and the general spoilage we've received, it actually is quite difficult to get back in the swing of things and haul our luggage around again. We've had such a fabulous time without an ounce of stress - truly a vacation from our vacation. Still, South American has always been #1 on my list of places to visit, and I'm so excited to finally be on our way. It feels like we're on the home stretch, with so many good things behind us, and even more ahead!

Make them eat cake

It's apparently already been a week since Dad's post but as time at 16 Armagh Street is measured on the home baking calendar I can only confirm that it's been a lemon drizzle cake, a slab of raisin cake, a box of butter flapjack, several roast dinners, more bottles of wine than I can count and a Christmas cake (?!) since the last post. While we have both been lapping up the comforts of home (stocked refrigerator!, working plumbing!), we have also been steeling ourselves for our looming return to New York. Unfortunately while the great weather we've enjoyed throughout the trip has followed us across the Tasman as a beautiful early Spring that has meant spending a fair bit of our time deepening our hatred of Macs as we trawl the internet for jobs, apartments and cheap u-haul rentals.

On the days we have changed out of our pjs we have enjoyed exploring the spectacular scenery around Christchurch. The city itself is the biggest in the South Island and sprawls across the pancake flat Canterbury plain - bordered by the Port Hills to the South and an endless stretch of curved beach to the West.

The first time cabin fever forced us out of the house we drove the route of my favourite cycling route up through the Port Hills and all the way to the town of Akaroa. This (comparatively) old settlement is a former French colony and its history is still visible in the architecture and street names of the town center. The real highlight of the trip though is the drive itself - these are just a few of the views:

Littleton Harbour

A cow

Akaroa (4 seasons in 1 day was written about this country)

Our next trip was a carefully negotiated double header - if I agreed to entrust my life to a horse of guaranteed docility for two hours Megan would accompany me for an afternoon mountain bike around the beautiful Bottle Lake Forest Park. Although neither of us will admit it both trips had their charms but the scenery again stole the show:

No pedals

Mum Leese and Megan looking the part

When you turn on a PC in New Zealand this is what you see

Wow

No hay required

We emerged next for a quick jaunt out to the house of some friends of my parents who have redefined "work-life balance" by retiring (or semi-retiring) from legal careers in the US to pursue farming and beekeeping in rural Canterbury! After a delicious lunch we were walking around their fields when our host announced that we were just in time to witness the birth of their first ever baby goats!
"You're kidding!" I said,
"No she's kidding!" she replied:



For our most recent expedition we drove up to Hanmer Springs, finally making it into the foothills of the snowcapped mountains which have seemed to float above the Northern horizon since our arrival. The town markets itself as the South Island's Alpine village but I don't know anywhere in France where you can soak off a hard morning's mountain bike crashing in a 41 degree thermal hot tub: