January 10, 2010 In an incredibly luxurious boutique hotel called La Sireneuse. Very romantic. On Tuesday hiked for seven hours on glacier Perito Moreno. On Wednesday hiked seven hours in El Chalten. On Thursday hiked ten hours in El Chalten, including a difficult trek up to the base of Cerro Fitz Roy to see the Laguna de Los Tres Madres, a glacier fed lake. Blustery, rainy conditions, very challenging. It made getting to the lake feel special. When we finally got there, windblown and chilled to the bone, Courtney and I huddled behind a rock and ate our cheese and lettuce sandwiches, washed down with some of the clearest water I've ever had, fresh from the glacial lake.
Friday we traveled to Bariloche, and yesterday we walked around the area where we're staying. Fabulous meals here in Bariloche, great wine. This is the romantic part of the honeymoon. Fluffy robes and puffy duvets. Champagne, cherries, and a jacuzzi. How nice it is to be pampered.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
To El Calafate
January 4, 2010 Travel day to El Calafate, in preparation for our big trek on the glacier tomorrow. Sitting in a cafe, writing this. Courtney across from me reading. I have a new hat. Glacier, here we come!
Chocolate eclairs and kosher steak
January 3, 2010 Went to the San Telmo fair and the Malbec museum. More ice cream, more kosher meat. We have meat coming out of our nostrils. I've eaten steak for the first time in years, and I think I can last a few years more now. Unintentional aversion therapy. When I was a kid, I would beg my mother for chocolate eclairs, and finally, so sick of my constant demands, she got me a bakers dozen and told me to have as many as I want. I ate all of them, and felt so ill I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Haven't had a chocolate eclair since.
Went to a great local restaurant. We were too late to sit down, but ordered empañadas to go, and then ate them on the street, in the rain. Soooo good. Our best food experience so far.
Went to a great local restaurant. We were too late to sit down, but ordered empañadas to go, and then ate them on the street, in the rain. Soooo good. Our best food experience so far.
Meat and milongas
January 2, 2010 Had an uneventful Shabbat day. Went to an uncharacteristically unfriendly Chabad for services, then napped and wandered around the neighborhood we were staying in, Palermo Soho. An interesting neighborhood, trying hard to live up to its namesake. There's even a restaurant called Mott. It's a convincing facsimile, though it felt a little silly for us to be there, since the real thing is just a subway ride away.
That evening we finally satisfied Courtney's craving for a good steak. Went to El Gallope, a kosher parillo, or steak-joint, recommended by a friend back in New York. It's a no-frills place - you order a steak, you get a steak, and nothing else. But man, what a steak. And a very good kosher wine: Tariag. For a full cup of mitzvahs. No kidding. But the malbec was excellent.
Jones satisfied, we then went in search of Tango. We wanted to avoid the glitzy shows with tourists bussed in and out, and instead found a local Milonga, or dance hall, to attend. We got there at one in the morning, and the floor was packed, with lots of talented dancers. There was a good mix of couples dancing exclusively with each other and singles asking each other to dance. Fun to watch the dynamics -- how the men asked the women to dance, how people approached each other, seeing chemistry fail or succeed. The dancers were wonderful, ranging in age from early twenties to late seventies and beyond. A beautiful thing to do on a honeymoon.
That evening we finally satisfied Courtney's craving for a good steak. Went to El Gallope, a kosher parillo, or steak-joint, recommended by a friend back in New York. It's a no-frills place - you order a steak, you get a steak, and nothing else. But man, what a steak. And a very good kosher wine: Tariag. For a full cup of mitzvahs. No kidding. But the malbec was excellent.
Jones satisfied, we then went in search of Tango. We wanted to avoid the glitzy shows with tourists bussed in and out, and instead found a local Milonga, or dance hall, to attend. We got there at one in the morning, and the floor was packed, with lots of talented dancers. There was a good mix of couples dancing exclusively with each other and singles asking each other to dance. Fun to watch the dynamics -- how the men asked the women to dance, how people approached each other, seeing chemistry fail or succeed. The dancers were wonderful, ranging in age from early twenties to late seventies and beyond. A beautiful thing to do on a honeymoon.
Ministry of special cases
January 1, 2010 - Went to the Recoletta Cemetery and stumbled upon a good tour guide giving a walking tour of the area, which we happily joined. His English was excellent and the tour well organized and thought through. He would talk about the dirty war and then share his own stories of witnessing kidnappings as they happened. Reminded me of talking with Cambodians about the rule of the Khmer Rouge, which happened around the same time. The scale of the murder in Argentina wasn't as large, but for those touched by it, the wounds are as fresh.
Takeaways from the walking tour: Argentinian politicians are crooks, only a fool keeps their savings in an Argentinian bank, and the country's recent history is alternately a tragedy and a farce.
Courtney talks a lot about Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases, which she finished reading just before we came to the country. It's about a Jewish family during the Dirty War, and lots of the book's period details keep popping up on our tours here. For example, mothers and their murdered children, the significance of cemeteries, and nose jobs. Nose jobs are important in the book, and to hear people tell it, plastic surgery is quite common still today.
Ate more ice cream. Freddos, a small chain of ice cream places that has since been superseded by Persiccos and Una Altra Volta as the it places for a good scoop. But the original isn't fading away, and the one we went to outside of the Recoletta cemetary had a 15 minute line.
Afterwards, went in search of some restaurants that had been recommended. Note to self: things close on New Year's day, especially in Buenos Aires. I felt like we were in some dystopian last-person-on-earth film, walking around that city. Not a soul to be seen for blocks on end.
Went to shul Friday night at Bet Hillel, the congregation where a specific style of musical, celebratory services in the Conservative movement got started. If you go on Friday night to B'nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, which unitl recently had an Argentinian head rabbi, you will see a very similar service. Nice service, though both of us fell asleep during the sermon -- Spanish is a very soothing sounding language when you can't really follow what's being said. As we left, we encountered another American couple, from the bay area, who, as we talked with them, revealed that they were also on their honeymoon, and had gotten married the same day as we did.
We hung out with them all evening, a very serendipitous meeting, and a nice start to Shabbat.
Takeaways from the walking tour: Argentinian politicians are crooks, only a fool keeps their savings in an Argentinian bank, and the country's recent history is alternately a tragedy and a farce.
Courtney talks a lot about Nathan Englander's Ministry of Special Cases, which she finished reading just before we came to the country. It's about a Jewish family during the Dirty War, and lots of the book's period details keep popping up on our tours here. For example, mothers and their murdered children, the significance of cemeteries, and nose jobs. Nose jobs are important in the book, and to hear people tell it, plastic surgery is quite common still today.
Ate more ice cream. Freddos, a small chain of ice cream places that has since been superseded by Persiccos and Una Altra Volta as the it places for a good scoop. But the original isn't fading away, and the one we went to outside of the Recoletta cemetary had a 15 minute line.
Afterwards, went in search of some restaurants that had been recommended. Note to self: things close on New Year's day, especially in Buenos Aires. I felt like we were in some dystopian last-person-on-earth film, walking around that city. Not a soul to be seen for blocks on end.
Went to shul Friday night at Bet Hillel, the congregation where a specific style of musical, celebratory services in the Conservative movement got started. If you go on Friday night to B'nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side, which unitl recently had an Argentinian head rabbi, you will see a very similar service. Nice service, though both of us fell asleep during the sermon -- Spanish is a very soothing sounding language when you can't really follow what's being said. As we left, we encountered another American couple, from the bay area, who, as we talked with them, revealed that they were also on their honeymoon, and had gotten married the same day as we did.
We hung out with them all evening, a very serendipitous meeting, and a nice start to Shabbat.
New Year's eve in Buenos Aires
My most vivid image from our first day in Argentina, which happened to coincide with the last day of 2009, was of calendar pages. At around 4 pm on New Years Eve, Courtney and I were walking through Buenos Aires' famous Plaza del Mayo, where Evita and Juan Peron would whip crowds of supporters into a frenzy. As we wandered the neighborhood, the streets were abandoned, and papers were littered everywhere, as if we'd just missed a ticker tape parade. It wasn't until Courtney looked closer that we saw most of the papers were calendar pages, small and thin, the kind you might find in a cheap desk calendar.
We had come to the plaza to see the vigil of the Mothers of the Disappeared, a group of women whose children are among the 30,000 people kidnapped, tortured and killed during Argentina's "Dirty War" in the late 1970s. Since 1977, they have come to the plaza every Thursday at 3:30 p.m., initially to march in protest, and recently to hold a silent vigil in rememberance. We got there late, too late for the vigil, but we did see the mothers schmoozing and hugging their supporters. Courtney commented that it felt like we were crashing a family get together.
Later, we walked behind the Pink House, where the president holds office, to the river behind it, and wandered down to the Punta de la Mujere, a Calatravi designed (and donated) pedestrian bridge that is supposed to suggest the gestures of the tango, but made me think of the sails of a boat. The structure is so graceful and thin, it seems like it might catch the wind and start floating down the river alongside the boats.
It was on the shore of the river that Courtney and I had our first encounter with one of the most important attractions in Buenos Aires: the helado, or ice cream. With all the people who had recommended it to us, we had decided (without actually discussing the matter, because some decisions are so obvious they make themselves) that our honeymoon would double as an ice cream tour. In our four days in Buenos Aires we were destined to have helado at least once a day, if not twice, and always at a different store. The verdict (so far): Freddo's Tramontana beats all comers, but Persicco's powerful mint chocolate chip/coffe double scoop comes in a close second.
To celebrate the new year, we ate more ice cream, then took the recommendation of our concierge and went to a restaurant that turned out to be pretty mediocre. But we sat next to a couple of porteños (natives of Buenos Aires) who made the evening more interesting. The man, in his twenties, was short and thickly muscled, with slicked back hair and a tight shirt unbuttoned to his sternum. Across from him was a woman old enough to be his mother. Actually, we found out, it was his mother, and he turned out to be a sweet, gentle soul. As Courtney pointed out, there's definitely an Argentinian machismo and ego to his style, but there's also a family-oriented welcoming instinct that he embodied as well. When new year came, everybody got up and started dancing, and this guy went to every individual in the restaurant and kissed him or her on the cheek. He's fairly upper class (he works in his father's shippings business and speaks French, Russian, English, Spanish,German, and Portugese), but still seemed representative of this odd combination of egotism and friendliness that runs through Argentinian society.
Afterwards, Courtney and I went on the roof deck and danced into the morning to music and fireworks.
We had come to the plaza to see the vigil of the Mothers of the Disappeared, a group of women whose children are among the 30,000 people kidnapped, tortured and killed during Argentina's "Dirty War" in the late 1970s. Since 1977, they have come to the plaza every Thursday at 3:30 p.m., initially to march in protest, and recently to hold a silent vigil in rememberance. We got there late, too late for the vigil, but we did see the mothers schmoozing and hugging their supporters. Courtney commented that it felt like we were crashing a family get together.
Later, we walked behind the Pink House, where the president holds office, to the river behind it, and wandered down to the Punta de la Mujere, a Calatravi designed (and donated) pedestrian bridge that is supposed to suggest the gestures of the tango, but made me think of the sails of a boat. The structure is so graceful and thin, it seems like it might catch the wind and start floating down the river alongside the boats.
It was on the shore of the river that Courtney and I had our first encounter with one of the most important attractions in Buenos Aires: the helado, or ice cream. With all the people who had recommended it to us, we had decided (without actually discussing the matter, because some decisions are so obvious they make themselves) that our honeymoon would double as an ice cream tour. In our four days in Buenos Aires we were destined to have helado at least once a day, if not twice, and always at a different store. The verdict (so far): Freddo's Tramontana beats all comers, but Persicco's powerful mint chocolate chip/coffe double scoop comes in a close second.
To celebrate the new year, we ate more ice cream, then took the recommendation of our concierge and went to a restaurant that turned out to be pretty mediocre. But we sat next to a couple of porteños (natives of Buenos Aires) who made the evening more interesting. The man, in his twenties, was short and thickly muscled, with slicked back hair and a tight shirt unbuttoned to his sternum. Across from him was a woman old enough to be his mother. Actually, we found out, it was his mother, and he turned out to be a sweet, gentle soul. As Courtney pointed out, there's definitely an Argentinian machismo and ego to his style, but there's also a family-oriented welcoming instinct that he embodied as well. When new year came, everybody got up and started dancing, and this guy went to every individual in the restaurant and kissed him or her on the cheek. He's fairly upper class (he works in his father's shippings business and speaks French, Russian, English, Spanish,German, and Portugese), but still seemed representative of this odd combination of egotism and friendliness that runs through Argentinian society.
Afterwards, Courtney and I went on the roof deck and danced into the morning to music and fireworks.
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