Sunday 30 September 2007
A portrait of my maternal grandparents at our family picnic today, where there was lots of food, bocce ball, and relatives known and unknown.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Dewey morning
Saturday 29 September 2007
I was up before everyone else this morning, so I decided to go outside and explore a bit. I found this little bug bathing in the dew.
Funny, I came home and had less than one day there before setting off again - we are in New York right now, at my grandparents' house, for a family reunion on my mother's side. I get to see everyone on her side this time around, which will be nice!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Home at last!
Friday 28 September 2007
Home again - my parents' backyard. I love this lake, and have spent countless hours swimming and canoeing in it, sitting next to it, watching it change.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
CN Tower
Thursday 27 September 2007
Ryan and I flew into Toronto because it was much much cheaper, but of course this meant getting ourselves from Toronto to Detroit. A bus, a train, and two cars later we got there. But first, a few hours wait in Toronto itself, where we took advantage of the chance to stretch our legs and walked around downtown a bit. Here's the CN Tower reflected in a building down the street.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Aerial Andes
Wednesday 26 September 2007
We're finally going home to visit my parents (!) and on the way, we stopped in Santiago, Chile. This meant flying over the Andes, and just as the sun was lowering in the sky. It may still be from the window of a plane, but what a view, huh?
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Not quite our last steak
Tuesday 25 September 2007
Okay, so it isn't really our last day in BsAs, as we'll be back briefly at the end of October, for the whole month of January, and briefly again in May, but it was our last night of living in Buenos Aires, and we figured we'd go out for a steak. So, here it is, our not-quite-last-Argentine steak.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Telephone
Monday 24 September 2007
Public telephones often look like this, and they always do on the corner of Callao and Cordoba. A common way of advertising down here, I suppose. I'll let you guess what most of the ads are for . . .
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
San Expedito, high-tech
Friday 21 September 2007
Happy Spring Everyone! Today is the first day of spring down here, as well as Student's day - a gorgeous spring day it is, too. Anyway, standing at the bus stop near my house I looked up at the fancy castle top on the church next door, and noticed this satellite dish. A dish just for catching more religious channels, I'm sure . . .
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Eat your fruits and veggies!
Thursday 20 September 2007
At a veggie stand. Have I mentioned that I like taking pictures of fruits and veggies?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Dog in a Window
Wednesday 19 September 2007
Yep, the title pretty much sums it up. It's a dog in a window. On a sunny day. In San Telmo.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Barolo Staircase
Tuesday 18 September 2007
A staircase in the Palacio Barolo, where I attend Spanish classes. It's such an elegant old building.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Superpancho!
Monday 17 September 2007
Argentines love their panchos, or hot dogs, but a place up here in Tucumán has taken it a step further. You go in, pay for a six-inch or a foot-long, and then go over to the toppings area, where there are probably 30 different hot dog toppings! They have everything -- eggplant, chickpeas, pesto, spicy sauces, beets, carrots, hummus, applesauce, dozens more. It was amazing, easily the best hot dog I've ever had. The only trouble is, I was so interested in trying everything that I piled on waaaaay too much, making it both difficult to eat, and difficult to actually taste any of the individual flavors. My friend Layne suggested that watching people build their hot dogs would be a good personality analysis. Well, here's Ryan enjoying his foot-long, with the topics divided into different segments -- can you tell he's an engineer?
Argentines love their panchos, or hot dogs, but a place up here in Tucumán has taken it a step further. You go in, pay for a six-inch or a foot-long, and then go over to the toppings area, where there are probably 30 different hot dog toppings! They have everything -- eggplant, chickpeas, pesto, spicy sauces, beets, carrots, hummus, applesauce, dozens more. It was amazing, easily the best hot dog I've ever had. The only trouble is, I was so interested in trying everything that I piled on waaaaay too much, making it both difficult to eat, and difficult to actually taste any of the individual flavors. My friend Layne suggested that watching people build their hot dogs would be a good personality analysis. Well, here's Ryan enjoying his foot-long, with the topics divided into different segments -- can you tell he's an engineer?
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Empanada Festival
Sunday 16 September 2007
Okay, so I've mentioned that Ryan and I came up here to Tucumán for the food. More specifically, we came for the empanada festival held annually in a small town called Famaillá. We actually went out to the festival Friday night, which was mostly a peña, or folk music concert, and had a few empanadas then. But the main attraction, the empanada-making contest, is today.
Here's how it works: women (or men, but mostly women) from Famaillá are sponsored by groups called ranchos. On the day of the contest, they bring their own ingredients (only traditional ingredients allowed, too, no adding anything new. In Tucumán, this means meat cut by hand, onions, green onions, hard-boiled eggs, cumin, chili pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper) and make empanadas from scratch as the judges watch. They bake them in igloo-shaped mud ovens, and the judges taste them. They choose the best empanada, and the woman who made it is the empanada queen. She doesn't get a prize, but is recognized as making the best empanadas in town, and her business is pretty much set for the year.
We came up to the place just as they were starting, and within about two minutes they had asked Layne and I to be judges!!!!! I was a judge at the Concurso Nacional de Emapandas!!!!!! (I guess that they like having people from outside of town, who don't know the contestants, to judge whenever they can.) It was an amazing experience, and I learned a lot about what makes a good empanada!
Turns out the whole thing was pretty corrupt, though. One of the judges owns the rancho that sponsored the winner, and was in fact the one who taught her how to make empanadas. But, in all fairness, the woman who won did make some pretty delicious empanadas!
This is a picture of the pile of empanadas left over at our table after the judging. (After all, there were twelve contestants, we could only eat one bite of each, or we'd be full by the time we were half-way done!)
Okay, so I've mentioned that Ryan and I came up here to Tucumán for the food. More specifically, we came for the empanada festival held annually in a small town called Famaillá. We actually went out to the festival Friday night, which was mostly a peña, or folk music concert, and had a few empanadas then. But the main attraction, the empanada-making contest, is today.
Here's how it works: women (or men, but mostly women) from Famaillá are sponsored by groups called ranchos. On the day of the contest, they bring their own ingredients (only traditional ingredients allowed, too, no adding anything new. In Tucumán, this means meat cut by hand, onions, green onions, hard-boiled eggs, cumin, chili pepper, paprika, salt, and pepper) and make empanadas from scratch as the judges watch. They bake them in igloo-shaped mud ovens, and the judges taste them. They choose the best empanada, and the woman who made it is the empanada queen. She doesn't get a prize, but is recognized as making the best empanadas in town, and her business is pretty much set for the year.
We came up to the place just as they were starting, and within about two minutes they had asked Layne and I to be judges!!!!! I was a judge at the Concurso Nacional de Emapandas!!!!!! (I guess that they like having people from outside of town, who don't know the contestants, to judge whenever they can.) It was an amazing experience, and I learned a lot about what makes a good empanada!
Turns out the whole thing was pretty corrupt, though. One of the judges owns the rancho that sponsored the winner, and was in fact the one who taught her how to make empanadas. But, in all fairness, the woman who won did make some pretty delicious empanadas!
This is a picture of the pile of empanadas left over at our table after the judging. (After all, there were twelve contestants, we could only eat one bite of each, or we'd be full by the time we were half-way done!)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Pablo and the puma
Saturday 15 September 2007
Today we went out to the Reserva Experimental Horco Molle, a nature reserve just outside the city that takes care of orphaned animals and tries to release as many as possible back into the wild. This is Pablo, our very informative guide, with one of their two pumas (the friendly one, as you can see).
It was a fun trip, but what was really neat for me was being able to ask any question I wanted, being able to talk to the people who worked there, being able to speak the local language. We were always able to communicate the basics in Asia, but an inability to ask questions often frustrated me. On our trip around South America, Ryan and I won't be left wondering what's going on or what that thing is over there or why this or who that. I absolutely can't wait to travel like this, to ask my questions and talk to the people.
Today we went out to the Reserva Experimental Horco Molle, a nature reserve just outside the city that takes care of orphaned animals and tries to release as many as possible back into the wild. This is Pablo, our very informative guide, with one of their two pumas (the friendly one, as you can see).
It was a fun trip, but what was really neat for me was being able to ask any question I wanted, being able to talk to the people who worked there, being able to speak the local language. We were always able to communicate the basics in Asia, but an inability to ask questions often frustrated me. On our trip around South America, Ryan and I won't be left wondering what's going on or what that thing is over there or why this or who that. I absolutely can't wait to travel like this, to ask my questions and talk to the people.
Friday, September 14, 2007
In the market
Friday 14 September 2007
Here are the people with whom I was traveling: (from left) Ryan, Amy, Layne, and Carolynn. We are in the local market in this picture (living in Buenos Aires, I have really missed having a market nearby) where we went for lunch. We came up here for the food, after all, so we ordered a bit of everything and shared it around. We had locro (a hearty stew), empanadas (little meat pies), tamales (meat and dough boiled in corn husks), humitas (corn dough boiled in corn husks, my personal favorite), meat and cheese bombas (meat and cheese in dough, deep-fried), and chorizo (sausage). It was delicious, although green veggies were certainly missing . . .
Thursday, September 13, 2007
¡Tucumán!
Thursday 13 September 2007
After a 16 and a half hour bus ride, Ryan and I arrived in the town of San Miguel de Tucumán, in the northwestern part of Argentina. Spring is coming slowly to Buenos Aires, but is already in full swing up here, as you can see from this picture. (It's strange to travel north and see things get greener and warmer.) Those yellow trees (called lapachin in Spanish) are right at their peak, are everywhere in town, and are absolutely gorgeous!
It felt so nice to get out of noisy busy Buenos Aires, to see a bit more of the country, to finally step out of the unique European bubble that we live in, and get a taste of the rest of the continent. And, of course, this is a part of the country known for its food . . .
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Dragonfly
Wednesday September 12 2007
I found this guy inside my fridge today. Quite dead. It quite confused me - I have not seen a live dragonfly in Buenos Aires, or anywhere in Argentina really, and I find one in my fridge?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Goo
Tuesday 11 September 2007
This is what I came home to today, all over my kitchen floor. Black gunk that had exploded up through a drain in the floor. I found out later that a pipe on the first floor had clogged up, and caused this backup on every floor. Ick. Luckily it didn't smell too bad, but man, it was soooo black! It took forever to clean up (especially with the well-meaning help of my roommate Ricardo). I am exhausted.
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