A new chapter
Posted on November 12, 2010 by carlyjk
So, keeping some of the old and mixing it with a bit of new. Our new neighbourhood reflects this sentiment perfectly.
San Telmo is one of the oldest if not the oldest Barrio of Buenos Aires. The rich used to live here in the colonial style mansions (which have since been made into apartments) until an outbreak of Yellow Fever made them abandon their homes and move to Recoletta to create a shiny new city with lots of reflective surfaces in which to admire themselves in.
This area of San Telmo is brightly coloured with a cliche ‘up and coming’ sign hung round its neck by all of the up to date guide books. We live opposite a great organic cafe, an amazing Armenian restaurant, a sushi place, an ice cream parlour and a nice cheap supermarket. There are fruit and meat stalls in the Mercardo where you can get even cheaper groceries and if you feel like doing your shopping outside there are plenty of street stalls where you can get all kinds of things.
Walking around the broken concrete pavements or chipped tiled sidewalks you often get faint waft of dog crap or a fully blown assault on your nostrils. The men stare at you and blatantly call out, the traffic is relentless, the air is dry and carries the lumps of grit light enough to be whipped from the ground by the random sleuths of wind that try to get up your skirt (especially Erin’s) and the streets towards the end of Peru are crowded. Outside our apartment it is much calmer. The buildings are never too high so you get a good view of the sky. There are less people walking around and there are much less cars driving down the side streets.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
BA Part 2 is on!
Carly wrote a VERY thorough account of the process by which we found our new apartment so here it is:
Ok operation BTBA parts one and two complete
Posted on November 4, 2010 by carlyjk
...I did however manage to find myself an apartment till December 21st and a job that I can start on Tuesday. Great! As Erin and I are now living in San Telmo I am going to have to start speaking more Spanish. Everyone here talks pretty well, especially in Julian’s house. Julian is living with a Brazillian girl called Laura, (law-ra) and the two French girls Iris and Julie. All the people they have over speak fluent Spanish so it looks like I will be listening to a few more CD tracks…thank you Michael
Everyone is really patient and willing to help me so I do try to speak it as much as possible but it is really hard. I think I am going to have to take a couple of lessons to get myself started on the basics. Erin is getting pretty good and it is giving her the chance to practice. I think it will be good for both of our Spanish although I am going to have to be prepared to feel a bit left out sometimes which I always hate! You all know how much I love talking so finding yourself having to be quiet and not being able to make jokes or really laugh at jokes (laughing at other people laughing at jokes is never as fun) is really really hard. Really hard.
So we managed to find ourselves an amazing new apartment. The price was $1300 for three people for one month at first. When we first looked around and tried to negotaite the price we only managed to get it down to $1000 for three of us and that would have meant having to find a third person to share with. It was a bit gutting as the apartment was right by Plaza Dorrego in the nicest part of San Telmo.
We resigned ourselves to the fact we couldn’t afford it so I e-mailed the agency the next day to tell them. Meanwhile Erin and I moved to Julian’s for the night and set about planning on what we were going to do. We got Iris to mark on a map where all the agencies were that we wanted to go to. Margarita (Juan’s sister) called her friend who worked at a student housing agency and I got Julian to look on Craig’s list. The whole of the next day we walked round San Telmo looking at agencies and only managed to find one apartment that we went to go look at with the agent. It was pretty bad. The entrance hall was rough and looked a bit like those stairwells you get at shopping centres. There were dead maggots in the side of the cooker and apart from looking kind of acceptable on the surface there was plenty of hidden crap lying around. Erin actually managed to pull the door handle off trying to get out of the place (not due to panic…although nowI come to think about it, maybe it was). Erin whispers “Carly….er Carly” I look at her and she is looking down at her hand which is holding onto the unattached door handle. Carly; (in my mind) “Please please do not make me live here. I want a clean kitchen and doors that are not falling apart!”
So we went back to Julians feeling a little defeated and got on the computer. I find an e-mail from the first agency that we went to see the too expensive apartment with that says ‘Carly, we can give you a good price for the apartment, please call us.’
So I call them…
They say they can give us the apartment for $900. I say that it is too much for just the two of us. They say ok what about $850. I say that it is too much. We hang up.
They e-mail me back instructing me to call again and that they have an even better price.
I call back…
They say they will give us the apartment for £800. We say that is good but we still can not afford it. We tell them that we will call them back tomorrow evening after we think about it for a while.
After thinking about it for an hour and looking a4t more horrible and horribly expensive places online we decide it would be a better idea to take the apartment now and then find someone to share, as a person seems easier to find than an apartment.
We call back…
Befor we can tell them we want to take the apartment they tell us to call back in twenty minutes because there is someone there looking at the apartment who might take it. I say ok (because I do not belive them as that is exactly what they did to me last time AND what they did to Julian and Iris). I do not call them back.
Half an hour later I have two e-mails telling us the apartment is ours. So I call them back…
The lady tells us we can have the apartment for $750 a month as long as we take it till December 21st. We agree and set off down to the office. (After jumping round Julian’s living room going ‘whoooooo’ a few times). It feels pretty good not to be homeless let me tell you.
After going down to the office to put a deposit down we went back to Julians for a bbq that the people in the flat above were organising. We chilled out on the roof of the apartment meeting some new people (a lovely cute German called Thomas and an American guy called Mark- I think-) along with some others) Eating bbq (Erin ate salad being a veggie) with a lovely Mango dressing that Mark had made. Mark is studying hungarian cooking (or something random like that) at university here so the Mango dressing was pretty special. Especially on the chicken.
I resolve to learn some more Spanish so I can laugh at more jokes.
We got the bus back to Palermo at 2am and packed our stuff to move.
9.00AM set off in Juan’s car with all our stuff to move into the apartment. Eventually after navigating traffic we spend half an hour in the office sorting out money and documents then spend the rest of the day admiring and moving things around, buying some shopping and having a sleep. We are both staying in the same room even though we have two huge ones. It might look a bit strange to other people but after two months of sleeping in the same room it would feel a bit strange to split up now so we are keeping the other room spare. When we have a moving in party I think one of us is going to have to pretend to be sleeping in the next room or we’re going to end up starting rumours.
Ok operation BTBA parts one and two complete
Posted on November 4, 2010 by carlyjk
...I did however manage to find myself an apartment till December 21st and a job that I can start on Tuesday. Great! As Erin and I are now living in San Telmo I am going to have to start speaking more Spanish. Everyone here talks pretty well, especially in Julian’s house. Julian is living with a Brazillian girl called Laura, (law-ra) and the two French girls Iris and Julie. All the people they have over speak fluent Spanish so it looks like I will be listening to a few more CD tracks…thank you Michael
Everyone is really patient and willing to help me so I do try to speak it as much as possible but it is really hard. I think I am going to have to take a couple of lessons to get myself started on the basics. Erin is getting pretty good and it is giving her the chance to practice. I think it will be good for both of our Spanish although I am going to have to be prepared to feel a bit left out sometimes which I always hate! You all know how much I love talking so finding yourself having to be quiet and not being able to make jokes or really laugh at jokes (laughing at other people laughing at jokes is never as fun) is really really hard. Really hard.
So we managed to find ourselves an amazing new apartment. The price was $1300 for three people for one month at first. When we first looked around and tried to negotaite the price we only managed to get it down to $1000 for three of us and that would have meant having to find a third person to share with. It was a bit gutting as the apartment was right by Plaza Dorrego in the nicest part of San Telmo.
We resigned ourselves to the fact we couldn’t afford it so I e-mailed the agency the next day to tell them. Meanwhile Erin and I moved to Julian’s for the night and set about planning on what we were going to do. We got Iris to mark on a map where all the agencies were that we wanted to go to. Margarita (Juan’s sister) called her friend who worked at a student housing agency and I got Julian to look on Craig’s list. The whole of the next day we walked round San Telmo looking at agencies and only managed to find one apartment that we went to go look at with the agent. It was pretty bad. The entrance hall was rough and looked a bit like those stairwells you get at shopping centres. There were dead maggots in the side of the cooker and apart from looking kind of acceptable on the surface there was plenty of hidden crap lying around. Erin actually managed to pull the door handle off trying to get out of the place (not due to panic…although nowI come to think about it, maybe it was). Erin whispers “Carly….er Carly” I look at her and she is looking down at her hand which is holding onto the unattached door handle. Carly; (in my mind) “Please please do not make me live here. I want a clean kitchen and doors that are not falling apart!”
So we went back to Julians feeling a little defeated and got on the computer. I find an e-mail from the first agency that we went to see the too expensive apartment with that says ‘Carly, we can give you a good price for the apartment, please call us.’
So I call them…
They say they can give us the apartment for $900. I say that it is too much for just the two of us. They say ok what about $850. I say that it is too much. We hang up.
They e-mail me back instructing me to call again and that they have an even better price.
I call back…
They say they will give us the apartment for £800. We say that is good but we still can not afford it. We tell them that we will call them back tomorrow evening after we think about it for a while.
After thinking about it for an hour and looking a4t more horrible and horribly expensive places online we decide it would be a better idea to take the apartment now and then find someone to share, as a person seems easier to find than an apartment.
We call back…
Befor we can tell them we want to take the apartment they tell us to call back in twenty minutes because there is someone there looking at the apartment who might take it. I say ok (because I do not belive them as that is exactly what they did to me last time AND what they did to Julian and Iris). I do not call them back.
Half an hour later I have two e-mails telling us the apartment is ours. So I call them back…
The lady tells us we can have the apartment for $750 a month as long as we take it till December 21st. We agree and set off down to the office. (After jumping round Julian’s living room going ‘whoooooo’ a few times). It feels pretty good not to be homeless let me tell you.
After going down to the office to put a deposit down we went back to Julians for a bbq that the people in the flat above were organising. We chilled out on the roof of the apartment meeting some new people (a lovely cute German called Thomas and an American guy called Mark- I think-) along with some others) Eating bbq (Erin ate salad being a veggie) with a lovely Mango dressing that Mark had made. Mark is studying hungarian cooking (or something random like that) at university here so the Mango dressing was pretty special. Especially on the chicken.
I resolve to learn some more Spanish so I can laugh at more jokes.
We got the bus back to Palermo at 2am and packed our stuff to move.
9.00AM set off in Juan’s car with all our stuff to move into the apartment. Eventually after navigating traffic we spend half an hour in the office sorting out money and documents then spend the rest of the day admiring and moving things around, buying some shopping and having a sleep. We are both staying in the same room even though we have two huge ones. It might look a bit strange to other people but after two months of sleeping in the same room it would feel a bit strange to split up now so we are keeping the other room spare. When we have a moving in party I think one of us is going to have to pretend to be sleeping in the next room or we’re going to end up starting rumours.
Just Another Sunday in the Park
Generally speaking, the population of Capital Federal (Buenos Aires proper) is pretty active and on Sunday the exercisers come out in full effect. We frequently go to the park in Palermo to walk, run or just enjoy the goings on. Here are pictures of one such Sunday. Be sure to pay close attention to the camouflage pants Juan wore that day. Mahahahaha Carly and I couldn´t keep a straight face while looking at him in that get up. He blamed his clothing choice on the fact that he had no clean laundry... right... mahahhah
Moving Out and Moving On
I cannot believe that the time in our Recoleta apartment went by so fast! Both Kevin and David just decided that they need to move, that it is time for them to leave Buenos Aires. Sad. With this in mind Carly and I now have to change our apartment search from a place with space to accommodate four to one for only two. Arugh. I really love looking for apartments... Lie. Juan´s mom has been incredibly helpful in assisting us with the hunt. Day by day my Spanish is improving and I am able to hold increasingly more substantial conversations. It feels so good!
Recently, Carly and I have been going to San Telmo to play soccer (fútbol) with a bunch of friends and often several boys under the age of ten. As we set off for the 40 minute bus ride toward the other side of town we felt a few drops of rain but decided it wasn´t going to be enough to discourage us from playing. Fifteen minutes into the game and it was dumping! Thunder and lightning raged across the sky but the air temperature was still so nice that we couldn´t be bothered to stop. Eventually, our tiny field turned into more of a giant mud pit, which eventually evolved into a perfect location to perform whatever gymnastic ability we each possessed.
In other news, Carly missed her flight back to England. Her original idea was to stay here in BA for a few months, work then travel but as we all know, even the best laid plans often go awry. The flight she bought offered her the flexibility to change her ticket for as little as €100 if she called before the plane took off but she had the date wrong by about a month... oops.
Recently, Carly and I have been going to San Telmo to play soccer (fútbol) with a bunch of friends and often several boys under the age of ten. As we set off for the 40 minute bus ride toward the other side of town we felt a few drops of rain but decided it wasn´t going to be enough to discourage us from playing. Fifteen minutes into the game and it was dumping! Thunder and lightning raged across the sky but the air temperature was still so nice that we couldn´t be bothered to stop. Eventually, our tiny field turned into more of a giant mud pit, which eventually evolved into a perfect location to perform whatever gymnastic ability we each possessed.
In other news, Carly missed her flight back to England. Her original idea was to stay here in BA for a few months, work then travel but as we all know, even the best laid plans often go awry. The flight she bought offered her the flexibility to change her ticket for as little as €100 if she called before the plane took off but she had the date wrong by about a month... oops.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Jose´s birthday November 4th
Our little pal, Jose, turned 21 and had a lovely lil b-day gathering at his folks house. Obviously there was an asado and a few nice glasses of champagne to celebrate.
Race Day and a Vacation to the Quincho Oct 26 & 27
Argentina has something like 19 national holidays and this year they added a new one... from what I gather it is called something like ¨Race Day,¨ where they celebrate the equality of races. Unfortunately, the concept of Race Day was really a secondary thought as the holiday was added because the government wanted another holiday to help stimulate the economy (i.e. you don´t have to work so you go out to eat, visit the cinema, go out to the bars... and so on). As Carly and I am so willing to help support the government in their silly endeavours, we jumped at the opportunity to have a holiday with our working friends and quickly planned a few days trip to the Quincho in Tigre (a location that has rapidly become one of my favorite). Here are a few pictures of my little love, Capitan (Juan´s dog) and a some of my friends. Obviously, we made the obligatory asado (BBQ of 476 different types of meat and a couple vegetables) as is darn near mandatory with any gathering here in Argentina. All in all, a nice mid-week vaca!
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