BAIN

Buenos Aires International Newcomers (BAIN) was recommended to me before we moved as a good way to connect with other expats in the area. The group takes anyone, newcomers or longtime Bs.As. residents, with the common thread that everyone speaks English. The larger group is divided into two sections of BAIN, suburbs and downtown, generally the suburbs group is more families and the downtown group is more couples without kids, singles and retired folks. I am involved in the downtown section.

BAIN is a great way to get involved in events, meet new people that are also looking to get involved and see areas of the city that you may otherwise have passed by. I spent my first month here reaching out to people on my own and exploring the city out of guidebooks and internet recommendations. Although I feel like I did a pretty decent job on my own, as soon as we returned from a two week vacation in the US, I had run out of ways to occupy myself. Nothing is more depressing than sitting at home with a silent phone, so I promptly joined BAIN. I met Bonnie, the downtown group president at a restaurant called Empire Thai, where she meets potential new members every Friday. My intention was to sign up, pay my $100peso yearly fee and then head back home, but Bonnie and I struck a great conversation and I ended up sharing a 2.5 hour lunch with her and one of the restaurant owners, Kevin.

BAIN offers monthly lunches and dinners at new restaurants, monthly meetings with guest speakers and a social network for buying and selling items when other expats move through the area. This is where I finally bought an artificial Christmas tree, something that I was trying to buy for a few months before I found a good price through the BAIN buyer/seller network.

For me, the most beneficial perk of BAIN are the English speaking tours in unique museums and cultural spots that they arrange each month. I've attended every tour that I was available for and without fail, they have all been excellent. The only tour that I have been able to write about so far was the Museo Evita but there are more to come. All in all, BAIN has been a great resource for me to network, see the city and exchange advice with folks that have been here and have lots of tips to share. Well worth the US$25 yearly fee.

Update: As of yesterday, I'm up to a long run of 6 miles! My legs feel like Jell-o and I'm hoping to be able to walk today, but I am successfully over halfway to the goal!

Felices Pascuas!

Happy Easter! The Easter Bunny brought us this seriously cool gift this year that we just have to show off. Our friend Sole is an AMAZING pastry chef that works at the Four Seasons Hotel. We have been lucky enough to enjoy her cooking a few times and she humbles me with her awesome desserts. She brought us this white rabbit (that she made) that is hanging out with a little bunny friend, giving him a ride on a sweet Harley (pun intended). We promised to wait to eat it until Jon's parents are here visiting this week, since Jon's dad is such a Harley fan, but now that we're staring at this delicious chocolate dessert - I can't promise anything.


Here in Buenos Aires, the celebration around Easter is a multi-day event complete with a week of no school for the kids, Thursday and Friday off of work for the majority of businesses and a Friday off of work for my husband. Good Friday looked like a regular Sunday outside our windows, no traffic, no people, and most all businesses either closed or working reduced hours. It was one of the first days where the heat broke and we had some cooler temperatures. So, how did we decide to ring in the holiday this year? With friends, food and a themed-wine party.


We invited everyone over on Saturday night for what has been dubbed "Mystery Bottles". Each person brought a bottle of wine, two bottles per couple, with one bottle costing no more than $30pesos and the other costing no more than $100pesos. We camouflaged each bottle (ie - put them in colored bags) and put a random number on the outside of the bag, then kept a "secret" list of who brought what and if it was a low or high-bottle. At the end of the night, we had the big reveal and had everyone claim their favorite wine while we announced the results. The big winners were the Rutini 2007 Malbec, an expensive bottle, and the Andeluna 2008 Malbec, an inexpensive bottle. So now I'm happy to have a go-to Malbec available for under US$8.00. Everyone seemed to have a good time and it was a good way to introduce our friends from different circles to each other.

Shankar taking his selection very seriously

Me and Fernanda at Mystery Bottles

Sottovoce

Libertador 1098, Recoleta - Sottovoce cannot be missed. Amazing Italian food, great service, a pleasant ambiance and it's great location less than 2 blocks from our house make it a regular dinner stop for us. The meal always starts out with an assortment of spreads, cheeses or pate to adorn the large basket of fresh bread they provide. The assortment is always different, tonight was my favorite so far; the zucchini and sun dried tomato combination was incredibly good. In addition to the huge basket of bread, they always give you a warm, flaky roll similar to a croissant. Delicious. I'm sure all of the appetizers are good, but we have yet to order anything but the calamari. It is the absolute best I have ever had. They're even nice enough to divide it onto two plates for us, and serve it with a little salad on the side.

For main dishes, Jon generally favors the gnocchi and the lasagna while I favor the pollo al limon. In addition, the wine pours are generous (to the point of ridiculous) and if you save room for dessert, there isn't a bad choice on the menu. We generally don't save room for dessert, but our regular waiter has been generous enough to reward us with a bowl of ice cream on two separate occasions. If I were to choose one place to eat in Bs. As. it would be a toss up between Sottovoce and Lola. We have a tendency to eat on the early side, at least by Argentine standards, but anyone eating after 8:30pm is going to want to make a reservation.

Liber

Ave del Libertador 690, Recoleta - If any place has become our "go-to" restaurant stop, it is probably Liber. Located at the corner of Libertador and Libertad (is that confusing or what?) this little restaurant is great for a lunch stop, a coffee outside or a casual dinner. They have a large menu with all sorts of goodies, everything from breakfast to post-dinner snacks. They have a great little indoor seating area with two levels, although I've never seen anyone on the upper level. They also have a small outdoor seating area which is nice when you're alone, but it's located on the 8-lane road, Libertador, so it's a bit noisy if you're with anyone that you want to talk with. The service is prompt and friendly and their food is simple but fresh and well-made. They have full alcohol and coffee bars, with heavy wine pours. I am partial to the open faced sandwiches, served on huge, crispy french bread. They also have a few fresh bruscetta appetizer options that could easily make an entire meal. They have a cafe atmosphere with a full restaurant menu and we can easily walk out of Liber with a total dinner bill of under US$30. All in all, if we are ever in a pinch for a meal, Liber is the clear choice.

BASP

Anyone who has every moved knows that as soon as you tell your well-meaning friends where you are headed, inevitably, someone knows someone who has been there before, lived there once or has a [insert random-relative here] that talked about going there. This "do-you-know-_____" syndrome only multiplies when you are headed to another country. Don't get me wrong, we relished these connections. We are lucky enough to have had one of these connections actually pan out and we are now happy to say that Kelly, Tabo and their adorable little baby Enzo are great new friends of ours. Kelly has been a wealth of information for me, she knows Castellano, has lived here for quite a while and she's incredibly nice. Needless to say, we have become quick friends. One of her many amazing recommendations was BASP, the Buenos Aires Spanish School. (Side note: I have no idea where the "P" comes from, maybe Portuguese? I believe they have classes for that too.) I have been taking lots of private Castellano lessons, so at first I didn't see the benefit to going to an addition class. When my tutor decided to go on a short vacation, I seized the opportunity to take some additional classes.

The school is located in Plaza Congreso, which is literally in the heart of the city. To compare, it's like The Mall in DC. I have gotten comfortable with the bus system here, so I commuted each day by bus - making it really feel like school. BASP has a number of programs, but I decided to enroll in their 2-week long small group sessions, which run 4 hours per day, 5 days a week for US$280 (total for 2 weeks, $7 per hour - not too bad, right?). The correspondent to the school sent me a written test via email to complete and send back so that they were aware of my learning level. This was a source of pride for me, although I was not able to answer the whole test, I was placed in a class above "Knows-Nothing". My class had a total of 3 students, myself, a girl from Austria and a guy from Australia. We held class everyday from 11:30am - 1:30pm, took a 30 minute break, and then had an afternoon session from 2:00 - 4:00pm. We had a different native Spanish speaking teacher for each 2 hour session, breaking the class into AM - grammar and PM - speaking. I thought it was great. We were forced to speak and use the information we learned in the morning and we were kept interested by the change in teaching style. They also give you a spiffy certificate when you complete the course. Hooray for me!

A couple pointers about the program, it seems to be geared toward the "traveling student" demographic. Not to say that they were the only folks there, but all of the literature they handed out had plenty of information on hostels and "cheap travels". Also, the teachers were not consistent during my 2 weeks. The same teacher was present during the morning sessions, but the afternoon sessions were taught by 3 different teachers, and I definitely had a preference among the 3.

All in all, great recommendation that I pass along to anyone else looking for a few weeks of Spanish lessons. I will try to return at some point when I have another 2 weeks to devote to such intense lessons.