Happy 4th!

Happy (belated) 4th of July! Obviously, Argentina doesn't celebrate the Fourth of July, but there were a few events and parties around Buenos Aires to allow any Americans to celebrate the holiday, including a "Freedom Pub Crawl". Lindsay and I didn't end up doing anything special for the 4th, so we contented ourselves with watching the many snap chats of fireworks (thanks guys!)

Buenos Aires is not on the coast, but on a 180-mi long estuary formed by the Uruguay and Paraná rivers called Río de la Plata. In 1882 the Argentine government chose the plan from Eduardo Madero to rehab the Buenos Aires port, which was too shallow for large ships to enter. His plan included a yacht harbor shielded by a small island, several bridges and wide pedestrian pathways lined with shops, cafes and restaurants on either side of the yacht harbor. Puerto Madero is about a half an hour walk from our apartment, and when we got there it was very foggy. That and the fact that it was a weekday afternoon meant that we pretty much had Puerto Madero to ourselves. We walked all the way down one side and back up the other, admiring a cool, modern looking bridge and peeking into the many parrillas (grill restaurants) that lined the walkway. We stopped by a cafe for a snack (unfortunately my chicken, prosciutto, mozzarella, tomato and spinach panini was just ok; a little too salty) and discovered a popular condiment called "salsa golf". Why it has this name we still do not know, but it's available in little packets in many cafes and tastes kind of like thousand island dressing. Lindsay and I also admired the several pieces of large outdoor modern art adorning the walkway, my favorite being a giant red metal hibiscus flower and a close second being life-size ceramic cows painted and wearing eccentric clothing. We also discovered Freddo, an Italian-style gelato chain all over BA. We'll definitely come back to Puerto Madero on a sunny day.

On the way home we stumbled upon a cobblestone pedestrian street lined with shops and with stalls selling fun things dotting the center of the path. We were tired from so much walking and ready to go back and relax a little, but I am definitely going back to that street too.

Since we will be in Buenos Aires for a month, Lindsay and I decided to look for a fun job to supplement our budget and give us a way to meet people. After much Craigslist browsing, we found a few promising options. One was with a program called Spanglish, which gives the opportunity for locals to practice their English is native speakers several evenings a week in a fun bar in Palermo (one of the most fun districts in Buenos Aires). Getting paid to sit around and chat with and teach Argentinians English expressions and slang while eating free pizza sounded like a pretty good deal, so we decided to stop by an event to meet the staff and see what it was like. 

Tonight the event was at Tazz, a bar in a very cute and fun area in Palermo Soho (cobblestone streets, lots of fun bars and cafes, a plaza nearby, and lots of people walking around having fun). We came in, chatted with the people running the event, and they said that we could attend the event tonight for free (instead of for 50 pesos, about $7) to see if we liked it. They assigned us both to a different table and over the next ten minutes Argentines and native English speakers filtered in: the English speakers on one side of the table and the Spanish speakers on the other side. It was basically speed dating for language practice. We talked for five minutes in one language, then switched and talked for five minutes in the other language. Then we would switch partners and do it again. The event was a little over an hour, and I had a lot of fun. I learned some Argentine slang: chamullo; chamullero/a (flirtatious; a flirt), jerga (slang), ir de levante (tryna). 

The staff liked us, so we're sending in our CVs and hopefully will be teaching advanced English conversation with Spanglish!

After the Spanglish event, we went to a restaurant next door purely because it had an adorable name: muulechería (muu: moo; lechería: creamery). It ended up being Argentina's version of a 1950s US diner/creamery, which was hilarious. It had many things down: pleather seats and metallic tables, a menu with French fries, ice cream, and hamburgers, 1950s style posters on the walls (although in Spanish). But, the neon blue lighting, early 2000s music videos projected on the wall, and artistic chandeliers made of cutlery and glasses were a bit incongruous. They also had a much more impressive array of alcoholic milkshakes than any 50s diner in the US would dream of, and I had a delicious Baileys milkshake.