So long BA! Tiempo por Patagonia!

I was expecting today to be the pinnacle of the trip - after all it's market day!!! The day that all the outdoor markets are allegedly in full swing! However, a mold infested hostel and achy bodies from tons and tons of walking slowed us (mostly me) down a bit. We still did make it to the San Telmo, La Boca, Recoleta and Palermo weekend markets.

At dinner, as they had all day, my eyes burned and my throat felt hoarse and I opted to get a better hotel - We'd had enough of the ill effects of mold while living in our danky Seattle pad.

My father booked a room for us, while I IM'd him the details. The hostel's internet connection had been far too slow that evening to search for anything. When we arrived at the new hotel - the Concorde, we had two twin beds. I thought for a minute my father had planned that - but it was just an overbooking issue with the hotel. HAHAHA!

Here are some random pictures from the last two days in Buenos Aires. Tomorrow (Tuesday) We head out on a 6 am flight to El Calafate - our LONG awaited entrance into the famed Patagonia region. The weather looks sketchy, and we hear it will be pricey, but we are super excited to sleep with such close proximity to the Andes.

I know my pictures haven't really been that interesting, but quite honestly, I haven't really felt inspired at all in BsAs for the most part. Hopefully Patagonia will bring some beautiful images!

And so it goes!

Yesterday was super great from start to finish - Cabbed it to Recoleta and slowly walked through the Recoleta cemetary (which is, as mentioned yesterday, is an astonishing city of rich dead people with enormous masoleums...).. The Recoleta market was getting bigger and bigger the longer we stayed. I bought a bunch of stuff before heading out.

We went to the Malba - (Museum of Arts / Latin America / Buenos Aires) In there I liked the work of Botero, who I remembered fondly from art school (One example of his work, generally characterized by rotund people, often nude, performing mundane tasks) I was also impressed by Antonio Berni - who has phenomenal political paintings (Here is a blurry example of the image in the Museum.)

When we returned back to Palermo, it was ALIVE with people, and the weekend market. Bars had been transformed to shops, the streets were packed, and vendors had set up all around. There was so much more energy then we had seen in previous visits to the central area of Palermo. We walked around for hours - and in that time, found a GREAT little cafe near our hostel that actually had vegetarian food!!!! Finally a meal with a few veggies mixed in with carbs!

BA!! YAY!!

Finaly today, we begn to see some of the splendor we had hear about in BsAs.

I think we walked around the whole of BsAs three times over

During our stroll, we stopped at the Buenos Aires zoo - It was a bit different than other zoos I had been to, in that there were a few harmless animals free ranging around.

Oh what fun the zoo was!!!! We saw kangaroo-wallaby-rabbit things running free, Peacocks walking around with their feathers out and about, parrots who said "OLA!" in response to Gregg's "OLA!" (The Parrot didn't however, respond to "Hello"), and a Pygmy Marmoset mini monkey playing with himself for all to see. Fun!

After the zoo and tons more walking, we went on a bike tour around Recoleta and the Gardens in Palermo which informatively took us through Recoleta, near the University and through the Palermo Rose Gardens. The Recoleta Cemetery was astonishing - it was the grandest richest village of the dead I have ever seen. It is also the final resting place of the famed Eva Peron.

Diego, our guide was super knowledgeable about Argentinian history and politics - it was a really great tour. We really had the time to ask the questions we wanted, as we were the only people on the tour.

Today we really began to see the enchanting side of Buenos Aires. The old architecture of Recoleta, the green area in Palermo, the history....We were exhausted from walking and biking all day, but had our first day of feeling fulfilled after tourism.

The only downfall of the day was finding good food to eat. I literally ate bread for every single meal today. We realized were are spending a ton of money on food, but have only had one noteworthy meal thus far. Instead of a restaurant, we went to a mini market to find dinner. There wasn't all too much that fell into both the healthy, and the vegetarian cateory. For about 6 dollars, we got 4 baguettes, butter, chocolate wafers, a bottle of wine and a litre of beer. And that was dinner!

Well, I guess there was actually two downfalls - at the end fo the night when Gregg was moving around our tiny bathroom, he knocked my toiletry bag into a toilet with pee in it (G. Pee). This included, of course, my toothbrush, my makeup, my shampoo..among other things. Gross, huh! G felt really bad about it tho.....

I am finding that I am sleeping well, and waking refreshed. It is nice to finally have a vacation. Sleeping with earplugs in has been a dream! Did I just jinx myself?!

I am super excited to see the open markets this weekend!

Day Two - Raining Gatos y Perros

Day two was about as uneventful as day one. Our quest to book a show at the famed Teatro Colon brought us relatively close to where we had spend the previous day. We took a bit more time seeing the iconical obelisk downtown, attempted to book a ferry to Uruguay (which we decided to nix)..and eventually ducked into a cafe for a long, long lunch while rain dumped down on the city. We had dressed for the heat and humidity we had experienced the previous day. After we got bored with our extended lunch, we ventured outside to catch an available cab. That available cab never came - but the cold wind sure did! It was cold as heck.

We ducked into a mountain gear shop to escape the rain. The employees there spoke English fluently - which is a major rarity here. They advised us on the remainder of our trip, the Patagonia part - and gave us some of their mate - which led to the most amusing event of the day.

Though he was fluent, the employee accidentally told Gregg to blow into the mate (which essentially is like telling someone to blow into a straw instead of suck). Gregg did this, and proceeded to blow hot water and Herba Mate (loose tea leaves) on some jackets for sale. Highly funny.

We returned to our neighborhood and strained to find a restaurant that opened up before 8 pm. They just don't really exist here! These people eat dinner at the most ridiculous hours! Even at 8 or 8:30, the restaurants are generally empty!

The only decent restaurant that was open was a pricey one (We haven't found food, or much else for that matter, to be as cheap as we had been expecting).

The whole experience was fantastic!(it is hard for me to eat well as a vegetarian, and as someone who can't understand all items on a Spanish only menu)...With wine, beer, T-bone for Gregg, some pasta dish for me and helado for dessert - it came to about $50 USD. Which is way more then we need to be spending on vacation!!!!!

However it was a truly enjoyable, long and leisurely meal. Argentian Malbec is a great red wine in general, btw.

On the whole, it was a boring day, redeemed by our fantastic dinner. We are finding ourselves largely underwhelmed by BsAs, and wondering what all the fuss is about.

Here in Buenos Aires!

After a relatively uneventful flight, we finally arrived in Buenos Aires. We didn't do much of excitement on our first day - just relaxed and tried to decompress after week of non stop working, and little sleep. The city, on first impression is bustling, dirty, boxy, in parts beautiful, and not much cheaper that Salt Lake City, which cam as a shock to us. We spent our first day wondering around the shopping district of Florida Ave, and trying our damndest to find out way back to our hostel in Palermo Soho. We had neglected to write down the street number, and my initial guess was fairly far off.

Unfortunately, we got word from our neighbors that the back window of our car had been smashed in at about 1 am the night we left. This would probably be a good time for a little story.

We were fairly sure that it was related to the contractor we had been at odds with before leaving. He took a deposit for work and left to run errands. Said he'd be back in an hour, and never returned. We literally called him about 50 times - with no response. That night he called back, pretending to not know what we were talking about, convinced he was still going to do the job. We fired him more times than I can remember. Additionally, he sent a worker to our house the next morning, neglecting to mention to the worker that I had fired them all. When I called to discourage any future drop ins, and very clearly told him that if he didn't return our money, we would call the cops. He didn't, and we did. Additionally, the company name he was working under was registered to someone else, who had no idea who my workers were. Oh the drama!!!! It was NOT the news I wanted on vacation (who does!?). I can only hope it was an isolated event.

Asbestoside.

While finishing up some plumbing under the house, Gregg found a material he likened to "tampons" wrapped around our pipes. Luckily we just made a brand spanking new friend who is an asbestos tester. Double luckily we had just dog - sitted for them (for little willy) all weekend, so they were still feeling indebted, and triply luckily - they are the only people we know who also live on the west side, so they didn't have far to go.

To make a long story short, Buster Brown came over and brought his asbestos suit and took a sample. Results have not yet been reported, but I think seeing him int he outfit was definitely a quality moment.

Old Pictures of the house!

I just came across these pictures on Gregg's camera that we never posted or looked at. We have come such a long way!

The exterior of the house

So finally the first coat of stucco is on!!!! Next spring we (or Gregg) will add the finish coat. Sometime between now and them hopefully we can get the soffits and such on the exterior, to make it look a bit more finished.

The rest of our house, however, is hurting!!!! Our yard went severely underwatered this summer - and we certainly didn't have time to landscape. Next year, next year...! While we have painted some of the trim white, I still have a bunch more to paint - and I would like to replace the metal railings with nicer white wooden ones.

Always something to do!! But it's coming along!

Our backyard, however, looks like a natural disaster struck - and that may take a bit longer to beautify :)

Drywalling!

Our place is coming together!!!

We have been going crazy, working long full days, to get the house moved along before we head to Argentina. We talked and agreed to hire some drywallers to come in and finish up the walls. It is a task that would have taken us probaby a month - and wouldn't have been done nearly as well.

In order for the drywallers to be start their job, we had 2.5 days to finish
- the waste plumbing (Gregg)
- insulate the walls (samantha)
- and ceiling - yucky!! (samantha and Gregg)
- finish framing the drop down ceiling in the bedroom(samantha)
- build a closet for the washing machine (samantha)
- build the bench and built in niches for the shower (samantha)
- plastic wrap the walls that have been insulated (samantha)
- install the pocket doors (samantha and gregg)
- level and finish off the doors (gregg)
- built the interior bathroom walls (gregg and samantha)
- finish the electric (gregg)

among other things.

We worked LONG LONG days to get this stuff done. I was happy I had a slow week at work and could frame some of the interior things that need to be built. I am not the most experienced framer, but it sure is fun!!!

The first drywallers we hired, via craigslist, wound up being insane, stealing $200 from us, and refusing to be fired - still sending an unknowing worker to our house the following morning. I eventually had to file a police report, because they were operating under a false company name, among other things...It was super stressful at a time when we were already exhausted from working our butts off.

But, we did find some new drywallers that we like thus far.

Plumbing and Interior Framing

Night in Moab

After a few intense weeks, I was overly ready for a night away! With the weather changing it seemed everyone I knew here was feeling the same way. After a hectic week of non stop work and drama, my friend Tonya and I made the 4.5 / 5.0 hour drive down to Moab to meet with Gregg and Zach, who were already there climbing. My friends Aaron and Kendall from Seattle were also there, on the tail end of their southwestern roadtrip.

I haven't seen Aaron since I moved, and though I love SLC, I do miss my friends back in Seattle. 5.0 hours is a long drive for a night, granted - but the scenery and the company made the drive fly by.

Were were supposed to climb on Sunday, but our friend Zach aoke with a disgustingly enlarged uvula (hangy ball thing int eh back of your throat). It looked as if it would burst, or cut off his airways if it got any worse, so we nixed climbing to get him home.

My state is BEAUTIFUL!!!!

80's Party

Dressed up for the mid-season kickball party. I am not one for themes, but apparently Utahoans love the 80's! Gregg dressed up as an 80 year old - a tribute to our kickball team - the old farts' - and also because our next door neighbor Jean had given us tons of her late husband's clothing that day. What a coincidence!

Interior Framing in Style