Sounds Good on Paper

Category: videos

  • Yerba Mate in San Telmo

    On Sundays there is a huge and I mean HUGE street market that stretches from the downtown area for block and blocks down a narrow street to the neighborhood of San Telmo.  San Telmo is famous for the street market, tango bars, and people doing tango in the street.    We actually somehow missed everyone doing tango in the street. Every time we came across someone that looked like they might do tango in the street, they were resting, eating, or standing on a box playing guitar.

    The street is so narrow and filled with people that claustrophobia overtook us at one point and we had to go down the street to a cafe for a relaxing cup of coffee. Although for me it wasn’t too relaxing.

    The vendors I found the most interesting were the ones selling mate cups and the straws called bombillas.  Yerba mate is a type of drink that Argentinians are crazy for. In the grocery stores there are bags and bags of yerba mate lining the shelves.  You can’t easily get it at restaurants or cafes in Buenos Aires, so we hadn’t really seen it being drunk.


    Once I knew what to look for I realized every vendor, no matter what they were selling, was also drinking yerba mate.

    On the walk home we passed a park where everyone was also drinking yerba mate. If you look at the guy in the background (the one that’s not Jeff) you can see he’s drinking out of a bombilla.

    Makes me want to give up coffee and try mate for awhile….maybe.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Tango at the cemetery

    One of the biggest things to see in Buenos Aires is the Recoleta cematery.    But, we are Recoleta cemetery challenged.  The first try we took the wrong bus and ended up at a polo stadium. On the second try we walked. By the time we got there we had heat stroke, and the cemetery was long closed for the day.

    So instead we decided to go to a different cemetery,  Cemetario de la Chacarita.   Not only is it the biggest cemetery in South America,  the world famous tango singer Carlos Gardel is buried here.

    And, you can get there by subway.

    It was his birthday, (He lived from 1890 – 1935 when he died in a plane crash.)  so it seemed fitting to visit his tomb.   It sounds strange to visit a cemetery, but his gravesite was anything but somber.

    The cemetery is enormous. Each tomb is like a little house, rows and rows of them, it was like a small city with streets and blocks of granite and marble tombs.

    Here’s a video of our entire trip soup to nuts.

  • Eating an entire cow (not in one sitting) part 2

    I’m a little behind on my cow eating entries.    I had my second steak experience on Jeff’s birthday which was almost a week ago.    We went to a restaurant called  La Cabrera.  This is like the Uno’s of Buenos Aires.  It’s extremely popular and extremely good.   It’s mostly tourists  but locals go too because it’s that good.

    We got there way too early for dinner – 9:30. But even then there was a wait. A hostess took our names (in English) typed them into the computer and told us to come back in 45 minutes.

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  • Dogs from our balcony

    Jeff and I see these dogs to our right every morning as we sit on our balcony drinking coffee.

    These dogs are waiting while their dog walker picks  up another dog.


    If we look to the left we see these dogs waiting for their dog walker.

    And in case you’re wondering, here is how it works when one has to go to the bathroom.  All the rest wait while one goes in the street.

    The white dog gets in trouble every day for being on the wall. Then if the 2nd beagle is in tow (sometimes he stays home) all hell breaks loose.

    The white dog always looks like he wants to be with the other group.

    But then he seems to get over it when his walker arrives.


    (apologies for the music on this video.  I was bad mouthing the dog walker, so I needed to cover that up.)

    And that’s only on our side of the street. Here’s what’s going on across the street.

  • Eating an entire cow – part 1 (the video)

    Here’s a video of our “first” cow eating experience.    You can tell by the end of the night I had had more wine than beef.