18+

Chile's finest hour is definitely the week of Fiestas Patrias. It's the time when the whole country stops to celebrate its own existence.  The 18th is Chile's day (as I was informed at least 25 times in 5 minutes by one of Michael's tios), but the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd are also equally as good for eating your weight in empanadas or anticuchos, dancing (or pretending to dance) the national dance, or having the "Terremoto" experience.  Here I present in photos, the best of dieciocho dos mil trece:

Fonda in La Reina:

Meeting a famous Chilean Miner:

Cueca... Cueca... More cueca

Time at good ole Quebrada Vitor:

Homemade Terremoto experience:

What happens when you let people play with fire while having the Terremoto experience:

Fonda Inez de Suarez:

Stick horse huaso races:

Tomas Gonzalez:

Folk Music:

It was a great vacation.  Since then we have been working (too much) and doing our best to enjoy Santiago in its second finest hour: Primavera!! (minus the allergies...).

One Hash:

Biking up the Cerro:

Another Hash (this one Texas themed). Why yes they are two-stepping across the Mapocho... You're welcome y'all.

That's the lowdown on the goings on.  

Argentina Polo Day

We spent our last day in Buenos Aires with the fine people of Argentina Polo Day.  I found this little outing completely by accident, surfing the internet for other things to in BA that I might not have heard about.  I think I said to myself, "Isn't Argentina good at Polo?" and then somehow I was making a reservation.  Our reservation was actually for Monday, which was the rainiest of the rainy days and so we ended up rounding out our trip to the big city with a little paseo in the Argentine countryside.

Argentina Polo Day is run by a couple, Celia and Ruben, who pride themselves on sharing the game of Polo with the less informed. In addition to the day for tourists, they buy half-trained horses and train them, host Polo Events and honestly, provide a place for polo players to come have a good time.

Here is the run down of our day:

1. They picked us up from our apartment and on the 45 minute drive to the country, we watched a short little video with a prickly British woman about some basic Polo knowledge.  It was here we learned that the reason Polo is not an Olympic sport is because ALL of the decent Polo players are actually Argentine.  Apparently, Chile won the last World Championship, a fact that when we said, "whaaaa?", we were quickly informed was because they had all Argentinians on the roster.  (There is a little rivalry between the two countries.  Not sure why... Argentina is better at all things athletic.)

2.  We arrived to the property where we were greeted immediately with glasses of wine and fresh off the grill empanadas.  That wine glass would never again be empty throughout the day.

3.  Celia explained some basic rules to polo, for example, the imaginary line you can't cross, the uniform, the equipment, the bumping, etc.

4.  The Polo match began and we could kind of follow what was going on.  They let us do the throw ins, and showed us how they change the horses every chukker (time period).  The reason Polo gets so freaking expensive is that you have to have so many horses to play a match.   Between chukkers we practiced hitting the balls with short, practice mallets, without horses.  Admittedly, I may have had a glass of wine in one hand and a mallet in the other.

5.  We cheered and then we ate.  We had an asado of Argentine glory with meat, veggies, and of course more vino.  Also, there was good conversation.

6.  We got sweet helmets and then we got on horses.  (Nope, it isn't lost on me that this happened AFTER all the wine).  Michael and I being from Texas were automatically more experienced than the Germans who had never been that close to a horse much less atop one, therefore, we did not get the kiddie horses but a couple with a little bit of personality.

7.  They gave us giant mallets and we tried our hand at swinging and hitting and riding and trotting.

8.  We played an actual match alongside some of the guys who played earlier.  They were helpful, but also still competitive.  I scored once.  It was awesome.  It must have been all the cheers of "Vamos Mega!!".  (Seriously.. my name is impossible to say).

9.  We celebrated our triumphs and then they took us back to the city.  I give this thing like 6 stars out of 5.  If you are ever in BA and you have a day, it is unmissable.

                           

Sunny Buenos Aires

Aprovechamos the fact that we both had entire week off for the September independence day festivities and decided to spend the first half of the week in Sunny, Beautiful, Bueno Aires, Aregentina.

Only one of those adjectives turned out to be an accurate descriptor as we spent our 4 days in BA hankered under umbrellas, in every layer we brought with us all at once.  It was cold, rainy, beautiful Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is a city full of stunning architecture, sing-song Italianesque Spanish, and meat.  The plan was just to walk around and enjoy the city, eat, repeat.

Day One:
We walked from our apartment that we rented for our time there (shout out to AirBNB... brillance) through the neighborhood of Recoleta.  It wasn't raining SOLID yet, but it was certainly cold.

We visited the Recoleta Cemetary, which probably seems slightly morbid and a strange choice for your first thing to see in a new city, but it was a stunning juxtaposition of new and old.  This amazing cemetary with graves from 150 years ago is backed right up against a shopping mall with a Ruby Tuesday.

The grave of Eva Peron, AKA Evita was easy to spot because of the flowers and admirers.  I had no idea that she died at 33.  What a shame.  

We continued to walk through the neighborhood of Recoleta through its wide and spacious parks that admittedly put the parks in Santiago to shame (more space without those pesky Andes I guess).  

We saw the iconic Floralis Generica which is a giant steel flower that opens and closes with the sun, or at least goes to sleep at night and opens during the day (with or without sunshine, luckily).

We took a walk through the botanical garden, a gift from the Japanese population, adorned with signs of celebration for Tokyo 2020.  

That day we also began to fulfill our commitment to meat and to pizza.  We ate lunch at the popular El Cuartito pizza joint followed by a late dinner at Las Cabras, where we ate delicious meat, drank delicious wine, for a strangely cheap price.  Afterwards we walked around the semi-hiphappenin Plaza Serrano (semi hip due to the cold and eminent rain).  

Day Two:

We took the big yellow tourist bus around the town to all of the must see spots.  A hop on/hop off tour of any city is an easy way to see a lot when you have a very limited amount of time.  We still did our fair share of walking this day... in the rain... fighting with umbrellas the entire way.  

Our first stop was the antique fair in San Telmo, full of people selling antiques and artesanal goods.  Also, in true BA fashion, there were people dancing Tango on the street corners in the rain.  

This lady has probably been a tango dancer for 60 years.  

We worked our way to El Caminito and the neighborhood of La Boca which was full of bright colors, cobblestone streets and obnoxious Boca Junior fans.  The stadium for BAs most popular soccer team is located in this area, but due to a game taking place that afternoon, you couldn't get too close.  We ate more meat, saw some more street tango and watched the flood of blue and yellow begin to arrive. 

We got back on our big yellow bus, which was double-decker, but unfortunately, the top floor had no cover of any kind, making a day in the cold and rain extra fun.  We used our umbrella, and tried to make the best of if.

Seriously, the following pictures pretty much sum up the day and dealing with the unstoppable rain and wind.  

                                   

The rest of the day was filled with more sight-seeing whilst stomping through puddles.  Also, my umbrella died an overused death.  

Casa Rosada:  Argentina's La Moneda, except it is most definitely pink.  Also where Madonna, errr Evita, made her famous speech in the form of song (I think I'm confused.... :)

Architecture beauty: 

Puerto Madero:

At the end of the night, we had a few well-earned beers at the Microbrewery Andares.  

The following day, our plans were thwarted by the rain that would continue until 11 that night.  It was the perfect day to spend inside in museums, which of course, are all closed on Mondays.  We managed to enjoy the day regardless, and planned to head to La Bomba del Tiempo, a percussion show that "doesn't stop on account of rain".  Turns out, they do cancel on account of loss of power... so that was a bummer.

El Ateneo is an old theatre that has been turned into a beautiful book store.  The stage is a cafe, and the old opera boxes are private reading rooms.  

Our first three days in Argentina:

Our last day, we spent with the folks at Argentina Polo Day, which cool enough for its own post.  More on that coming soon.  :)