Buying stock in Exofficio

It's HOT! (Muy caliente)! Thursday we walked back to the Vaccination clinic to get Payton's certificate for the international yellow fever vaccination. We've walked to Plaza de Mayo before, but nothing prepared us for the heat and humidty we endured. This is the reason why we wear exofficio (www.exofficio.com) and patagonia quick dry underwear. It's so we don't look like this sweaty butt>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.>>>>>

Went back to Puerto Madero, www.puertomadero.com/i_index.cfm, and had lunch at Cafe Resto. The restaurnat reminded Jen and I of restaurants in Healdsburg and Napa Valley, CA because it had a nice restaurant with adjoining deli, wine and pastries. If anyone is in BA, I would definitely recommend this restaurant. It's slightly on the expensive side, but well worth the price for the food and the great service.

After hiding in the restaurnat from th heat for over 1.5 hours we went back out and walked to an Ecological Reserve called Constanera Sur which borders the Rio de La Plata. This ecological reserve apparently has over 200 species of birds, but all we saw were mosquitos.
What was supposed to be a hyped up day to explore the ecological reserve turned out to be a short lived experience. We followed the 1.5 mile walk along a man made levee, which was made to keep the flooding Rio de La Plata from coming to close to Puerto Madero, we were sweating profusely and realizing that this gravel/dirt path wasn't all that great. Another reason we kept our visit short at the Ecological Reserve was because Payton didn't particularly care for the mosquitos flying into her Chariot. If I recall correctly, I think we may have walked a couple hundred yards on this levee road and we started hearing Payton yelling "MOSQUITO BITING ME, MOSQUITO BITING ME." Sure enough, two mosquitos were in her Chariot and one was feeding off of her ankle. We killed the mosquitos and put the cover with netting over her. However, there was a small hole in the netting and any small insect, such as a nat, that got into the Chariot with her was instantly a mosquito in her mind and she would start yelling "MOSQUITO INSIDE, MOSQUITO INSIDE, GET IT OUT!!!!!!! She should have been taking her nap about this time, but I don't think she slept until we were back into the safe boundaries of the city. We later went back to the house and showered and relaxed drinking my Stella and Jen with her Corona. Not the best day we've had in BA. Jen said it was her least favorite day so far.

Friday we went back to the zoo early in the morning, 1100. We only lasted a couple of hours there as well, the dang heat is still a problem. The funnies thing after coming home from the zoo was when Payton told us very seriuosly "For some reason zoo not much fun today, too hot." 10 word sentence at 2 years old, not too bad, we're proud! We were astonished that she didn't have much fun at the zoo though. This could be either good or bad for us in the next upcoming month when we're in Patagonia. I could just see it now, we will be hiking near Fitz Roy and be less than a 1/4 mile away from the most amazing view point and Payton will look at me with her baby blue eyes and tell me she's not having much fun and want to go back to the car. What am I going to say? You will have to wait for that answer when we get there.

In the afternoon we went to this nice modern ice cream parlor called Volta. I can honestly say that the interior designs of restaurants down here are absolutely amazing. We ordered a 1/4 kilogram of ice cream with 3 different flavors and Payton ate at least 1/2 of it. It was good and cooled us down.

Here's a picture of Payton and I after Payton ate the ice cream. She has a look of contentment on her face, but at the same time she's telling us her "belly's big."

Payton posing for us. NOT doing any business.









That night we had so much fun at a local neighborhood restaurant called French Resto Lounge. (I think we just like restaurants with a little flair in their name ie. Resto!) Payton had her first diaqueri. Virgin of course. Our meals were good, Jen's was awesome. When I looked at my Mahi Mahi in a neon blue mint sauce I was a little skeptical at first. It had good flavor, but I couldn't get past this thought of melted blue fish eyes in my Mahi, there weren't any eyes in the meal but I just kept thinking that I was seeing eyes! It must have been the overhead light reflecting off of the neon blue sauce that made me think I was seeing shimmering eyes. I definitely should have taken a picture of it!

Saturday was pretty laid back. It was hot! Again! Nearly 100 degree's + humidity. It felt like we were living on the East Coast. No thank you. We stayed indoors and crossed our fingers that they wouldn't implement rolling blackouts. Then it occurred to me that blackouts probably don't happen that much because a lot of people do not have A/C. Don't know how they do it. I watched the news the following day to see if there were any deaths related to the hit, didn't hear of anything.

We decided to stay indoors this day. We have had enough of the heat! We lounged around the apartment after going to this really nice pastry shop in the early morning. We watched more movies, I should say a movie. Payton is really into the movie Cars right now. So I think Jen and I are starting to memorize the whole movie at this point. Jen and I played gin rummy. Jen kicked my butt. We initially tried playing by our friends , the Winans' rules, but quickly became annoyed with each other and had to go to the internet and download the actual rules of the game to keep both of us happy. Once again, she beat me. Anyone want to play the game asshole? I'll be the President!

We had an amazing dinner that night. Went back to Mas Pasta on the corner of Lerrea and Pena and a 1 kg Lasagna with chicken, spinach, ricotta, a white cream sauce and and a red meat sauce. Wow! Wow! We will be going back a couple more times before we leave. Payton even enjoyed it. Anytime we can get a vegetable in her we are thrilled.

Sunday morning we went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, www.mnba.org.ar
and walked around in what I thought would be a fairly cool environment. Apparently to cut down on costs (my theory) they only had climate control in a few rooms where the paintings were a little more valuable. I think all they would have to do is purchase a nice alarm system and get rid of the 100 +/- security guards sleeping in their chairs while we walked past and divert the money into maintaining the building and air conditioning. It's very sad to see the interior of a country's national museum with dirt marks and paint coming off some of the walls while an employee is sleeping in their chair on a Sunday morning.

Later in the day, we went to San Telmo where they have this well known antique fair. San Telmo used to be where the aristocrats lived before a yellow fever outbreak made them all move up the hill to Palermo. Now it functions more or less as a lower working class barrio. Every Sunday they have an antique fair on a cobble stone street called Defensa that runs for multiple blocks. My parents would be in heaven.

Here is a picture of the market and also one of an old mansion that now serves as a market fo many antique stores.

We also went by La Casa Minima (minute house). Built in the early 19th century, the Casa Mínima was constructed adjacent to a slave owner's residence and housed their freed slaves. And at 2.17 meters (7.12 feet) wide by 13 meters deep (42.5 feet) the Minute House is clearly minimal.

Besides the normal knick knacks there were some stores with really nice antiques. Most of the buildings were old mansions converted into multiple stores within them (See picture above right). It must have been amazing to live there years ago. Although we were tempted to buy a few things, we are not ready to make that type of commitment of lugging purchased goods around for the next year. We were luckily able to watch a Tango show in the Dorrego plaza before the rain kicked into overdrive and dispersed the people in the market like another plague.


We went back to the house where I made my famous hamburgers with amazing meat. With no barbeque near by, cooking hamburgers on the stove is a little difficult. With the house being so small and the smoke so thick, the headlight came out to cook the hamburgers (not really, but we did have to open every window in the place).


That is all for now. We are glad that so many people are following our blog. More to follow....