Naomi in a nutshell

Chile

A 2-day update:

We had the best meal in Buenos Aires yesterday! The restaurant is called Tancat, but I actually don’t know what we ate because we just pointed at something in the menu, the waiter tried to explain it to us, and we said yes. But it’s basically prawns, squid, and mushrooms with a salad on the side. So so so so good.

After that we went to watch a tango show, because we couldn’t leave the city without seeing one (it wouldn’t be the touristy thing to do). This was at Tango Porteno, and it was meh. I would’ve preferred more dancing and less singing/live music. There was some Asian tour group sitting near us and a few of the men put their heads on the table and fell asleep LOL. But still glad we got to catch a show.

Today I finally caught a picture of one of the many dog walkers around Buenos Aires (see picture 3). Love it :) And we also made friends with the Chinese people that own the grocery store next to our hotel. They recommended a Chinese restaurant to us for lunch and it did not disappoint. Mom and I ate 20 dumplings hahahahaha.

Currently in Santiago for a stopover. Peru tomorrow!

One thing you should know about my mom is that she’s terrified of dogs. In fact, when I used to ask for a dog, she would reply, “either you get married and move out first, or I die first.” Like any young child, I would tell her she’d die first because I was never going to get married.

Anyways, it took about 45 minutes to walk to Caminito, and the walk also included passing some semi-questionable areas in La Boca. We were walking at a fast clip when suddenly we noticed there was a black dog following us. Stray dogs and pet dogs are both very common in Buenos Aires and they never bother people, so we didn’t think much about it. That is, until we stopped at a street corner to consult our map and the dog stopped right beside us. Nervously we edged closer to two police officers (although how police officers would save us from a dog I really don’t know). The dog casually followed us and sat beside us again. We moved away from the police officers, and the dog moved away as well.

We crossed the street, the dog crossed the street. We walked faster, the dog walked faster, just a foot or two behind us. We slowed down and the dog would walk ahead, and then nonchalantly slow down or completely stop until we caught up with it. I was laughing so hard and Mom was having a complete breakdown! Finally we ran into a supermarket and hid in there, periodically peeking out at the entrance to see if the dog was still there. Every time we checked, it was standing outside, paying the entering/exiting customers no mind. After a while, it lay down in front of the door and started napping! At this point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, and Mom was all, “Why does this dog like us so much??? What is going on???”

Finally we left the supermarket and as expected, the dog got up and followed us once again. Every so often I would turn around to check if it was still there, and Mom would also tell me not to look at it and to pretend it doesn’t exist :P This went on for at least another 10 blocks until suddenly, the dog wasn’t there anymore. So weird! I jokingly told Mom that it must be an angel sent to protect us from unsavoury people, and Mom vehemently protested that she did NOT want an protector angel-dog. If it was an angel, she would prefer it be anything but a dog, really.

Today was fun, tiring, and adventurous as usual :) We took the subway to San Telmo, walked around that area and then along Defensa where we checked out antique stores and other shops. After grabbing some lunch and using the restaurant’s tape to tape my map back together (it fell apart into 3 pieces due to overuse), we walked to La Boca to check out Caminito, where there are lots of colourful buildings as shown in the first picture.

I’ve seen a lot of cool stuff in Buenos Aires so far, but Caminito definitely stands out as the one thing that separates the city from other cities in my mind. I love the buildings and the colours and everything!

The second picture is in a restaurant called Siga la Vaca. One of my friend’s grandparents live in Buenos Aires and they were kind enough to offer to take us on an ‘evening tour’ in their car and have dinner together. It was really neat to see parts of the city at night and not have to struggle to decipher the menu to choose what to eat for dinner :P We ate at an all-you-can-eat meat/veggies place. The picture basically shows what it’s like :)

I also have a hilarious story about a dog, but that’s going to have to be saved for another night. Ciao!

We took a free walking tour today (called BA free tour) and wandered around downtown to areas such as the congress (picture 1) and the pink palace where the president ‘works’ (picture 2). Gaston our guide was really knowledgeable and all-around awesome - he even put up with all of my mom’s questions ;)

After the tour, we, along with 3 new friends, went to the 12th floor of a random office building to exchange US dollars for Argentinean pesos using the ‘unofficial’ exchange rate. Let me tell you what that means… the official exchange rate today is around 5.2 pesos for $1. Using the unofficial rate, we received 8.2 pesos for $1. Apparently these cambios are all over the city, you just have to know where to look because obviously they don’t outright advertise it. What was funny was the office itself because it wasn’t sketch at all. There was a receptionist in the front, and when we asked to exchange money, we were taken to another room where the guy told us the exchange rate, wrote down how much we wanted to exchange, and disappeared into another room to get us the money. When he came back, I got a glimpse into the ‘other room’ and was surprised to see the room full of people, working on computers doing who-knows-what! Super interesting ‘underground’ business going on here.

Picture 3 is of the La Recoleta Cemetery, which is a huge, impressive cemetery full of statues and mausoleums. It was really unique and fun to wander around and peer inside the different mausoleums. One of my favourite parts of Buenos Aires so far :)

1) Let’s talk abut Buenos Aires’ customs issues, and then migrate from that into traffic issues. As you can see from the photo above, there is no such thing as an orderly lineup to get through customs - it’s a mass congregation of people jostling to move up and get out of the airport as fast as possible. That leads me to the traffic in Buenos Aires… I have never in all my travels ever encountered a city where traffic lanes are optional for cars (e.g. 3 lanes become 4-5 lanes), and PEDESTRIANS ACTUALLY DON’T MATTER! It’ll be the ‘walk’ sign for pedestrians, and cars just keep zipping on by in between us. That being said, I can say that I have yet to see even a local texting while walking across a street - proof that I’m not being dramatic/a noob! And after today, I’ve nearly perfected the continuous head-swivel to check for cars.

2) I like how small grocery stores display their fruit. That is all.

3) There are monuments everywhere! At least everywhere we walked today. I love them because they add so much history and depth to a city, although every single statue we saw was covered with graffiti. Whyyyyy.

4) I was intent on checking out the Japanese Garden today, and it actually took us over an hour of walking around in circles before we found it. We asked multiple non-English speaking security guards for directions, and one even hand-drew a map for us because we were just staring at him, blinking in total incomprehension. But we FINALLY found it, and I’m so glad we did because it was gorgeous and calm and peaceful and just what we needed after a long day :)

Currently sitting in a cafe in Buenos Aires and eating what I hope is a legit Argentinean breakfast :D

The most interesting part of this breakfast is the fruit soaking in freshly squeezed (aka extremely sour) orange juice. Yum yum. Healthy eating is a success so far! Although we’re only on day one…

A recap of my first impression of Argentina will come tonight. Hint: taxi drivers calling the traffic “loco”, widespread graffiti, and ridiculously long customs lineups.

I feel a little guilty blogging when I could be doing school-related stuff… but I told myself I would RELAX this vacation and try not to worry about the ‘real life’ stuff. So anyways!

We went crabbing 2 days ago in Sidney and it was grreeaaattt. 3 dungeness and 2 red rock crabs in total (that were of legal size). Yummy yummy - you haven’t had good seafood until they’re caught fresh! The funny thing about crabs is that once you flip them over and rub their bellies, they become totally limp and basically immobile. They love belly rubs! So if you have an aggressive crab… just give it a little massage :)

There’s another funny story about my brother’s fishing line catching a seagull… but that’s for another day. And better in person.

Yesterday consisted of flowers and fireworks at Butchart Gardens. 

My extra-long weekend consisted of hiking in Glacier National Park, checking out the Grand Coulee Dam, picking 36 pounds of cherries (in the rain), watching fireworks, gorging on Summerland Sweets’ ice cream, painting my mom’s nails on the beach, and MORE.

So excellent.