Memorial Day BBQ on the West Side of Chicago.
Lots of updates and new work at brettharmon.net. Check it out.
This entry was written by , posted on May 27, 2009 at 5:58 am, filed under Chicago. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
The past few times I’ve been in New York, I’ve been tempted by the idea of jumping on the southbound New Jersey Turnpike and driving Interstate 95 to its southern terminus in Miami. Though the drive to Miami is only marginally shorter from New York than it is from Chicago, New York and Miami share the same highway (I-95) and ocean (Atlantic). This is the same (gratuitously flawed) logic that gave birth to a road trip from LA to Vancouver the weekend following the 2004 presidential election.
I spent the first week of this month in New York: ADC Review, studio tours, friends, bike riding and non-ironic dining. My car even got to play victim in a hit-and-run on a deserted side street in Queens. A good time, sans the fact that it rained for 90 percent of the week.
This is us on the Williamsburg Bridge.
When school gives you a free hotel room in Chelsea, you invite not only your teacher to the party, but all your friends in Brooklyn.
On Friday May 8th, I ate my traditional leaving New York meal (number 6 at Wendy’s plus an extra hamburger) in Maryland instead of New Jersey. Later that night I ate a Banana and some cereal bars in the humid-subtropical parking lot of a southern North Carolina twenty four hour supermarket. Noon on Saturday I ate a Cuban sandwich 100 yards from the beach at Bal Harbour Shops in Miami.
Stuck in traffic on the Williamsburg bridge on our way to the Holland Tunnel on our way to the NJT on our way to Miami.
Sometimes Jerome drives.
This is on the border of North and South Carolina.
As always, Miami was ridiculous: Beach, hot tub, pool, Chicago, The Standard, The White Room, and Pollo Tropical. Juan played host and played it well.
The drive back to Chicago was non-stop and to the point, short of an hour break in Atlanta to indulge in some twenty four hour diner food with a few friends.
I made it back to Chicago less than twenty four hours before Industry Night, which went really well. I talked to quite a few people and got a lot more feedback than at the ADC Review. I woke up sick on Friday, but still made it to Manifest and the graduation party at the Hilton that night. Slept in on Saturday instead of walking at graduation, but that was pretty much the plan anyways.
Downtown Miami is so strange.
Beach, then hot tub, then pool. Everyday.
Juan bought a three hundred dollar moped that occasionally runs long enough to make it to South Beach.
Rick Ross couldn’t make it to the photo shoot.
Sweet dent.
Reststop on Alligator Alley.
Tonight I’m sending in an application to take part in a paid NYC-LA bike ride from June-August. $3000 plus $25/day and $800 for transportation to NYC and from LA to ride my bike across the country with 41 other people and blog about it (it’s part of an ad campaign for a vodka company). Sign me up.
This entry was written by , posted on May 17, 2009 at 9:30 pm, filed under Chicago, Miami, New York, Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Moments before we purposely missed our train at the Pico Blvd Metro Station.
As of this morning I’ve been back in Chicago for two weeks. The majority of my time has been spent working on some unfinished design projects, editing photos, polishing up the portfolio, backing up data, and generally eradicating tons of useless junk from my life. I’ve also been making up ten-fold for two months of no bike riding and (almost) no Mexican food.
I also came across an outstanding written record of a particularly derelict adventure from last August. Below is the copied and pasted version direct from text edit. Please excuse the blatant lack of capitalization.
I heart LA: The story of yesterday (August 18, 2008)
after waking up a bit disheveled from the night prior and indulging in a chorizo scramble at potholder, we decided to catch the metro to downtown LA to ride some hills and shoot a few photos. an impulsive decision to jump off the train at pico blvd left us chasing after a train that still contained a bag with my camera as well as the keys to billy’s apartment and car. as the train left, i was able to sign my phone number to a younger lady and her kids who we’d sat next to, hoping they would take the bag and proceed to call me to pick it up later.
half an hours worth of eavesdropping provided us with the knowledge that they would be catching the red line up to hollywood for an afternoon of shopping before eventually catching the gold line back out to pasadena. at this point, we could wait around and hope she called, or we could take off on our bikes and try and beat the redline from downtown to the hollywood and vine street station where we would catch her.
without much debate, we took off up the hill on figuroa and headed west on sunset blvd through echo park and silverlake, splitting lanes and bombing hills and landing ourselves in hollywood about 25 minutes later. billy manned the station while i wandered around the neighborhood looking for them. after about an hour of no luck, we decided that i would hold down the hollywood and vine station and billy would cruise over to hollywood and highland in the chance that the could end up there. just as we’re ready to give up, billy spotted her at the elevator heading back underground. it turns out she gave the bag to a metro employee at the 7th street metro center station back downtown.
the mood was celebratory while riding the red line back downtown to claim our bag. after all, we had chased down a random woman in a city of over four million people. we’d go downtown, acquire the bag, and salvage what was left of the day. suffice to say, the mood shifted when we got downtown to discover that there are no actual employees working at the station. our chase led us to all ends of the station, as well as the surrounding blocks at street level downtown. a maintenance worker went out of his way to help us out, and even called the offices to check on the lost and found. apparently nothing had been reported and lost and found claims take three business days to register.
after another hour or so of wandering around the station looking for figures of authority, we’re ready to give up again. finally, while i was outside being transfered from operator to operator with the mta, billy went back underground and got the attention of a subway conductor. to do this, he had to fight off a crackhead who claimed the front car to be his own. the conductor responded to the commotion, and when billy informed him of our situation, he simply went into a little office and came out with our bag. as i’m outside arguing on my phone with the mta, billy walks up with the bag and brian unexpectedly cruises up 7th street in his pontiac. all is well and then some. we celebrate with sandwiches.
brian took off after dinner in typical unannounced fashion. billy and i found ourselves on top of a parking garage downtown, debating whether to call it a day or to head out to west hollywood to meet some friends for a drink. we decided that the best option would be to do neither, and ride out to silverlake to have a beer at a bar called good, which has a beer list that puts both jerry’s and the yardhouse to shame. at good, thirteen dollars buys you one beer, but when that one beer is a 22 oz triple ipa with the same alcohol content as some wines, it’s more than acceptable. so relatively drunk off of one beer each, we decided to acquire sparks for the metro ride back to long beach.
we rode back to 7th street station downtown before deciding that we’d rather wait above ground for the train at pico blvd and drink our sparks outside. by this time, it’s about 10:45. while drinking in an abandoned lot, the train appeared from nowhere, causing us to drop our beverages and sprint to the station to buy tickets. after we missed the train, we joked about riding the our bikes through south central, watts, south gate, and compton all the way back to long beach. somehow it became less of a joke over the following fifteen minutes. as the next train approached, i told billy it was his call whether we get on the train or get on our bikes. the doors opened, then closed, and we were still on the platform, laughing uncontrollably at the fact that we just purposely missed another train and would now be riding our bikes 25 miles through the hood of south central LA on a sunday night.
the policy on the ride from downtown was no eye contact and no yelling back at cars. we planned to ride washington blvd east to alameda, and alameda into compton where we would cut over to long beach blvd which would get us most of the way home. we rode fast and paced ourselves as to not get caught up at stoplights, and breathed a collective sigh of relief as we crossed under the 105 freeway out of south central proper. as we rode through el segundo blvd, we noticed “city of compton” printed on the street sign, and collectively giggled the type of giggle that could only come from two midwestern kids who grew up with an unhealthy appreciation of west coast rap music. soon our glee was shattered yet again, as billy realized he was rolling on a flat tire down a particularly ominous stretch of alameda in the center of compton.
we found ourselves at a gas station, trying with very little luck to refill billy’s tire. we decided to retire to the inside of the gas station to buy snacks and use the bathroom, but found the attendant locked inside behind a wall of bulletproof glass. instants after we realized we weren’t getting inside, we caught the attention of a middle aged couple, and the guy proceeded to utter what may go down in the books as the greatest sentence ever directed towards me- “it’s awfully late for you guys to be all bright white riding your bikes up in the hood.” he went on to elaborate about how we were in the “real” ghetto and we needed to get on the train and get ourselves back to LA before we get dead. we soon realized that trains were still running to long beach, and got ourselves to the station as the train was rolling in.
three stops from compton and we’re at willow street where we started our adventure earlier that day. four more stops and we’re at first street in downtown long beach. after a short jaunt down broadway on a flat tire and we made it back home in time to celebrate with beer and animal crackers.
When I wrote that I figured I’d be living back out in LA by now. I’m still telling myself I would given the right conditions (good job and living situation), but who knows.
Nonetheless, I’m driving back to New York this Friday for the ADC Review of graduating student work on the following Monday. Columbia is sending four of us from the graphic design program, as well as four from advertising art direction, and putting us up for the week at the Four Points in Chelsea. I’ll be spending the weekend before the review at my home-away-from-home-away-from-home at the Salon of Abundance in the always festive Williamsburg, where things will be even more festive than usual due to a pending Saturday night house party.
The ADC Review will be followed ten days later by Industry Night in Chicago. I’ll be spending the rest of this week finishing the fine tuning of my portfolio, updating my website, and preparing myself to act like a professional. I should probably get an oil change too, but you know how that goes.
This entry was written by , posted on April 27, 2009 at 9:21 pm, filed under Chicago, Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
It’s been two weeks since I’ve updated. The previous post was made from the backyard of a historic mansion in Santiago, Chile and this one is being made from my desk in my bedroom in Chicago, where I impulsively Expedia’d a flight to Rio de Janeiro almost three months ago. I can’t really tell if that feels like last week or last year. It is strange how being in constant motion plays with perception of time and distance.
My camera battery died while on top of a hill in Valparaiso, and the voltage converter used to charge it died in my kitchen in Buenos Aires, therefore I only managed to shoot about 20 photos (and about two worth showing) since the last update. In addition to this, I don’t so much care to go day by day through my last days in the southern hemisphere and my return to Chicago. Instead I’m going to talk about food.
As an avid eater, I will chart the ups and downs of the past two weeks by analyzing particularly notable (for better or worse) meals.
Just over two weeks ago I enjoyed the menu del dia (four courses with a drink for about six dollars) while reading a book outside at a small cafe on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Valparaiso, Chile. It was seventy five degrees with sunshine and a slight breeze.
A few days later I dined on home cooked pasta in the backyard of a huge red house in Santiago, Chile with friends from four different continents on my last night in South America. We drank Escudo and listened to New Order, the Stone Roses, and Oasis on the patio until sunrise.
The next evening I ate undercooked pasta in an American Airlines 767, 30,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Peru.
The following morning, I chewed on a piece of salty bread and sipped a glass of orange juice in the same aircraft, this time while looking out my window at Cuba and the Caribbean Sea.
Less than two hours after arriving in New York, I found myself in the company of six friends at the Olive Garden on the corner of 23rd and 6th, where I enjoyed a mixed grill for lunch in what I later realized was my most expensive food purchase in the past two months. April 9, 2009 will go down in history as the beginning of the Age of the Ironic Lunch (it will end when the Sizzler goes out of business).
Easter Sunday was spent in delightful company in Brooklyn, where a trip to the C-Town Market and the adjacent produce market motivated a home-cooked egg, chorizo, and vegi scramble with fresh tortillas and guacamole. Although revenge is a dish best served cold, brunch is not. Rest assured- this shit was hot.
Upon reaching Youngstown, Ohio, which is the halfway point on Interstate 80 between New York and Chicago as well as my ritualistic point of consumption of a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich with fries and a Hi-C, it became apparent that things were about to go downhill fast. The meal that I’d been anticipating for the past three hundred miles of Pennsylvania was shot down by a 10 PM closure. Instead I had to opt for two Burger King hamburgers at a turnpike service station outside of Cleveland (For those unfamiliar with the unfortunate 800 miles in between New York and Chicago- the dining options are about as varied and healthy as the food court at the O’Hare Oasis). FML.
Dinner with my dad at Geja’s Cafe in Lincoln Park was outstanding- but that’s a given. I quite enjoy lobsters, prawns, beef tenderloin, melted cheese, liquored up chocolate, fruit, and wine. Geja’s excels in all of these areas.
Today I ordered pad khee mao, cucumber salad, and a thai iced tea from Noodles in the Pot. The delivery guy once again inquired as to my absence and I ate at my desk while working on a project. This meal signifies the return to banality and the end of a particularly excellent era of my life. Tastes like chicken.
Oh yeah. Valparaiso is beautiful.
This entry was written by , posted on April 20, 2009 at 11:02 pm, filed under Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Since leaving Buenos Aires a week ago tonight, I’ve spent no less than twenty seven hours on buses- ten from Buenos Aires to Cordoba (in a crowded semi-cama bus), ten from Cordoba to Mendoza (in a luxurious and empty front top seat in a coche-cama bus), and seven from Mendoza to Santiago (maybe an hour less if you subtract the ridiculous out of bus formalities at the Chilean border).
The past week has been an eventful one to say the least. To recount it chronologically and entirely would result in a novel (perhaps a choose your own adventure novel in which any decision you make still results in your being stranded in south-suburban Santiago, Chile after a KISS concert in a moderately famous soccer arena) slightly more infuriating to attempt than Gravity’s Rainbow.
Rather than risk having my bag re-appropriated in the gauntlet that is the two blocks from the Subte to Retiro Bus Terminal (at 10:00 on a Sunday night at that), I decided to take a taxi. The driver was in a rather shitty mood until I paid the eleven peso fare plus a four peso tip entirely in one peso coins, at which point I received a “muchas muchas gracias.”
Saving a few pesos by taking semi-cama to Cordoba was a mistake, as the ride was long and crowded. Nonetheless, I was able to sleep for about half of the ride and woke up in a new city where I enjoyed breakfast at the bus station before dragging my belongings across the city to Baluch Hostel.
Cordoba is cool. It’s the second biggest city in Argentina (1.3 million) and home to a slew of universities, as well as the bookstores, music, clubs, and kids that come with them. It’s also at the base of the central sierras and a launching point for pretty much any type of outdoor adventure (skydiving, swimming, skiing, mountain biking, etc). It’s also way cheaper than already way cheap Buenos Aires. My time there was fun but relatively uneventful- fell asleep in a hammock on the roof of the hostel, wandered the city while consuming massive amounts of strawberry ice cream, enjoyed a traditional Israeli dinner with some guys from Tel Aviv who were staying at the hostel, and went out in Nuevo Cordoba with a big group of people from all over the place.
The roof of the hostel.
The city from the roof.
The city at night.
A cheap cab from the hostel had me on a bus five minutes before my 10:00 pm departure for Mendoza. This time I was riding in a coche-cama bus, with the entire front row of the second floor to my self. While this provides for a great view of the road ahead, it also provides for a petrifying view of oncoming traffic in the (highly likely) case that your driver decides to pass on the left without ample room. A warm dinner and complimentary malbec left me quite sleepy, and I was pleased to wake up to the lights of mendoza and the pre-dawn shadow of the Andes Mountains in the distance.
Ample legroom and red wine.
Kind of dreamy to wake up to this.
After consulting a map and a police officer, I decided it would be safe and cost effective to walk the fifteen or so blocks from the bus terminal to the hostel, only to run into a friend from Stockholm (who I’d last seen in Buenos Aires four days prior, as well as Sao Paulo a month before that) who was out for an early morning jog before a day of rafting in the Mendoza River. Needless to say, I had not even checked into the hostel before I was crammed in the back seat of a renegade van heading up into the Andes to go rafting.
Rafting was outstanding. The all you can eat asado (so much steak) at camp at the end of the trip was outstanding as well. I will post pictures from this when I get them from the Swedes.
The hostel in Mendoza was full of drunk high school kids from Cordoba who were on some sort of chaperoned trip. While this was funny to an extend, it also provided ample motivation to leave the hostel and go out elsewhere in the city after dinner.
The following morning began early, as check out was at ten and our bus to Santiago half an hour later.
Paper work for immigration to be filled out on the bus.
The drive over the Andes is unbelievable. Pictures do not do it justice. The Chilean border is at the highest point of the pass, and I cannot help but wonder if perhaps the thin air is somehow responsible for the ridiculous immigration process that takes place there. After getting off of the bus to be stamped out of Argentina and into Chile, you are asked to re-board the bus, only to drive about twenty feet into a sort of garage wherein the entire busload of luggage is unloaded and thrown through a series of machines while the passengers turn over signed paperwork swearing that no fruit or animal products are being brought into the country. In addition to this, the workers who move the luggage expect monedas (coins, but in this case “tips”). The Chilean border is also apparently sponsored by Nestle, as the Nestle Flavor flag blows proudly as you approach the building.
Looking out the front of the bus at the Andes.
The desert and the mountains.
Some sort of Argentine military base.
This is a bus station somewhere in the high desert where we stopped to pick up more people.
Still in Argentina.
Dry river beds.
A rest stop just before the border.
The actual border between Argentina and Chile.
The Nestle Flag.
The decent into Chile from the border is jarring. I’ve never been on a road that offers such a great drop in elevation in such a short distance. The switchbacks are sharp, steep, and entirely free of guard rails. I imagine the top front row is the place to be on this bus.
Next time I’m on this road I swear I’m going to be in the driver’s seat.
Sketch city.
These partial tunnels are incase of rock slides.
Santiago appears abruptly after a few hours of coasting through the Andean foothills and Chilean wine country.
Wine country on the way down to Santiago.
Santiago suburbs.
I’ve been in Santiago for about five days now and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. It’s big and sprawling and somewhat of a disaster. The people are really friendly for the most part, but in a way the whole place feels like it is still shaking the effects of the dictatorship. I’m sure the influence of the catholic church plays quite a role in this feeling as well. A walk through Barrio Brasil or Bellavista on a weekend night however makes it very apparent that the younger generations have moved on.
The geography of the city is very confusing. In addition to the fact that there seems to be no actual downtown, there is no body of water to serve as a beginning or end to the city. I managed to walk straight through the center without even realizing it. Geographically speaking, Santiago is the LA of South America (culturally, the LA of South America would be Caracas).
This is somewhere in central Santiago, from on a hill in a city park.
Same park.
Telefonica and the Metro Red Line.
I learned after I was here that this is actually considered downtown.
There are some beautiful old buildings here.
Weird open spaces.
The way the highway runs below street level through the old neighborhoods reminds me of the BQE in Sunset Park in Brooklyn.
Santiago’s buses are all green.
A Salsa Club in Bellavista.
I love this mural. It’s a few blocks long.
I hiked up Cerro San Cristobal, which is the big hill just outside Bellavista. There is a tram and a gondola to the top, but I was feeling in need of a good hike.
The view of the statue as I near the top of the hill.
Looking out over the city from the top of the hill.
Some guy drove this to the top. Totally jealous.
Generation gap.
This entry has been written in five minute intervals over the past few days. It’s now Tuesday evening and I’m flying back to New York tomorrow night. I went to Valparaiso yesterday and my camera is now dead and my voltage converter exploded. Today I hung out at a pool and ate some excellent guacamole. I’m finishing up this post while having a somewhat infuriating conversation with @marksteffen concerning my Thursday morning transportation from JFK to my home away from home in ever-festive Williamsburg and finally to the 23rd Street Olive Garden to feast on unlimited breadsticks, salad, and strawberry lemonade at the reunion lunch of the NYIC. I’ll driving back to real life (Chicago) after dinner on Easter Sunday. For the sake of my well-being (blood pressure in particular) I really hope I don’t have to look at snow when I get there.
This entry was written by , posted on April 7, 2009 at 3:02 pm, filed under Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
My landlord will be here in exactly half an hour to collect my keys, inspect the apartment, and refund my security deposit. After this, I’ll embark on my final ride on the Subte, up to Retiro to catch an overnight bus to Cordoba.
It feels strange to be leaving. I’ve only been here for a month, but never before have I felt so at home in a foreign city. Although I do tend to form strange attachments to pretty much everywhere I visit (in particular I remember wondering to myself while eating breakfast at a little cafe in Hope, British Columbia whether I’d ever be in that particular town again), this is the longest I’ve spent in one place without actually full-on living there. It’s a strange feeling to be able to give directions to tourists, call out a cab driver on trying to take a bullshit route to up the fare, be on a first name basis with the lady that sells you orange juice in the middle of the night, and run into people you met weeks prior on the other side of town, all while in a city that you really have no ties to. I can say with almost one hundred percent certainty that I will never again set foot inside my apartment at 1186 Corrientes, but much like the apartment in which I grew up on Oakley in Chicago (which I’ll also never be inside again), I’ll always remember strange little things about it, like the bathroom that floods everytime I shower and the futon that doesn’t quite fold up all the way, as well as the doorman who tries to teach me a bunch of crazy old phrases in Castellano.
Trying to organize and pack up my apartment.
My life in one bag.
My ticket out of town tonight.
I’ve been hoarding one peso coins for the bus. I won’t need them anymore, so I’m gonna make someone’s day at the bus station when I buy snacks with them.
Landlord is here. Time to go.
This entry was written by , posted on March 29, 2009 at 5:06 pm, filed under Buenos Aires, Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
I’ve been back in Buenos Aires since last Friday. Here is the long overdue update (which was written last night):
It (this blog entry) was going to happen last night, however my doorman struck up a conversation upon my return home from dinner just past midnight, and I received a three-hour Spanish lesson while drinking orange juice out of the carton on the front stoop of my building and observing the ridiculous state of affairs that is Corrientes Avenue in the early AM.
As I wrote on Tuesday of last week, the decision to take the Buquebus to Uruguay before the weekend was spur of the moment and fueled by strawberry ice cream. While a short trip to Uruguay had been in the cards all along, it was originally thought that it would take place post-weekend (this week). The plan was to take advantage of the perfect beach weather and get back to Buenos Aires for the weekend- which was exactly what we did.
After finishing our ice cream on the street in front of my apartment (which is a faux pas here, for the record), we ran inside to check the Buquebus schedule online, only to find out that the last rapid ferry to Colonia left from Puerto Madero in two hours. Quickly, we through together a plan (which is the first time I’ve really had more than the next day of my life planned out since I left Chicago) which involved spending the night at a cheap bed and breakfast in Colonia, catching an early bus to Montevideo (where we would either hang out for a bit or immediately board another bus to PDE), catch another bus to Punta del Este, spend a night or two on the beach, and then figure out how to get back for invsn Friday night in the city. The planning went quick and the packing even quicker- swimsuits, a change of clothes, notebook, camera, passports, and pesos- in a discreet little AA book bag that by no means says steal me (this bag did a wonderful job of allowing me to walk around with valuables in Brazil as well).
After a quick and cheap cab ride, we began a surprisingly non-furiating bureaucratic tour of the Buquebus terminal, in which tickets are booked at one counter, purchased at another, and checked in at yet another. Had there been lines, I may have suffered an aneurysm. After going through an airport style security check, we were stamped out of Argentina and into Uruguay, and proceeded to wait in the ridiculously comfortable gate area for the boarding of our boat. Upon boarding, we were surprised to see that the cabin of the ferry shared more in common with a Las Vegas casino (red carpet, bar, tacky duty free shopping) than that of a marine vessel. Nonetheless, the ride was smooth and just over an hour from port to port. We arrived in Colonia and walked through the eerily quite evening darkness (around 9 pm) to the main bus station where we exchanged Argentine Pesos for Uruguayan Pesos (which are currently 23 to 1 with the dollar, for the record) and asked for directions to our lodging (which was four blocks down the quiet and dark riverfront street). Two cab drivers and the guy at the currency exchange, as well as the the girl at our hostel all insisted that Colonia is the safest town on Earth, however having spent the month or so in some of the most densely populated cities in the world, the silence and stillness of the streets was extremely creepy. Nonetheless, after walking two blocks up the hill, we found the main street with cafes and restaurants and people, where we shared a parrilla for two and some drinks. After strolling through the old part of town (which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site), we decided that we’d wake up super early to see the town during the day before catching our bus out.
Colonia is quite beautiful and incredibly tranquil. It reminds me of a small town in the upper midwest of the United States with a flourishing downtown (if that exists anymore), only it’s subtropical and full of beautiful old buildings from the time of Portuguese colonialism. Beyond this, everyone either rides a bike or a moped, and there is a little harbor full of sailboats. As far as great places to retire are concerned, Colonia is outstanding (however there is little to do for more than a day).
The port of Buenos Aires from the ferry.
The absurd tourist class cabin of the ferry.
The entrance to the port.
Our hostel was on this block.
The view of the Rio de la Plata and a barn from our balcony.
The river.
Old Colonia.
I bet this place is delicious.
So many mopeds.
The site of our delicious parrilla the night before.
After momentarily playing with the idea of renting a car and driving ourselves to PDE (about 5 hours each way), we decide that it makes more sense to take a bus. We bought tickets with COT, a major bus liner in Uruguay. 3 hours to Montevideo, an hour layover, and another 2.5 hours to PDE, for a total of about 15 US dollars. Bus travel in this part of the world is incredibly comfortable and really cheap. We were able to get seats on the 11:00 bus out of Colonia at 9:30 in the morning, which allowed us another hour or so to wander the city before falling asleep on the way to MVD.
I’d have liked to have spent time in Montevideo, but this trip was a bit rushed and it was not in the cards. Driving through, it seemed like quite a nice city. This comes despite the fact that I’ve talked first hand with three people who have been robbed there, and heard talk of a minor crack epidemic amongst the bored middle class youth. The bus terminal was the cleanest and most efficient that I’ve seen in a large Latin American city (which is relative, because at just over a million people, it’s the largest city in Uruguay, however it’s tiny compared to most of the other capitals).
Coming into Montevideo from the west.
Uruguay is the land of the ham and cheese sandwich. This works well for me, as I am a great consumer of said comida. These ones were from the bus station and they were excellent.
The ride to PDE was shorter than the one to MVD, and quite a bit more scenic as the countryside became a bit more rolling, allowing for some views of the Atlantic. Our hotel (which was actually cheaper than most hostels in the area, and even pretty nice) was only a block from the bus terminal.
The town of Punta del Este is situated on a peninsula that (at the point in which the downtown sits) is only three blocks wide from the river beach to the ocean beach. During the Summer season (Dec through late Feb) the place is packed with rich people from throughout South America- and it shows. On some blocks you’d think you were in Newport Beach (with the Valentino and all the sushi), however just around the corner there’s always a little bakery or market and a kid on an old moped to remind you of the fact that you are in no such place. As we were there in the middle of March (the weather is still perfect, but all the kids are back in school and parents back at work), everything was half the price of the high season and the beaches were relatively empty. I couldn’t ask for any more. We decided to stay until Friday, at which point we’d make our way back to Buenos Aires.
The Uruguayan flag at the tip of the peninsula.
The main surfing beach.
Everyone in PDE gets around on two wheels- some with engines, some without. We took it upon ourselves to acquire a 125cc scooter, which was actually too easy. It was actually large and fast enough that I would not be allowed to drive it at home without a motorcycle license. Needless to say, this was the highlight of my time in PDE, and I had it on the highway at speeds in excess of 100 kph. This great increase in mobility allowed us to explore some private beaches and unpopulated parts of the peninsula.
Pretty much the best thing ever.
Being mobile is nice.
We found this place about 20 km outside of town.
The scooter parked up on the sidewalk at the Disco Supermarket, feeling a bit intimidated by the Mini behind it.
Dinner at Lo de Charlie (a highly recommend spot in PDE) was outstanding, and included whitefish ceviche with mango and avocado, grilled swordfish, and Valencian paella. Our snack at the golden arches the following day was the opposite of outstanding.
Damn.
The dogs in Uruguay like to hang out.
And sometimes they come inside to do so.
Playtime and empanadas.
We were able to book a direct bus from PDE back to the ferry terminal in Colonia through Buquebus, which also included first class ferry fare back to BA. The bus ride was about 5 hours with a stop for snacks in some really sweet small but kind of big Uruguayan town in the middle of nowhere. We were stamped out of Uruguay and into Argentina and then waited for about an hour at the terminal before boarding the ferry, at which point the sun was going down over the Rio de la Plata. The ferry was quick and came with complementary champaign and terribly obnoxious closed-circuit television consisting of circuses and fashion shows.
The bus ride back to Colonia.
The Uruguayan Pampa.
This is the outskirts of the town where we stopped for snacks.
Sunset over the Rio de la Plata from the Colonia ferry terminal.
A fifteen minute walk from the terminal brought us back to my apartment, at which point the past week of my life in Buenos Aires begins. I was still tour guiding through Wednesday night, which meant sightseeing, window (and actual I suppose) shopping, copious eating, and of course going out at night.
This morning I walked across microcenter to acquire a delicious chicken and mango pico de gallo burrito at CBC before wandering up to the bus station to purchase a ticket out of this city for Sunday night. I was still undecided between stopping in Cordoba or going straight to Mendoza or Santiago, but decided at the ticket counters based on the fact that the line for Sierras de Cordoba (a reliable service to the center of the country) was much shorter than that of Andesmar. So now it is in stone (well, 95 pesos worth of stone) that I leave Buenos Aires for Cordoba at 11:10 pm on Sunday.
On the way from Retiro terminal to Ave Tucuman and Ave Montevideo to pick up my laundry I witnessed first hand a broad daylight bag snatching- and quite the audacious one at that. The offender simply cut the strap and ran while the owner of said laptop bag was hailing a cab. The precession of screaming old men running down Ave Santa Fe through Barrio Norte (one of the richest parts of town) failed to catch the offender.
Here are some photos from the past week in BA:
My hood.
That’s the Carrefour next to my apartment. I buy all their orange juice and pasta.
You can’t find guacamole here (outside of a few Mexican spots), so we made our own.
The park at the Tribunales Subte stop.
Tribunales.
We stumbled upon a protest on Ave de Mayo the other day.
Homero is watching.
This entry was written by , posted on March 27, 2009 at 5:54 pm, filed under Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
An impulsive post strawberry ice cream decision yesterday afternoon has led me to Uruguay by boat. Spent last night in Colonia, five hours on two buses today and now I’m in Punta del Este- the so called Monte Carlo of South America. Words and photos and all that coming this weekend when I get back to Buenos Aires.
This entry was written by , posted on March 18, 2009 at 4:31 pm, filed under Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
So I most definitely ‘got my wander on’ yesterday. After dropping off my laundry for a good old fashioned thirteen peso wash/dry/fold, I hopped on the Subte Line D at Callao and rode to the end of the line at Congreso de Tucuman in the neighborhood of Belgrano. This was not aimless wandering, as I had the intentions on checking out an instore from some local bands at some fancy hair salon. Upon arrival at said salon I discovered that no such show was taking place, but took this as an opportunity to wander around a strange place that I’d never been and will most likely never be again. Belgrano is like a different world- very upper-middle class and far from downtown, but by no means a suburb. The apartment buildings and storefronts are strangely fascinating. I actually ended up walking home, which took over three hours.
Pictures:
Callao Station on the D Train.
For some reason Belgrano makes me think of Jersey City, if it weren’t the worst place ever.
Always a nice sunset in the southern hemisphere.
Not sure why I’m so fascinated with the apartment buildings here…
I take my laundry to Lava Show. It’s pretty much awesome, as well as terribly convenient.
I’ve recently developed a terrible habit of drinking soda water out of the pressurized bottle. It’s a bit like going to the dentist every time you take a drink.
This entry was written by , posted on March 13, 2009 at 3:17 pm, filed under Buenos Aires, Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.
Perhaps those who named this city were referring to the “wind” circulated through the train by the open windows as the sweltering and way-too-crowded-for-10:00-on-a-Tuesday-evening Subte Line D careens (underground) down the left track from Estacion Nueve de Julio in downtown Buenos Aires to Plaza Italia in the slightly too cool for school Palermo Soho. Most certainly they were not referring to the gusts that propel the endless procession of solicitous literature (read: for a good time…) down Corrientes Avenue as I use the occasionally functional payphone in front of my apartment, but I digress…
Buenos Aires is a proper city. It was built as a logical grid of one-way streets that run (generally) north/south or east/west, with the occasional deviation from this grid to accommodate the urban sprawl to the northwest along the Rio de La Plata. Its avenues are grand and chaotic and its side streets cramped and shady. Independently run buses compete with taxis, motorbikes, and fiats (and hoard coins, causing a ridiculous situation in which there is actually a black market for change) alongside sidewalks that are packed with people and lined with 24 hour kiosks, late night cafes, and bookstores. The subway is always crowded and quite useful, although annoyingly non-functional between 11 pm and 5 am. In many ways it’s the antithesis of the sprawling and uncontrolled disaster that is Sao Paulo (this is not to say that I am no longer in love with Sao Paulo).
I’ve been walking a shit-ton since I’ve been here- upwards of ten miles a day according to the gmap pedometer. The fifty or so blocks back to my place from Niceto Vega in Palermo is actually quite enjoyable, and a great way walk off the beef tenderloin stuffed with ham, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes (kind of like a ham and cheese burrito, except that the tortilla is a steak) that you just washed down with a bottle of Malbec at La Cabrera before finding out that your friend left his debit card in an ATM machine in Barrio Norte just before dinner.
Unlike many cities that are extremely walkable during the day (why does London come to mind?), Buenos Aires remains this way throughout the night, quite possibly because people are always out. It seems as though one would have try quite hard to get murdered in most parts of this city. Perhaps there is a backpacker conspiracy to keep tourism at bay (not working, as the city is flooded with foreigners, present company included), because I’ve heard countless tales of carjacking, robbing at gunpoint, and general conniving, but for some reason feel more at ease walking home at 3 am here than I do in my own neighborhood in Chicago. I suppose by ‘some reason’, I actually mean the fact that there are families with children eating dessert, single women walking their dogs, and countless cabs and buses, occupying the same space at this hour. Beyond this, there is also most likely some doofus from Los Angeles walking around with a digital SLR around his neck and a three hundred dollar pair of sneakers on his feet that will make a much easier target, be it for a bird-poop-splatter camera jacking or a good old fashion “gimme ya shoes” 9 mm stick up.
As I’ve been hosting a friend from Chicago for the past six days, I’ve been out all day everyday, trying to do as much “Buenos Aires Stuff” as possible in less than a week. Amongst these activities were parties (Invsn and Zizek), shopping (Florida Street, Palermo, Recoleta, Vila Crespo), eating (Steak and Empanadas, some of which happened at the mall), and general nonsense (post-punk show in an old house in Flores, 4 am conversations with women of questionable morals at streetside cafes downtown). Regretfully, I’ve taken very few photos. However, the camera is charged, notes have been taken, and as I’m on my own time now, the next few days will be quite productive in the picture making department.
For now, enjoy this random assortment of images and observations from the past week of my life:
My apartment was a mess. Now it’s all clean and I’m cozy in bed watching MTVla and blogging.
There is this place on Lavalle, about 6 blocks from my apartment, opened by a SF expat, that apparently thinks it’s that other white-people oriented burrito establishment from Denver. The only difference is that it’s much better and it exists in a city that is completely lacking of spicy food…
…And they have mango pico de gallo. And guacamole does not cost extra. Number three on my list of things I’ve learned in South America is that mango makes everything better. More on numbers one and two later.
Puerto Madero is the “newly revitalized” (read: River North in Chicago) neighborhood of glass skyscrapers, hotels, and really overpriced food and entertainment immediately east of downtown.
It pretty much blows (these winds are not fair), but Calatrava’s bridge is quite nice.
At the far eastern edge of Puerto Madero, beyond the ugly new development, you can find an old walkway lined with little independent parillas.
They look like this and they serve Bife de Chorizo and Quilmes on little tables on the sidewalk.
Walking further down the edge of Puerto Madero we saw some little parrots hanging out on a ledge.
Walking back towards the proper part of the city from Puerto Madero.
Vila Crespo is a neighborhood south of Palermo that has an overabundance of leather shops, some nice tree lined streets, and a ton of auto repair shops.
We found a little cafe on a street lined with auto shops and had a delicious meal for next to nothing.
This building is on Corrientes, in the Abasto neighborhood, on the (long) walk home from Vila Crespo.
This is also in Abasto, which was once the home of the famous Tango musician Carlos Gardel (whom the subway stop is now named after).
This is Jerome in Puerto Madero. He’s on an airplane right now, probably over Brazil at this point, bound for Dallas (poor guy), at which point he’ll get on a flight to Chicago and finally develop his four disposable cameras from this past week. Let us hope for the best.
I promise not to eat any more steak at the food court at Alto Palermo Mall. And to take more pictures. And to stop hoarding my one peso coins. Seriously.
Yours Truly,
Brett.
This entry was written by , posted on March 11, 2009 at 10:31 pm, filed under Buenos Aires, Travel. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.