Suarez 396 (corner of Av. Almirante Brown), La Boca

[Also has branches at Av. Corrientes 1300 (City Center), Av. Rivadavia 5401 (Caballito), and Av Pueyrredon 123 (Once)]

Pizza is a serious business in Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires was largely built on huge amounts of European immigration around the turn of the 20th century, with the large majority coming from Italy, not Spain, as many would believe (they came in second). In fact, according to a Yale essay on Argentine Immigration:

“Between 1857 and 1958 the main source of immigrants to Argentina were Italy and Spain accounting for 46 and 33 percent, respectively, of the total. The rest of the immigrants were made up of different nationalities, including French, German, British, and Irish.”

This amounted to almost 3 million Italians in that period, most of which arrived in the massive rush between 1880-1916. I never thought I would be quoting a Yale essay while talking about a plain old Pizza joint, but there you go.

Read the rest of this entry »

Buenos Aires History

Fans of the history of Buenos Aires might be interested that fellow Buenos Aires expat blogger Robert Wright has recently been writing some excellent posts in his Line of Sight, about what could have been and what might be in Buenos Aires, in addition to his earlier wonderful picture series about ‘Buenos Aires then and now’, for the Estacion Retiro, Galeria Guemes, and Diagonal Norte, to name a few.

Now, I will never compete with the sheer knowledge Robert has about the history of the city, but I’d like to add at least one thing that might be of interest to those that have a penchant for the history of our great (adopted) city.

Recently, Google announced that the latest release of their ‘Google Earth’ maps program has gone ‘4D’, by adding an interesting choice of new dimension - the past, as noted here in Spanish, and here in English. They have done so by adding old maps of certain cities as ‘layers’ over the satellite maps of the earth, so that you can compare past and present.

Luckily enough, Buenos Aires, Argentina is one of the historical maps included, with a version from 1892 being viewable over the current real-life BA:

Check it out by downloading the latest (free) version of Google Earth and installing it. To use this cool feature, go to the Layers panel on the bottom left, expand ‘Featured Content’, and then ‘Rumsey Historical Maps’, and select ‘Buenos Aires 1892′, to see how much the city of Buenos Aires has grown since 1892 - all that green space!

Pillow Fight!

Today Parque Tres de Febrero, in front of the Planetario building (Palermo), descended into pure feathery chaos, as Argentina’s 1st ever flash mob event took place - a ‘Lucha de Almohadas’. Basically, a massive outdoor pillow fight between a group of total strangers, arranged over the internet.

There must have been thousands there*, pillows in hand and ready for the fight, and possibly almost as many taking pictures and videos with their cameras. I brought both camera and pillow, and did a little bit of pillow fighting, and a little bit of pillow recording, sometimes simultaneously
*EDIT: Update - Clarin newspaper on Sunday (whose front page photo of the pillow fight is no way as good as mine above ), estimated that over 3,000 people attended the pillow fight, with no injuries (although I saw at least one very bloody nose). That’s a lot of pillows!

Read the rest of this entry »

All Pillows to Palermo

This Saturday at 6pm I will be bringing my pillow along to what is supposedly the first flash mob event in Argentina - a mass outdoor pillow fight between a load of strangers.

The ‘war of pillows’ will take place outside the Planeterio in Parque Tres de Febrero, Palermo, starting punctually at 6pm (how stange for Argentina, being punctual…), so be there a little before, pillow in hand.

It has been organised by this Argentine blog, who are now strangely claiming that this isn’t a flash mob event at all - just a big pillow fight.

Either way, it sounds like fun to me. It’s not every day you get to hit one random stranger, let alone a whole bunch of then, even if it is only with a pillow (no buttons or zips please children!).

Why am I posting this here? Well, firstly, it may be of interest to tourists that are in town this weekend and looking for something crazy. Secondly, it is in the rules of the blog organiser that you have to tell everyone about the pillow fight. And thirdly, and most importantly of all, it is my blog and I’ll do as I please…

Hope to see/hit some of you there!

Avenida del Libertador 4100 (between Avenida Dorrego and Olleros)

The ‘Hipodromo Argentino’ in Palermo

This Saturday I visited the ‘Hipodromo Argentino’ (Argentina’s Main Racecourse) for the first time, to catch the most important event in the racing calendar, the ‘Gran Premio Nacional’, which is sometimes also known as the ‘Argentine Derby’, I suppose equivalent to the Epsom Derby in the UK, or, I am guessing, the Kentucky Derby in the US (help me out US readers!).

People told me before I went to expect the Hipodromo to be full of annoying, snooty, better-than-you upper class people, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Just like race meetings in the UK, there was a mix of all types of people there, including many families, enjoying the day out in the sun.

Read the rest of this entry »