Corner of Av. Casares & Av. Berro, Palermo

I know what you’re thinking…where is the best place to see Koi Carp in Buenos Aires? What’s that you say? You weren’t thinking that at all??? You want to know which balcony on the Pink House Madonna, sorry, Evita, addressed her public from? Well, I might post about that another day….
For now, I really must work on my mind reading skills, and while I do that, here’s a picture of some Koi Carp, in the ponds of the Jardin Japones, or Japanese Gardens, one of the more interesting of the many parks in Palermo, Buenos Aires…

Read the rest of this entry »

Corrientes 3247 (between Aguero & Anchorena), Abasto

[Open 10am to 10pm daily]

Largest Shopping Center in Buenos Aires

The Abasto shopping center is probably the one mall in Buenos Aires that has at least something to appeal to all people, of all ages, although apart from its wonderful 1930s Art Deco architecture you could not really argue that it is an authentic Buenos Aires experience.

As far as shopping goes, it is full of mainstream clothes stores, and it boasts over 250 brands to choose from, including major labels like Nike, Lacoste and YSL. As I said, not all that authentic an experience, but at least the building itself really is quite beautiful (see right), and is on a very large scale - it is the biggest mall in the city of Buenos Aires (Unicenter, the biggest mall in Argentina, is outside the city limits).

This area of Abasto also has played a major role in the social and tango history of Buenos Aires, and for those reasons alone it is worth a quick visit, even if you are not interested in the shops inside, which will probably be quite similar to the ones that you can find back home. And there is also a range of things to see and do inside the center, which can be found near the end of this blog post.

Read the rest of this entry »

First Weekly Buenos Aires Blog Update

[4th - 10th December 2006]

Hello and welcome to the first of my new weekly highlights posts covering what has caught my eye in the Buenos Aires blogosphere. Think of this a kind of a low-brow Global Voices Online solely covering BA.

Unfortunately, I can’t write in this blog as much as I would like to, but there are many other excellent blogs about BA out there - and so I am going to let them do some of the work for me! Most of the ones I know of can be found listed over at the excellent Bloggers in Argentina.

Each week I will link to the best blog posts I have read that I think will be of interest to visitors to Buenos Aires, and post the links up here, with a little commentary added. If I have missed something interesting out or seem to be overlooking a whole blog completely, please comment below to draw my attention to it. Here goes (warning, there is a lot this week!)…

Read the rest of this entry »

Lavalle 441 (between San Martin & Reconquista), Buenos Aires City Center

[Open from 8.30am to 11pm, delivery available by calling 4328 3057]

Burritos in Buenos Aires?

I had to do a double take when I first saw Saltshaker’s blog post, Wrap it Up! In a tortilla please, proclaiming the existence of a new burrito restaurant in Buenos Aires. Yes, that’s right, Buenos Aires - the city that spicy food forgot. The California Burrito Co, CBC for short, had apparently come to spice up the lives of us expats in BA - literally, not metaphorically, of course. I immediately knew I had to check this place out.

Read the rest of this entry »

I write too much, not often enough!

I have been posting infrequent, but very long posts so far in this blog. I am going instead to try and make a conscious effort to write shorter, snappier content, more often, so that I can cover more ground and avoid boring my readers to tears! Here is my first go at a slightly shorter post…

National Stereotypes

I was reading a Daily Telegraph (a UK newspaper) blog entry a while back about the rugby friendly tournament that included England, Ireland and Argentina. It caught my eye because I was born in England, from an Irish family, and now live in Argentina.

The blog was throwing a few national stereotypes about Argentines that got me thinking. Now I am not an overly politically correct person - I feel that on occasion stereotypes are important generalizations, and it is only by generalizing the specifics of the world that human beings can continue to have constructive conversations.

Read the rest of this entry »