[18th - 24th December 2006 - Christmas edition!]

Oh dear. I have been a very bad boy this week…not one blog post

I think I got burnt out after all those posts last week. Or I’m just reverting to my usual laziness…although in my defence, I have been visiting family most of this week and internet access was not as easy to come by as usual.

At least a few other bloggers in Buenos Aires have been a little more active ….

Buenos Aires Sightseeing

• Dan has some photos of a wonderful, decrepit old mansion on the equally wonderful, upmarket Avenida Alvear, in the heart of Recoleta. I used to talk about this great old mansion back when I was a tour guide, but can’t for the life of me remember it’s supposed history – and my tour notes are back in Argentina so I can’t check them for another week…
• Not strictly ’sightseeing’, but there are certainly some interesting ’sights’ to be seen at Club 69, as pointed out by ‘Trendhunter Buenos Aires’. The night is held every Thursday in Club Niceto, Palermo Hollywood
• Goyoworld posted a few nice photos of varying scenes around Buenos Aires, all taken on the same day
• Robert Wright has yet more amazing photos of Recoleta cemetery. Not once, but twice! I can’t wait for his guide book / map of the cemetery to come out…
• And he followed those up with some interesting photos all along a new theme he is working on: Buenos Aires is a beautiful, yet gritty, city
• Karine has been Caminando por Caminito, in La Boca. For (a lot) more information on this small, colorful street, you could also check out my recent Caminito post.
• Trendy Palermo Viejo notes that notable Argentine entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky posted up a nice video of Palermo Viejo here on his blog

Buenos Aires Info, News & General Comments

• The Buenos Aires city government blog looks back on the posts it made during 2006 (in Spanish) – looks like they didn’t steal the photo this time!
• For many of you it will sound strange at Christmas time, but in Buenos Aires we have just had the official start of summer. This is also strange to people in BA, because summer actually starts at least a month earlier, whatever the official line happens to be. Of course this day is actually the ‘Summer Solstice’ – the longest day of the year. Although being in the UK for a family Christmas right now, I have instead just experienced the shortest day of the UK year
• In that same blog post, PDF (fantastic, informative blog on the latest happenings in Argentina, by the way) talks about the 5th anniversary of the Argentine financial meltdown that saw riots and chaos in Buenos Aires, and Robert Wright also blogs about his eyewitness memories of those testing times: a night to remember part 1 and a night to remember part 2
• Laura comments on the crazy summer weather Buenos Aires is currently seeing, and also the electricity problems that occasionally occur here in summer
• A new online expat forum called Buenos Aires Black Jumpers has just been set up, but please play nicely with each other when using it…:)

Buenos Aires Restaurants, Food and Drink

• Diva reviews the Miranda parrilla restaurant, a modern take on the old Argentine classic, but still very good Asado apparently – for those wondering, it’s on the corner of Costa Rica and Fitz Roy in Palermo
• Karine has a picture of her favorite ice cream parlor in Buenos Aires – Freddo, which I like a lot (and will review soon), although for me Un Altra Volta is streets ahead, and I urge you all to try their gelato when you are in Buenos Aires!
• On the sweet theme, the Buenos Aires city government blog also drew my attention to some amazingly mouthwatering photos of three different rutas dulces (’sweet routes’) through Buenos Aires – I challenge anyone to look through one set of these photos and not get a craving for something sweet!
• Tango in her eyes posts a nice little theory on Argentine food to account for why things never seem to change much in this area
• The Argentina Travel blog has a couple of good reviews of bars in Plaza Serrano: Madagascar and Chronic Bar
• Laura’s pregnancy cravings lead her to the expat-heaven supermarket, Jumbo, where these days platano (plaintains) can be found

Funny or odd things in Buenos Aires

• People seem to prefer to do Christmas window shopping in Buenos Aires, rather than actually buying, as Jeff Barry noted when in the Abasto shopping mall
• Part Two of the funny differences between tourists and locals in Buenos Aires
• Diva continues to be most-featured in the ‘funny or odd’ section of this roundup, with her post on burning Christmas trees in Buenos Aires. Maybe she is just funny and odd by nature?
• Christmas is strange for us English in Buenos Aires, as fellow English expat in Buenos Aires, Jude, attests [I linked to her even though she is an Arsenal supporter, which I think is very big of me ]

Buenos Aires ‘Meme’ Update

• Things have been slowly trundling along with the ‘My Perfect Day in Buenos Aires’ meme…
• Diva blogged a fantastical ‘My Perfect Day in BA – The Morning’ post – I’m looking forward to the second part, as long as it doesn’t involve any cow beer…
• Miss Cupcake also posted up her perfect day in Buenos Aires, which reminds us that it’s the people, and not the places, that make cities like Buenos Aires great
• Dan from Saltshaker kindly promised to make a post for this meme sometime in the future, and gave me some good advice while he was at it – that it would help to actually tell the people I tag for the meme that I have tagged them!
• I’m still waiting on Karine and Laura to post their perfect days sometime, and I won’t let them forget – being in labour is no excuse, Laura!
• And the rest of you haven’t gotten away that easily…as per Dan’s advice, those of you with emails will be getting one soon so that you actually know you’ve been tagged
• And while I’m at it, Jude of ‘Not for the Fainthearted…’ is fairly new on the BA blogging scene, so I’m tagging you to for good measure – I’m sure you would write an excellently interesting ‘My Perfect Day in Buenos Aires’, AND you seem to be a prodigiously productive blogger right now, so you seem the perfect candidate…

Thanks once more for reading…and Merry Christmas to one and all! I won’t say Happy New Year yet, because I am planning on at least one blog post before then, to make up for last week’s poor showing!