It’s snow joke…

Yes, another play on words. Deal with it (for those unaware, it just snowed in the city of Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years).

What is the carnival of cities?

First up, blog carnivals are where someone finds a load of blog posts on a specific topic, and then puts all those posts together in one roundup blog post called a “carnival”. I guess, back in the day when I did the weekly Buenos Aires blog roundups, I was really posting up carnivals. To be honest, it felt more like a circus.

The carnival of cities does exactly what it says on the tin. It includes blog posts submitted from cities around the world, about any aspect of each city - local news, opinions, travel advice, general musings, reports of public lynchings, philosophical treatises on city trash disposal policy, organization of hobo-baiting activities, and the like. Well, maybe some of those are made up. But not all.

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Thames 1721 (between El Salvador & Costa Rica), Palermo Soho

[Note from Alan: Again, as with the Tango stuff, it's great to have Rachel here on the blogging team to help review some shops in Buenos Aires, because this really isn't an area of expertise for me. I'll just stick to writing the beer, food and ice cream reviews, thanks. Know your weaknesses! ;)]

Objetos Encontrados - “Found Objects” in Buenos Aires

One of the pleasures of wandering through the streets of Buenos Aires is you often happen upon a store that is entirely unique to the city, a place that shows the culture’s love for antiquities, trinkets, and anything made by Argentine hands. Objetos Encontrados, in Palermo Viejo / Palermo Soho, is one of these such shops.

It’s a fun place to gaze at the various toys, games, art pieces, and household items that are very much part of the city’s history. Perhaps the porteño obsession with collecting such items has something to do with nostalgia for better days in the city, when things were more stable and prosperous.

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Firstly, sincere apologies for the rubbish play on words in the title, on the almost certainly terrible (haven’t read it) but fairly famous novel by Miranda France: Bad Times in Buenos Aires.

So, moving swiftly on, it is thanks to Arjewtino (top blog, by the way) that I found a fun little tool that gives a film rating for your blog, depending on the number and variation of ‘bad’ words found on it. Although, as you’ll soon see, it does throw up some pretty off-the-mark results.

Buenos Aires Argentina Guide: Pure as Snow

Along with many other respectable colleagues in the Buenos Aires and Argentina travel-related blogosphere, such as Argentina’s Travel Guide, Goodairs, and Asado Argentina, I can happily say that I am pure as snow. We’re all goody-two-shoes Rated G blogs:

In fact, the tool even says that no bad words at all were found on my site. It’s amazing how different people are in blogging compared to real life…

Anyway, surely there must be some bad boys (and girls) out there in the Buenos Aires blogging world, and my job is to first track ‘em down, run them through the rating tool, and then name and shame ‘em. So, read on for a list of some extremely naughty Buenos Aires bloggers…

[Clearly I'm doing this for the good of all you parents out there worried about what your young children are reading on the internet ;)]

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Guatemala 5415 (& Av. Juan B Justo), Palermo Hollywood

Out of the very few strict life rules that I subscribe to, the most important happens to be: “when in Buenos Aires, if a man gives you some delicious cookies for free, you must write about them on your blog”. My dear old grandmother used to say this when I was a child sat on her knee back in the mid-1980s. A magnificent woman, and clearly a technological visionary to boot. However, hard as she tried, she was unable to knock out of me this annoying tendency I have for making ridiculous things up.

And so, this post. Read on for more cookies and assorted photo silliness.

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Av. Lisandro de la Torre & Av. de los Corrales, Mataderos

All the fun of the gaucho fair

One of the best-kept secrets in Buenos Aires is the Feria de Mataderos, a weekly event that takes place during the fall, winter and spring months (approximately April to December) on Sundays, from about 11am and into the early evening (during February and March a cut-down version of the Mataderos fair is held on Saturdays nights, from 6pm - THE FAIR IS CLOSED IN JANUARY). You may already know about the ferias in San Telmo or Recoleta, but if you want a real South American experience, come to Mataderos to see the gauchos (Argentine cowboys) and friends, who come from the countryside with their displays of horsemanship, handicrafts, live music, folk dancing, and delicious foods.

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