It seems that the Buenos Aires government is making strides on quality of life and environmental issues. This process has picked up a lot of steam recently.
credit: gonzaaaa
New Recycling and ‘Zero Waste’ Law In July, the city government announced a new garbage management plan which involves cartoneros (Página 12:es | en). This new plan will install rules for waste management companies, let cartoneros handle all recyclables, and establish a Zero Waste law to reduce the amount of trash that goes to landfills.
Fighting Visual Pollution
credit: alex-s
Two weeks ago, the Buenos Aires government announced a plan to fight visual pollution by eliminating 40,000 billboards in the city (La Nacion: es | en). This new law will divide the city into three zones: residential, commercial and the Republic Square. The amount and type of advertising allowed in each zone will be defined. The law also establishes regulations on lighting of such signs as well as colors. In addition, the law forbids the total covering of the side of a building, certain types of billboards and the installation of advertising on houses and buildings.
New Air and Noise Control Devices
credit: La Nacion
Last week, they announced a new initiative to monitor air and noise quality in the city (La Nacion: es | en). This included an initial installation of 42 new Intelligent Monitoring Towers which monitor the concentration of carbon monoxide, ozone, benzene and moisture among other environmental factors. These will be calibrated and then moved to various parts of the city by the end of the year, providing the government with a complete map of noise and air quality in the city. This could lead to the modification of some city bus routes.
Another week, another round of random observations.
Random Observations: Week 3
You need a key to get into any building (apartment or office) that does not have a doorman. Fine. You also need a key to leave the building. This means that you have to buzz in and buzz out or in our case, keep our keys out whenever we leave the apartment building to unlock the lobby door. I understand this is for security, but it’s annoying. They couldn’t make it only require a key to get in?
The bus routes here seem incredibly complex and they’re usually very crowded. Plus, these buses must be the single biggest cause of pollution in this city. Ok, maybe the cars, but the buses here are mostly older and belch black smoke out all the time.
Everyone who has met more than once, kisses each other on the cheek when saying goodbye. I mean everyone: women kiss men, men kiss women, women kiss women, men kiss men. I had my first kiss on the cheek from a man this week, and I have to say it takes some getting used to…
New York does not deserve the slogan “The city that never sleeps.” Try going out to dinner in BsAs at 11pm on a Saturday night and getting a table without a reservation. It’s not going to happen. We just finished dinner at 1:15am after waiting 15-20 minutes for a table at a “less busy” restaurant.
No one has a sense of urgency here. Things get done when they get done. Our Internet connection has had problems for two weeks, and when you call they simply say “We know” and hang up. This attitude carries over to everything. It may mean a less stressful lifestyle, but when you’re the one waiitng for something to get done, it definitely takes some getting used to.
It seems like a lot of my posts are starting to have a Part II to them… Well, the Learning Spanish post is no exception. We’ve been down here just over three weeks now and while we’re picking up the language in bits and pieces (we can almost read a full menu now!), we were starting to wonder if 4 hours per week with our tutor, Marco, was going to cut it. He’s great, by the way, but we found that once we left the classroom, we were not always keeping up with the lessons.
Luckily, one of our blog readers, Henry, let us know that The University of Buenos Aires was about to start an 8 week intensive course in Spanish as a Foreign Language on Monday. It’s 4 days per week for 2 hours per day for a total of 64 hours. He said that his friend took the course and it really helped him, and we had heard the same on some other expat forums. We decided to check it out and went down for the placement exam. After placing into Level 1 (there is no Level 0), that was enough convincing for us. We signed up. The cost is AR $1053 in one payment or AR $554 for two payments. We got a small discount for signing up together (AR $2001 for both), so for US $5/hour, we’re now enrolled! There’s no more than 14 people per class, and they’re entirely in Spanish. We’ll see how it goes, and we’re keeping our more private sessions with Marco too.
On Sunday, we decided to do the tourist thing and head down to the San Telmo Sunday market. San Telmo is the oldest barrio of Buenos Aires and is known for its bohemian charm and architecture. Every Sunday, they hold a feria (street fair) which consists of arts and crafts, antiques and random assorted items. There are also tango dancers and other street performers. Agrentina’s Travel Guide has a great review of it all.
Last night we attended our first Expat Connection event, the La Plata National Wine Festival in La Plata, Argentina. About twenty people met at a wine shop in Buenos Aires for some champagne and picada before hoping on a chartered bus out to La Plata. Once there, 60 Argentinean wineries presented 350+ of their finest wines for tasting. There were some great selections and we’re definitely looking forward to planning a trip to Mendoza and Salta soon to tour some of the wineries in person.
You can check out a quick video I shot of the wine festival below.
We don’t watch a lot of TV, but before we left for Buenos Aires, we decided it would be nice to watch some U.S. TV stations and shows while we were here. Watching our DVR would be great too, and I also wanted to be able to watch Michigan football games this fall. Luckily, The Slingbox comes to the rescue.
The Slingbox lets you watch your TV over the Internet on any connected PC, Mac or mobile phone. The small box plugs into your TV on one end and high-speed Internet connection on the other. An infrared controller attaches to your cable box and controls the functions of it (including your DVR). You then simply install the SlingPlayer software on your laptop or mobile phone and connect. You’re now watching and controlling your home TV from wherever you are. (You can check out their flash video for a better explanation.)
All right, so this tech trick requires some setup before you leave (or a friend willing to set it up for you), a working high-speed Internet connection and cable TV, but if you have some place to set it up, it works pretty well. We have the SlingPlayer software running on my wireless laptop and connected to our TV with an S-video cable. A wireless mouse lets us control the on-screen remote from the couch. Now, we won’t have to miss any episodes of The Daily Show even though we’re thousands of miles away and we can still skip the commercials!
A lot of people back home have been asking me about Argentine beef: Is the beef really that cheap? Is the beef really that good? Do they eat a lot of beef?
The answer to all these questions is, “Yes.” Beef is definitely one of the staple foods here. While Mersal has not been able to find a decent salad anywhere, I have been extremely pleased with every single beef dish I’ve ordered. Last night we went to Oporto (which I would compare to a diner in the U.S.) and I ordered what I thought was the hamburger. For AR $20, it turned out to be a humongous steak sandwich (a very tender cut) with lettuce, tomatoes, a fried egg, slice of ham, and cheese on a large roll with french fries and a beer. Not bad for about U.S. $6.50.
Ginger Gentile, another New Yorker in Buenos Aires, has produced a short clip on Argentine beef, which you can check out below. Some interesting facts from her documentary:
Annual Beef Consumption Per Person China: 10 pounds
USA: 62 pounds
Argentina: 143 pounds
Bottle of water: $4 pesos / Sausage on a roll: $2 pesos
The Associated Press is reporting that Argentine senators passed a bill yesterday which now allows obesity and other eating disorders to be treated as diseases covered by public and private health care programs. This will help to fight obesity, bulimia and anorexia in the country.
The law also requires that high calorie foods carry a warning label and that the media cannot release diets that are not approved by a professional.
Sounds like another positive step forward and one that should also exist in the U.S.
Today I thought I would start a series of posts about technology solutions that I have found to help deal with a number of common problems that we have encountered. These are some technical ways we’ve been dealing with issues that we have run up against.
One of our ongoing issues is not speaking or reading much (any) Spanish yet. While this presents some problems in the real world, it also means that it is more difficult to navigate some of the local web sites which are entirely in Spanish or to email some of the people we deal with while here. Luckily, Google Translate makes all of this a lot easier.
Google Translate has a lot of features and options. From the main page, you can enter a block of text and have it translated from one language to another. This is great for handling email conversations. You can also translate a web page by entering its URL and clicking translate. They also have a feature to add 1-click translations to your browser’s toolbar, so whenever you want to translate a site you’re viewing, all you have to do is click once. The translations may not be perfect, but they definitely do the job. Note that this only works well on basic text and does not help with Flash-heavy web sites.
In addition to this, they have Translated Search which takes your search query in English, converts it into Spanish, searches Spanish language sites, and then converts the results back into English. There’s also a dictionary for looking up words and they’ve just released Google Translate for the iPhone too, so now it’s portable.
It’s an indispensible tool for anyone learning a new language or needing to view a foreign language web site.
Welcome to the second part in our series. Remember, some of these may be huge generalizations, but that’s ok.
Random Observations: Week 2
There is no sugar free Red Bull in the country. (Mersal is going through withdrawal.)
There are (almost) no obese people in Argentina. There may be some people with pot bellies or a few extra pounds, but you do not see people who are extremely overweight like in the U.S. This is surprising because:
There is an ice cream store every couple of blocks.
There is a pastry store on almost every block and they use dulce du leche in almost everything.
Most people eat dinner after 10pm.
Everyone seems to love McDonald’s and Burger King. They are always packed and usually have really long lines.
Speaking of lines - lines seem to move a lot slower here. This is probably why they have special lines that pregnant women can cut to the front of in most stores.
Speaking of ice cream - the size of the ice cream cones here are ridicuously small, but they heap the ice cream onto these tiny little cones. The ice cream is delicious too.
Purple is the color of the season (winter). All the stores have mannequins dressed in purple outfits. We have not bought anything purple yet.
Restaurant observations:
You seat yourself at most restaurants.
Remember to say “con gas” (sparkling) or “sin gas” (flat) when ordering water.
Every place gives you a huge bread basket before dinner.
Remember, some of these may be huge generalizations, but that’s ok.