Pizzeria Kentucky

You can´t get much more traditional with pizzerias in Buenos Aires than Kentucky, besides maybe Guerrin, but that´s another post.  My preferred way to eat is sitting on the stools in the bar, where you can buy pizza by the slice and a tumbler of red wine costs you 4 pesos.  The signature pizza here is the fugazzeta rellena, which is basically as much cheese and onion as you can fit both on top and inside the pizza.  I know it sounds like a grease injection, and it is!  But so good...

 

 

 

This type of pizza restaurant is by no means cheap, and to sit down in the restaurant and order and large pizza and a litre of cerveza will cost you.  But ordering by the slice and sitting on a stool in the front bar, where you can watch the guys making the pizzas, is a great option.  This is where you will find the taxistas (taxi drivers) taking a break from their 12 hour shifts and sharing some laughs, or a group of old men that have been regulars for the last 15 years.  Pizza is a food group here all by itself.

Summer in the City

Well it´s officially verano again.  So far it has not been like the summer we had last year which was pretty much oh-my-god-i-am-going-to-die every day, but today someone certainly decided to crank up the intensity of the heat.  Because Buenos Aires is a city without beaches, every summer the government constructs these kind of fake beaches on the river bank, where people can go to at least get a sense of what it is like to be at the beach in the summer.  They also set up umbrellas and chairs in the parks where people go to tan (they love a good tanning session in the park here).  In this park there was actually a tiny shower set up so that you could get all hot and sweaty and then at least feel the sensation of water against your body and cool off slightly.  Something to do?  Yes.  Even better than the real thing?  Not a chance.

Metropolis

Right out of the 1927 German film Metropolis is this building in downtown Buenos Aires on the corner of Belgrano and Peru.  The buidling is called Otto Wulf and was completed in 1914, 13 years before the film was made.  On the third level there are 8 huge sculpted figures that stand between the windows and are 5 metres tall.  These 8 figures each represent the different arts of blacksmithing, Carpentry, masonry, forjary, architecture, sculpture and the last two figures represent the head of the project and the architect himself, Morten F. Rönnow.  Every time i walk past this building i find myself in awe of these powerful figures and am glad to able to witness some of the beautiful architecture that this city has to offer.

Santa Fe

Ok, so technically it´s not Buenos Aires but it´s only 6 hours away, so i think i can still get away with a post about my trip there.  My boyfriend´s family lives there and we went to spend Christmas with everyone and for a much needed break from the city. Santa Fe has a population of about 600,000 and there are at least that many mosquitos living there as well.  Charles Darwin actually went there around 1833 and in his notes he wrote something like "the combination of humidity and heat during the siesta (afternoon) time and mosquitos make this place unliveable..."  At two in the afternoon the city is like a ghost town for exactly this reason, and because the afternoon siesta here is a ritual.  The people take a break from their work, close their shops, have lunch with their families and take a nap. Santa Fe is basically a mini version of Buenos Aires, there are some great buildings and a few things caught my eye...

 

 

 

This last photo is of a huge icecreamery or heladeria in Spanish.  The decor is stainless steel, white and mint green and looks right out of the 1950s.  They LOVE their icecream here in Argentina, there are almost as many heladerias as there are newspaper stands and i have to say, they give the Italians a run for their money in terms of the tastiest icecream around (icecream/gelati, it´s in the same family).

Street Art Almagro

About five minutes walk from my apartment there are a series of bridges that cross above the train lines in the suburb of Almagro.  Sometimes I take a different route walking home from work and recently i came upon these paintings on the walls of one of these bridges.  Next to the paintings there is a sign that says that all of the art is done by people that are living on the street and please do not paint over it.  The initiative is called Arte Sin Techo, or Art Without a Ceiling, and they work with the community and have a cultural centre a few blocks from where i took these photos.  The images remind me a little bit of Australian artist David Bromley.

I love the moustache on this girl!  It´s a bit of a Chinese style moustache in that simple-ink-drawing kind of way and i love the result.

This picture is done in the style of a child running, with child-like clothing, but the face and the hair really make it look like an old lady.  I love the contrast of the two ideas.  What a great initiative this project is.

Museo Metropolitano

Last night I had my work´s christmas party at the Museo Metropolitano in Palermo Chico.   It´s a beautiful building with a lovely courtyard and gardens and was constructed in 1928.  It was a private residence until the 1980´s and it now features art exhibitions, music recitals and you can book the bar and courtyard for private functions.

Post Street Bar

After work last wednesday night we all headed to Post Street Bar in Palermo to celebrate Jonathan´s birthday.  The whole place is completely covered in stencils, including the bathrooms (which can help to pass the time there) and we spent the evening with cerveza on the rooftop terrace.  They say that the stencil art is done by the most important street artists in Buenos Aires, and you don´t have to walk far from the bar to see that Buenos Aires is full of great street art and many creative people that are contributing to the art and design scene in Argentina.