Kissing Real Estate

At first I thought that we were really missing out on cultural experiences as we spent our days shopping for real-estate, instead we are getting a particular insight into Buenos Aires and Portenos (the people of Buenos Aires, literally "people of the port"). The architecture and interiors are amazing - if there isn't an amazing cage elevator we're surprised. Marble only on the floors - really!
I can't speak a clear sentence in Spanish, but I can now decipher every abbreviation in a Real-estate ad, and can even guess when "divino!" really means that the apartment sucks but the address will impress locals.
The business culture is an odd combination of relaxed "live first sell later", and obsessive promptness; being 5 minutes late for an appointment is almost unforgivable and causes much panic. Whereas when we were excitedly looking at a property posted in the window of an office, the agent observing us from inside came to the door and without a word or exchange of a business card, locked it - time for lunch!

We told our energetic and patient agent Vicky, that we wanted something in a french style building with the original interior - french doors, little balconies, hard wood, etc. Having seen a few apartments, we have now become very fussy about our french style - "these french doors aren't quite as nice a proportion as the others and the hardware is much heavier, the mouldings not as refined, and the balustrade is too chunky" - we are the worst clients! On the other hand, we used to have a complete aversion to air shafts but looking at the one below and many others with amazing stained or textured glass has changed our mind.









On a cultural note, we were caught off guard when after our first apartment viewing the agent representing the property gave us each a kiss on the cheek! Even more surprising was viewing an apartment that was occupied by tenants - that time we received a kiss from the agent AND the tenants. Of course we kiss our own agent all the time. But then came the apartment shown by a very masculine guy and the entire time I couldn't help wondering if we were going to kiss him when we departed. No. And neither did our agent give or receive a kiss. Now I pay close attention and will try to decode the kissing protocol.


We will keep looking, but it seems that due to a few stalled sales in Canada we won't have your Buenos Aires guest rooms available this spring - Sorry!

More friends from Vancouver!

I feel that I'm simply going to have to blame everyone else for our lack of blog updates and as I've learned how to hide comments on this blog, no one can debate me on this! First I blame the trio above who arrived from Vancouver and forced us to go full swing into the amazing Buenos Aires restaurant scene. This means major dining every night that begins around 10 and ends sometime around 1am, and that only leaves time for a bit of skyping and some real-estate hunting on the net (I am obsessed). Above is one of our pre-dinner receptions that Lewis and I held in what we call the "petite salon" (we'll tour the apartment in a different post). The restaurants and food are fantastic and if you know Ben, Jim or Lee ask them how they liked the pepper.

The next excuse is that we unfortunately had a little test of the Argentine medical system. And before any mothers out there get worried, everything is absolutely fine, and we have found the medical system to be excellent, almost unbelievably excellent. It started with what we considered to be a very pesky requirement by all gyms in Argentina to have a medical certificate signed by a doctor prior to them allowing you to join. We finally found a gym that had an on staff doctor who preformed some basic tests and the long and short of it is that Lewis didn't pass and needed to see the cardiologist and he is now completely fine. We did have a couple of stressful days however. Total cost for seeing the cardiologist, having tests and getting a prescription - $0.00. Total waiting time to see the cardiologist in a private clinic - o minutes o seconds (he met us in the elevator). Cost of perscription - $7.00. I think we're staying here when we get old(er).



The size of this city is daunting for someone like me who needs to explore every inch of a place. Its been a bit humid and the best part of Lewis's day after me dragging him around for hours on end is opening the door of the apartment and feeling the icy cool breeze of air-conditioning. According to our realtor/guide/translator this weather is not the norm but she may have been saying that just to keep Lewis interested in buying! On that note, hunting for apartments is going well - lots of great stuff, and lots of fantastic stuff for just a bit more money...

BUENOS AIRES!!!

Finally we're here! Well, its been a few days and yes I thought we would be blogging like crazy but even this effort has taken me two hours to get to the point of actually writing - something about my disc being full and therefore I can expect less than perfect performance. The other challenge is we really had no photos to share as every picture I've taken looks something like

this one with the "for sale" (vende) sign on the balcony. We have become obsessed with buying a place here! I'm not sure why we love it so much but a few reasons may be: 1 - it is NOT Brazil. 2 - It is the Paris in which we can afford to do everything. 3 - it's summer! 4 - wine for $1.25 a bottle (we haven't dipped that low yet) and simply an amazing urbanity.


To the right is our grand apartment - Lewis is peeking out the window. Its a nice break from our clean minimal new world in Vancouver to be in a 90 year old french style apartment (with a brand new italian kitchen). The photo at the top is the view from our place down Avenida Callao - pronounced "kashow" - very important in a land of non- english speaking taxi drivers. The domed building is the Congress - a block from our place and the focus for a lot of political activity. Since we were last here they've cleaned it up beautifully but also put a massive fence around the fountains to keep them in thier un-graffitied state. While it has a European mind, Argentina definitely has a latin soul. I promise to take photos of things other than apartments!

Rio Photos

We posted some photos of Rio at Picasa - this is not pretty Rio - its rainy carnaval Rio. And now we must run to another bus, I mean luxury coach.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rutendale/Rio

Iguazu

Surprise - we're at Iguazu Falls - it is a surprise to us too, although we had 15 hours on the bus to get used to the idea. We were desperately searching for any place in southern Brazil where it was not going to rain for a few days and found none - so here we are at one of the natural wonders of the world simply because it was the most convenient way to get to Buenos Aires at the time.



The falls are spectacular and we're glad we saw them - perhaps mostly so we don't have to make excuses for not having been here. Anyone who travels to this part of the world normally takes a couple days to see all this "water running over a cliff" which is how Lewis always dismissed it, but I think he was impressed too, or perhaps we were both just gleefully joyous at the sight of the sun! We also had a bit of a struggle getting out of Sao Paulo and spent the better part of 2 days in the bus station and on the metro between it and the hotel. Quite surprisingly, the bus station in Sao Paulo is not an unpleasant place - perhaps its all the armed guards. We'll do Sao Paulo later...

At this point we are really looking forward to being "home" in Buenos Aires. We've been moving around a lot, the weather has not been great, and we are also much more comfortable in Argentina than Brazil. Today we took a quick trip across the river to Argentina from Brazil (you can also see Paraguay from the bridge) to arrange our transport to Buenos Aires and we immediately felt the safe calm civilized europeaness of Argentina.

We really are hoping to post more photos but it is simply amazing how much time and energy the simplest things take in this country (or maybe its just us).

Rio De Janeiro

A random meeting of friends Michael and Brian from Vancouver who we originally met in Argentina two years ago! They were getting on the ship we just got off and we ran into them on the pier here in Rio. When we meet in Buenos Aires in a week we'll have spent more time with them in South America than Vancouver.

As we walked along the ocean from Copacabana we observed that as we travelled more and more people seemed to be moving in the same direction; and then we heard the drums and met up with this spontaneous parade along the beach in Ipanema - suddenly we were part of Carnaval! I tried uploading a video to give you the sounds and movement but really, we're in Rio and are not going to spend an two hours on this blog!

The infamous "cup of fudge" conveniently located in the menu under coffee so one can order it and still have desert! When asked what he wanted to do in Rio, this was the only thing on Lewis's list. We thought of you Jimmy!

Land!

We've sailed into Rio!!!! Us and over 10,000 other cruise ship passengers - Customs and Immigration was so overwhelmed that they simply gave up! Not even a passport check and it still took us over an hour just to get out of the building - Welcome to CARNAVAL. We've checked into the fabulous IBIS, already lost our friend Sandra, and are on our way out into the messy humid rainy city to do what we always do when in rainy Rio - go to a Mall...More soon now that we're on land and the internet is only $6 per day rather than $40 per hour.