Third weekend in Buenos Aires: Further sightseeing and asado

This will be the final article about sightseeing, one or two more about work will follow, and of course some final reflections on the Social Sabbatical.

The last weekend in Buenos Aires now comes to an end. The upcoming week will be busy with finishing the work we have started, preparing and conducting the final presentation at Puerta 18 on Thursday afternoon and participating in the closing event at SAP Argentina with panel discussions of each subteam on Friday. On Saturday, April 30, my flight to Frankfurt will bring me back home and into the office routine at Walldorf.

Let me start in reverse chronology. Today on Sunday, the central event was the asado at Carolina's place. She is our coordinator from Pyxera, guiding us through our work with the clients and providing us ever-patient with any help. Together with her family (husband, two boys, three girls), she lives roughly 40km from our place at Palermo, and to get there, she organized a van for all of us - so we had a group trip there! An asado is a barbeque event, and so we had different sorts of grilled specialities, such as "choripan" - a roll with a sausage in it -, "matambre" - the word meaning "kill hunger", the dish being deliciously seasoned pork -, a cheese that is grilled and eaten with roll, and of course beef that was perfectly prepared and just melted in the mouth! Among Los Buenos there are several team members who usually prefer vegetarian food - and I wouldn't exclude myself from this group right away - but here it was almost impossible to resist. Very delicious, great people, excellent way to spend the Sunday together in a very typical Argentine way!

Many thanks to Carolina and her family for inviting us!!

Knives to cut the meat from the asado

After the asado, it was music time! Rob brought his guitar, which in this photo was played by Juami - many more joined in to sing

Now for some more sightseeing from Saturday: Together with Los Buenos team member Mo, I went to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (MNBA). The museum contains paintings, sculptures and more exhibits from the pre-Renaissance time up to art of the 20th century. As the weather was looking stable after we left the musem, we decided to pay the La Recoleta cemetery a visit. Although for me, it was the second time, I was excited to return there - after my first visit, I was feeling that I could have spent much more time there! And again, the atmosphere of the place just caught me - so many details to see, so many views and perspectives...

Finally, we hopped on a cab to go to "Caminito" in La Boca. This little street in La Boca is famous for its colorful houses, and you see tango dancers in the streets. It is quite a tourist hotspot, but it was just fun to walk around and take pictures. When taking a turn in the neighborhood, we managed to get some insight into the less touristy areas. Our walk ended at the famous stadium of Club Atlético Boca Juniors. The Argentines are famous for their passion about soccer! And as you can imagine, our team Los Buenos gets involved in some small talk about soccer - having members from Italy, the Netherlands and Germany in the team! (Not covered in this blog: Last Thursday, most of the subteams together with their clients participated in soccer matches in an indoor stadium - after that, we had a common dinner in a Pizza restaurant.)

First, impressions from the MNBA. To be honest, I was most fascinated by the sculptures. Maybe my perception about Buenos Aires being crazy about statues was an influence here...:

Auguste Rodin

La Recoleta cemetery: Should I ever come to Buenos Aires again, I will return to you!

Two birds

Two coffins

Too tempting - just had to take this photo!

Impressions from Caminito in La Boca:

Yeah, I can also take pictures of people... and there were plenty of them in La Boca!

At this time of the day, the weather brightened up and provided a light that made it impossible not to attempt catching it with a camera!

Perspective on the "Bombonera"

And finally some photos from our Friday evening subteam celebration - after returning from the office, our Puerta 18 subteam decided to have a glass of wine on the rooftop during sunset. Of course, I couldn't resist to take some photos:

First weekend in Buenos Aires, Sunday: Walking on my own

On the second day of the weekend, I took some time to walk around on my own. My plan was to get to know the park areas of Palermo and visit the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA).

The day was quite rainy, so I found the parks to be quite empty. While walking and shooting lots of pictures (though not as many as yesterday), I realized one thing: Buenos Aires is crazy about statues! 

There are three types: 

1. Those posing as natural looking motives. Strategy to get nice pictures: Point and click. 

Earlier examples in this blog: Statue within the Teatro Colon.

2. Others in the middle of very busy streets. Strategy to get nice pictures: Wait and hope.

Earlier examples in this blog: Not strictly qualifying here, but probably rather fitting in this second than in the first category is the statue at the Plaza Italia from our first neighborhood walk.

3. The whole place of La Recoleta Cemetery is playing in an own league. Strategy to get nice pictures: Click, click, click, click, ... (only limited by time)

Here are some examples from today for type 1:

The following example may be arguable: Taking it from the other side of the street shows another peculiarity of Buenos Aires: The partly deteriorating structure. You will immediately notice that by using the sidewalks that never are consistent for more than some meters. I owe this perspective to Rob who keeps mentioning that so many things look like the 80s - as if the time has been stopped.

The 80s are represented by the two cars parking as if framing the statue

You have guessed as much, right? Yeah, of course: This is a statue representing type 2

No statue, no type: But the Japanese Garden - I didn't go inside, as the rain was not that inviting. However, I liked this arrangement at the entrance that reminded me of our last year's vacation in Japan.

And as last representative of the statues: Another example for type 1.

The rain was a great reason to get on with the second part of my plan for today: Visit the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). It was opened in 2001 to host the art collection of Eduardo Costantini. The collection is not that large, but it shows a fascinating range of several decades and styles. I really enjoyed the 90-120 minutes that I stayed inside. And of course I am bringing back some impressions for you:

First weekend in Buenos Aires: Volunteering and Sightseeing

This is going to be a looooong posting. Not so much by text, but rather by photos.

The day started with our team participating in volunteer activities: At Fundación Si, we prepared Empanadas (I am using links to avoid the effort of explaining...) that will be given to homeless people. The Fundación people try to establish a bond to the homeless in order to see whether they can be helped out of their situation on the long run. To Janice, Rob, and myself, this sounded quite familiar - we were reminded a lot of what Puerta 18 does: Care for the kids and be interested in them also after they leave the place.

Here are some pictures of this event:

SAP team prepared for the empanada experience

Muhammad as "Chef de Cuisine"

Learning how to fold the empanadas

Carolina handing out lunch: Ñoquis

After our lunch at Fundación Si, a group of six - half of Los Buenos - decided to go for La Recoleta. Cecilia, who also participated in the volunteer activities, lives in that area and went together with us. She explained about the neighborhood and brought us to the world famous cemetery. We separated as a group, so everyone could look around independently - I took 250 pictures today, most of them at this magical place!

Before inviting you to look at some impressions from the cemetery, let me briefly write about the last place we visited today: The "El Ateneo" bookshop that is located in a former theatre. I do recommend reading the Wikipedia article (use the link at the beginning of this sentence) to learn more about it! Here are my impressions:

You could sit down and read in the loge.

View from above - this place was just so fascinating!

And now for the La Recoleta impressions - I will just add the picture, no descriptions provided, let the photos speak for themselves: