Vini & Katarina’s blog

Since are we now more than 6 months in Argentina, we think it is appropriate to look back on our experience inside and outside of Argentina. Only when looking at our photos, we finally realize what amazing places we have already visited in South America. This continent is incredible, with virgin nature, great waterfalls, high mountains, sky blue lakes,  infinitely long beaches with fine sand and warm ocean water, huge glaciers, exotic animals and fruits, culture, and an interesting history. Also, the people we met have been very friendly in general. Let's keep it short, these are the photos which will (we hope) show you more than our words can tell. Enjoy! :)

Today Vini became 3 times 7 and he is doing fine. :-D Katarina made the great birthday cake which had a very short lifetime. The recipe is available on request.

We celebrated it with a nice dinner, with some friends.
Especially for us, our friends (from Peru and Columbia) gave us the following great Salsa demonstration. :-)
  At night (2 a.m.) we went to PACHA, a famous night club. DJ Hell was the second star of the night, after Vini of course. ;-)

We decided to do a picknick in the Jardin Botanico, close to Plaza Italia. It is a very typical place, with an incredible amount of cats. They tried once to reduce the number of cats, but since then the rats and other less friendly species quickly returned, they decided to allow cats to reproduce "normally" ;-) We invited our friend from New York, Alyssa to enjoy with us the sun, the food, and the garden.

Can you guess from the video what we ate as dessert ? Hint: it rhymes with coffin. First one to find it, receives a special prize which will be hand-crafted by us.
Afterwards, we had a drink at a cafe nearby, where we did an important scientific contribution to humanity (our heads were nicely fried by the sun, that certainly helped ;).

Our Argentine friends, Andrea and Pablo, invited us to spend a Sunday at their country home (maison de campagne). It was a wonderful day with a lot of sunshine, a great asado (barbecue) and refreshing water (very very fresh ;-). We had a great time and we were very happy to have been invited by our friends. You will understand once you see the photos.

We found some jokes about Argentina and Argentinians and we could not resist to put two of them here. You can find the rest on this page .
Sorry for those of you who do not understand Castellano (Spanish).

Un argentino se encuentra con un conocido y le pregunta:
- Che, ¿tenés un encendedor?
- Esperate que busco - responde el otro, y empieza a buscar en los bolsillos del pantalón, en la camisa, en el saco, y sigue tocándose mientras le contesta al otro:
- Mmm, che, parece que no tengo encendeddor... ¡¡pero qué bueno estoy!!

:-D

Le pregunta un argentino a un español:
- Ché, ¿sabés cual es el país mas cercano al cielo?
- "Argentina", supongo -responde el español enfadado-
- No ché, no... es Uruguay, que está al lado de Argentina..

The 20th of January 2007, we took Buquebus (a ferry) for a one day trip in Colonia, a small colonial town in the South of Uruguay. Apparently, it has not changed much since the colonial times when the Portuguese and Spanish were active in the region. 
With a fast ferry, it takes only 1 hour to get there and to forget the noise and stress of Buenos Aires. This picturesque town is on the list of the Unesco World Heritage of Humanity. It is an ideal town to relax, enjoy the magnificent seascape in the sun (when you are lucky ;-) and explore the historical richness.

 

The time of the Christmas holidays is coming also in Buenos Aires. But this year, the sunny and hot weather almost makes us forget this.
As we are now so far away, we would like to wish you happy holidays and all the best in 2007 through our blog.

It seems incredible how many Slovaks or descendants of Slovaks we met in Buenos Aires last Sunday (the 10th of December 2006). They came together to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Slovak Cultural Association in Argentina. It was in 1926 that the founders decided to join forces and also to buy the building which now is the official house of the Association. Even far away from Slovakia, people still connect with their roots.

The festivities were complete: a traditional lunch with slovak bread, desserts, music and of course "Svaty Mikulas" (Saint Nicolas or Sint Niklaas) came to give presents to the children (including us ;-).

You can contact the Slovak Cultural Association at:
Asociation Cultural Eslovaca
José Mármol 629
C. P. 1236 Buenos Aires
tel./fax: 0054-11-49832567
e-mail: slovensky.spolok@abaconet.com.ar

Saturday, the 9th of December 2006, we spent a very nice day in the estancia la Concepcion with Vini's colleagues. The day started early with the minibus leaving at 9h from the office. During the 1h30min ride, we socialised and talked about a lot of interesting things in spanish (the whole day we practiced :-). The domain was very beautyful. During the day, there were a lot of activities: eating asado (barbecue) :-p , biking, tennis, football, swimming, sunbathing, games to win prizes (we won a bottle of red wine). The day was a big success, we met a lot of nice people (including an argentinean Santa Claus) and we relaxed in a beautiful environment.

During the lunch, artists made cartoons of all the participants. Do you recognize us? :-)

There was also some wildlife in the trees:

Last sunday we went to the "Copa de Polo Reino Belgica", an event sponsored by Capital Lions private asset management and organised by the Belgian embassy, the Chamber of Commerce and the Belgian Association of Buenos Aires.  The weather was a bit chilly, which was a nice change from the heat of the days before in the city centre.
It was the first time we saw a polo game and we had to get used to the rules of the game. It's an interesting sport and it is pretty amazing to see people racing on horses while trying to hit a bal with a long stick. First there was the warming up next to the building where the food and drinks were being served:

Between the games there was a nice concert inside, with tango music, a great male singer and of course, tango dancing:

To go to the main playing field where the game for the 3rd and 4th position and the finals were being held, we had to take a horse and carriage of course (what else ?) :)