Oui Oui, Monsieur!

I don't know if you know this about me, but I like to eat.  More than anything else, though, I adore eating out for breakfast.  Not only is it my favorite meal of the day, but I LOVE having someone else prepare it for me. 

That being said, I have previously mentioned that there are (at least) 2 quality establishments for breakfast here.  One is Tea Connection (which I will save for a later date).  The other is Oui Oui, which is this tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurant that has maybe a baker's dozen of tables inside and, when the weather is fine, they set up a handful of tables out on the sidewalk.  (I am almost always on the sidewalk - either because it's easier to find seating there or because I have Maggie with me.)

The waitstaff leaves much to be desired, as is pretty common here in Argentina.  They do not care about efficiency or profit, so there is no such thing as a 45-minute table turnover here.  In fact, they are also very good at not meeting people's eyes, so they pretty much can walk past you 15 times without ever once acknowledging your existence.  I've almost gotten used to the treatment, as it means that I can sit at my table for a leisurely brunch and never feel like I'm being rushed out the door.

So, regardless of the table service, I LOVE this place.  It's very pinch-you-cheeks adorable and they bake their own breads, muffins, and pastries.  The lemonade is made from real lemons and is uber refreshing, I consumed my first submarino here, and all the plates, cups, saucers, and bowls are just perfectly chipped as to make everything seem so homey.  I highly recommend the pate, huevos completos (scrambled eggs, bacon, their version of homefries which are to DIE FOR, a salad and your choice of tea, coffee or a submarino), the pumpkin soup, and anything else you have the mind for.

I am at Oui Oui pretty much once every weekend - I LOVE THIS PLACE!  (And yes, if you come visit me, I'll be taking you here...)

Why sometimes I don't write

It's not that I don't love you, but occassionally I like to get out and enjoy this life that I'm living.  I work so many hours every week and often when I'm home, I'm still trying to get everything settled (although all my household effects are now here, I still have arranging, organizing, filing, etc. to do).  Which is why I sometimes choose making new friends over writing to the internets...

The Friday night dinner crew at M Restaurant, a Peruvian Japanese fusion joint.

The not-quite-awesome-but-decent-nonetheless ceviche clasico.  And remember, my standard is the Peru standard, which, being the birthplace of ceviche, is hard - nay, impossible - to beat.

My shrimp and scallop stirfry.  Mmmm, I'm hungry...

Petra, Monica, and yours truly, doing some late night, post-dinner hanging out at Bullers Brewpub.

Not quite dancing ON the bar, but there was plenty of dancing IN FRONT OF the bar...

Boys will be boys.

Marc almost looks like a normal guy.  Almost.

On Argentine men

This past week I related one of my favorite stories about Argentine men that I've experienced thus far, completely inappropriately to a female contact of mine during a work lunch.  It was after we had talked business and we were comparing notes on what we've heard about dating Argentines.  So I tell her the following story:

At the pirate party (see previous post), I met Juan Pablo pretty early on (i.e. before he could use the excuse of overconsumption of alcohol) and we were having a totally normal conversation, when...

Juan Pablo: ...You look pretty fit.  What do you do?
Ryan: (sound of car tires squealing in brain as her thoughts put on the brakes...wha?  Hmmm, let's treat this as totally normal...) Well, I run.  And I also recently started doing yoga again for flexibility.  You know, because when you run, you're shortening your muscles and I was never very flexible in the first place.  That, and it's good for my back.
Juan Pablo: You know, instead of yoga you should try sex (insert strange, uncomfortable pause here)...with Latin men.
Ryan: (gut-wrenching laughter...um, excuse me???)
Juan Pablo: (before Ryan can totally recover her senses) I shouldn't say these things.  After all, I sort of have a girlfriend...
Ryan: (hell yes you shouldn't say these things!  And a "sort of" girlfriend?  What the f*$% is that?)

So I tell my contact that this change in the conversation at least gave me room to totally ignore the sex comment and move on to other things - like this "sort of" girlfriend of his.  And then, at the end of the night, the selfsame Juan Pablo warned me against Argentine men.  Well, dating them, at least.  He still advocated "having fun" with them - LOTS of them, even - but nothing serious.

Which is a pretty common refrain I hear from Argentine men, says I to my contact.  Argentine men are always warning me against other Argentine men.  I'm not sure that they're helping their case any.

Meanwhile, in the corner of the restaurant, this approximately 70-year-old Argentine man gets up to leave and walks by our table.  He stops directly next to me and addresses me, in perfect English:

Old man: So, what did you choose?
Ryan: (total blank stare)
Old man: Yoga or sex?
Ryan: (double take, pause, and then...) Yoga, absolutely.
Old man: Well then I guess I'll go.

I promised you pictures

In Puerto Madero, with the "Ladies' Bridge" in the background.

Kaitlin gets cheeky over Labor Day weekend.

Wandering through the weekend market outside of Recoleta Cemetery.

Meandering through the Recoleta Cemetery, with no rhyme or reason (and before the mad search for Evita's grave).

More Recoleta Cemetery, which to me looks like a city of the dead straight out of a Tim Burton movie.

The lovely roots of a rubber tree.



I told you I like to brunch.  And, as far as I'm concerned, there are only 2 places to do so here in Buenos Aires.  I brought Kaitlin and Matt to Oui Oui, where both Kaitlin and I enjoyed submarinos (hot milk in which you melt dark unsweetened chocolate).



I can't just have a submarino!  Huevos completos are totally necessary.  And their version of homefries?  Freakin' fantastic.

Note Matt's excessive attention to the particulars of fork and knife use-ery at the brunch table.

The Casa Rosada (Argentina's answer to the White House) is wide open to visitors.  There are no metal detectors, no guards, no nothing.  You can just walk right in and take your picture with Evita's portrait.

Matt was so happy until he lost his "44" sign.

Stopping for a rest after wandering the neverending market on La Defensa.

When you don't have a reservation, you wait outside on the sidewalk forever.  But the free champagne makes it all okay.  (Note Matt's sporting of the 151st belt buckle!)

Nile, who I am convinced is the world's most fashionable baby, seen here in her Labor Day best at Evita Cafe.

Nile and Mommy Megan.

My life is a whirlwind

Things I meant to write about, but didn't:

• Undersecretary McHale, the highest ranking Public Affairs official in the entire U.S. government, visited Buenos Aires and I got assigned at the last minute to be one of the control officers for the visit.  She had just appointed a brand new Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) and it was my job to cater to the new DAS's every whim and desire throughout the trip.  It was absolutely AWESOME.  McHale's staff really made me feel welcome and part of the team, and all the folks from our public affairs section at the embassy were simply terrific.  I don't expect that all our VIP trips will be so delightful, but at least my first experience was pretty damn fabulous.
• Aaaaaaaaaaaar!  There was a pirate party!  Seriously, kiddos, a PIRATE PARTY.  I was only one of three absolute fools that didn't believe Petra was serious when she told us to get costumes.  So I stole Monica's pirate hat and pretended to be a safari pirate.
• Two of my classmates from A-100 traveled to Buenos Aires for Labor Day weekend.  This meant that I finally got out of my apartment on a weekend for something more than brunch (not that eating is a bad thing, but even I was beginning to wonder where my sense of adventure had disappeared to).  We walked all over the city (in a sad attempt to wear Kaitlin out by walking her to death), visiting the Recoleta Cemetery to visit Evita's grave, the leather stores of Florida Street, the obelisk, the San Telmo flea market where Mateo bought the infamous "44" sign that would end up disappearing by the time he returned to Asuncion, the markets of Recoleta and La Defensa (where we enjoyed watching Matt sweat over which hand-painted wood and glass box to purchase for his sister - for at least 30 minutes)...oh, and we brunched!  ROCK.
• And, after finally receiving my HHE and attempting to unpack, I am now on a work trip to Neuquen City, in Neuquen province.  I don't return home to my baby, Maggie, until Sunday afternoon and right now it's KILLING me.  I miss Maggie (who knew?) and I am so exhausted by the end of the day that I just slink away to my room, hoping no one notices or talks to me.  This whole livng your life in a foreign language thing?  It takes so much concentration that my brain cells are seriously contemplating suicide due the stress.  Some of my contacts have taken pity on me, such as the one today that drove me all around creation and back and then bought me ice cream!  He finally deposited me at my bed and breakfast around 8:30PM.  We actually spent 8 1/2 hours together!!!  Ay, it's a crazy life I lead.  The upside?  Well, there are a few things to list, but I'll describe two highlights: 1) the owners of the bed and breakfast have a Maltese that just had puppies about 3 weeks ago.  PUPPIES.  And I get to touch them.  2) Tomorrow I am going to visit a winery and I am going to pretend that this is a vacation.

Sandra and Monica playing the part of the hot pirates.  (Thanks for the Puss in Boots hat, Monica!)

Pirates of the Caribbean, Jason and Pablito.

My favorte Somali pirate, Richie.

The captain herself, Petra, and our very own gender-bending pirate, Megan.

More pictures will be coming soon, once I get back to Buenos Aires and actually have the cable to download...

Almost like home

Good news: my HHE arrives tomorrow!

Well, at least a portion of it. Somehow, in between moving out of Mexico, Massachusetts, and DC, my things got shipped in 2 different pallets.  So I really don't know what I'm getting tomorrow - not that I would know anyway, since I really haven't seen any of my things since last September (yes, that's ONE YEAR ago).  It's like Christmas Eve here in Buenos Aires, folks!

*HHE = household effects or "all that crap they threw into boxes, dumped on a boat, and shipped to Argentina"

You say hello, I say goodbye...

One of the core skills Foreign Service Officers need to develop is the ability to say goodbye...constantly.  With tours lasting, on average, two years, we move in and out of other peoples' lives at a dizzyingly rapid pace.  It can be a disconcerting process, especially when you come to really care for the people you share this globe-trotting life with.  The chances of running into one another again is both large (after all, the Foreign Service corps is quite small) and miniscule (Foreign Service Officers may quit, retire, or just get posted far away from you at all times).

I arrived in Argentina a little over a month ago, but I've already begun saying goodbye.  Summer is the season for staff turnovers and this summer is no exception.  For (nearly) each one of us dozen or so new officers at post, someone had to move on to another posting.  Not to mention all our summer interns and fellows.

The first of the despedidas (for people I know, anyway) was earlier this month, when the Econ Section said goodbye to our Pickering Fellow, Karina.  She and I shared a true love for whining at each other - seriously, folks, I can make Karina's name into a twenty-second whine at the drop of a hat.  And I already miss how she used to sit at her desk and laugh at her email so loud that it carried throughout the office, forcing everyone to peer out and ask just what was so funny.

Cynthia, Megan (the world's fiercest OMS), Yours Truly, Karina

This weekend we also said goodbye to the Political Section's intern, Patrick, and his lovely wife, Whitney.  We've easily discovered that they both bowl better than I (honestly, even Mad Maggie Delicious could bowl better than I, despite the lack of opposable thumbs) and very soon we will be missing their presence at all the after-hours events, plus all of Patrick's hard work at the office (nearly the entire Political Section just turned over, so the work of 6 or so full-time Americans was being handled by one Political Officer and Patrick for weeks on end).

Patrick, Whitney, Megan, Nile (the world's most fashionable, dance-crazy baby), and Neil

My Friday night, in fact, was spent fare-ing-thee-well to Patrick and Whitney, where I met some new non-embassy people while also toasting with some friends from within the embassy community.  The funny thing is that it looks as though one of the people I met Friday night will be crashing in my guest room for the next two nights.  So while Patrick and Whitney flew back to the States today, they leave a bit of a legacy for me.

Life in the Foreign Service is certainly never static.

I wish you well, Patrick, Whitney and Karina.  May our paths cross again...