Night & Day in Buenos Aires (Part II)

La Boca, probably one of Buenos Aire's biggest touristic attractions, has more than just colourful buildings offering live tango and a local snack. Many of these buildings are cheap housing where several families share a bedroom (sleeping in shifts throughout the day), and where up to 30 people would share the cooking, washing and bathroom facilities. I'm not talking about a hundred years ago - this is still the case today.

When I arrived to La Boca, the area was packed with tourists - there was no single place available in any of the terraces. Me and my friend were hungry, and thirsty - and just wanted to sit down, relax and enjoy the view. While walking along the main streets you can observe a strange mix of tourism and poverty. We adventured into a secondary street with a small little cafe with just a few tables outside and decided it was time to rest. When our empanadas arrived on the table, we were delighted with a whole collection of dipping sauces (I'm not sure If they did this to have reasons for conversation or because they were confused about what my indian friend might eat, but it was really charming!).

It was a perfect saturday afternoon. Until we heard a loud noise coming from behind me and I pictured my friend with a pale look. The friendly bar keeper quickly asked us to run inside. I got to take a quick look to what was happening: a street fight with nothing else but harmless stones and bottles flying all over the next intersection just 20 meters from our lovely terrace! We quickly ran inside looking for some shelter while the bar keeper, his wife and his friends left their mobile phones and wallets on our table inside and ran out shutting the door (with a key) behind them.

Ok, there we were. Stuck inside of a small bar while outside the apocalypses was taking place. I must admit, I somehow felt safe - whatever was happening, it wasn't anything against us, but against the lovely people from La Boca, who seemed to be well used to these kind of fights.

After a while, things calmed down and everyone who just an hour before was chilling at the bar sipping a beer, came back inside and back to their position as if nothing had happened. I was astonished. Nobody had a single scratch! I was told this was the usual saturday afternoon event, every time La Boca plays against Racing. When I was back in Uruguay I was corrected - this happens any time any argentinian football club has any kind of match, but specially when La Boca vs. Racing.

Good to know for the next time!

(I would still return...)

Night & Day in Buenos Aires (Part I)

I had to take my time to write this post as I only spent a weekend in Buenos Aires and it has been already a few months ago - time goes by, so quickly!

While I was over in Uruguay for my training, I took a weekend to fly over to Buenos Aires - it's only about an hour flight from Montevideo and there are thousands of connections every day. I wasn't going to discover the city alone, though - I had two fellow trainees rotating in our argentinian offices (one of them is argentinian himself and the other had been in Buenos Aires for the last 2 months or so), so I was really looking forward to discovering some nice boliches.

We met in The Kilkenny's Irish Pup (ironic, right?) in Reconquista - which is quite touristic and always crowded. To end the night we went to a rather local area, called Las cañitas (this is the unofficial name of a few blocks within the area of Palermo). Bars, pubs and restaurants are located around the Báez, Arce, Arguibel and Ortegy y Gasset. Every bar and restaurant in this area looked great! We decided to settle down at Van Koning Bar - a dutch bar with modest lights, two floors and a nice terrace to enjoy late summer nights. They have a long list of beer, both national and international (I remember that, because they actually had one of my favorites: Franziskaner!).

The next morning, I decided to discover the city on my own way - by asking a cab driver to drive me to a nice place. Well, we did drive me to Palermo (duh!), but this was a different part - this was the artistic, alternative and rather retro part, called Palermo Soho. Let me tell you something: you will never have seen so many nice restaurants, bars and shops at once and so many beautiful people sipping their coffee and having their snacks. It felt like being far away from the city and the traffic!

I didn't want to leave - I would have easily quit my job and moved into Palermo - its streets are cleaner than Switzerland, bars are open every day and have happy hours that last from 7 to 12 pm (and besides, happy hour really means happy hour - mixed drinks for 1.3 euro - are you kidding me?).

It was about 4pm when I officially had to say goodbye to Palermo. I still had a lot of places to visit, and the next one in my list was La Boca....

Top 5 City Ranking (according to me)

The other day I decided to check out this years Mercer's city ranking for quality of living worldwide. Not surprisingly, Switzerland has 3 cities in the Top 10 (Bern, Zurich and Geneva). I'm sure it's high quality of life in many senses: low criminality, clean streets, efficient transport service (all this thanks to all the taxes we pay) as well as a good salary (which, at least in my case, decreases significantly after-taxes), good bread and cheese and a lot of leisure activities (all these hiking tracks, ski resorts, lakes... definitely make themselves useful).

If considering these points, I should be delighted to be living in Switzerland. And partly I am - even if I don't say that too often. The fact is: Switzerland is awesome to live in - specially when you're married and have kids. But when you are a young single expat, things might get complicated. It's really difficult to meet swiss people (generally, they are a quite closed folk), and the country is not specially recognized for its party-lust (there are some exceptions thou).

So, since I don't really agree 100% with Mercer's list (we have different qualities we value in a City) I decided to post my own ranking in which the quality of life is mainly driven by the openness and friendliness of its people, the quality and variety of food and drinks (being this, restaurants, pubs and bars), the affordability of goods and services and, of course, my own experience.

5. Hong Kong

Great city! 24-hours activity and you will find a party every day (although for non-asians its rather reduced to Lan Kwai Fon area). Restaurants offer food 24:7 and chinese are quite friendly to foreigners - I must have so many pictures with cooks and waitresses! Although you can find different types of restaurant, most of it is classic chinese which, by the way, has nothing to do with the greasy chinese food we know in Europe! Transport is cheap but the rent is very expensive - so you better find a well-paid job to compensate! Besides from the 24:7 attitude of this city, I liked the fact that, after just half an hour drive you can be at a nice beach, and with only a one hour ferry you get to Macau (an asian version of Vegas!). Its flaws? Probably the language (although I must say, cab drivers are really used to foreigners and the way they pronounce chinese street names), the weather and the extremely high pollution.

4. Madrid

It's been said that it's one of the best places to party, probably because of its huge variety on bars and its party hours - it's absolutely normal to go into late hours on a normal basis. Spanish food is great too (ok, that's me speaking, so you might disagree on this), but I do have to admit that the city is still missing variety - it has to catch up on that. However, there's something Madrid has that other big cities envy: it's underground! It's cheap, reliable, works until quite late and will take you anywhere. Probably what I most like about this city is its culture of tapas and siesta (there's too much of Spain in me). This definitely raises life standards, even if you have to deal with low salaries and extremely hot and dry summers.

3. London

I was surprised not to see London among the best cities to live and it really got me wondering if I'm being objective here - probably not. Unaffordable apartments (if you want to live in Zone 1), expensive (and unreliable) public transport, rainy days, pollution... Yeah, seen like this, it doesn't look good at all. But London has something that attracts me: it's perfect for being single. There are infinite possibilities to meet people, bars are packed with happy-hour frequenters every afternoon and you'll always find exactly the type of cuisine your stomach is asking for (there's even a restaurant offering food from Seychelles...).

2. Sydney

I don't know much of Sydney, as I only spent 5 days there (so please correct me if I got wrong impressions), but it seemed to me as a great city to live in. The climate, the sea, the beaches, the parks.. makes it a great place to be all year round. Going out was fun and also very rich in variety. I specially enjoyed its bohemian area - with late-night art expositions, modern stylish people sipping champagne and awesome little shops selling Sydney-styled outfits (which I love, by the way). However, I do think its a city in which you need to earn good money - I heard apartments are extremely expensive and public transport isn't cheap neither, besides from the fact that alcohol is ridiculously over-priced. I guess that, when living in Sydney, you have a healthier life and probably you also get a good salary - The big deal is only to get the right work permit.

1. Buenos Aires

Surprised about my number 1 in the list? I think Buenos Aires wasn't even considered for Mercer's ranking! Buenos Aires is beautiful and people are friendly, talkative and open (I love their accent, btw. its so sexy...). Never before had I seen so cheap drinks - in Palermo Soho there are bohemian bars offered gin tonics for what would equal 2€ a glass. And what to say about its wine, steaks and sweets! Besides from its national food, the variety on foreign cuisine restaurants is also broad enough to satisfy anyone's crave. It's a city full of entrepreneurs, dreamers, artists of all kind and people taking their chances. As happens with most of LatAm countries, its population is well onto the economic and political history and the present situation, and enjoy open discussions about any current issue. To highlight probable its main flaws I would mention the high crime rate (although I felt safe everywhere except in La Boca when I was caught up in the middle of a gang street fight) as well as its still unstable economy. I just hope it improves soon, 'cause I promised myself Buenos Aires as possible next destination (to live).

Which cities would you rank in your top list?

Around the World II

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Colonia, Uruguay

Punta del Este, Uruguay

Venice, Italy

Sydney, Australia

Around the World I

Montevideo, Uruguay

Feria de Tristan Narvaja, Montevideo

Feria de Tristan Narvaja, Montevideo

La Boca, Buenos Aires - Argentina