Noruega en Argentina

Driving in the City

Posted on May 2, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

Yesterday I did something I have never done before – I drove to Buenos Aires. First time driving in Buenos Aires, and also first time driving in a big Latin American city! Yay! I went with our chef to San Cristóbal, a part of town that has several blocks of restaurant supply stores. You can read more about it here: San Cristóbal.

Posted in Buenos Aires, Personal | 1 Comment

Recoleta mornings

Posted on April 28, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

I go to Buenos Aires regularly, sometimes once a week, sometimes every two weeks. I adore that city! There is a lot to do and it just feels amazing to be in a busy city. I sometimes stay with friends, sometimes in hotels. My former boss lives in Recoleta and it is wonderful to stay at her place. Recoleta is maybe the nicest neighborhood in Buenos Aires and one of my favorites. I especially love the mornings there, when the city is waking up, people are having their café con leche at their favorite little place, shopkeepers are showcasing fruits and vegetables, and you can just feel the energy.

I went to Buenos Aires Thursday night and came back Saturday morning. I was hungry for some socializing and city life! I take the subway when necessary but I like the buses more – outside of rush hour they are really convienent and very cheap, only 3.50 pesos. (Heavily subsidized…)

Here is a cute little café on Calle Uruguay called Bonjour Paris.

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Another noruega en Argentina

Posted on April 24, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

These glasses are everywhere, and they are called copa noruega! They come in different sizes (for water, wine etc.) and I finally got some.

Posted in Norsk i Argentina, Norway in Argentina | 1 Comment

International Lunch

Posted on April 20, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

Today’s lunch was particularly international: there were seven Argentinians, four Chinese, two South Africans, one Spanish, one Swiss, one Brit, and one Norwegian! The South Africans were journalists who are visiting Argentina on the invitation of the Argentine Chamber of Tourism. They were delightful and fascinating people who had traveled all over. The woman had even met Manuel Noriega when he was still head of state in Panama! She got along splendidly with the Chinese business men and they discovered a shared love for Malbec. We have never gone through that much wine at lunch ever!

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Fancy some tea and cake?

Posted on April 16, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

Posted in Hotel | 1 Comment

Polo at Puesto Viejo

Posted on April 10, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

The club where I work, Puesto Viejo, is considered a mid to medium level club. As you probably know, there is a handicap system in polo, similar to golf, from 0 to 10, 10 being the highest. When describing a player, one usually says “he has 1 goal” or “he is a one goaler”, even though this does not refer to any actual amount of goals. There are only maybe 20 10 goalers in the world, all from Argentina, except one Uruguayan. In our club, the highest ranked player has 6 goals. We have tournaments both in the spring (“big season”) and the fall (“small season”), a total of 12 a year. Now in the fall season, we have six tournaments between February and May. Tournaments are organized by level, designating how many goals a team can have combined. For instance, there is currently a ten goal tournament going on, which means that each team can add up to a maximum of ten goals. This afternoon, a team made up of a 0, a 2, a 3 and a 5 met a team of two 1s, a 2 and a 6.

We also host games for larger tournaments or circuits; on Monday a 20 goal game was played here (our team won!) and yesterday a 12 goal game, which actually was between two internal teams. Sort of like a hometown derby, I guess! People often ask if there is a specific Puesto Viejo team, but since there are many different tournaments, both internal and external, the teams often change and there can be more than one Puesto Viejo team. For instance, Monday’s 20 goal game required a different set of players than today’s 10 goal game.

The length of the games also differs depending on the level. From what I have seen, games of 6 goals or under have 4 chukkers (7 minute periods) and after that 6 chukkers. The very highest level plays 8 chukkers.

Puesto Viejo Polo Club has about 35 members. Many keep their horses here, others have their own campo and bring the horses here for practices and games, and a few rent horses from the club. There are around 200 horses here, 45 belong to what we call the school, which means they are used for hotel guests and those who want to rent horses. 10 belong to the owners and the rest to the members. We have practices four times a week, or more when we have polo guests who come here to train, then we organize practices every day.

Posted in Campo, Polo | 5 Comments

Cinco meses! Five months in Argentina

Posted on April 5, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

This week I will have been in Argentina for five months. Crazy! Time has passed very quickly, probably because I have been so busy, working working working. I guess that is the biggest change from an office job – the hospitality industry keeps no regular hours… Many days have been fifteen hour days, starting early and ending late. And never a weekend off! But it has been a lot of fun as well and I love, love, love meeting so many nice people. I would have loved to have more time to ride but at least I have ridden quite a bit.

Easter week was of course very full, from Thursday to Monday we had a packed house, including an incredibly sweet French family who lives in Buenos Aires. Families really enjoy getting out of the city on weekends to have some space and lots of fresh air. We also had lots of polo, and on Sunday we organized a big asado lunch in the club house, the event space and polo club house we have here. The asado was wonderful and definitely something we want to do again – the owners have wanted to do Sunday lunches there the way they do in polo clubs in England so this was hopefully the first of many.

The five months since I came have been the busiest ones of the year, being summer and all. Now, things are slowing down, which I guess is nice for me but bad for business! It will be nice to have time to do other things, like taking some pilates classes in town, spending more time in Buenos Aires, and maybe finally cracking open the book that I brought, German Made Easy. In June and July it will be very quiet, so then I definitely want to spend more time in BsAs. I have been thinking of taking some kind of course, maybe something on Argentinean history or perhaps something totally unrelated, like makeup. Or maybe some tango classes? So far I find tango difficult…

In April I definitely want to do some traveling, I have been thinking about going to Montevideo or maybe to Cordoba. I also want to visit another polo place, to see what the competition is like. J I know that the south of the country is gorgeous but for now I am more interested in visiting warmer places. Salta in the north is also supposed to be gorgeous, and similar to Peru or Bolivia.

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

Serious stuff

Posted on March 24, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

So far this blog has been mainly about me, my work, and the horses, but of course one cannot live in Argentina without being affected by the things that are going on in the country. Of course I knew about a lot of this, especially living in DC and working where I did, and now I see it in real life. The currency controls that president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner put in effect a year ago have caused the dollar on the black market to rise to almost twice that of the official rate. When I arrived, the official exchange rate was about 4.7 pesos to the dollar, and the black market, or blue dollar, 6 pesos to the dollar. Now, the official rate is a little over 5, while the blue is 8. Putting in currency controls seems like a surefire way to get a new crisis… Dollars can be obtained in two ways: if an Argentinean is traveling abroad, he or she can apply to exchange pesos to dollars at the official rate, however, one may very well be denied this right, or only be allowed to exchange a small amount. The other option is changing pesos to dollars on the black market, and for most, this is the only option. People regularly change this way, often simply because they know the dollar keeps going up so they are better off having their savings in dollars. This of course creates more pressure on the peso.

Inflation is another huge issue here. The government insists it is around 11% a year but independent economists estimate that the real number is at least 25%. And now that I do the purchasing for a hotel, I can see how difficult this is for people, as the prices of meat and other staples go up slowly week by week. Every day people’s salaries buy less food for their families. It is not easy. The peso dollar issue also makes imports expensive, so many things are difficult to get here.

As the guest hostess at the hotel (now manager!) I of course try to stay away from heated political discussions, although religion and politics are less of taboos here than in the US. But most Argentineans who come to the hotel express their dislike for the president and her politics, and I agree with them 100%. Fernandez is ruining the country and has a smorgasbord of bad policies, from the infamous currency controls to fomenting protests against the city government for instance, since they are with the opposition, or creating lots of new holidays to get people’s good will. She needs to go!! Unfortunately the elections are not until 2015…

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Mercado Central

Posted on March 15, 2013 by noruegaenargentina

The central market of Buenos Aires, the mercado central, is a fascinating lifeline for the city. Vendors come from all over to sell fruits, vegetables, meats and fish in large quantities to store owners, restaurants and hotels all over Buenos Aires province. Prices are very low (often less than half of what we pay in town) and while it is huge and sprawling and not the easiest place to get around, it is so worth it. The fruits and veggies are amazing and it is one of the few places one can get quantities of fresh fish. We went before Easter and it was fantastic. There are some interesting political aspects to the market, it is apparently subsidized by the central government which of course has some important implications. Gotta find out more…

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