In residence in Buenos Aires
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2008
1
15
28
Trip End
Mar 31, 2008
Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Thursday, February 14, 2008
My latest sample was a Barnada/Malbec blend from Cornejo-Costas vineyards in San Rafael, Mendoza (no year). It cost about $2 but I preferred the 30 cent Malbec/
Joan is drinking an Argentinian Concha y Toro blend, brand name Tocornal, Cepas Nobles, described merely as vino blanco, which she describes as very pleasant, this cost about $3. It is from Maipu, Mendoza.
Other wines enjoyed:
Rodas, Coleccion 12, Cosecha 2007, Sauvignon Blanc, Bodegas Esmeralda, Mendoza
main bedroom
.Concha y Toro, Premier Malbec, 2007, Mendoza.
Incidentally, there is not much wrong with a country where you can go to the local grocery store and buy the three basic food groups (red wine, white wine, and a litre of beer) and some incidentals like bread, potatoes, vegetables, meat, juice, etc, and spend less than $16.
A note on our apartment. This building was built around 1920 at the height of Argentina's boom when it was one of the four richest countries in the world. It is very French in design, complete with a concierge (portera) on the ground floor. There are nine apartments in all - two per floor - not counting the portera's.The original elevator, with accordion doors and brass fixtures, is still in use. It is strange how conditioned one becomes - when I call an elevator I expect the doors to open when it arrives at my floor - this elevator does not do that, so I have found myself standing looking at the elevator when it arrives and not moving.
The apartment itself puts me in mind of the Mary Celeste (for those unfamiliar with this story go to Wikipedia, also check Arthur Conan Doyle whose story - Marie Celeste - is what I have in mind). It is as if the occupants left in a great hurry. There are books dated from 1940 on the bookshelves, all of the crystal, best china, and silverware is still in the china cabinet and sideboard. The furniture seems original and the bathroom (opinons differ as to whether there are two bathrooms) is not modern. The kitchen has been updated with newer appliances and granite countertop but it still has the original kitchen table and the laundry area is essentially as it was when the apartment was built.
The apartment is large and spacious, with high ceilings, on the top floor (5th in North America, 4th in the rest of the world), with beautiful parquet floors in the dining and living rooms, and two bedrooms that, thankfully, are air conditioned
Main bathroom
.Time zones. When we arrived in Chile we were surprised that the daylight lasted until long into the evening and concluded that some drastic daylight savings were in effect. When we went to Peru, essentially due north of Chile, the time was 2 hours behind Chile's! On moving to Argentina, I expected that Argentina's time would be the same as Chile's because of the extreme time movement in effect in Chile. The time here is actually one hour ahead of Chile, as one would expect in normal circumstances. However, it is still dark after 7 am and light at 10 pm and there is only a two hour time difference between the UK and Argentina. All was revealed when I read an Economist article yesterday.
This is from the Economist:
Its geographical position suggests that most of Argentina should be four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. But it has been only three hours behind for most of the period since 1969, when a military government made summer time last the whole year. Now it is just two hours behind, until mid-March.
The new time has provoked grumbles in western Argentina, where it remains dark at 7am and clocks now run three hours ahead of Boston, on a similar longitude. "Everyone's complaining about it," says Mauricio Llaver, a journalist in Mendoza. "You never fall asleep before 1am, and then you wake up exhausted in the morning, and it's still dark outside. One of the pleasures of summer used to be waking up to the songbirds. Not any more." There is similar grumbling about newly-dark mornings in Patagonia in the south, Ms Fernández's (the President) adopted home region. The early signs are that the switch may not save energy.
We were in El Calafate which is about 50 miles from Chile and I can vouch for the strange daylight hours. This means that Chile is 2 hours ahead of where it should be and only Peru is on the 'right time'. As a result Sao Paulo, Brazil which is two time zones ahead of Santiago is actually on the same time, and Buenos Aires, a time zone behind Sao Paulo, is one hour ahead. Uruguay, in case you were going to ask, is on Argentinian time.
