veranito

It’s suddenly warm out! It was just winter last week and now it’s crazy hot and sweaty outside. I think I have seasonal whiplash. I was inside, doors closed, heat on, wearing several sweaters just a few days ago and now it’s shorts weather, I’ve got all the windows open and I’ve even been trying to go out and work on the terrace in the afternoons. The jasmine vines out there are blooming like mad and the smell is intoxicating. A friend told us that there’s a name for this early hot weather, it comes every year and it’s called “El Veranito de San Juan.” It’s like “Indian Summer” but the opposite. After El Veranito de San Juan, there’ll be crazy rain storms on or about August 30th (“Tormentas de Santa Rosa“) and then it’ll get cold again before it becomes spring/summer for real.

Anyway, the beautiful weather is making me feel SO HAPPY and excited about life and a bit manic! I’m also a little stressed with a lot of work, but I took the morning off on Saturday to get chores done and do fun springy stuff. Woke up at 8:00 am!! on a Saturday! and we hopped on our bikes and rode to Chacarita, where we stopped at our new favorite bakery and got some crusty bread plus some amazing almond croissants and pain-au-chocolat. Next stop, El Galpon, where we drank a cup of coffee and a big glass of orange-raspberry juice on the front bench, basking in the warm and glorious sunshine… then headed inside to stock up on farm-fresh veggies, cheese, eggs, smoked ham, etc! Laden down with beautiful produce, we raced back home and dropped off the groceries, picked up the dogs and took them over to the vet for bathing (yes, our vet washes dogs!) … then headed over to Av. Santa Fe to search for some kind of improvised compost container. We’ve been wanting to do composting on our terrace for ever, but we’ve never had a good container. Now that it’s warm out, we’ve bought a few plants and we’re starting to trick out our garden for the coming summer! We settled on a big blue plastic laundry hamper which is kind of ugly but it was the cheapest thing we could think of. I hope it’ll work! Came back home, picked up the soft, clean dogs and spent a few happy hours on the terrace planting stuff! We now have tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, rosemary, thyme, lavender, cilantro, and some lovely flowers underway in our container garden.

We drank mint iced tea and listened to stories and songs from Townes Van Zandt while planting and digging around in the dirt. Dogs rolled in dirt to get all the “clean” off. Ate some tasty snacks and sandwiches with our plunder from the farmer’s market. Good times.

bike ride to tigre!!

For at least a year and a half, Mike and Leandro and I have been talking about taking a bike-ride to Tigre some weekend. Tigre is my Coney Island in Buenos Aires, one of my favorite places in Argentina, a neighborhood/city north of the Capital Federal, a weekend amusement town on the muddy brown river delta that includes a zillion green, overgrown islands, lots of old victorian mansions, humble weekend cottages, boats of all kinds, an amusement park, a casino, a giant busy market, a grand old museum in a former gentleman’s club, and a festive, nautical, fantasy-land air that ranges from dirty, creepy and dilapidated to expensive and fabulous.

So Saturday was the perfect hot spring day and we finally did it!! We guess that the ride was 25 or 30 miles one-way (mike’s bike odometer broke after 15 miles), though that included some rambles and detours to see some sights along the way. It was definitely the longest bike-ride i have ever done! but it made me want to do more.

Leandro was an amazing tour-guide, and named all the neighborhoods and landmarks for us as we rode through, took us to see the giant towers at the riverside in Olivos, guided us through some busy traffic on the avenues and some beautiful shady lanes in the fancy neighborhoods. I definitely would’ve been terrified to do this ride on my own, but with Mike and Leandro i felt more or less invincible. I put sunscreen on my nose (and Mike’s nose) but didn’t put it on my back and shoulders, so by the time we got to Tigre I was not only sore and tired from riding but completely sunburned to a crisp and sick from sun-poisoning. oops. It was an awesome trip though, an amazing way to start the spring, a perfect day in the sunshine with friends. And how satisfying to finally go through with the plan! when we got to Tigre we dragged our tired butts to the riverside and had a fabulous picnic of stuffed olives and fancy cheeses on the lawn in front of the museum, until the guard came and kicked us off. Barbaro.

Afterwards we were too tired to ride back home so we took our bikes home on the bike train!