Visiting B.A. Feb. 21 - Mar. 27 2010

Clifford Bristow

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Hello All: My name is Sharon Bristow, my husband (Clifford) and I will be arriving in Buenos Aires Feb. 21, 2010 where we have an apartment rented in Palermo Viejo for the 5 week duration of our stay.

I am 62 and my husband is 71. We enjoy the Spanish culture and have travelled extensively in Mexico and Spain in past years. This trip to B.A. will be our third trip in as many years to South America. I speak and understand a resonable amount of Spanish and am always interested to learn more.

One of my objectives for this trip is to find a small group of folks who are interested ( like myself ) in improving their Spanish. Possibly one that would meet twice weekly or so. My husband has some Spanish as well, although his is more of a " one or two words with hand motions here and there" kind; whereas I had (many years back) 53 hours of instruction both written and oral which included the conjugation of Spanish verbs. I always tell folks I have enough Spanish to be dangerous!

I enjoy to learn and practice, but have little chance to do so in the small city where we live -- Penticton, British Columbia, Canada ( 4 hours driving time north of Vancouver, B.C. where the Olympic Games are due to get underway in Early February of this year)

Clifford and I are also very interested in taking in some of the theatre night life -- possibly ochestra concerts, or theatre that involves professional dancing. We did go to one Spanish production last year, but I still find that rapidly-spoken Spanish is hard for me to keep up with -- I need a slower version.

We both very much enjoy the Malbec wines of South America and, of course, the wonderful beef.

The city in Canada where we reside - Penticton - is situated between two mountain ranges in a lovely valley in the south west portion of the province of B.C. Penticton is located on a 4 mile long piece of land between Lake Okanagan (80-mile long lake) and Skaha Lake ( approx 12 miles long).

Our winter temperatures usually do not dip lower than minus 10 C and summer temps can go as high as 32 - 35 degrees C. The area is considered semi-desert with only approx 12 inches of presipitation annually. All crops are irrigated with water from the lakes.

The Okanagan Valley is becomming very well know for its production of award-winning wines both red and white, and off course our Ice Wine. As well we have many fruit orchards producing apples, peaches, pears, and some nuts.

Many Canadians retire to this area because it offers wonderful golf courses, 3 world-class ski hills, and a large variety of water sports.

My husband is retired, and I have owned an award-winning gift shop (for 9 years now) located on the Main Street of Penticton; it specializes in offering quality Canadian hand made gift items. It is called Terwilligers-We R Unique.

I hope that this introduction to us will allow Clifford and I to meet some of you during our upcomming visit to Buenos Aires
:)
Thank you for your patience in reading through this long e-mail introduction.
Sharon Bristow
 
Would this http://www.balirica.org.ar/bal/temp_actual/e_temp2010.htm tempt you to stay until April 9 and the opening of the opera season??? Unfortunately January and February tend to be the off season for theatre, music and the arts and it only gradually picks up before the autumn. The entertainments pages of a newspaper like La Nación will keep you abreast of what is available. I'm afraid that the nearest I have ever been to B.C. is viewing Vancouver Island across the Puget Sound. But I did once live in a Penticton Road in the UK. Does that count?
 
There is a lot of info on this site, mixed in amongst griping about the pizza (not by me- I love argentine pizza) about cultural stuff.

for instance, a while ago, this website was mentioned-
http://www.revistacantabile.com.ar/
If you click on the word "agenda" it will give you a calender of upcoming performances.

If I was you, I would study Robert Wright's excellent website-
Line of Sight
http://www.wrighton.com.ar/
several hundred pages of great info on history, culture, architecture, neighborhoods, and food, without any political arguments...

Another good one to check out is
City of Faded Elegance-
http://baires.elsur.org/
not updated lately, but still has nice pictures and interesting stories.

My other standard advice to learn about the city is to eat in different neighborhoods, in typical places.
This little book is a great intro to the stomach of Buenos Aires-
http://www.littlebookroom.com/authenticbuenosaires.html

On the same note, Layne Mosler lived here for several years, and went on taxista adventures once a week.
http://www.taxigourmet.com/
is her website- recent posts are NYC, but there are dozens of great slice of life (or pizza) stories about Buenos Aires there as well.

And for great photos of what the city really looks like,
http://www.buenosairesphotographer.com/

These are good starter websites, almost all in english.
The argentines love the computer-there are tons of great websites in spanish about art, music, architecture, and the city.

one I just stumbled upon that is a window into the oddball charm of Buenos Aires-
http://ochavasandba.blogspot.com/
An Ochava is the cut off corner of a building- like many European cities, much of Buenos Aires features this little detail- it softens and humanizes an intersection, making it a more pleasing octagon, and is very pedestrian friendly. There are literally thousands of beautiful little buildings featuring ochavas that have a lot of character...

It just occured to me that my high school classmate, and musician and composer, Stu Goldberg, lives in Penticton.
http://www.stugoldberg.com/index.html
say hi to him for me if you see him...
 
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