Athena - Argentina - El dia de accion de gracias - Thanksgiving Day

El dia de accion de gracias - Thanksgiving Day

In Argentina Thanksgiving Day is just another day, but I wanted it to still feel like Thanksgiving. At least to me. So I decided to treat the day like a holiday. I slept in, then mosy-ed around in my PJs. Since I couldn't have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner I decided to stuff my face (in true turkey day style) with all my favorite Argentinian foods. That meant lunch at my favorite pizza place, deserts from my favorite bakery, a couple of glasses of sweet white wine, and of course a steak dinner and more wine (channeling my inner Chantel, lol). Then I finished the night with some ice cream at home. Yummy...and super full. I'm sure that I ate about 4,000 calories in the day, but it was definitely worth it.

Tiffany - A Week in Germany and the Czech Republic

Berlin

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe



Currywurst is amazing!

I have seen so much in just one short week...I’m not even sure where to begin. Our first stop this week was Berlin and I would definitely have enjoyed it a lot more if it wasn’t SO coooold. Berlin is a beautiful and modern city. We spent the day exploring the city and started out with the East Side Gallery. The East Side Gallery is essentially an outdoor art gallery. It is a small portion of the Berlin Wall that still stands and has been painted with murals by artists from all over the world. This is a very powerful and creative gallery. We were also lucky enough to be in Berlin during the Christmas Market which is open only a few weeks per year. The lights, Christmas decorations and amazing food made this one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Athena - Argentina - 10 things I think about Argentina

In honor of one of my favorite sportswriters, Peter King, I've written a list of 11 things I think I think about Argentina. This is something that Peter often does in his blogs and is just a good way to gather a bunch of random thoughts. So here goes...

Tiffany - Barcelona - La Sagrada Familia!

Beautiful from a distance

Inside La Sagrada Familia 

Exterior of La Sagrada Familia

 

Front - Nativity Facade

I saw the most amazing church today! La Sagrada Familia is a church designed by a famous Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi designed several other buildings around Barcelona but this one is by far the most amazing. Construction on this church commenced in 1882 and finished....well, its actually still being constructed and isn't scheduled to be finished until 2026 (100 years after Gaudi's death when only about 25% of the church was completed). Gaudi actually lived in the church during the last few years of his life, dedicating 100%

Athena - Argentina - Yummy for my Tummy

I think you all know that I love to eat. Well, there' say ton of great restaurants here in Buenos Aires and unfortunately there's no way for me to eat at them all (but I would if I could). So to try out a few new places I went on a 'food tour' with my friend Coral. We were in a group of about 25 people and had 3 different courses at 3 different restaurants. Everything was delicious! The company that put on the tour was fuddis.com.ar (I think) and our guides were friendly and lots of fun too.

Coral, a girl from Australia & me

   The tour happened in Palermo Soho. Our first round was appetizers at an Italian place. We're talking cheese, thinly sliced meets, some kind of fried potato and cheese concoction, bruschetta but with beef instead of tomatoes, fresh bread and white wine. Deliciosa! Everything was great.
   The main course was at the restaurant in the Evita Museum, which has a large outdoor patio (these are rare in BA). They served fish, but since I can't eat fish I had ravioli stuffed with pumpkin & cheese. A-MA-ZING! And of course there was more wine and bread.
   Desert was at a place that was more like a cocktail bar and it had a really cool atmosphere. The actual desert was some type of pudding with a dollop of ice cream on top. The pudding had mandarin oranges in it. I'm not a huge pudding fan, but at least I tried it. The ice cream was amazing. And we had champagne.
   The food on the tour was fabulous and the people we met were pretty cool. There were native

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Argentinians, Australians, people from other parts of Argentina, honeymooners from Spain, and two gay couples from the US, one of whom met my friend Coral's mom on a different trip. Small world.

Athena - Argentina - Marc Anthony Concert

This past Saturday I finally got to see an artist who I've enjoyed listening to for a long time - the famous Puerto Rican salsa singer Marc Anthony. And what made it even better, was going with a group of Puerto Ricans. These girls had so much passion and were so proud to be from Puerto Rico. They came dressed in Puerto Rico headbands, shirts and flags. I loved it! And watching them sing a long to every word, dance, and try to get Marc's attention with their Puerto Rican flags was amazing. I just love being around people who are completely enjoying the moment.

And yeah, Marc Anthony was pretty amazing too. In an era of voice box and fake singers it was great to see/hear someone truly talented. On every song his voice was amazing and he also danced a little. It to put on a great show. I was a little sad when he didn't play my favorite song (No Hay Nadie) but I got over it. And even though the stadium was packed with people and the floor covered with water & mud) we still had a phenomenal time. Marc is a great performer and I'd love to see him again.

Tiffany - Venezia - Mother/Daughter Trip

SO glad I had the opportunity to see Venice with my Mom. We took the train from Central Milano and arrived in Venice after about 2.5 hours.  Venice is truly an amazing and unique city with no vehicles, lots of water taxis and lots and lots of tourists to fill them. Very few people actually live in Venice these days because it is so expensive. Those families that can afford to live there have either sold or rented their property to the government for town functions or to support tourism in some way. We went on a 2-hour walking tour which included a gondola ride. The weather was chilly but the sky was clear so definitely a great day to enjoy the city. I loved the gondola ride but our gondolier was a tad rude and refused to serenade us (not exactly like in the movies. :)) Interestingly enough, the couple who ended up on the gondola with us was from Cary, North Carolina...small world.

Beautiful Grand Canal

We had the opportunity to visit a small town right outside of Venice called Murano which is a group of seven islands about 1 mile north of Venice. We caught a water taxi and it was very convenient but in my opinion way too expensive (about $11 each way for about a 15 minute ride). Anyway, Murano is famous for glassmaking and  I enjoyed it mostly because it wasn't as crowded with tourists as Venice and I bought some really cute glass jewelry.

Mom enjoying the gondola