White Out

We finally had our first big winter storm since moving to New York over 2 years ago. After mother nature dumped about a foot of snow on us, we did what any true southerners would do - ran around like kids and took pictures.

The snowfall provided a valuable learning experience that taught us a thing or two about living in the northeast.

Winter lesson #1 - If the streets have been cleared and the sidewalks haven't, it's okay to walk down the middle of the road. Everybody does it actually because it's the only way to travel.



Winter lesson #2 - There's more than one good argument against having a car in New York City.


Winter lesson #3 - Jeans are not the best attire for making snow angels. Not that Randy wouldn't do it again anyway...

Beef, Tango, and Eva Peron

We decided to make use of the whole week of Thanksgiving and took a pre-holiday trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina before going to see the family in Georgia.

Plaza de Congreso - the music was live

We picked Buenos Aires because we wanted to go somewhere warm (as usual) and we had never been to South America before. It was a great opportunity for us to brush up on our extremely rusty Spanish skills, too.

They say BA is much more European-feeling than the rest of the continent. It reminded us of Spain the most. They start and end their days late and there are cafes everywhere.

Casa Rosada

The Casa Rosada is where the President works. This lucky president has a pink house instead of a white house. We went on a tour and saw the offices of the president. There was hardly any security which was really surprising.

Since the tour was in Spanish, we missed a lot, but we got to see the balcony from where Eva Peron famously rallied the working class citizens. Argentine presidents and even Pope John Paul II have also stood on this balcony. And so did we...

On that famous balcony with Plaza de Mayo behind us.

The food was pretty cheap and we ate a lot of it. Our most memorable meal was at an unlimited meat restaurant (similar to the Brazilian Steakhouses in the U.S.). Argentina is known for having good beef. We ate all we could of steak and ribs and passed on the chicken. Just as impressive as the meat was the extensive bar with salad, vegetables, pasta, and much more. And of course we couldn't resist dessert.

Buenos Aires is the birthplace of Tango. The fancy footwork and lifts make it extra fun to watch.

Andrea's usual knack for getting pulled out of a crowd found her in the arms of a zealous tango partner.

We were innocently watching a tango show while dining at an outdoor cafe when this happened. Previous experience and proper attire were not required, although they would have helped.


Later we went to a show to watch the professionals. Here's how it's really done...