Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - The Best of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Don’t cry for me, Argentina…Sorry, the Evita soundtrack loops in my head when thinking about this South American favorite.Today we are headed to Buenos Aires and friend of the show, Becky Gillespie, is here to share her city favorites.Becky, a digital nomad and host of The School of Travels podcast, has been returning to Argentina for log stretches of time since 2008. In this episode, you’ll learn:why Buenos Aires is considered the Paris of South Americawhere to find vegetarian food in this city of steakhow to get started with tango dancing what you need to do to make your money stretch (shhh…it’s a secret)and so much more!Becky is one of my favorite people to talk to about all things travel and expat/nomad. Not only does she give great advice on what to see in Argentina, she offers great tips on how to live here — it’s easier than you think!Enjoy!Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a travel and wellness show for expats, the expat curious, and globally minded citizens of the world. We are the travelers, the culturally curious, the experiences and not things kind of people. And we know that freedom is about more than getting on a plane. It's about becoming the most heroic versions of ourselves, which is why on this podcast, you will hear insider travel secrets, inspiring expat stories and advice on how to live abroad. but you will also hear episodes that will help give you the clarity, focus, and skills you need to create a life that will set your soul on fire. I am your host, Sarah Micatel, a certified clarity coach trained in the Enneagram, and I first moved abroad on my own at age 18, and I have been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. If you are ready to make some big moves in your life

and want my help moving from someday to seize the day, visit live without borderspodcast.com. We are here today with Becky Gillespie, Digital Nomad and host of the School of Travels podcast. Welcome back. Becky, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Sarah. It's great to be back. So you turned 40 this year last week, actually, and I know that you travel a lot, but your recent travel sound extra special. So what have you been up to? So I started this year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The country just opened. in November, and it's one of my favorite countries to visit is actually my fifth time to visit Buenos Aires since my first time in 2008. So I got to spend two months there this year, and then I, like, and I had to show the vaccine and everything like that, like that, because they had just opened. And then I went from there to Paraguay, which I had never been to, just spent about a week there. I had a friend there, and he introduced me to some of his friends, so that was quite nice.

And then from Paraguay, I went on to Mexico back to visit some friends in Keredo, a really nice city I love to visit. And then I went to El Salvador for the first time exploring their adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. And then I went back to Mexico for a couple of weeks. And now I'm in Las Vegas where I celebrated my 40th birthday. That is so cool. So, gosh, there's so much that I want to ask you about. I'm very curious about your cryptocurrency speaking engagement. So how did you get involved in that? Yeah. So I had a friend, shout out to Rosanna Lopez. She is really big in the digital nomad space in Lisbon. And I think she spends about half the year there and always organizes these weekly meetups. And over the time, like she spent most of the last year with me in Lisbon, both of us deciding not really.

to leave and just focus on being in one spot, as I think a lot of people did. And over that time, she had been in contact with the Buenos Aires city government and I guess the Argentine government. And she was organizing their first digital nomad conference because they really want people, I guess now that people are also working remotely more there, they want to try to attract not only digital nomads from outside of Argentina, but also try to attract people that are already there. into this lifestyle. So she asked me to speak at that conference because she knew I'd been talking about cryptocurrency for most of 2021 when she would see me. So what were you talking about? So last year was really a huge adoption year for cryptocurrency. A lot of big banks that had always shunned

cryptocurrency. They were asking if the U.S. government if they would be allowed to offer it as like, or have custody for their customers, basically that they would manage the cryptocurrency holdings of their customers. Like, they were trying to get the legal go ahead for that, like, as one example. A lot of people that had always said, this is a scam, this is going to zero. Big people in the financial space, they were, like, turning, like, they were changing their stories and actually starting to purchase cryptocurrency. So we were just, me and my boyfriend were in that, in this circle.

of friends in Lisbon and every time people would see us, we would say, yep, like this is one coin you might want to look into. This is doing well. And so Rosanna actually bought some cryptocurrency and I guess she did well with it. And so she started to believe in it more herself, I think. Yeah. And for anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about, cryptocurrency is like Bitcoin, Ethereum. You may have heard of those things. And by the way, this podcast is not offering official financial advice, speak to a financial advisor if you have any questions about that. But I think, you know, a lot of digital nomads, remote workers, expats, a lot of us like have our own businesses. We don't necessarily have a 401k that another company is putting in money

for us. So we have to manage our financial future. And investing in cryptocurrency through something like the app Coinbase is a way where you can start saving money and hopefully, you know, getting a good return later. Yeah, I think that's a really good stipulation to put on it. It's like we're not financial advisors. It is risky. They're all volatile assets. So I always tell people don't invest anything that you're just not willing to lose right away. It's just kind of a speculation. But if you believe in it, if you believe in the idea that, you know, this this digital currency is like recording everybody's transactions and it's like it's more transparent. It's a more fair, like it's a more fair currency for everyone to hold because the governments

can't really interfere with it unless they completely regulate it out of their country. Then you might actually hold it because you really believe in the use case. So some people don't just hold it for speculation. All right. Well, now that we got crypto out of the way, let's talk about Argentina. So you've been there five times. What is the pull? What keeps bringing you back there? So number one is definitely the people. There's actually in Buenos Aires, there's like this idea that the local people who are called Portenios or people from the port, they are snobby or they are like, you know, they look down on people that are not from Buenos Aires. I guess in this case, mostly locals or people from other parts of Argentina. But I've always found people in Buenos Aires to be really friendly.

Of all the countries I've ever been to, my friends from Buenos Aires are the ones who keep up with me around the world, no matter where I am the most frequently. And they're just really, like, relaxed and like the kind of, I think because of their economy as well, like never doing that well. They're always like living for the moment. and they're very passionate people. And I really, I really value that. And so I always love coming back. It's like coming back to my family. So number one is the people.

Do you like remember any experiences that really stood out to you in your first trip where like, yeah, I'm definitely coming back here? Yeah. So I loved the look of Buenos Aires. It's this, you know, they had so much money in the early part of the 20th century that they had these, they built these ornate, like, French-style buildings that Buenos Aires is always referred to as the Paris of South America. And in some parts of the city, you can really see what they're talking about. And so I could tell that this city used to have so much money. And it was like some grand streets, like very wide streets. There's a street there called Nueva de Julio that is like the,

they say it's the widest street in the world. And you just feel this like grandness. I like big cities. I lived in Tokyo for 12 years. I'm used to that. So I really just love it. It's also a very walkable city. It's very flat. And so I hear people going there and they just say, I just walked for hours. And I barely noticed because the neighborhoods are always changing. And yeah, these are some of the things I really thought about the first time I went there. All of a sudden I have the soundtrack to Evita just running through my head. And she's everywhere when you go there. She's on the side of a building. right front and center in what they call the microcentro, the downtown, like, working office area. So you'll see her a lot when you go.

For anyone who doesn't know, do you know enough about like history to speak a little bit to like why she means so much to the country? I can speak a little bit. I should be able to speak more. But she was the wife of one of the leaders, the former presidents of Argentina. and she really focused on the poor and those who were in hospital, and she really just wanted to make sure these people were not forgotten. And so she was always, like, standing on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, which is the pink house, Argentina's White House, and that's right in the center of Buenos Aires.

And so she was giving these impassioned speeches about, like, you know, making sure these people were looked after. And she was also very beautiful. and charismatic when she spoke. So the people just loved her because they said, she's looking at me. She's not forgetting me. Yeah, my sister went to Argentina a number of years ago, and there's a picture of her standing on one of the balconies doing like classic Avita pose or how Madonna personified Avita in the film that she was in. Another thing that I really remember that my sister told me about her trip was they went to a club that did.

It didn't open until like midnight, I think, and that sounds like pretty typical for that country. And people were there until dawn and then somebody shows up in the morning and starts giving out croissants or like selling croissants. I'm not exactly sure. But it sounds like everything starts a bit later over there. That's another thing. So you really need to adjust to Buenos Aires time when you come over. Typically people will go out to dinner at like 10.30 or 11 p.m. and this is even at restaurants.

And then they will start going to clubs at like one or two. But clubs don't really get crowded until 2, 2,30. And like you said, they'll go till dawn. And then people say, like, when do they work? A lot of people do go to work at 9 or 10 in the morning, like even by 9. But they just like drink a whole lot of matte, which is a type of tea. And they're literally carrying this tea around everywhere. And I think that really helps them stay awake.

Yeah, are there any rules to drinking tea? I heard that Yerba Mante tea was like the drink in Argentina. Are there any like customs we should know about? It's no doubt that it's the custom. Yes, this Yerba Mante is like there's a lot of customs, some of which may have changed due to Corona. For example, like if you fill your Yerbe Mate cup, you typically if you had friends around you would share the same cup. You would pass it around. You drink the tea through a metal straw called a.

bombija and yeah, you would share it. But I think that has stopped during Corona and people are just keeping their own cups. And yeah, it's kind of this thing where you fill it up. I usually push all the tea to one side of the cup and I pour the water. Like it's not boiling water. It's going to be slightly cooler than that and you just fill up the cup and you drink it and you have to keep refilling it. So what you'll see is people carrying thermases of the hot water around with them all day so they can keep filling up their cup and literally drink it all day long. Yeah, so that's fueling them. I mean, yeah, it does sound like they're constantly on the go. Is siesta a thing at all there? It used to be more of a thing. I think it is still a thing for some people, depending on where they're

working. I do see some shops still closing from like around two to five. Some restaurants do as well, but I do think it's become less of a thing over time. Let's zoom way out and tell me, like, what does the postcard look like of Argentina? Like when we're thinking of Argentina, what are the classic images that pop up? So the country itself, it has so many different landscapes. That's the first thing you would notice on the postcard. You'd have to break it up into at least eight little pictures. You have the penguins down in the southern part of Argentina and Ushuaya.

You have the Pompas or the grasslands. you'll see a lot of pictures of like gauchos, which are the cowboys of Argentina, on their horses, like on the big, on the grasslands, you know. And you'll have tango dancing, of course, which happens all over the country, but, you know, you have the biggest clubs, obviously, in Buenos Aires. And wine. There's so many vineyards, especially in the Mendoza region of Argentina, which is to the west, getting closer over to Chile.

and you have like also there's ski resorts there. There's a beautiful place called Bariloche, which I got to go to for the first time this trip. And they do have skiing in the, well, in our summer, their winter. And but during the, during their summer, it's lots of hiking and waterfalls. So there's just a whole variety of landscapes. They also have Iguasu Falls, which is this huge waterfall on the, border of Brazil and not far from Paraguay. So Argentina is such a rich landscape of places, and that's another reason I recommend people go there. So if you and I were going for like a week or two,

where do you think we should be spending our time? First and Buenos Aires, I would say at least for four or five days. It's a very big city, and there is a lot to do there. I would then take you to Mendoza. If you like wine, okay, if you're not a wine person, if you don't drink at all, there's still a lot to do in Mendoza. You can go hiking, you can go horseback riding. I think they can take you fishing. And just getting into nature, because one problem with Buenos Aires is there isn't, like, you can't just go out and find a place to hike even easily within a day.

And it's not on a beach per se. There's like a riverside, but it's not like great beaches around there. And actually Argentina doesn't have a lot of great beaches. So, yeah, I would want to get you into nature in Memphis. Mendoza. And I would probably also try to take you to, if you had time down to Patagonia, again, for more hiking. It's really just a gorgeous landscape that's pretty empty. And that's a really valuable thing, I think, these days. So Mendoza, Buenos Aires, and Patagonia would probably be the first places I would take you. And how would we get to each place?

By plane. So that's the, that's the easiest way. You can take buses. But I think the, I did check the bus time this past trip to Mendoza, and it was about 18 hours. So Argentina is a very big country. Yeah. And there are a lot of domestic flights. And if you get them like a week or two early, you can get them for like, I would say, like, $100 one way would be right now. The average, before the pandemic, I found $30 one-way flights because Norwegian Air was in the country. But, yeah, that's not existing right now.

Oh, that's so sad. But I'll take $100 to save 18 hours for sure. And then in my episode on Chile, my guest, Steph said that a lot of people, you know, if they have to do a border hop so they can extend their time in the country, a lot of people go to Mendoza. So you just confirmed that. It sounds like a great place to spend some time. Oh, yeah. And if you want to do a visa run for Argentina, you. You can take a ferry for about an hour and a half from Buenos Aires itself over to Uruguay.

They usually drop you off in a city called Colonia as the first port. And yeah, it's another country. So you can do your visa run. And you can, I think, if you do it the first time, you really can just stay a weekend and come back for another 90 days. So many options to hop around in South America. I love it. Yeah. And Uruguay is also a beautiful country.

So I recommend that. One thing I should throw in here because it will kind of affect your whole experience in Argentina. And this does change all the time. So when I went a couple months ago, the exchange rate in Argentina was probably at its most dramatic I'd ever seen. So there's a strange thing when you go to Argentina that not everybody will write about because it's kind of illegal, but it's just it's been in the country for decades. There's this black market. it's actually called the blue market or the blue dollar. And what happens is if you bring U.S. dollars in cash,

preferably $100 bills that are not ripped or have any markings on them, you can find someone, and it's very easy to do this, you can find someone to give you Argentine pesos at a much better exchange rate than if you use a credit card or an ATM or go to a bank there. I mean, if you go to any of those three places, you're going to get at this time about half of the pesos you would get if you went on to the blue market and did this trade. So when I went to Argentina, I knew this and I brought $2,000 for myself.

And I found a guy actually in the Airbnb. I was in a condominium and he was walking around with some other guests. And he found me. He's like, hey, if you need to change money, let me know. I do it. And I had my boyfriend with me. So I trusted it when he came to my apartment. in about two hours later.

And we literally just did, we exchanged a bunch of cash on my kitchen counter. And this is like, it sounds really strange and kind of dangerous, but it's really normal in Argentina. And if you're a tourist and you're able to bring US dollars from outside, you can save a lot of money and things become very cheap. That is an excellent tip. Thank you so much.

Yeah, they will exchange 20s and 50s, but at a slightly worse rate than you will get for 100. So that's just a tip. And right now, the Argentine peso, the largest bill they have is worth $5 in U.S. dollars. So you're bringing around a lot of money. He's going to hand you tons of cash. So it's a very strange situation. I hope that things can change for Argentina. But right now, that is the situation. Yeah. Their economy sounds like it's been very volatile for quite a long time. Yeah. Even if you're there for two weeks, you can see the prices at like Starbucks change. Sometimes by 10. 10%. It's always getting more expensive, not less. So it's a dramatic inflation rate there. So they've got Airbnb. What else should we know about acclimating ourselves? So there are some companies that do like, there's Facebook groups, there's like just meeting some people in the first week that you're there and starting to talk about, hey, do you know anyone that is going away for a few months that might be running out their place? but Airbnb is really the most, like, by far the most used way to book accommodation, but it will be booked in dollars.

There's no way to save money on that. So I can, like there's a few places. One is called Zona Prop, Z-O-N-A-P-R-O-P. Warning, they will give you quite a bit of spam mail. I'm still getting some emails from them. But that's one company that is offering other properties. And there's one called four. rent Argentina and that is the number four. So something like for rent argentina.com. I use that one myself,

but what happens to is if you use one of these other companies, they will often ask you for one month deposit in US dollars. So be prepared to bring an extra months worth of dollars just for them to hold until you check out. So that can be a huge thing because once you get into Argentina, you cannot get dollars. You can get them in Uruguay, though, if you, pop over to Uruguay, you can get U.S. dollars from the ATM. So I've a feeling a lot of Argentine people must be doing that. If people want to live there long term and they're foreign, are there, do you know if there's any workers visas or remote worker visa or like what the residency situation would be? I can't give you exact details at the moment. I would have to research that myself. But I do know it's quite easy actually to get your residency there. You can stay 90 days at first just without a visa, and you can extend that for quite cheap.

Like, I think you'd get another three months for, let's say, $25 or something. You would just go to an office while you're there and what a side is. But, yeah, it's one of the easiest countries actually to get your residency. And I don't know all of the details about how much money you need to show, but I honestly don't think it's much. And I will tell you one reason is that they're happy to bring you into the tax scheme. They're like, come on in. But it's a balance because if you're making money from outside and you have U.S. dollars,

then, I mean, it can be a very, very cheap place to live right now, except for possibly the accommodation. Now, I will tell you also, a friend just met a guy. He was from Venezuela and he was living in Argentina. And he had a longer term lease on his apartment. And he was paying like $200, $300 a month for his, like, for his lease. and she was paying $9.50 in the same building. So it's just worth maybe doing some research. If you've got any friends that know people on the ground there,

start communicating with them before you get there to try to find something like that. Or book like short-term accommodation for the first week, look around, and then go into your longer-term place. Yeah, I mean, longer-term generally is going to be more affordable because people don't have to do as much work trying to find. a new tenant that they would if it were like every three months or whatever. Oh, yeah. And I will tell you another important thing because I said, I just said like, oh, if you're earning U.S. dollars, but people might be thinking, well, how could I access those

if I was in Argentina and still get a good rate? You can actually go to Western Union. There's plenty of Western unions in Buenos Aires all across Argentina as well. And you can, like, you get the better rate. I don't know how Western Union. is getting away with this, but you can get that normal blue dollar rate. You just for Americans, you have like a, between like, let's say, $5 to $10 fee every time you go. And they won't give you more than about $500 at a time because for a local, that's a whole lot of money. So you just have to kind of plan your trips to Western Union. And I did this after I'd been there for about six weeks because I ran out of money.

I was like, ooh, I'm buying some stuff, going to buy some clothes. And yeah. So that is an option once. you're there long term. When it comes to things like clothes, what is like the cost of living? So it can vary, but I think there's quite a few nice local Argentine brands that I had to ask my friend about this when I was there because I didn't know either. But I was buying like from local clothing shops or like for example, Levi jeans. My boyfriend bought a pair of Levi jeans. I think he spent like $30.35. So it wasn't like that much cheaper. Some of these things are.

not priced cheaper, even with the blue dollar, because they know that they're not, you know, they need to still make profit from the import and everything like that. So, right. Yeah. Clothes, I would say, are moderately priced. They're not super cheap there. Now, I was told some locals will go to markets and they're like, we go there and we get super cheap things, but it's dangerous for you to go there as a tourist. So I'm like, okay. But I didn't check that out. All right. Are you ready to do a Buenos Aires lightning round? Sure. To get our bearings, is there a walking tour that you would recommend? Yes, so there is a company that is called Buenos Aires Freewalks.com. And as I mentioned, Buenos Aires is very big. So I would say, if you go to their website, go on either the Recoleta

tour, which is probably the richest neighborhood and also the most historic environment. And also the most historic in town. So you're going to see those French buildings, those like, you know, those beautiful boulevards. And then I would go to the Santelmo tour. They do both. And they're very different neighborhoods. The Santelmo neighborhood has a Sunday market, which is my favorite. It just goes for probably about 20 blocks or more. And there's a food market that's part of the tour that is the most bustling on a sunday. And you can have like the local dish, one of my favorite local dishes there called chori pan, which is basically chorizo bread sandwich. And they have one chori pan place inside the market. They have some of them just on the edge of the market. But those

two neighborhoods would be the first places I would start. I know Argentina is famous for its steak, but these days, could a vegetarian survive over there? Or vegan? Absolutely. And that is one of the biggest changes I've seen since I went in 2008 until now. There's so many places. I would say the biggest concentration of them is in a neighborhood called Palermo, especially Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Soho. Palermo is quite a big place. So there's a lot of like vegan and vegetarian places over there. Absolutely. You will not go hungry. I love that the mashup was Palermo, Soho and Palermo Hollywood. It's just like a mix of everything. And Argentina had a big Italian and Spanish influx of immigrants at a certain time, which is where I'm guessing Palermo comes from. Oh, yeah.

At one point I heard that there was like 40% of people were like Italians or Italian ancestry, which is why you will also see so many gelato places in Buenos Aires. This was one of my big discoveries the first time. And you'd ask, like, what made you come back? I'm like, the ice cream. It's so good. And it's very Italian style. So one of my favorite chains is called Rapa Nui, the other word for Easter Island.

And there's a chain called Fredo, which is actually an Italian word. It means cold. And, yeah, so many different places. And one of my favorites is Luciano's, which also very Italian. And it's a chain as well. Yeah, I remember you telling me that there was, an ice cream culture down there, or gelato culture, I guess. Oh, yeah. They like to take their time, like, building the tower of ice cream. I would get two flavors, but they're like, you know,

beautifully swirling it on the cone and making it get higher and higher. And then they'll sometimes, there was like, it's usually a guy I found giving me my ice cream. It was like looking deep into my eyes as he hands me the ice cream. It seems to be the culture. What about cafe culture? I know Yerba Mate is the thing. Is that what they're drinking in cafes? Are they drinking coffee? It sounds like the type of culture that likes to slow down. Oh, yeah. So they will, especially the older people, they will spend hours in the cafe just eating like one coffee or one. You were talking about croissants before. The croissants in Buenos Aires, they're called medial lunas, which means half, moon because they're shaped like a crescent. And so they'll have like, they'll eat, you know, two, two media lunas and have their coffee for hours with a newspaper, you know, and they'll be with their friends just sitting in a corner and debating. I found like there's a lot of debate

that goes on in these cafes. And, but yeah, like, you're not bothered. If you go and you have, like, a coffee, they'll just leave you alone for a long time. And it's, it's really nice. The cafes are very, there's so many of them that are like, there's a list of historic, you know, vintage cafes with historical significance. And you can just spend your whole trip if you want just cafe hopping from these really ornate, like early 20th century style cafes that are just really magical. I went to one, in fact, that was on that list, but I think for a different reason, it was a cafe plus photography museum. It had all of these old, cameras behind glass. My table where I had my coffee had like old cameras and film canisters,

like under the glass at my table. So I was like looking under my coffee cup and seeing an old film canister. And it was super cool. It was a really like, that's one of the hidden gems I found this time. Do you remember the name of that place? Museo Photographico Semique, S-I-M-I-K. So if you look up Bar Palacio, you might also be able to find it. But yeah, it's in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo. Okay. That cafe sounds so charming. I also like the idea of sitting around and flipping through a newspaper.

I haven't done that since my Brooklyn days when I used to get a muffin every Sunday and just flip through the New York Times. It's been forever for me too. That sounds great. So when it comes to restaurants, do you have a favorite? Yes. So my favorite is going to be kind of unconventional because it is a place where you can get empanadas, which are like, you become in a variety of flavors. They're like a, like, kind of like a croissant with something inside that's been baked is how I would describe it.

And it's called La Cossina, which means the kitchen. And yeah, it's a very simple menu. You just go in and you can order from about six or seven different flavors. I like to get like a spicy meat and something they call Pikachu, which is like chicken and cheese together in another one of these empanadas. So that's my favorite place to visit frequently. I also like a place called Don Julio, which is actually one of the top restaurants in Winocides. I went twice when I was there this time because the exchange rate was so good that I had a big steak, aside. I split like two bottles of wine with three other people at the table, and I spent $45,

including the tip. It was so cheap. But this place is on a street corner. Like they had a lot of outdoor seating just after the pandemic. And it just was, it felt like I was in Europe somewhere, but it was having like the stake of my life. And so Don Julio is very popular. When I was there, you didn't need reservations, but I would say the tip, oh, good tip for, listeners, if you're coming from another place you're not used to eating after 9 p.m. 9. Just come at like 7 p.m. 7. You can get into all of these restaurants because no one's there yet. But they're open. So they're open even though like the Argentine culture is to go later. Yes. Yes. 7 p.m. is probably the earliest they're open. And so I felt like I was just, yeah,

I was just walking into all these places. If you came like one or two people, you were pretty much guaranteed to find a place if you went that early. So that was very nice. That sounds perfect to me. Yeah. Back to the empanadas for a second. So did you say it was a controversial thing? I think it's controversial to say that my favorite restaurant in the whole city is an

empanadas place because it's just such simple food when you have all these different steak restaurants to choose from. But yeah, it was a discovery I made like the third time I was in Buenos Aires. And this place has been open for over 30 years. and they play like reggae and rock music when you're in there. And it just has such character that has continued over the years. And I really like that. Well, I would be living at an empanada place.

So it sounds good to me. Yes. There's a lot of empanada places around. And there are some newer ones do more like vegetarian, like just cheese or, you know, some other options. And some of them offer many, many options like pumpkin, things like that. But this place keeps it pretty. simple. So Argentina, it's like a late night place. What do you do at night? Are you, are you clubbing, Becky? What are you up to? So I am tango dancing. I, one reason I have gone back so

many times I think is I am not a master tango dancer and I have trouble studying it when I'm not in Buenos Aires or practicing. But I just love it. I think it's so beautiful to watch. I love the music and I just love that, okay, it was probably the worst thing you were supposed to be doing after the pandemic, but I love this like hug that you're giving somebody as you dance and you, they have a type of tango in Argentina, which they actually call Argentine tango. And part of it includes like what they call the close embrace. And you're literally like your bodies are just like rubbing and in sync. You're just like glued to that other person as you dance. It's like that close.

But it's like so, I don't know, it's so uplifting. There's no way you can be on your phone when you're doing it. It's like you are in that moment. And I just love that. I think that, you know, we're getting away from activities like that these days. And we need to. And it's a stranger. Oftentimes you're connecting with a stranger because the person, the rules of Argentine tango

include that the guy will come to ask you to dance. And he either will like lock eyes with you from across the room. and if he like nods at you and you continue to look at him, that's kind of like a yes, and he'll come across the room and then pick you up and you can go dance on the dance floor. Or if he looks at you, he locks eyes and you look away. That means no. So it's really like this way to ask someone to dance to not be embarrassed. It's going to, he'll know if it's a yes or a no without going over and getting rejected, you know.

Wow. I can't even fathom this. Like, as you said, everyone's so gloom. to their phones these days, you really have to be present and in the moment, not only when you're dancing, but also to connect with a dance partner, it sounds like. Yeah, yeah. If you want to dance, it's very easy to make it known that you want to dance. If you're always like, because also at a tango place in Buenos Aires, there's a lot of tables and you can drink wine or, okay, don't drink too much wine when you're dancing tango, but you can just be sitting at a table with your

friends. And if you're just chatting with them, then you're never going to make the eye contact, right? So people know, she probably doesn't want to dance. A bold person still might come up and just ask you in the classic way. But the traditional way in tango is to be kind of looking towards the dance floor and like maybe looking over at some of the guys and see if they're looking at you. It can be very intimidating the first couple times you do it. Yeah. Okay. Well, shy people, keep your eyes up and looking around. Don't avert your gaze. I have a tip for very shy people when it comes to tango. And it's a very tourist way to do this, but I really enjoyed it the first time.

So there are many Airbnb experiences now where someone will, like, it will be a tango teacher that says, I'll teach you your first lesson. And then I will take you to one of these. They're called milongas, the tango dance parties. They will take you to the milonga. And they will, like, we went on one this time with some beginners. And the guy explained all the rules of the milongas. and then he was a good dancer himself and he would dance with you. So if you had no one else to dance with, your host is going to do it.

And it was really, really nice. I loved it. Well, that's perfect because that was going to be my next question. If we have no idea how to tango, like what opportunities are there. So it sounds like just do one of these experiences to get you started. Yeah, and it turns out like the guy, he knew a lot of people at the Malanga he took us to. So, you know, sometimes his friends might come up and ask us too. and that still feels like a very low barrier to entry.

So you mentioned a market earlier. Can you bring that up again? Or like what is there a particular food or like artisan market? We should check out there. Yeah. So that was the Santelmo market. And that's my favorite one. I mean, that is, it's mostly restaurants, I will say.

But what I discovered, and just by chance, the last time I was there, was that there's a lot of weekend markets that just set up in like small. parks around the city. There are a lot of little parks in squares in Winocytis. Another thing I love about the city. And there would be just like, it was it was kind of a way also, I think, to like, you know, have more access to these good vegetables for just people all over, not just going to a supermarket. And so every Saturday morning when I, I lived in this one apartment for two and a half months, I would walk two blocks to this Saturday morning market in my local park. And I was just filling up on, they had, they were selling beef, they were selling cheese and sausage. I again,

felt like it was a European kind of feeling. And that was really wonderful. So there's pop-up, I think, weekend markets in many places. What neighborhood would you recommend that we like stay in if we're visiting or living in Argentina? I mean Buenos Aires. Yeah, for the first time, I would say either recoleta or Palermo. Palermo, Hollywood is probably one of the nicer, like it's a little more residential, like less clubs and bars, but like still a lot of vegetarian restaurants and really nice buildings. Palermo Soho has the most clubs and bars. The reason I say Palermo is it has the most variety of restaurants within walking distance, I would say. It's all compressed together. And it's also near some very large parks on the north end of Palermo. So if you're like my friend

was living in Recoleta, which is next to Palermo, and she was able to walk to a lot of big parks, and she was running, and that was, she loves that area. How big is this city? And how do you get around? In terms of size, I don't exactly know, but I would say that, like, it can take in a bus, it can take, like a good hour to an hour and a half to cross the city. And it's, yeah, it can take, Oh, if you walked, it could take like, let's say, two to three hours to walk like from one good end of it to the other, you know, major end of it. But I usually actually took buses. I would say like during the pandemic, it was probably safer to take an Uber just for, you know, spreading of the virus. But the buses, guess how much a bus ride costs on the blue dollar rate in Buenos Aires? I don't know what dollar. It's about 20 cents for one ride. So you get a card.

It's called a soubet, and you go down into the metro or at local convenience stores, and you just top it up, and then you just go in. And this is a strange thing about monosides. When you go onto a bus, you have to say roughly where you're going, like the street name, and they just will charge you one peso difference, usually depending on where you're going. And I'm just like, why are we saying it? Let's just, it's all be the same price, you know? But, uh, because it's literally one or two pesos different. But, um, yeah, the buses are, are, are on, they're, the routes are on Google Maps. So you can kind of see where you're

supposed to be going. And I just thought it was, it was, uh, quick and easy. But the metro is there. The metro, most of it is quite safe. There was one line, one or two lines, especially the A line. Someone told me that's not safe. Um, I lived on the D line, which is going, into Palermo. That was pretty safe. I like the metro as well. There's a lot of street performers in the metro stations, and that can be really beautiful and really fun. And they do get on the trains as well. The metro sounds easier in terms of like you just figure out where you're going and you go. It gives me a little bit of anxiety having to tell the bus driver where you're going and like having to like figure out if you're at the right spot or not to get off.

It can be a little bit tricky. Sometimes certain buses only run parts of the day and things like that. If you can live near a metro station, especially I would say in Palermo, that would be great. That would be pretty convenient. Do you have a favorite museum? Oh, I would probably for me, I would say either the Malba, it's called Malba. It's like the modern art of Latin America. museum. I really like that one a lot. Another one would be near Recoleta. And I don't know if it's actually a museum, but it's like a cultural center. And it's free, but it's like you can go in and there's all these different activities. Like sometimes they show movies on the like the grass just outside of the building or they teach hip hop. There's all these different like cultural classes

inside. So I really like the Recoleta cultural center. What advice do you have for somebody who's interested in moving to Argentina? I would say, bring U.S. dollars on your first few months and check out those neighborhoods I mentioned. I would also say, like, join, like think about the hobbies that you have and join, find a group that's doing that as early on as you can because that'll get you into the, like, meeting the beautiful people of Buenos Aires. Whether it's tango, there's a lot of running groups. Also, if you don't speak Spanish, get into Spanish school as soon as you can. I met a lot of great people in Spanish class. And also, the Spanish, I should mention this, the Spanish in Buenos Aires is pretty unique. They have this like Rio Platense accent, which almost sounds Italian sometimes.

Like instead of polio for chicken, which is how you would say it if you were in Mexico. with the double L being a yo in Argentina in Buenos Aires, they will say pocio. It's like that double L is pronounced very differently. Like instead of me yamo Becky, my name is Becky, I would say meshamo Becky. That sounds more Portuguese to me than Italian. Yeah, it's like, it's like a blend. Not that I speak Portuguese, but yeah. It is, it is.

And I'm learning Portuguese. I'm like, you're right. It is a blend, though. And I'm sure that Italian influence and also Portuguese influence, Hello, Brazil, came right down into Buenos Aires. So it's unique. They also use the like, Vosotros, like they use Vos instead of using the two form in Spanish,

which means you. They use like this form that's mostly used in Spain. So it's like, what? You got to learn like the two form all over again for some of these verbs. So that could be a bit tricky. Do you remember the name of the Spanish school you went to? One of them, I've been to two different ones. them was called Vamos, which means let's go. So Vamos Language Academy, I think that was near Palermo.

And then another one was called Academia de Buenos Aires. And that was more in the like the microcentro, the downtown office district part of Buenos Aires. Thank you so much for joining me today. Becky, where can people find out more about you? Okay, so you can go to my Instagram at the School of Travels or the School of Travels.com to check out show notes from my podcast or if you want to listen to other stories of travel, including Sarah. Sarah, I did have you on my podcast as well. So check that out, listeners. Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you. That's all for now. Go ahead and follow the show or hit subscribe so you can hear more episodes like this. And if you would like my help taking bold action on your own dreams, like living abroad, changing careers and other

life transitions, visit live without borderspodcast.com. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.