seriously, whoodini looks like yoyo in disguise, nice reference. chariman wood has been down here for longer than all of us and always gives valuable advice on whatever topic you ask for. its just obnoxious to keep hearing/asking the same questions repeatedly when you can just stop being lazy and search the thread. whoodini, you're starting a ******ed argument with someone who basically everyone in this thread is friends with. are you trying to look cool, or get your ass kicked when you get down here? get off (on) your ass and search the thread, from what i can see every one of your questions so far has been answered previously somewhere in either of the two threads.

If you ignore the question about price, the rest haven't really been discussed that much in the thread...

yeah, that was my mistake i should have been more specific. Ill go check out some more pages and re-specify my qs. thanks dude

Does anybody know where to get a good bloody mary here?

To (that's the name), aside from being my new favorite restaurant here, has very good cocktails, which is pretty rare here.

Hey guys, I've got kind of a weird one for this thread, but it would be a HUGE help to hear from people already living in BA.

I am currently training to play basketball overseas (trying to get back in playing shape, and put on about 15 pounds, you know the drill). I played in college a couple of years ago, but injuries and other circumstances dragged me away from the game. Things are going well now but I've decided I want to live in BA for several months while getting back in playing shape for a bunch of US camps this summer; I'm sick of living in New England.

So my question is really two-fold, one, my sense is that there are lots of "athletic clubs" all over BA, do most of these have basketball gyms and/or complete weight rooms all under one roof? Would a random gringo be able to walk in and sign up for a full membership for a few months without paying something ridiculous? And does anyone by chance know of any competitive leagues that are running this time of year?

And the second part is, short term housing. I'm going to try searching back through this very long thread after I post this, but if anyone has a Cliffnotes version of what the best way is to find reasonable accomodations for a few months...for now Craigslist is where I've been looking, but it crossed my mind that the listings might be marked up in price considering mostly gringos using the site. Any better resource?

Mil gracias for anyone who can offer advice.

PS -- how good is the public transportation?

I can't answer most of your questions. I imagine gyms aren't too expensive though. Not any more than they would be in the US and probably less than that.

As for housing. Best thing to do imo is to get a place for one month and then look for a place once you're here.

Public transportation is very good. I never take the bus but the subways are very cheap and good (when the workers aren't striking). Taxis are also very cheap and plentiful.

Does anybody want a cat? I took one home from the bar last night. He's a kitten. Male, all black, and very sweet.

thanks. i'll keep this in mind. i was drinking white russians last night and the idea of a bloody mary came to mind....but even in the U.S. it can be hard to find a good one

Sadly the closest thing that we've been able to find is putting some of the ingredients together while using V-8 juice. It is quite expensive and we've only seen it at some Carrefours. I can't remember the exact location, but i think it is on Vidt in Palermo.

Hi guys,

first of all thanks for a great thread !

Just wondering if any of you know of some watch retailers in BsAs and how the prices down there are. Brands like Panerai, Rolex, Jager LeCoultre etc... ?

Thanks,

nejo

I thought I might have just read questions about mix the first time. Sorry. I've had a good Bloody Mary at a sort of japenese french fusion restaurant called To. It has one of those carrot things above the "o". It is in Palermo and kind of pricey.

Most, if not all athletic clubs have weight rooms. I'm not sure how you could go about becoming a member where you could actually play in a competitive league with them. Depends on the nature of the club and often you may need to be invited sort of country club style. The only experience I have with this is that I know lots of people who play rugby in various clubs around Buenos Aires. Rugby is more of a country club sport here and these clubs had a pretty high one time initiation fee (around 10k pesos I believe for your family) and then something like 3k pesos per year afterwards. I don't know the nature of basketball here and I can't imagine things being anywhere that high. My suggestion would be maybe to do some research on wikipedia about how basketball is organized here and then going to some of the specific clubs and checking out their websites or maybe writing to them.

circumflex accent....

http://www.torestaurant.com/index.php

place looks worth checking out

Specific retailers, no, but I would imagine that any brands like that (anything imported, basically) cost a ton more here. I don't know if this is interesting to you but my brother is very into watches and awhile ago he was telling me that there are an unusually large amount of people that fix high end and older watches here in Buenos Aires. That a lot of retailers and wealthy customers from all over the world often send watches down here to be repaired.

speaking of TO - its one of the best (and certainly one of, if not the nicest) restaurants in the city. The owner is a friend of mine, a Lebanese guy (who loooooves poker haha) and i watched him build it from the ground up. He puts every effort into making it the best restaurant in the city, and on top of it its really amazing food (by BA standards) and great service. I'm not in BA anymore but PM me if you guys want to go, I'll give you his number/info, on top of being a real nice guy, he's a really good guy to know and he'll always hook you up with a reservation or a free dish. Or just say you're a friend of Matt's when you call and make the reservation, should work. But he's bent on making it the best Asian fine dining restaurant in the city and he'll gladly hook it up with people who want to eat there. I can give you his facebook information, or email, or cell, and yeah its certainly pricey by BsAs standards but I think if i were to go for a nice meal anywhere in the city I'd go there. A bunch of us went right before I left for a friend's birthday and it was probably all-in-all the best dining experience I've had in 2 years in Argentina.

I see IMF wrote about it as well... sorry. I ate there last week. I second that the food there is very good but personally, I had a few problems with it. The prices seemed really high for the amount of food that you get. I left feeling a little bit unsatisfied. Now I understand that with french cooking you usually get smaller portions and that wasn't necessarily the problem here. It is that when I go to a place that is a really good French restaurant, afterwards I don't feel that my stomach is full, just that my ability to be satisfied is full. Each bite didn't sort of lead to the other and the food didn't seem to work very well together which I think when you have smaller portions is essential. Maybe I shouldn't have combined sushi (which was very good here) with lamb. Maybe it was cause I also lost CC roulette that night.

Hi thanks for the answer.

I asked a similar question on a watch-forum and found 2 stores, however one of the websites doesn't work:

http://www.relojeriamidas.com/ -works fine
http://www****arelojesantiguos.com/ - not so much

Just thought I'd post these if there's anyone else watch interested in this thread.

And no, didn't know that watches were sent to BsAs for restauration.
Not really into those watches as the ones that I like cost waaaay to much for me.

EDIT: Also, read earlier in thread that everything that's imported is very expensive but I've heard that you could get very nice deals on pre-owned watches.

Not a BA topic but I am in Mendoza right now and could someone recommend a restaurant here?

I remember imakefrush (John) recommended an place here where he said he had the best veal ever a few years ago.

He recommended it to me when we were hanging at his place back when I lived in BA but I did not write it down.

imakefrush, do you remember the name or location of that place?

1884 is an awesome restaurant in Mendoza, it is in some winery not far out of town but the name escapes me. Also if you are looking for a wine tour http://www.mendozawinetours.com/ is awesome, it includes a 5 course meals with wine pairings.

yeah, for anyone in Mendoza or planing on going there, La Bourgogne was the best meal of my life. It is a classy traditional French place that is surrounded by vineyards. Ifirc, it is the sister restaurant of the La Bourgogne in the Alvear Palace, but at half the price. I had the Venison and whatever the somnelier recommended. I hope other people have similar experiences.

I am flying out of BA on the 7th and have the following to sell:

24" Samsung SyncMaster P2350 monitor. Paid $300ish will sell for $250. Has a few small blemishes.

19" Gateway laptop. Too lazy to look at the specs but it was top of the line a few years ago. Had some problems with it about 6 months ago but it has been working fine since. Probably sell it for a couple hundred.

Acoustic guitar: I paid 300pesos

Sub/speaker set up that I had used w/ desktop

Basic black desk chair

And probsome other random **** I can't think of. If interested PM me. If somebody wanted everything I would prob make a really good deal. cheers

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet !!!

Thanks !

I will go tomorrow or tues.

Looking at their website I don't see any options that include any meals.

Can you give more details / prices?

P.S. What are the opening hours? On the website it says that they are only open for lunch normally?! Really? A restaurant that is closed for dinner?

How much should one expect for pay for say a two course meal?

I dunno, my B&B made the dinner reservation for us. Just give them a call. I ate there like 2 years ago, but it wasn't that expensive (especially when compared to similar places in BA). My guess now is that main dishes are 40-70. Maybe the word got out and they jacked up the prices.

So you ate there at lunch or in the evening?