While we dawdle around in the US, asking if the airlines would please, maybe, hopefully sorta respect us, passengers in Buenos Aires are letting Aerolineas Argentinas know exactly how they feel. As labor conflicts wear on, delays and cancellations have stranded passengers expressing their feelings by smashing computers and offices while hurling soda cans at weary airline employees.
Thousands of passengers have been stranded at Ministro Pistarini International since Friday when the trouble started. Some news reports blame baggage handlers and pilots for the flight cancellations, though the pilots union says it's members are ready to fly. Passengers suspect that Aerolineas Argentinas is overbooking flights.
It'll take at least another epic summer of delays in the States before we see this kind of rioting at JFK--though it might be the kind of drastic action we need to get our airlines working again. ¡Viva la revolución!
Buenos Aires, the capital of the land of tango and macho gauchos, is going gay. Exhibit A in the transformation is the newly opened Axel Hotel, the first specifically-for-gay-customers property to open in the city. And though it offers up a marketing campaign featuring much racier photos than the hotel-provided pic above, the Axel isn't driving the change in attitudes. Instead, says Alexei Barrionuevo in the New York Times, the hotel is the result of a newly open society.
This summer the city hosted a soccer World Cup for gay players, soon after a TV dating show made waves by showing gay men kissing on camera. Five years ago, BA legalized same-sex unions. Before that, Argentina's president declared equal rights, regardless of sexual orientation. And as Buenos Aires warms, gay travelers have started dropping by. Trying to capitalize on the tourism boomlet, of course, is the Axel Hotel.
That said, there's more to see than the hotel. Partiers of any orientation are welcome at Kim y Novak, a grungy bar with nothing but debauchery on its blog. Downtown, Palacio Alsina draws a mixed crowd with its drag queen hostess and go-go dancers. And mega-club Amerika is still the gold standard for those into the gay clubbing scene.
Buenos Aires is famous for its nightlife. A few lesser-known hot spots may have been ignored by guidebooks and tourists (lucky for us) but they're a definite must-visit.
El Beso -- This Forties-style nightclub hosts a variety of tango parties, or milongas, ranging from casual, no-partner-needed rounds (where you, o seeker of love, come in) to pros-only dance-offs. Riobamba 416
Beat House -- Jetlag begone! Ease into the Argentinean nightlife with this bar in the northeastern neighborhood of Las Cañitas, where the fun starts at the early bird hour of 9 p.m. Meet someone here and you can take them to the next bar, and the club, and then to breakfast... Báez 211
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
I'm finished. In every sense of the word. Hungover, bilious and exhausted; one pair of overpriced sneakers worn out, one liver on the way. It's been great fun. If you've been reading, thank you. If you haven't, you've missed an opportunity to augment your knowledge of, and sympathy for, the human race, so get thyself to the archives, which, if I carry on like this, will surely outlive me.
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
If you've heard anything about Buenos Aires, you've probably heard something about Palermo Viejo. This quiet, mazy, cobblestoned neighbourhood to the north of the centre has been extremely made over since the late 1990s, and is now the city's most fashionable district for dining, shopping, sleeping in style, or just hanging around on street corners looking fly.
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
Every couple of years, give or take, I tell my wife to put on her dancing shoes and I take her to one of BA's many spiffy discotheques where we have an absolutely marvelous time, um, tearing up the dance floor to the fat beats mashed up by the disk jockey in his booth. Last night, after noticing the year had an odd number in it, we did just that. We attended a nightclub.
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I'm not hungry enough to eat six. --Yogi Berra
Like I said last week, Porteños are not nearly as obsessed with meat as everyone supposes them to be. Steak isn't a treat; it's what your better half waves in front of your face at 9.55pm just before the game kicks off.
Embedded Travel Guides: We are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then stealthy embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.
We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.
You may have got the impression from my last report that BA is some kind of Blade Runner-esque dystopia with no green spaces worth mentioning. Not the case. While asphalt definitely trumps arboretums in the Argentine capital, there are plenty of gardens, parks and plazas that Porteños frequent regularly, kids and dogs in tow. But it's not like Manhattan where you simply walk towards the middle until you hit the park: you have to work a bit harder and schlep a little farther to score some grass in BA, but it's definitely worth the effort.
