Hottrannyfiercemess

I just love this hair-d0 on this young lady

Cute and Cheap

Read about this $8.99 dress HERE

Tigre Street Scenes

100 year old Buenos Aires Rowing Club

Thousands of people hit the shopping streets of Tigre

Cash and carry

Wonderful Venetian style building

Furniture store with web site HERE

Besides a huge amusement park, there are several merry-go-rounds

Old gate that would make a nifty headboard

You can stroll along the river, or take a river boat ride on all five of the rivers that make up the Tigre Delta just outside of Buenos Aires HERE
Then you can hit the streets and see a very pretty little city, and walk for miles in the open air market to shop, shop, shop....

From Barbie To Baskets In Tigre

I'm a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world...

Large cow hide rugs about $100. US

Hot color cow hide rugs

Bouganvilla plants about $3.50 US

Candle shop

Huge handmade baskets

We walked around the open air market in the streets of Tigre from noon until 7 PM. We took a break for a delish lunch at one of the zillion restaurants nestled along all the stalls. We only covered a small portion of the market in this time. There are ten main artesenials, areas with dozens of streets of vendors, and I think we covered only two of them in all the hours we were there!
There is so much to buy: Barbies; toys; CDs; baskets; plants; furniture; fresh produce; cheese and salami; wine; leather jackets; clothing for adults and children; leather goods galore; art work; lighting and lamps - the list is endless. After awhile it all looks the same, because it is all the same! The prices are good, and it's a cash and carry situation, though a few places take credit cards.
Did we buy anything? Yes, some small trinkets for gifts that we can pack, and some cheese and salami. Our hosts were there to pick up a partial order of 20 tractor seat stools they had made for the rooftop patio and parilla (BBQ) they are remodeling in their B & B in Buenos Aires. They also bought plants and gifts for the grandchildren in the USA.

The Chairs of Tigre

Outdoor chairs on the deck overlooking one of the rivers of Tigre

Tractor seat stool - buy it HERE

Folding chairs with leather hand tooled leather seats

A high chair in a restaurant made of caña

A cute rustic style X bench under $100. US

A rocking chair made out bamboo (caña)

You didn't think I would leave you hanging and not show you some of the things in the vast flea market in Tigre? HERE
I have so many photos that I am dividing them into groups.
You know about my chair obsession, so as they say in the flea markets in England: "Madame, may I present this fabulous object for your inspection..."
The furniture is mostly what is called Estilo Campo (country style). It is hand made and pretty nice, and very affordable. There are quite a few bamboo pieces. They call bamboo caña. I have told you that we live in the Las Cañitas neighborhood in Buenos Aires. It is called this because 100 years ago this area was known for growing the caña used to make furniture and other items.

Day Trip Out of Buenos Aires - Tigre

Outside of Buenos Aires in Tigre

My ridiculous "roughing it" outfit, and the show girl's dog

This could be a Riverboat Queen on the muddy Mississippi

Throwback to the the British rowing clubs



Walking by the river on pavement, a walk in the country city style!

Boats like the vaporettas in Venice

I have been to Buenos Aires a few times, and never managed to find the time or the desire to leave the city limits. Well actually I have gone just over the city line a few times to go a favorite tango dance hall.
Everyone asks me: "Did you see the falls? Did you go to an estancia (gaucho ranch)? Did you see the penguins in Patagonia?" And feeling somewhat like an idiot, I say, duh, no. Really I am a city rat, and there is just too much good stuff to do in the city.
We had a free Sunday, and good friends who have a nice roomy car (this is very important to me, having been stuck piled in the back seat of small sagging sedans with the family kids), asked us if we would like to go to Tigre.
Tigre is a delta region, with five rivers. It is about a 45 minute drive from Buenos Aires. It is a favorite day trip for anyone who lives in or visits the city. It is accesible by an easy train ride, so you don't need a car.
Our hostess said we would walk along the river, a kind of day in the country. Mmmmmm. I had to scramble for a wardrobe choice. I brought mostly urban chic clothes to wear, no jeans, no sneakers (which I don't wear anyway). So I wore some leggings with a dress over, ballet flats, and little wrap sweater. Of course I carried my oversize Kelly bag with all the things the hubs and I might need. I was prepared to suffer roughing it on the walk by the river in the delta in this get-up. My host and hostess looked adorable. She had on boots, and a gaucho style hat and jeans. He had a safari style hat and jeans. The hubs never wears jeans, and wore slacks and an untucked shirt. Another lady and friend of our hosts came along. She was spectacular! She's a former famous Argentine show girl and movie star. She wore a denim pants suit, and carried a tiny white fluff of a Maltese dog. Mmmmmm. My kind of gal.
So we get to Tigre, and it turns out to be this very charming small city, with antique buildings (including The Buenos Aires Rowing Club a throwback to the time when the English were a huge influence in Argentina). Every place in the world reminds you of someplace else, and Tigre reminds me of the canal cities Venice, Amesterdam, and Utrecht, AND a little bit of the brown water Mississippi River. Tigre is a cute riverfront with all kinds of boat rides, a huge casino, a huge amusement park AND streets and streets of rows and rows of outdoor flea market style shopping!!!! K-ching!!!!!

Matt Lauer In Buenos Aires - The Usual Hokey Pokey

Matt Lauer in Buenos Aires

On the TODAY Show HERE

Always happy to have PR for this city I love, even if it always involves the same cliches. Whatever it takes to inspire you to come here, please do! As you see from my blog this month, Buenos Aires is a wonderful and complex place and culture that would seem to be able to defy and transcend the usual hokey pokey...

A Notion For Sabina

A little notions store in Buenos Aires

My friend Sabina is very crafty, and an excellent costume maker. Every year it gets harder and harder to find what our mothers called "notions," the little sewing things you need, like thread, a button, or a piece of elastic. Small stores have given over to big box stores, and even though places like Wal Mart and Hancock Fabrics have sewing things and fabrics and a craft department, it's not like a little store dedicated to small things. Sometimes it's a real pain to have to enter a huge experience when you want just one small thing.
For years Sabina, who is also an excellent retail professional, has wanted to open her own notions store. So this is for you Sabina, in hopes that it will inspire your dreams to fruition.

Kids and Families in Buenos Aires

Mini chair cars, video monitors, brilliant decor - at the kiddie hair salon

Buenos Aires is a place where everyone greets you (and says goodbye) with a kiss and an embrace. Men kiss each other. Ditto for the women. And of course men and women do it. And children greet every adult they are introduced to with a hello and goodbye kiss.
Children are doted on (as they are everywhere). PDA towards kids is common. Parents (and all relatives) show alot of affection to their kids. Children, tweens, teens, and young adults show affection for one another. The children do not act spoiled, they are well behaved and self assured. They have the best manners, table and otherwise I have ever seen. They also like being around adults of every age. Generations happily and easily mix here.
The shops that sell kids clothes, furniture, and toys are both humble and fancy, depending on the neighborhood. And there are plenty of them. This is not the same kind of consumer society we have in the USA. Smaller things are appreciated: a coloring book or a small toy.
This little hair salon for children is adorable. Of course it's in our (for now) fancy neighborhood of Las Cañitas.

For The Boys And The Women Who Shop For Them

A little store with men's clothes - also love the lamp as part of the display

Love the fall color of this sharp jacket

I have talked about many stylish things here in Buenos Aires. There seems to be never ending style here: women's clothes, kids clothes, furniture, architecture, interiors, shopping, street scenes, art - it is just an incredible visual banquet. Men's clothing is also very beautiful, whether rad or trad. Euro inspired, well made, the sharp dressed man complements the uber girly girl style of the women here.

Polo The Ralph Lauren Way

Jockey silks meet polo chic!

The very cute scarf handbag - me wantee

So fresh

Giddyup!

I picked up a big fat issue of W in the Miami airport on the way to Buenos Aires.
These lovely Ralph Lauren things were featured, and I just fell in love with them.
The polo theme prints are so charming, and I love the "scarf handbags."
So here we are in the polo capital of the world, and I haven't seen any Ralph Lauren yet.

Twitch - A Polo Store in Buenos Aires

There are several stores in the area near the polo grounds in Buenos Aires that sell real polo clothes and boots and mallets and other horsey things. They also sell beautiful leather goods, and decorative accents. A polo mallet costs around $150. US and up.
Polo as fashion in Argentina, is like preppy fashion in the USA. It's a classic and timeless look.
It's amusing to see the real items, after knowing the Ralph Lauren Polo line of merchandise for so many years, created by the wizard from the Bronx.

The Horses of Buenos Aires

These wonderful looking guys rode by our balcony the other day. Read more about them HERE

Polo For Real

The stable outside my window

An overview of the polo grounds from the roof of our building

The Argentine flag and a city view from the polo field

We live behind the polo grounds in Las Cañitas in Buenos Aires. At least for the month!
I don't know much about polo. I once did catering for the Greenwich Polo Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. The club house was swanky, and the people were swell, and the polo players were mostly very cute Argentines. Sarah Ferguson's (the original Fergie) mother came one Sunday afternoon with the polo player she left the Duke of York for. That was an exciting afternoon.
Fast forward to horsey country in Lousiana, and once again I found myself among Argentine polo players who were the hired hands at a fancy horse ranch. This time the hubs and I were there to teach tango to the group, which is hilarious, because the two worlds of polo and tango never meet.
Now fast forward a little more, to my morning view out my 16 feet high windows, that overlook the back corner of THE polo grounds, where there is small stable of horses that very cute grooms exercise daily.
We've never been to a match. We once saw one being played as we walked to the supermarket, having to circumvent the huge playing field to get to the grocery store.
For the past few days our street echos the sound of horses' hoofs on the pavement. Over 100 horses clip-clop by with army guys riding astride. Apparently they were rehearsing for a big shindig that took place this past Saturday at the polo grounds. We heard military band music, and hot tailed upstairs to the roof to see what was up.
A couple of battalions of cavalry and grenadieres were involved in a beautiful ceremony. Later when it finished, the riders in full dress uniforms and regalia rode past our apartment house on their way back to the barracks, which is three blocks down the street. It was a fabulous thing to see.

I watched the polo matches in Greenwich, and couldn't really get the jist of the game.
But no matter, I always enjoy the view of a man who sits well on his horse.

Fall Color

The seasons are reversed here in Argentina. While it's heating up back home, it's finally cooling off here. The leaves are turning and fluttering and falling. These are a few photos taken in the neighborhood we are staying in called Las Cañitas.
Buenos Aires is a city filled with trees, no matter what neighborhood you are in. There are many, many parks, that are filled up with people on the weekends. The trees and green spaces were planned over a century ago, and are fondly called "the lungs of Buenos Aires" by the locals.