We were pretty fired up at the prospect of mounting a Segway since jealously watching people riding them in Prague – we had wanted to give them a try. So… CONTINUE READING >>
We were pretty fired up at the prospect because ever since seeing people riding Segways in Prague we had wanted to give them a try. So with all of the boxes safely stashed, we took off with Mom & Pop to the sidewalks on these two wheeled marvels.
Our guide for the tour, Nez, began by showing us the ropes in a parking garage. The Segway is designed to sense your shifts in weight and respond by moving forward or back while expertly remaining balanced. It’s amazing, and within minutes we all felt perfectly comfortable commanding our vehicles with just the slightest shifts of our bodies.
Confident in our new Segway skill set, we made our way through downtown to Riverfront Park. Nez filled us in on details via headset as we rolled along through the artwork and historic markers, past the little rock, and back toward The Clinton Center.
Just before reaching the Presidential Library we turned off into the Bill Clark Wetlands. This small preserve has a wooden boardwalk that winds through bringing walkers, cyclists, and – yes – Segway riders in for an up close look at the ecology of the Arkansas River’s edge.
Rolling on through the grounds of the Presidential Center, Nez pointed out the adjacent headquarters of Heifer International. Heifer is an organization that has distributed cattle and other livestock to farmers in over 125 countries in an effort to create a more sustainable solution to hunger.
We made our way back along the trolley route and completed our Segway tour without incident, something that seemed improbable just ninety minutes earlier.
Like most travelers, we enjoy putting another notch on our suitcase handle by adding to our list of visited countries.
We found this remarkably easy to do while in Buenos Aires, just hop on a ferry across the river to Uruguay. The delightful town of Colonia del Sacramento lies on the other side of the Río de la Plata, so after a forty-five minute ride on the Buquebus, we were adding a stamp to our… CONTINUE READING >>
Colonia, Uruguay
Like most travelers, we enjoy putting another notch on our suitcase handle by adding to our list of visited countries.
We found this remarkably easy to do while in Buenos Aires, just hop on a ferry across the river to Uruguay.
The delightful town of Colonia del Sacramento lies on the other side of the Río de la Plata, so after a forty-five minute ride on the Buquebus, we were adding a stamp to our passports.
In the killing of two aviary entities with one chunk of earth’s crust department, this also gave us an opportunity to do one of our favorite things, spend a little time on the water.
The boat was very nicely appointed, full service with restaurant, bar, shops and power outlets for the gadgets, but we spent more time up on deck watching the skyline of Buenos Aires disappear behind us and looking for the first sight of Uruguay ahead.
The Plata here is more like an ocean bay than a river. It is thirty miles wide at this spot and over one hundred downstream.
With the waves coming in from the Atlantic it is difficult to determine just where the river ends and the sea begins, perhaps the saline content of the water is the determining factor.
When we arrived in Colonia del Sacramento we disembarked into the oldest city in Uruguay, though the tiny outpost of Villa Soriano up the river may dispute that, and many parts of the town feel like they have been preserved in a time capsule.
Colonia, as the name is generally shorten to, has been very successful in this, which has earned the historic quarter designation as a World Heritage Site.
In its long history, the city has been batted back and forth numerous times between Portugal, the original founders in 1680, and Spain, who disputed ownership and invaded that same year. The next year, the Spanish returned it to Portugal until the next attack in 1705.
This scenario continued through the 1700s, with a new flag flying over the fort every few years, until 1816 when the city became part of Brazil. Ultimately Uruguay split off from Brazil in 1828 and Colonia has since enjoyed peace.
After checking in to our digs for the night at El Viajero, a funky little hostel that seemed just right for this excursion, we set out to see the historic quarter.
The old part of Colonia is small, packed onto a little peninsula, so there was no need for a vehicle. Everything is within an easy walk.
Many of the original buildings still line the cobblestone streets, so we simply wandered aimlessly around the district taking it all in.
Two things struck us immediately, there are an absolutely insane amount of dogs running loose which we hesitate to call stray because they seem well fed…
Veronica was in 7th heaven with all the friendly dogs!
… and almost all of the locals were carrying thermos bottles and interesting little cups with silver straws.
This was the yerba maté we had heard about.
Since it seemed like the thing to do in these parts, when in Rome and all that, plus we had been walking for quite some time, we decided to find a place to sit down and try some.
As luck would have it, El Drugstore, just off the main plaza, had a chalkboard out front advertising a maté special.
It’s not really a drugstore, it’s a quirky, funky little restaurant with a great feel.
Being the middle of the afternoon the kitchen, which is out in the open by the main dining area, was closed, but we immediately decided to return that very evening for a meal.
On to the maté. Drinking yerba maté is often a communal ritual, so we only needed one cup.
The waiter brought us a thermos of hot water, a silver straw with a strainer on the end called a bombilla, and a small hollowed out gourd filled with the crushed plant.
David CLEARLY isn’t a fan of yerba maté!
The maté plant is a relative of holly and has been used to make this sort of tea for centuries, mostly in the southeastern parts of South America.
We poured water into our gourd, let it sit for a minute, and then gave the bombilla a good suck.
First impression… awful. We tried again, still awful. It remained awful no matter how much we tried. Guess there’s no risk in us getting addicted.
Less than refreshed from our maté moment, we set back out toward the point of the peninsula.
The entire old town is surrounded by stone bulwarks due to its early unsettled history, and much of the stone work remains, especially along the water.
For a better view, we figured we’d climb up to the top of the lighthouse.
Well, it’s not like we snuck up, for a small fee anyone can make the climb. A tiny spiral staircase, with many head thumping hazards, led us to a fantastic overview of the entire area. We could even see all the way back to Buenos Aires, through what looked to be not so buenos air.
Feeling like we had seen enough for one day, we headed back to the hostel to clean up and return to El Drugstore for dinner.
But along the way we were sidetracked by Mercosur, a sidewalk cafe with people eating giant plates of beef, ham, french fries, eggs, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and who knows what else. Chivito, we had to have it.
We took a seat and prepared for our feast by sipping a cold Patricia, the local brew, and watching the other patrons devour their chivito.
Just before we couldn’t stand it any longer, our platter arrived sporting two huge hunks of cow, slices of ham, slabs of bacon, pounds of potatoes, and a veritable garden, all topped off with a couple fried eggs.
Chivito Gigante! It’s not fancy, but it was certainly tasty and no one walks away hungry. In fact, we could barely walk at all.
The next morning we were feeling the need to work off the chivito, and El Viajero Hostel happened to have bikes for rent, perfect.
This gave us a chance to see some of the rest of the city of Colonia, where most of its twenty-five thousand residents live.
We rode down the main drag a while, then several miles north along the water, where beautiful parks had trees filled with bright green parakeets.
At the edge of town we turned inland and found the Plaza de Toros Real de San Carlos, an abandoned bullring dating back to 1910. The arena only hosted eight bullfights before Uruguay outlawed them in 1912.
According to our maps this was the last of the highlights we wanted to see, and El Drugstore beckoned, so we pedalled back into town for some lunch before we had to catch the afternoon ferry.
El Drugstore offers quite an array of seating choices, indoor, outdoor on the plaza, and even in an antique car parked on the side street, but on this day they had live music inside, so we took a seat near the stage.
With our appetites well worked up from the morning’s ride, we checked out the menu and low and behold, more chivito!
We concluded that the classic dish was worth an encore, chivito for two and beet soup, por favor. The soup was tasty and unique, but the chivito actually suffered a bit from an attempt to make it a touch more fancy.
Not that it was bad, and the cuts of meat were better, but we preferred yesterday’s simpler version.
The undisputed star of our lunch turned out to be the dessert, a crepe creation that we ordered by pointing at our neighbor’s table and indicating that we wanted one too.
The crepe arrived warm and smothered in orange sauce with fresh orange slices and spinkled with grated chocolate.
The entire old town of Colonia is surrounded by stone bulwarks due to its early unsettled history, and much of the stone work remains, especially along the water. For a better view, we figured we’d climb up to the top of the lighthouse… CONTINUE READING >>
The entire old town of Colonia is surrounded by stone bulwarks due to its early unsettled history, and much of the stone work remains, especially along the water.
For a better view, we figured we’d climb up to the top of the lighthouse.
Well, it’s not like we snuck up, for a small fee anyone can make the climb.
A tiny spiral staircase, with many head thumping hazards, led us to a fantastic overview of the entire area. We could even see all the way back to Buenos Aires, through what looked to be not so buenos air.
The delightful town of Colonia del Sacramento lies on the other side of the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, so after a forty-five minute ride on the Buquebus… CONTINUE READING >>
The delightful town of Colonia del Sacramento lies on the other side of the Río de la Plata from Buenos Aires, so after a forty-five minute ride on the Buquebus, we were adding a stamp to our passports. (To see this entire voyage, click here)
In the killing of two aviary entities with one chunk of earth’s crust department, this also gave us an opportunity to do one of our favorite things, spend a little time on the water.
The boat is very nicely appointed, full service with restaurant, bar, and power outlets for the gadgets, but we spent more time up on deck watching the skyline of Buenos Aires disappear behind us and looking for the first sight of Uruguay ahead.
The undisputed star of our lunch turned out to be the dessert, a crepe creation that we ordered by pointing at our neighbor’s table and indicating that we wanted one too. The crepe arrived warm… CONTINUE READING >>
El Drugstore offers quite an array of seating choices, indoor, outdoor on the plaza, and even in an antique car parked on the side street, but on this day they had live music inside, so we took a seat near the stage.
We ordered chivito for two and beet soup, por favor. The soup was tasty and unique, but the chivito actually suffered a bit from an attempt to make it a touch more fancy.
Not that it was bad, and the cuts of meat were much better, but we preferred yesterday’s simpler version.
The undisputed star of our lunch turned out to be the dessert, a crepe creation that we ordered by pointing at our neighbor’s table and indicating that we wanted one too.
The crepe arrived warm and smothered in orange sauce with fresh orange slices and chunks of chocolate.(To see more about lovely Colonia, click here)
As luck would have it, El Drugstore, had a chalkboard advertising a maté special.
Drinking yerba maté is often a communal ritual, so we only needed one cup. The waiter brought us a thermos of hot water, a silver straw called a bombilla, and a small hollowed out gourd filled with the crushed plant.
David CLEARLY isn’t a fan of yerba maté!
The maté plant is a relative of holly and has been used to make this sort of tea for centuries, mostly in the southeastern parts of South America.
So we poured the water into our gourd, let it sit for a minute, and then gave the bombilla a good suck. First impression… awful. We tried again, still awful. It remained awful no matter how much we tried. Guess there’s no risk in us getting addicted.
We’re positive that El Drugstore only serves the finest of ingredients. The food, service and entertainment was fantastic. It’s a quirky, funky little restaurant with a great feel.
We’re certain that the yerba maté served at El Drugstore was the best yerba maté ever. So, it must be an acquired taste.
I sympathize with helicopter parents, I really do. I was one. I reluctantly stopped hovering once my kids left the nest. I knew that the sovereignty of the Spawns was more important than my own desire to continue colonial rule. Trust me, we’ve ALL benefited from my abdication.
Did I hound my offspring to do their homework when they were kids? You Betcha. Did I have meetings with their high school guidance counselors to voice concerns without the Spawn present? Guilty… CONTINUE READING >>
I was one. I reluctantly stopped hovering once my kids left the nest. I knew that the sovereignty of The Spawn was more important than my own desire to continue colonial rule.
Trust me, we’ve ALL benefited from my abdication.
Did I hound my offspring to do their homework when they were kids? You betcha.
Did I have meetings with their high school guidance counselors to voice concerns without The Spawn present?
Guilty.
Was I closely involved with their choices of college? Yup.
AND just to be fair, I’ll admit to SOME of my post-nest-leaving helicoptering:
We did their taxes while in they were in college. We’ve also discussed with them (in depth) health insurance options offered at their workplaces, helped negotiate a purchase of a car and lugged a bigger-than-an elevator-sized sofa up eight flights of stairs.
But here’s something I’ve never done. I’ve never GONE TO A JOB INTERVIEW WITH MY ADULT KID!
“Last year I had a parent sit in the lobby and wait the entire four hours during the job interview,” says Audrey Abron, an executive recruiter for Belk Department Stores in Charlotte, N.C. “The girl introduced us to her mother, and there was no embarrassment. She felt it was acceptable behavior. What do you say? Some things should be understood. Things like, you don’t bring your mommy or daddy to a job interview.'”
Can you imagine?
I’m flabbergasted. Would you hire this umbilical cord dragging applicant? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine under what circumstances this would be appropriate behavior. I drew a big fat blank.
The article continues:
“As an executive recruiter for healthcare consultancy Stockamp and Associates, Kate Carson is used to talking to plenty of job applicants. What she’s not used to is talking to their parents. But that’s exactly what she’s doing more of these days. Recently she received a call from the mother of a 24-year-old graduate student who wanted to know why her daughter didn’t receive a job offer with the Oregon-based company. “I was a little taken aback,” says Carson.
Oh come ON! Seriously?
24 years old and Mommy’s still nipping at the heels?
Who is Mom doing this for?
I thought possibly I had a skewed perspective on this, so I called my daughter, The Piglet, to see if this was a common practice among her peers. The Piglet is a very diplomatic person — she’s always willing to see all sides of an issue. In order to state my case properly, I first got my ducks in a row. I compiled my findings and rang her up with my computer at the ready.
Here’s the ensuing conversation:
Me: Hey baby, I need your input on something. I’m working on an article about parents who go along with their adult kids to job interviews..
“At Hewlett-Packard, parents have gone as far as contacting the company after their child gets a job offer. They want to talk about their son’s or daughter’s salary, relocation packages and scholarship programs.”
AND (!):
At Weber Shandwick, a global public relations firm, a father recently called the company to inquire about how his son could apply for its Atlanta internship program. “I was very surprised. I answered my phone, and he said he had a son interested in internships,” says Jennifer Seymour, who runs the intern program. She says helicopter parents create a negative view.”
Ya think?
Jeez people. We’ve GOT to let our kids grow up.
I figured I should do some more research. Maybe employers benefit from overparenting.
Is there some secret formula I’m missing? Something like:
E(mployee)+ P(sychoParent) – T(ime spent on the phone with Mommy
bragging on Spawn’s exploits) = S(uperEmployee)? Hmmm…
“Eileen Habelow is a regional vice president and director for the staffing firm Randstad USA. She’s also had some eye- opening experiences with the parents of young job seekers. Habelow remembers one candidate who seemed ideal in many ways — except one.
“During the interview process, the candidate continuously referenced her parents, their roles in her search, their support in evaluating us as an employer and a financially stable company, and their advice on how she should negotiate the employment deal,” Habelow recalls.
“That level of parental involvement raised some red flags. She was a very sharp candidate: polished, smart, well-educated and confident. However, the constant reference to mom and dad was a definite turnoff,” Habelow states. “The company hired the candidate, but Habelow soon regretted that decision. “After three months she let us know that her parents agreed that maybe this was not the best fit after all. I will trust my instincts next time.”
I bet she will. Ms. Habelow and her company just wasted HOW much time and money on this infantile employee? This sharp, polished, smart, well-educated and confident young lady would probably be an excellent candidate — once Mom and Dad stop knocking the legs out from under her.
“Too much parental involvement can backfire: Employers may shy away from job candidates because they don’t want to deal with parents. “Psychologically, it’s somewhat eroding. When an employer is hiring someone, they’re hiring an adult for an adult job, and then they have to deal with a parent,” says Charles Wardell in New York, the managing director and head of the northeast region at Korn/Ferry. “There comes a time when you’ve prepared children, and you need to let go.”
“Parents have been very involved in managing their son or daughter’s lives,” says Melanie Parker, executive director of career services at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. “They’re the most managed generation in history. Parents think they’re helping their son or daughter but there are consequences.
At some point they’ll have to be more independent, but that breakaway will occur later than in past generations.” Parker received several requests from parents to get their own university ID cards so they can have easy access to the career center to take care of their child’s business. Parker denies all of those requests.
“The more we protect individuals from making decisions (good or bad), the less willing they will be to invest in decisionmaking capacities. A few years ago, I was bemused when I spoke at an orientation session for new law students, finding that a third of the room was filled with their parents. This feeling eventually turned to despair when I discovered this is a fairly ubiquitous phenomenon. By coddling their children, it seems, today’s helicopter parents have actually stunted their children’s development. You may think I am exaggerating the costs of this, but there is at least some evidence of this coddling leading to negative long term consequences.”
“That’s exactly how Carmen (R) feels about her daughter. A junior at Gonzaga University in Washington State, (her daughter) is in the middle of an internship hunt and is getting plenty of help from her mom, who’s developed an Excel spreadsheet to track contacts, is ready to accompany her on job interviews and write follow-up letters. Says (Ms. R), ‘I’m monitoring my investment.'”
Buenos Aires, like most large urban areas, is actually a collection of varied communities, and as we explored many of them we found each offered unique backgrounds and qualities.
Perhaps no two barrios of the city capture quintessential Buenos Aires better than…CONTINUE READING >>
The neighborhood of San Telmo.
Buenos Aires, like most large urban areas, is actually a collection of varied communities, and as we explored many of them we found each offered unique backgrounds and qualities.
The cowboy culture of Mataderos, the residential feel of Once, the urban chic of Richoleta, and the bustling politics and monuments of San Nicolas all add up to a great world capital.
The neighborhood of La Boca.
Perhaps no two barrios of the city capture quintessential Buenos Aires better than San Telmo and La Boca.
In fact San Pedro Gonzalez Telmo, named for the patron saint of seafarers, is considered the oldest neighborhood in the city.
It is where the first settlement was established by the Spanish explorer Pedro de Mendoza nearly five hundred years ago.
Our modern day exploration found many interesting colonial buildings lining quaint stone streets in what has become the artistic center of town.
We made our way to Plaza Dorrego, in the heart of San Telmo, because it was Sunday, and on Sunday the place to be is the Feria de San Telmo.
Booths sell everything imaginable.
More open-air flea market than fair, this collective sale of antiques, art, clothing, jewelry, food and just about anything else under the sun, has been happening every weekend since 1970.
But it is more than a market, solo guitarists, African drum groups, and a nine piece mini-orchestra of strings, accordions, and even a full sized piano performed along the streets surrounding the plaza.
Wading into the square, we were drawn to a gathering by a crowd and more music, our curiosity led us to a street tango in progress.
A small dance troupe had laid out a wooden dance floor over the ancient cobblestones and was putting on quite a show.
From there we found a woman selling what looked to be empanadas, but she insisted they were something different. A dish unique to Uruguay that had no name.
Nameless or not, we just called it delicious.
Nameless packets of tasty goodness in hand, we continued through the maze of tables, stands, and booths until the sun sank behind the buildings and the vendors began to pack up.
That was our signal to find our way back to the subte, the local name for the subway.
La Boca
The next day we ventured a little farther out from the center of Buenos Aires, to the old port area known as La Boca.
There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the name, the obvious explanation would be that the area lies at the mouth, or la boca in Spanish, of the small river Riachuelo.
But the early residents of La Boca came from Genoa, Italy, more specifically the part of Genoa known as Boccadasse or Bocadaze, so their descendants claim that the name stems from that association.
In fact the connection to the Italian city is so strong that in 1882 La Boca actually seceded from Argentina and briefly flew the Genoese flag.
We noticed the Italian influence as we walked from the bus to the famous Caminito, or little road.
At the top of the tiny street we were immediately accosted by tango dancers who had an overwhelming desire to have their picture taken with us… for a fee of course.
But hey, it gave us an opportunity to whip out our tango faces one more time, so we figured it was worth it.
Moving up the way into the restaurants, tango halls and crap shops that line the Caminito, we were hit by barkers at almost every establishment.
It seemed like not a single storefront let us pass without a pitch.
Whimsical statues adorn most balconies in La Boca.
This was by far the most touristy section of Buenos Aires that we had seen, to the point that it made it hard to appreciate the very cool old construction underneath all of the hucksterism.
We did our best to ignore the onslaught and see past it, but finally we decided to try to find the real neighborhood behind the facade and wandered a few blocks away from the hustle and bustle.
That is where we found the authentic versions of the colorful corrugated metal houses that were the inspiration for the bright, odd-caricature-statue adorned replicas that line the Caminito.
We also found a little corner cafe where a pizza didn’t cost thirty dollars.
It was not the best pie ever, not by a long shot, but as usual we found the unvarnished real life experience to be far superior to the sanitized version put forth for the tourist trade.
So we hung out, talked with our vibrant, outgoing waitress, watched the show that the neighborhood dogs put on, and generally just took it all in.
When the afternoon sun turned soft we set out through the tourist traps once again, content that we had experienced something close to what La Boca once was.
Just before turning the corner from the Caminito to catch our bus, we looked back and gave one more tango face, just for good measure.
From there we found a woman selling what looked to be empanadas, but she insisted they were something different. A dish unique to 
Nameless packets of tasty goodness in hand, we continued through the maze of tables, stands, and booths until the sun sank behind the buildings and the vendors began to pack up.
The next day we ventured a little farther out from the center of Buenos Aires, to the old port area known as La Boca.
We noticed the Italian influence as we walked from the bus to the famous Caminito, or little road.
So we hung out, talked with our vibrant, outgoing waitress, watched the show that the neighborhood dogs put on, and generally just took it all in.