Butterflies and Waterfalls

So, it's been a while since my last post....sounds kind of like a confession. But I am happy to announce that I now have something interesting to post! I am in Buenos Aires, Argentina at the moment and enjoying every minute. The first day I arrived, I had a meal of the most delicious steak I have had in a long time. The Argentinians are known for their steak. They have endless flat lands where the cows munch on grass and live a happy life...until they end up on my plate, of course. And I have had my fair share of cow here in Argentina, let me tell you!

Buenos Aires is a beautiful city, with European-style architecture, friendly people and amazing restaurants. In the first couple of days, we saw where Evita is buried in the national cemetery, green parks spread throughout the city and the beautiful plazas where people sit and enjoy the sunshine.

The third day of my trip, we took off on a road trip headed towards Iguazu Falls. This is normally an 18-hour bus ride. We figured we could drive it a bit quicker by renting a car and driving ourselves.

That would have been the case if we didn't have a broken-down car 3 hours outside of Buenos Aires. So, the first night we stopped in Concordia, a small quaint town. We had dinner at a parilla (pronounced "pair-ee-zha" in Argentina). This is their barbecue/steak house. The boys enjoyed a bit of a mixed grill, which consisted of various barbecued animal parts (kidney, intestines, blood sausage, etc.). I tried a few and surprisingly it was pretty good.

We continued on towards Iguazu Falls the next day -- got into Puerto Iguazu that night and had dinner at a local fish house. I had a meal of suburi, a fish caught in the river between Brazil and Argentina.

The next day, we set out for the park. We spent about 6 hours walking around the park, which wanders around the 275 falls. There are walkways skirting the falls and ones that are set almost immediately on top of the falls. It's very hard to describe such an amazing place in words, but I really believe these falls should be one of the great wonders of the world. Being in a rain forest, there was some beautiful wildlife between the falls....and the butterflies were everywhere!

Straight after seeing the falls, we headed out on the road again for our 15-hour journey back to Buenos Aires. We ended up driving through the night so that we arrived back in the city around 7:00 in the morning. More to come about the driving here in Argentina.....

A Busy Weekend in New York

Apparently I wasn't the only one who decided to visit New York this weekend! Just a few things were happening this weekend in New York, including -- the US Open, September 11th Memorial, New York Fashion Week, Broadway on Broadway showing live musicals in the middle of Times Square, MTV's VMA Awards (which seemed to create the most havoc in the city), and just to wrap things up, Obama made an appearance on Wall Street on Monday and shut down JFK airport on his way out.

New York does seem to be in the middle of all the action and it's never more apparent until you're right in the middle of it! I met a friend in Times Square for the Broadway on Broadway event, which brought in all the season's Broadway productions for a free live concert for thousands of guests. As part of the finale, confetti was shot high into the air over Times Square. It looked like colorful snow raining down through the high rises. As we left the show, we continued to see confetti for blocks away from Times Square. I can now imagine what New Year's is like in the Square....and the post-celebration clean-up that ensues!

New York: The Food

As promised....I shall now blog about food. (Shannan, you asked for it)!
In New York, it's hard not to talk about the food. It's everywhere. On every street corner (literally, there is a street food vendor on almost every street corner). Then standing just behind the street food vendor stands rows and rows of restaurants....beautiful-fancy-cloth-napkin-type places with three times as many hole-in-the-wall-restaurants in between.

Tonight...I had the pleasure to eat at Bobby Flay's first restaurant, Mesa Grill located on 5th Avenue in the Flatiron District.

Having just come from the extremely busy graduate school fair, Idealist, I was a bit famished. Me and two of my friends, recruiters from other programs, decided to try a few appetizers. I chose the tuna and salmon tartare with spicy chili sauce and plantain chips. I also got a side of the Cornmeal Crusted Chile Relleno stuffed with white cheese and beans. The tuna and salmon was essentially a Mexican version of Hawaiian Poke (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poke), which was fine by me, because I happen to love Hawaiian Poke. This was all accompanied by a nice glass of Malbec from Argentina.

Between my dinner mates, one ordered the shrimp and roasted garlic stuffed tamale, and the other ordered a Blue Corn Pancake filled with with barbecued duck,
habanero chile-star anise sauce, along with a side of roasted corn with smoked chiles, cojita cheese, and lime. Everything I had was tasty, although I still think Mimi's chile relleno's can't be beat, but unfortunately she does not have a restaurant where I can recommend everyone go try them. You'll just have to hope to someday have the amazing opportunity to try Mimi's chile relleno's.

A Recipe: Barbecued Mexican Corn
The corn side was a lot like a recipe I learned from one of my dear friends and an amazing chef named Aaron. He starts by BBQ'ing the corn in husk. After it gets nice and hot, pull the husk down away from the corn but don't remove it fully. If you leave some of the husk hanging down off of the corn, it provides a nice handle for holding the hot corn!
Disclaimer: The real recipe is not for those watching their waistline, but it is the best tasting. Slather a thin layer of mayonnaise on the corn, just like you're buttering it. Then roll the corn in a pan of crumbled cotija cheese mixed with a bit of taco seasoning. You can also use butter instead of mayonnaise...not entirely sure either is that healthy, but like I said, the mayonnaise definitely tastes better.

So there you have it...a restaurant review and a recipe, all in one blog! Enjoy!
Oh...no pics yet, but I promise I'll include some soon!

The Adventure Begins Again...

Traveling for me always seems to be an adventure. I can't seem to go anywhere without some kind of a story. But I would have it no other way.

Today, for example, my little jaunt to New York was anything but boring. We were a little late getting out of the Portland airport, which made me a little nervous, because I only had a 50-minute layover in Chicago and didn't know whether my next flight would be all the way on the other side of the airport. I arrived 20 minutes before we were supposed to depart for LaGuardia, but luckily I found out my next flight was delayed because of a late aircraft. After finally boarding about an hour behind schedule, they then proceeded to tell us that we were going to have to wait another 40 minutes on the tarmac because inbound traffic to LaGuardia was so heavy, they had to hold planes back.

We were relieved to finally get under way an hour and a half later than scheduled. As if the flight wasn't eventful enough already, an attendant came over the loudspeaker asking if there was a nurse or doctor on board. We weren't entirely sure what was happening except that there was a sick passenger. The good news is that we got priority clearance to land at LaGuardia! The one nugget of goodness in all my travel woes...

I came to find out that the passenger was a bit dizzy and looked a bit flushed, but didn't seem extremely serious. It was around 11 PM by the time I got into a cab headed towards Manhattan and to my awaiting pillow, which my head was eager to get to.

But....that wasn't the end of the adventure. As the hotel bell man opened the door for me, I got out of the cab and as I looked down for two second to put away my receipt, the cabbie started to drive off down the road. I looked up just in time to shout -- "Hey, my suitcases!!" That the was the bell man's cue to go running off after the cab shouting at him to stop. Luckily, and I never thought I'd say this, there always seems to be traffic in NY, no matter what time of day or night. The cab didn't get very far before realizing he had driven off with my suitcases.

After all that, it was kind of a nice relief to check in and go to my hotel room uneventfully!

A car ride, two planes and a taxi ride later...I am happy to be back in the Big Apple!

Blog-crastinating and My New Blog Topic

So I must be the worst blogger in the world....or Top 10 at least. I don't usually blog until I travel, which for the last few months has been fairly sporadic. I did go to Israel in July and that was amazing. I'm not sure why I didn't find time to blog about it. It was an amazing experience -- some of the best seafood I've ever had literally sitting on the beach of the Mediterranean. I got to go to the US Ambassador's 4th of July party in Tel Aviv...on the 1st of July. They pulled out all the stops...with a huge fireworks show, as well as a speech by the Prime Minister of Israel. Then I got invited to another 4th of July, on the actual holiday, which was a rooftop party with live music and everything. Great way to celebrate our US holiday in a foreign country!
I did have the opportunity to experience the Old City of Jerusalem, with a trip to the Wailing Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa, the Tower of David and we even had lunch in the Armenian Quarter.

Speaking of food...the reason for my post tonight is to share about my other great love in life. Besides traveling, my other passion is food. I love to eat it, make it, talk about and learn how to make it! I just saw the movie Julie and Julia. It reminded me how much I love to cook. My mother instilled this passion in me. Growing up, I can remember my mom creating amazing things with food. My friends that would come over for dinner would remark about how gourmet my mom's food was. I was always proud of this, but didn't fully appreciate it until I had to live on my own and cook my own meals. I found that food that wasn't cooked from scratch just didn't have the same flavors as I knew growing up. I had a new appreciation for food that I had definitely taken advantage of growing up...I never understood that what my mom had was talent. To be able to take a number of ingredients from the fridge and cupboards and create something that was not only edible, but also incredibly tasty...is truly a gift. I've decided that even if I cannot live up to my mother's talent, maybe I can at least appreciate good food when I taste it. That is why I've decided to add an additional feature to my blog. Not only will I blog about my traveling adventures, but I will also blog about my food-ventures. Whether it's a small local cafe or a world-renowned dining experience, I plan to share about it in my blog. I'm sure there are a number of new blogs inspired by movies like Julie and Julia, but I'm sure that's because, I believe, food brings people together and creates memories. It's an important part of our culture and history and in my opinion, it brings a unique experience to every one of my trips. And I plan to share that with you!

Beyond the Expected: Ethics in Business Awards

I attended the Oregon Ethics in Business Awards dinner on Wednesday evening this week. I guess one would expect that the nominees and award winners would be impressive in their own right...with their commitment to ethics and to "doing the right thing." But I have to admit, I was much more than impressed by this group of humble do-gooders.

Among the award winners was one especially humble man from Corvallis, Oregon. His name is Mario Pastega. He is a 92-year-old man of Italian decent who owns the Pepsi-Cola bottling facility in Corvallis. At his age, you would think he was a feeble man; however, he actually moves quite quickly and in fact, he loves giving visitors tours of his facilities. In his acceptance speech for the Ethics in Business Award, it was apparent that Mario loves what he does...mostly because he is giving back to the community. Mario helped establish a guest house for relatives of hospital patients to stay in while their loved ones are treated. He visits the families on a regular basis and also commits his time to a number of other service projects. This is all outside of his work hours, which he still puts in regularly even at his age! Mario was a true example of "doing unto others as you would have done unto you." In every way, he exemplifies how people should do business. Not to serve themselves, but to go beyond the expected, even if it means sacrificing a bit of profit. You can read more online about Mario and other Ethics in Business Award Winners, which were researched and underwritten by our very own Willamette MBA students this last semester.

I suppose it's bad etiquette for a blogger to not post a new blog for over a month, but my excuse is that I've been globetrotting. I also suppose that is the best time to post a new blog, since there is a lot to share when one is traveling. Nonetheless, I've still got a lot of good things to share, even post-travel.

For the last three weeks or so, I've been traveling around Eastern Europe and Turkey. I was in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary for recruitment travel and then Turkey for a bit of a holiday. In Romania, I stayed with a friend, who showed me around her beautiful country. We explored the city of Bucharest and towns in the countryside, like Sinaia, Brasov, and Rasov. Each were unique and had their own individual charm. For instance, we saw Bran castle in Brasov, which is sometimes linked to the legend of Dracula. It actually does not have a significant link to Dracula, but of course, the town has marketed on the reputation, with Dracula mugs and t-shirts lining the path up to the castle.

I was in Bulgaria for only a couple of days and so I was not able to see much of the city. I did get to walk around the and see the underground city, which has ruins that date back 7,000 years. Sofia is claimed to be the second oldest city in Europe, after Cadiz, Spain.

In Budapest, I had some time to explore the city. Budapest was definitely the most charming out of all the Eastern European cities I visited on this tour. With it's beautiful Parliament building, bridges, walking streets and indoor market where they sell paprikas, sausages and cheese, one could walk around Budapest all day without getting bored. After a long day walking around the city in the cold, though, it's a delight to return to the famous baths of Europe, where they sit for hours in the sauna and pools. It's no wonder the baths have been around for centuries.

I ended my trip with a week in Turkey, which was an entirely different experience all together and requires it's own blog, which will soon follow...