We have arrived in lovely Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the captial of this lovely country and home to many lovely sights. It is the NYC of South America, full of crazy taxi drivers that rip you off, a subway, buses, a broadway type district, the projects, and heros. It also boasts many beautiful buildings and lovely architechture.
We are staying at El Firulete, which has been an interesting experience. The building itself is charming, with lovely tile floors and a balcony in our room. The breakfast is alright (fruit, ceral, toast, and CROISSANTS!! i love croissants) and its clean for a hostel. However, the staff at the front desk totally suck. They are unhelpful and unfriendly. We have an 8 person dorm to ourself and havent met a lot of other travelers. Its nice to mix it up and chat up other people about what they have done and where they have been.
We have had the opportunity to see several sights related to the infamous Eva Peron, or Evita.
Her final resting place is La Recoleta Cemetery. La Recoleta is an elaborate and beautiful maze of mausoleums. Some look like mini churches with a steeple and stained glass. Elaborate statues are common for the decoration of them. Some are well maintained and when you peak at the windows, you can see the coffins neatly arranged with a cloth covering them. It was really interesting to see and you can wander around for quite some time seeing different things each time. We also went to the Evita museum. They have some of her clothing and accessories on display, along with videos important to her life, radio recordings, and some information about her life. Its a little sparse on all the specifics, more broad strokes leaving you wanting to know more about her life.
We had the pleasure of walking through San Martin square and just so happened to be there when they unvailed the United Buddy Bears. Its a group of bears represented by each country reconized by the UN and designed by a local artist from that country. It was a very exciting thing to stumble upon.
We have been to La Boca, a neightborhood with interestingly bright colors and tin houses. We also saw tango on display in the streets and art was everywhere for sale. We got to meet up with the Saras - our Scottish friends that we met in Rio both named Sara. We wandered the streets with them for awhile and then went to the national history museum. It sucked since it was all in Spanish and apparently, its under renovation until next year. On to the next.
Last night, we went to Cafe Tortoni. They are a very old cafe and do tango shows in the evening. The show was 60 pesos and was a combination of tango, singing, and orchestra playing. The live music part was great, the singing was very emotional. I would have liked to see more tango. The dancers did change their outfits every single time, which was cool. We shared a table with Carmen and Alister from Toronto and went out for a steak afterwards. The steak is very reasonably priced and always delicious.
Carmen recommended a free tour of BsAs and that is where we are off to now....
Are you going wine tasting? Or are the wineries too far off the beaten path--no wait, this is you--there is no "too far off the beaten path." How's the Argentinian food? Still meat-centric, right? Any fun new drinks or taste sensations? Don't worry about telling me about museums--I just care about the food. :)
ReplyDeletetisk tisk, yes of course we are going to mendoza and wine tasting. we will be there in maybe 3 or 4 days.
ReplyDeleteargentinian food: lots of meet and pizza. we had really yummy pizza yesterday, sometimes its just ehh. good steak can be had for a reasonable 8-10 usd. we have had steak for dinner twice. yummy.
i have been drinkin more wine, i havent heard of a local cocktail to try like in brazil. they dont typically serve wine by the glass, you have to buy a full bottle or a small bottle which is sort of fun.