We made it back safe and sound (my suitcase, not so much. Thanks, American!). I won't go into great detail about our last couple of days in BA. Mainly because we kept to a leisurely pace to do some aimless wandering, while taking the time to see a couple more minor sights (like La Boca, a run down neighborhood with a quaint touristy plaza & cobblestone streets) and to have one last parrilla dinner (may have been our best meal yet. If that was my last piece of red meat for the forseeable future, then it was one hell of a [View Full Entry]

---

---

I did my best to escape Buenos Aires without doing anything tango-related, but Becky is quite persistent when it comes to such things. There was no way she was getting me to take a dance class, and neither one of us wanted to do a touristy dinner/show, so we observed tango the authentic way: we went to a milonga. Thanks to Becky's coworker, we had an inside connection to a neighborhood milonga, and made reservations for 11:30. After a pretty amazing nap from 8:30-9:30, we were well rested and prepared for a long night. We were right on time to the [View Full Entry]

---

---

We stayed in last night - popped a movie in and uncorked some more malbec. We were pretty exhausted from all of the recent travelling. After sleeping in on Friday, we headed back to Centro and grabbed coffee/light lunch at Cafe Tortoni, one of BA's most historic cafes. Back in the day it was a meeting house for the cultural elite, housing many artists, poets, and writers. The inside space was indeed gorgeous, and next door is the official tango museum, which we hit up on the way out. It was small, but had a huge collection of physical music (LPs, [View Full Entry]

---

---

We got out of the city once again on Thursday. Our original plan was to take a ferry to Uraguay for the day, but eventually decided to head North of BA to the Parana River delta instead. Getting there was not trivial. From our apartment, we hopped on the subte and transferred to a second line which terminated at the Retiro train station. For less than $1 peso apiece, we took a 40 minute commuter train ride through the north end of the city and its immediate suburbs. At the end of the line, we walked to a 2nd train station [View Full Entry]

---

---

We returned from Iguazu around noon on Wednesday to find a vastly different Buenos Aires than the one we left on Monday. It seems all of our good weather mojo had run out after our first week in the low 60s, and a fabulous Tuesday in Iguazu at ~75 degrees and sunny. I think the high on Wednesday in BA was under 55, and the sun wasn't around much, which added to the briskness. It's about what we had expected when we arrived, so it's not exactly shocking, it was just that we'd become so used to the pleasantness. Anyway, after [View Full Entry]

---

---

I'll say it again - an amazing side trip. Absolutely stunning. But I'll get to that in a minute. First, the airport. When we landed in BA from JFK, we touched ground at Ezeiza International Airport, about 25 miles outside of town. It was an old building, with lots of brick and concrete, and looked fairly rundown. No big deal. But the domestic airport (Aeroparque Jorge Newberry) might have been the nicest airport I've ever been in. Lots of marble tile and glass, with two large single "hallway" terminals on opposite ends. I'd guess there were about 25 gates total. There [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a somewhat late night on Saturday, we slept in late again today. Before even grabbing coffee (gasp!), we were on the subway bound for San Telmo, one of the oldest barrios in Buenos Aires. (Becky has instructed me to insert the word "lovely" here). Every Sunday, amongst the cobblestoned streets and quaint antique shops, San Telmo hosts a pretty expansive street fair, with people from all over the city coming to set up a table or blanket and peddle their wares. For approximately a mile long stretch, thousands of locals and tourists alike peruse the goods, and perhaps stop to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Up much earlier on Friday than the previous day, we headed out to one of several vast parks near our apartment. Sadly, the Jardin Botanico was closed for some odd reason, but we still took in the greenery before stopping for lunch with Becky's coworker Dale and his wife & daughter. From there, we hopped on a bus destined for Recoleta, one of the more upscale barrios in the city. We spent the next 2 hours exploring the Cemeterio de Recoleta, resting place of Buenos Aires' social elite. Many of the crypts were stunning, and the entire cemetery was a vast [View Full Entry]

---

---

Grabbed a quick breakfast this morning at home and hailed a cab to la Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the most prominent art museum in Buenos Aires. The building itself was pretty small, at least compared to the Met in NY and some of the SF museums we've been to, but the interior was pretty posh. The 1st floor was all European art, and at first I was pretty disappointed by the collection. While the early European collection was pretty cool, the next, largest room contained a huge collection of Dutch paintings, but it only housed a single Rembrandt. The Spanish [View Full Entry]

---

---

Dear America, Please stop feeding corn to your cattle. Your friend, Chris We had an amazing dinner Thursday night at a Parrilla (kind of like a steakhouse, but better) a few short blocks away. Parrillas are an Argentinian staple, and this one was particularly well-reviewed. Seeing as it was only 9:00pm when we sat down, we nearly had the place to ourselves. By the time we left around 11:00, it was hopping, with many large groups filling the tables of this relatively small joint. For those that don't know, I gave up red meat some time ago for several reason [View Full Entry]

---

---