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Published: November 6th 2008
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Aaahhhh....Buenos Aires! Far and away our favourite place so far, we almost wish we had dedicated our entire 11 week trip to Argentina. We're staying in the barrio (neighbourhood) of Palermo - very cool, with loads of restaurants, bars, independent shops with handmade, unique clothes and just generally a fantastic atmosphere. It is definitely a place we could live for a few years (don´t worry mums and dads - we´re still coming home...for now!).
Highlights:
*The food. We never thought anywhere could beat Italy for ice-cream but BA definitely cuts it and needless to say we've had it everyday since we arrived. It's so popular over here that many places even do home delivery! Steak is also high in the favourite list for both of us (and Lisa is not usually a steak fan). They're enormous, they're juicy and best of all they're cheap. We went to a carneceria (butcher) and bought half a kilo of their finest for about 2 pounds!
*The fantastic restaurants in Palermo. We met a Norwegian girl on our trip to the Colca Canyon in Peru who had been living in Palermo for 8 months and wrote down all her favourite restaurants and
bars and we're slowly working our way through the list. Thanks Hannah!
*The warm weather. We hadn´t expected mid-Spring weather here to be so warm but it´s been early to late 20's everyday. After such a pathetic English Summer, we're well overdue for some sun.
*Watching a football match with the crazy locals at La Boca Stadium. Thankfully their favourite team won!
*Patagonia. The landscape is amazing and we saw so much wildlife. Whales, elephant seals, penguins, guanacas (missed out on seeing these in Peru where they´re very rare) and other unusual native animals including a weird hare. Watching the whales is in our top 3 animal experiences - totally incredible. And there were so many! We must have seen at least 10 whales in our 90 minute boat ride.
*Milonga halls. Another great expat tip was from a guy we met in Patagonia who told us about a fantastic local tango hall we could go to (as opposed to the ubiquitous tourist tango shows). It starts getting busy around 11pm and goes all night. The dance is much more subtle than the stereotype of striding across the room with pointed arms.
*Spanish classes and
bbq. We have met a fantastic group of girls who are studying at uni and teaching Spanish to us gringos in their spare time. They even invited us to a bbq at one of their houses. We were told to come around 9 or 9:30pm which seemed a bit late for dinner. We got there at nearly 10pm and ended up being some of the first people there and the bbq fire was only just being built. Needless to say we ate rather late, 11:30pm! We were lucky to have such a great local experience.
Funny / charming local customs:
*Coins! We´ve never seen someone get so excited about small change as we did at the bbq we went to. Small change is EVERYTHING here! Buses only take change and since this seems to be the most popular form of transport, everyone hoards change. Shop owners are definitely the worst. We have had shop keepers round down the amount, try and trade us up to a round note and even refuse the sale altogether if they´re faced with handing over some of their precious coins in change.
*Staying up late - very late! Turning up to
a restaurant for dinner at 10pm is standard and therefore siestas are a common practice (as well as 4 meals a day!). The bbq we went to finished at 5am and Lisa was even able to get ice-cream at 3am after tango 😊
*Mass dog-walking. A frequent occurance in the parks around Palermo is to see one man struggle along with no less than 15 dogs or even 20! Everyone seems to have a dog in BA so watching your step in the street is a must.
*Kisses on the cheek for everyone - even man-to-man. Dave got a bit of a shock at the bbq when all the guys introduced themselves with a kiss rather than a handshake 😊
Next on the agenda in Argentina: Iguazu falls, Uruguay, a few more Spanish lessons, eating our way through the remaining restaurants on Hannah's list and a tango lesson so we can join the floor at the milonga hall next weekend 😊
Adios
Lisa and Dave
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