Buenos Aires

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Hola Mis Amigos!

We apologize for not writing this sooner, but our plan is to write a blog after each city/area that we visit...and we have been in BA for 2 weeks now! It is longer than we had intended on staying but we quickly realized that our lack of español was going to really hinder the experience. Thus, we decided to take a spanish course for a week, so we stayed in BA to do that.

To start at the beginning (im majorly going to summarize this), our flight was fine, we had screaming babies alllll around us and I (Laura) was sick with a sore throat, so that made for a mediocore trip. We stayed at Estoril hostel the first night, and really didn´t do much either than walk around down town...we were exhausted and a bit...alot overwhelmed (new city, new language, new people, new sounds etc etc). We then packed up and went to Rancho Urbano hostel because Estoril was booked up. We had to take the Subte (subway) plus walk quite a while with our huge bags...we were quite paranoid walking amongst hundreds of people with everything we own on our backs and knowing that pick pocketers could steal half our stuff and we wouldn´t even notice. However, the trip was uneventful thankfully!

Our time at Rancho Urbano Hostel has been great. The owner of the hostel here, Marcello, has been incredible to us. He is trying to learn english and he speaks quite well so he has made it a priority to teach us about BA and Argentina. He has taught us how to get around the city, some español, different cuts of the cow (Argentinian take there beef very very very seriously...as they should, its the best beef i´ve ever tasted!) holidays in Argentina, etc etc. Really, everyone at the hostel and in this city have been incredibly helpful to us. We have needed help pretty well every where we go (using the bus, the subte, taxis) so we are very thankful that Argentina has been very kind to us. We have also met some great people in our hostel from all over the world.

On christmas, Greg and I were very hung over from some christmas eve partying. At 12 midnight we went out into the street and kids all over BA were lighting off firecrackers in the street. It was quite the scene. I don´t think we went to bed until 4:30 or so that night. (i should mention that Argentinians operate much differently than in Canada. Breakfast and lunch are at normal times, but dinner is not until 9pm at the earliest, really more like 10pm and then you go out to the bars at 2am until 6am...this has definitely been a big adjustment for us!). Anyways, christmas night we made reservations at this very nice restaurant which had been recommended to us by many people, La Cabrera. They have some of the best beef in town. This place was incredible, it was beautiful and had an energy about it that made you feel great. We both ordered Bife de Chorizo 400 g steaks (they actually suggest to you at hte beginning that you share meals because they are sooo big, but Greg insisted that he could handle it on his own). Apart from the steak we had lots of side dishes and salad and bread, all of which were delicious, and then for desert, creme de brulee. So did we finish our steaks? YES but it was quite a feat! Half way through we had to encourage and motivate each other to finish. Because we were still hung over, we felt a bit nauseous after finishing our steaks, but refused to ruin our meal with a bad/ugly finish! Anyways, it was an incredible meal, best steak I´ve ever had, for sure.

Either than this, we have done and seen alot in this city. We have gone to San Telmo to seen tango on the streets and visit the antique market on sunday (ps Katie and Mary I got you guys sweet gifts from this market). We have gone to Palermo Soho where the night life is always incredible every night of the week. We have gone to Recoletta where we did a walking tour and visited the Recoletta cemetery (that was one of my favourite things). We went to La boca where their futbol stadium is (this is a big deal in Argentina - Apart from beef, Argentina is also very very big on futbol). Then Centro (downtown) we have gone to quite a bit, it has some amazing architeture and most of the key buildings of the city (congresso, plaza de mayo, the pink house). Finally Puerto Madero is the area around the river, where there is Puento de Mujer, a famous bridge which is quite beautiful. This is a very nonspecific summary, but to go into detail of all that we have done would tire my fingers for days!

We are both doing very well and enjoying our trip alot so far. For the most part, we have not had any MAJOR troubles....this is not including that Greg lost his credit card, and all my money was in ´holding´between banks (and i still haven´t received it)...BUT we have worked around it and made some very long distant phone calls to figure it out.

Our next stop is Iguazu falls! We are very excited about this, we leave tonight at 9;45 and starting an 18 hour bus ride to our destination. The buses are really quite nice though (seats that recline to 160 degrees if you´re willing to pay a little extra as well as a pillow, blanket, dinner, and drinks...at a cost i think). We´ll tell you how we make out in our next blog!

I guess I should also comment on how our clase de español is going! We have had excellent teachers (VERY patient!), but learning a new language is no easy feat. It has been frustrating, hard, and exhausting at times. However, we´re hoping with ALOT of practice, a dictionary, phrasebook, and some people that are willing to sacrifice some time to talk with us, it will be a very rewarding task.

Again sorry it took us so long to write. We hope that everyone had wonderful christmases with your familys and friends and Happy New Year! Please email us, we´d love to hear how the holiday is going and what you´re all up to!

Love
Laura and Greg

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Comments

[Ben]

Happy Travels
Hey Greg/Laura, Sounds like your trip is going well so far. I like how your learning Spanish - defiantly a useful language all ove rthe world. Keep up the blog and travel well!