Nueva York in Sudamérica

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So we arrived in Buenos Aires on LAN airlines from Puerto Iguazu without issue. We ended up booking a hostel in a region of town called Palermo which is the parks district of BA. It feels a lot like the Upper East Side of NYC. Lots of cool restaurants and parks scattered around the neighborhood. For our first meal in BA we wandered to the hip part of town to have a late dinner with the locals at 8pm. Turns out people they don´t eat dinner until 9 or 10 so we still couldn´t quite fit in. We also had a pretty difficult time deciphering the menu with our high school spanish vocabulary. Somehow, you never really learn the words for basil, celery, soy and several other random food items.

For our first full day in BA we decided to head downtown by subway to see some of the sights. We started at Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest street in the world which honors Argentina´s independence day. It´s 140 m across and has 10 lanes of traffic going in each direction. From there we traveled to the city center where we had breakfast (at noon) and saw the La Casa Rosada where Juan and Eva Peron lived. We continued south to see Puente de la Mujer...the walking bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_Calatrava). We then made our way down Avenida Florida, which seemed to be a touristy shopping mecca. We made a quick exit to see the Recoleta cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. Turned out to be a very cool place with amazing mausoleums that house the who´s who of Argentina. We arrived close to sunset so it made for some very interesting but eerie sights.

For dinner, we went to a Parilla (Argentine steakhouse) that is reputed to be the best in the city. We ended up being one of the first people to arrive for dinner at 8:30 but the whole restaurant was booked. Turned out they had free champagne while you waited for a table to make the minutes go by quicker. We agreed to sit outside so were seated rather quickly and had an excellent waiter who was very friendly and helpful. We started out with fried stuffed olives (Premi´s selection) and each ordering tenderloin for our entrees. We didn´t realize each order would be about 1.5 lbs of steak. Trust me, I got no complaints but it was a lot of meat! We also had some of the best malbec we have had thus far on the trip. At the end of the whole meal after 21% tax was less than $30 per person!! I absolutely love Argentina!!! I think I might move here.

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Photos

Casa Rosada
Location where Eva Peron gave her inspirational speeches

Statues in Recoleta cemetery by moonlight
We caught Recoleta at dusk which was a beautiful time of day.

Date night!
Saturday night in Buenos Aires in our one wrinkled dressy outfit topped with fleece

Comments

[debs]

dude, that's a lot of food. i hope yer getting enuff veggies... to um, keep things movin' along!

[Leah Sharkey]

Malbec
Ah the malbec, it was really good and really cheap. Shalini and I drank a lot it. Leah

[shalini]

Premi/Preetham, So jealous! Stop by at La Boca area..we were told not to go during the day...but the colorful streets are worth checking out...