Advertisement
Puerto Madero
A floating yacht at the Dique No.3 (by the Rio de la Plata), Buenos AiresGotta love the keyboard here in the Spanish speaking country, man. Everything is laid down for you, including the upside down keys (such as ¿ and ¡) and unusual letters ç and ñ.
Good morning, Argentina! I couldn't get back asleep this morning, and got up around 6:30 in the morning, so I decided to walk around the neighborhood of the hostel. BsAs in the morning gives an intimate feeling of being a friendly city, with not so many cars and people around me. I managed to do some errands, checking out places (
Palacio del Congreso,
Obelisco, and
Teatro Colón) and buying some postcards, before heading back to the hostel to clean up and "start" the day.
After breakfast, we walked along the
Av. de Mayo which ends up at the famous
Casa Rosada, with the balcony where Juan and Evita Peron gave the famous presidential speech. Police are everywhere, not very sure what they are guarding. BsAs has many beautiful ornate buildings, which are very comparable with Paris, its counterpart in Europe.
Catedral Metropolitana houses some of the intriguing piece of church art I've ever seen in any churches. The big tomb of Jose de San
Av. 9 de Julio
The biggest intersection in the world, with 20 lanes. Martin, wrapped in Argentine flag and guarded by two palace guards, is one of them. The other piece is all the flooring mosaic.
Argentine drivers and taxis are famous to be some of the worst drivers in the world. We almost got hit several times, even when walking on a sidewalk, since some mopeds decided to drive on the sidewalk. After many times seeing our lives flashing before our eyes, we finally get used to it, since my life has been short anyway. Now we are being able to cross streets of BsAs like locals. Drivers are less likely to yield to any pedestrians, like buses are almost unawared of any other vehicles in the streets. Our best hope is not to accounter with any accidents during our trip in South America.
Subte, or BsAs subway system, is old, but very convinient. It was built in 1913, and it took us two rides to figure out that some of the stations are not connected to other lines. We stopped at the
Constitución, the last stop of the C line, to walk our 45+ min walk to
Estadio de Boca Juniors soccer stadium, the HQ of Boca Juniors (remember
Casa Rosada
The govermental palace where Juan and Evita Peron made their famous presidential speech. Diego Maradona?). Unfortunately there were not any soccer games, so we continued on to
La Boca barrio, which is famous for its colorful houses and tango. We did the typical tourist things to do, starting from trying out some tango moves and checking out many nick nack souvenirs. Ryan bought his oil painting here.
We spent the rest of the evening walking around the
Puerto Madero, a new developed part of town where newer buildings with metal and glass are located. The barrio used to be a run down industrial area, but now becomes one of the most desirable place to live where many yuppies live. We managed to check out the
Buque Museo Fragata Ara "Presidente Sarmiento", a real retired battleship that serves as a museum of Argentine Navals. This is my first time on a battleship.
A perfect dinner (again) Dinner at
Cabaña Las Lilas was a perfect closing for our day. Very pricey for locals, and a very fancy restaurant. They serve complete meals starting from appetizer, salad, main course, house wine, and dessert. And guess what, we had it all, with our t-shirts, running shoes, and shorts, and spent quite a bit
José de San Martin tomb
The Argentine most revered hero, at the Catedral Metropolitana. of money here, which was all worthed. Unfortunately they don't accept any card payments, so time to use our US dollars here in Argentina.
A noteable experience: the
Av. 9 de Julio, the biggest intersection in the world. We have crossed it several times by now, and we never made it in one crossing, roughly about one minute and half. Tonight, I was determined to cross it in full length, and we started to walk fast, and midway the intersection, the pedestrian light started to blink, and we were starting to huff our way to the other side, and finally the last three lanes, when the red light fixed to stop the pedestrian, I was sprinting to the finish line, while Ryan was left behind. Well, I made it, I can sleep tonight in peace, knowing that one of my to do list here is checked off.
South of the Equator proofs We haven't prove anything different here in south of the equator, except for the nice warm weather. Sun rises around 6 in the morning, and sets around 8.30 at night in December. We are planning on checking out the water swirl the other way,
Palacio del Congreso
Modeled after Washington, D.C., US Capitol. supposedly it swirls counter-clockwise here? I tried it by dropping some bread crumbs on my wine glass, but it didn't work. I need a feather and a bowl of water, it seems. Meanwhile, our toilet flush straight down the drain, so we couldn't go with it. Perhaps we will have some luck in our Uruguay adventure, which will start tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.517s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 28; qc: 127; dbt: 0.3214s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Wempie
non-member comment
Merry Christmas
Lep, just wanna say happy holidays and enjoy your trip to South America. I sure envy you...looks like it's a lot of fun!