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Published: February 11th 2009
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I spent five incredible days in Buenos Aires. I stayed with my friend Ariel, who I met in Brazil, and his family. I arrived in Buenos Aires by boat from Montevideo on a Friday afternoon and was met at the boat terminal by Ariel, who then took me back to his home which is just outside of Palermo. My first night in Buenos Aires we had empanadas for dinner, then some of Ariel's friends came over and we headed out to a bar at around midnight. They do everything really late in Buenos Aires, going out at midnight is actually pretty early! We went to two really nice bars in Palermo Hollywood. The second bar felt like a party in someone's back garden, there was a bar set up outside with fairly lights hung from the trees and they were playing great music.
After having a fairly late night on Friday, on Saturday we didn't get up until the afternoon so I didn't do much sight-seeing that day! It was really nice to just relax and chill out at Ariel's house after backpacking and travelling from one place to the next. Saturday afternoon Ariel and I went for a walk
around Palermo, through a rose garden and to Recoleta. My first impression of Buenos Aires was a good one. It is very touristy and English is being spoken everywhere, but it's still a very nice city. That night I went out for a steak dinner (!) with Ariel and his friend Natalia. We went out for dinner at 11.30pm then headed back home to get showered etc. at around 1am. Some more of Ariel's friends came over around 2am and we all headed out to a club at about 4am, arriving home the next day about 7.30. So of course on Sunday I didn't end up doing much sight-seeing either!
On Sunday evening I went to Plaza Dorrego, in San Telmo, to see some tango. There is a band that plays music on the square and people come to dance. It was a really beautiful thing to see. I've never seen tango being danced before except for in films or on television, it's quite mesmorising to watch the couples and the expression on their faces as they dance.
I had really good food in Buenos Aires. So much meat! Great steak, delicious grilled cheese, milanesas, ice cream, havanna
chocolate and dulce de leche. I had a great meal with Ariel at the port, Puerto de Madero, which involved the best nachos ever, calamari and a chocolate brownie dessert that came piled high with ice cream and waffles. Of course, I had some really great steak too. We went for steak at a place called 'lo de charli', which I gather is pretty well known amongst Argentinians, but I don't think there were any tourists at this huge restaurant. The restaurant is right on the main road, and if you didn't know the place you wouldn't think it was anything special but the steak is excellent and very reasonably priced. In Buenos Aires they have excellent ice cream, including dulce de leche ice cream which I had never had before. Another new discovery - in Buenos Aires you can order ice cream like you would get a pizza delivered! You phone up and tell them what flavours you'd like and then the ice cream gets delived to your door packed with dry ice. You can also get drinks delivered too. Absolutely brilliant.
On Monday Ariel had to go to work so his mum, Rosa, took me out and
showed me around Buenos Aires. Rosa had recently done a course to be a tourist guide, plus she's from Buenos Aires so I was able to learn a lot about the city! We visited main sites such as the obelisk, the cathedral, plaza de mayo and the casa rosa which is the main governmental building. In the afternoon Rosa went off to work and I met up with a friend of Ariel's called Natalia. Natalia and I visited San Telmo and then La Boca. San Telmo is a really nice area, I liked it a lot. There are lots of nice little shops, I fell in love with a huge paper mache style elephant head, but decided against buying it in the end. La Boca is a great place to visit. It's originally the working class area of Buenos Aires and is the birth place of Tango. Today it's very touristy but it's still great. All the houses and buildings are painted in bright colours. The restaurants and cafes have tango shows and there are many artists stalls in the cobbled streets selling their paintings.
Buenos Aires is a huge city and because I went around all the time
with people from Buenos Aires I dont really feel like I know my way around at all! There are some beautiful buildings and the city has a very European feel to it because so many of the buildings were designed by Italian or French architects. One reason that I think Buenos Aires is so attractive is because of the murals and graffitti. Similar to Brazil there is some great graffitti and many of the walls are painted in bright colours with beautiful pictures. Particularly in La Boca, nearly every wall is painted and the houses are all kinds of colours.
Near to Palermo is a Jewish neighbourhood that's also well known for its leather shops. I was amazed at how cheap the leather is in Argentina, I don't think I've ever seen cheaper leather for sale before.
I quite like the Argentinian accent. At first I could barely understand a thing because the accent is so strong but I think I got used to it after a few days and I was able to understand more. Double 'll' and 'y' sounds they pronouce as 'sh' and instead of 'tu' they say 'vos', which was confusing at times. It
also sounds like they're speaking Spanish with Italian accents a lot of the time.
I had a great time in Buenos Aires. It was really relaxing staying with Ariel and his family, they made me feel so welcome and in the end I didn't want to leave! I ate good food in Buenos Aires and probably gained half a stone. I have wonderful memories of the time I spent there such as Ariel's brother and their friends sat around the kitchen table doing impressions of 'the Sopranos' by various hand gestures and facial expressions.
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Ariel Guelfi
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The greatness of Buenos Aires
Well, i live here and i was pleased that Lani stayed home!! I love my City. I went Spain last September and i found some similar things between Madrid and B.A. The streets, the buildings, the parks... B.A. is a really European city. As Lani said, lots of buildings here are from European architects and Argentinian architects quite like this kind of designs! Anyways, the greatest thing about B.A. is the Night Life! Definetely!! You can go out every day and you're going to find some place full of people having a good time! You have lots of bars in San Telmo, Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Soho, Recoleta, Las CaƱitas, Downtown... well, wherever you go!! So, come visit Buenos Aires and have fun!! I love my city, and i had the greatest time here with Lani, the sweetest English girl ever... Chau!!