There is absolutely too much to write about from nine days tripping around the "Paris of South America," so I'll just go for summarizing some highlights.
Graciela - Ely's aunt and our most valuable crutch - hooked us up with a place to stay: a women's home run by the Salvation Army. It was cheap, central, and looked like a castle. Evangelina, who is a "Capitana" in the Salvation Army and in charge of the home, helped us immensely with things like shampoo and changing money. We were right near the essentials - supermarkets, laundromats, restaurants, the metro (i.e. the subte), and an ice cream shop.
One of our first days there, we took a tour bus around the entirety of BsAs (the city, not the province) to get a feel for what we wanted to see most. It was really a cool setup; these buses would come every 20-30 minutes so you could get off and on at stops and take all the time you wanted to see the place. We stopped first at Caminito, a little artisan sector in barrio La Boca. It was definitely one of our more colorful stops, and there were artists and tango dancers every few feet. We also stopped at the Barrio Chino - Chinatown! Marie and I had never been to a Chinatown before, so Vicky showed us the ropes haha.
Most other days we just took a metro out to different barrios (neighborhoods or districts; BsAs the province is composed of......like 48 barrios I think) to see the sights. In my opinion, Buenos Aires has such beautiful architecture that I could spend the whole day just staring at buildings. There is an enormous European presence, so the whole city is this clash between old colonial-style architecture and sheer modern ones. There are also book stores and stands all over the place. And not just pleasure reading - like law and psychology and philosophy. I was impressed.
Anyway, that was a tangent. We spent some time walking the weekend artisan feria in San Telmo. The feria was pretty much a cobblestone pedestrian street crowded with stands and vendors yelling out offers, more people walking up and down selling coffee and food, and shops lining the road selling mostly antiques. And of course breathtaking architecture towering overhead.
Another day we took a tour of Teatro Colón, a gorgeous theater with the world's third best acoustics. Unfortunately, there were nothing showing while were in BsAs, otherwise we absolutely would have gone to get the full experience.
We also stopped by the Recoleta Cemetery. Sounds creepy, but it was super cool. It's just a public cemetery; it's pretty big and reflects the European designs inherent to the city.
Plaza de Mayo was a pretty frequent stop for us; it's surrounded by a lot of government buildings, including the Casa Rosada - the "Pink House" equivalent to our White House. Also nearby was the obelisco, a monument in the middle of 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the world.
We also hit the Buenos Aires zoo and some of the surrounding parks. The zoo was pretty average for a zoo, except for these little creatures called maras running free all over the place. There were stands every so often that sold food that you could give them.
One night we went to a tango show, which was incredible but I have no pictures. Thankfully, the show rotated between vocal showcases and band arrangements as well as straight up dance performances, because I'm one of those people who gets frustrated when the dancers block my view the instrumentalists in the background. Marie and Vicky didn't sympathize with me haha. Also hit the Museo de las Bellas Artes, a free art museum with works by people like Goya, El Greco, van Gogh, and Monet.
We saw some cool stuff, but I have to say that the absolute highlights were hanging out with the Booths. They had us over for lunch one day and dinner another; both times they helped us with practical things like buying tickets to Montevideo, Uruguay (which we couldn't use cause of bad weather - the port closed and we just went for a refund and more time in BsAs instead of trying to reschedule) and printing and whatnot. But every time we saw them I felt so welcomed and comfortable; we got a lot of cultural tips, too, like how to drink mate, a tea common in all of South America, but more so in Argentina than Chile.
Marie, Vicky, me, and Laura (Ely's cousin). Not pictured: Graciela and Alberto (Ely's aunt and uncle), Andrea (Ely's other cousin), Benito (Andrea's pug)
I omitted a lot, but suffice to say that I'm a fan of Buenos Aires. Hopefully I'll get to go back someday; who knows, I mean the entry fee I payed is valid for ten years. Plus, then I'd get to fly over the Andes again :)
