Comienza la Aventura

Day 1:

I arrived at EZE via Dulles 2.5 hours late thanks to a redonkulous thunderstorm in D.C. that grounded the flight for a while. Clearing customs was a breeze and I managed to find a flat rate cab for $100 pesos to our apartment.

Our place is small but adequate and clean and is right on the border between Palermo and Recoleta, two of the nicer, more active neighborhoods in Buenos Aires. We have a bidet which most definitely has the power to reach the ceiling. I met Joe and his sister Madeline who were already at the apartment. Unfortunately, the shower knob that switches between bathtub mode and shower mode was stuck on bathtub mode and el hombre de mantenimiento couldn't come until 6pm, so I ended up taking my first bath since I was in elementary school.

Next, we headed out to explore Palermo and ate delicious sandwiches that had the mandatory staples of any Argentine meal: ham, egg, cheese, and mayo. We paired the sandwiches with our first sip of the delicious cerveza Quilmes, the most popular Argentine beer. On first impression, Buenos Aires reminds me of a more European New York City with fewer skyscrapers. It is far more reminiscent of major cities in Europe or North America than the other cities in Latin America to which I have traveled.

That night, we headed to a semi swanky bar in Palermo Soho called Fritz, where we each drank Jim Beam Mahattans, which were cheap and surprisingly delicious, and met some of Madeline's study abroad friends. We hopped in a cab and headed home, realizing that red lights and stop signs are more like suggestions than rules for the cabbies.

Day 2:

After an early 1:30 pm wakeup, Joe and I headed out to get bearings and found a little pasteleria where we had cafe con leche and our first empanadas. Restauarant protocol varies from place to place and sometimes you have to flag down a waiter, sometimes they come to you, and sometimes your expected to go up to the counter and order. Thus, we have a usual routine of sitting down and waiting awkwardly for five minutes to test the waters of the particular place. Anyways, after grubbing we hopped on the Subte--Buenos Aires underground metro system--for the first time, which is somewhere between DC's and New York's in terms of cleanliness, but super easy to navigate.

We then headed to the Microcentro area where it was rainy and cold. We got our first glimpse of the Buenos Aires equivalent of Times Square and Washington Monument (which obviously is not as big as ours). We also walked by the B.A. equivalent of Broadway, which quickly highlighted the Argentine's interesting taste in theater.

After hanging around in the rain downtown, we Subte'd back to our hood and stopped by the Argentine version of WalMart, Coto, where we bought some breakfast essentials. Coto is pretty similar to most U.S. supermarkets except for the disgusting moldy chorizo sauges they hang in the meat aisle. After the store we headed out for dinner at a little restaurant called Sanjuaninos, which served up amazing fresh homemade empanadas that cost less than a dollar. For our entrees Joe and I played a little menu roulette, given that our spanish is currently around a 3rd grade level. I ended up with mystery meat bean soup that was much better than it sounds and Joe Moore got what can only be described as the Argentine National Dish: a thick slab of ham stuffed with a fried egg smothered in cheese.

After dinner we grabbed a couple liters of Quilmes from the "Chino" down the street. (Chinos are what the super PC locals refer to the corner store markets that are run primarily by Asians.) We got dressed and cabbed over to an apartment complex where some of Madeline's study abroad friends live. The place was a penthouse on the 22nd floor of a skyrise apartment building, which had an awesome view of the city. There we met more of the study abroad kids and a couple local argentines, and tried Frenet for the first time, which is a popular Argentine alcohol that tastes like Pine Sol. People tend not to head to clubs until late so we ended up pregaming their until around 2 am before heading to a "Boliche"called Pachau.

Pachau can best be described as a much larger version of the discoteca in the DR. When we arrived we ordered some Speed (they're version of Redbull and Vodka) and explored the place. After hanging for a while, we left ate a hamburger from the stand outside and cabbed to a bar called Cronica closer to our apartment. We left, wandered around in the street for a while, and somehow managed to instruct a taxi driver to take us home around 6 am.