¡Hola Amigos!These blogs are getting more and more difficult to write in light of the fact that my English grammar and spelling have gotten progressively worse since I've been here. I don't know if anyone but myself has noticed, but I really am having more difficulty speaking English. Last week I found myself saying "I were going to go, but I couldn't." Yeesh.
The picture to the left is of the widest street in the world, 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. (The pavement you see in the photo is only one part of the road. In this photo the buildings on the far side of the street cannot even be seen.) The white tower in the middle of the shot is the obelisk that stands in the middle of the street. It is very, very tall.
Last weekend I flew to Buenos Aires for a short three-day vacation. (I love saying that because it makes me feel like a high-roller.) "Andrew, what did you do last weekend?" "Oh nothing really, I just hopped over to Argentina for a change of pace." The deal was that Luke (you'll remember Luke from the camping trip to the Elqui Valley) was going to go in September, but was hospitalized for about a week and thus missed his flight. He changed the ticket to last weekend, so I looked into ticket prices and found a rather cheap fare with an airline called "Gol" (it's Brazilian so the flight attedants all spoke Portugese), and decided to tag along. We flew out Thursday evening (on separate flights) and arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina at 9 o'clock on Thursday evening.
Buenos Aires is a massive city, and I believe the population (including surroundings) is about 13 million, a couple million shy of the 18 million New York City boasts for the same statistic. From the plane window, there were lights as far as I could see in both directions. We took a bus to the hostal, dropped our bags, and immediately went out in search of some food. While I'm here, let's take a minute to talk about the food in Argentina. I feel this can be best described by illustration, so here goes. Sunday night, our last night in Buenos Aires, Luke and I decided to be high rollers and buy a meal in the mid-upper price range of 25-35 pesos (3 to 1 on the dollar, so that's about 8 to 12 USD) that we had avoided like the plague all week. (It's amazing how fast one loses perspective on what a reasonable price for a meal is....we were absolutely appalled when we looked at a menu and saw anything over 7 bucks. In the States you can hardly buy freaking McDonalds for that price anymore). We walked around until we found a restaurant that was packed to the gills with people, and went in. It was a relatively nice place with white tablecloths, free bread with anchovies, and a 100 dollar bottle of champagne on the menu. We began by ordering a mid-price bottle of Cabernet, and a large bowl of onion cream soup with floating toast (delicious). Argentina is famous for its steaks, so we ate them all weekend. This night being no exeption, we followed the soup with two large, juicy, and perfectly cooked steaks alongside real mashed potatoes. I'm not good with ounces, but each steak was the size of a potato and I'm sure we would have paid 20 dollars in the States. After that, we ordered a desert each; Luke got a pear baked in wine and I got tiramisu. We also tagged on a glass of champagne each (hey, I said we were being high-rollers, right?). I should mention that by this point we recieved the champagne on the house. Between the two of us, and including a tip of 30% (our waitress was very patient and helpful during our 3 hour eating extravaganza) our bill was 80 Argentinian pesos. I'll leave the math to you, but the point I want to make is that Argentina is CHEAP! Ok, back to Thursday night. Short story short we went out, ate steak, drank wine, ate dessert, and went to sleep. (It really would be comical to leave the spelling errors in here; I just tried to spell sleep s-l-e-a-p.)
Friday we woke relatively early and armed ourselves with maps and a bus/subway guide, and went to see the sights. We started off in the very touristy neighborhood of La Boca in the morning, then moved on to the presidential palace, La Casa Rosa (it's pink), a really cool cathedral, and a pedestrian avenue called Avenida Florida. It doesn't sound like much, but that pretty much ate up the whole day, and we were beat. That night we ate another steak dinner (for the price of two Junior Bacon Cheesburgers™ and a box of chicken nuggets) and headed back to the hostel. The hostel was a positive fiesta of nationalities: Swiss, Australian, Brazilian, Bolivian, Welsh, English, German, Argentinian, Chilean, United States citizens (Luke and I), and one girl from Israel. (Side note: When someone here asks me where I'm from, it doesn't work to say "American" because the if the person is from anywhere in Latin America, he/she will promptly respond "oh, me too! What part are you from?" One has to say "Estadounidense" or "Norteamericano" to get the point across.) We sat and talked with everyone, and eventually decided to go to a jazz concert that a number of people were going to. It was a blast, the band was great, and we went dancing afterwards at a club in San Telmco, one of many cool neighborhoods in the city.
Saturday we did more tourist stuff including an arts market, MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), and a really cool cemetery where Evita is buried. The cemetery is actually better described as a small city for dead people than a cemetery. I guarantee that some Argentinians live in structures that are much smaller than the majority of the tombs. The art museum was particularly cool; we saw Van Gough, Renouir, Gaguin, Degas, Picasso, Monet, Manet, etc. I even recognized many of the paintings (which is saying something because I'm not exactly very "cultured"). The museum has a sculpture entitled "The Kiss" by August Rodin and according to Luke, whose mother is an art teacher, is very famous. We also walked down to a famous pedestrian bridge in the port, which is better described by the picture below. That night we ate another rediculously extravagant meal for the price of a burger and a coke.
Sunday we went to another arts fair in a much wealtier neighborhood, and the Buenos Aires zoo. After the zoo, we went to a soccer game, and it was so much fun and such a cool experience that it will actually be posted as a separate blog article. The rest you already know; we ate a large dinner, went to sleep, and caught our flights back in the morning.
Buenos Aires is a massive city, and I believe the population (including surroundings) is about 13 million, a couple million shy of the 18 million New York City boasts for the same statistic. From the plane window, there were lights as far as I could see in both directions. We took a bus to the hostal, dropped our bags, and immediately went out in search of some food. While I'm here, let's take a minute to talk about the food in Argentina. I feel this can be best described by illustration, so here goes. Sunday night, our last night in Buenos Aires, Luke and I decided to be high rollers and buy a meal in the mid-upper price range of 25-35 pesos (3 to 1 on the dollar, so that's about 8 to 12 USD) that we had avoided like the plague all week. (It's amazing how fast one loses perspective on what a reasonable price for a meal is....we were absolutely appalled when we looked at a menu and saw anything over 7 bucks. In the States you can hardly buy freaking McDonalds for that price anymore). We walked around until we found a restaurant that was packed to the gills with people, and went in. It was a relatively nice place with white tablecloths, free bread with anchovies, and a 100 dollar bottle of champagne on the menu. We began by ordering a mid-price bottle of Cabernet, and a large bowl of onion cream soup with floating toast (delicious). Argentina is famous for its steaks, so we ate them all weekend. This night being no exeption, we followed the soup with two large, juicy, and perfectly cooked steaks alongside real mashed potatoes. I'm not good with ounces, but each steak was the size of a potato and I'm sure we would have paid 20 dollars in the States. After that, we ordered a desert each; Luke got a pear baked in wine and I got tiramisu. We also tagged on a glass of champagne each (hey, I said we were being high-rollers, right?). I should mention that by this point we recieved the champagne on the house. Between the two of us, and including a tip of 30% (our waitress was very patient and helpful during our 3 hour eating extravaganza) our bill was 80 Argentinian pesos. I'll leave the math to you, but the point I want to make is that Argentina is CHEAP! Ok, back to Thursday night. Short story short we went out, ate steak, drank wine, ate dessert, and went to sleep. (It really would be comical to leave the spelling errors in here; I just tried to spell sleep s-l-e-a-p.)
Friday we woke relatively early and armed ourselves with maps and a bus/subway guide, and went to see the sights. We started off in the very touristy neighborhood of La Boca in the morning, then moved on to the presidential palace, La Casa Rosa (it's pink), a really cool cathedral, and a pedestrian avenue called Avenida Florida. It doesn't sound like much, but that pretty much ate up the whole day, and we were beat. That night we ate another steak dinner (for the price of two Junior Bacon Cheesburgers™ and a box of chicken nuggets) and headed back to the hostel. The hostel was a positive fiesta of nationalities: Swiss, Australian, Brazilian, Bolivian, Welsh, English, German, Argentinian, Chilean, United States citizens (Luke and I), and one girl from Israel. (Side note: When someone here asks me where I'm from, it doesn't work to say "American" because the if the person is from anywhere in Latin America, he/she will promptly respond "oh, me too! What part are you from?" One has to say "Estadounidense" or "Norteamericano" to get the point across.) We sat and talked with everyone, and eventually decided to go to a jazz concert that a number of people were going to. It was a blast, the band was great, and we went dancing afterwards at a club in San Telmco, one of many cool neighborhoods in the city.
Saturday we did more tourist stuff including an arts market, MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires), and a really cool cemetery where Evita is buried. The cemetery is actually better described as a small city for dead people than a cemetery. I guarantee that some Argentinians live in structures that are much smaller than the majority of the tombs. The art museum was particularly cool; we saw Van Gough, Renouir, Gaguin, Degas, Picasso, Monet, Manet, etc. I even recognized many of the paintings (which is saying something because I'm not exactly very "cultured"). The museum has a sculpture entitled "The Kiss" by August Rodin and according to Luke, whose mother is an art teacher, is very famous. We also walked down to a famous pedestrian bridge in the port, which is better described by the picture below. That night we ate another rediculously extravagant meal for the price of a burger and a coke.
Sunday we went to another arts fair in a much wealtier neighborhood, and the Buenos Aires zoo. After the zoo, we went to a soccer game, and it was so much fun and such a cool experience that it will actually be posted as a separate blog article. The rest you already know; we ate a large dinner, went to sleep, and caught our flights back in the morning.
Argentinian flag.
Luke and I by the harbor.
The famous footbridge. As far as I can tell, it really has no purpose other than aesthetic appeal. In case you're wondering, however, the design of said pointless footbridge is actually functional. To let boats through, the whole thing rotates on the large pillar at the base of the spire. The wires are in place to support the weight of the bridge when it is unsupported.
Feeding the camel. I actually fed this same bactrain camel a delicious compressed pellet of hay. It was a very whiskery sensation.
On the left: Luke. On the right: "El Beso" ("The Kiss")
A small city for the dead. The only two visible buildings that are NOT part of the cemetery are the two large, white apartments in the background. The rest are all tombs.
Don't let the picture fool you. This is an intersection of two very busy streets at sunset. I took the picture from the window of the taxi, and I don't know how there aren't any cars in the shot.
ya me voy, Andrius
No comments:
Post a Comment