Don't Cry for Us

I have always wanted to go to Argentina. I don't know exactly why, but I'm sure it has something to do with reading a lot of Borges in college, seeing Evita during the impressionable high school years, and having a slight and inexplicable Argentine accent while speaking Spanish, prompting my farmworker patients to ask me more than once if I were from here. Argentina also happens to be the home of Ben's and my favorite red things: meat and wine. And coincidentally, B.A. has a familiar nickname - Big Apple. Unsurprisingly, we feel very at home here.

As soon as we arrived and walked the many blocks from the airport bus dropoff to our hostel, we were amazed by the grand architecture of BA. As a whole, the city feels more like Paris than any other non-Paris city I've ever been to - every balcony is gorgeous wrought iron, and every corner is graciously curved and ornamented. There are heroic statues at every turn, a magnificent theatre, avenues with 12 lanes in each direction, and lively neighborhoods, each with a distinct character. Buenos Aires feels like an anomoly in South America, in that it's completely modern and European in structure and New World in attitude - it's basically New York on the cheap. I think I could live here.

We started our stay off with a dinner of steak and wine, because that's what you order in Argentina, and were satisfied (though not thrilled) with both - that's what you get at your neighborhood pub, I suppose. However, two nights later, we went for a proper steak dinner at a renowned restaurant across town, and we both had the best steak of our lives. It was absolutely incredible - a filet and a ribeye, sides, wine, dessert, etc... total bill: $35. Have I mentioned that I love Buenos Aires?

It has also been a fortunate turn of events that we chose a hostel in San Telmo, the tango neighborhood that most closely equates to the East Village - slightly scruffy but with a lot of art and character. We have loved walking around San Telmo, which happens to border a marshy ecological reserve with miles of running paths with distances marked - perfect! We've been running just about every day to make up for the steak and wine.

Our first major tourist stop was the Recoleta cemetery. Recoleta is the posh, wealthy area of BA where the upper crust live, and the cemetery is where they are buried. It's a fascinating city of the dead, with mausoleums towering up on either side of the walkways, topped with angels and sayings. It appears that each little "house" belongs to a family, and the caskets are all stored underground, except for the few that we could see through the doors on street level. Plaques are added as people are added, so some families have dozens of names, all laid to rest in the same place. It's an odd tourist attraction, but so interesting to see how dynamic a cemetery can be. Plus, Eva Peron is buried there, in her Duarte family mausoleum, so we had to pay her a visit.

Recoleta also has plenty of shopping, enabling us to spend a leisurely afternoon walking through shops and learning to tango in the street.

The next day we explored the parks and shopping of Palerma, which is the trendy, hip neighborhood. Palermo has a few enormous parks, including a zoo, botanical garden, and a Japanese garden, so we spent the morning paddling around the pond and strolling over the Japanese bridge.

Conveniently, Palermo is also known for shopping, and I have been keeping a keen eye out for Argentina's famous leather goods. We wandered the streets for a few hours, happening on a couple little shops, but nothing impressive. Finally, after the sun went down, I asked a shop girl where all the other shops were, and she handed me a Palermo shopping map! Turns out we had been a few blocks away from the good stuff the whole time, so we scrambled over and crammed a day's worth of (window) shopping into the last hour before closing. Then we had steak to make up for it.

San Telmo, our neighborhood, is known as the birthplace of tango, and there are still dozens of tango-related activities throughout the streets. We've seen one couple perform during dinner, and have listened to live music just about every night, including one tango-themed concert.

It's an absolutely amazing dance, so graceful and strong, and I am dying to take a lesson! Ben's next post will tell you whether or not I was successful in dragging him into one.

We still have a few more days in Argentina before moving on, but I already know this will not be my last visit here. Even as we turn for home, we are still very much in the moment and enjoying our last few adventures!