After much delay and procrastination, I've finally gotten around to writing about my trip to Buenos Aires. Hopefully, you'll find the entry worth the wait. For brevity & sanity's sake, I am splitting the report into several entries. The first is on the flip side.
First of all, a little background on the trip itself: as some of you might have heard, I started a new job late last month. I actually accepted a while earlier, but scheduled the start date a few weeks off so I could get my last bit of slack in before the drudgery began once again. Originally, I was going to simply bum around home & maybe take a road trip somewhere. My dear, dear friends had other ideas and eventually convinced me to take a trip out of the country while I had the chance. At that point, it was a mad dash to figure out where I could go on 7 days notice without paying several thousand dollars in airfare alone. Although I was initially a bit worried about my incredible non-mastery of Spanish, I finally decided upon Buenos Aires. Then I had to make the other very important arrangement - lodging. Luckily, it turned out that there were a large number of short-term rental properties in very primo locations throughout the city. I settled upon a small apartment in the Recoleta neighborhood.
Fast-forward 5 days or so after this all goes down: I get on a plane sometime midday to DC. I arrive in the evening, have a small layover, and then get on another flight down to Buenos Aires from there. I finally arrive there in Argentina around 10:15 am local time the next day. At that point, I'm brutally tired & my muscles are sore from all the sitting in cramped spaces. To top it off, my apartment isn't going to be ready until 4 pm. To get around this, I drop of my luggage @ the rental office & just start wandering about Microcentre & Monserrat just to kill time - learning to love the national sport of jaywalking, snapping a photo of the Obelisco, avoiding a protest headed to Plaza de Mayo, checking out the Casa Rosada & Congresso Nacional, even touring the shopping district along Calle Florida. For some odd reason, I was actually awake enough to walk all that distance.
Around 5 pm that day, I had my first impromptu lesson in Argentine cuisine. According the guidebook I procured earlier, porteños eat dinner fairly late - 9 pm is an early dinner so normally people will have té around 5 pm or so. Since I was trying to fit in with the native schedule, I decided that I would drop in some café, have un café chico and a sandwich. At some random place, I decided to order hot sandwich. I should've realized from the prices that the sandwiches might be more substantial than I thought. Before that occurred to me, a very large plate was placed before me. In the center was a 6" diameter sandwich that was about 3" thick. This monstrosity had bread, fried egg, ham, cheese, and steak. I just about died eating that thing. Eventually, I just gave up and left a quarter of the beast there.
After that, I checked into my apartment & just relaxed until dinnertime. Then I hopped around the corner to a restaurant called Los Sanjuanninos - a native Argentine restaurant that specializes in northern Argentine cuisine. I had an empanada, half a bottle of white wine, locro (corn, white beans, various cuts of beef + pork stewed together with black pepper) and a dulce de leche flan..of death. At that point, I had my first impromptu lesson in how wonderful the exchange rate was - the entire meal was under $20. All hail the beauty of the 3:1 exchange rate in my favor.
I closed off the night by sampling the glorious cable in my apartment. There was a good amount of local fare, but the number of multinationals was Spanish versions was a bit surprising - TNT, WB, CNN, MGM, MTV & even Canal+. It shouldn't have been surprising, but it was interesting to see how far the larger media conglomerates reach. Also, it was an odd mix of dubbed & subtitled shows. Vote for strangest show: Robotech en castellano.
Eventually, I just dropped into slumber, recharging for the next day.
