Pigeons and cats...

Juan and I always joke about having to get to the airport earlier than usual due to security's interest in his very common name.  Well, Jan 16th was no different.  I have to say that as I waited at our gate and watched the first passengers board our plane, I wasn't sure if Juan was actually coming with me on our trip to Argentina.  We hadn't talked about what to do if he was detained and missed our flight...should I go without him or stay in Winnipeg?  Tough decisions that fortunately I didn't have to make...he arrived right on time for boarding.  


Kelly is over-reacting.  The fingerprints, retina scans, parent's name cross-checking, and thorough bag search didn't take that long.  With 15 or so minutes to spare before take-off, we were safely on our way.  The 3 flights through Minneapolis, Atlanta and finally Buenos Aires felt like days, but our last meal on the plane complete with "complimentary" wine was delicious and made it worthwhile.  The endless movies and Family Guy episodes we watched passed the time well.  We arrived around 9am the next day.

I have to say it was really nice to have rented an apartment in Buenos Aires for a week.  The place is exactly like the pictures and it's been really nice to have our own space to come home to after a day of walking through the city.  Juan and I were, at first, a little concerned as we pulled up in the taxi, the graffitti and surrounding area didn't quite have the Palermo Viejo feel we had read about but it has turned out to be a great apartment on the edges of the excitement and bustle of Palermo Hollywood and Palermo Soho.  

Palermo is filled with cafes, panaderias (bakeries), and restaurants with patios along-side the shaded cobble stone streets.  I've never seen such modern-looking clothing shops.  The Portenos (citizens of Buenos Aires, or BA) fashion sense puts my cargo shorts and t-shirts to shame.  I feel at home though once we sit down at a patio and start sipping back on some beer - Quilmes here is their national brand, and 1 litre bottles are my personal fave.


It's true Quilmes is great and tonight we just had our first Quilmes Negro, which has a creamy nutty flavour that I reminds me a little of Half Pints Stir Stick Stout.  Writing about beer gets me thinking of food and I'm surprised to have to admit - I do not understand the menus here!  Not even Juan knows what half the items are.  The one thing I should have known from my time in Cuba was that a tortilla is actually an omelette...but I forgot and that's exactly what my first meal (lunch) in BA was - an omelette.  Oops.


We've checked out both the botanical and Japanese gardens, which oddly seem to double as cat sanctuaries.  They're everywhere!  BA is also home of the pigeons.  One relieved itself on Kelly's shoulder when we were relaxing on a patio.  We checked out the Latin American art museum and I was floored by the works of Antonio Berni, Alejandro Xul Solar and Wilfredo Lam to name a few.  Historical sculptures throughout town also prevail and add to this city's European and Latino character.

My favourite sites this week include the Evita Museum and Plaza de Mayo.  Evita or Eva Peron was married to Juan Domingo Peron, President of Argentina from 1946 to 1974.  Evita did many things for Argentina including winning Argentinian women the right to vote in 1947 and becoming a champion for the poor.  Her Foundation worked to house, feed and educate poor Argentinians and upon her early death in 1952 (at the age of 33) from cancer many Argentinians declared Evita a saint.  

Plaza de Mayo is known for the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo who gather every Thursday at 3:30pm to march in protest of the "disappearance" of their relatives during the Dirty War (1976-83).

Perhaps many of the dead from these wars are entombed at the Recoleta cemetary, but it seems to be reserved for the ultra rich, going by the size of their opulent monuments.  The above-ground tombs are jam packed within 1 large square block in the middle of the city.  It's eerily cool.  

As for the wine, it's not 'everywhere' as we expected.  We've managed to find it cheap at Chinese grocery stores, and we've enjoyed it sitting at our apartment balcony after a hard day's work.  As for the tango, we caught a bit of it beside a restaurant patio in the area of La Boca, which is a colourful (and I mean that literally) port neighbourhood previously known for brothels and dingy bars, but is now full of camera toting tourists, such as myself.  Outdoor Sunday markets that go for miles are also near here.    








Well that just about sums up our first week here in Buenos Aires.  Of course there is more, but we'd be keeping you here for hours if we kept this up.  It will be interesting to see how we do over the course of these next 6 months.  The cost of being a tourist here (well in BA at least) is quite a bit higher than we'd initially thought, yet we are finding ways to save money and certain things are certainly cheap (like wine).  Tomorrow we're off to Rosario for a few days before catching up with some old friends in the Cordoba region.  We'll try to keep you posted on a weekly basis.


Adios Amigos! 

All of this was just $20!