First Impressions

We have only been here a couple of days and everything is so exciting, yet overwhelming at the same time. Yes, this city is HUGE! I knew that coming here but really it takes a full day to investigate even one "barrio" (neighborhood).

Here are some of my impressions so far:

• The people drive like crazy! Coming by taxi from the airport I thought we were going to be killed at least a dozen times. There ended up being some kind of strike (a few people completely blocking the entire 4 lanes of the highway) which caused crazy traffic. People started turning around on the grass, driving in the opposite direction on the freaking highway in order to avoid the road block.... even La Policia drove in the grass!
• So far the the majority of the people here are very nice to us. It is kind of surprising though that we have yet to encounter many people who speak English. This is a good thing since I am forced to try to speak the relatively few words of Spanish I know. Even those we stop to ask for directions seems happy to talk and talk and talk, but they have to know that we only understand about half of what they say.
• Many buildings indeed look very Parisian with the Haussmannian architecture. Downtown especially. There are also many modern high rise apartment buildings though that are not as appealing to the eye.

Restaurant Review

La Cumana: 1149 Rodrigues Pena, Recoleta

We ate our first meal out at this restaurant that was recommended to me by a friend, and also written about in my guide book. It has traditional Argentine comfort food. the menu contains a variety of empenadas, ensaladas, pizzas, and casseroles. We split a few empenadas (each costing 2.50 pesos), MG got a hearty stew with assorted meats and beans while I devoured a rice casserole covered in a creamy mushroom sauce con mucho queso. Muy delicioso! We have to return to try some kind of pumpkin casserole that is supposed to be good as well. In all, including our 20 pese (about $5) bottle of wine and chocolate dessert everything cost 80 pesos ($20)! We plan on returning! I still can't get over how cheap restaurants are here. I think I deserve it after graduating college I have lived in London, Paris and then DC (all VERY expensive cities).

Palermo:

We strolled around different sections of Palermo, starting with the botanical gardens. I had already read about these gardens and indeed there are cats everywhere! Apparently if you touch the cats you are bound to come down with an illness, so I resisted, but there are some terribly cute ones.

All well fed as well. Speaking of animals, dog walking here is one serious job. There is a ratio of one dog walker, usually some young guy, to about 10 dogs, usually big dogs!

That is why there is la mierda everywhere, especially around the park. I would not want to stop every 5 minutes either to pick up dog shit when I have to hold on to so may dogs at once.

Palermo is where many many expats live, but we actually did not see many foreigners during our walk. I personally really liked where we went next: Las Canitas. It seems a little bit more out of the way, but the residential area is beautiful. There are some amazing houses here and many restaurants and shopping to explore.

El Centro (downtown)

People everywhere! We took the subte down to Plaza de Mayo (by the way the subway is only 10 steps from our apartment and it only cost 1peso) and stepped out into a sea of people. Many people do not enjoy cities because of the feeling of being so crowded, but I have been craving the energy of such of vibrant city. This would never happen in the US: there happened to be a long line to buy subte passes so one of the workers got fed up and just let everyone go for free, hilarious!

Puerto Madera:

It takes about 10 minutes to walk from el centro to this port along the Tigres river which has only recently been developed with many modern restaurants (including Hooters) and apartment buildings. Most of the restaurants cater to tourists, which we try to avoid at all cost. We ended up eating where the locals eat. Some lunch stand off the beaten path that offers meat, meat, and meat. The cool thing is the table with about 15 different sauces and veggies that you add to your sandwich. We still don't know what kind of meat we were given as we could not really understand the cook.

Barrels of Argentine wine!President's House

Haussmann style buildings and Puerto Madero/Tigres