First days of BA

So far Buenos Aires is super-exhausting, though I´m pretty sure that´s due to the fact that we came here on a severe deficit of sleep. We decided to save a bit of money and take an over-night bus to BA from Mar del Plata (so we wouldn´t spend money on a hostel that night), but that didn´t go over particularly great. The bus lasted from 2 am to about 7:30, and once we were able to check into the hostel at 12 we just slept for the rest of the afternoon. Not smart, but we didn´t have any other option, really.

But after a lame first day, I´d say we are making the most of the city! So far we´ve done a ton of walking around the different neighborhoods, mainly Palermo, San Telmo, and Recoleta. Palermo is described as ¨paradise for BA´s middle class¨. I don´t know about that, but it´s a really nice neigborhood with tons of shops, restaurants and bars, cute cobblestone streets, and luscious parks. San Telmo also has the cobblestone street/old feel to it, but it´s not as fancy as far as I can tell. And Recoleta seems way more urban to me, but I´m not really sure what to make of it.

As far activities go, we keep trying to do all these things, but they don´t work out! Monday we walked all the way down to San Telmo to go to the modern art museum and it was closed for construction. Same thing happened with Teatro Colon, the really famous theatre that has ballet, opera, tango, you name it. But we have been spending a lot of time in parks, and the city parks here are amazing. They´re everywhere in the city, and usually pretty humongous, maybe 3 to 4 city blocks squared. They´ve also got a really nice mixture of tropical trees and grassy spaces, perfect for playing soccer. Though the other day, I made friends with a 6 year old with a frisbee, and we had a great toss session in one of the parks. He was pretty cute, at first when I asked him if he wanted to toss with me he just didn´t answer and walked away, so I thought I was out of line or something. But really he was asking his mom if he could play with me, because he wasn´t allowed to talk to strangers.

The other big activity we´ve managed so far was a trip to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was a small but awesome museum. It was like a cliffnotes to art from Renaissance to Contemporary. Though what really made the trip for me was the museum had a life-sized version of the Rodin´s ¨the kiss¨, one of my all-time favorite pieces! I think it is one of the most romantic and passionate pieces of art that has ever been created, Rodin really knows how to convey emotion.

In other news, the food here is pretty awesome. Since Argentina has a ton of immigrants, the majority of the food is italian (or meat). So since none of us eat meat, we´ve been eating a bunch of pizza and pasta. I haven´t eaten meat in almost a year, but I decided that since I am in a country known for the quality of its meat, I should take the opportunity to eat a steak, which I did monday night. Now, I haven´t eaten a steak in almost 8 years, so this was huge. But I have to say, I´m not missing out on anything too special.

Marco throwing the disc

"the kiss"