Dia Numero Uno

We left at noon on Saturday from Chicago. It was 35 degrees. We arrived in Buenos Aires at 9:45 am on Sunday after a marathon 10 hour flight from Dallas/Fort Worth. It was a sunny, refreshing 75 degrees. The airport was chaotic, yet everyone was excited; tourists and visitors bristled with the promise of adventure, while natives were reuniting with families and others just seemed to be there because there was action. Our taxi driver, Daniel, welcomed us to Argentina by displaying his knowledge of the English language and American politics (“You vote? Obama? (big smile) No Bush. No McCain”). He deftly weaved his way through the city, driving with one hand and pointing out landmarks with the other, the whole time providing scattered commentary (“There’s the Palacio del Congresso. Much corruption…Hold on to bag. Crazies will try to take it.”).

Daniel dropped us off at our apartment and decided to forego a nap for a little stroll through our temporary neighborhood. We are staying in La Recoleta, a barrio (neighborhood) with Parisian architecture and a ton of parks. Our first impressions were that it was WAY more crazy than we thought it would be. It really is like being in Midtown Manhattan in our neighborhood, with extremely dense buildings (13 to 15 stories tall, as far as you can see down the street) and a huge mix of shops and businesses practically in every building (so far we haven’t walked through an area that is completely residential). Something to keep in mind: nobody here really speaks English. So, we are very proud of all that we accomplished in our first day: 1) We walked into a busy café (lots of locals so we knew it had to be good) and purchased 2 empanadas de pollo and 2 empanadas de queso y cebolla, 2) went into another café (we probably passed 30 cafes on our initial 2 hour walk) and bought a baguette, and 3) we went to a supermercado and loaded up on wine, cheese, fruit, veggies, breakfast food, and chocolate. Quite the success!

We didn’t have to try very hard to adjust to Argentinean hours (restaurants don’t open until 9pm and close around 3am) since there is a 4-hour time change from Chicago (we are much farther east than you would imagine). Our first night we headed out the door at 11pm to a bar/café called Milion. Milion is in a sprawling mansion with four stories of small rooms each with their own unique feel. We spent some time in the first floor bar before heading upstairs to an art gallery/lounge area and wandered outside for some pics in the garden. We ended the day feeling very pleased with the ease in which we moved through the city and ready to start exploring other neighborhoods.