Teich.Net :: All In

Part of why I like traveling so much is the perspective you gain on yourself. 5 days in Buenos Aires, 4 nights in Mendoza were fantastic overall, with high points, low points, and some interesting perspective. This post is for BA, more to follow on Mendoza and wine!

First off, for personal travel cities aren’t O and my first choice. Second, if you’re going primarily becuase ” X is the Y version of Z” (BA is the Paris of Latin America), chances are I’d prefer to just go to Y.

In this case, Buenos Aires is a fun and beautiful town. We really enjoyed walking around, hanging out at the cafe’s, seeing some shops, but weren’t blown away. Various thoughts include:

• The walking tours from MPtours are FANTASTIC. These unequivocally were one of the highlights of the trip. We bought all three, put them on two ipods, and walked around together. They are expertly done, perfectly timed, informative, and just plain fun. 1:30 or maybe 2:00 each. Don’t think about it, pay the $45 and just get them. I really hope they do more cities.
• Just take a taxi. It’s cheap. Getting cross town is < $15 US. We took the subway a few times. It’s clean, but hot. Just wasn’t any point really.
• La Boca is as turisty as everyone says. Good for photos, good for 20 min, then keep going.
• La Cabrera was the best we ate. Really the only must go place we went to.
• Went to a fancy Tango show. The dancing was good and showy. The food and wine was really really really bad. We did the VIP package. Food looked the same, the wine was possibly better, but the real difference was you get a private transport to/from, and you get some elbow room. Lots more elbow room. The standard seats are packed like sardines, the VIP gives you plenty of space. It was worth it for us, but we’re antisocial.
• Food was good, not great. Look for follow up posts.

BA is clearly a place to go if you like late night partying. Which we don’t really, we’re old. People do eat late - 9:30 or 10:00. Good for staying out till breakfast.

Overall, I’m very glad we went, though 5 night was too long for us. 3 would have been perfect. I’m also very happy with the way that the photos turned out.

I’m having some very weird issues with leopard. The dock seems to have rendering issues - the hover text boxes don’t always have their border, and the spring folders are totally messed up. Those gray round bars are supposed to be the files. No text, and no icons for the files.  Anyone have any idea what’s going on?

Because I stopped eating meat around age six, I never really learned the vocabulary, in English or any other language. I learned enough to know which foods to avoid, but that was about it. Two Spanish words in particular I thought were interesting:

Ojo de Bife = “Eye of beef.” This has absolutely nothing to do with big gushy cow’s eyeballs, as I originally thought. Nope. It’s ribeye.

Bife de Chorizo = Rump steak Porterhouse/loin steak. No chorizo sausage involved.

Turns out both are really tasty, though perhaps in more moderation than a dining-out-daily-in-Argentina diet supports: enjoying steak is one thing; craving it for daily consumption is a level neither of us has quite reached.

In Buenos Aires.  Raining today, which puts a damper on things.  Some brief notes:

• Surpringingly casual so far.  Most people are wearing jeans and flip-flops, polo shirt.  Even at night, people seem pretty casual for a big city. 
• Yeah, there’s a lot of beef.  Went to La Brigada for dinner.  Fun note - they definitly play favorites with seating.  We waited ~25 min for a table.  Some people who came after us got seated before, some people who came before us got seated after.  Super duper casual place (jeans & t-shirt for most people).  Good food.  Good wine.  nothing mind blowing.
• We’re gonna run out of things to do here before 5 days are up.  Probably wind up taking a trip out of town for a day or something.  Debating heading an hour out of town to watch a polo match
• Park Tower hotel is nice.  Location is central to the city, but far from anything really cool.
• No point in taking the subway.  Taxi’s are CHEAP.  15 min taxi ride is ~ $3 US. 
• I’m bummed I didn’t find Dan Perlman’s site sooner.  Casa Salt Shaker sounds cool, but sold out while we’re here.

More to come later.  In the meantime, my initial impression of BA is a bit mixed.  I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I’m a bit disappointed all the same.  Still having a great time though!