Holy Cow!

Buenos Aires! My time in South America had officially begun. I got in around 7 am, checked into my hostel in San Telmo, took a quick siesta and shower, and was ready to begin exploring the city. I walked to the downtown area and took a detour a block off the main street. I was instantly inundated with deals from every restaurant on the block, for $25 pesos (US 7.50) , you could have a beverage of your choice, entree, and dessert. I walked into the first one that had a decent amount of people, sat down, and ordered the beef with agua sin gas. Holy Cow! They had given me a piece of steak approximately the size of my head. I dug in and it was delicious. The inside was a lovely shade of pink with the outside perfectly cooked. After my enormous lunch I walked up to Palermo, which was quite a haul. Jess was coming on Saturday and wanted to stay up there so I walked around the neighborhood to check it out.

There was tons of shopping in Palermo and on the way to the neighborhood. It looked cute so I check into the hostel for Friday evening. Woot!

The next morning I moved up to Palermo and explored more of BA. I walked down to the cemetery and saw Eva Peron's tomb and took a walk through some of the gardens. There was an artist market at Catadral, and then another crafts market in Palermo a few blocks north of the hostel. I sat and had dinner at one of the restaurants along Honduras. I ordered the house wine which was only $3 US and then was shocked to find I had ordered the whole bottle! As to be expected, it wasn't the best wine I'd ever had, but 1/2 way through the bottle it didn't matter.

The next morning I woke up surprised to find that Jess hadn't come yet. After I checked my email, Jess had written that her plane had been canceled and she wouldn't be arriving until late in the afternoon. I took the morning to go get a mani/pedi at one of the salons I'd seen. About 10 minutes into the mani/pedi it became clear they didn't do many, as it was the most thorough and intense mani/pedi I'd received in a while. About 1 hour in they managed to find an english elle from May 2006 for me to read, and 1 hour after that I finally left the salon. Back at the hostel still no Jess, so I wandered around several of the Saturday crafts markets in the area (including one where I bought a mug with a girl salting a slug).

Finally at about 6 pm Jess was in - unfortunately her luggage was MIA. She spent some time trying to find someone at LAN who was helpful and eventually we gave up and went and got some dinner in the hood.