Buenos Aires

We've been back in Susan's turf these past few days in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This city really is awesome. There's something to do all the time and we've been running around trying like mad women so I can get a taste of all of Susan's favorite things in the city.

Pretty much immediately after getting in and battling the subway systems will all our luggage, we met up with some of Susan's friends from her study abroad program for lunch and then went to her favorite park, El Bosque with her friend Melissa. There, we paddle boated for a bit and then walked around through the gorgeous rose garden in the park. After that, we went to dinner with her host mom. I am loving Argentine steak and wine and the fact that it's way less than twenty dollars to have both of them in front of me.

Saturday was quite busy and mostly filled with tango. We went to La Boca, the colorful neighborhood full of tango shows. We had lunch outside and watched a tango show and then walked around for a bit down the colorful streets. It feels a lot like Disney World, but it really was fun. La Boca isn't in the best part of town, so we had to be careful, but they've done a pretty clever thing to get the area back on it's feet. It was kind of a slum, but then they painted the houses bright colors, put in some funky sculptures, and the filled the streets with tango and it's now a tourist magnet in Buenos Aires. After that, we met up with Susan's friend Caitlin and her boyfriend who is visiting her to do some shopping at one of the ferias. They love their ferias here in BA and I do too.

We visited the cemetery in La Recoleta, which is where the richest of the rich rest in peace. They have to pay rent for their mausoleums and some cost more than an apartment in Buenos Aires. We went to see the Eva Peron's grave, which was beautiful. The whole cemetery though was filled with eerie sculptures and laid out like a city. I was also chilling to see that some of the tombs had been broken into and ransacked. Many housed more than one person and had coffins resting right on top of each other, which was obviously due to destruction.

Straight from the feria, we continued our tango day and went to a tango class. It was so much fun! The hall that it was at was everything that a tango hall should be. It looked super shady from the outside as well as in the hallways getting into the dance area, but then it opened up into a dark, kind of musky, enormous room with a hodge podge of art hanging on the walls and from the ceiling with a spot light dangling down over the dance floor center. It's also a bar and restaurant, so tables were crowded around the dance floor. Learning how to tango was really fun as was watching the people who actually know what they're doing do it. I'm going to remember that dance hall as one of my favorite places in South America.

We spent today in more ferias and organizing our trip to Uruguay tomorrow. I've really enjoyed Buenos Aires. The street life is great, the food is delicious, the architecture is beautiful, and I've fallen hard for the tango. I'm thinking about signing up for a class when I get back to Bloomington.