Phil's Blog

We were long overdue for an international vacation, and after much debating about where we go, we decided on Argentina and Chile. First, we rented an apartment for a week in Buenos Aires. It was modern and had a pimp deck, located in the Palermo Hollywood neighborhood.

Being October, it was the beginning of Spring, so the weather was amazing. The first day we were beat from the flight and just found a local restaurant to grab a bite.

We quickly learned that your average Argentinian speaks about as much English as your average American speaks Spanish (none at all!). Luckily I took 4 years of Spanish in school so we could get by, but they speak a very different type of Spanish here. In high school I learned a mix of Spanish Spanish and Mexican Spanish. Here they speak River Plate spanish, which means they pronounce things different and use the archaic "vos" instead of tú. So even if you speak spanish, you might be expecting a phrase like "¿Cuándo tú llegas?", which should sound like "Quan doe too yea gahs", but they would say something like "Quan do vohs zhegas" so it was harder than normal to understand what people said.

It's probably like the difference between American and Australian english. They also had different words for a lot of things, like they used "chica" to say something was little (it means "girl" it North American spanish), they call a Hot Dog a "poncho" (poncho is like a jacket normally?) and a bunch of other things I can't remember now.



The next day we took the subway to the downtown area, and saw the Plaza de Mayo, roughly the same as the Mall in DC.



This is the Casa Rosada, their version of the White House.



Then we headed down La Defensa in San Telmo where they have an open street market on Sundays.



It had old cobblestone streets and at the end was a cool flea market of antiques. We also saw perhaps the most boring museum ever, El Zanjon de Grandos Buenos Aires, it was very well reviewed but pretty lame. While they clearly spent a long time rennovating it, it was just like a big empty space with some tunnels.



The next day we went to the famous Recoleta cemetary. It's like a super charged version of the one in New Orleans. Lots of crazy fancy Mausoleams.



It's set right in the middle of the posh Recoleta neighborhood.



It's biggest attraction is Evita's tomb (not shown), but I could care less about all the Evita stuff, I never saw the movie.



I was more impressed with the sheer scale of some of the tombs. They were like mini churches. Even the smaller ones had multiple floors, I even saw one with a sofa and lobby type area. Although many are old, it seems like rich people still make massive tombs here.



We also learned that Dengue Fever was evidently a possibility in Argentina...



Here's a typical meal we had in Buenos Aires. A nice cut of steak, a bottle of fine Malbec, appetizers etc... All for the equivilent of $20? Although flights are expensive to get here, this is one of the cheapest places I've ever been. More on why later.



Buenos Aires has a large cafe culture and felt very similar to Europe. Oddly they roast their coffee beans with sugar.



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