Buenos Aires

We’re in Buenos Aires!!! During our flight, we’ve made friends with another world traveling family from Belgium. We’ll meet them tomorrow to discover the city together. But we have our first “feel” of the city ourselves, in the bus that takes us to the nearest metro. Let us tell you, here, it’s quite different from Santiago. The pace is much faster. In the bus, Julia is even more scared than when we’re facing turbulences on the plane. Even Doo is a bit surprised. Our driver must be Fangio’s grandson or something, he’s slaloming at top speed between cars and pedestrians. We look at each other dumbfounded. Argentinians, on the other hand, look like Parisians in the metro… unfazed … Everything’s normal. We then notice a sticker on the doors indicating that the doors will only open when the bus speed is under 3mph… Alrighty then… That sets the tone…

So we arrive in record time at our apartment. This time again we’ve settled for a bit of comfort (2 bedrooms, a washing machine… all the luxury we can ask for!!!). Our neighborhood also seems super nice but today, we’re not exploring. Today, we’re just resting. We have plenty of time to explore. We’re staying 10 days in Buenos Aires.

San Telmo

The next day, we’re meeting our world traveling friends to spend the day together. So, here is Pierre, Vinciane, Louis (14 years old), Eliott (11) and Charlie (7). They’re staying 5 days in Buenos Aires and we will spend these 5 days with them.

We start by visiting the old neighborhood of San Telmo, a crossroads between Paris and Lisbon. We discover old cafes, exhibitions, patios hiding clothes shops, antiques and even a knife sharpener. We meet Mafalda on a bench, Diego Maradona on a wall…

La Boca

After a meal in a very beautiful ironwork hall, we head to La Boca district. A very colorful district which hosts a huge blue and yellow stadium, the stadium of Boca Junior, one of the most popular football teams in South America. Here, a real cult is dedicated to Diego Maradona. He is represented everywhere and in every manner possible (street arts, statues, figurines, puppets…). There’s also statues and golden busts of the new world champions of course and very very very many fake world cups to buy.

In this district, amongst bright red, green, orange and yellow buildings, there are puppets at the windows, tango dancers at the restaurants and very talented children playing football. The boys, Charlie and Côme, will go play with them while our Belgian friends will kindly tease us about Argentina’s victory at the World Cup…

Recoleta

The next day we are discovering yet another district: Recoleta. On our way there, we stop in a park for a while. Côme has fun with some superb playground games and we watch a football training session for the little ones. All of them are wearing the same kit with the same number: that of Messi’s Argentina.

Recoleta is very different from the two districts we’ve already visited. It’s chic and trendy. We spend most of the afternoon in a very beautiful cultural center where young people come to chill and dance. The place is very colorful and pleasant. There are free exhibits, a science museum, conference rooms, spaces for working, drawing, chilling, and even dancing. We love it!! There’s also a huge cemetery in Recoleta, but there’s an entrance fee and we refuse to pay to visit a cemetery. 

In the late afternoon, we all head to our place for dinner. Our neighborhood is yet again different but still very nice and lively, full of stores. We even walk into a magnificent bookshop which has taken up residence in a former opera house. It’s quite unique. 

Palermo

Another walk takes us to Palermo. A district where the terraces of cafes and restaurants are entangled in street art. There, we take the opportunity to taste Argentinian pastry. Côme’s birthday is approaching and we want to know which cake to take for D-Day. Well, it won’t be any of them. The cakes are ultra sweet and with every bite it gets more difficult to swallow… Oh well, we’ll bake a chocolate fondant for his birthday…

The Argentinian Food…

In Buenos Aires, one can easily find pizzas and pastas. There are Italian restaurants everywhere. But the food we loved the most are empañadas: a kind of very small “calzone”. They’re really cheap, they come in many different flavors (meat, chicken, vegetables…) and you can find them everywhere. 

And then, there’s the Argentinian meat… Ahhhhh!!! The Argentinian meat… Let us tell you about our very first experience with this world famous meat:

One evening, we left the kids alone at Pierre and Vinciane’s place. We had never been able to have an evening out without Côme during this entire trip before (the perks of traveling with a teenager). So it was just us adults: Vinciane, Pierre, Julia and Doo. We went to a parrilla in San Telmo: Desnivel. A parrilla is an Argentinian steak house. We ordered a good Malbec, a sangria and of course a piece of meat each. The cooking ? Vuelta y vuelta (a “round trip”). It seems that Argentinians tend to overcook their meat (we still don’t understand why). So each of us end up with a 500g (1 lb) piece of meat on our plate. We cut it. Here, there’s no need for a sharp knife, a butter knife is enough to cut it. And then, after years of waiting and an expectation so high it can’t be met, we finally savor the best meat in the world… Like really!!! This is the best steak with mash potatoes in Doo’s predatory life (sorry mommy). The meal is simply exquisite and our server, Daniel (who looks like Dany DeVito) is brilliant. We couldn’t have hoped for a better culinary experience. Argentinian meat has kept all its promises. We will end this superb evening in one of the many lively bars of San Telmo before resuming our parental obligations… And yes, we’ll return twice to Desnível (with Côme this time around) and send pictures to our Belgian friends who continued their journey, just to tease them a bit. 😉

The Tango Evening…

After tasting Argentinian meat, we had to have a “taste” of tango. So we booked an initiation with a tango teacher who lived tango. The most important lesson? “La conexión” (with a Spanish accent of course). So that’s what we’ve worked on for a good hour before going to a milonga, a kind of cabaret for tango dancers. And there, we were in complete immersion. There we were, in Argentina. Like for real. So of course, it was not easy to dance amongst confirmed dancers, but that did not prevent us from having fun and fully appreciating the atmosphere, the orchestra and its singer…

And then…

These ten days in Buenos Aires have gone by at breakneck speed, a bit like those Argentinians drivers who don’t even slow down for pedestrians (they only slow down for the soccer balls that children shoot a little too far). We really took our time though. During our stay, we changed apartments to find ourselves in a very colorful place for Côme’s birthday. It was a little further from the center, but the apartment was ideal for the Easter egg hunt and the birthday.

And then, three days before we left for Iguazu, an ATM swallowed our credit card… It was during the holly weekend of “semana santa”… We spare you the trouble… Suffice to say we never recovered it… 

In Buenos Aires, Côme:
Did not understand: why the houses in La Boca were colored. 
Learnt: that tango is essentially a dance with the feet.
Liked: behind the chocolate fondant and his birthday.

Julia:
Did not understand: the unconditional love for football (to the point of having Messi kissing the World Cup as a phone wallpaper.
Learnt: that Argentinian food is deeply influenced by Italian culture.
Liked: Doo’s enthusiasm for the tango lesson and milonga even though it’s not his thing.

Doo:
Did not understand: why one would need a knife sharpener with such tender meat.
Learnt: that Buenos Aires bus drivers are real pilots.
Adored: the Argentinian meat.