Trip to South America: Days 5-7, Buenos Aires

Day 5: Overall, this was not a fun day. We awoke fairly early in order to eat breakfast and head to the airport for our flight from Rio to BsAs. We got to the airport on time, without a hitch, and found out that our flight was delayed by a minimum of 30 minutes. Ok, no big deal.... we all had a few reals (Brasilian money) left, so we spent a little time in one of the shops. I didn't see anything that I wanted to buy, so I sold my reals to Grisham for $10. I am happy with my decision. We sat at this little table for a while, but our chairs were in the way and people kept trying to get by, so we finally moved to our gate, and our minimum 30 minute delay eventually turned into a couple hours. However, for our entertainment, there was a large group of Hell's Angels from Germany waiting with us...a few of them were pretty scary, but it was fun to watch them. One of them opened up a coke and it exploded, but Lanae wasn't there to clean it up. We finally made it to Buenos Aires around 3 or so, I think, and made it through immigration and customs. We went to our hotel, and we were all pretty tired and cranky, so we stopped at the reception desk place and booked a tango/gaucho show for that night and made reservations for our trip to Colonia, then napped for a couple hours until time for the show. There was a shuttle that came to pick us up for the tango show, and we got on. Grisham and Andrea sat in the front, and Colette sat in the back with me. Eventually the little shuttle filled up, and we convinced a couple guys that I was Colette's daughter. It was a fun game. We arrived at the show place, and we had dinner, which wasn't bad. Colette ordered bread pudding, but it turned out to be flan with raisins sprinkled on top. This was funny to everyone, but I don't really know what bread pudding is, so I just laughed along with everyone else. The show was ok...the tango got a little old after a while though. The best part was the gaucho guy.

Day 6: This was sightseeing day in the city. First we went to El Caminito in La Boca. We walked around, went in the little shops, look at the artist stuff, and hungout for an hour or two. From there we took a taxi to Plaza de Mayo where we saw the Casa Rosada, and then we had a great conflict. Colette really wanted to ride the "hop on-hop off" bus, and Grisham and I didn't. So Andrea went with Colette and me and Grisham went off on our merry way. The first thing that we did was go to Calle Florida, which is a pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. We made our way along, stopped at McDonald's for lunch, and kept going until we reading Plaza de San Martin, which is my favorite place in the city. It's n0t just a plaza, it's like a little park. We walked around for a bit, then we took a taxi to Recoletta Cemetery. We had a crazy taxi driver - he was really into music and kept playing songs for us and telling me about them. He was funny. We went to the cemetery and saw Evita's grave, once we found it after getting lost in there. Next we went to the Evita museum, which wasn't too spectacular. A delicious thing happened next - we stopped at a bakery and bought Alfajores - my favorite cookies!! It was funny because the lady wrapped mine up like a present and tied a ribbon around them, and they just put Grisham's in a bag. They were so yummy!! We walked to an art museum, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. They had a couple paintings by my favorite artist, Botero, who paints all the fat people. Our last stop of the day was the obelisco on avenida 9 de julio. We took a couple of pictures, walked and took a picture of Teatro Colon, then made our way back to the hotel. We met up with Colette and Andrea and went our for pizza and sangrias.

Day 7: This was my day by myself because the other 3 went to Iguazu. I didn't go because I have been before, and that little jaunt cost them about $400 for the day. So, I saved my money and stayed behind in Buenos Aires. It was Sunday, so I made the long walk to San Telmo to the famous antique market. It was pretty cool...there was some neat stuff. I didn't buy any antiques but I bought a sign painted by an artist there. After walking through the market, I stopped at a small cathedral and attended mass. I then made my way back to Avda 9 de julio, had lunch at a restaurant at a good locale for people watching, then headed to another pedestrian street that crosses with Calle Florida. I walked past a move theater, and thought hey I'll see a movie, so I saw Up, which I really liked. After the movie I hurried to Plaza San Martin so that I would have time to hang out before it got dark. On my way I stopped for ice cream, then I just spend some time enjoying the ambiance at the plaza. It was fantastic!! When it started getting dark I walked back to the hotel and met up with the others and we went to dinner. This was probably my favorte day of the trip.

And so was our time in Buenos Aires.