Argentina, from what we saw was beautiful. Man-made beauty. Buenos Aires was much larger of a city than we had anticipated but definitely had the European charm that everyone had talked about.
Days in Argentina: 13 (1 in Colonia, Uruguay)
The People:
For the most part we found Argentinians extremely friendly. We had many instances where taxi drivers went out of their way to have a pleasant conversation, give us pointers on where to go, and give a tutorial on spotting counterfit money! The servers we ran into were more than happy to help us understand menus. Even the people on the street helped to steer us in the right direction when we were lost. The people speak Spanish but it has a unique dialect where “ll” is pronounced “sh” and they use “vos”. People seem to work to live, not live to work. They are in no hurry whatsoever. We found ourselves walking very fast with no where to be (must be our nature when in a big city). We had to slow ourselves down and learn to stroll. Many people will visit a café, alone or with a friend, and sit and talk for hours, or read the paper over a coffee or beer. The check will only be brought to you when you ask for it. The servers are even more hands off than in Brazil. We found this annoying at first but learned to appreciate the hands off service, very different from the US. Eating late is the norm. People eat dinner no earlier than 10pm. It is not uncommon to find a whole family with young toddlers out to dinner around midnight. Argentinians seem to be very family conscious. On Sundays there were many adult children out walking with their parents. We also found several ads promoting children to spend time with their grandparents.
