Argentina: The Summary

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.




The Food:
Mui delicioso! We loved the food in Argentina. We arrived on Thanksgiving and had a nice juicy steak and red wine for dinner! We soon found out there would be many more portions of steak and many bottles of red wine to be had. Wine was as delicious as you would expect but much cheaper than you could imagine. At the grocery store you could find a bottle of really good Malbec for about US$5. At restaurants it was about $10 making our meals enjoyable and reasonable. Aside from steak they served excellent salads. Usually equal parts of lettuce, tomato, and onion. Bread always served before the meal. Empanadas were very popular along with pizzas. We found the delicious pizza at El Cuartito that we would recommend to anyone! Café con leche and croissants were popular for breakfast. Ham and cheese on anything and popular at any time of the day! On toasted bread, in a croisaant, or on a salad, we could not escape the jamon y queso. Now for dessert…. Helado! The ice cream was out of this world and rivaled what we have had in Italy. Every flavor you could think of was rich and creamy. One of the most popular flavors was dulce de leche (Nelson’s favorite). Which brings us to flan. Flan was on every dessert menu drizzled with the rich carmel topping. Needless to say, we ate very well in Buenos Aires.

Architecture- The architecture of the buildings is absolutely beautiful. The style of the buildings is very European in nature. You would think you were walking the streets of Paris in many neighborhoods. There are several modern buildings but many were the old Spanish style buildings. The financial district was made up of a bunch of streets that look like they were taken straight out of wall street in New York. Huge national banks and large commercial banks in massive stone structures lined the streets. There are large plazas with beautiful statues and sculptures.

The Climate:

The summer has arrived in Buenos Aires! It was hot! 90 degrees and sun for most of our trip and we were not complaining! It was perfect weather for walking the city and enjoying the views.

The Culture:
The Argentinians have managed to really preserve their culture. For as much as Buenos Aires reminded us of a Spain mixed with Italy, it was completely its own country! From the prevalence of tango and its music, to the passion for their futbol clubs, it was very evident that Argentina did it their way. They have a deep understanding of their cultural history and how they got to where they are. Many of their streets are named after influential presidents, artists, writers, and others who have shaped the Argentinian culture.


Must do activities:

• Cafe Tortoni - This cafe brought us back in time. Its history is very cool but the cafe con leche is very delicious.
• A milonga - Visit a milonga to experience tango first hand. It is a very intimate setting so you can really get a feel for the culture. The one we visited was Confiteria Ideal.
• El Cuartito- The best pizza we have found in South America. Empanadas are not half bad either. It is definitely worth the wait!
• The San Telmo Market- This market was incredible. Every Sunday the streets are blocked off and all types of vendors come to sell their goods. The market goes on for blocks and blocks! We went twice and bought ourselves some real gems.
• La Recoleta Cemetary- Definitely a unique experience, check out our photos for proof!
• Uruguay day trip- If you have time on your trip to Buenos Aires take the 'BuqueBus' ferry over to Uruguay. Very beautiful town of Colonia. No need to spend more than one day.

Great moments:

• We met up with a friend of a friend, Samantha, and enjoyed a delicious lunch at the posh Unik restaurant in Palermo. We met more of her friends, all French natives currently living in Buenos Aires, our 3 hour lunch was a great conversation and reminded us we are not the only ones who love travel!
• The amazing pizza at El Cuartito was an experience in itself!
• As we sipped a cool drink near Plaza Dorrego, a man selling hats walked up to Nelson and Allie’s table. As he was dismissed he asked Nelson in Spanish what nationality are you?, Nelson replied, American. That did not please the man as he replied in Spanish,"Well I'm American too!" We didn't realize it was offensive to not include the South Americans as American. So Nelson replied "Okay, well I'm North American then." The man was more pleased with this response. We still weren't gonna buy a hat!
• The fútbol championship celebration was very spur of the moment unorganized, chaos and we loved it! As we walked away from the celebration, for blocks and blocks we felt like salmon swimming upstream. More and more people were walking towards the celebration. Cars honking their horns, traffic jams with people hanging out the car windows. It was great!
• Side note: before you go to ship something in Buenos Aires, make sure you have your passport on you. Also, if you are looking to ship art, any type of art, even a $50 painting you bought off the street from a vendor, you need to have it appraised by some federal art agency to value the painting before it can be shipped. In other words, we are still carrying around our painting and hope to ship it out of Peru!

We loved Buenos Aires and would recommend it to anyone! Its a big city so plan for enough time to explore. The feel of the city along with its amicable citizens truly made it a great experience for us!