A Day (and a half) in Buenos Aires

Day 1

  For legal purposes, we want to be clear that we did NOT take an Uber to the Santiago airport. Uber is illegal in Chile and we would never do that, even if it is half the price of a taxi. We definitely did not do it. Once at the airport, we boarded our flight with no incident and enjoyed a nice, smooth flight to Buenos Aires. Oh yeah, one small noteworthy thing happened- the flight began bucking and shaking with so much turbulence that people were screaming and Matt nearly vomited, thanks to a rainstorm raging around the Argentinian capital. We landed in El Palomar airport, which, considering what a hub it is (one of BsAs' 3 major airports) was surprisingly small. We exited the plane down those mobile stair things, and walked across the tarmac to a small, one-story building which was both passport control and baggage claim. We exited through the other side into a small yard with a food truck. It seemed more like a small local park than an international airport.

Just like in the US, October is Scary Month in Chile!

  Karen has been suffering from intermittent stomach pain, and was up the entire previous night at a bachelorette party, so she hasn't been fully present on the trip so far- but she's pushing through. Our AirBnB is a bit like a hostel- there are at least 3 rooms, maybe more, and the place is kept running smoothly by many MANY posted signs explaining the rules: no guests, no makeup in bed (it stains the sheets), don't hang your towel from the cupboards, etc. Privacy is... not a priority. The rules require a window to be left open during showers to let the steam out. That window is IN the shower and opens directly onto a small stairway that leads downstairs. We're looking forward to greeting a new arrival during a nice, relaxing shower. 

  After getting oriented at our AirBnB, we stepped out into our neighborhood (Palermo) to get some lunch and some Argentinian SIM cards. The former was easy- some steak and wine only a few blocks from our door (when in Argentina...). The menu had a surprise- tereré, the cold maté popular in Paraguay. Matt ordered it, but seeing the grimace of horror on the waitress' face, he asked if tereré and steak was a weird combo. It was. The latter took a bit more effort- but the woman who sold us the SIM cards* was friendly and helpful every step of the way, even letting us take 2 extra SIM cards of a different carrier in exchange for a promise to drop off the two we don't use later. We asked how late they'd be open, and she laughed and said, until 5AM. We should have known- this is Argentina after all.

  Karen fell asleep at around 7PM and slept for 13 hours. Matt got dinner first.

Day 2

  First stop- Teatro Colón. This is the sibling theater of a theater in Montevideo. With the ticket stub from our tour of that theater, we can tour this one for half price, but we'll have to see if we have the time. Today we were there to join a "free" walking tour. Unfortunately, for some reason we can't quite explain, it just didn't really hold our interest. It was a long tour (3.5 hours) with a lot of information, but we had a hard time following the thread of the many historic facts and anecdotes. We bailed after 2.5 hours, bought public transportation cards (called "Sube") and took the metro (called "Subte") to the San Telmo neighborhood.

A synagogue in the center of BsAs

The famous purple jacaranda have not started to bloom quite yet.

The streets are lined with these lovely trees that Karen thinks smell disgusting. Matt thinks they smell fine.

Chicago has its Bean, but BsAs has the... Egg?

Ice cream in an edible cup! Note: this was NOT a good idea for someone with an upset stomach

Proving that the cup really is edible

We were surprised to see a Metro station covered in Arabic-style mosaics, complete with Arabic calligraphy.

  The San Telmo neighborhood is known for its Sunday antiques market, but it turns out that's only one of many markets that spring up on Sunday. We spent a long time admiring lots of impressive and fun crafts, including leather coin pouches designed like tiny backpacks, intricately carved coins, and origami cats, dragons, and unicorns that have been coated in resin and can now be worn as hardy jewelry. This same artist had origami unicorns folded from a sheet of thin silver! 

  At the antiques market, an artist handed us a binder full of his work and explained what he was trying to express with each painting. All in all it was a lot of fun and San Telmo is currently Matt's favorite BsAs neighborhood.

San Telmo is also home to some of the best fried empanadas we've ever had.

  We caught the bus from San Telmo to La Boca- one of the most touristy areas of BsAs, but a required spot for any first-time visitor. This neighborhood is known for brightly-colored buildings and Tango. There is a couple dancing tango on every block.

This photo was actually taken in San Telmo- La Boca would have more bright colors, and more crowds.

  We caught a bus back to our AirBnB to rest before dinner at a highly-recommended steak restaurant called La Cabrera. Interestingly, the bus uses a hybrid system wherein you tell the driver where you are going and he tells you how much it will cost, but then he types that amount into a machine and you scan your Sube metro card in order to pay.

A Note on Argentinian SIM cards

  We bought 2 chips without any problems at one of the ubiquitous "kioskos" or cornerstores. Someone had curiously printed out labels and affixed them to our chips' packaging.  The labels included the associated phone number (which was helpful) and an expiration date (ours was two days in the past.) Despite this, they worked fine. What does the expiration date mean? Who put it there?  Why?  What's wrong with the commercial packaging? So far we have more questions than answers.

  Once we registered our chips online, we returned to the kiosko to load them with money, but that kiosko only sells the chips- you have to load them at kioskos equipped with a special machine. So we found one of the self-service machines. These are in most kioskos, but there's an element of luck in finding one that works.  (The same holds true for ATMS... Matt once left the house in search of cash and came back after trying 5 machines with no luck.)  Back to loading our SIM cards... One kiosco had a malfunctioning touch screen, and the store owner had to help us, showing us the exact right way to "wipe" your thumb along the screen with as much force as possible to get the screen to register a click. One kiosko owner sadly informed us that his machine didn't work because their internet was down. 

  When we found a working kiosko, we faced another riddle: the machines make you select the amount you want to add from a menu of numbers which does not include every number, and they don't give change. So when we wanted to load 90 pesos (a number fortunately included in the list) and we had only a 100 peso bill, we had to load the full 100 pesos. Matt then foolishly checked his balance on his phone, an action which actually costs 10 pesos. Later, we were luckily able to get change for a 100 peso bill from another kiosko owner- but when we tried to break a second bill, she told us she had no bills left. This is not that unusual in Argentina- earlier when we tried to buy a Sube metro card in a major station, we were informed that they were fresh out. (We did get to ride for free though!)