Sisters Astray

Buenos Aires! Kim and I arrived bright and early at 4am Friday morning after 10 hours of travel.  We grabbed a cab and headed to Milhouse Hostel located in the downtown Monserrat barrio.  Check in at the hostel wasn’t until 1pm, but luckily the nice guy in reception let us get into to our room early. 

  

The hostels are MUCH different in bigger cities than in Costa Rica. This one was in a large, old refurbished home, and it slept well over 150 people. The common area was nice and big and always had people hanging around.  We ended up meeting Vic, a guy from NYC that invited us to join him and group of others for dinner.  After a nice walk around Plaza de Mayo, we headed out with our new friends for a Peruvian dinner in the Congreso barrio.  MMMM ceviche! 

We then headed back to the hostel were we had a few drinks.  Kim stayed and I went with the guys to Palermo, another barrio known for its nightlife, for some clubbin.  I loved that area! After a few too many drinks and a few hours on the dance floor, Vic and I headed home.

 

Sure enough, I woke up hungover as hell and had to pack everything up to check out by 11am.  Kim and I had some delicious empanadas and coffee and went to Plaza de Mayo for a nap in the grass, which is the political hub of Buenos Aires.  La Casa Rosada (the Presidential Palace) is located here and is the venue for many political protests.  This is where Eva Peron and her husband made all their famous speaches to the portneos back in the day. ..you know, ‘Don’t cry for me Argentina!!!!’  Nice.  We also stumbled upon some Bolivian parade that was going on in the streets.  Everyone was dancing around in unison in some crazy ass costumes, singing and yelling…it was great!  One of the guys looked like an old 70’s pimp dancing around with his ladies. Ha! 

 

We arrived at our apartment and couldn’t be happier.  It was so much bigger than it looked on the web!  Cute little kitchen, nice size living area and bedroom.  It was perfect for me and Kim .  We took a walk around to get our bearings and headed to the store for some groceries. 

The next day was the famous San Telmo ‘feria’, an antique market that takes place every Sunday in San Telmo.  We were very excited to check it out and even more excited that it was in our neighborhood!  For some reason, Kim and I were having a hard time reading the map of the area, so we asked a few locals where the “feria” was located.  After we wondered around for a while, we stumbled upon a park with some tents set up.  We took a look around at a bunch of what we thought was pretty much…well, junk.  We were both a little confused and had expected a bit more from what we had heard about this market.  After about 2 or 3 hours, Kim suddenly realized we were in the wrong place!  We were at the park located right near our apartment that also has somewhat of a “feria” on Sundays. So after a few more locals’ directions, we found the REAL market.  It was awesome! There were tons of vendors, people, artists and musicians in the streets, along with quaint little restaurants and cafes. We both felt quite stupid for spending so much time in the wrong market earlier that day and plan to spend much more time here later in the week.   

 

The next day, we took on the subway system, which is pretty user friendly, and headed to the botanical gardens in Plaza Italia.  Besides all the crazy stray cats biting little kids, it was really nice.  We plan to do some more sight-seeing the next few days and meet up with a friend of mine, Stacie, that will be here for 3 days on her way to Chile.  We studied abroad in Spain together and I haven’t seen her in 5 years!  Should be good times!  Kim will be writing again soon! Stay tuned…