Loving Buenos Aires

Much has been made of the fact that Buenos Aires seems more like a European city than an American one.  In particular, I’ve heard a lot of European tourists bemoan the fact that BA is too much like Madrid or Paris to be of much interest.  As for me: I like it here.  Part of the appeal is how clearly different BA is from the cities and towns where we have spent the past five months.  Yes, it does remind me of Europe, but that’s a plus in my book, particularly after spending time in some of the less inspired capital cities of South America.  From what I’ve seen so far, I’ll take BA over Lima, La Paz, Santiago and Quito.

Unlike those other capitals, the climate and topography here feel familiar to a New Yorker.  The weather now is like our late September – rainy at times, humid, still warm, especially inside.  The last mosquitoes of summer have been plaguing us at night, an odd reminder of home.  And this flat city lacks the extreme grade changes and dramatic mountain vistas of its Andean counterparts.  Away from the high elevations and the desert, I’m not thinking about my respiration for the first time in over a month.

We’re staying in a great apartment we found on Airbnb in Recoleta (Barrio Norte on some maps).   It’s a huge pre-war three bedroom with beautiful furniture and finishes and more than enough room for us to spread out.  Frankly, it’s probably nicer than our place at home, and just about the same size.  The neighborhood is very upscale, more Upper East Side than Park Slope.  We’re on a busy street, Callao (pronounced here “kah-zhao”, like Portuguese), so Yo aptly compared the location to Madison Ave in the 80s or 90s.  Great supermarket around the corner, lots of restaurants and specialty food shops.  And all this for about what we were paying to stay in a hostel with shared bathrooms at our last stop in San Pedro. Chile.  (Things seem very inexpensive here, in marked contrast to Europe). 

We spent our first two days resting and running errands – meeting Yo’s violin teacher, taking Ruby to a dentist in a distant suburb (traffic here is ugly), applying for tourist visas for Brazil and figuring out how to change money at the informal “blue” rates.  Today is May Day, a big holiday, and Yo’s first day of teacher training.  So Oscar and I have to figure out something to do…