(Saturday, March 5, Day 257)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."

Phrase of the day: Vamos a comer carne... Let's go eat some meat!

I took my usual walk in the morning as Jojo was asleep. And by "usual", I mean I had done this is Paris as well. The city was best in the morning. There were no mosquitoes, and it was nice and cool.

At first I thought this place was an amusement park or something; look at the lines! It's actually the zoo. Must have been pretty impressive.

And I found the city bikes! But sadly they weren't open. Next time?

I stopped by his local bakery and bought all that I could afford.

Breakfast was as amazing as it looks.

After getting ready we went out to see more of the town. More clean parks and squares.

Some really cool apartment complexes. That would be ridiculous to live there.

And this fashion district/street that reminded me of the girls back home.

In the evening Jojo did some crucial research and found where we were going for dinner.

Steak. It was time to try the infamous Argentinian beef. We got the 2 person meat sampler and the spinach dip. I'm not going to lie, we should have stuck to some classic steaks. The chicken and steak on the sampler were great; we didn't exactly try the other random things they gave us though (tripe, blood sausage, kidney). The spinach dip was great too.

And the restaurant was really nice.

Goodbye Buenos Aires.

(Friday, March 4, Day 256, Evening)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."

Phrase of the day: Facebook, con eso basta... Facebook, that's enough.

Really, people? Burke Lake better not have one of those when I get home.

After the ridiculous Italian lunch, we walked back to Jojo's place.

Stopping along the way to look at different things. This was the library, I think.

A tad bit ugly, but thankfully the neighborhoods make up for that.

Especially the classic cars. Ford Falcon.

And we found where we were going to have dinner! (Medio Oriente... Middle East).

It wasn't like home, and by home I mean Auntie Haifa's, but it was still good. We had hummus, baba ganoush, chicken, beef, bread, and rice. And yes, there are potatoes there too, but that's just South America. (They serve everything with potatoes or french fries here).

(Friday, March 4, Day 256, Afternoon)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."

Phrase of the day: Todo la pasta podria comer? Compa, va a declararse en quiebra... All you can eat pasta? Buddy, you're about to go bankrupt.

After our money breakfast (muffins, fruit salad, and ice cream, if you forgot), Jojo showed me around town.

We passed some crucial parks, as always.

And saw some classic churches.

Just as in Ecuador (and most places besides the US, it seems), the churches are the nicest buildings around.

After a museum and a nice walk, we went to Recoleta Cemetary, the most famous in BA.

It was gigantic, and probably one of the coolest things I saw there.

They had street(path) signs, and we even used a map to get around.

I mean, look at these graves; they're like houses!

There are a lot of important people buried in Recoleta, the most famous of which being...

Eva Peron, if you didn't catch that. Thankfully she was easy to find because of all of the tourists.

We made our way out, as it was time for lunch.

Umm, what? I think it said "see you soon". Not cool! But then again, I don't actually speak Latin.

Really, it was time for lunch while we were in the cemetary, but surpringly there weren't any restaurants inside! We found an Italian restaurant(surprise, surprise) a block away, and they had an offer we couldn't resist: Salad, dessert, and ALL you can eat pasta for $11. Sold!

Yeah, did I mention this place was classy? I mean, this was definitely no Pizza Hut lunch buffet; everything was made to order. (I actually like Pizza Hut's lunch buffet).

I did Yves dada and Rajib didi(still got it!) proud... 3 orders of pasta! I figured I should try as many different types of pasta and sauces as possible in one meal. This was just round one, a ricotta stuffed pasta with their red sauce.

No worries, I won't show you everything I ate. But I had spinach gnocci with pesto and then cheese ravolis with meat sauce. I'd say this is why the rest of the world isn't exactly fans of the US, but I had to teach them what "All you can eat" really means.

(Friday, March 4, Day 256, Morning)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."

Phrase of the day: Frutas, Molletes, Helado: El desayuno de campeones!... Fruits, Muffins, Ice Cream: The breakfast of champions!

Ridiculous, perhaps? Not at all; it would have been ridiculous not to! Buenos Aires had my third favorite ice cream(as a country) ever. (Only behind Italy and France). Naturally, I made sure I took advantage of that at least twice a day, and always with breakfast. The first day was Dulce de Leche, which Argentina is famous for.

In the morning, I took a walk around town and tried to find some of the parks that Jojo told me about. His neighborhood reminded me of Pesaro.

I saw a roller blader and some runners, so I headed in the direction they were going.

We ended up crossing one of the main streets, at least 9 lanes wide in one direction; insane.

There were so many of them (parks)! They were all super clean (I've gotten too used to seeing trash everywhere).

And they were all awesome. Some had fountains, some had dedicated bike paths.

Speaking of bike paths, thankfully they have those along the main road, because that would be crazy to ride on. I saw this sweet old school truck that the police uses.

And you know a city is developed if it has this...

Right. I actually didn't have time to go in, but I'm sure it would have been interesting.

Instead I went to Fredo's, the ice cream nearest to Jojo's, and picked up breakfast.

His place was really nice and modern. It was a good size for one or two people. Plus, you're in Buenos Aires; you never want to be inside anyway!

Oddly, the only flowers I really saw were at the flower shops.

(Thursday, March 3, Day 255)

"The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the U.S. Government or the Peace Corps."

Phrase of the day: Setenta-dos horas en Buenos Aires... Seventy-two hours in Buenos Aires!

Jojo has been studying in Argentina the past few months, so now was one of the best times to visit the country. TACA Airlines, I hope you have good movies.

Yes, you do! Jackie Chan starring in Eat Pray Love; can't get much better than that.

The view while flying somewhere inbetween Ecuador and Peru.

And where the highland turns into dessert in Peru. Pretty cool! I was hoping to see some Nazca(sp?) lines, but no such luck. (Yes, I probably should have looked up where they are before getting on the plane, instead of just looking out the window for two hours, ha).

Besides quality movies, the stewardess(hostess? whichever is correct these days) told us she had to fumigate the plane before take off.

That guy was not pleased one bit! And she is spraying something into the air. Go TACA!

When I landed in Argentina, I was greeted by Jojo. We took a really nice bus to the center of Buenos Aires, near where he lives.

The city was extremely developed, and had a kind of European feel. It was extremely clean and it felt very safe. (And you could drink the tap water!). We walked around for a bit, and he showed me the town.

Seeing as how many of the people are of Italian and Spanish decent, we had to start my trip off properly... with real pizza! Incredible.