Buenos Aires and Donde Debo Ir?

While in Punte del Este, I met a Korean USC grad from Brasil who told me how terrible Buenos Aires is, but I think the rivalry between the two nations clouded her viewpoint.  Besides this one nay, I was told by a wide variety of people that Bs As is amazing and worth a long stay.  Therefore, I felt inclined to take up residence here.  I explored the town from my hostel in the Centro in search of the best part of town to reside.  I did not like the Centro during the night as the steet were mostly desolate, and the few people actually in the streets were begging for something ranging from monedas (coins) to rolling papers.  In my coed hostel dorm room, I met a girl who was from the north of Argentina but knows Bs As very well.  She took me on the Colectivo number 39 (Bus that costs 1.25 Pesos roughly $0.30) to a part of town called Palermo.  Palermo is a huge area in Bs As and as such there are several areas of Palermo.  The place she showed me was Soho where in the middle is Plaza Serrano.  Plaza Serrano is a huge conglomerate of bars and restaurants where people sit, eat, drink, and dance until all hours of the day (note I did not say night).  I took the first apartment I could locate close to the Plaza for $450 a month.

The view from my bedroom which looks to the North

The weather has been amazingly comfortable so it has been conducive for socializing every night of the week.  The nightlife here seems to have carried over from Punta del Este, or perhaps it is the other way around.  As I mentioned before about my difficulties in communication on this side of the equator, I have enrolled in Spanish classes.  Fortunately my teacher looks like Salma Hayek which makes attending class fun.  However, it starts at 9:30am, and with the aforementioned nights getting started and ending so late, I have to changed to a later starting school.

In my first 2 weeks of being in Bs As, I have noticed several different things about this place than others.

1) Dog shit - people really don`t care that their dog deficates on the sidewalk.  The polite people will pull their dog into the steet so they go off of the sidewalk but never once have I seen someone actually pick up their animal´s excrament.  In Mexico I had to keep my eyes peeled to navigate around uneven sidewalks, but here in Bs As, I keep my eyes peeled for those soft steamy piles of dung.  It is literally on every block in multiple locations.

2) PDA - The people here really love to make out in public.  They will be standing in a bar, sitting on park benches, or riding the subte (Cheaper than the Colectivo at 1.10 Peso or roughly $0.28).  The locals love the public displays of affection.  

3) Sidewalks - In addition to our furry friends` feces, I feel like every 20th tile you step on is loose.  They use the word ´lodo´ for a particular situation when after a rain, dirty water lurks under a loose tile.  When you step on that tile, the mud flies up and attacks your trousers.  It has not happened to me yet, but I am sure my time is soon.  Sidenote - if I lived in Bs As and wanted to redo my floors, I would just walk around and pick up the tiles from the sidewalk instead of buying new ones from one of the many tile stores on Cordoba Ave.

4) Critial Mass - Just like San Francisco, there is a critical mass here.  The mass was larger than the ones in San Francisco and took up all of 9th de Julio, which is the biggest avenue in the world according to a fellow Critial Masser.  During the ride I heard them start a chant, ``Auto no, bici si``.  I quite like this chant and want to bring it back to SF with me.  I also want to see if we can lead critical mass over the Bay Bridge.

Getting ready for Critial Mass Bs As style with the Obelisque in the background

We literally overtook the autopista.  I guess Bs As drivers don´t mind having their highway blocked because they are used to being hassled by numerous protests.

This is her passion.  I love biking but not that much.  I was just thinking, what if she had some freak accident due to biking and loathed her bike.  Would she still want that tatoo? or would that be the ultimate tatoo I wish I never got situation?

5) Food - I really miss Mexican food.  The food here is more bland than I expected.  The grass fed beef is great, but just the flavor of meat does not do it for me after a while.  I need spice.  I found one place with spicy Thai food, and I travel 45 minutes by Subte and foot to eat it.

There is a lot of street graffriti around.  This is not the best I have seen, but I wanted to show Bs As general love for ham which is a meat I have never been too fond of.  Any place that you want to grab a quick bite will always have ham.

6) Monedas - There is a general shortage of change.  People make money by giving you 90 centivos on the Peso for change in front of mercados.  You cannot pay the Colectivos with bills.  Also the 25 and 50 centivos coins are basically the exact same size.  The 50 centivos piece might be a millimeter larger in diameter.  Very strangely, both the 25 and 50 centivos pieces can be either copper or silver.  You literally have to turn the coins on the one side with the value markings to know how much change you actually received.

7) Discoteque - I have harped about the lateness of the nights and mornings so this is not about that.  In Bs As they do something that is rather strange to me.  You have to wait a line with a bunch of frustrated patrons to buy a ticket which you redeem for a drink.  Also if it is your first time in line, or you don´t know the price of what you want, you have to look at the menu taped to the front of the cash register and make the other patrons wait even longer.  I don´t know if this is because of shady bartenders, but it makes me feel like I am at the Texas State Fair.  Also, my money is already put away by the time I am receiving a drink so I never reach back into my wallet for a tip.

The German in the grey shirt is my roommate Max and the other Karsten is his friend from college in Frankfurt.   Including those creepers in the background, this photo sums up the scene at Terraza del Este which is a mega club.  The club is next to the airport, and as the bouncers were kicking us out around 7am, the planes were buzzing only a few hundred feet above, which provided a second wind, literally.

Random Photos -------------------

This is a cool pedestrian bridge that connects San Telmo with Puerto Madero.  Puerto Madero is the most expensive real estate in town and not very accessible by public transit.

I thought Fernet was the San Francisco treat, but I was wrong.  The people here drink it with cola over ice.  In the supermarket, they don´t sell liquor, but somehow this qualifies as a digestivo instead.

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My plans going forward - This is a tough decision.  I really have a lot of options and would appreciate feedback on where to go next.  I have considered going
1) South to Tierra del Fuego
2) North to Iguzu Foz, West through Paraguay, North-West through Argentine and into Bolivia
3) West to Chile, North though Chile and into Peru.

I am in Spanish class for at least 2 more weeks so I have plenty of time to figure it out.