Hello Buenos Aires!

Buenos Aires felt like a Spanish speaking New York City. I enjoyed walking through the city and looking at the beautiful architecture and urban parks that could have been sliced right out of Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Central Park?

A giant tree similar to those I've seen in India

The city has a large number of immigrants from Italy which means that gelato, pizza (all pizzas come with at least one green olive on top), and strong coffee are readily available.

Dulce de Leche con Bon Bon

Like New York or any European city, there are also cafes on every corner.

Casa Rosada

What makes Buenos Aires unique are sites like the Casa Rosada ( I sang songs from Evita the entire time I was here),

the Recoleta Cemetery (there were as many cats here as crypts in this cemetery and a lonely man from Texas who insisted on following us around),

For all of the Dr. Who fans

View from the cemetery

Some of the cats living in the cemetery

and the abundance of affordable yet tasty steak and red wine (the wine was cheaper than the bottled water).

Ateneo bookstore

While I only had two days to spend in this city, I had a great time. Highlights for me were visiting the Ateneo bookstore—a four story theater turned bookstore packed with amazing reads (mostly in Spanish),

My friend Ashley in the bookstore

learning to cook empanadas and lentil stew in a cooking class I took in the suburbs of the city from a psychotherapist/cook named Norma,

Norma and one of the other cooking students

Empanadas

Wonderful lentil stew

and stumbling upon a Renaissance Festival set up in the streets near the center of town.

Renaissance Festival

On the last day there was also an amazing craft market in Recoleta that I enjoyed meandering through, but sadly I don’t have any pictures of this.

For the rest of my time in Argentina I flew down to Patagonia on a SAS trip. More on this to come…