Buenos Aires

We arrived to Buenos Aires on Feb 6th and we have been exploring the city and figuring out the lifestyle.  People of BsAs relate themselves with Europe more so than Latin America and we definitely see why.  The architecture is very European with beautiful buildings everywhere.  The daily routine is very interesting here especially on the weekends.  People eat dinner very late just like in Santiago, but they don't go out till even later.  On Friday/Saturday, people meet for drinks around 12am and then head out to the bars around 3am.  This has taken some time to adjust as 3 am is way past our bed time.  This city is HUGE but luckily it has a great public transportation system.  We are staying in the Palermo neighborhood and it is perfect because everything we need is right around us.  We have been cooking at home for most dinners although I am currently addicted to empanadas for lunch.  We dined at two great steakhouses, Don Julio and La Cabrera.  Both were highly recommended and we totally see why.  This is definitely big city living which I have always wanted to do.  I would say the only cities that compare to this in the US would be NYC and SF.  Of all of the cities I've been to, this one has the best looking people as a whole.  The Spanish spoken here is much easier to understand than that of Chile and so we are able to get around a little easier here.  We have met a couple friends here and have had fun going out with them.  We just found out that our friend Melissa will be coming to stay with us starting Saturday for 2 weeks.  We are extremely excited as traveling internationally with best friends is unbeatable.  Who knows what kind of trouble we will get into!  Below are some photos from the first 10 days here in BsAs. 

Random street walking around.

Below are picture of Recoleta Cemetery.  This was one of the most interesting sites I've ever seen.

Eva Peron is buried in this cemetery.  I had no clue who she was until we went there and I'm still not too sure. 

Casa Rosada

 Panaoramic view of Plaza de Mayo

 In Plaza de Mayo

National Congress Building

Obelisk

Inside Plaza Dorrego Bar in San Telmo, over 130 years old and the bartenders and servers are about the same age.

On Sundays in Plaza Dorrego, San Telmo, they have a street market.  Below are a couple photos from that.  They sell a lot of antiques and other crap.

This is where I dominate Aaron in Tennis.  Clay courts!

 Here are a couple pictures from our meal at Don Julio.  Seriously one of the best steaks I have ever had and it's quite affordable.

Some monuments, in some intersections.  No clue what they are for.

This is at Las Heras Park which is right by our apartment.  We go here almost everyday and play cards and hangout.

Lagos de Palermo Park

Here was our meal at La Cabrera.  These are the 20 sides that came when ordering a steak.  It would have been good to know before ordering since we ordered and app & salad.  

Buenos Aires sunrise

Until next time. -Drew

Santiago, Chile Part Dos

We are officially now in Buenos Aires, Argentina but before we get on to that we wanted to show everyone some pictures from our second week in Santiago, Chile.  We had planned to go to Valpraiso while we were in Chile but we were enjoying the lifestyle in Santiago so much that we couldn't get ourselves to leave the city.  The nice thing about not having a schedule is that you can do what you want, the bad thing is you do not see as much but as long as you are doing what you want to do and enjoying yourself then I guess that is all that matters (and we are).  Santiago is so modern and clean and affordable its definitely a nice big city that would fit in the United States or any modern country anywhere in the world.  Here are some photos of our last few days.

This is the river by our house lit up at night.  This is by far the best it ever looks because during the day it just looks like mud flowing under the city.

We went to a very famous restaurant in Santiago Centro called La Piojera that is famous for their terramottos (earthquakes).  Terramottos are made of pineapple sorbet white wine, grenadine and some sort of other liquor keeping with the everyone in Chile has a belly theme.  We had an interesting experience because no one spoke English here (and Chilean Spanish is so poor they rarely can be understood by other Spanish speaking countries) and there was no menu so we ended up getting a Chilean Staple which is bife a la pobre which is a skirt steak served with fries and eggs.  If you are ever in Chile this is a great place to go.

The street by our house seems to be the liveliest in all of the town.  No matter when you walk on Pio Nono there are people singing and eating and drinking up until the sun comes up.  We stumbled upon these street performers and there were also some very drunk dancers which we have to leave that photo out do to the X rating.

This is from the top of San Cristobal Hill which is a beautiful hill/park right in the center of downtown Chile.  It is free but before you enter you have to write down your passport number to be allowed in.  That is probably how they keep it so perfect.

Here is a Photo leaning against one of the walls.

At the bottom of the park on our way out we stopped in front of this beautiful building.

This is the beautiful north entrance as you walk up the hill.  People are laying around the park eating ice cream (of course) and just laying in the sun.

Here is a close up of the fountain at the bottom which is so pretty.

These are pictures of the famous and preserved red houses.  

This is on the famous Lastarria street and I just loved the pictures of the house covered in ivy.

I had to try the emapanadas.  They were nothing special nor were the sopapillas but that just means We will have to try them somewhere else until we find the best ones.

This place was incredible.  It was inside the central market where they sold all kinds of fish (not as pretty as in Asia) and had a ton of nice restaurants.

As you walk around Santiago there are tons of churches and old buildings like this that you run into.  We really enjoyed ourselves in Santiago and are sad to leave.  We ate at some great places like Gallindo (typical Chilean), Kintaro (Sushi), Casa Lastarria (great atmosphere, over priced food) and of course the most famous ice cream in the city (Emporia a la Rosa).  We leave you with some of the art/graffiti you see on a daily basis walking around Santiago Chile and a picture of our superbowl set up because we had to watch it while we were abroad.  Until Argentina!!!  Ciao!

PS - we had cheese and guacamole and watched the game on the big tv but the commercials on the computer because in Chile they do not play our commercials obviously.