Today will be my first full day in the city. After that research I did yesterday I had a shortlist of places to see and things to do. After the small breakfast provided by the hostel (it's quite good, but mostly bread and jams) I headed out to the Recoleta neighbourhood to visit "Cementerio de La Recoleta".
That was an amazing sight to see, lots of famous and historical people and families are laid to rest here. There are no graves, it's all small mausoleums. The art and statues here were amazing and it was interesting to see different styles of mausoleum right next to each other. Entrance to the cemetery was free and I stayed about two hours, wandering the alleys between the ranks of the resting. I took tons of pictures.
After a good long while in the cemetery, I stopped to eat lunch in the park outside. My lunch was by no means healthy, I had stopped for some groceries yesterday for my lunch, which was simply a 1.5 L bottle of water and a bag of cookies, similar to those a Royal Dansk cookies that you get in tins. After the sweet lunch, I crossed the park and headed up the street a few blocks to the Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Art. I spent about an hour and a half in there, and saw some great pieces. Museums here have very small opening hours, normally from about 11 to 5. I didn't think I could fit another museum trip in the time I had, so I headed back to the hostel.
Our family is great friends with a couple who has family in Buenos Aires and they offered to show me around and give me some help in B.A.. I had sent an email to them yesterday wondering if they wanted to get together and they replied with an invite to dinner at their house. It turns out that their apartment is literally two blocks from the cemetery I was at this morning. So I had about an hour break and then I headed back on the Subte for another 30 minute ride to Recoleta. The metro line doesn't get to to close so I had to walk the last little bit, interestingly enough, that neighbourhood has a distinct lack of street signs, so I did get a little lost on the way there. The most surprising thing about that journey was that some couple mistook me for a local and tried to ask me directions. After I gave them my dumbfounded face, they asked, "wait are you from here?", to which I stumbled out a hast no in Spanish and they headed off.
Once I finally got to the apartment I had a great time. The hosts are named Mario and Lorena and we had some great conversations about Spanish, French, the new Canadian prime minister and getting around the city. Dinner was excellent as well, they served me a Shepard's pie which they called a " pastel de papas" or a potato pie. We finished at about 11 PM after some ice cream and then we had the ordeal of getting me back to my hostel. One odd thing about Buenos Aires, a pretty large city (metro 12 million), the subway closes at 11 PM. We thought about buses but I didn't have a transport card called the SUBE and the buses don't accept bills. Taxi ended up being the best choice, bit even they like to take advantage of tourists and give them an extended ride. But all went well and I made not back to the hostel to sleep for another day.
See all of my pictures here!
Today's musical feature is "The Mambo Legends" with "Para Todo El Mundo LA Rumba".
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