Big, beautiful, sophisticated, modern, old and feels huge.
It’s hard to arrive in a new city and not look for the familiar in the unfamiliar. I see New York circa 1980′s, Mexico City current, Battery Park City (Puerto Madero) early days, and it was not until last night that I saw the Parisian aspect of this diverse and complex city. The climate is perfect, warm with the perfect amount of humidity and beautiful breezes. There is quite an extreme socio economic range here.

I am traveling with Rachel aka Lily Verlaine and find her to be an entertaining travel companion as she finds the humor in most situations and is very easy going. To her surprise and mine within 12 hours she realized her unknown hidden talent and ability for understanding and communicating in Spanish! All the years of French classes have paid off!!! The Spanish spoken here is more Spanish and Italian sounding than what I am used to hearing in North America.

Our first day we were a bit disoriented from the 17 hour flight and lack of proper sleep. We had those horrid seats that are right in front of the bathrooms, that don’t really recline. Miss communication about payment upon arrival for the apartment we are renting in San Thelmo, lead to us having to find other accommodations for the weekend and relocate our selves in Colegiales near the Palermo district. This has been kind of great as we have been able to focus on this Barrio for now. We have been staying at Despartes B&B that has rooms without windows and the beds are like lumpy marshmallows. The staff is more than great and the location good.

The money has been a bit of a challenge as Visa has an odd policy with Argentina or is it Argentina’s odd policy with Visa? That you can only withdraw $300 pesos per transaction. This means they collect multiple transaction fees and you lot of time at the ATM. Most placed do not take plastic, as Rachel says,”cash is king” here.

Our first night on our own we tried to find a Drag show and after much searching and driving around, we found the one we were looking for but not at the address where it was listed but several blocks away at a new and different location. This discovery was quite serendipitous as we had walked by it the night before and it had piqued my curiosity while strolling around with Rachel’s friends who live here and I had made a note to try to come back. Our outing stated by leaving our B&B around 9PM dressed up and ready for action, walking a few blocks to the closest main street to catch a cab. We hear drumming and the sounds of crowds and see flags waving and can’t decipher if it is a late night protest or parade? Upon closer examinations it indeed is a parade that must be sanctioned as the street is closed off and traffic is being diverted. We notice that the flags we had seen form down the block are of The Three Stooges ?!?!? The paraders costumes are white tuxedo style suites with tails and hats with sequin appliques of Rolling Stones lips and various Disney characters and more Three Stooges. We also notice that the many of the children are spraying people with shaving cream. Rachel smartly suggests we move away from the crowd and on to the sidewalk for safety, me in need to document mode, does not heed this wise suggestion and sure enough I get sprayed, as did Rachel, she had decided to follow me. We assume this was a carnival event of some sort and decide to leave in search the drag show.

Traveling to Argentina with a vegetarian would seem like a bit of an obstacle course, but actually is not. Thanks to our two travel books we have located some fine options like Bio offering organic vegetarian fare at it best. The Quinoa Blinis and the Quinoa risotto were amazing, as was the ginger lemonade. We ate at Lotus a great Thai restaurant our fist night here and the beef sate was the best I have ever eaten, must be that famous Argentinean beef I have heard so much about and have yet to really sink my teeth into. While on the topic of eating I had read about Thierry Pszonda one of the top chefs in Buenos Aires who has received many awards and is a new member of Maitres Cuisiniers de France, and so we trekked over to The Hotel Sofitel last night to dine at Le Sud. The atmosphere was a bit sterile, though the renovated Deco building beautiful. This is where we saw the Parisian architectural influence on the city in the barrio called Reitro, with amazing modernist apartment buildings mixed in. I had a salad that was overwhelmingly huge and a lamb dish that was half good (a ragout of sorts that had been slow cooked for 16 hours was exceptional, the flavor sublime) and the other half not much to talk about. This included a quite grotesque cheese platter not really worth mentioning other than to say it was not worth mentioning. I think my friend Juli Guillemette currently at Brasa in Seattle could show Thierry a thing or two about portions and presentation.

Yesterday we engaged in a day of extremes in Kitsch.
After having our morning tea at 2 PM and lunch (at 4PM) at Bio we took a taxi over to Tierra Santa the world’s only religious theme park. It is fiberglass homage to Bethlehem and Christ’s odyssey. My two favorite things were the Resurrection of Christ (which occurs every hour, not quite on the hour) of a 40-foot Jesus (out of a mound) with 36 mechanical movements, the eyes opening and closing was a highlight. The second part was observing the reverence and joy that some of the religiously inclined park dwellers were experiencing. The other adventure in kitsch was our late night romp to Philip Stark’s recently designed Hotel called Faena Hotel + Universe in Puerto Madero the new artist district.

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