Not So Much Time to Explore

Pizza Dinner at the Pad

Two posts in the same day, you ask? Well, not really. The last one - Reality Check was written about a week ago. I finally had time to put the text and some photos together.

I am finding out that it pays to keep up with a web log every few days. We have been so busy with our school routine and day-to-day operations that it can be hard to remember what we did three days ago. School days typically go the fastest. The kids are up by 7 AM, and I walk Bianca to school at 0740. Back to the apartment to get Diego ready, and he is off to Jardin at 835.

When we first arrived, Silvia and I had some lofty plans of sightseeing and checking out other areas of the city, but we have found ourselves to be limited to the times between 9 and 12 when Diego is in school, and from 1320 to 1620 when Bianca is in her afternoon session. While we don’t regret putting the kids in school, it definitely has cramped our style on the exploration front. By necessity, it has put us more into a normal living routine, rather than a vacation-style outlook.

We did manage to get down to Puerto Madero last week on one of our morning jaunts. Puerto Madero is the revitalized dock and warehouse district east of downtown Buenos Aires. After languishing in neglect for about 20 years, the area was brought back to life in the early 90’s. It is now the location for a nice yacht harbor, offices, loft apartments, and a slew of upscale hotels and restaurants. Also nearby are the quays for the high-speed ferries to Uruguay, operated by Buquebus. Time and finances permitting, we may take one of the ferries over to Colonia, Uruguay on the other side of the Rio de Plata.

Pictures (Top to Bottom) Puerto Madero and Buquebus Ferries

We stopped for coffee and a pastry for about 45 minutes before we had to make our way back to Palermo. While the Puerto Madero area is very nice, neither of us have much desire to return later. We don’t see it as a very accurate reflection of the essence of Buenos Aires. I am sure there are plenty of nice restaurants, bars, and such, but all of them are geared (and priced) towards tourists and the wealthiest 1%. Since we have been here, the places we have enjoyed the most are what you might call the “local hangouts.” We tend to pop in and eat at any place that looks interesting to us.

Not to say that we don’t sometimes plan our restaurant outings. We found a nice website - http://www.guiaoleo.com.ar/ , a comprehensive online restaurant guide to Buenos Aires. You can search by type of cuisine, restaurant name, and location. If I find somewhere interesting, I plug the address into my interactive map website: http://www.cybermapa.com/ . Put in the street name for Calle and the number in Altura and the map comes up. We have used it to find a few places in the immediate area. Since we usually eat a lot of local Argentine food, we have been going more for the “ethnic” foods: a Chinese restaurant and two Mexican places here in Palermo.

We wish everyone our best. We have been lazy recently about taking photos, and plan to post some new ones in the near future.