We've Got Company!

Hard to believe, but we are into our final week here in Buenos Aires. Silvia is on the road to recovery, and we have been able to get out and about more often. After so many days inside, it was nice to take her out for a nice café breakfast and a movie with the kids. She also made it to her Arabian dance class on Friday.

The highlight of the last few days was the arrival of Silvia’s sister Lorena from Los Angeles. She will be spending our last week here with us and flying back on the same flight. Her flight arrived last Thursday morning on time, but unfortunately without her baggage. Apparently the TSA decided to screen connecting bags to her LAN flight, which resulted in the flight leaving without her bags, as well as the other connecting passengers from LAX. The bags were eventually delivered to our apartment, one later that day, and another the following morning.

We have been doing our best to show her some of the local sights, and some of our favorite hangouts. Xoana, our babysitter, was available on Friday night, so we were able to leave the kids and have an “adults night out,” which was very enjoyable. We decided to go back to the Las Canitas restaurant / bar district and eat at Las Cholas, a classic Argentina parilla. It was the place that was recommended to us on our last visit to Las Canitas.

Some Pretty Mexican Girls I Found On the Street

For dinner we decided to order one of the house specialties, a combination plate of different meats from the parilla. It was touted as being able to feed two, maybe three people. My observation was that what we were served could have fed two or three NFL linemen. Combined with our grilled vegetable spread we ordered, it was an incredible amount of food - too much for one guy and two skinny girls! Fortunately for us they had a takeout box for us.

A Meat Eater's Dream --- A Vegetarian's Nightmare

After the dinner we walked down the street in search of a watering hole. The bars were still relatively empty when we arrived at Jackie O’s at 11 PM. It was nice, because we were able to get some choice seats at the bar as the place started to fill up. It was an interesting mix of people, generally an over-30 crowd. The music videos they were showing were a good eclectic selection as well. A local production company had put together some “remixes” of sorts, kind of like a greatest hits video for several groups. The one for Jamiroquai sticks in my mind for some reason.

Nena's Newest Friend

Typical Airline Pilot

Another highlight of the weekend was our Sunday visit to San Telmo, an older and historic part of Buenos Aires just south of the downtown microcentro area. They have a street fair every week featuring wares for sale, live dancers and music. We were hoping to see some live tango dancers, but being that the weather was a bit grey and windy at times, I don’t think they were out in force. We did get to listen to a couple of excellent tango musical groups, and a duo playing one of my favorite styles, a bossa nova combo of guitar/vocal and saxophone. All of us managed to find some items of interest to buy, ranging from BsAs souvenirs and shirts to a head massaging tool for Silvia.

Mc Donald's Tango Style

Diego's First Tango Partner

(Above - Various San Telmo Scenes)

It was quite a long day of walking, subway rides, and exploration. However, we had made plans earlier in the week to take our friend Robert Diaz to dinner. Our entire group of six piled into a cab, and we had dinner at Cabrones, a Mexican restaurant. The food wasn’t very spectacular (I.e., not very spicy), but we had a nice time hanging out and chatting with Robert. He is a 23-year old medical student from Peru who we met working the desk at our Tae Kwon Do / Danza Arabe gym across the street. He is planning on doing some of his residency in Houston in the coming year. Hopefully we will have the chance to meet up again next spring.

Cabrones Dining at Cabrones

Planning to get another post out before we leave on Thursday. It is getting to be “crunch time”, trying to get as many things in as we can before we have to head back to the USA.