Day 3 - Unorganized

We were having so much fun yesterday that we forgot to make plans for today.... so we winged it. I'd also like to anwer a few questions that have come up in some of the comments. Also, I forgot my camera today, so we used Dennis' -- he sleeping now and I don't have access to it; I'll post the pictures tomorrow. Also, if you click the slide show (upper right side of this site) you can see all of our photos so far (less today's, of course).

We slept in a wee bit, but not too late. As I didn't want to make the same mistake tomorrow as today, I went downstairs to the neighbors apartment to discuss plans for Thursday. I was greeted by Maria Terisita & her husband Hector (both in their late 70's). What a charmer Maria Terisita is-- a retired school teacher, mother of 4 and living in the same apartment since the late 1940's. Between her broken english and my broken spanish we were able to get along just fine. Dennis and Jay joined us and we got to know eachother spendidly. They are really nice people -- we're fortunate to have them around to help (they look after the apartment we rent). Maria Terisita suggested an 'all you can eat' beef place in "Puerto Madero", only a few blocks from our home. We also discussed taking a day trip to 'San Antonio de Areco' for Thursday. As it turned out, we couldn't organize quickly enough to make this trip happen on Thursday, so we scheduled for Friday instead.

After a long conversation with our new found friends, we were off to the bank and then to the restaurant that was suggested by Maria Terisita. The restaurant was huge and was full of patrons. We were seated at once; a waitress took our drink order and we soon figured out it was up to us to get our food. There were two places to get food, the salad bar and the meat bar...cool! The salad bar was unique and awesome -- lots of different stuff for us to try. Not different in the ingrediants, but unique in recipes used. Cold eggplant in a slight vinegarette sauce, tuna stuffed ripe red tomoto, vinegar based potato salad with fresh green peas, etc, etc.

The two senior citizens I travel with put me to shame with their ability to consume large quantities of food. I was pretty full after the salads, I thought I'd have a small amount of meat then dessert and be done. Obviously, my travel compations had a different idea -- as Dennis puts it "Meat doesn't count". So off to the meat bar we went. It was impressive, cow parts, chicken, and God only knows what else. We eventually met a guy from Orland who grew up in Buenos Aires to help up negotiate the meat menu. We had ribs, ribeye, prime rib, tenderloin, sirloin, beef thyroids (I thought they were yummy). I ate about a normal portion, trying bits and peices of various items. Dennis and Jay went back for??? I lost track. But if that weren't enough... ice cream, dulce de leche & flan did the trick.

Next we were off to the "Jardin Japones". We took a cab (about 6 dollars US). The garden was nice, but not overly impressive. Since it was close to both the zoo and the botanical gardens we visited these as well (but only walked on the outside of the zoo). The batonical garden had a lot of interesting plants as well as statues (Argentina loves their statues). Once we finished our walk through the various parks and gardens (very nice by the way) we discovered the subway. In an effort to 1) have an experience and 2) save money (saved about $2 USD btw), we took the subway home. If you're clostrophic, hate warm places with no ventilation, hate crowds, dislike feeling like cattle, the Buenos Aires subway is NOT for you. Since we didn't really fall into any of those categories... off we went. Imagine entering a train car that is already to capacity stopping to let three Patterson, who look like oversized lawn ornaments, + plus about 100 other people onboard. It's not pretty, but job accomplished.

We managed to get as close as possible to our apartment via the 'subte', but then I screwed up and starting walking in the wrong direction. After about a mile or two, I asked a cop for directions...oops .. hail a cab (taxi) ... oh well.

By the time we got back it was already 8:00pm. The 'seniors' said they were still too full to eat, but stopped for ice cream anyway. I resisted. We went back to the apartment, chatted with Maria Terisita and Hector again for a bit, the went to relax. About 10:30 I needed some food, so I encouraged the guys to go with me. We walked a few block to an outdoor plaza that housed a number of restaurants. We drank beer, chatted, listened to some various live music going on in the area and had a few bites to eat. The weather was perfect for just hanging out outside.

We never made plans for Thursday. Hey, but Friday's set!

Pictures tomorrow...... adios

Some people's death is more expensive than my life.

After the free tour, we all walked (an additional 2 hour walk, btw) to a historic and famous cemetary in the neighborhood of Recoleta. It was an amazing experience (and kind of creepy too, with all of the stray cats living the in the tombs). We overheard that one of the larger tombs was valued at of $750,000. By the way, you can click on any photos on this site for the larger, more detailed version.

Day 2 -- let's walk around... a lot!

We woke up on Tuesday and decided to take the 'free walking tour of Buenos Aires". What a great service; out guide was a young man from Buenos Aires who shared with us a great deal of information about the polictics, history and culture of this country. We shared this service with a young couple from the UK, a young woman from Australia and a coupld from Israel. It was one of the best thing's I've done in Buenos Aires. We learned so much about this history and it really opened my eyes about a few things; most intersting was the tales of Argentina's 'dirty war'.

End of Day 1

After our naps it was time to.... you guessed it, drink more beer and eat some steak. The neighborhood we are staying in (San Telmo) has more Parilla restaurants than you can shake a stick at. Here in Argentina, beef is king. We've learned to adapt.

Do all Patterson men snore, or what!

This was taken about 20 minutes after arriving at the apartment. Dennis was close by in a similar state. I'll be surprised if our landlord let's us stay many nights as I'm quite positive that somewhere on Earth some sceintist is trying to figure out why his richtor scale is showing tremors in Buenos Aires after eons of stability in this region.

This is our home away from home?

We cruised through the Buenos Aires airport (had our temp taken with heat sensor camera things). Found a taxi, and about 30 minutes later we arrived to this part of time.... oh,oh..what have I done. Even the cabby said "muy peligrosa"; translated as 'very dangerous'. As it turns out, the area is a bit sketchy but otherwise safe. We see police walking their beat at all hours of the day / night. As for the apartment itself, it's not as nice as the website indicates, but it's more than adequate. The apartment website is here.

The long flight

During the long flight from Atlanta to Buenos Aires (10+ hours) Doug slept the most, then Jay and Dennis claims he didn't sleep at all (but his eyes were shut quite a while...hmmm??). Due to the H1N1 2009 virus, we did notice a few passengers wearing facemasks, but not many. We flew Delta, I'm not that impressed with its service (shared TV's in the aisles as apposed to personal entertainment systems seen on most airlines nowadays). The food was OK, there was little turbulance, so all was ok.

Day 1 - Take Off

Sunday May 3rd was finally our day to go. Here we are doing what we Patterson men do best... drinking a beer. This was our innagural beer at the Des Moines international airport. We flew from here to Atlanta, then on to Buenos Aires. At this point, everyong is health and happy. Wish us luck!

Contacting Us

While we are in Argentina, we'll have access to the Vonage phone system; giving us an US telephone number. This will allow us to make & receive free calls to/from the US. The number is 818-303-1363. Should our internet be down, we can be reached via a land-line number as well - 011-54-11-4300-4951. We'll also have a cell phone with us when we're out and about. I'll publish that number once we know it.

What to Pack?

I love to travel light. It makes schlepping through the airport easier and we have three flights of stairs to get into our actual apartment (sorry, no elevator). Since the apartment has a washer and dryer, coupled with the fact that we'll probably not see temperatures over 70 (probably no swimming on this trip), I plan on just packing about three sets of pants and shirts and my toiletries. This way I'm light on the run and will only need to do laundry once or maybe twice. I recall from my previous trips that shorts aren't as common in Buenos Aires and it's actually frowned upon in restaurants. I'll bring just one pair. Depending on what you want to purchase for gifts / souvenirs you may want to have either extra room in your luggage or bring a smaller bag along for such things. I will say that clothes are cheap in Buenos Aires and if you're in the market for a new leather coat, get it in Buenos Aires (custom made).

Besides clothing and toiletries, a cribbage board, camera and my medications are are all I'm brining. It'll take me 10 minutes to pack before I leave for the airport.

Speaking of medications, make sure you're stocked up on any regular meds you're taking as getting a refill in Argentina will be costly and problematic. Additionally, I'm going to call my physician tomorrow and see if I should get some Tamiflu in the unlikely event that this new 'swine flu' gets me while in route. I'll update you all on the swine flue later tomorrow.

Money and Credit Cards

Money in Argeninta is called pesos, but they use the same $ (dollar sign) as we do in the USA. One can be confused looking at a menu and see a price of "$7.40" for a cold beer. Fear not, this is only $2 in US terms as the current exchange rate is approximately 3.7 Pesos = 1 USD. One should assume all prices in Argentina are in pesos. If something is priced in US dollars it will be clearly marked (e.g. US$50).

ATM machines are the best way to exchange money in Buenos Aires. Most of the machines work with the +Plus network. These should work with your debit, credit and ATM cards. These machines do NOT dispense US dollars, only Argentinian Pesos. Depending on your bank, they may or may not charge a minimal amount for a foreign transaction. However a few things should be done before departure:

1) If you plan on using your cards on a trip to Argentina, it's best to call the issuing bank and let them know that you are about to travel. This will keep them from blocking any transactions as part of their automated fraud protection.
2) Depending on your daily withdrawal limits, you can work with your bank to establish different limits during your travel.

The apartment we are renting has a built-in safe for holding our passports, money, etc. I advise that we store our credit cards in the safe once we've withdrawn the appropriate cash from the ATM. Our apartment is only 4 or 5 blocks from a bank with an ATM. As can be seen below.


View Buenos Aires Tourist & Restaurant Map in a larger map

When withdrawing Pesos from an ATM, be careful to NOT round to the nearest 100 pesos, as small bills are good to have around (taxis, etc.). So rather than withdrawing 400 pesos, withdraw 370 to insure you recieve some smaller demoninations.

Planning

The company I work for invested in an Electronic Health Record (EHR) about a year ago. Since then I've been putting in 80 -100 hour work weeks. Quite frankly, I'm feeling burned out. So I decided to get away from it all for a few days.
About a week ago, I called my father and asked if he'd be up for a trip. We didn't have any place specific that we wanted to go, so I made several sample itineraries with corresponding budgets and we began to weigh our options.
Dad and I talked about inviting dad's brother, Dennis, along for the trip, so we shared the list of itineraries with him. After a couple of conversations, we ended up agreeing to go to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
I've been there twice before, but not in the last 5 years. Dad and Dennis have never been there. With only 10 days to prepare, my work is cut out for me.

The first step for us was to nail down a flight. I went with trusty Orbitz and found round trip flights for $841 -- not bad for leaving out of Des Moines, especially given less than two weeks' notice. The flight goes from Des Moines to Atlanta, then from Atlanta directly to Buenos Aires. That second flight is a doozy.. 10+ hours long, during the middle of the night.

The good news is that there's only a 2 hour time difference when you get there (BA is two hours ahead of us here in Iowa). This shouldn't cause us any jetlag. Here's the flight route we'll be taking:



Also, I picked seats for our flights in three separate rows that, at the time of booking, each had three empty seats. My hope is that this stays this way so we can have extra room to lie down. We're assigned to seats 33E,34E & 35E. You can monitor this flight's seat assignments (to see if the seats next to us stay open) by going here. I did the same thing for our return flight but for seats 30E, 31E & 32E, you can check this flights seating assignments here.



Having been to Buenos Aires twice before, I knew the value of renting an apartment rather than staying in a hotel. Not only is it more comfortable, it's less expensive. After searching quite a few options, I finally decided to rent an apartment in the downtown Buenos Aires neighborhood of San Telmo . While my previous stays in Buenos Aires were in the neighborhood of Recoleta, I know San Telmo to be a nice place too. You can see a video of the actual apartment in the two videos below. We're getting all of this for about $50 per person per night (that's Motel 6 prices).





For more information on things to do, restaurants and other tips go to this site.