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.