They arrived to Buenos Aires on a Sunday, and I was excited to take them to the antique market in San Telmo. You can never get sick of people-watching there, and if you have the patience for rummaging through old crap you can find some cool stuff. Dad couldn't get enough of the old maps, navigation tools, cameras, and martini shakers from the 1930s (?) and of course it was my practical mom that made him realize he didn't need any of that junk.
Then I had to work for a few days, so I let them loose to explore the city. I felt like the roles had switched- now I was the supervisor and they were the unknowing 'children.' I was SO nervous they were going to get lost or robbed or not be able to ask for something they needed in Spanish! I constantly sent them texts/emails to make sure they were ok. Now I understand what it was like for them when I was a teenager :)
They had a busy first week: they flew to Iguazu and back in a day, and then went to every tourist (and nontourist) haven BA. They did tours of everything- double decker bus tour, walking tours, and even a graffiti tour. They probably know more about BA than I do. Some places that I took Mom and Dad that I will never get sick of:
La Boca: named for the 'mouth' of the old port, where the poor people used to paint their homes with the left-over paint from the shipyard. This created an eclectic neighborhood with multicolored shacks. Nowadays there are a couple cool streets that remind me of Disneyland and the rest of the neighborhood is really sketchy. Also a photographer's candy store.
Puerto Madero: the new fancy port
Plaza de Mayo: the historic plaza where Argentina finally separated from Spain and had many other important political and social demonstrations. Please note the completely sacrilegious and utterly inebriated-looking blow-up Jesus next to the Church of Buenos Aires on Easter.
Street art in Palermo and Villa Crespo: always cool
Tango: it tends to be more popular among the older crowd, but impressive nonetheless. We went to both a tango SHOW and to a MILONGA, which is basically a dance hall where real people go to dance tango with different partners. If you think drunk Americans bumping and grinding at a club is sexual, you haven't been to a milonga.
We also went to Tigre, the delta inlet of the Rio de la Plata where people live on little islands.
And I can't leave out all the great meals we ate. Dad wasn't happy if we didn't have steak once a day. We definitely drank wine EVERY night (even Mom, which is out of character for those of you know that Tina is normally the sober one while Ira takes it down like a champ). I strategically planned to take them to all the best restaurants in the city so they could enjoy the all food here (and because, let's face it, I work for pesos now which doesn't allow me to indulge all that often even though a steak/wine dinner costs less than $20 per person).
My personal favorite parts of the trip were traveling to Bariloche and Mendoza. It felt a lot more like traveling since now I live in BA, and it was great to get out of the hustle bustle and into nature. The next 2 blog posts will cover the rest of the trip. Stay tuned.
