Our first impression of Buenos Aires

Hello!

We just wanted to touch base with you guys and let you know how things are going for us.   We're settled in our apartment and for the most part we have become familiar with our neighborhood.    I don't know if anyone is familiar with the city of Buenos Aires but we chose to live in the Palermo Soho area.   This area reminds me of a cross between Highland Village and the Montrose area (for my friends back in Houston).   The area is filled with stores (furniture, clothing, shoes), tons of restaurants (bistro style outdoor sitting), and we're a few blocks from Plaza Cortazar where there are tons more stores, restaurants, and coffee houses.  The few blocks around this plaza are pedestrian areas only.   It's fabulous here.  

The city has wonderful vibes and often compared to Manhattan New York with a Spanish flare.  Major difference between the two cities is attitude.  People are nice here.


We walk daily down different streets each time exploring new terrain.   And of course we're big fans of the public transportation system utiliziling the bus, subway and an occasional cab.  The only thing we have not ridden yet is the train.  But we do plan to do so as soon as we figure out where it goes.  

We spent 2 days looking for an apartment in this huge city.   Enough time?  Not really.  We do enjoy our area but after exploring the city at greater lengths, we've found there may have been other areas more attractive to us.   


With all the restuarants nearby, do you know we have not eaten out one time since we've moved into this apartment.   I'm enjoying my kitchen and cook all our meals.   One day we'll get out there and enjoy all the parrillas "grilling" this town has to offer.   Steak...Steak...Steak!  Supreme beef here.

We did walk to the golf course one day.  That was about a 5 mile walk one way.   We found out it was a municipal course and dirt cheap.   $5.00 for a round and $18 for club rentals which includes a pullcart.   The weather is starting to warm up and we'll be out swinging away soon.   

This city is full of high rise apartments.  In fact we've probably only seen 2 or 3 homes tucked in between the apartment buildings.   When we were researching for apartments we had our choice of thousands of places and it became very overwhelming.

Looks like a great place to live but I'm betting the road noise is as bad as ours.   We chose to live on a busy intersection too.

A view of Libertador street from a Pedistrian bridge.  

We really enjoyed walking around this barrio called Recoleta.

(Museums, parks, malls and cinemas).

This is an usual piece of art called the Floralis Generica.

A metallic flower in the middle of a park and the pedals

open and close base on the amount of solar rays that are absorbed.

We had to check out the Cementerio de la Recoleta.  Love visiting cemetaries as much as I love seeing churches.   No, I'm not a freak!   This cemetary was one of the coolest ones we've seen.  

This is like a small town with streets and alleyways

filled with thousands of Crypts.

It is also a prime attraction for the tomb of

Evita Peron.

So many different styles of crypts, some more

eleborate than others.

Forkway in the road. 

We'd say this family has some prime property

being in the middle.

This is the inside of crypt.  Most of these crypts

had mantles that displayed family photos, plants,

and the caskets.   Many stored several family members we saw as many

as 10 caskets in one crypt. (see picture below)

Other crypts weren't taken care of. 

The walls and caskets were in pretty bad shape.

This one was home to the soldiers lost in the war against Paraguay.

Protected by soldiers.

Other things to report...

We did find 2 "Expats" bars; Shoeless Joe's and CasaBar.  Why is this important?   It's football season and it's so hard to find a bar that shows Futbol Americano.  This past 2 Sunday's we've been able to watch the Texans and Cowboys (I call them Cacagirls) but they're Bob's team and we watch both teams.  We've meet several Houstonians who now live here.   Do you know how often we meet a Texans fan?  I actually don't think we had till last Sunday.  It's been fun hanging out.   

Just like any big city there's always something going on.  We plan to take in a tango show and maybe a lesson or two.   There are plenty of bike rental places around here and nice routes to explore,  we'll catch a few movies, hang out at squares where art/crafts are displayed weekly, find some Texans Holdem tournaments and check out the casino boats.  My Mom will be visiting us in November so, we'll make sure to figure out all the things to do by the time she arrives.  Can't wait to see her.  We're hoping my Aunt Minnie will join her and visit us as well.

As you can see we're enjoying our time here.   We haven't taken many photos but we'll get around to that soon and publish when we do.

Hope everything is going well for you. 
Much love - B&B