Buenos Aires - Day 4

Yesterday was mostly work. I woke up, slightly hungover, at 9:24…I was supposed to meet my colleague for breakfast at 9:20, so this posed a problem. I ran up to the floor where we were meeting to tell him I wasn't going to breakfast, and we decided to meet in the lobby around 9:45. A quick shower later and I was on my way! The walk through Plaza San Martin was pleasant…the weather really is beautiful down here.

Work was uneventful…we did what we needed to do. For lunch we went to a pizza joint. We walked through all of these plaza/malls to get there. That was interesting because it seemed this is where the locals were eating, less touristy…though we passed a few McDonalds' along the way. The pizza was good - flat crust, brick oven style. The first one we got was with mushrooms, but the second was very interesting. It had cheese, bacon and eggs! It was my choice, just because it sounded so odd. It looked as though they made the pizza with the cheese and bacon, and then right before putting it in the oven, they cracked an egg in the middle. Basically a bacon egg and cheese sandwich on a pizza. It was very good. Our host was telling us how the waitresses at that place used to be a little off-putting/unattractive…then there was a Victoria's Secret fashion show somewhere and the girls wound up at the pizza place (I think something was lost in the translation here) and the place was packed, so they started to hire more attractive waitresses. Not sure if any of that was true, but the waitresses weren't bad!

We worked into the evening, slowly getting our stuff done. One of my colleagues left for the hotel because he had nothing to do until the next day. We finished up around 8ish and then went to dinner.

We went to the same general area as the night before (a plaza behind the Casa Rosada), but this was an Italian place. We showed up around 8:30 and the place was almost empty. I figured it was because it's the middle of the week in the summer and most of the locals are on vacation. We ordered - I had the gnocchi a patata with a cream sauce, ham, chicken and mushrooms. My meal was by far the biggest on the table - I swear it was for two! I couldn't believe it! My American colleague had lasagna and was done before I even made a dent in my plate. Not wanting to insult our host, and not wanting to hear it from the other American, I put my head down and finished the whole plate! Afterwards, the dessert menu came. It contained tiramisu...so I had dessert. I am still full at 10am the next morning as I write this! I swear I'm hungover from the food! But the meal was excellent. By the time we were done it was about 10:30 and the place was packed! Every table was seated. It turns out that most Argentines don't eat dinner until around 9:30. They seem to have a very care-free attitude down here - we were always the first to arrive in the morning as everyone else would breeze in around 9:30, 10am. They'd work until around 6 or 7 usually and then head home. I guess it works for them, though our host was saying that they eat such a big meal and then go to bed a few hours later. That's not the best thing!

The restaurant was along an inlet from the Rio de la Plata. We had a table right on the window (imagine an outdoor section of a restaurant, but enclosed in glass) and had some nice people-watching on the walkway between us and the water. On the little island/peninsula (isthmus?) they are building tall towers full of condos. Our host was telling us that they were going for about $3,000 (US) per sq ft. He said it was by far the most expensive housing in Buenos Aires. He also told us of the political turmoil from about 7 years ago when they had 5 presidents in about 2 months. I couldn't even imagine what it'd be like to go through that. He said that the economy was at it's worst point then, and they have been stable and growing ever since those events calmed down. The booming tourist industry has helped this. It was very interesting to hear this kind of history from a local instead of reading it in the paper or in a book. To hear how the people all basically came out to protest and oust one of the Presidents was very cool.

After dinner we were dropped off at the hotel. After freshening up, my buddy and I walked around Buenos Aires a little bit. We walked a different route than the night before, but most of the places were shut down. This was a little troublesome as my colleague doesn't seem to know how to not act like a loud American. Here we are walking around downtown Buenos Aires at night and he's talking English to me as if we were at a NASCAR event and he was screaming over the engines, wearing his shorts and white sneakers with his New England Patriots t-shirt and his Superbowl ring he got from when he used to work for the Pats. I, on the other had, am dressed a little more conservatively and was keeping my head on a swivel to make sure no one started trailing us since we could obviously be pegged as tourists. We wound up back in the same area as the night before, but in a different bar. The place we went to had a Pirate theme…but it really just felt like we were in a Chilis. But they had a Sprite Zero, so that helped the digestion of that mammoth meal.

We only had a drink and then headed back to the hotel. I was so freakin tired I just about passed out upon entering the room. I scheduled a wakeup call (didn't want to make THAT mistake again) and fell asleep watching the Sharapova match from the Aussie Open Semifinal. I really didn't want to get out of bed this morning, but that's a story for tomorrow.