First Full Day in Buenos Aires

Our first full day in Buenos Aires flew by (still no pictures - but tomorrow, we promise!). We woke up and went down to the little restaurant in our hotel for the "Home Breakfast," which included a "shot" of scrambled eggs, breads, fruits, juices and cafe con leche. Then we went out to walk around the neighborhood and do some shopping. It's pretty cold here (about 40 degrees Farenheit in the morning) and all of Jen's shoes (other than her flip flops) were in the bag that the airline lost, so we tried to find some shoes for Jen. Long story short, there are no shoes in Argentina that fit Jen's feet and style requirements. But it was a great way to walk around the neighborhood, see the stores (none of which open before noon on Saturday) and check out a local market that was going on. We received no less than 50 stares as "those stupid Americans" walking around in flip flops (with a cup of Starbucks).

After a failed attempt at finding Jen shoes, we came back to the hotel and were informed that the airline had just dropped off Jen's back - so Jen's finicky shoe shopping and huge feet turned out to be a money-saver.

Later on, we walked to the downtown to run an errand at the main shopping mall (more on this in a future blog post...) and grabbed a bite to eat at a little restaurant/bar downtown, which was pretty cool (our first menu with zero English). I sampled Quilmes (one of the local beers) and explained (purely at Jen's request, I swear) how the speculative investments of large financial institutions facilitated the acceleration of the economic recession. (Jen said, after two glasses of wine, that it was "riveting"). Also of note, after coaching Jen no less than 12 times in how to politely ask for a glass of water, she panicked when the waiter came and sheepishly said, "Agua?" As Jen always says, blame the student, not the teacher, right? It was nice to walk around the city and see the sights. The mall was pretty impressive (if you like malls).

We then headed back to the hotel and rested up a bit before heading out for an amazing dinner at Don Julio's. The local specialty is "parillas" (pronounced "pear-ee-shas"), which describes a steakhouse style of grilling meat. It was awesome. If you're there in the near future - look above the middle of the bar for the bottle of wine we signed: "Excellente! Muchas gracias, Don Julio! Jack & Jen, Philadelphia USA." (Jen insists that I note that we selected the wine based on a Saved By the Bell Reference. In the episode where Jessie's step-brother from NYC comes to town, he has a notable east-coast accent and repeatedly says, "Ah... Lisa" to Lisa Turtle. The bottle of wine was "A Lisa" from Patogonia).

Tomorrow is the San Telmo market and whatever else we feel like! We promise to post pictures tomorrow.