good air

I've decided that the city of "good air" is now one of my favourite - the food, the culture, the history, the politics, the people, the language, the buildings, the shopping... I'm talking about Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Before arriving, South America didn't appear to be that far away.... just the next continent along on the map (when Australia is in the middle). However, after a 4 hours to Sydney, 5 hours to Auckland, 13 hours to Santiago and 1.5 hours to Buenos Aires, I realised that either a) South America is far far away, b) Australia is very isolated from the rest of the world or c) both answers are true.

Despite this fact, I landed on my feet ready to go. Having done my research, I got on the bus with a lion on it, which got me directly to my hostel without having to deal with taxis or speaking much Spanish. boom, small victory. However, my attempt at getting dinner turned out to be disastrous, trying to order margarita pizza and ending up with a piece of plain toasted pizza base... I have no idea what went wrong.

My hostel was amazing, and if you're going to stay in Buenos Aires and want to meet people, then I definitely recommend staying at Milhouse Avenue (not Hipo). That's where I met Camilo, Carolina, Heidi, Fanny and a whole bunch of other people that were amazingly fun. I do not recommend staying at Hostel Suites Florida. Yuck. 

There are plenty of places to get free wi-fi in Buenos Aires, but my favourite is the Starbucks near the Obelisco, drinking a Dulce de Leche frappucino and watching people walk past. Good times. And the bathrooms there are big enough for you to take all your luggage in and get changed. 

If you love books, you have to go to El Ateneo. There's several around (two on Florida Ave), but we went to see the big one that is an old theater transformed into a four story book store. Amazing. I actually bought Persuasion (Jane Austen) in Spanish. One day I will read it. 

There were so many delicious meals I ate there, most of them containing fried potatoes in some fashion, especially when you go to a restaurant named El Palacio de la Papa Frita (the palace of fried potato). Meat was plentiful, and dulce de leche is incredible. I love chimmichurri, so much so that I brought a cookbook about traditional Argentine cuisine - it's in Spanish (yes, I bought it from El Ateneo).

This is my overview of Buenos Aires. There's so much more I will tell you of my time in Argentina... 

In the mean time, have you checked out what I'm doing next year? Click the "my year in Kenya" tab up above!