May 22: 22,118 steps in Buenos Aires, Argentina

This morning Kristi, Spodek and I walked around San Telmo, the area where Ana lives and where our hostel is. We went to a café called Gran Café Tortoni, one of the most popular attractions in Buenos Aires. It was very fancy, reminded me of St. Elmo’s, but café version. We had coffee and croissants. Then we walked around some more and went to the market for lunch. We got a bundle of bananas, 3 loaves of bread, and some cheese. We sat in a little square and ate our lunch. It was a very relaxing morning.

This afternoon we took a bus to La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires province. We visited Casa Curutchet, the only housing project in the Americas done by Le Corbusier. Not my favorite style of architecture, but I can appreciate the thought process.

Then we went to the La Plata Cathedral, which was absolutely beautiful. I didn’t know cathedrals of that magnitude where even in South America. It was so pretty!

After we got back to the hostel, a group of us walked around the city some more and stopped at a café for coffee. And I actually ordered a coffee! It was half coffee half milk and some sugar, but it was a big step for me in coffee world. Kristi was excited.

We went to dinner at a small pizza place a few blocks away from Ana’s house. Four of us ordered 3 different meals and split them to get a taste of everything! And it was all super delicious. Then we went across the street and got gelato! The eating schedule here is later than the US. Their sit down restaurants don’t even open until 8pm, and that is still an early dinner. It’s nice because we always get right in to where we are eating, but at the same time we are always starving by the time dinner rolls around.

After dinner we walked down to the town square. Monday is their Independence Day, so this weekend is a big celebration. There was a concert going on with tons of people and food vendors and little side street shops. It was a really fun atmosphere! It felt like Disney World at night time during a castle performance before fireworks.

When we got back to the hostel tonight, Kristi and I decided to do some laundry. Since there is no good place to wash clothes here, we just washed them during our showers. I just used a bar of soap and lathered each article of clothing. It took me forever, even longer than my normal showers. I rung out everything and hung it up under the bed slats in our bunk beds. As I am typing this blog now everything is starting to drip because I guess I didn’t ring it out good enough! I hope I don’t wake up soaking wet in the morning!