boujin

Touched down in Buenos Aires.  The city is slowing unfolding its many hidden wonders to us.  I'm still up in the air as to how long we should stay in the city.  At first we were thinking two weeks and then we went back to one, but after getting a very nice description of the sites of the city from the Pax hostel, I'm ready to push the time out once again.

I haven't been to many cities in Europe so it is a little hard for me to compare, however, I'll go with the flow and say that this city is very European in style. From the well planned plazas and architecture to the cobble stone streets and trams there are so many parts of the city that make the city look like the perfect movie set.  It really hit me today when we took a stroll through the center of downtown and saw the Plaza de Mayo.  The buildings in that area are just gorgeous and you can just stare at them for hours.  

Honestly, the food leaves a little to be desired... the only food that we can find is pizza, empanadas and steak.  We have heard tales of international cuisine to be found in the trendy neighborhood of Palermo, which is where I think we are headed tomorrow.  One of the hostel staff suggested a Thai place in the China town on the other side of town.  For all my love of bread, cheese, and meat, I'm a bit surprised that I'm starting to get a bit worn out.

Since writing the paragraph above, I have now gone over to Palermo in search of foreign food and found very little.   I was surprised to find that the only foreign food available was Indian, really expensive Japanese-Peruvian and one Chinese place.  There were a couple of organic food places as well, but the variety no where near matched what I thought it might be.  Unfortunately, both Indian places were closed for some reason that was beyond us so we ended up at a cafe and ate pizza and sandwiches.  Yeah!

The stroll around Palermo taught us just how good the neighborhood of San Telmo is (for us) and I'm glad that we booked a few nights in the San Telmo area instead of Palermo.  We are now staying at the Rayuela.  Hisako is the first Japanese person to stay at the hostel so that is kind of exciting.  For good measure, the staff told me I was the first person from Ohio.  Rejoice!  With all this hostel hopping here in BA, we now know the type of hostel that we like to stay at - small, clean, good kitchen and quiet at night.  The last two places we stayed at weren't quite that way and Rayuela meets some of the criteria and falters on a few..

We had a bit of a scary moment yesterday when checking out of the Pax hostel.  We were just outside of the door when a guy approached us speaking Spanish very quickly.  Both of us didn't understand what he was saying and when I tried to step around him, he stepped in front of me.  He diverted his attention to Hisako and started saying "money" so I rang the hostel's doorbell and they let us back inside.  The guy quickly walked away and the staff inside took a look around to make sure things were safe.  During this check, they also realized that they had only charged us for Hisako... so we went back to the counter and paid for me as well.  Can't believe they didn't check both of us out!

To date we haven't had any scary experiences while on the road.  It was a bit of a wake up call for in terms of security and a good reminder not to let my guard down.  While traveling I have been very fortunate and I think that is primarily due to the security conscious Hisako traveling with me. She's always great at reminding me to carry my backpack in front of me or keep my hand in my pocket when we are busy areas.  After the incident yesterday, though, I'm a bit more paranoid for the both of us.  While I don't want to go overboard to the point of making the trip boring, I was glad for yesterday's experience to teach me a little about traveling where it pays to be aware.

On one hand crime and a bit of paranoia are parts of life in the big city and on the other you have the stimulating and fascinating activities provided my people of many nationalities and backgrounds.  The indie rock ground Franz Ferdinand was in Buenos Aires to play at Luna Park on Friday night.  I rounded up a group of strangers then friends from the hostel to go along with me to see the concert.  At about $20 for a two hour concert we were treated to a pretty good show.  The highlight of the evening probably came on the trip there, however.  We got in a cab because time was running a bit short and one of the guys in the group could speak Spanish pretty well.  He began chatting with the taxi driver for a bit and it wasn't long before the taxi driver was belting out Italian opera songs that caused other cabbies to turn their heads and smile.  I wanted the drive down to Luna Park to last much longer than the 20 minutes were were in the cab and would have gladly traded a few pesos that I had give to Franz Ferdinand to the taxi driver for another hour of amazing entertainment.

I had just finished skimming through the Vagabonding book once again and that moment really fit in my head as one of those priceless moments that you just have to ride as long as possible.  It was just an amazing coincidence that one guy could speak Spanish, another had a strong interest in opera that only encouraged the opera singing traffic driver to rush into the next song as soon as he finished the last one.

Traveling the world is beginning to teach me the truth of what Vagabonding was telling me all along.  You can go and see all the famous sites and areas throughout the world, but its the people that truly make an adventure and one that sticks in your mind.