We found an apartment

Daniel and I checked out of the hostel today to move into our apartment.  Daniel got put into contact with a fellow Santiago from LetsGo Argentina. Santiago was much more effective that the company I had contacted before leaving for Argentina.  Within 24 hours, he found us some places, we picked one and there you go.  


Since we had to wait a couple of hours, we wondered around the San Telmo neighbourhood.  I really like this neighbourhood.  It's old school, cobble stone streets, tons of stores, restaurants and cafés and the famous San Telmo market. We stopped to look at the Plaza Eva Peron but it was unfortunately dissapointing.  It's in the middle of a large street and I think some homeless people are using the statue area as a home since there was a mattress on it.

Plaza Eva Peron à la homeless shelter.

We then went to meet Santiago at the apartment.  The place is in Retiro which is a very business and tourist up-iddy area.  It was in a great location, on Suipacha Street (between Alvénar and Paraguay) and it has no buses - much quieter.  The apartment is a studio, two single beds, table and chairs, small kitchen and full bathroom including a bidet which I stayed away from  considering my last experience.  It's in a great location close to Subte and 152 bus that took us everywhere.  We even had a supermercado two doors down. Here's a video I took with Dan's camera of our window view on a rainy day (not that interesting).

Dan took off to do his volunteering so I went off in search of lunch.  I went to El Cuartito, a pizza joint recommended by Santiago.  Pizza is really popular in BA.  El Cuartito is a really old school place with photos of famous boxers all over the place. I wasn't sure what alot of the menu was and couldn't be bothered to 'Franklin' (my translator) everything, I was hungry.  So I ordered a jamon y queso (when in doubt, order ham and cheese).  Most pizzas in BA come on a wooden plate and when the pizza came there was so much cheese it just starts to roll off the pizza - crazy cheese.  I like it.  After sweating from my Quilmes stout beer (why do I always sweat!) and finishing my delicious pizza, I kind of just wondered around our neighbourhood.

I forgot to take a photo in the resto, this is my leftovers.  Good pizza.

I walked on Florida Street and Lavallee Street which are both major tourist pedestrian streets with tons of shops and people to harrass you to get 'cambio' (change) or a tango show.  It's nice because there is no traffic but annoying because there are tons of people.

Palacio San Martin - close to our place.  Stunning building but can't go inside.

I later met up with Dan at the apartment and Jonas came to meet up with us.  Jonas and Bernardo are friends of friends that we were put in touch with.  Dan had already spent some time with them but tonight was the first time I was meeting them.  So excited to hang out with some locals.  Jonas is a great person to spend time with because he is always a tourist guide pointing things out and giving history and cultural references.  I enjoy that.

Jonas playing tourist guide on the bus - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

We went to Belgrano which is neighbourhood a little further from the center.  Jonas brought us to an Armanian restaurant where we met Bernardo.  I have only been to one Armanian restaurant in Montreal so I was pretty excited. We had a few dishes - hummus, falafel, potato moussaka and a rice dish.  I was a little dissapointed because they were not dishes that I haven't tried before but it was good nonetheless. We then went for some gelato and braced ourselves in a crazy rain storm that seemed to come out of nowhere and took a taxi instead of the bus.  Off to bed in our new apartment, hopefully with no bed bugs.

Armanian food - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca

Jonas, me, Bernardo and Daniel - courtesy of www.danielbaylis.ca