o Jack!...

you know by now(the ones that met me in person) that I sometimes find hilarious stuff that other people don't find even remotely funny... like this sign on the building

i just bursted out laughing. Alone on the street. And now that I am home grounded and started sorting pictures, I found it equally funny. 

          Yep, I can't go out although I had some more exploring planned, cause I got a sty- new word I've learned together with it's spanish version 'orzuelo'... and what I would need now is a bit of Swedish Bitter, but here, they've never heard of it 

 'Amargo Sueco ?' the puzzled expression of the vendors' faces should have answered me, but I went on 'es un elixir de hierbas medicinales...' No. The same for 'té de aciano' - corn-flower tea

          O Jack!

          So let me tell you about the failed flea-market trip on Sunday. Failed cause it was closed. It was closed because it was an election day. Closed as were all the bars and clubs the evening before. A no excuses politic, I suppose. For the same reason, the streets were almost empty on Sunday, even the pick-pockets were queuing to vote

      Arrived at the flea-market place, I was really impressed of how organized and clean everything seemed - no Mauer-park at all, and also of the strange energy that these used objects had, so many, so different, piled on top of each other in that huge, quiet space...

ok, so I walk on...

And what did I see that's worth sharing
a pretty shop-window

 some street art

 some clubs - I have the impression that there's a convention for all the clubs to look like black cubes

and I made it to Palermo Soho - the posh district supposedly. Didn't seem so posh to me...Ok bigger houses, a couple of convertibles, some chic boutiques...
          But what I really liked was this place- it totally looks like 'from another film' And when I say film it's like you just know that in the second act there will be some shooting through that opening in the facade. The fact that it looks like Cuba (what Cuba I know from the movies) but it's an arab restaurant, just adds to the mystery ...

 then this! it's like the odd juxtaposing that's typical for Buenos Aires architecture was exaggerated and concentrated

 and I found some people too

Mi barrio

     ...as in my hood, mein Kietz... where I'll live for the next 2 months.
No, it's not Palermo Soho! because that's the place to be, right? or where you are supposed to live if you are a defenseless foreigner. It's not San Telmo nor Recoleta either. But I didn't go as crazy as to look for a room in Constitucion (that's the bad area)
       Villa Urquiza is the name, and I loved it immediately. Even if my room is very modest and the house is in a sort of very slow renovation w.i.p., I just wanted to live in this neighborhood. It has a calmness of a small village or rural resort, with broad streets and nice little houses, some of them no taller than the ground-floor, some of them better taken care of than the others, but all very charming and  quite different as style.

 It also has cool street art

and churches

and bigger, busier avenues

  and quirky buildings

and palm-trees

And this is the house I live in:

 with it's patio

the view from the patio

the back yard/garden

 and my room

Spring, Summer, Autumn ... and Spring again

... a quick catch up of my trip : I almost didn't sleep during the 12- something hours flight (yes, we had an hour delay) in spite of having alcohol on the plane (I should have went for the whiskey instead of red wine), I watched 2 forgettable films, but I watched them in spanish, I bypassed Immigration in Brazil, Sao Paulo is unspectacular from inside the airport, I managed to sleep some on the second flight  and I got incredibly fast through Immigration and Customs in BA, relatively fast with the bus to the city center, and absurdly slow from there to the hostel.  Bucharest, you ain't seen traffic!!!

here is a bad photo from outside the Ezeira Airport

And this is how the city unraveled to me:

there's definitely something about the buildings of Buenos Aires...

and I also found out that I stand no chance of being fashionable here... not this season at least

 oh, and they have green coke!

A very puzzling thing is here the exchange rate. Officially there's about 6:1 for US$. At a Change office you get 9.3:1 (and I didn't look for the best deal!!!) So you absolutely don't want to pay your Bus or Hostel in dollars as I did... Change first! Also there is a price misbalance... for example a sim card is 10 pesos while a small lock is 55. Well, it's a good lock
Hasta luego!