I do not even know where to begin… Buenos Aires is great! It is a huge city but somehow really pleasant and very easy to navigate and easy to really feel like at home there. Or maybe I feel that way because instead of rushing through it in 2 days in the open top bus we rented an apartment in residential neighbourhood of Recoleta, moved around using subway, taxi or just leisurely walking through the shaded calles and avenidas. We took our time seeing the city too, only one neighbourhood a day or one museum. By the end of the week we saw all the major attractions and walked through all the central neighbourhoods but we also had enough time sleep in as we adjusted our bodies to the Argentinian life style that prohibits eating diner before 10pm! All week long I could not help but compare Buenos Aires to New York. So here is a couple of my thoughts about BA and its similarities with NYC.
Our neighbourhood, Recoleta, was so much like Upper West Side even though it did not have any brownstones. Its mostly residential buildings with doormen, of course, are so much like the one I used to live in NYC. You could look from the balcony and can see what neighbours on the other side of the street are watching on the telly; there were constant parades of dog walkers, though the Argentine ones seemed to be able to handle more dogs at a time but do not pick up the shxt. And there was Palermo, sort of like a cross between Soho and Williamsburg full of nice and posh but also funky restaurants and bars and really cool shops.
Central BA is much like Manhattan with the streets and avenues organised more or less in a grid. Even though BA does not use numbers and streets have proper names somehow it still easy to navigate once you remember the main avenues and cross streets. And if you get lost you can hail black and yellow cab everywhere or just look at them filling up the avenues. Subway though seems to be the most efficient way (and cheapest) to get through town. The network is much smaller than NYC but the platforms are the same hot in the summer. And the summer is same as NYC, hot and humid!
BA also has some wonderful shopping; I’d dare to say better than NYC! Unlike in NYC where each shopping area is full of chain stores and the small unique shops are well hidden, BA is full of independent boutiques, quality varies of course but that’s all the fun looking for the treasure. Even if you do not need to buy anything or do not like shopping, or read your books on kindle or iPad, there are two places that are a must in BA. One is the bookshop on Santa Fe converted from a theatre. It is extraordinarily beautiful and number 2 on the list of the best bookshops published by The Guaradian, after one in Maastricht and ahead of one in Porto that I saw last year and thought that bookshops cannot get anybetter. The other one is a shopping mall Galerias Pacifico in an historic building with a painted ceilings.
BA like NYC is full of culture, home of Teatro Colon that as we are told can easily rival Metropolitan Opera (it was closed for summer so we could not see anything) but also home to independent cultural centres, like the one we went to see drums performance Bomba Del Tiempo (very entertaining), where tourist easily mingle with the local ‘cool’ crowd. On one of our walks we passed by an independent cinema that seemed to have no Hollywood movies just best of the best of cine latino. It looked so much like Angelika or Sunshine in NYC. Shame, my Spanish is not good enough to see a movie without English subtitles. We had to pick an English speaking movie in a multiplex, yet we could not even see one cause all good new releases: Iron Lady, The Ides of March and J Edgar were all sold out on the Sunday afternoon. It would have been such a good way to hide in the air-conditioned cinema from the heat and see Iron Lady in Argentina, especially now that Argentines do not seem to particular fancy Brits because of the Malvinas.
Oh, and the museums! Sure Malba (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) is not MoMA but yet we saw a really good exhibition of the works from XX century. For a moment I thought that the it was not fair to name the exhibition ‘Arte Latinoamericano’ where most of items on display were from Argentina itself but then we found some good stuff from Brasil too (I really liked Emiliano di Cavalcanti) and one painting of Ferdnado Botero and Frida Kalho too. It also housed a special exhibition of works of colour of Carlos Cruz-Diez. One of rainy afternoons we spent in Museo de Bellas Artes, again maybe it is not Googenheim or Metropolitan but still the collection was quite impressive and we got to see one of Rodin’s Kisses.
Like NYC, BA is also a heaven for foodies! It has it all, all sorts of cousins, mom and pop restaurants and high end posh places or ‘secret restaurants’ where you have to make a reservation and ring a bell to get in to the house/restaurant. We went to one, Casa de Coupage run by a sommelier who will pair up wine with your meal and offer the best bottles for tasting. By the way this is a much better way to taste Argentinian Wines than a trip to the wineries in Mendoza and it costs about the same! We tried an unknown grape, Bonarda and I was given a rare late harvest white wine with a slightly salty taste from the bodega Alfredo Roca. It was slightly pricey experience but really worth it. I cannot even imagine how much more it would have cost in NYC! Both NYC and BA are full of pizza and pasta eateries but I will also dare to say that it is easier in BA to get good pizza and pasta in the randomly selected place than in NYC. In NYC you need to know where to go to avoid disappointment and in BA we were not disappointed once! By the way, food in Argentina is so much more than a steak, they really seem to eat lots of Italian style dishes. Here is the place to mention that we even found a Polish bar in San Telmo, called Krakow and I had a brief chat with the second generations immigrants from Poland.
There was one part of BA that is hard to compare to NYC, La Boca. Close to the port, in the past mostly inhabited by the European immigrants it is and used to be a working class neighbourhood and meatpacking district. In the last decade the NYC meatpacking district was turned around to become a fancy, cool and posh neighbourhood. La Boca, turned itself to become one of the major tourist attractions in BA, some (Gavin) would say a little bit tacky… The colourful houses are a real charm and so what that the tango dancers are posing for photos for money and that every restaurant has hosts trying to drag you in, so what that the sounds of all the life performances mingle and you cannot really hear any of them properly. I thought it was still good fun and really unique and the photos are lovely too! We avoided being dragged into any of the loud restaurants and picked quieter one with just one man with guitar signing tangos and other genres of Argentine music. He was really good, apparently he is coming this summer to sing in Europe (including Krakow) and he knew the prose of Witold Gombrowicz. That’s uncommon!
There two icons of BA that NYC does not have. One is of couse tango. I am sure you can find a place for milongas in NYC but it must be different than BA. Although I must say that it seemed a bit like the tango vibe is maintained like folklore for really passionate locals and tourists. Yet it was still fun to go for a quick 1 hour class and learn the basic step. It is difficult enough… and we got tired after about 2 hours practice! We probably broke all the rules on the dance floor so we just settled in for watching those who can tango.
Another icon is Evita. As Argentine say, you cannot be indifferent to Evita, you either love or hate her and certainly you would be interested! And so was I (Gavin less so) but I managed to get a lots of Evita in BA. We went to see a small intimate tango show in the basement based on her life story, Evita Vive (slightly overpriced but not bad). We visited museum entirely dedicated to Evita that displayed some of her famous clothing and her graveyard in Recoleta cemetery with a very interesting story of disappearance of her body. I played ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ at the Casa Rosada, presidential house from where she and Peron made their famous speeches. Her huge portrait is overlooking the major avenue in BA, 9 de Julio, that is apparently the widest street in the world with 8 car lanes one way and a green space in the middle.
So this is my summery of a week in BA. I could keep going but the blog is getting a bit long and all I really wanted to say is that I really loved BA. It is a wonderful city! If you plan to visit, do not trust Lonely Planet that says you can do BA in 2 days or worse if you stay for 4 days to make a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay (as much as Colonia might be a lovely place too).
Our neighbourhood, Recoleta, was so much like Upper West Side even though it did not have any brownstones. Its mostly residential buildings with doormen, of course, are so much like the one I used to live in NYC. You could look from the balcony and can see what neighbours on the other side of the street are watching on the telly; there were constant parades of dog walkers, though the Argentine ones seemed to be able to handle more dogs at a time but do not pick up the shxt. And there was Palermo, sort of like a cross between Soho and Williamsburg full of nice and posh but also funky restaurants and bars and really cool shops. 
Central BA is much like Manhattan with the streets and avenues organised more or less in a grid. Even though BA does not use numbers and streets have proper names somehow it still easy to navigate once you remember the main avenues and cross streets. And if you get lost you can hail black and yellow cab everywhere or just look at them filling up the avenues. Subway though seems to be the most efficient way (and cheapest) to get through town. The network is much smaller than NYC but the platforms are the same hot in the summer. And the summer is same as NYC, hot and humid! 
BA also has some wonderful shopping; I’d dare to say better than NYC! Unlike in NYC where each shopping area is full of chain stores and the small unique shops are well hidden, BA is full of independent boutiques, quality varies of course but that’s all the fun looking for the treasure. Even if you do not need to buy anything or do not like shopping, or read your books on kindle or iPad, there are two places that are a must in BA. One is the bookshop on Santa Fe converted from a theatre. It is extraordinarily beautiful and number 2 on the list of the best bookshops published by The Guaradian, after one in Maastricht and ahead of one in Porto that I saw last year and thought that bookshops cannot get anybetter. The other one is a shopping mall Galerias Pacifico in an historic building with a painted ceilings. 
BA like NYC is full of culture, home of Teatro Colon that as we are told can easily rival Metropolitan Opera (it was closed for summer so we could not see anything) but also home to independent cultural centres, like the one we went to see drums performance Bomba Del Tiempo (very entertaining), where tourist easily mingle with the local ‘cool’ crowd. On one of our walks we passed by an independent cinema that seemed to have no Hollywood movies just best of the best of cine latino. It looked so much like Angelika or Sunshine in NYC. Shame, my Spanish is not good enough to see a movie without English subtitles. We had to pick an English speaking movie in a multiplex, yet we could not even see one cause all good new releases: Iron Lady, The Ides of March and J Edgar were all sold out on the Sunday afternoon. It would have been such a good way to hide in the air-conditioned cinema from the heat and see Iron Lady in Argentina, especially now that Argentines do not seem to particular fancy Brits because of the Malvinas. 
Oh, and the museums! Sure Malba (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) is not MoMA but yet we saw a really good exhibition of the works from XX century. For a moment I thought that the it was not fair to name the exhibition ‘Arte Latinoamericano’ where most of items on display were from Argentina itself but then we found some good stuff from Brasil too (I really liked Emiliano di Cavalcanti) and one painting of Ferdnado Botero and Frida Kalho too. It also housed a special exhibition of works of colour of Carlos Cruz-Diez. One of rainy afternoons we spent in Museo de Bellas Artes, again maybe it is not Googenheim or Metropolitan but still the collection was quite impressive and we got to see one of Rodin’s Kisses. 
Like NYC, BA is also a heaven for foodies! It has it all, all sorts of cousins, mom and pop restaurants and high end posh places or ‘secret restaurants’ where you have to make a reservation and ring a bell to get in to the house/restaurant. We went to one, Casa de Coupage run by a sommelier who will pair up wine with your meal and offer the best bottles for tasting. By the way this is a much better way to taste Argentinian Wines than a trip to the wineries in Mendoza and it costs about the same! We tried an unknown grape, Bonarda and I was given a rare late harvest white wine with a slightly salty taste from the bodega Alfredo Roca. It was slightly pricey experience but really worth it. I cannot even imagine how much more it would have cost in NYC! Both NYC and BA are full of pizza and pasta eateries but I will also dare to say that it is easier in BA to get good pizza and pasta in the randomly selected place than in NYC. In NYC you need to know where to go to avoid disappointment and in BA we were not disappointed once! By the way, food in Argentina is so much more than a steak, they really seem to eat lots of Italian style dishes. Here is the place to mention that we even found a Polish bar in San Telmo, called Krakow and I had a brief chat with the second generations immigrants from Poland.
There was one part of BA that is hard to compare to NYC, La Boca. Close to the port, in the past mostly inhabited by the European immigrants it is and used to be a working class neighbourhood and meatpacking district. In the last decade the NYC meatpacking district was turned around to become a fancy, cool and posh neighbourhood. La Boca, turned itself to become one of the major tourist attractions in BA, some (Gavin) would say a little bit tacky… The colourful houses are a real charm and so what that the tango dancers are posing for photos for money and that every restaurant has hosts trying to drag you in, so what that the sounds of all the life performances mingle and you cannot really hear any of them properly. I thought it was still good fun and really unique and the photos are lovely too! We avoided being dragged into any of the loud restaurants and picked quieter one with just one man with guitar signing tangos and other genres of Argentine music. He was really good, apparently he is coming this summer to sing in Europe (including Krakow) and he knew the prose of Witold Gombrowicz. That’s uncommon! There two icons of BA that NYC does not have. One is of couse tango. I am sure you can find a place for milongas in NYC but it must be different than BA. Although I must say that it seemed a bit like the tango vibe is maintained like folklore for really passionate locals and tourists. Yet it was still fun to go for a quick 1 hour class and learn the basic step. It is difficult enough… and we got tired after about 2 hours practice! We probably broke all the rules on the dance floor so we just settled in for watching those who can tango.
Another icon is Evita. As Argentine say, you cannot be indifferent to Evita, you either love or hate her and certainly you would be interested! And so was I (Gavin less so) but I managed to get a lots of Evita in BA. We went to see a small intimate tango show in the basement based on her life story, Evita Vive (slightly overpriced but not bad). We visited museum entirely dedicated to Evita that displayed some of her famous clothing and her graveyard in Recoleta cemetery with a very interesting story of disappearance of her body. I played ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’ at the Casa Rosada, presidential house from where she and Peron made their famous speeches. Her huge portrait is overlooking the major avenue in BA, 9 de Julio, that is apparently the widest street in the world with 8 car lanes one way and a green space in the middle. So this is my summery of a week in BA. I could keep going but the blog is getting a bit long and all I really wanted to say is that I really loved BA. It is a wonderful city! If you plan to visit, do not trust Lonely Planet that says you can do BA in 2 days or worse if you stay for 4 days to make a day trip to Colonia in Uruguay (as much as Colonia might be a lovely place too).
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