15 Things I Learned in Buenos Aires

I haven't been to many countries, but I've been to enough to learn that there are always things you don't expect. For my final blog post about our vacation to Buenos Aires, I've compiled a few of the things I learned in Argentina, along with a few photos that didn't fit anywhere else.

The Bathroom

1. I knew toilets in the Southern Hemisphere swirled in the opposite direction. The surprise? It was difficult to see because the bottom of the bowls are more rectangular than circular.

2. Toilet paper often goes in the trash can and not the toilet. I'm not sure if this is always the case. If I saw a sign, I put it in the trash. No sign, the toilet. Sometimes it went in the toilet even if there was a sign -- old habits die hard. If you hear about a rash of plumbing problems in Buenos Aires, it's probably because of me.

3. If a restroom has toilet paper, soap, good lighting *and* a toilet that flushes, you must immediately mark it on a map and visit it repeatedly. I did not do this but should have. Instead, I had a variety of not-so-fun bathroom experiences -- the worst being no toilet paper (I always carried some in my purse, however), no flush, bad lighting and no (or a small, heavily used bar of) soap.

Monumento a los Españoles

The Street

4. Some intersections have no stop signs or lights, and cars don't take turns.

5. You can't stroll 10 steps without encountering loose tiles or a broken sidewalk. Walk at your own risk.

The Food & Drink

6. Restaurants are the best places to break $100 peso bills. Everyone else gives you the look of death if you try to use them.

7. Coffee shops give you a tiny glass of seltzer water with your order.

8. Drinking fountains don't seem to exist. The only one I saw was in the airport.

9. Residents of Buenos Aires eat late. Really late. Restaurants are just starting to fill up at 8 p.m. They're hopping at midnight.

10. An order of empanadas sometimes comes with a guide similar to what you get here with a box of chocolates. Different crimps indicate different fillings.

11. Buenos Aires loves Stella Artois.

12. But not draft beer.

The Odds & Ends

13. Buenos Aires has palm trees!

14. But no definitive skyline.

View from our apartment.

15. And the biggest lesson: I should always take a winter vacation in a summer destination.

Jardín Japonés

Tigre & an Estancia: Buenos Aires Day Trips

Our vacation to Buenos Aires was easy to plan because we basically stayed put. We booked accommodations in only one city, and we had no planes or trains to catch mid-week. It was relaxing.

I did, however, plan three day trips that took us out of the city limits. Uruguay was one. The other two: Tigre and San Antonio de Areco.

Saying we had no trains to catch was just a tiny white lie. In fact, we had to catch a commuter train to get to Tigre, a delta town about an hour outside the city. But round trip tickets were only a couple of pesos apiece, and there were several trains an hour going back and forth. Extremely low-stress.

Tigre is known as a good day trip from Buenos Aires because of its delta and scenic waterways. We took a one hour tour on a boat crammed with about 60 tourists. Although the commentary was in Spanish, the tour was worth it. The delta was a maze with branches in every direction, beach houses lining the shore. Each house had its own deck and stairs leading into the water -- some nicely maintained with benches and hammocks, others in various states of disrepair. Quite a few people were on the decks, watching, chatting, fishing, eating. Each deck and house also had a name -- a point of pride, I imagine -- and many had boats.

After the tour we walked along the river and eventually made our way to a market called the Puerto de Frutos. Although this was only the third day of vacation, this was already our fourth market, so we explored only a fraction before we were hot, tired and marketed out.

We sat along the river before we made our way back to the train station and back to Buenos Aires. Total time, including the train trips: about 7 hours.

The next day we were off to La Cinacina, an estancia (or ranch) just outside of San Antonio de Areco. San Antonio de Areco is a rural city of about 20,000 residents a couple of hours outside Buenos Aires, in the Pampas. Paul called it the Defiance of Argentina.

Paul and I booked transportation to La Cinacina, and a tour bus carried us and a couple of other dozen people to the estancia. It was every bit as touristy as I expected, but it was fun and we both left with full stomachs. It was impossible not to. We were greeted with empanadas, and about an hour later had an appetizer of half a sausage in a roll. Then the bell for lunch was rung.

The guests -- maybe about a hundred of us -- sat along tables filled with salad, french fries and bottles of wine, water and pop. Then they served the meat. Every five minutes or so they placed another piece on our plates -- short ribs, sirloin, strip steak, chicken, roast beef and maybe another cut or two. Then dessert (ice cream), and a jelly-filled pastry and mate right before we left.

The day wasn't just about food (although truth be told, it mostly was). We had a little free time before the meal to look around and take a short horseback ride. During the meal we were treated to traditional songs and dances, and afterward a show of horsemanship. Total time, including bus rides: about 7 hours.

The bus ride, too, was interesting, if only for its familiarity. It was much like rural Ohio -- lots of fields. It was odd seeing corn nearly knee-high in November. The guide on the bus told us that Argentina is a top producers of soybeans but eats almost none. About 80 percent is exported, mostly to China and India. Because of the high prices soybeans yield, farmers have turned away from raising cattle, leading to a meat shortage. Now meat prices are rising and no beef is being exported.

Needless to say, we saw no shortage of beef in our one week in Argentina.

Day Tripping to Colonia, Uruguay

While family and friends at home were gorging on turkey and pumpkin pie, Paul and I spent our Thanksgiving in the small Uruguayan town of Colonia del Sacramento.

I awoke shortly after 5 a.m. Thanksgiving morning so we could catch a taxi at 6 to be at the Colonia Express ferry terminal at 7 for our departure at 8. Our passports were stamped at the ferry terminal -- cheating, I think, since we were still in Argentina.

Colonia is a popular daytrip from Buenos Aires, only an hour ferry ride across the Rio de la Plata. Our $50 (US) ferry ticket included an hour tour of the town, which was more than enough time to get acquainted with the old town, with a diameter of just a few blocks, surrounded by water on three sides. We learned about Colonia's joint Spanish and Portuguese history, but Paul and I both decided independently not to visit the city's several tiny museums.

We did, however, climb about 120 steps up and down the winding staircase of a working lighthouse. We walked along the river. We browsed the many shops. We ate empanadas. We loitered at a waterfront restaurant with a glass of beer and a piece of chocolate mousse pie. We took it easy.

My only souvenirs of the day are a Uruguayan bill and a single coin. Every place accepted and gave change in Argentinian pesos. At the last minute, we stopped at a gas station convenience store so we could buy a bottle of water in Argentinian pesos and get change in Uruguayan pesos.

Visitors to Colonia can just barely make out the skyline of Buenos Aires across the river on clear days. It was a clear, hot day when we were there, and an easy, scenic way to get a page full of stamps on my passport.

Buenos Aires: The Sights & Sounds

We visited Buenos Aires to see the sights. Some of the best views, however, were from the place we stayed.

Instead of getting a hotel room, we opted to rent an apartment for the week. With a bit of research, we found the perfect apartment -- a studio on the 19th floor of a year-old high-rise apartment building in a vibrant neighborhood, with a private balcony, fully-stocked kitchen and a heated outdoor pool on the ground floor.

Like almost everything in Argentina, the price was the icing on the cake -- about $75 per night.

The view was amazing, and we spent several mornings eating breakfast or reading magazines on the balcony. One of my most pleasant memories of the week is ending one evening with a bottle of wine out there, watching the twinkling lights.

The view:

Paul swimming in the pool, 19 stories below our balcony

You can see more pictures of the apartment from our rental company.

We didn't spend the entire time on the balcony. In fact, a couple of the most memorable sights came on our first full day and last full day in Buenos Aires.

At the beginning of the trip, we explored La Boca and San Telmo, two neighborhoods just south of the city center that are experiencing a kind of revitalization. La Boca is known for its bright buildings with corrugated roofs -- particularly the short street of Caminito, an area crowded with tourists, tango dancers and souvenir shops.

On the last day we made a point to walk by the Palacio del Congreso, which my guidebook says was inspired by the United States Capitol. It's easy to see the resemblance but difficult to decide which is more impressive.

We saw one of our favorite sights of the entire trip, however, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon: the Floralis Genérica, a giant flower sculpture made of steel and aluminum. The petals open and close with the sun, and red lights illuminate the interior at night. The sun was high and hot when we were there, though, and I took photos from every angle.

The sounds of Buenos Aires were almost as interesting as the sights. This was my first visit to a Spanish-speaking country, and I was curious about how well my four years of high school Spanish would hold up. Well enough, especially with Paul along.

Paul lived in Mexico for 10 weeks in college, but that was nine years ago. He was understandably nervous about his ability to communicate in Spanish, but he had no problems. OK, so he wasn't about to discuss the literary themes of "War and Peace," but his language skills were more than adequate to joke around with the security guard at the apartment building, ask our waitress questions about how much food came with a certain meal (too much!) and speak to our taxi driver.

The pronunciation is different than that in Mexico -- and for that matter, what most Americans learn in high school. I could pick up words and phrases, and by the end of the week I could understand at least half of what our waiters and waitresses were saying. Even easier, though, was reading. And this was my favorite sign:

Every cat needs a video on YouTube.

Buenos Aires: Food & Drink on the Cheap

Three pounds of meat -- short ribs, strip steak and sirloin. A giant bowl of french fries. A caesar salad. A bottle of wine. A bottle of water.

The price? $100. Pesos, that is. In greenbacks, that's about $25.

In America, $25 wouldn't even cover the wine.

Eating, drinking and then eating some more were some of our favorite parts of our vacation to Buenos Aires. Paul had a steak (grass-fed, unseasoned beef) about every other day. I opted for empanadas. I downed 16 of them in six days, effectively octupling my lifetime empanada intake in less than a week.

No one drinks tap water -- my go-to drink -- in Buenos Aires restaurants, and a bottle of water was generally about $2 (this and all subsequent prices in this post will be in U.S. dollars). However, bottles of wine and liters of beer started at about $6, so it was difficult to resist getting that instead. Often we got both.

And sometimes we just ate meat, cheese, bread with a bottle of wine on the deck of the apartment we rented for the week.

Speaking of liters -- that was definitely the most common size of beer available. Tables would order a beer -- generally Stella Artois, Heineken, Schneider or Quilmes -- and get glasses that held maybe 10 or 12 ounces. I think I was served only one pint the entire week there.

Liters, while cheap in restaurants, were even cheaper in supermarkets -- just a little over a dollar.

One of my favorite restaurants of the week: La Carreteria, in the area of La Boca and San Telmo

I quickly learned to order "agua sin gas" (still water) rather than "agua con gas" (seltzer), which is so popular it even comes with your coffee and tea in cafes. More Spanish I learned: "batata." That's sweet potato, and it makes a delicious pastry filling.

Another item on our must-do list was drink mate. Along with a mate cup filled to the brim with bitter leaves came a pot of hot water and some savory cookies.

The tea -- which really just looks like lawn trimmings -- soaked a little water at a time, and the more you were able to add, the less bitter it became. (When we left, we saw a table adding sugar to the tea, which definitely would have improved the taste.) You drink the tea through a special metal straw that strains the water and prevents the leaves from entering your mouth. Mate seems to be just as popular as they say -- in Uruguay especially we saw people carrying and drinking the tea everywhere.

And now for the story you've all been waiting for -- how Paul and I got robbed for the very first time. Net loss: a single bottle of Coke.

Here's what happened: Paul was snapping a few pictures of me at the Obelisco, a Washington Monument-lookalike downtown. He sat down his 3/4-full bottle next to him. Before we knew it, a guy in a a wheelchair -- presumably homeless -- rolled up and grabbed the Coke. "Gracias amigo!" he called out.

Stunned at first, Paul then started laughing before calling back, "De nada!" Our robber rolled around the corner, unscrewed the cap and took a swig, all while I was watching. Better a Coke than my purse.

The scene of the crime.

Vacation to Buenos Aires: Following Evita

Casa Rosada

When we returned to New York early Sunday morning after eight days in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the real world slammed into me like a brick wall.

I was cranky because vacation was over. I was cold, leaving 80 degree temperatures for ones in the 40s. I was tired after 13 hours of flying, split between two legs. And to make matters worse, my checked suitcase was still in Peru, having failed to make the connection.

Bam.

But things have to go wrong once in a while so you know just how good everything else is, right? And this vacation was good.

I've been enamored with Argentina ever since watching the movie version of "Evita" some 13 or 14 years ago. In fact, my dad and I have a tradition of watching it every winter, when I'm home for the holidays. I had a basic knowledge of the city's major sights ("Rio de la Plata, Florida, Corrientes, Nueve de Julio") solely from the movie soundtrack. And, of course, one of our first stops in Buenos Aires was the Casa Rosada, Argentina's equivalent to the White House, where Evita Peron spoke to the masses and Evita sings "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" in the production.

Later in the week we visited the Museo Evita. Most of the museum's information wasn't new to me, but the way she was portrayed was surprising. There was no hint whatsoever of the controversy surrounding her life and charity. And no mention of the musical or movie -- which isn't so surprising when you consider that they didn't exactly paint a picture of a saint.

Of course, Evita's family mausoleum in the Cementerio de la Recoleta is also a big tourist draw, but she hasn't always been buried there. A couple of years after she died in 1952, her remains were even spirited away to Italy by anti-Peronists and buried for 16 years under a false name.

Tourists at Evita's grave

Elsewhere in the cemetery

Although Evita was the spark that sent us to Argentina, most of our trip in fact did not revolve her. This week and next week I'll be sharing the highlights and lowlights of our eight days in Argentina and Uruguay -- how we got robbed for the first time ever (it's not nearly as bad as you think), why Buenos Aires probably has a host of plumbing problems because of me (I'm happy to finally stop carrying around my own roll of toilet paper), and what I'll miss most about the city (mostly $6 bottles of wine and liters of beer).

I'd been looking forward to visiting Argentina for so long that I was afraid it wouldn't live up to my expectations. Instead, the country exceeded them. I wish I were still there.

Casa Rosada, even more rosada at night with pink lights