Alex in motion

After walking around Buenos Aires for several days, the city reminds me of a blend between Paris, NYC and Chicago. There are many districts, and you can easily spent long days exploring each one. Being there for a week, I only had a chance to visit the following:

Palermo

This neighbourhood is subdivided into smaller cartiers:

Palermo Soho

Feels very much like SoHo in NYC, and this is where I’d live if I ever moved here. Lots of local shops, cafes, artists, with large sidewalks and cobblestone streets.

Palermo Hollywood

Similar to Palermo Soho, only more restaurants and lounges; great for dinner and after dinner drinks.

Recoleta

The richest neighbourhood, with high-end shopping and boutique hotels. One of the biggest tourist attractions of the entire city is here, the cemetery. It feels like a small village, with alleyways and intersections, with some mausoleums big enough you could live in them. Seriously big, and filled with lots of historical people.

Retiro/City centre

What you would expect from the centre; loud, lots of movement, everything for sale. Lots of great people watching!

San Telmo

The oldest district of the city, which has a wonderful authentic feel. Antique shops are abound.

Puerto Madero

Very modern and cold. Although the modern architecture is beautiful, the skyscrapers lack the warmth and charm found in the rest of the city.

Buenos Aires is also known for speakeasy types of bars, and I visited two:

1. Floreria Atlantico: on the street level, all you see is a wine and flower shop with a large freezer door. Speaking the ultra-secret password at the entrance, “uh, am I at the right place?” allows you to open the freezer door, which reveals stairs down to the basement. There you’ll find a wonderful bar and restaurant, where mixologists create concoctions using homemade gin and vodka. Great steak too.
2. Victoria Brown Bar: upon first glance, all you see are four small coffee tables and a mini-bar. When I arrived, it was vacant. In conversing with the doorman, an Argentinian fellow with a wonderful British accent, he grinned and said, “You haven’t entered yet”. Pushing the back wall opens a secret door, which leads to a dimly lit corridor ending with a dark velvet curtain. Past the curtain is the actual bar, a large area with a slight steam-punk feel. Lighting comes from copper tubing that winds along the ceiling and a huge clock with extra dials displays the time. The cocktail list is nearly endless, and the ambiance is friendly.

The best way to explore the city is definitely by foot, but I also took the subway whenever possible. Taxis are relatively expensive, and the starting fare differs depending on your starting neighbourhood. Buses are a great low cost option, but with crowds, personally it wasn’t for my taste.

A week in Buenos Aires is certainly not enough, and I could easily spend another week discovering the city, especially with so many referrals from locals and other travelers:

• Tango lessons: La Viruta
• Pizza: Romario
• Meat: La brigada
• Speakeasy bar: Thames 878

What I loved the most was simply exploring the city by foot, taking my time to smell the roses, and contemplating my new way of life.

There are two currency conversations in Argentina; the official rate and the blue dollar rate. As of today, the official rate is 1 USD to just under 10 ARS, while the blue dollar rate is 1 USD to about 15 ARS. The reason for the double standard is foreign money is very difficult to obtain and inflation has been 30% for the last several years. Individuals are simply willing to offer more than banks.

You can get pesos at the bank, or you can use a number of exchange services. Additionally, walking along some of the main city centre streets, you’ll hear people yelling out, “cambio”, which means they are looking to exchange money. They take you to a back alley to perform the transaction. In many of these cases, the pesos are counterfeit, so I’m thankful I was able to exchange money at a favorable rate with the husband of a niece of a friend of a friend.

It’s not possible to exchange pesos into another currency, so you need to spend all your cash before leaving Argentina.  Balancing this with the fact that nearly everything is paid in cash can be tricky.  My recommendation to anyone visiting Argentina is to exchange about 100 USD into ARS before arriving, and then use a transfer service to exchange the rest of your USD using the blue rate.

Rather than track the double exchange rate to determine the actual cost of things, I’ve decided to use the cost of a pizza to gauge value. After beef, pizza is the second most popular dish, and I love pizza, so why not?!

On my first day, I chewed down a delicious individual-sized pizza with ham and cheese.

• How much does a cappuccino cost? 1/2 a pizza
• Groceries for the next few days? 2 pizzas
• A good steak dinner and bottle of wine? 3 1/2 pizzas

This makes math so much easier 🙂

I’ve also decided to separate my credit card and bank card from cash. This way, if I ever get mugged, I’ll toss over the cash and (hopefully) won’t lose the cards. Since my current wallet was designed for carrying both, I purchased a lightweight card holder, and a sophisticated and stylish money clip.