For those of you who know me, you know that I am a compulsive planner, and so it was that I became a bit anxious for the more touristy leg of our trip, because, alas, I did not have anything planned. I began to feel inadequate as a host and human being for not knowing enough about BA to develop a detailed itinerary for my friends, and I resigned, willingly, to learning about the city along with them. Here in Argentina, you will often hear the locals refer to "buena onda," which is basically "good vibes." It is a pretty versatile little phrase. A person can be "buena onda" if they are really chill, or you might go to a party for some drinks and the "buena onda," or good company. For this trip, I decided to follow the "buena onda" wherever it may lead and worry less about planning, for once. I should note that, in order to make myself feel a little better, I did make ONE reservation for us later in the week, to attend a closed door, or "puerta cerrada" dinner. This is a trendy thing to do in BA, where you go to a chef's home and have an intimate dinner with around 15 other people. At least I had that one plan to feel good about for the week...
We started off our first day in BA with a delicious breakfast in our neighborhood for the next few days, San Telmo. We received the recommendation from our Airbnb host, Mercedes, who we learned throughout the week is an urban architect, tango dancer, and complete badass. She is also, like, 70 years old yet stays out until at least 2 am every night. My friend Emily and I felt really cool one morning when she came up to us and told us that we looked like locals, then subsequently added that it was because we looked like complete shit. Needless to say, we quickly learned not to take her advice lightly.
After breakfast, we headed to La Boca, the colorful neighborhood in BA that you have probably seen if you've ever googled "Buenos Aires." La Boca, or "mouth" in Spanish, sits on the Matanza-Riachuelo River and was one of the first places that Italian immigrants settled in the city (later followed by immigrants from France, Spain, Germany, Greece, etc.). While La Boca still has plenty of character and flavor from its immigrant past, truth be told, it sort of turns into a tourist trap during the day. We still had a blast checking out some art, strolling down the famous street "El Caminito," and taking plenty of mandatory colorful pictures to make all of our friends really jealous.
As for the rest of our sight-seeing throughout the week, we opted to go on foot versus taking one of the hop-on, hop-off tour buses. This turned out to be a great decision, and we were able to see practically everything we wanted to see, including la Recoleta Cemetery, la Plaza de Mayo, Casa Rosada, the Obelisco, and el Teatro Colón. Being the ambitious young ladies that we are, we had wanted to check out MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art, on the same day after all of this, but opted for white wine in the sun, instead. I was starting to get used to this no-planning business...
Some of our favorite meals in BA were also completely spontaneous, either in places we stumbled upon in our neighborhood or based on recommendations of friends and friends of friends. We particularly loved having drinks and a traditional picada, or a meat and cheese board similar to charcuterie, at El Federal, a cafe-bar in our neighborhood that has been in operation since 1864!
One of our favorite nights resulted from yet another recommendation from our life coach Mercedes, which was an inexpensive tango lesson, followed by a performance by a live tango orchestra and some impressive dancers. One of my friends even got whirled around the dance floor by a strapping young lad, who, like any good leader, made her look like she was a pro. Let it be known that, in truth, it takes (at least) two (cocktails) to tango.
Despite all of our jam-packed days of doing whatever the hell we felt like doing, we did have time for our trip to MALBA, where we saw some really funky exhibits. We particularly enjoyed one of an artist who was typing out stream-of-consciousness stories projected onto a wall about the people in the room. We had a good laugh as he surmised that we were best friends from high school and that we were laughing and whispering to one another because we "had a plan." For once, good sir, you could not be more wrong. We also enjoyed when our friend Arie took a selfie with a man who had a lamp for a head.
So, back to that one thing I DID have planned for the trip, our puerta cerrada dinner. After a long day out-and-about, we returned back to our place for a siesta and our daily check-in to the real world. Around 8:30 pm, an hour before we were supposed to leave for our dinner reservation, I found an email from the restaurant stating that if I didn't confirm that we were coming by 5:30 pm that day, they would cancel our reservation. I completely panicked, realizing that the one thing I planned was probably not going to happen. Oh, the irony. I was shaking and angry and convinced we were all going to starve in the land of meats and wine, all because of me. We ended up calling the restaurant, explained the misunderstanding, and everything worked out fine. ALTHOUGH they DID place us in a separate room, indoors, away from all of the other dinner guests, who were outdoors. Interesting. Doing a little improvising themselves, I see...!
Lesson learned. Planning is sometimes futile, and in reality, it can take a lot of the fun out of things. Based on the great success we had in BA from just winging it, I just may have to continue this trend of nixing plans and following la buena onda. Anyways, here's another selfie of Arie, with a creepy puppet and a guy who looks like the creepy puppet. I'm honestly not sure which is which.
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