Tango is a popular theme of painters in Buenos Aires. We bought this painting for a wall at home.
We arrived in Buenos Aires yesterday. After a couple days of walking around, our biggest impression (and surprise) is how similar the town is to Manhattan (New York City), which we visited last November. The frequent fruit stands, outdoor seating at restaurants, and the general feel of the town is very close to East Village, or perhaps Little Italy.
While we went to NYC in November, when it was very cold, the weather here has been balmy and beautiful though. Yesterday, while the weather was warm, a strong gusty wind picked up in the afternoon, as the clouds gathered, and everyone kept saying it was going to rain all the next day. Instead, the wind passed, the clouds parted, the weather cleared up again, and today was gorgeous, if a bit humid.
While we have found the city to be generally very expensive, two exceptions have been wine and cheese. We picked up a few bottles of very good assorted wines, and the most expensive bottle was $3 US. I then ducked into a specialty grocery store, where I picked up 5 different cheeses to take back to our apartment, with the total coming to around $8 US. Back home in Ecuador, each of those purchases have cost roughly three times as much.
We have walked our feet off these first two days here. When in Cuenca, we typically walk about 8000 steps per day (according to the trusty pedometers we always carry). As the result of a lot of exploration today — and a couple missed turns — we hit over 26,000 today. I must say I was glad to get home and take my shoes off tonight!
The local park in Palermo was filled with vendors, art and music. The Jivers entertained with some vocal jazz I remember from “Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks“
The local park, just outside of Cementario Recoleta, had 22 artists exhibiting and selling their work, much of which related to The Tango, and all of which was quite good.
We visited the famous Cementario Recoleta of Buenos Aires, where monuments memorializing the wealthy and famous abounded.
Where statues were not present, plaques existed on each mausoleum. Evita Peron is also buried here, with her grave being one of the least ostentatious.
Today (our second day in the city) brought us to the renown Sunday San Telmo street market.
Crazy People played by The Jivers in a local park today.