1. The different barrios which all have
a distinct vibe about them. Aside from the bits we hate about our
neighbourhood (see next post), Las Canitas, it’s a lovely, bohemian,
sociable place which comes alive every evening with kids playing,
families out for coffee or a stroll and people chatting.
San Telmo where we went last weekend was very charming, [...]
1. The different barrios which all have
a distinct vibe about them. Aside from the bits we hate about our
neighbourhood (see next post), Las Canitas, it’s a lovely, bohemian,
sociable place which comes alive every evening with kids playing,
families out for coffee or a stroll and people chatting.
San Telmo where we went last weekend was very charming, Recoleta is
lovely and even Microcentre & the ‘downtown’ area has a charm to it
- although admittedly we’ve avoided the chaotic rush during the week
and only ever ventured there at weekends.
2. The portenos - very friendly, very sociable and very curious. The
supermarket cashiers are generally smiley & helpful, the smaller
storekeepers are always very friendly & curious to find out where
we’re from (Brazil & the US being the usual guesses), the
waitresses in our favourite coffee shops now know what we like and ask
how we are. We haven’t met ‘people’ like we did in Panama - to some
extent I think this is deliberate - we’ve been focused on work recently
and haven’t gone out & about as much to do this.
3. The food - best beef in the world, authentic italian-style pizzas
& ice cream (although we haven’t yet tried the ice cream - that’s
this weekend’s treat), everything available for delivery (including
McDonald’s if you choose). Although we’ve struggled to get organic here
(and we’ve tried ordering online but for bizarre reasons this didn’t
work out for us!!), we’ve shopped in some of the small, local, more
"farm-style" shops for meat like chicken whilst the beef at the
supermarket is unlikely to be any different from the beef at an organic
shop (i.e. raised & grass-fed on the pampas).
4. The public transport. Cheap metro, cheap taxis and cheap buses.
It’s an easy city to get around despite being so huge. But like we
read, the best way to really experience it is on foot to get a feel for
the different places. Although exhausting, our first two marathon walks
means we’ve actually pretty much covered most of the ‘key’ places in
the city without even realising it.
5. Hmmm, struggling with a 5th one…we’ll come back to this later!
