Continuing On

Where was I? Ah yes. Palermo.

So Palermo is where a lot the aristocrats had their summer homes--we later learned that their winter homes where only like 2 miles away. Now Palermo is an area with a lot of hip restaurants, bars, and exclusive shopping. Even in American dollars it is pricey--like $80 for a tee shirt. It was funny too because both the tour guide and the guy who helped us into the city from the airport mentioned how there are a lot of Transvestites in the park here at night. They both thought it was the funniest thing ever. LOL

We saw a lot of maids and dog walkers in this area too. The dog walkers were insane--each with like 10 dogs.

Later we visited La Boca. This is an area where all the Italian immigrants had moved into when they came over to work in the port area (puerta madera). This area is clearly for the tourist with lots of street vendors and little restaurants. The houses were crazy too--still original from the early 1900 and late 1800´s. This area is one of the poorest in the city and not safe at night.

We were hungry so we stopped to get some sandwiches which consisted of some nasty ham, cheese, and dry bread. One of the breads was even molded. Blegh.

Back on the bus, we past the shantytown area of La Boca which made the little houses we saw earlier look like mansions. This area had no plumbing, no roof, and lots of people outside starting fires to cook. It was really sad.

We learned that the Rio de Plata is so contaminated that drinking a cup of it would kill you within 3 hours! If anyone would like to order a glass for their foes, let me know. Ha

We finished off the tour and did some more shopping on our own. We also went to Solo Empanadas for lunch. It was great. We need this franchise in the US. They were bustling busy. We decided to eat our food in the park near our hotel. A little girl came over asking for money but we gave her an empanada instead. Later we learned we gave her one of the nasty ones that we were not able to eat. Oops.

After a quick nap, we met up with a friend of one of my co-workers. We met Maria in Palermo at a restaurant called La Dorita de enfrente--called that because it is in front of the other La Dorita. Clever, no? Maria was really fun. She had invited a friend of her´s Beatriz to come to dinner too. Beatriz spoke little English and Phil little Spanish--so it was fun. We had a great meal consisting of salad, meat, and wine--again for about 45 USD for the four of us. Later we headed to a bar called 878. It is a whiskey bar--which was cool for Phil. I had a mojito. It was dark and loungey. Very cool except the ceiling was leakng from the rain on me. Our 4 drinks cost me 13 bucks!

After saying goodbye, we took a cab back to the hotel and watched some TV. The channels are about half English and half Spanish. In Bs As, they are showing the same movies as in the US.