Tango to Buenos Aires: Palermo y Puerto Madero

Hola H here,

Apologies for the lack of blog posts, we've been very busy little gringos! After working all day, we've been taking Spanish classes in the evenings. We're having private classes with just the two of us in our teacher's apartment in Recoleta. The classes are very active - it feels like you're talking the whole time which is tiring but an effective way to learn. We're getting much better and definitely a lot more confident.

We've also been kept busy trying to find an apartment. We have to leave our beautiful AirBnB apartment this Friday. Trying to find an apartment here is a lot more difficult than one would think. If we were to get a normal rental apartment, we would need to sign a two year lease as well as furnishing the place - which is not ideal, and for that one of us needs a DNI and we would need a land owning guarantor located in Argentina. So we're left with trying to find a short-term 'vacation' rental. While these are in abundance here, they are very expensive - especially if you're paying in the local currency which we will be. But on the other hand we won't need to buy future or pay any power, gas or internet bills. Anyway, after looking at a couple of shoe-box apartments that would cost us more than half of my salary, we've decided on another option - house sharing. We've found an apartment to share with a young Argentinian doctor in which we will have our own private entrance, bedroom, small study/living room and bathroom but sharing a kitchen. Infact, it is actually the maids quarters we are renting, but we get an extra room for a bedroom :) Seems ideal to us as we can live in an amazing part of town (on the same block as Louis Vuitton, Hermes, the Alvear Palace Hotel etc.) for a very cheap price and also get to live with a local (hopefully will help to improve our spanish!).

Apart from all of the above, we've also been out and about exploring the city. We went on a walk around the nearby neighbourhood of Palermo. Palermo is the most 'happening' neighbourhood in BA with lots of shops, restaurants, nightlife etc where most of the expats and tourists live. It has lots of beautiful parks including an amazing Japanese Garden! We're living in Recoleta which is sandwiched between Palermo and Centro/San Nicolas (where I work) which is perfect for us to have easy access to both areas.

Before you get too confused, here is a map: San Nicolás is the downtown area.

BA Barrio Map

Floralis Generica - Giant steel flower sculpture that opens in the day and closes at night

One of the many beautiful buildings here

The Japanese Garden

Some Bonsai Trees (just for you, Pancho)

One of the many residents of the Japanese Gardens - loving the attention

Amazing burgers at the Burger Joint

Last weekend we went to explore Puerto Madero. Puerto Madero is an area on the riverfront that is known as the newest and most flashy part of Buenos Aires. It was constructed in the late 1800's as the port for Buenos Aires. After a new port was constructed, the area was neglected for 70 odd years until a recent regeneration project in the 1990's. It's now a very modern looking area full of very overpriced restaurants, offices, apartments and luxurious hotels. While it was nice to be able to walk without tripping over any broken footpaths, with nice modern buildings and no rubbish or graffiti, we both thought that the area was a bit 'fake' and didn't really feel like Buenos Aires. As we were sitting having lunch at a very overpriced Italian restaurant looking over the water, we were approached five minutes by homeless people carrying sick looking children and begging for money. It felt very strange and uncomfortable. While it's a nice area to visit, I'm not too sure I would want to live there, nor could I every hope to afford to.