Day 1 in Buenos Aires

Well, after a long overnight flight I made it into Buenos Aires (otherwise known as BsAs). I got to the hotel around 11:30 am, had a coffee, took a shower and had lunch with my friend Jim.

The hotel looks fabulous and is doing great. Amazing what this place looks like considering 10 months ago it was still a lot of unfinished plaster walls. This is a very small, 6 room hotel in Palermo SoHo. Jim has some great people working for him. All are very friendly and speak great English and they all think I need to convince Jim to take a vacation day and go to Uruguay with me.

He finally got smart and outsourced the restaurant so that's one less thing to worry about. It's incredible that he's still dealing with some construction issues with this place. The A/C is his biggest headache. Today's issue with the A/C was that it wasn't blowing air (OK...it was for a few minutes), but sucking in the air instead. After a few tries of turning the system on and off, we said screw it and went to lunch.

He's ready to call it quits. The city is getting more and more dangerous. He was been robbed at gunpoint at the hotel a couple of months ago and he was telling me that a number of guests have been robbed while out touring. So that's my goal for this trip....to not get robbed. It was not like this 10 months ago. It's a pity that the crime rate has increased. There's talk that it's a way to show displeasure with the government so that they would get booted out. But we're unsure if anything would really be better with a replacement government.

The rest of the day was spent shopping the many, many boutiques in the neighborhood. I'm pleased that I never got lost, although I did get turned around a couple of times. Not bad considering I don't have a map. There are lots of brand new designer shops (i.e., not yet discovered) and fairs in Palermo. I picked up a silver ring, a necklace, wallet, and silver bookmarks today. I'm debating whether or not to buy a pair of blue ankle boots. They're comfortable and unusual. I certainly don't have a pair. I wish I took a photo so that my friends could counsel me on the purchase!

For dinner, Jim and his business consultant, Thomas (he's Polish), went out for a bite to eat. It's still pretty inexpensive to eat here. The wines are wonderful, of course. My favorite white is a Torrontes. I need to pick up a few bottles to take home with me. I almost forgot that licuados are perfect for a warm day (think fruit smoothie). I figured that I have all week to drink them.

Tomorrow, my friend Lucas is taking me out to Belgrano to walk around, eat an asado and top it off with a helado (ice cream). It's supposed to be a beautiful area so I expect to post a photo.

So that's pretty much my first day. Sorry to be boring tonight, but I think I'm doing pretty well on 4 hours of sleep!

Chao from BsAs!