¿What the bloody hell did I get accomplished today?

When visitng Buenos Aires, plan small. Everything takes a lot longer to do than you think (IMO.) I had small plans today. And I couldn't quite manage to complete the small plans I had made.

I wanted to visit Recoleta, a neighborhood that's pretty wealthy, full of manors and expensive shops and restaurants. In typical hostel fashion, you talk to one person (in my case, a Mormon from Utah named Dan), you exchange about 3 sentences, and you make plans for dinner. I talked him into having parilla with me (hard to do that alone,) but by the time we were done, we were a total of 8 people (Nima, Dan, Dan, Georgie, Peter, Andy, Korn), many of whom had a lot of meat the night before and needed a night off, and we're not leaving for dinner until 10 pm. I was expecting the experience to be quite unpleasant. Group dinners are often a fiasco I avoid like the plague. Type A personalities like myself don't like to wait around while everyone takes their sweet-ass time, making group decisions (worsened by the fact that no one knows each other, so no one wants to step on anyone's toes or be in charge, trying to figure out the check. Actually, it turned out better than I thought. We went to a pizzeria (which here, also seems to always have empanadas) and I had an odd assortment of empanadas. A couple of beef ones, well-seasoned and mixed with olives and hard-boiled eggs, a cheese-and-onion (needed salt, but what doesn't?) and one stuffed with, no joke, creamed corn, which I could have done without. Although, it's hard to beat ANYTHING stuffed in a crust. Recoleta was dead on this Tuesday night, so we cabbed it back to Palermo, had some drinks, and I finally got to bed at about 4 in the morning.

Anyway, I wanted to see Recoleta during the day. Blah. It's the upper-west side, on a much grander and more spread-out scale. I wanted to see the cemetery, which is supposed to be very creepy and notable, but I meandered in the wrong direction, and wound up very close to the hostel. Save that for another day.

At this point, I'm starving, and all I wanted was to have another nice lunch under the beautiful Porteño sun. Harder than you'd think. Only stupid americans want to sit IN THE SUN, and although there are many cafes that had outdoor seating, most of the seats either have umbrellas or are strategically placed in the shade. Or both. Walking, walking, walking. Dizzy. Fuck it. Back to Palermo via taxi. And you can't just say 'Palermo,' because it's SO GINORMOUS that you need to give them an avenue and a cross street.

So I tell the taxista to take me to Persicco, an ice cream shop that's supposed to be one of the best ones. To tide me over before I find an actual restaurant. Today's flavors: marron glace (glazed chestnut) and mascarpone, which contained fruit to my surprise. I dealt, but I really don't like fruit adulterating my creamy or nutty dessert. Certainly not without prior knowledge. I literally asked her 'what's the pink stuff?' Eh. It's creamy and rich, flavorful. It's no gelato. It doesn't have to be, I guess, but eh. Like the other desserts I've had here, just a touch sweeter than they have to be.

At this point, I haven't had any real food, and I decide to head back to around where I ate the other day. I finally ate at about 3:30, at some cafe that had outdoor seating in the sun. Unremarkable, but decent. I had more fish with maybe some of the best mashed potatoes I've ever had (after adding some salt...) I decided to go back into a store or two, and almost bought a pair of black jeans, tapered to the ankle, zippers on the back pocket.

And then I remembered how much I REALLY HATE THE 80s and I just couldn't do it. I'm DONE. Although, I found this really nice shoe designer called josefina ferroni where the shoes were beautifully made, but everything was Flash Gordon style. And I'm not exaggerating. I drooled slightly over a pair of high-heeled, ankle-high, METALLIC BLUE with a silver lightening bolt on the side. Truly ridiculous, but I'd feel like a superhero. And btw, only one of many metallic blue shoes I've seen.

I still don't have a towel, because I failed to follow a simple rule here: when you see something you need or like, BUY IT right away. Even the few chain stores here don't often carry many sizes of something, and just because it's in one branch does not mean it's in another. Often, it's not. And every store has only one size out of anything they have. You have to ask for your size.
Anyway, I saw one or two places where I could get a towel, and put it off. Bad, bad idea. But I did manage to get flip-flops, so I'll be dripping wet when I put on my clothes, but I won't have to put my feet on the slimy bathroom floor.

My tango lessons were a bust as well. I emailed a couple highly recommended to me on yehoodi, and they wanted to charge me 80 american dollars for an hour and a half. The going rate is 100 pesos per hour or less. At the rate they're charging, the lesson had better come with a happy ending.

So I texted the instructors that do the free lesson at the hostel (which I skipped because I'm a big snob) and they're planning on meeting me here tomorrow.

Oh, and I found the yarn district. I managed to contain myself.

Tonight I damn well better be eating some parilla. And if my new friends back out, I'm going at it alone. And they want to see some tango. I'd better get prepared because I don't think anyone has a plan.