November 27, 2018: Exploring new parts of Buenos Aires!

Adam and I covered more of the city today and stumbled across some places I hadn't even been to yet!

We ate breakfast separately and then met up around 10:30am to start our adventures. First we took the subway to the last station to go see Plaza de Mayo, a place with incredible historical and political significance in Argentina.

We started at the Cabildo building which is now a museum and read about some history, like the revolution against the Spaniards. We also took hilarious photos pretending to be Juan and Eva Perón on the balcony giving speeches.

After this, we walked around the actual plaza and observed la Casa Rosada and the Argentine flag blowing ever so majestically in the wind.

After this, we walked about 15 minutes to el mercado San Telmo in the San Telmo neighborhood, which Adam really liked. It's cute and has very narrow streets and a good vibe. On the way there, we stopped to buy garrapiñada, which is essentially candied nuts and it is amazing!!!

I was looking for something specific in one of the dulce de leche shops at the actual market and luckily we found it! With even greater luck, this same place sold vegan dulce de leche and Adam bought all of it... literally. The guy who worked here was as precious as they come. He's from Brazil and here we are posing with him / here is the seflie he took on my phone. Shoutout to this young man.

After having walked around for quite some time now, Adam and I were famished. But not too famished to not stop and take some pics with Mafalda. She's a character from a comic that makes social commentary on Argentina and especially on the consumerism of Argentines.

We were feeling a tad hopeless about finding a place to eat that was both cheap and had vegan options but just like yesterday, we hit the jackpot. We went to a vegetarian restaurant that we stumbled across and it was incredibly delicious. They brought us three little breads, each with a different hummus spread, and a shot glass of soup before our meal and it was all very tasty. I took home plenty of leftovers and you already know what I'm eating for lunch tomorrow.

After this wonderful lunch, we continued walking towards la reserva ecológica. On the way, I saw something laying in the middle of the street that had been run over. No - it was not a squirrel. It was an alfajor. An alfajor begging to be picked up. It was still in its package and my plan was just to throw it away, but I realized that if it was still in its package it must be safe to eat. Not my proudest vegan moment, but a nice little treat.

Later on the walk, we passed by the entrance to a very nice looking park. We decided to stop in. There was a zipline-like piece of equipment and we wandered over to it, only to discover that the rope part was kind of stuck and wouldn't really slide along the line. Adam tried to slide it was much as he could over to one side where there was a platform to jump and slide from, but it wasn't budging. A very friendly family came over to try to help. Somehow, we progressed from Adam pushing it, to the girl on her dad's shoulders pushing it, to ADAM on the guy's shoulders pushing it. It was hilarious! They were able to get the rope all the way to one side, sadly to learn that it didn't even end up gliding across as we had so badly wished it had. Still a fun time though.

We arrived to the ecological reserve shortly after and decided to do path #3: a 4.2 kilometer walk past the 2 lakes in the reserve and along the coast of the río. It ended up taking about 55 minutes and it was pretty neat! Lots of people were out there enjoying it as well.

Oh what the wind does to a man's hair.

We were very much pooped after this trek and decided to head home. We walked quite a while to the subway and agreed to meet back up again in a few hours once we were home. Little did I know, I was in for a THICC nap. I passed out for about 2 hours and boi was it hard to get out of bed after that. But I persevered.

When I woke up, I looked for a place to eat dinner. We planned to go out to eat with Clarisa tonight and had to find a close (and of course vegan friendly) place to eat at. We settled on a vegetarian restaurant about 10 minutes away.

Clarisa and I left the house together and met Adam outside at 9:00pm and this was Clarisa's first time meeting Adam! The vibes were great from the start and it was nice that we could all communicate in Spanish since Adam speaks it basically fluently.

The dinner was INCREDIBLE. Not only was the food so amazing and delicious, but the conversation was great as well and I felt so happy to be there with both of them. We talked about anything and everything and Clarisa too seemed very content which made me even happier!

I wish I had known about this restaurant earlier so I could go again, but it's not like I ever went out much for my meals. I guess today just made me realize that there is still so much to the city that I have yet to discover and it's unfortunate that I don't have the time to discover it all. But hindsight is 20/20 and most of the time I was here I had homework and tests and essays and I didn't have all this free time to explore. At least I'm getting to see these places now!

After dinner, Adam and I parted ways before reuniting in a bit. We both tried to calculate our spendings for the day and that ended up taking way too much of my time and also being so very nit-picky but whatever, we figured it out.

We had planned to go to a boliche because I got us free entry before 1:00am, but we ended up just playing pool with some people in his hostel from the Argentine province of Corrientes. They were impossible to understand. Every time they asked us something, Adam and I would look at each other like, "Did you understand that...?"

It was pretty fun but my allergies were acting up horribly and I was sitting there rubbing my eyes the entire time so I left around 1:00am, came home, ate a bowl of cereal like I did in the olden days in the US, and now I am gonna go to bed. Chau.

Song Recommendation of the Day: "Besame Sin Sentir" by Micro TDH