Finally arriving at the Buenos Aires airport at 3:00 am, our hotel at 4:30 am, and waking up at 9:45 am (some of us), our long awaited trip finally begun. We walked to the pizza place, Las Cuartetas, had some trouble first ordering in Spanish, and tried to down five whole deep dish pizzas.
pizzas galore!
four hours of sleep, no problem.
Very cheesy, very dense, and very hard to keep eating. After leaving two whole pizzas left and feeling extremely bad about it, we walked down to the metro for our first Argentinian subway ride. We spotted a girl with her notes looking quite fretful and Profe. Levin wished her good luck, teaching us a valuable lesson about being nosy in a good way. We met Mariana, the director of the travel agency Lunfarda, who took us around the city and spoke to us about the history. First we went to a church, Basilica Nuestra Señora del Pilar, where Mariana talked about the European immigration and influence in Buenos Aires, including aspects like architecture, society, and more. Then she took us to La Recoleta, a cemetery where the elite class of Argentineans rest, including Evita Perón, the controversial first lady of Juan Domingo Perón. After all that, we explored the mansions of Buenos Aires and the dramatic stories behind their construction, such as the beef between Corina Kavanagh and Mercedes Anchorena; for example, we learned about an early-twentieth skyscraper that Kavanagh had built, blocking Anchorena's view of the church she ordered built across the plaza from her mansion. The entire feud dramatized the tension between the city's old money and its new money. That church was pretty cool. It had a big golden shire. Mesmerizing and intriguing, we stayed seated for a few minutes taking in the serenity. At the end of our day, realizing we were too tired to go on, we took a short brisk walk back over to the hotel, but before arriving, we made a quick pitstop at Starbucks and realized that none of our cards worked here. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our hot drinks and rested in our rooms until we were called down for dinner. Our dinner took place a few blocks down where we had the pleasure of ending our first full day in Buenos Aires with some traditional Argentinian cuisine. I can't speak for the boys, but at our table we devoured two steaks, grilled veggies, milanesa napolitana, Anya's grilled cheese (a block of cheese with no bread, just... cheese), and to end it off, a chocotorta - a traditional argentine dessert. After dinner Profe. Levin took us to a convenience store but on a corner and got some interesting new Argentinian snacks. Exhausted from our long first day, and still recovering from our first two days of travel, we immediately crashed.
written by Abby, Sofia, Anya, Olivia
danny and santi admiring this 400+ year old tree
more tree!
Cementerio de la Recoleta
"We need to come back here!" -Nico
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