Solo in Buenos Aires

This should have been posted a while back, but it has taken me some time to type it up and post the pictures...

When I go solo anywhere, I tend to review and write everything down, so here it is:

From my Journal on July 1st 2008:

Today I took the subway from our hotel down to the stop on Florida street. I then walked around a bit until I arrived at Pacifico Gallerias (corner of Florida & Córdoba).

I mainly came to the Gallerias to find some friends that were in one of the Gallerias. I however, was in the wrong place, as they were not there. I decided to have lunch there as well. I ate at a place called the "Tea Gallery" to have a baguette de pollo (Chicken baguette) & a Coca Lite.

(Here they call Coke-a-Cola, Coca. And Coca Lite is Diet Coke-a-Cola. If you say I want a coke, you are meaning something entirely different if you get my drift...) The baguette had tomato, lettuce, chicken, and mayo. I thought the sandwich was a bit dry and coka lite was expensive for the price. The baguette was $19.95 and the Coca Lite was $7.50. The place itself is open & sit down. It sits on the second floor of the Galleria and you are able to see many parts of the Galleria.

Since it is sit down, there was a waitress that served me (like in most places, there are very few places to get something to eat where there isn´t a tip involved...)
Food - 3/5
Service - 2.5/5 it was hard to get my waitresses attention.
Price - 3/5
Overall 3/5
Total $27 + $2.70 tip

After lunch I headed to level 0 (what we call the first floor in the states is seen at floor 0 here. And what we would call the 2nd floor is seen as the 1st floor.) Floor 0 (zero) contained some stores but was mostly a food court. I spotted a Sony Style store and made my in. I found a Sony FX1 Camera on display, I had a bit fun playing with this camera quite a bit. After the store, I got some ice cream at Freddo (only found in B.A.)

There ice cream is very good and worth a try if you find one. After eating the ice cream I left the shopping area and took the subway to Independence & Lima(?) Then took a Taxi from there to La Boca (a suburb of B.A.)

I went into one of the shops with the intention of buying some gifts for my nieces and nephew. I told the lady that I was looking for a shirt for my "novias & novio"... The lady immediately went over and got a large shirt, it is then when I realized my mistake, I apologized and corrected myself and asked for shirts for my three sobrinos. Whoops... After feeling stupid and quite embarrassed, I left with some gifts and headed to a store that sold leather goods across the street. I ended up speaking with the owner for a little over 30 minutes about why I was in Buenos Aires. When I told her that I was studying Spanish in Mendoza, she first told me that I was crazy coming all the way over here to learn Spanish. And she asked why I needed to learn Spanish & that English was the universal worldwide language and that English was the only language I needed to know. I wondered to myself - then how were people supposed to by her products if the couldn´t communicate to her in her language...
Anyway, I proceeded to say (intended to say) - Thanks. I need to return to my hotel. Nice to meet you. Bye. What I ended up saying was "Gracias. Yo nesecito regresar a mi hotel. Me gusta. Chau." Which means - Thanks. I need to return to my hotel. I like you. Chau.
I realized my mistake after she laughed and said jokingly your too young for me but thanks. I literally wanted to just walk out. But I restated the part that needed to be corrected, then left quite quickly...

I returned to the hotel via Taxi, since I had not had Lunch, and I still had several hours before dinner, I decided to pick up a hamburger at the Burger King next door to our hotel, yes Burger King is here too. Their Classic burger cost me $15.50! I was starting to think that that Chicken sub I had earlier was worth it! (I guess it is somewhat the same price as it is in the States or a little more. Divide by the current exchange rate and it is about U$S 4.50.)

Shortly after inhaling my burger, some friends that would be leaving that night, invited me to go have a drink with them at a nearby restaurant. The restaurant is called BRICK, which sits on the corner of Corrientes & some other street i can´t remember . We found the menu to be quite hilarious! It looked like they typed their menu into one of those internet translators and hit "translate" then copied that onto their menu. The video above is from the restaurant as are the following pictures. There is a whole album on my pictures website in the Buenos Aires folder. The first few are my favorites. But here is my absolute favorite foto:

The Remaining 7 of us decided to go to a steak restaurant. I had a steak. I had yet to have a good piece of meat in B.A. The steak was cooked perfectly. I went to bed one happy camper.

P.S. Here is a panorama I stitched together today from Uruguay, sorry it´s not that wide, I think I would´ve crashed the computer if I had tried. Download the picture to see it better.