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Monday, March 19, 2012

Day 11…

I have to say that we have done a LOT of walking the past 10 days. It really is the best way to see Buenos Aires. The buses are great for getting around but usually packed, and if you don't get a seat, you don't see much at all, as you’re really only concentrating on not falling over and keeping your place!  When you have so many shows in such a short time frame and a new country and city that you've never seen before, it really takes it out of you! We haven't been having dinner till 1 A.M., and by the time we get to sleep it’s past 2:30 A.M. We were waking up at 9 A.M. the first few days and out at 10.
We didn't leave the apartment till 3 P.M. today. We just chilled out, as it was a free day with no show. In other cities, everywhere would be closing up in a couple of hours, but a lot of the stores here don't even open till 1 in the afternoon and close at 1 A.M., so it didn't really shorten our day at all.
The 2nd day we were here, Kami and I walked past a really nice cafe that did afternoon tea with sandwiches, cakes, etc. We both enjoy going to tea. We didn't, however, make a note of what street it was on. Ever since we’ve been trying to find it with very little luck! Today we set out to find it, but failed. The area of Palermo Soho is in a grid. There are about 11 streets widthwise by 15 streets lengthwise. We said we would walk one street then the next and the next, but after three, we gave in and found a place to have “lunch.” Neither of us were really hungry, so we just stopped by the cup cake store that we saw earlier in the week.
 
My lunch                                          Kami’s lunch                                     What Kami really wanted!
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We then decided to catch the same bus we caught the other day—the 168—and head out to find the shopping centre that had the huge screaming face mural on display. I couldn’t remember what the shopping centre was called, but the day before we saw a shopping centre with lots of screaming face banners around it and thought it would be worth a try going there.
 
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Our luck paid off, and as we entered the centre, I showed the guy behind the information stand a picture on my camera of the face and asked him if it was in here. “Up one floor and turn right,” he said.
 
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It looked really cool and was set up in front of the indoor cinema in the mall. I'm not sure how many of the people who stopped to have their picture taken with it knew what it was, but I'm sure most must have seen the promo posters and pictures on TV, in magazines, and everywhere else--it really is everywhere here in Buenos Aires. We sat and had a drink in the cafe opposite the display, and Kami continued writing her postcards.
 
We tried to find a post office to get some stamps, but gave up after asking a few people who had no idea at all what we were talking about! We carried on walking down the bus route, then turned right as the bus had done the previous day. This was the street we’d observed full of locals selling anything you can think of! I’m not sure how the guy selling just colouring books and monkeys goes on, but you are definitely in a very unique market place for those!
 
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Video of waking down the main market street
 
We walked for half an hour down one side before crossing over and walking back along the other side. As good as we have been at getting around on the buses, I've been forgetting to look at how to get back. As most of the streets here are one way, too, it’s kind of difficult to work out which streets which buses go down to get back where we started from.
 
Strange building with vinyl records for a window!                                            Local bus station
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I looked at the map, and neither of us were tired, so we decided to walk back to the apartment. It took us a good hour of walking, but it was great to wander around streets and not know what to expect down them! We got back to Palermo around 9:30 P.M., went straight back to the apartment,  chilled out for a couple of hours, and then went out for dinner. Originally we were going to go to the Mexican taco place we went on our 1st or 2nd night—La Fabrica del Taco—but there was a line and a wait time of about 30 minutes and we chose another restaurant nearby.
 
Full album from today:

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