Last Week in Buenos Aires

We loved Buenos Aires so much the first time around that we decided to spend our last week in Argentina back in this lively city. This time around was a mix of sight seeing, fine dining, going out and taking care of some odds and ends in preparation for our return home. Highlights of the week included...

Fine Dining for less than $40
Both of us thoroughly enjoy fine dining with fancy cuisine and a good bottle of wine. When we are in the US, the fine dining experience only happens a couple times a year because the bill adds up. But with the exchange rate in BA - and the excess of good cheap beef - a fine dining experience is quite affordable. So we decided to splurge and spend a hunk of our daily budget on trying new restaurants for dinner all over town. We went to a mix of bistros and steak houses, Mexican and Middle Eastern. We savored every flavor and the perfectly cooked meat (sorry if anyone reading is vegetarian), and of course tried a new type of wine each evening. In addition to the food and drink, our dinners out also gave us a lot of relaxed face-time together to reflect on our experiences over the past year and talk about what we are excited and anxious about for our return home. Tonight is our last evening in BA before our 11:30PM departure...and we are planning on one last nice meal out.

Exploring the City
Since we weren´t taking Spanish classes this time around, pretty much every day we ventured to a new area of the city to explore the sights. We went to the zoo and saw some very interesting animals we hadn't seen before, we visited the modern art and Evita museums, we roamed around a handful of different parks, and we even did a little shopping at the markets and street malls.

Exploring the Night Life
Last time we were in BA, we certainly got out and about, but we had to get up at 7:30AM every morning for Spanish class. This time, we could stay out (and sleep in) as late as we wanted...sometimes we were in by 1AM (early by Argentina standards) and sometimes we stayed out till 5AM (still relatively early by Argentine clubbing standards!). We had some nights out on our own and a few good social nights. One of Eric's former colleagues from Cypress was in BA with her husband (Tess and Simon) so we had the chance to meet up with them for dinner and drinks. We also met with an American friend we met in New Zealand 5 years ago (Dave) and made some friends at our hostel. Our night life was a mix of live music, clubbing, and bar hopping (at one bar, Tess made friends with a very eccentric bar owner who gave us free drinks...thank you Tess!)


Preparing for Our Return
Now that we are only a few weeks from our return to the "real world," we have begun thinking and planning for our arrival. We had some time to catch up on US and World news, Eric has been researching the latest happenings in Silicon Valley, and we spent some time touching base with friends and colleagues. Our first month back is likely to be crazy as we settle back into jobs, look for a place to live and get caught up on what we've missed in the last year. But there is much to look forward to and we are excited to get back into the swing of things.

But before we do...we still have one last adventure in the Caribbean to soak up the sun, drink some mojitos and enjoy the colorful culture. Stay tuned for stories from our last few weeks!

Mariah and Eric