Weekend fun... That was fun, right?

Everyone should come visit because they will have a personal tour guide. At least of Palermo and Recoleta neighborhoods. My friends and I explored those barrios over Easter weekend. Even though I was hoping that we could have taken a trip out of the city for the break, it turned out to be really great to stay. Since everyone leaves the city for the holiday, everything was a lot less crowded. It was nice to be able to do the touristy thing and actually visit those places that I thought before, "Oh, it'd be nice to explore that someday!"

Recoleta Cemetery

A town for the dead. It's beautiful, but also kind of creepy to walk through. The cemetery is huge and it would be so easy to get lost. There are a lot of small alleys and some of the mausoleums have broken glass and tattered curtains. I wish I knew more about Argentine history so I could recognize more of the important figures who are buried there.





Evita Peron's tomb -- always graced with flowers and a crowd





Jardin Japones -- Palermo

Five acres of Japanese flora, sculptures, and a lake filled with carp. Very peaceful, a nice little stroll. The garden also has a Japanese restaurant.








El Rosedal -- Palermo

The rose garden... my friends and I have marked this as our favorite running spot. It's so beautiful at sunset, with people out in paddle boats and having picnics around the lake. We finally took a trip to go inside the garden and it was gorgeous.










On to the next weekend! (Mom... sorry in advance, I don't mean to make you worry...)

So my friend Mallori and I decided that we wanted to take an adventure out of the city on Saturday. The train is really cheap, about 1,10 pesos... so we figured it'd be a nice cheap day trip. We met up in the morning at a bakery and bought some medialunas (of course!) and took the subte to the Retiro train station. We had read about a nature reserve, and thought it'd be a really cool place to check out. So, we bought our train tickets and hopped on a train.

Well, first problem... we were chatting and discovered that we had missed our train transfer. No worries, we got off and took another train heading back to the transfer. Hopped on another train. Got off at another transfer station, bought another ticket, and got on another train. Ok. That was confusing. Anyway, so we eventually made it to Otamendi (where the nature reserve is).

Second problem. Otamendi is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. No shops. Hardly any cars. Hardly any people. Dirt road. Yeah... now what? When does the next train leave for Buenos Aires? We don't really want to be here anymore...

So we stood for about five minutes in shock, contemplating what to do, where we should go, if we should even try and find the reserve or find a taxi. Then we encountered two people, one of which would come to be a life saver in our kinda crazy, potentially dangerous, poorly planned day. After laughing hysterically that we would want to come to the nature reserve if we were from the United States (I'm not sure why it was so funny), our new friends walked with us to the nature reserve, which was up these stairs through the woods and down a dirt road. The guy, Gustavo, then decided to be our tour guide through the reserve, and actually was very knowledgable.






The reserve was actually very pretty, and it was nice to be out of the city. We probably would have appreciated it more if we weren't so frantic about not knowing where we were or how we were going to get back home.

Ok, Gustavo, so we love the reserve and we love your guiding skills, but we're really hungry and want to go back home. When does the train leave? Third problem. The train doesn't actually stop in Otamendi on its way back to Buenos Aires. Right. Ok. This is when my three-year-old instincts kick in and I have a temper tantrum and cry that I'm hungry and want my mommy. Just kidding, but really, how are we going to get back home?

Lucky for us, Gustavo has a lot of friends, and he called us a taxi. The taxi driver took the three of us to a store where we bought some sandwich fixings. Gustavo then kissed us goodbye and sent us on our way with the taxi man. It was actually kind of sad saying goodbye to Gustavo since we had spent the whole day with him. He was such a godsend when we thought we were completely lost.

So, the taxi man took us to a bus station in another city, Campana. He then helped us buy tickets for a bus back to Buenos Aires. We said bye to the taxi man and the bus came. An hour and a half later I was back in my room. Thank God.

That was exciting... Maybe next time we'll do more research. Like I said, sorry Mom.