178 Parana

Check out our pad for the rest of the month. We are located in the Congresso district - downtown Buenos Aires.

Great day today and a bit of suerte (luck). Last night we stayed in an apartment we found online while in Orlando. When we met up with the owner ayer (yesterday) we asked to try it out for a night to see if we liked the area and if the apartment was really what we wanted. It was late and we had been up all night on the overnight flight so we were exhausted and just wanted to rest and start fresh the next day. She agreed to let us use it for $40 US. It was quite comical as the owner spoke no English and Jen and I hablamos un pequito espanol. We got through though.

So today we (Jen) decided to look on Craigslist Argentina for apartments and we found an AWESOME deal! That’s my hunny bunny for ya – always knows how to get the deals. We set a time to meet the owner a las 14:30. We walked over a mile to check out the place and in our route we came to the widest street in the world – Ave 9 de Julio – my goodness is this street and traffic massive. Super cool though and quite pretty. It consists of 3 different one-ways with each consisting of about 7 lanes (pretty awakening crossing the street). In-between each one way is a wide median of grassy areas and places for pedestrians to sit and view the impressive traffic event and city.

Upon arrival at the prospective apartment we met Francisco, the owner and “Porteno” artist (Buenos Aires artist). He spoke no English as well other than a few words such as hello and numbers 1-10. We made it through again with quite a few laughs and short games of charades. Bottom line is we scored a really nice furnished apartment with 3 rooms, a kitchen, and bedroom for only $340 US. We have it through the end of September. This is a nice relief as it breaks down to $19 per day (which is much cheaper than booking private rooms in hostels for two where you only get a queen bed). Now we have our shelter set in Buenos areas and roughly 3 weeks to explore the city of 13 million. The apartment is located in the Congresso district which is part of the national historic district and houses the majority of the key government buildings. Tomorrow will be day one of exploration in Buenos Aires.

I’m pretty surprised and rather happy at the same time that hardly anyone here speaks English. My goal (and Jen's) is to learn as much Spanish as possible if not become fluent. This will definitely aid in the process and speed in which to pick up the language.