Buenos Aires Part 2

 So I've been in Buenos Aires for about 2 weeks, it's been pretty good despite my Spanish classes and photography classes being quite the flop.

Pros of Buenos Aires.

1. Very beautiful city with so many amazing parks and green space, everywhere felt like Trinity Bellwoods on steroids

2. Great cafe, pastries, lattes and EVERYWHERE has wifi (that almost always works).

3. Lots of restaurants - good variety that are often open very late, very new-yorkish

4. People are very friendly, helpful

Cons:

1. Usually gotta carry cash on you, and when i went to western union, they only had 500 dollar bills which is 1.4 USD, sooo this ends up being a lot of bills! The highest bill they have is 1000. So you feel cool but actually aren't holding a lot of money.

2. Things start late, dinner at 9-10 pm is normal for most people, and they go to bed late... buuut wake up at 8, so I guess everyone is just sleeping less.

3. The accent here has been the hardest for me out of all Spanish speaking places. They have lots their own slang "lufardo". They also pronounce the double ll different "sha" instead of "ya". They use vos instead of ustedand tenes instead of tienes. 

But they also kinda sound Italian which is pretty cool.

Some highlight of my trip

1. Biking buenos Aires- really solid bike tour to multiple ares, the city is flat so great for biking and the bikes they had were really good.

2. Aramburu restaurant, I had a 19 course meal, Treschon restaruant, 10 courses, both blew my mind and as Michelin start people are coming/have come to BA they might end up with some staras!

This was in La Boca, and supposedly the empanadas in Buenos Aires. It was kinda fun to ring the bell, I can confidently say they were ok :P

3. Spanglish - cool language exchange club. Mundo lingo goes on most nights but more of a social event rather than a focus on language.

4. The Argentina experience, I'm doing this in Iguazu but i just wanna mention it cause I've only heard great things.

5. La Cabrera, showed up at 6:20 for a 40% discount, this was rated as a top 50 restaurants in latin America and is the next best thing to Don Julio.

Things to avoid!

So I found a school called Mente, they are like a pimp for other programs, Tango, Spanish (they go through a school called Vos), wine course, photography course through a guy David Beniluz. They do organize some events that's included in your tuition. They organize housing but it also seems to be quite bad and they take quite a cut. The people there are super nice and it did lead me to some really cool people in the program.

I did pay 900 US for 2 weeks of photo classes, the instructor David is a such a nice guy, but everything was just so disorganized and I really don't think i learned much at all. I bought the iphone academy course for 50 bucks and so far it's been really good!

The first week I did take Spanish classes with IntoWords Spanish school, 47 reviews on google and 5 stars. Small place, I was put in a group that was way below my level but when they interviewed me I was asked very simple questions. Sadly this kinda thing is classic for Spanish schools, very hard to gauge what something is like with online reviews.

On the bike tour through La boca. this is Maradona who passed away in 2020. Famous for " the hand of g-d", interesting to look this up. In asking many Argentinos... I can't tell if they think it was legit or not.

Puerto Madero, the very bougie area, Messi had an apartment here. Although swanky, seems more quite at night, so i probably wouldn't stay here.

The Japanese gardens, kinda smack dab in the city, food was very pricy and so so.

One of the courses at Trescha. I like the the head chef was serving me lots of the courses himself.

After eating so much, they took us outside to a cool garden for more dessert :O

60 USD for brunch at L'Orangerie Alvear Palace hotel. It's at 12:30, hard to book online, I showed up to book, and they still didn't have reservation. I probably should have called. This was pretty insane, included a caviar station, sushi station (which was botched because there was lots of cream cheese which is sacrilegious!). There was a MASSIVE MASSIVE table of desserts, each one made with intricate details.

This poorly taken pic was taken on a Sunday run, they have paddle boats to rent!

Some Jazz at the famous Thelonious club in BA. Some pretty solid music, featured below is Julianne and Shannon my fellow Canadian people, so great that every Canadian I meet just happens to be awesome.