We left the United States on December 28th, and arrived in Buenos Aires about 15 hours later on December 29th! We immediately got ripped off by a cab driver at the airport and started our mildly overwhelming South American adventure.
Our first day in BA, we went to Plaza Serrano in Palermo (the young popular area of the city) and had the first of many pizzas to come. We explored the city by foot for a while but we were exhausted and called it an early night.
The next day we went to the bus terminal to get a bus to a beach city about 5 hours south of BA called Mar del Plata. The end of December and the month of January are very busy vacation times for Argentines, and many of them head down to the southern beaches. The bus station was insanely crowded and confusing but we somehow figured it out and ended up in Mar del Plata five hours later. Sidenote: the buses are soooo nice. They're like first class airplane seats so I barely minded the ride.
We checked into our hostel, Pergamino, and walked the six blocks to the beach to explore and get dinner.
We ate a restaurant at the end of the pier called Los Pescadores and I demolished about 100 muscles.
The next night was New Years Eve, and our hostel Mom, Alejandra, decided we should have a huge dinner because everywhere in the city was booked with really fancy expensive new year's dinners that none of us could get into or afford. Alejandra and her family cooked a massive feast for us of all typical Argentine cuisine and lots of wine and we had a great time.
Our hostel family was made up of two Australian girls, two Israeli guys, an American from Ohio, a Colombiana, a Turkish couple, four Colombian guys, a Canadian riding his motorcycle through the whole continent, a French girl and guy, two Swedes, and a Finnish guy. We made quite the eclectic group but it was really interesting to talk to everyone about their cultures and just to get to know everyone.
People eat so late in Argentina that when the ball dropped at midnight, we were still in the middle of dinner. We made a toast, and kept eating.
After dinner we went to a local bar with some of the hostel employees called Nevermind. It was the weirdest bar with the strangest group of people I've ever seen, but it was really fun. They played all American classics and we danced all night. Something I never quite got used to the whole time I was there was walking out of a bar or club when the night was over, and seeing the sun had already risen. People go out so late, that if you're going to be out for a few hours, it's almost inevitable that it will be daylight when you head home.
Above: My travel buddy and roommate Ashley, and the guy from Ohio, Luke
Ashley and I with our new Colombian friend Patricia, or Pato for short
We didn't get to bed until 8:30 am, so naturally I slept until about 6 pm. My parents were so worried about me that they called the hostel asking if anyone had seen me! After this incident, I was much better at keeping in touch :)
Mar del Plata by day!
The biggest and best caprese calzone I've ever had.
I ate A LOT of caprese this entire trip. It was all really delicious, but my vegetarianism kept me pretty limited in this country where vegetables are almost non-existent.
On our last day in Mar del, Ashley and I went to the beach and read books and soaked up the sun for a while, then headed back to the bus station because her class started on January 3rd and we needed to get back. We convinced Luke and Pato to come back with us (they were taking a mini-vacation from their home in BA) and we all caught a bus back.
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