Buenos Aires 2015

Happy New Year!

We are not after big cities, but BA has surprised us. Despite of about 3 million inhabitants, living only in the City of BA, it does not seem crowded at all. Weather the holiday season has its influence, hard to estimate. Atmosphere in BA is quite casual and slightly chaotic, magnificent Art Nouveau buildings are stuffed between modern ones. On the other hand it is very easy to wander along the clearly marked and well organized street network.

Some peculiar things occured as well. On the last working day, december 30, white collars in BA have a tradition of throwing shredded calender and document pieces out of  windows. Pieces of white paper cover vast office areas and remain on the streets until rain dissolves and washes them away.

Exchanging currency is kind of special in BA, as well. Naturally there is a safe, but expensive possibility of using official bank services, though exchanging currency on streets, with remarkably better „blue dollar“ rate is another option. Just follow the guy to a strange kiosk, few minutes in the queue and the deal gets done.

Although we spent New Years Eve in BA, we are not able to describe the event. Due to 5 hour jet lag between Estonia and Argentina,  which still affects us, we just fell asleep half an hour before the New Year arrived to BA. Having hot summer weather with 25 degrees neither helped to create the correct atmosphere, although we had lit a real candle. Decorated Christmas trees seemed odd in these surroundings as well. Fireworks in the middle of night woke us for a second  – ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

If you are not in a hurry and enjoy long walks, BA offers pleasant routes with several interesting sites to discover. We enjoyed wandering in Microcentro and discovering Reserva Ecologica close to harbour.

Famous Recoleta Cementery, resembles some sort of minor town within the City, with all the  magnificent memorials commemorating important people in history of Argentina. Among others there is Eva Peron - Duarte family mausoleum, which seems to be number one pilgrimage destination for most tourists visiting BA.

BA is covered with numerous cute well kept parks with magnificent trees. These are  popular places to hang out amongst locals. On the 1-st of January we saw most of people spending time in parks, having picnic, jogging, playing with children or just taking a nap on a park bench. Splendid way to spend holiday!