Jan. 16, 2011: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Sunday was full of thunderstorms. That, and closed shops. I went out for a few hours in the rain, but since everything was closed anyway, gave the enterprise up after a while and returned to the hostel. At which point I tried making some changes to this blog software (Someone — who shall remain unnamed — was disappointed that I hadn't thought to include an RSS feed). After a little bit of that, I decided that programming on a Spanish keyboard was just too painful (ALL the punctuation's in the wrong place!), and went back out into the thunderstorms that had by that point relented into a slow drizzle. Soon enough, even that abated to nothing, and the rest of the day was nice.

Obligatory touristy shot. To prove I'm in Buenos Aires, or something.
A Sunday street market; making do in the pouring rain.
Get'cher copper here!
Merry Christmas? Not my hostel, but (possibly) only because I hadn't come across it the previous day...
National congress. I have too many photos of various "$foo de la Nacion" buildings...
This building was totally burned out / abandoned, and had apparently been so for a while. Too bad; underneath there were signs that it had once been quite attractive.
On a recommendation, I went to the Cementerio de la Recoleta. Closed on Sunday, along with everything else. Still some cats for me to meow at, though.
The huge IBA reserve right in the middle of the city.
Seriously; this is only a few blocks from the city center. More closed-on-Sunday-ness, though.
The sidewalk along the side of the sanctuary was lined with these Parrillas. They were open. And not so German.
I ran across some mini street festivities. A buncha' drummers and dancers wandering down the street.

And now... off to find myself a bicicleta!

Tonight's wine: Reserva del Fin del Mundo (Patagonia) Malbec 2008. Yeah, this was more like the Malbecs I'm used to. Not to my taste. Wasn't my first choice, but they kept coming back saying they didn't have 375mL of anything else.