South America, Day 9: Buenos Aires, Argentina

As far as I can tell, my room in the hostel is located right above the hostel bar. So that means that each night, it's gotten loud around 2am from the noise downstairs. However, last night was the worst: as of around 1:30, there was nothing going on, but that's because on Fridays, the party doesn't really start till 3am or so -- and then continues till 6.

So long story short, I didn't wake up till around 1pm today, scotching most of my plans to get any sightseeing in. Luckily, turns out the guy they added to my (previously empty, other than myself) room last night is an American who's very familiar with the area from his work (organizing trips for American high-schoolers). Chris had a suggestion for lunch that sounded excellent, so we headed out to the restaurant Las Cabras in Palermo Hollywood. (The Palermo neighborhood is divided into a number of districts: Palermo Viejo (where my hostel is), Palermo Soho (where La Cabrera was), Palermo Hollywood, Palermo Chico, etc., with more divisions popping up as the area gentrifies further.)

Shamefully, I don't remember what the dish I ordered (at Chris's suggestion) was called. But it was possibly the most filling thing I've had on this trip. The dish consisted of pureed pumpkin, with strips of steak, onion, and other vegetables, thrown into a clay pot, topped with a thick layer of provolone cheese, and baked. It's just about as filling as it sounds, and even tastier than you might think:

Oh yeah, there was exactly one olive there, too.

 After lunch, we wandered around Palermo a little bit, and I randomly encountered another "restaurant" Elvira had suggested to me: Persicco. It's not actually a restaurant; more of a combination cafe and ice cream shop, with a huge selection of ice cream flavors.

Los sabores de Persicco

$4.75 gets you a pretty big cone. Not amazingly cheap, but good.

 The late start to the day meant we got back from lunch around 4:30. After a little looking around on the Internet, I decided to head to the Mueso Evita, close to the hostel, and then to an Argentine opera performance in San Telmo at 8pm. On my way to the Museo, though, I got sidetracked by another random rock concert in the middle of the street, this time at Plaza Italia. The bands ranged from the vaguely post-punk/hard rock Limones, a ZZ Top-inspired band whose name I didn't catch, and the Revolvers, whose sound reminded me of modern rock like the Smashing Pumpkins. I picked up a Revolvers CD...and about an hour later realized that I have no way to play it till I get back. Oops.

Limones @ Plaza Italia, Buenos Aires 25-6-2011 from ih - on Vimeo.

I spent a while hanging out with the Limones. None of them spoke a scrap of English; the guitarist doesn't speak at all, the drummer speaks so fast and with so much Buenos Aires slang I had no idea what he was saying, but the singer did a good job of getting his thoughts across. Super cool group of people, and we grabbed a picture:

After the rock show, it was too late to make it down to San Telmo for the opera, but I think I came out ahead in that deal.