1, 2, or 3

Holy moly what did we not do today. We woke up around 10 refreshed and ready to hit the town. We decided to walk to an outdoor market where there was supposed to be lots of handmade clothes and accessories. It was a long walk, but we wanted to familiarize ourselves with BA. The streets were mainly empty but we happened across a Middle Eastern market that smelled fantastic. Amy, ever the cook, wanted to see if they had spices and fixins' for Persian food. We looked around the tiny shop a bit and a man asked us if we needed help. Amy, drooling over the smell of fresh baked something says "comida caliente?" He disappears and returns with a meaty pizza thing. Fantastico. Our crappy Spanish gets results. "Uno mas" and now we both have a tasty snack. He shows us how to eat them with lemon juice and we are off.

We find the street fair around noon and it's barely getting started. The Palermo neighborhood is supposed to be super trendy with lots of boutiques but they are all closed. We drool over the beautiful clothes inside. Signs says Domingo 13:00 - 22:00. Some even 15:30 - 0:00. What?? I guess everyone is sleeping off the hangover from dancing 'til 8:00. Our new mantra becomes "Por que cerrado?" (How in the world do you do the upside down ? on an English keyboard? Arturo??)

So we wander a bit then stop for lunch. God bless the portenos for putting up with our terrible espanol. I ordered pasta but didn't realize I needed to choose a sauce separately. Our waiters "sowza?" aka sauce was met with blank stares or "coca." I know he's not asking me what I want to drink but I have no idea what the alternative question is. Oy. Tomorrow I start Spanish lessons so hopefully I will only be an idiot half the time.

After lunch many places, but not nearly all were open, so we shopped. There are only three sizes in Buenos Aires - 1, 2, or 3. They equate to XXS, XS, and S in America. We found only a few things that fit. But there were so many other cute things that were WAY too small. Hopefully after walking miles every day we can fit into more stuff.

Shopping in Palermo didn't satisfy the need to spend so we headed off to our home neighborhood, Recoleta. A stop in a botanical gardens resulted in us being interviewed by a gaggle of porteno teenagers for a school project. Then they took our picture with all of them. Strange, but they were sweet.

Finally we found a mall that puts Scottsdale Fashion Square to shame. The tables in the food court featured real linens and WINE glasses. On the way back home we ran into another street fair and another two huge malls. It turns out, unbeknownst to us, we are only three blocks from major retail and entertainment action. We picked this neighborhood because it's got a reputation for being super cool, but we came from the other direction and hadn't run into the action yet. Now we know where to go.

So question of the day... We saw this sign on our jaunt today. Is it an advertisement or a political statement? What does George Bush have to do with Animal Planet? I could make a few guesses. Ideas?

-Bri