Putting On My Big Girl Pants: Buenos Aires Edition

One of my first blog posts I ever wrote here was called Putting On My Big Girl Pants. It seems somewhat poetic to me that after 4 years of being here (literally 4 years just gone last mongth!) I write another post along this theme. I remember vividly what I wrote about last time- I was new to living in Salta and the fusebox went when I was home alone for the month! And I also had to learn how to use a gas oven/hobs, which seemed incredibly scary and now, 4 years later, I can’t quite identify why.

Anyways, four years later and here I am putting on my big girl pants again! Although, in fairness to me, I rather think I’ve had them on continuously the last four years. After 4 years of being here, we finally went to Buenos Aires. I’ve been wanting to go for ages but haven’t wanted to go on my own (some parts of BA are a bit dubious to say the least). It’s a bit like going to England and not going to London which is a bit ridiculous so we finally did it!

The thing that pushed us to do it, was that Nolz had to go there for his work (fancy ennit! Can’t believe this actually happens in real life). So we thought I’d tag along too, lovely jubbly!

However, since Nolz was working until 6 and got back at about 6.15, this left me with a lot of time to fill. And we realised that, whilst I had never wanted to do BA on my own, I was kinda gonna have to! At about 6.30 it got dark and so we couldn’t really go out and see much after he had finished work. Time for Nadz to be brave and do the things 💪🏻 but with the added pressure of keeping myself safe and making safe decisions. Maybe it sounds like I’m being overly-cautious but basically everywhere in BA they say you need to have ya wits about ya, not walk along with ya phone in ya hand coz they’ll steal it off ya, don’t go out at night etc, and all these things were ringing in my head whenever I did anything!

Anyways, we arrived on the Monday evening and headed off to the hotel. That night Nolz and his colleagues pootled off to get some food but I stayed behind. The next day I had a morning class and then went out for lunch with one of Noly’s cousins and grandma who happened to be in BA, and then they helped me find the stop for the tourist bus. It was so good, I really enjoyed it and, uh, definitely learnt… a lot…? Y’know, they said something about some kind of thing that happened at some point and then a while later this other thing happened and then this chap was about, you know the kinda thing! V interesting but in my case I never remember anything from it about 5 mins later. But it was fun and gave me a feeling of the city! And I got off at a place called La Caminita or something like that which was fun 😊

Then that night Nolz and I took a taxi to a place like 5 mins away and went to a jazz event which was sooo cool! It was all guitars and one bass but it was so so good. The first half an hour sounded so much like monsters Inc the whole time 😂

Another day I had a class or two at random times so I headed out to a famous cafe called Cafe Tortoni. It’s a pretty old cafe, French I think, and you have to queue to get in. Funny, considering there actually were free tables inside, think they’re just tryin’a seem mysterious and exciting. But anyways, had a lovely hot chocolate and churros which scratched an itch (when I told Nolz the day before that we needed to find me some churros urgently he was like, dya just always need churros when you’re on holiday? (The answer is yes.) Throwback to our holiday in Chile).

Then, that afternoon I was just chilling out at the hotel when Nolz unexpectedly appeared! They’d let them out early from work so we jumped into a taxi and off we went to the Japanese gardens, which were so lovely! But completely baffling to have this hustling bustling city and then, right in the middle, this place of such tranquility!

After we had wandered around the gardens for a little bit we jumped into a taxi again and headed out to the theatre with Nolys work colleagues. The theatre is called Teatro Colon and is seriously impressive.

As it’s such a huge and famous theatre, we thought we’d be clever and, instead of pay an absurd amount of money for tickets, head up the stairs, keep going, keep going, up up up and get to the very top, where you were able to stand to watch. Now, I’m not going to lie, whilst it was fun in that it felt like we’d snuck in and weren’t supposed to be there, I’m not entirely sure I would recommend standing to watch opera for three hours! The opera itself was completely bizarre too. It was called “The Magic Flute” and tbf, I think it’s quite famous so it was cool to see it but it was definitely not what I was expecting! The funniest part of it all, was standing there and suddenly a glass of wine appeared in front of me. Noly’s work colleagues had smuggled a bottle and a glass in! And set to work passing it between ourselves.

After the very arduous task of standing for three hours we were starving! So off we went to grab some nosh and some very nice cocktails, though they were about 90% ice!

The next day I had some classes and was feeling in need for a bit of a rest so mainly just chilled out and then that evening we went off for a meal with some family of Noly’s who live in Buenos Aires, which was really lovely! I’d only met them a handfull of times so it was lovely to meet and chat more with them.

The next day was our final day. Nolz pootled off to work as usual and I hung out for a bit before jumping into a taxi and going to a French restaurant I had been recommended. It was honestly the best meal I’ve ever eaten in my life! It was rather unfortunate that at the time there was a bit of a drama going on for Nolz with a bank thing (now all resolved, don’t worry!) whilst I was there eating the most delicious lunch ever. But such is life!

Anyways, soon it was time to leave so I reconvened with Nolz who gave me a quick tour of his office and off we went to the airport and were back to Salta in no time.

So, there you have it! Write again soon, chau!