Back in Buenos Aires

After 18 hours on the bus and spilling hot tea all over my lap at breakfast, we made it back to Buenos Aires alive. For the entire month we've been here, there has been construction going on in the center of Avenida 9 de Julio, which is right next to our apartment. The city government was building a special lane for busses to drive down so that they don't clog traffic on the main street (9 de Julio is a major avenue in the city) or get slowed down by the existing traffic. It's a great idea, and when we first arrived, the construction was in early stages; the center lane just looked like a pit of torn up concrete. But today was the inauguration of the new bus lanes, and they look pretty good. By now Lindsay and I have gotten used to taking the bus (aka colectivos) around the city as the buses generally get you closer to where you want to go than the Subte. 

As our days left in Argentina are running out, we decided to go shopping for things we want to bring home today. I'm not going to say what exactly we bought since I don't want to ruin the surprise for friends and family back home, but we had fun finding a few treasures to remind us of Buenos Aires when we're back in the States. 

This evening Lindsay went to play a soccer game in an all-girls soccer tournament in the city. She has played a few times with a group called BAFA (Buenos Aires Futbol Amigos), where both locals and foreigners living in Buenos Aires can sign up online for games and come play. But in those games, she was the only girl since its not as common for girls to play soccer in Argentina as it is in the US. So it was great for her to get to play a game with other girls, meet both Argentinians and non-Argentinians, and win 5-0 (go Linds!).

We were planning on having dinner tonight at Cumana, our favorite traditional Argentine restaurant, but when we got there (around 10, regular going out to dinner time in the winter), it was packed. Lucía met us for dinner and suggested we go to the place next door, La Cholita, as it was another traditional Argentine food restaurant. It was quite tasty (although I still prefer Cumana), and I had a choripan and Lindsay had a spinach and cheese stew which was delicious and almost like a soufflé.