After Mendoza, we headed back to Buenos Aires to find jobs and a place to live. We quickly found a great set up, living with a local chica of Buenos Aires named Mercedes and her mischievous catMalbec. Mercedes works as a costume designer/art director for theater productions and some television, so she has great style. We really liked her cute, well decorated flat. (see photos here:http://picasaweb.google.com/bring.your.luggage/HOMEMORENOHOME#)

Malbec the Mischievous, always there to nap next to you

Our flat was located very near the center and El Congreso (the Congress building – see Post #1 for photo) so we could walk to many other barrios very easily and were near the central hub of all the Subte lines. We really enjoyed living with Mercedes, even if we didn’t practice our Spanish as much as we should have because of her perfect English and our lack of discipline. During our time in BA we walked, A LOT, cooked at home most nights (think steak and wine and lots of empanadas we made ourselves), wandered around looking for bars with our favorite cerveza artesanal Antares, and we also worked and relaxed a fair amount too. Jeff found a job editing text books for a web-based company and Lauren taught private English lessons. We also celebrated Jeff's 26th birthday here.

Jeff in front of his red velvet birthday cake, thinking of three deseos (wishes) per the Argentine custom.

Interesting view of the inside of the apartment building from our window. Our apartment is on the bottom left. We definitely hears lots of shouts of "Gooooool" from the futbol fans watching games on TV next door.

One of our Sunday afternoon delights: choripan (chorizo + pan) from the cart near the ecological reserve in Puerto Madero.

View of BA skyline from the Ecological Reserve

Cooking up some empañadas de carne y papas

Jeff trying out an electric violin made by a local who plays with his family of musicians outside of Recoleta Cemetery every weekend

La Bamba del Tiempo, a huge drum circle in an old warehouse, playing every Monday night (thanks to Betsy for the recommendation!)

Live music out at a disco

There are some amazingly huge, old trees in Recoleta

The chapel near Recoleta Cemetery at sunset

We took a couple of excursions on the weekends, once to Tigre, an upper-crust suburb of BA just an hour train ride away, where the Rio Plata forms the largest river delta in the world. We took a boat ride up the rio and had lunch off of one of the canals winding through little rows of vacation houses. There were lots of boaters and jet skiers. A couple sitting next to us at lunch even offered to take us water skiing in their boat, but we had forgotten to bring our swim suits. It was a great way to escape from the city for a day.

The boat we took up the river in Tigre

Parque Lyfe (jaja)

Waiting on the dock for a ferry boat to pick them up

A vacation home with a private dock

Here's an example of one of many narrow canals leading up to houses off the Rio Plata

On another Saturday, we took a day trip over to Uruguay to check out the little town of Colonia and to renew our tourist visas (which you have to do every three months by crossing the border of another country). Fortunately for expats in Argentina, it’s just a quick and easy day trip to renew the visas in Uruguay. We took an hour and half ferry ride and landed in Colonia mid-morning. We rented a scooter and rode all around the cobble stone streets and spent the afternoon at the beach. Colonia is a cute little city, and very scenic, even if you run out of things to see and do after about 4 hours. We headed back to the ferry terminal at about 5:00 in the afternoon and made it home to BA by dinner time.

There were so many great old cars in Colonia!

The Argentine (and Uruguayan) national tree, ceibo (see the red flowers), with Jeff in the background

our transportation for the day

The old lighthouse

Us checking out the view of the whole town from the top of the lighthouse

Afternoon at the beach

After living in Buenos Aires for over two months we decided to continue our travels so we could make it to Cuzco in time to do the Inca Trail by the end of April. We were very sad to leave, but very glad we got a chance to call Buenos Aires home for as long as we did!