Since this Thursday was our third time back to Buenos Aires, we decided to break away from our tour group on the first day since they were going to visit La Boca and Plaza de Mayo which we had already seen twice. We slept in (surprise, surprise) and set out to the shopping district (again, did you see this coming?).
Our first stop was to re-visit Bettina Ricci. Stacy decided that she like her first custom-made leather coat so much she needed another. So she ordered one in a delicious off-white color which contrasted nicely with the first one which was in the same style but in black. That being done, we stopped in a few more leather shops to look at handbags, and then we walked over to 9 de Julio to the Cafe Tortoni where we met the tour group for lunch and had our group picture taken.
In the afternoon Stacy found an acrylic nail salon (no easy task down here as we have discovered) to have her nails redone and she also bought the long-sought-after tango shoes. I just hung out in the room and rested.
That night we went to a different tango show that was really good. This one was the Carlos Gardel show, which is one of the best in town.
The next day, Friday the 20th, we visited the Teatro Colon, the large opera house in Buenos Aires. It is truly an impressive structure. It was built in an age were competition with Europe was intense. All of the materials were imported from Europe. Nothing from Argentina was used. It seems like a strange concept now but back then all the opera singers were from Europe and they were desperate to attract the top talent so they build the most European theater they could afford.
We had this afternoon free so Stacy and I caught a taxi over to the Palermo SoHo neighborhood we had liked so much the last visit. We had an nice lunch and (you guessed it) shopped for more leather. We think this might be a nice area for us to look for a VRBO when we come back to BA on our own.
The next day was Saturday and after another visit to the Recoleta Cemetery (where Stacy stalked cats), we went to the Buenos Aires Rose Garden.
After that, it was off to the airport to fly to Iguazu Falls. This is the view awaiting us when we checked into the hotel.
Vaya con Gringos 