About a year ago, our good friends Serge & Melinda made Anne & I an offer we couldn't refuse: a two week trip to Uruguay for a Flores family reunion, that would include a few bonus days in Buenos Aires as well. After much debate and procrastination, we finally pulled it off, spending the last two weeks of April 2010 far below the equator.

Serge was born in Uruguay and moved to Australia as an adolescent. He still has family in Montevideo, and he also has some professional colleagues in Buenos Aires. I try to never pass up an opportunity to been chaperoned around a foreign land by a local. It's an experience no amount of travel guides can deliver. This was no exception.

We arrived early on Saturday morning, leaving New York City amidst a torrential rainstorm of biblical proportions. Buenos Aires was sunny, 80 degrees, and gorgeous. A good omen, I concluded.




It felt much more like Paris than it did a South American city like Caracas or D.F. I've been telling people it was like Bogota without the kidnapping meets Rome without the pickpockets.






The park near the Recoleta Cemetary was filled with young and old soaking up the waning days of summer.




Architechture in BA is phenomenal. Lots of shiny marble belle epoque, mixed with some funky 60s modern here and there. Beautifully ornate detailing wherever you turned your head.




BA is famous for it's stencil graffiti. There was brilliant stuff on almost every city block.









Serge rented us a 2 bedroom duplex in Palermo for peanuts. Thankfully there are still a smattering of locales on the globe where the US dollar is not completely worthless. It was tastefully modern, and even had a nice sunny roof-deck.


The Calatrava bridge at the waterfront.