Day 123 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

We arrive back in BA at 8.30am to a place that seems completely different weather wise from a week ago. It's gone quite wintery now and people are walking around with coats on.  A far cry from the shirts and flip flop weather of last week. 

We head back to the only area to stay in BA - Palermo. We fancied a change of hotel this time so booked the very cool Atempo Design Hotel a few blocks away from our last hotel. It turns out to be an even better find than the last one which was really nice too. The rooms here and the pool are a bit nicer though, not that we will get to use the pool looking at the weather. 

http://www.atemposuites.com/hotel.php

After a spot of breakfast at the hotel and a bit of a rest we head out to thoroughly explore Palermo and to go to the Museum of Modern Art. We decide to walk to te museum which is about an hours walk away. It does start to brighten up a bit by the time we get out and start to resemble the weather we had before albeit a lot cooler. 

Growing my hair is really coming along. Going for the Felliani look ;-)

Saw this and bought of Mum, Dad, Nige and Elaine - the lovely spot where we spent the afternoon between flights nearly two weeks ago now. Crazy. 

We continue to wander through the wonderful streets of Palermo. Such a great area. 

We arrive at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) to see the Mario Testino exhibition. We are really lucky to catch this exhibition as it has only just opened. What is also surprising, considering the guy is Peruvian, is it's his first exhibition in Argentina. 

It's not Testino but it is a great welcome to the Museum. Hello you. 

 

The show is a collection of some of his most famous photo shoots for covers of magazines, editorials, ad campaigns, album covers - you name it. If it needed a photo and involves an A-List star he has pretty much shot it. 

The exhibition is absolutely brilliant if not a little bit weird in parts. But I guess that is fashion for you. Walking around looking at all the weird and wonderful pictures I have been inspired into writing a special report on fashion photography so look at for this shortly. 

Really cool bench. Would be great if this woman would realise she is in the way and get out the way so we can take a pic. 

The bench continues down the outside of the building like a piece of rope hanging. 

We have a look at another of the exhibitions which is a little on the weird side. We do see that famous Argentine good old Che Guavara though. 

 

After we finish at the museum we walk back to Palermo. Now the next bit if info I will share you will find astounding. I certainly still can't believe it. Now I have mentioned before about the major dog poo issue in BA. Well this story will make you realise just how bad. On the way back we walked down the side of a lovely park near the Japanese Gardens. It was only four blocks in total but as we states walking we noticed an awful lot of you know what. So, as big four bingo has dried up I invented a new game called 'Count the Turd'. We then proceeded to count every drop of dog turd on the street along the side of the park, barely half a kilometre long. The only rule is that each poop had to be from a different dog. This is definitely not a game for kids who are learning to count as we quickly reach 50... Then 100.... Then 150. Nat is getting bored by now but I 'had the shit between my teeth' so to speak. 200... 250. Unbelievably we reached a total of 286 seperate dog turds. Absolutely disgusting. They need to sort it out. I did however feel like a leading expert on the topic by the end. I could easily draw up a B&Q style colour chart and draw pics of at least 20 different varieties. I'm just glad my Dad wasn't here to see this road. He'd have shut it down!!

Back in Palermo (which is notably cleaner but still nowhere near perfect) we stumble across a great little bar / burger joint aptly called Burger Joint that could have been right out of Shoreditch. Nice Pale Ale on tap too. 

We then make the walk a few doors down to Sullivan's Irish Bar to catch the Champions League game between Man Utd and Olympiacos. I'm glad we did as it was a great game. I am just glad I had enough phone battery to keep Nat occupied on wifi for the duration of the game. 

I've seen a lot of graffiti on walls but never seen one as good as this on a road. 

We then continue to explore the streets of Palermo (the soho side this time, not Hollywood) looking for a place to eat. As is always the case when there is so much on offer you really struggle to choose. We did find a cool kids shop on the way though and couldn't help treating Jacob to a t-shirt of a famous children's character out here called 'Cow Dog' (or this is the English equivalent). Nat seems to love it more than the kids. 

We then decide to make our way back over the train track that divides Palermo Soho and Hollywood back to Hollywood where we are staying. We have a drink in a great looking bar that intrigued us called Peugeot Lounge (yes as in the car). Basically Peugeot are trying to build their brand out here and are taking over cool bars, restaurants and hotels in an effort to do so. One common theme is a show car parked outside.

Very sensible a musings about wine. 

We then head further down the road to an über cool Scandinavian restaurant called Olsen. Such a cool huge open space set in an old warehouse with a lovely garden outside. He food was delicious too. 

Reminds us a bit of Tramshed in London. 

We then make the short walk around the corner to our hotel. Turned into a pretty boozy day what with the footie so we are a little on the tipsy side. Great day in BA. It's good to be back, although a little strange to now be on our own.