Tuesday I decided ‘twas as good of a day as any to venture out to meet a new friend, Daniel, living in Balvanera, a tad west of Capital Federal and south of Recolata and Palermo. I also was going to finally try meeting up with a guy from my home town, Brandon, who happens to be in Buenos Aires this week. The problem, though, is Brandon doesn’t have a phone here and barely has Internet access, so arranging a meet when neither of us knows our schedule is problematic. But he said he was going to hang out in the Japanese Gardens in Palermo, so I figured it’d be worth combining looking for him with meeting Dani.

Instead of going to Dani’s house, and then us both going to Palermo, I told Dani to meet me at Plaza Italia, a large circle that is a bit of a bus transfer hub. That worked out fine, thanks to my BlackBerry still having mysterious service. Then we sought food for me and a Coca-Cola Light, which I’ve been drinking a ton of here, and we walked toward the gardens. First we ate in some botanical gardens near the Japanese ones. We got to know each other a bit using my horrible Spanish, and it was nice.

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Then we walked over to the Japanese Gardens to discover it was almost 6 p.m., and that is when they close. So we couldn’t go in to look for Brandon. :-( We then wandered around a bit more and went to Dani’s house eventually.

San Martín, I am told

Pretty flowers along Avenida Del Libertador, I think. Near the Japanese Gardens we did not arrive at in time to enter. What kind of garden closes at 6 in the evening?!

Well, I did not capture it here… but this tree was like a palm, except instead of palms at the top, it had evergreen type branches.

I have no idea what this is.

He had dance class at 9, so we ate again, and then I went with him to observe his class. It was really interesting! Arabic dance in Argentina!

At the house where Dani is staying in Buenos Aires while he attends dance classes

Taken with the BlackBerry, obviously, this is apparently a delicious brand of hamburger, according to Dani. But I think we can all see it is just Barfy. :-D

Productos de Argentina

The living room

A thermostat, light switch and an older style electrical outlet

The serious face, aka the I can tell you are going to take a photograph of me and I do not want to smile face.

A portrait of Daniel

A sort of charm to protect against another injury to the foot of this dancer!

The dancer

Rainwater

Windchimes

Dani cooked me some lunch, spaghetti with meat and some sauce that was different than I was used to, but it was delicious!

Aw!