We didn’t know what to expect about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Buenos Aires. You know that it is Christmas (Navidad) mainly from the store displays. There doesn’t seem to be the rush to buy presents that we have in the States. The places where Christmas is referenced are the high end shopping areas and there they say Christmas and play cute with it.
We heard that the town shuts down on Christmas Eve day afternoon but we didn’t see it. The supermarket across the street stayed open until 6:00 (it normally closes at 10). We read that cab drivers will go home on Christmas Eve but we saw cabs on the street. Then about midnight, the fireworks started. First just firecrackers and then rockets and bursts. They seem to fire from the streets although we didn’t see any lit on our street. We watched from our balcony drinking some not very good Argentine sparkling wine. I shy away from the more expensive bottles because the price in pesos seems large because I keep thinking dollars. $25 AR is about $4 US when I tranfer from my bank account with Xoom, $5 US from the ATM. I urge myself to look at the $30 AR wines but end up staying cheap. The normal reds and whites and the wonderful Malbecs seem to be great, even the cheaper ones but so far the Argentine sparkling wines do not impress.
Christmas Day we plan to cook a steak. We have some salad and made salad dressing. We have fruit and cheese to finish up. One thing I miss is anything with flavor. Argentines seem to dislike it. The only flavors they seem to approve are sweet and bland. I would go crazy living here. The meat is magnificent and tasty but as good as everything else looks, it tastes like wallpaper paste.
Later if it doesn’t rain, our plan is to stroll the neighborhood, exploring for interesting things. Tomorrow we go back into tourist mode. BA is a big city and even a month isn’t enough time to see everything well. Some more pictures below.
The cathedral in Buenos Aires
Christmas in a Buenos Aires store window
One more Christmas window in Buenos Aires
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