After a long travel day which spanned the last couple of days, I was snug in bed by 11:30pm last night.

You’d think I’d sleep for 8 or 10 or even 12 hours after all that travel, but nope, I was up bright and early at 5:30am this morning.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good night’s sleep – it’s just whenever I travel, I just kind of wake up in the early morning hours.

I think part of it has to do with the anticipation of what a new day in a new city will bring and part of it is that that’s just the hostel lifestyle.

People just wake up early.   Places to go.   Things to see.

Now, having said all that, I didn’t actually crawl out of bed til 10am this morning.

After all, I had to write yesterday’s blog and, frankly, I just wanted to relax and doom scroll through the internet.

I’ve given myself more than enough days here in Buenos Aires so I can explore it nice and slow.

The plan today was to do a couple of errands and then join a free walking tour at 3:00 and that was it.

Sweet and simple – a good, slow start to my trip after such a long journey to get here.

SUBE Card

I finally left the hostel this morning at 11am and, while that is considered early for me back home, it felt like I was off to such a late start in the hostel world.

I had to take care of a couple of things first before I embarked on the day.

First, I wanted to get a SUBE transit card that I’ll need over the next week to take the buses and subways around town.

I popped over to the lottery place around the corner and walked up to the till.

“Habla Ingles?”

The clerk shook her head “no”.   This would be a common occurrence today.

Unlike places in Europe and Asia, here in South America, you can’t just assume that people will know English.

No worries, I used part broken Spanish and part charades to let her know that I wanted to buy a SUBE card and to have it topped up with 10,000 pesos ($10).

With each ride on transit costing around 1000 pesos, I figured that would be enough for the week.

I went to pay with my credit card only to find out that my foreign card didn’t work on their machine.

I don’t know if that’s going to be a common thing or if it was just because it was a lottery place and maybe only national credit cards could be used.

Regardless, I need to pay with pesos instead.

Of course, I didn’t have pesos yet as that was actually the second errand I wanted to run this morning.

No worries, I told her I had to get pesos and that I’d be back.

Off to errand number two.

Exchanging Pesos

Despite being able to use a credit card for most of what you’ll need when visiting Argentina, there will be a few times when having some of the local currency will come in clutch.

Mostly for tipping at restaurants as it’s custom to leave a cash tip instead of adding it to a credit card payment.

But, as I had just encountered, sometimes credit cards just don’t work.

Anyway, most tourists get their pesos by exchanging US dollars at one of many (and I mean many) cambio exchange businesses around town.

The guy at the hostel recommended this place down the street so that’s where I went.

The place turned out to be a jewelers which threw me off a little but, sure enough, I was able to exchange the 100USD I had brought with me into 140,000 pesos.

That was a wad of seventy 2000 pesos notes.

Why not get less, you may ask?

Well, turns out that it’s really hard to exchange US dollars to pesos for anything other than a nice, crisp 100USD bank note (preferably with the blue stripe down the middle).

Anyway, with my pimp roll of cash in my pocket, I headed back to the lottery place to get my SUBE card and, with that, my errands were complete.

On with the rest of the day…

Gluten Free Empanadas

When I was looking up gluten free options here in Buenos Aires, I was pleasantly surprised to find several restaurants that catered to my annoying allergy with even a handful of them being dedicated gluten free businesses.

For my first meal in Argentina, it only made sense to grab some empanadas.

After all, this is a Argentinean staple and, as it just so happened, there was a dedicated gluten free restaurant that made them down the street.

I walked over to Il Mandorla.   They have two locations with this one only serving pizza, sandwiches, and empanadas at lunch time while the other, further away, has a full menu all day long.

The place was empty and I was a little worried that they were closed but, nope, I was greeted friendly by the man behind the counter.

After another “Habla Ingles?” back and forth, I ordered 3 empanadas at 3000 pesos ($3) a piece.

They were pork rib, brisket and onion, and pork, onion and pepper and they were amazing.

The perfect way to start my eating adventure in Argentina.

After lunch I was pretty full but decided to pop over to a nearby dedicated gluten free bakery for a little dessert cause, c’mon, us celiacs need us some sweets too!

I saw this lemon meringue tart in the display case staring at me through the window and knew I had to make it mine.

It was a tad pricy at 8500 pesos ($8.50) but, damn, it’s been so long since I’ve had lemon meringue.

Now I was full!

I decided to just return to the hostel and relax for a couple of hours before heading out on the walking tour at 3pm.

A long nap

I got back to the hostel at 12:30 and after lying in bed for a little while, the jet lag and lack of sleep over the last few days, started to take its’ toll.

Hot damn, I was tired as all hell.

Could I drag myself out of bed, join the walking tour, and walk around the city for a couple of hours?   Yes.

Did I want to?   No.

In past trips, I have been guilty of overdoing some days and not finding enough days to just take it easy and, ya know, vacation.

I’ve gotten better at it recently but for this trip, as I said, I’ve given myself plenty of time to explore this city over the next week.

Most tourists will be in and out of here in 3 or 4 days.   I’ve got 8 days.

So, yeah, I’ll be taking it easy this week.

Yes, I’ll be seeing and doing all sorts of cool things but I’m also going to pace myself and just do a little each day.

So, with that, I drew the curtains on my bed, lay my head down, and went for a long snooze.

When I next opened my eyes it was 6:30pm.

I felt so refreshed and this was, by far, the best decision I could have made today.

I was also pretty hungry again by this point to it was off to grab some dinner…

An Italian Meal

I decided to head over to Campobravo down by the waterfront for dinner tonight.

This place was also a dedicated gluten free restaurant and, honestly, it’s been a long time since I’ve had any kind of pasta.

It was still 16C (60F) so I decided to leave my long sleeve top behind and head out in just my tshirt.

The restaurant was a 20 minute walk away from the hostel but I didn’t care as I had all the time in the world.

By 8pm I had arrived.   The restaurant was only about 1/3 full but the patio overlooking the water was completely empty.

People weren’t kidding when they said most Argentinians don’t do dinner until after 9:30.

I opted for a patio table and it wasn’t long until I realized that I really should have brought that long sleeve top.

Ah well, the meal made up for the shivering.

First of all, they started me with a basket of gluten free bread.

I don’t think non-celiacs understand how giddy us celiacs get when we get offered gluten free bread.

Yeah, I was giddy.

And it wasn’t any of that dry, crappy gluten free bread out there.   This stuff was nice and fresh and also served with a side of cream cheese.

I opted to start with a chorizo sausage appetizer followed by tagliatelle pasta with shrimp in a garlic cream sauce.

I didn’t know what to expect with the appetizer but what I wasn’t expecting was just a plate with a sausage on it.

That was weird.

Good, but weird.

The pasta was amazing.   Like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve had pasta and, boy, do I miss it.

After all that and a glass of Chardonnay, I was pretty full.

But then I noticed they had tiramisu on their dessert menu.

Ah, that magical Italian dessert I’ve grown to love.

Despite the cold and the fact that I was busting at the seam, there was no way I was walking out of that restaurant without trying some.

The entire meal cost me about $56 which I felt was pretty good value for what I had consumed and the fact that it was gluten free which is usually more expensive.

After a brisk walk back to the hostel, I was back in for the night by 10pm.

At the end of the day, I didn’t really do much today expect for sleep and eat.

And yet, I had a great day.

I feel relaxed, refreshed, and replenished.

Ready to take on the rest of the week.

Let’s see what tomorrow has in store…