This week I didn’t have any classes so I had a lot of time to explore new places in the area. My girlfriend and her mom ended up coming down for a few days, so it was fun playing their tour guide for the duration of their time here. It made me feel really smart that I knew how to take them to all of these different touristy locations by bus and subway. I was also able to take them to some of my favorite places to eat.

One thing that I discovered this week is that it isn’t that weird for pigeons to be inside the mall. I saw a pigeon walking around the food court in the mall next to where I live and no one seemed to mind it being there. I asked my girlfriend about it who has been to South America many times said that it wasn’t that weird. Despite the birds, the food court is turning out to be one of my favorite places to eat. There are 10 or so places to eat there, and each one is different and very Argentinian. It’s nice being able to look at all of the options side by side and make a decision that way.

Pigeon in the food court

The most interesting part of week 5 was that I went on an excursion to Uruguay. I decided to leave the familiarity of Buenos Aires and venture off to the nearby country to a small, old town called Colonia. My friends and I found this company called Buquebus that will take you by ferry to Uruguay for really cheap. At first I thought it was going to be a cheap, scary fishing boat or something like that because it only costed around 500 pesos (~$65 USD), but it ended up being a nice, miniature cruise ship. It took three hours by boat to get there and the ride enjoying because the ship had extremely comfortable seating. You could buy overpriced food and beverages there if you wanted to. There was an arcade and duty free shop on the boat as well.

View from the top of the boat as we were leaving Buenos Aires towards Uruguay. The Uruguayan flag is on the right.

Arcade and cafe area on the boat. There were 1st class, airplane type seating on the floor above this which is where I spent my time on the boat.

It felt really weird getting off in Colonia because we really didn’t have a plan of where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do. We were kind of like fish out of water. We ended up walking straight for a while until we got to the main street in Colonia. The buildings there were really old looking, but very beautiful and well kept.  The food there was pretty similar to buenos aires offering a variety of meats and sandwiches. They use a different currency in Uruguay, but interestingly they accept three types of currency there: US dollar, Argentine Peso and the local currency.

It was nice to get out of BA for awhile and visit this peaceful city with clean air and nice people. It’s definitely a touristy town because the prices there were extremely high compared to Buenos Aires. We ended up eating at a beachside restaurant that costed around $20 USD per person. It’s probably one of the only times I’ll ever go to Uruguay so the price didn’t bother me too much.

They like old cars in this town. Here is an old VW next to the beach in Uruguay

We got to eat lunch with the birds. One of the most relaxing lunches I’ve ever had.

The edge of the beach and part of the city of Colonia

A restaurant we found just after eating. Would have been amazing to eat lunch in this lighthouse. The prices to eat here were absurdly high though.