Laundry and Sightseeing - Day 9

Since we only packed carry-ons for the trip, we were in need of doing some laundry. Laundromats certainly are not on every block in Buenos Aires, in fact they don't exist after searching for one in Recoleta yesterday - our problem might have been that we were in what was considered the wealthiest district where dog walkers were abundant, and not laundromats.

First order of the day was to find a laundry place - thanks to the internet we found one not too far from home that was not going to charge the exorbitant prices of Hilton ($10 US for one shirt - I don't think so). We dropped off our laundry for pick up tomorrow, and definitely felt a load lifted off us. (Har, har, har)

We got lunch at a little place recommended by our travel book called "Coma" (which means eat in Spanish for my grandad). They had delicious sandwiches that were very inexpensive - I had a "Little Mexico" sandwich with guacamole, tomato, and chicken and Kyle had a "Houston" with ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato - the Kansas and Wyoming looked most interesting as well :)

After fueling up for our day of tourism, we headed to Teatro Colon which is a very famous opera house, recently refurbished. We wanted to head inside to check it out, but the $21 price tag for foreigners v the $6 price tag for locals turned us off to that. Instead, we took some pretty pictures of the outside - we went and saw - that's all that matters, right?

We next headed to what is supposedly the widest street in the world "Avenida de 9 de Julio" on which also stands the Obelisk which highly resembles the Washington Monument. We didn't die trying to dodge the cabs and motorcycles, so it was a successful crossing.

We had our one breakdown and had a McDonald's ice cream on the way to the next sightseeing attraction of the day. Today's neighborhood was Centro which has a lot of the government building and is considered the heart of the city.

We headed to Plaza de Mayo (May Plaza) which is a green area on the former seat of the president's palace and was witness to the 1810 revolution in Argentina. Given its history of revolutions and demonstrations, it is a popular place to demonstrate today. When we were there, it was quite quiet - with only signs up celebrating Pope Francis's election to pope. At one end of the plaza is Casa Rosada (Pink House)... kind of like the White House in the US which now houses the presidential offices.

To the right of the Casa Rosada is the Metropolitan Cathedral where we got our Catholic Church fix of the day. The cathedral is the largest church in Argentina, and really doesn't look like a church at all from the outside, more like a greek temple.

With so much history for one day, our brains were full and we wandered back to the hotel through the neighborhood, running across some gorgeous buildings on the way.

Dinner was definitely the hilight of the night - Kyle found an amazing Italian restaurant - el Broccolino - about a 30 minute walk from the hotel. Hopefully we walked enough to walk off the amazing fresh pasta we had :). Overall, another amazing day in Buenos Aires. Adios!

Photos:
Teatro Colon from the outside
The Obelisk on the widest street in the world
Casa Rosada
Another Pope Francis poster!
A beautiful church we found when wondering around the neighborhood