Honeymoon Uno – Buenos Aires

Silke and I finally got married on July 19. I’ve been waiting for the pictures to blog about it, but I’ve got some of or honeymoon pictures up, so I’ll go ahead and blog about that instead.

The first leg of our honeymoon took us to Buenos Aires, Argentina. I have a tendency to get sick from long flights. There’s something my body doesn’t like about spending ten hours in a dry, airtight container full of whatever germs two hundred other people are exhaling. But it was just a head cold, and it didn’t really stop us from enjoying the city.

We stayed at the Claridge hotel, which was right in the middle of everywhere we wanted to be. All in all a very nice hotel. They also employ at least one very good masseuse. I seem to have failed to take a picture from the outside, but this is me sitting in the lounge after we arrived:

Because of our flight times, we ended up getting there in the morning before there were any rooms ready. But they let us have some breakfast, and then we sat in the lounge for a bit.

This is the two of us down by the river, where there are some really nice restaurants.

We did all the typical exploring-the-city stuff. We didn’t do any tours; we just enjoy walking around and seeing stuff together. We walked over to Recoleta and saw the old cemetary, saw the big shiny flower, and walked to San Telmo. The walk to San Telmo was a bit scary, because it ended up taking us through some not-so-nice neighborhoods. Check out the entire gallery for more pictures.

The best part (and really, the whole reason we went) was the tango. Our tango instructors, Ron and Susana, happened to be arriving just days after we arrived for their own vacation in Buenos Airies. They’ve been there before, and they know some of the local tango dancers and places to dance. This was, of course, wonderful. We got to go to milongas that aren’t on any tourist maps and that we never would have found on our own. And when we went, we got to meet some absolutely delightful people.

This picture was taken pretty early in the night, before it got crowded. And I mean really crowded. Milongas in Champaign can only dream of being as crowded.

There is just something about the atmosphere there. I’ve always enjoyed tango, but I’ve never gotten obsessed with it. But if milongas here had the same feeling, the same charm, the same beauty; well, I could see myself doing it all the time. Of course, I’m sure the excitement of being just married helped make everything feel more romantic.