Beef on the Street

I have been unemployed since December 12th. Technically, this time off is supposed to go toward my writing projects, but I couldn't resist the urge to travel. I grew up travelling quite a bit and spent six months living abroad. Since college, the chances to travel have come few and far between. When the end of my freelance job approached, I e-mailed all of my friends to see if anyone would be silly enough to come with me to Moscow, Kenya, Brazil, Antarctica, Cambodia... who cares where? I found a taker: my friend Blocks. We threw a few more countries out there, then decided on Argentina. Buenos Aires is cheap after all. We bought our flights, and ten days later we took off from separate coasts, headed to the EZE.

When I boarded my flight, I was excited there were so many exotic looking hip people on my flight. Everywhere I turned, men wore plastic glasses and argyle sweaters and yet managed not to look completely stupid. I had never been to South America and figured Buenos Aires must have been the hippest place on Earth. How could I have not come here before? I hadn't even thought about visiting Buenos Aires before I bought my ticket ten days prior. All I knew about Argentina was that Borges was from here.

When I got off the plane, it was significantly less hip at the airport. I had boarded a flight from New York City, after all. That explained it. I looked around a few times and realized I hadn't actually made plans to meet up with my friend Blocks, who was flying in from San Francisco via some other city. I had assumed he would be standing at the gate waiting for me to get off the plane, arms open wide. That didn't happen. It took about ninety minutes for us to find each other between two terminals. We were both exhausted and starving because American Airlines had "forgotten" to load our vegetarian meal on our respective flights. Coincidence? I think not.

We took a two hour bus ride into the city. It was insufferably long, extremely humid, and I was cranky, already regretting the trip as the bus stopped at various playgrounds and gas stations in the country side to pick up more people. We finally arrived in the city and scavenged around for vegetarian food. There was none. This was more like it:

Eventually, we found some cafeteria spaghetti. It was the same story for dinner. And breakfast the next day. Bread, toast, croissants, pasta, more bread baskets, more pasta with cheese, more bread. Spaghetti may sound filling, but consider this: I ate carbs for every meal on my two week trip and dropped ten pounds. Does that sound like a vacation?

Now, I know Argentina is far from Mexico, and on a totally different continent, but I really expected there to be some Mexican food in Buenos Aires. It's a giant metropolitan city. No rice? No beans? I'm not asking for falafel. Every single thing on the menu is beef or lamb. I was hoping for some good street food, like in Europe, and lo and behold, I found it. Check out the beef on the street:

This is what we get for not doing research before picking a travel destination. Beef on the street.