Our hotel was at the end of Florida street, which was a pedestrian street lined with all kinds of shops, but mostly leather since Argentina is known for its meats and leather. I know this street goes by a different name, but I can't seem to find what it was called on the maps I'm looking at. During our stay, we made the walk up and down Florida Street so many time, the vendors who stood outside their shops trying to get people into their stores began to recognize us. Some of the vendors were so aggressive, it was annoying after a while and we found ways to avoid the worst blocks by taking short cuts through a mall and using side streets.
Anyways, you would think there were many stores selling sunglasses, but it took about 20 minutes before we found one. So my sister bought a pair of not only cheap sunglasses, but ones that distorted her vision due to poor lenses, but at least they blocked out the brightness of the sun. We kept walking up the street, taking in the sights. After about an hour we stopped to decide what to do. Up ahead I saw some interesting buildings so we kept going. It was interesting that the people hanging out on the street went from shop owners to hippies and other assorted Bohemians. We must have walked to a different district.
The buildings we were headed for ended up being the Government House located next to May Square. May Square was a nice park, but it was divided in the middle by a big, ugly fence. We soon realized that this fence was there to keep protesters away from the Government House. There were a few police guarding the access to the other side of the fence which you could get to from the sidewalk. There was no protesting going on at this time, but there was evidence of protests of some sort by the graffiti painted on monuments and buildings. It was sunny at this time so we took some photos of the area and then moved on.
By this time we were getting hungry and feeling the effects of lack of sleep. We knew there was a Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in Buenos Aires. Once we reached the Centro district, near the Obelistk, we found a tourist information booth. I asked the bored looking man inside where the cafe was and he marked-up a map of its location. Looking at where we had just walked from, and where the cafe was, we agreed to just walk there. Unfortunately, maps can be deceiving if they are not to scale, and buildings on the map do not look like they do in real life.
So the walk was much further than expected and even when we found the right building, we were still unable to locate the restaurant. Even after asking a person where it was, the entrance was so hidden we wondered how anybody could find the place. Because it was still early, like 4PM, only the upstairs was open. We had a nice waiter who spoke some English, but was trying very hard to learn more words, so he discouraged us from speaking any Spanish. So we ordered our food and beer, which tasted like food and beer from any other Hard Rock Cafe around the world. Once finished, we all agreed on taking a taxi back to the hotel. No more walking.
Like in any other country than the US, the lines on the road are only "suggestions". People drive swerving in and out of lanes, or they drive in two lanes at once. They at least stop at stop lights, but their stop lights not only turn yellow before turning red, they turn yellow before turning green. So as soon as the light is yellow, all cars race to get ahead of the slower buses, which there were TONS of.
Back at the hotel, even though it was not even 7 PM, we were done for the day and decided to go to our rooms for much needed sleep. Our plan was to meet in the morning, get some breakfast and then go buy our tickets for the trip to Colonia, Uruguay. The concierge recommended getting the tickets the day before make the trip. Since there was a chance of rain on Tuesday (it was still Monday if you lost track), we would decide what to do the rest of Tuesday depending on the weather and how we felt.
I watched TV for a little while and really had no problem falling asleep. I think I dreams about flying in planes and walking round city streets.
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