Sunday is definitely a day of rest, at least in this part of Latin America. Many stores and restaurants were closed and the stores that did open, did so later in the afternoon. Today was also a day when the town seemed to be moving a bit slower due to the weather. It was warm and humid today, with a high of about 33C/91F. Clint got out and did a six-mile walk around the park and ponds, while Ryan enjoyed sleeping in.

After breakfast of leftover steak from La Cabrera, made into yummy steak sandwiches, we hit the gym together. Our building is a new 33-story modern structure and the gym is on the 31st floor. The views from the workout space are amazing, so it definitely helps with the workout.

31st floor gym

Looking east from the gym ... tall buildings for miles and miles.

Looking NE towards the Recoleta from the gym.

The afternoon was spent lazing around a bit. Ryan tried to do some shopping in Palermo Soho again, but came up empty handed. Instead, he enjoyed just walking around and experiencing all that this neighborhood of Buenos Aires is. Many things here are quite different and initially disturbing to us: graffiti everywhere (even on monuments, historic buildings, etc.), lots of trash everywhere, people not picking up after their dogs. But this is a major city and many of those issues are found, to some degree, in many large metropolises. We also know that this city has high levels of poverty surrounding it and that not so long ago this country suffered a pretty major financial meltdown. All in all, this is part of what makes getting off our own island, so to speak, and visiting other places so interesting.

A random piece of graffiti on a residence, in English (rare), and interesting, if not confusing.

Who knows what we’ll do tomorrow? We have several things left on the list of to-dos in our final week here (we leave a week from tomorrow night), but they’re also predicting rain for most of the day. We’ll see what the day brings us … and you’ll read about it here.