Walkabout with Ben, Tomoko, and Miki

Today Ulala and i met up with Tomoko and Ben Schwartz and their adorable baby Miki and we walked around BA to some new neighbourhoods and had a nice lunch in San Telmo and `cafe con leche` at an outdoor cafe in Plaza Dorrego. Ulala met Tomoko online through Mixi (a Japanese networking site not unlike MySpace or Facebook). Ben and Tomoko have lived in BA for two years and have a great apartment which they have bought and renovated here in the city. Today they took us through downtown and into San Telmo to have lunch (beef in various forms) at Desnivel, which was excellent. Then we walked through Puerto Madero and i took lots of pictures and we got to see the modern side of BA. I had this image in my mind of BA as being an old colonial style city with European architecture and cobbled streets and wide avenuesand monuments and little else. This is all here, no doubt, and Ulala and i have seen much of this in our first week. But today we also got to see (thanks to Ben and Tomoko) the heart and character of the city. The reason tourists come here at all and the reason why this is really an under-appreciated and (almost) world-class city. We also got to see modern condos and towers of glass and steel (though no less creative or elegant in their structures). I am reminded thankfully that this is a big city with many facets and one must never give into the temptation to allow stereotype to replace one`s first hand experience. The stereotypes are here, but there is so much more. I`ve put some pictures in Facebook galleries for now and will hopefully post some pictures from the day here tomorrow.