Katie and I had a few errands to run while Nicola was away. We needed to figure out how to take out the garbage and we wanted to take some clothes to be laundered. We quickly found the garbage and also spotted a laundry service just down the block. We had two plastic bags of laundry and it cost us about $8 to get them washed. We also had to get some more Argentina money. We are rarely using credit cards because the official exchange rate is so bad. You can get a much better rate through a money transfer service that Nicola uses or on the street.
We needed to meet our Street Art tour at 2:20 pm at a small restaurant in the Colegiales neighbor which is right next to Palermo. We went early enough to grab a bite of lunch while we were there. It looked a little like a dive but the food was really good! We had beef empanadas and a tortilla espanola with onions, chorizo and peppers.
Street Art Tour
Our tour was in English and consisted of about 15 - 20 people; Americans, Australians and English. The tour guide, Matt, was from Great Britain and is co-author of a book on street art and graffiti. He brought along a second guide since we were such a large group. Her name was Sophia and she is from New Jersey but living in BA this year on a Fulbright scholarship.
We had to take a train two stops and our guide told us to not have our cameras out. He was really paranoid about theft. It is hard to describe what all we saw, as the work was certainly an art form and most of what we saw was done legally by artists. When a street artist wants work, they knock on the homeowner's door and ask if they can paint the owner's house. They generally get an OK from the home owner. Often they aren't paid. Sometimes a home owner really likes it and pays them something like $40.
One story they told was a place the artist thought the house was abandoned so they painted it. In actuality the homeowner was on vacation and was not happy! There was also some graffiti that was political - protesting the bad economic situation in Argentina.
The wine tasting was in one of the city's "puerta cerradas" or "closed door" restaurants. You don't get the address until you make the reservation. Katie booked it ahead of time so when we got there she rang the door bell of the non-descript black door.