My last day I took it easy. Woke up and went for a long walk round San Telmo, all the way down Defensa till I found a small cafe - the Cafe Continental - where I had a cafe con leche and an empanada. Alright, two empanadas. The waitress explained that they were just being made and I'd have to wait ten minutes. Actually, I didn't understand anything she said except 'ten minutes', so I just pieced together the rest. Spanish is easy!
After my coffee and empanada desayuno (breakfast), I walked some more and found the San Telmo permanent antique market. Sundays, it is all spread out around the square and the surrounding streets, but the rest of the time it's indoors. Made a few purchases and then wandered back to the hotel, stopping off at the supermercado Carrefour, where I naturally picked up a few things.
Lunch was with Ian and his Argentinian friend Rod at a place in San Telmo named El Gijon. The proprietor of the place, seeing Ian and I were new, promptly gave us a very nice business card-sized calendar with his logo and restaurant name and address on the front. And on the back - a completely naked woman. I seem to have lost mine so I can't put the picture up, but even if I hadn't I couldn't anyway. Not without lots of pixelling.
The food itself was very good - deep fried squid followed battered hake, mashed potatoes and a mixed salad, meaning this was the only meal I had had up till then that didn't involve red meat.
Ian had to leave around four, so Rod and I chatted over coffees for another hour, then I went off to buy some CDs at Zivals, on Corrientes and Callao. Walked back to the hotel where I took a brief siesta before going out to dinner at Hola Luis in Colegiales. Hola Luis is an Armenian restaurant that has been around for a while and one that was a welcome change from all the grilled meat I had been having. I did knock back another half bottle of red after two days of abstinence. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the food as it came and was eaten so fast.
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The taps I have come across here are pretty strange. Both of them - the hot and cold - go from closed to fully open in about a quarter turn. This is great because you can turn them on and off really quickly, but not so great because the hot water is insanely hot - and I mean skin-blisteringly hot - so you have to make hundreds and hundreds of tiny adjustments to get a bearable temperature shower. It may be that I came across the only two places like that and everyone is reading this going "huh?". But I don't think so.
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