When we arrived for our visit, we stayed in Recoleta.
It had been recommended by several people , the apart- hotel that we decided on was located there and it seemed to have quite a lot of its own attractions ... museums, parks etc.
It was an excellent choice.
Every day we had our little breakfast brought up to our room .. not that we were being spoiled, that is the way they do it .. and then we were out the door and off on our days adventure.
And every day that we were there, we were more charmed by the people and the place .
It is a very easy city to fall in love with.
It was very European, but not.
It was very charming, beautiful, ugly, interesting.
It was noisy, dirty in places, and full of beauty, charm and lovely people.
Nothing dull about it, there was something happening somewhere, all over the city, every day and every night.
It was not quiet, although that adjustment was easy to make.
It was a fabulous mix of city buildings and streets and traffic and people hurrying here and there.
There were huge parks, small hidden parks, quiet mews where each house was a different color , cobblestone streets and beautiful street lamps and high walls with gardens behind them.
Birds everywhere, tiny tiny birds, pigeons everywhere, large, small , noisy, busy city birds.
It seemed that everyone had a dog. Or two.
Regardless of the size of the apartment or the size of the dog.
If you had a job and could not be home to walk your dog, then the dog-walkers ( paseadores de perros ) would do it.
They would fill the sidewalk , walking to the park with anywhere from 3 to a dozen dogs and seldom were those dogs little "city" dogs.
Sometimes, although rarely, they would pick up after the dogs when they did their business.
This is an area that they need to work on.. Pick up after your dog !
Our daily routine was quickly set ... wonderful strong Brazilian coffee in the morning followed by a walk to the park, 2 blocks away.
Passing the buildings, the door men grew to know us, recognize us and they would say hello, tip a hat, smile and pet the dog.
We rented an apartment upon arrival in Buenos Aires, figuring it would take at least a month or two of daily searching to find an apartment to buy.
We were worried that we would not find anything that we loved, that we could afford, we had certain ideas about our new home that we really wanted to have ..
I had daydreams of certain styles of apartments, it was all waiting for us .. where/ which one would be the place we would call Home ?
There were super modern high rise buildings. There were 18th - 19th century homes that had been converted into apartment buildings, there were actual houses and there were ordinary, older Argentina apartment buildings.
We looked at them all.
We could not find one that appealed to us in any way.
We were getting worried, what if we had to settle for something we didn't really want ?
Would we still be happy there ?