<<<the continuing travelogue of a holiday trip to Argentina. Lots more of this trip a few entries back!
Sunday, December 31:
New Year’s Eve Day!! This was the morning/afternoon where we’d planned nothing until our big New Year’s Eve dinner and tour.
So. We slept in about as late as we could since the rain was already over. We were thinking that it was going to rain most of the day, but actually it stopped by around 8 or 9am, so we got up and had another breakfast with our Breakfast Boy in the garden and then decided to lounge by the pool…
See the poolside here. So lush and greeeeeeen. Loved this pool…and I don’t even like to “lounge by the pool”. But it was just soooo calming and inviting. It was nice. However. What you don’t see in this photo is the rockstar family with the mom in her bikini, the kid pulling his pants off and running around naked and the dad ordering smoothies from Breakfast Boy. Use your imagination.
After a while Elaine and I decided to figure out what to do with the rest of the afternoon before we went to dinner. I know…how about EAT?! Brilliant.
So we went through the little book of recommendations that the hotel gave us, and then supported those notes with Yelp and Tripadvisor and came up with this little bakery cafe that was close by and we walked over there.
Saw this along the way. Yep. Ready for 2018!!
I have to say that literally every single meal we had was nothing short of delicious, this lunch included. Of course, the wine (or bubbly) always makes it special, but it was a very fabulous lunch spot - the crowd proved it as well as the place was kind of down a less-traveled street and it was still quite busy.
Then a nice stroll back to the hotel to get ready to EAT AGAIN. And of course, our NYE celebrations! So excited about the evening and yet we had packed a dinner AND a big event into this evening, not really knowing what to expect.
We got ready, both Elaine and I with our LBDs and wedges, still able to walk the cobbled and cracked sidewalks and even made it to our dinner restaurant a bit early. We thought that maybe they could seat us a little early because we needed to be headed to our palace tour by 10pm (the seating wasn’t until 8:30pm for an eight course meal). Well, in fact, we were SO early, that the concierge at the hotel where the restaurant was located basically told us to go somewhere else to have a pre-dinner cocktail because the staff couldn’t accommodate us. Not even for a pre-meal cocktail!
But before he sent us on our way, he asked us what we were doing later and we told him about the Palacio Barolo Tour and he was blown away, telling us that it was going to be SO SPECIAL and that we would see celebrities and all kinds of amazing things! He then asked us if we also wanted to go to some afterparty celebration or whatnot because he was also a DJ or somesuch story (I can’t quite remember all of the things he was suggesting, do you, Elaine?) and he used to live in the US and yada yada yada…we decided we needed a drink.
So off we went down the block until we spotted this super swank hotel bar that was setting up for a big NYE night! We started to walk in, but the hostess refused us, telling us that this was reserved for a private event (probably with celebrities and such!) and that we would not be able to come in for just one quick drink.
NYE was starting to seem like a very strict scenario.
So back to our original restaurant where we decided to wait it out.
…when the restaurant took pity on us and poured Elaine and I each a glass of champagne while we waited!!
And soon the restaurant was open..though not soon enough because even though our very expensive dinner was absolutely delicious and paired with wonderful wines…we zipped thorough almost all of the courses (house-cured charcuterie, the most delicious octopus with microgreens, Patagonian lamb…the list goes on and on..), I don’t even remember most of this meal because we were fretting about the time and getting an Uber and making sure we made the tour. It’s very unfortunate because we didn’t get to enjoy the meal like we should have.
Seriously, I don’t even remember dessert. Do you, Elaine? I think we skipped it and downed another glass of champagne? Or did we eat something amazing that slipped both my mind and the camera on my phone?
Who knows.
And then we were off to the Palacio.
This gorgeous building in the heart of Buenos Aires was where Elaine and I spent our New Year’s Eve. Check out the hashtag #palaciobarolo on Instagram. Some stunning photos! I know I’ve explained it a few times before, but the building was built by an Italian architect to honor Dante Aligheri, of Divine Comedy fame…and was archtecturally designed to have layers of Hell (The Inferno), Purgatory (The Purgatorio) and Heaven (The Paradiso). When construction was completed in 1923, it was actually the tallest building in South America!
It was definitely a grand old building, and I’m not going to tell the whole story of how we got up there and through the building (because that’s not really the exciting part), but we made it to the roof (heaven) probably about 20 minutes before midnight.
They had a couple come out and do a few tango dances - dressed in 1920s garb. It was very beautiful. I took photos of this, but I’m not going to post because, honestly, NOTHING…and I mean NOTHING could compare to what we saw next.
Well, actually, we got our glasses of Champage to have a toast at midnight and then we all went outside to the rooftop balcony…
And at midnight, the most amazing thing happened that photos do not even come close to doing justice: the whole skyline, all across the horizon and beyond, lit up with sparkles!! Fireworks as far as the eye could see!!
It was such an amazing sight! I can’t even explain how cool this was. I’ve never seen anything like it. Again, the photos don’t even come close. But I’m still posting a few so you can kind of get the gist of what we saw. We were mesmerized! It went on for a full 30-45 minutes.
We drank bubbles and toasted the new year and ate snacks and hung out for as long as we could. There were others who were dancing on the roof and probably getting hammered, but Elaine and I weren’t there to get shitfaced for a few reasons: (a) the other folks on the tour were nice enough, but we really weren’t that into them, and (b) we knew we had to catch a flight to Mendoza in the morning, and I guess (c ), we were tired and had enough by 1:30 or so?
So Elaine dialed up an Uber, and one of the guides took us down in the creaky elevator…down, down through purgatory and back down through the inferno and down to the entrance of the building…making us laugh the whole way. Somehow we discovered that he’d been a gynecologist in a previous life, or at least studied medicine because he was telling Elaine about some kind of procedure that she knew all about - she said he was a LEGIT medical professional - now doing tours of this building for a living. Crazy.
Anyway, of course our Uber driver was 15 or so minutes away and didn’t know how to get to us. We stood around while people on the street lit fireworks in the MIDDLE of the street as cars drove by one by one…including our Uber driver who passed us up who knows how many times. Elaine finally got the security guard to talk with the driver on her phone and explain to him where we were. But it still took a couple of phone calls to get him to the right place. I imagine we’d STILL be out on that street waiting for our Uber if not for that security guard!
But we made it back to our hotel after a long and complicated conversation with the Uber driver about all things Trump, of course! It was getting old…
Finally, dropped off safe and sound at the hotel, I guess WE were feeling old too, because we announced that we were DONE for the evening and NOT going out for the rest of the night.
Oh, an Feliz Ano Nuevo to all!!!
Next Up: MENDOZA WINE COUNTRY!!
xox,
GS
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