I made it to Argentina with no issues! All the checks were done in the US, so when I got to customs all I had to do was show my passport and my face in the camera. What I didn’t realize until I got here is that cash is king. Exchanging cash gets you twice as many pesos than your credit card. If I would have only known…
Today’s tour was the Palermo walking tour with empanadas cooking class & wine tasting with Signature Tours. I cannot say enough good things about the tour.
I met my tour guide Florencia at the Miravida Soho Hotel where we started by walking around an area near the hotel looking at the different Urban art. Most of what we saw was commissioned by the home owner, store owner or even the government to help beautify the area, bring in customers to the shops, and in the case of the government, bring awareness of different causes. A number of the artist sign their work so you can look them up on Instagram and potentially hire them. There was some beautiful work. And the architecture was stunning. Old wooden doors, terraces, made me feel like a mix of New Orleans and New York, but more with a Brady street feel.
We then came back to the hotel where Florencia cooked up the filling for our empanadas. She also had a fabulous helper, Davit. While she was cooking, we started with our first wine, a Torrontes. This is a white grape grown only in Argentina. What I didn’t realize is that Argentinians only drink their own wines. They do not import wine from other countries. Crazy! She also walked me by a Chinese grocery store that was selling wines for $8 that are listed in Wine Spectator for $19.
Once the filling was done, we left the kitchen and sat in the bar area and created our empanadas while sipping on a Malbec and a Cab. The empanadas were good. What is funny is we only made one with homemade dough. The others were made with packaged dough. You could really taste the difference. We both agreed the fresh one was considerably better.
At one point, I mentioned it was my birthday and Florencia went into action to have a desert for me. They brought out an Argentinian desert (can’t remember the name, but it was like a 3 layer cookie covered in chocolate) with one candle and sang happy birthday to me in Spanish. It was a great way to spend a birthday.
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