Louie in Buenos Aires!

Louie hit town today, and he got to see his nephew for the first time. This may have also been his first time to hold an infant, as you can see here. I asked him if he wanted to know what Merritt was up to at his shoulder, and I took this photo and showed him Merritt drooling away happily.

Then we rounded ourselves up and headed downtown for a nice sushi lunch, followed by some browsing at Galerias Pacificas and Calle Florida. Louie wanted to do some shopping, and although the Microcentro is not one of my favorite areas of the city, you can do some of the very cheapest and the very priciest shopping here. So there's something to suit all tastes. I was very happy to see some Tango dancers performing outside the Galerias Pacificas, especially since I read Marina Palmer's ChickLit novel, Kiss and Tango, where the protagonist finds herself dancing at that location, braving the sometimes lukewarm reception of the onlookers and working for the scant centavos they toss in a hat. The dancers seemed good to me, and I could appreciate how hard it must be to dance on the rough, cobbly pavement of the pedestrian street rather than a smooth dance floor, and how nerve-wracking it must be to perform for the odd passersby rather than the paying customers who patronize a scheduled event in a dancehall or hotel, so I tipped big, even though we only had a moment or two to watch them.

Later this evening, we went to a pub round the corner to watch the futbal match between Argentina and Brazil. The place must have been packed with Brazilians because of the cheering; Brazil won 3-1. We ate peculiar renditions of what to us is familiar, chain-restaurant/bar standbys: cheese- and bacon-laced potato skins; nachos with guacamole and some salsa-ish thing called "chili"; and fried cheese sticks. When in Argentina, stick to pizzas because they tend to be delicious.

Typically in Argentina one encounters condom dispensers (but not, oddly enough, tampon vending boxes) in the women's restrooms of bars, but this pub had only a machine that doled out toothbrushes! Not only will you have fresh breath for your "date" (but maybe not protection from STDs), but it comes with a fun prediction: