Recoleta the neighborhood is pretty much the Upper East Side of Buenos Aires - not just where the money is, where the old money is. Upscale shopping and dining are everywhere, along with many cultural venues such as Buenos Aires´premier art museum, Museo National de Bellas Artes. We went there yesterday - a nice enough way to spend an afternoon, but other than a pretty good Rodin collection, and some interesting modern photograhy, not really a noteworthy museum.

Recoleta is also near the domestic airport, which the residents have been trying to shut down forever (even though most approaches are from the other side and it´s not that loud at all).

Also in Recoleta are several (relatively) upscale brothels.
¿How do I know this? Well, let´s just say never ask a cabby ¨where´s the party?¨ when you don´t speak the language that well. We made that mistake Monday night while looking for a club - one of the guys I was with wanted to go out 7 days a week but couldn´t find anything Monday nights. We chatted with the cabby about soccer, and asked if he knew of anything going on Monday nights. He seemed to understand what we were getting at, and dropped us off in front of this place. 4 guys in tuxes met us - they said it was 35 pesos to get in with two drinks free. Now, this is a bit pricey for the clubs, but otherwise fairly standard. I was woried we weren´t dressed right, but they said we were fine (which - along with the fact that the place was called ¨Sodoma¨ - should have tipped me off). So we head in, and I´m thinking ¨aw, heck - they took us to a strip club¨ (which was utterly dead by the way). We figure we´ll drink our drinks and get out. Then I notice that there´s nobody dancing, and 3 ladies are now rubbing our arms and smiling at us.

They take us to a booth and I desperately try to communicate with mine (unfortunately for everyone, I speak the best Spanish among the group) - that there´s a mix up. We´re not looking for this kind of club. We were just looking to dance. We wanted to go to a disco and the cabby brought us here. We don´t want to waste anyone´s time. We´re sorry, we´re going to go now. I don´t blame the cabby - I mean, let´s say three Japanese businessmen get in a cab in New York, say stuff like ¨Go Yankees!¨ and ¨Babe Ruth is the best!¨ and then say ¨We´re looking for the Party!¨ Where would you take them?

Then I notice something amazing. The lady I´m talking to actually understands me and I understand her. I tell her she´s a very good Spanish teacher, and she replies ¨Spanish teachers are having very bad luck right now - this is my second job¨ (which was made more believable by the fact that she actually looked like a Spanish teacher - not a Argentinian prostitute). So I´ve got an appointment for lessons on pronunciation today (yes, I made it abundantly clear that this was for Spanish lessons only). We finally managed to get out of there - the ladies were very good natured about the whole thing. They even insisted on having us take a picture
with them (my Spanish teacher´s the one on the left).