Goodbye Polaris
The boat docked in Ushuaia sometime after midnight, and we were woken one last time to Stephen’s “Good moooooorning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning!” wake up call. We finished our packing and had breakfast in the dining room before saying our goodbyes, leaving the Polaris, and catching the bus to the airport. Only about 30 of us were flying to Buenos Aires – the rest had plans for further travel in and around southern Argentina. We, however, had plans to the north.

Pouty Mindy and Shannon, boarding the plane. So sad Antarctica is over.Buenos Aires
We mapped out a plan for entertaining ourselves in Buenos Aires and decided to see the Plaza Mayor; home of the president’s offices in the Pink House and the famous Evita balcony. We walked there via Florida Avenue (again) and as we got closer to Plaza Mayor we started to wonder… Buildings looked suspiciously familiar… I already had a picture of that ornate architecture with the grafitti… We’d already stood on this corner…

Woops. We’d already been to the Plaza Mayor: our first night in BA when Daniel took us on the long walk to dinner. We just didn’t realize (weren’t listening?) it was the same place. Bad, bad tourists.

So we did what any quality tourist would do: we went shoe shopping on Florida. Mindy was specifically looking for dressy sandals so Shannon and I entertained ourselves by doing the same.

Lovely ceiling of a mallI just posted a picture of the inside of a mall. Oh, the horrors. (it won’t be the last…)

Dinner at Broccolino
Argentineans are well known for their late nights; they have dinner around 11 or 12 and then go out afterward. Though we constantly talked about doing the traditional Argentinean late-night dinner, we’ve been too exhausted to pull it off. This night was no different. By 8:00 we’d shoe shopped our hearts out and were starving for dinner, which is how we ended up at Broccolini – an Italian place around the corner from our hotel that had some great reviews. We started laughing the moment we walked in, because not only was there no one there except for three other people, but one of those people was Janine! Hijacking her, we moved her to our table and ordered another bottle of wine to celebrate our first non-overcooked meal in a week.

The four of us in an empty restaurantJaninne had a rich four-cheese with pesto dish, Mindy had a fussilli mushroom goodness, Shannon had delicious pasta with a tomato cream sauce, and I had a delectable lasagna. We were all terribly pleased with ourselves, and we were fighting to keep our eyes open.

We loved the description of the Zucchini Fritti “Deliciosos!! / Delicious!!”. We ordered it. It really was that good. (pic by Mindy)Dessert At The Richmond
We just couldn’t rationalize going to bed at 9:30. Not in BA. That’s wrong on so many levels. We opted to stop by “The Richmond” – a café much like the old British clubs – for dessert. Janine was ready to ditch us and go to sleep but after a week we knew exactly which of her buttons to press. “Come have a drink. Just one…” She was hooked.

The Richmond

Chocolatey Goodness