Buenos Aires: First Impressions

So I bid farewell to Ushuaia today and hola to Buenos Aires. I landed at 16:30 local time, BA is 3 hours ahead of US EST and found my way to the apartment I had rented for 3 weeks. It is in the are where the famous cemetery is, hence the name - Recoleta. Evita's tomb is here among many other celebs. The are has posh hotels, upscale shops and lots of ritzy restaurants. So in other words, I am in a safer neighborhood than El Centro. I met with the rental agency concierge and apt owner at 5:30pm and went over the rules, paid my deposit and remaining rent and was good to go. The only problem I have with the apt is that the hot water comes from gas and the apt owner wants me to turn it off and relight it each time I want to use hot water: not very practical. Around 6:30 pm I set out to walk the neighborhood. BA's architecture at 1st glance is like Paris. The American influence is present. There is a Blockbuster across the street from me. The studio apt is located on a street called Billinghurst. Walking around I found a supermarket and stocked up on breakfast and lunch groceries and some essential kitchen and personal toiletries. Within a block there are 4 banks so no problem finding an ATM. HSBC was the first one I saw. Other that the American influence, it is very much like walking around Paris just as outside my aunt's(Aunty Janet) place in Paris. At 1st I thought I take a Spanish conversational but I really do not want to fill my days sitting in a classroom, since I do not have too much time here. Well, 3 weeks ain't a lot since I will be making some days trip to Uruguay and also going up to Iguazu. BA has enough to fill one's time up in 3 weeks. The whole point is to live in the city, see what it is like, go about the daily thing, talk to people and basically see what it is like to live here. On the other hand, I am on the lookout for a tango class or 2. The nice thing about the studio I am in is that it has Internet which gives me a chance to finalize some logistics still in the planning. The place I got in Rio will not have Internet and that will be a bitch. I wasn't able to find the "Subte" or metro. I read that the metro dates back to the early 1900s and the original wagons still run with loud artwork decorating the trains and walls. Can hardly wait to see it. The Subte is cheaper than the bus at under 1 Arg Peso (approx. USD0.30). Tomorrow I will have to do my laundry. There is a laundry line on the studio patio so no problems drying. Just have to find a "lavanderia" to throw in my jeans. I have arranged to meet some people who live in BA.