We arrived in Buenos Aires a week ago Saturday. We were greeted at the airport by our friends Barbara and Marco, who refused our entreaties that we would take a cab instead of making them drive an hour to the airport, an hour to our place, and then 20 minutes back to their apartment. They wouldn’t hear of it. They are wonderful!

We have a three-story apartment in Palermo Hollywood, a hipper neighborhood with more restaurants, cafes and entertainment than our last neighborhood here, which was still Palermo, but a different part. It always takes a week or so to find our way. Saturday we were a bit disappointed in the quality of grocery stores nearby, but then we walked just a bit further and found a Jumbo (which is pronounced the way an English speaker would say the word), the same brand as the store we went to last time. It’s kind of like an American grocery store, although the amount of international items is limited (and expensive).

A couple of blocks away, there’s a gym which we have joined. Mercifully it has stretching classes which I have tried out and am able to do and may even be helping my back. The other plus is that I made a new friend who will speak Spanish with me.

We’ve been taking walks around the neighborhood and finding most of what we need. There’s a fruit and vegetable market across the street that looks like it may have some decent produce. You may not know this, but meat is a much bigger priority here than veggies. Produce is a problem. Everything seems to be on its last legs at the grocery store, but if we can go across the street and get what we need day to day, we’re fine.

Wednesday, we Ubered over to Chinatown (all of three blocks) to get ingredients we can’t find elsewhere. We stocked up on tofu and noodles but forwent (Sue tells me forwent is a real word that means we didn’t get it — who knew?) the Sriracha at $13.00 a bottle. We’ll make do.

Thursday, a crazy thing happened: Steven said water was falling from the sky, but I don’t believe him because I didn’t see it. (I could see all three drops hit the pool.)

Friday, we had our first night out. Barbara and Marco joined us for Greek food at Kefi, about three blocks away. There, they gave us the exciting news that they are expecting a baby in the best month of all: June! We also discovered “pingüino de la casa,” which literally means “penguin of the house,” but is a traditional, typically countryside, ceramic penguin filled with house wine. Of course, we ordered it.

After dinner, we hit the Thelonious Club, literally around the corner from us, for, you guessed it, a jazz band. The space was larger than we are used to and the crowd was appropriately jazzily quiet. We saw Escalandrum. We mostly liked them, although they got a bit too new agey and experimental at times plus the drummer talked a lot and I have to concentrate hard to understand about half of it (I managed to pick out two or three words that I knew).

Saturday, we walked to a bakery that Marco recommended, where we sat in the sunshine, had a coffee and ate a delicious pastry each. Then, we headed back and luxuriated in the pool, followed by a binge-watch of half of season 2 of Kleo (which you should check out if you haven’t seen it. (It is on Netflix.)

Today (Sunday) we walked all the way across the street to Orlandito Coffee, which we thought was just a coffeehouse, but it is decorated with stuffed animals and Harry Potter paraphernalia plus had delicious breakfast food. A yummy surprise. We did our usual (but lately shortened due to an aging back) marching, finding a farmer’s market where Steven got chicken breasts (which are called pechuga elsewhere but suprema here –don’t ask).

Guess what we did after that? We hit the pool, relaxing ourselves in preparation for another Giants’ embarrassment. We certainly weren’t disappointed there (to say it was an embarrassment is to give the Giants waaaayyyy too much credit).

Thursday we fly to the end of the world — Tierra del Fuego — for summer solstice. It’s a wonderful life.