Friday, June 10, 2011

A Random Walk Down Av. Costa Rica

La Avenida Costa Rica is a street in Palermo Soho that I'm very fond of. Today I went there hoping to try a well-reviewed sushi place (and, in turn, to mix up the old diet a bit, which has been a bit overloaded by delicious though heavy Argentinian specialties).

Desafortunadamente, the sushi joint was closed, but the trip wasn't a total bust. For one thing, it allowed me to improve my understanding and usage of the local buses (called "colectivos" for reasons that continue to escape me, and about which I'll write more later).

The day was also clear enough that I could continue practicing taking pixes with the iPad. Here they are.

This is a willow tree, right? I seem to remember that willows are supposed to weep, and that seems metaphorically accurate for this tree. The storefront is a pretty good example of the kind of fashion-boutiquey kind of place that characterizes Av. CR (I have no inclination to patronize these stores, but they are interesting to look at, and into).



This sign appears to be in Italian. It may be some kind of reference to the famous line from Dante's Inferno that is the epigram for The Waste Land (abandon all hope, all ye who enter here), but then again I may well be wrong about this on all fronts.



Another physically attractive storefront. Note the two oldsters in the lower right checking out DF using his iPad. (NB: "E" is for "Estacionar," which refers to parking, I think.)



Intersection of Av. Costa Rica and Av. Gurruchaga. Sa Giara is a Sardinian restaurant that I think is kind of famous. I haven't been.



Ever seen cobblestones up close? Well, have ya, punk?



Avs. Costa Rica & Gurruchaga, opposite side of the street. You can't see it, but there's a boutique called "Amsterdamn" featured here. This amuses me because 10 (!) years ago when I was living in Amsterdam for the summer working on a Let's Go travel guide, a running joke btw me and the other writers was that "Amsterdamn" was such an obvious, overused, and lame play on words that we'd automatically not include it in the guide.