Fav Place #4 - The Bar with No name

I'm actually lying. It does have a name, it's apparently even a famous bar, i just keep forgetting what it's called.

It's this little bar in San Telmo, the older part of Buenos Aires (a bit like a run down larger version of The Rocks), and the main reason I walked in to begin with was because I really (really) had to go to the bathroom. While some people in Buenos Aires have a tendency to do their business on a quiet street corner sometimes, I decided to follow my own personal etiquette: go to a bar, order something cheap and go to the loo.
So I ordered glass of red, and the guy gave me a big glass of red, and a bowl of peanuts, and I sat there reading my book and drinking my wine and eating my peanuts... Then ordered another glass of wine. Then a sandwich, and a coffee (I think, could have been in a different order).
The place was very cool in a rustic kinda way. There was low tango music playing, and people who looked like they spent their entire lives there were having their coffees while reading the paper, arguing amongst themselves (probably about where they should go for dinner), going through bank statements... The usual stuff.


Before I left LA, Janet gave me a book (thanks again J!) that, as always was the perfect read for this trip. And as I was sitting in the bar reading it, the girl in the book was explaining how hard it was for her to adopt to the Italian way of life where you can literally sit somewhere for hours, doing nothing meaningful. Or nothing at all. What they call the beauty of doing nothing. And as I was sitting there sipping my wine and munching on those peanuts and reading my book, I couldn't help but think, that the beauty of doing nothing came pretty naturally to me.


As you probably imagine I did end up coming to that place more than once (or twice or thrice). And that's how I found out it was famous... It was usually very quiet and semi deserted, but on the weekend it was happening! And every few minutes, some American tourist, or American couple would walk in, take a picture of the place and walk out... I did try to get the camarero to explain to me the significance of the place, but his response was way to advanced for my Spanish, and included names and dates and details, so I decided I will leave that bit of investigation till next time and went back to my wine and peanuts.