“Map out your future – but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip.”

– Jon Bon Jovi, Rock singer, Actor

Buenos Aires – Sunday was a good day to get out of the house for awhile. Henry was off to La Plata to watch a marinera competition and hang out with some friends. I decided to hop on the “mystery bus”, the 108 (the only bus line I know of that is regularly excluded from the official bus map and guide, no one seems to know why). I know it runs from Retiro station to somewhere in Liniers, and I figured on riding it until something looked interesting. Somewhere in Villa DeVoto I realized we were about to pass close by to Plaza Arenales, a really pretty little square partially surrounded by restaurants that I’d seen on my “New York” walk a year ago. So I hopped off when it seemed to be about the closest we were going to get – only a two block walk, and headed there to sit for a bit in the park and then check out one of the restaurants. The park has definitely “filled in” over the last year – much of it had just been replanted last November. I also spotted one of these interesting trees that keep popping up in various locales around the city. Weird things…

There are several interesting looking cafe type restaurants along the Nueva York side of the plaza. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, and they were all teeming with people. This is definitely a residential neighborhood, and the families and couples were out, enjoying the sunshine and the weather. A couple of the places looked like just too long of waits for a table, but I spotted a lone table at DVT – DeVoto Bar, Nueva York 4120, 4501-4224 and grabbed myself a seat. It’s a nice, casual spot, and the menu is pretty classic porteño – with a smattering of pastas, salads, steaks, etc. – and they also had a section for pizzettas, which my waitress told me were a little big for one person, but I could always take some of it home. I ordered a Tisiano, a combination of bacon, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and mushrooms. This may be one of the most interesting, and at the same time somewhat odd, pizzas I’ve had in Buenos Aires. The crust is quite thick – almost like toasted, dense, buttery, bread – though I think what it is is that they make a large al molde style pizza crust, just a bit deeper crust than the norm here, and then cut off sections, top it off with the appropriate toppings, and stick it back in the pizza oven. The toppings were plentiful, piled on, tasty, points for the olives being pitted (as so few places here do), and an intensely flavored and delicious sauce. It’s very much like what I think of as “Sicilian” style pizza. I ate half of it and brought the other half home. Well worth a stop should you find yourself in the ‘hood. [Closed]

Trying to find one’s way back to a bus line that has no map was something I hadn’t thought about. I took a guess as to where the line might run, which turned out to be correct, thankfully, and wandered a few blocks down Nueva York. The center of the street has a narrow island, and whole sections of it are lined with strange looking bushes with these flowers on them – most of the bushes sort of entwined around small trees. No idea what the flowers are, but they’re quite pretty. The bus ride back, uneventful (by the way, the more or less routing is Retiro station to Barrio Norte (along Las Heras), to Plaza Italia, then up Fitz Roy and then Cabrera (through Palermo SoHo), then to Chacarita Cemetery, and on out to Villa DeVoto and from there to Liniers).