Just back from BsAs in December '05 and with trepedation booked a modest hotel sight unseen at the intersection of Florida and Lavalle pedestrian streets, not too far away from your Sheraton Libertador. I loved being in this part of town, absolutely loved it.

The street you are on is a busy one, but also a wonderful one to stroll and by all means go out to the "Palacio de Agua Corrientes" (spelling?) - which I believe is on the corner of Cordoba and Riobamba - an extraordinary building and they have daily tours around 11am. You are also near a few subway stops so very cheaply you can make excursions all over the city using this fast and efficient alternative to cabs. I got a 10 ride ticket which saved standing in lines and it works just like any other major city subway.

I felt safe walking in this area, even walking home at night from Teatro Colon after the performance. You will be in the middle of everything and can go in any direction you want from that starting point to see most of what tourists like to see and do on their first (and hopefully not their last) visit to this lively, welcoming and always engaging city.

Take a look at the www.guiaoleo.com (spelling?) interactive restaurant guide as you can locate a lot of well-recommended restaurants right within a few blocks of where you will be staying.

You can manage without knowing Spanish, but do encourage you to get a travelers Spanish guide and keep up with that short course because every little bit helps. I found the English versions of the menus often indecipherable, but I also learned all I wanted was "chorizo and chimichurri" - that was enough Spanish for me in that setting. (!) Other than that vino is like wine, patate is like potato --- you can guess at a lot and not be far off.

FAKE CURRENCY SCAM WARNING (Skip the rest of this post if you are tired of hearing about this)

Since it is your first trip, please take into consideration tourist can become victims of the fake currency scams, where usually a cab driver returns bills you offer for the fare as fake and you can end up giving him more and more bills and he surreptitiously keeps changing them for fake ones he has ready and waiting taking your good bill and keeping it, while you get a hand full of his fake bills in exchange.

Stop at the very first instance if this happens to you - go to a police station to sort this out. Or have some one peso coins ready to pay with these instead, or carry a few US dollars as well and tell him take it or leave it. And be sure to check your own bills ahead of time to make sure you in fact are not giving out fake bills.

sbagal