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Hi all,
14 hour bus trip? No problem, when you have bingo and wine! Plenty of leg room also, just the snoring old man was the downer. Any how, we arrived in Buenos Aires with much excitment. Now this is a busy city, and spread out quite abit also. First task, locate the B&B, which I have to say we managed quite well whilst keeping a very close eye on our bags on the metro. We found the street and eventually the house number, but there was no signs to indicate that this was an operational B&B, untill we pushed the buzzer which promted the arrival of Elena. What can I say about Elena? A crazy whirlwind of friendly greetings, handgestures and latin passion. Bustled into the building which didn´t look much from the outside but inside it´s a stylishly decorated colonial house.
First day there we just spent browsing the shops to get our bearings of the city, but the most exciting news on the first day was when I found out there was a new arrival in the Brown family. Little Daisy was all the way back in England and we are both gutted we have to wait a month to see her.
After having enjoyed the previous walking tours we had done in South America we jumped at the chance to do one in BsA. Starting outside the Congress building in Plaza Congreso we heading down Mayo Ave until we reached Plaza Mayo where the parliment "pink" house is. Surrounded by a giant black metal fence to keep protestors out when they get out of hand, we saw 2 on our tour. They are an every day occurance though. We headed up to the obelisk which is on the main avenue. This huge avenue, which runs like a giant artery through the city, several lanes of crazy latin driving makes it an interesting place to cross the road. I was also told the week before that had closed it for a motor race! Damn it! Also the World rally championship is in Argentina this weekend but sadly in another part of the country, I don´t think Bex was as disapointed as me!
The next day, after seeing where Evita made several important speeches on the balcony of the pink house, we decided to head to the Evita Museum in order to learn more. The day started with a laugh as the house cats has just got back from the vets during breakfast after being castrated, and there is nothing funnier than a cat trying to walk after genaral anistectic, especially with a crazy latin women chasing them around the kitchen table. I tried not to choke on my cornflkes with laughter. The Evita museum was very interesting, I didn´t really know how much she had acheived and how much the people of Argentina adored her. The scenes of her funeral were unbelivable. The streets where packed with people and they have big streets here. Afterwards we had a nice change for lunch at the museum restaurant, grilled chicken with a salad and a sweet pumpkin fratatta. This may not sound too special but our diet in South America has not been great, what with a mixture of our basic spanish and the type of diet in this country, we have been eating a lot of red meats, breads and cheeses, so this light lunch went down a treat. Overall it was a good food day as we were recommended an excellent little tapas place, which made the best sangrias ever! The jug soon disappeared. one of my favorite local snacks is a choripan, basically a mild chrizo hotdog. We were drawn to a small local parilla (grill) by the smell of the best bbq we had seen, a huge charcoal fire with the grill full of steaks, ribs, whole chickens and chrizo sausages. Delicious!
As we our in the capital of tango we were looking for a place to have a lesson. Our hosts had a friend who taught lessons and we were soon being taken to a studio a few blocks away. Loraina, who is a friend of our hosts introduced us to spanish looking louis spence called jorge. He couldn´t speak a word of english so lorraina translated for us. It worked very well though, in 2 hours we learnt a couple of moves which could fit togther. Interesting to be shown how to dance by jorge doing the womans steps as he stood about a foot shorter than me. How Bex didn´t laugh I´ll never know. We had a lot of fun though but the true test will come tonight as we have been invited to a night of tango which involves a lesson followed by free dance time...a milonga! Aaaarrgghh. Stay tuned to find out how it goes!
Chris
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Dave and Jen B An uncle, Dancing, Tapas, sangria, you better come home for rest, Oh, Daisy is adorable.