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Met Alex at Heathrow terminal 5 just after I had managed to stuff a 3 course meal down at Carluccios, courtesy of parent Powells. Straightforward flight to Madrid and then 2 hours waiting at Madrid's (very fancy) airport for our connection. It was here, when trying to get two seats together at the boarding gate, that we became alarmingly aware of our lack of spanish. Still, we had 5 months to get sick of each other so maybe not a bad thing. While we were boarding the flight we joked about how the films will probably all be in spanish. We should not have feared as there were no films (except for the single, communal TV that shows bad films at bad times in the flight and therefore doesn't count).
12 hour flight of what I considered near-constant turbulance (Alex didn't notice) and food that was in fact inedible, which is rare for a Powell. The Argentinian vet next to me tried to give hers back as she had asked for the meat... until the stewardess informed her that is was, indeed, meat.
Arrival at BA airport and a period of slow adaptation resulted in us successfully getting a rather expensive taxi from to our hostel. It was still morning, so we first set off to book our onward bus tickets to Iguacu (all in total confused spanish, much to the ticket man's amusement) and then to one of BA's many cafes for a coffee and our very first (and by no means the last) medialunas (basically a croissant, but better). The rest of the day we walked around BA, shared a cerveza and went to bed early.
Day 2 we hired bicycles from the hostel and cycled around Palermo's parks, which were absolutely full of barking dogs in clothing. Then cycled to the Recoleta cemetery, which was full of really elaborate tombs, including Evitas. On the way back to the hostel Alex managed to leave me behind at a few lights due to some very choice moves, including crossing in front of a moving ambulance. Spent the afternoon strolling around Palermo Viejo and eating / drinking in cafes! In the evening we went out for a drink with another girl in our hostel, not before Alex got her combination padlock stuck on her locker, with her belongings inside.
Day 3 we checked out and caught the #29 bus to La Boca to find a really nasty, touristic street in the middle of a very dodgy area. It's known for its colourful, corrugated iron houses. After 15 minutes we were both done, and had to find the #29 terminal to buy return tickets (we had no coins, which are in very short supply in Argentina, and required to catch the buses). I will admit I enjoyed the bus terminal more than La Boca itself. Got off in San Telmo, which is a nice area of cobbled stones and old buildings. Back in the Centro of town Alex (having not brought a first aid kit with her) thought it might be prudent to buy some medication for unknown events later on in the trip, and so put her spanish to the test to purchase diarrhoea medication, which was fun for me. Spent the afternoon in the really cool Cafe Tortoni drinking Argentinian malbec and eating THE BEST steak I have ever had. On the way back to the subway it appeared that the new BRT lanes on the super-wide '9 de julio' street had opened today, which is highly exciting for a transport consultant! After a few subway rides we arrived at the massive retiro bus terminal to get our night bus to Iguacu.
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Tom Thanks for updating the blog - it's making interesting reading :-)