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Gem and Lob's Big Adventure
Buenos Aires
Right well it's been a good while since we last wrote, and we've been very busy....
Firstly the less said about football the better, there aren't too many photos in the updated photo album (yes, that's a hint, go, look) of chearing fans, though there are a couple of chearful french folk, which was nice, if only for a while.
Last time we wrote, we were big on the Tango thing, well, unfortunately events overtook us somewhat - well the flu to be precise - and we only managed one more lesson. We're hoping to get a few more in Cordoba though, our Ochos are pretty spot on now, once the steering's sorted we should be well on the way to that dance in the square, though it'll have to be a couple of months in the future now!
We have been doing lots of other things though besides dancing and watching footy. We've been to Uruguay (see postcard and photos), and we've done all the touristy things that we meant to do in our first week in Buenos Aires, but didn't get round to until now.
Things like going to the Casa Rosada, the government building, where Evita did her famous balcony bit, and surely the world's only pink government house? We've been to see the lovely colourful streets of the Caminito in La Boca, home of the Boca Juniors... though sadly we couldn't catch a match, it being World Cup time. We've been shopping more than we ought to have, but that happens, and it all just about fits in the bags! And we've had a few bottles of wine and just a few juicy steaks...
The most impressive thing we've done though in the last few weeks by far, is go to the opera. We'll admit it does sound a little on the fancy side for us, but now we're international jet setters we figured we needed to buck up our ideas a little. The opera house in Buenos Aires, the "Teatro Colon", was the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere until the Sydney Opera house overtook it, and it has outstanding acoustics. Inside it's really beautiful and really quite impressive, and the best seats go for about 100 GBP!!! However as most folk in Argentina don't make anything like that kind of money, there are standing tickets for as little as 5 pesos, that's about a quid to you folk back home. We went for a whopping 12 peso ticket, that meant we were standing (well ok, crouching on the floor and sitting on a railing), but that we could see everything and hear perfectly. The performance we saw was of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it was in English. It being opera though, and to boot being sung by mostly italians, we followed it mostly be reading the Spanish subtitles that came up at the top of the stage... very hi-tech! It was brilliant though, if a tiny bit uncomfortable, and really worth doing.
From our point of view though by far the best thing about staying so long in Buenos Aires was all the folk we've met. Quite a few of them, Sandy, JoJo, Mel, Mike and Elly to name some, stayed as long as we did pretty much, as Buenos Aires has a way making you stay somehow, and we got to know them pretty well, and were very sad to be left by, and leave them all. That's also the case for the guys working at the hostel, Ronnie, Nico and the girls, and of course for our lovely Tommy, who taught us Spanish and is an absolute legend.
Actually, the best thing about our time in Buenos Aires was catching the Cow Parade at the docks... but we can't really say that now can we? ;0)
So we're off now to Cordoba, via Rosario. We hope we'll be back in Buenos Aires at some point, somehow 6 weeks isn't quite enough.....
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