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Day 47: 16/8/12
This morning I had a city tour. This buenos aires tour I have booked isnt really a group tour, the company just book you in on trips. I only realised that in d last few days! It sounded like a group tour- stupid fine print!!
A guy collected me at the hotel in the morning anyway and told me I was the only English speaking person on the city tour. So that was great! We had a big bus full of people so we spent the first hour driving around collecting people! He said everything over the microphone in Spanish and then had me sitting in the front so he could tell me the English quickly. This time he definitely didn't tell me everything he said! I only got the bullet point version!
We drove through recoletta first. It's an area where the graveyard is. Then we went to Palermo, a posher area where the houses are very expensive. That place had lots of parks and dog walkers! It also had trees that were 300years old- think they were called gomeras. Then we went to the main square. It's just down the road from the obelisk, a big monument remembering the foundation of buenos aired that is right beside my hotel. We stopped there for a few minutes so we could take photos. There was a cathedral, the cabildo where the revolution for independence started an the pink house which is the government building. It was all very pretty! The city in general is lovely- big open roads and old fancy looking buildings, but all kept very well and very clean. It feels very safe everywhere too. The president, Christine lives outside buenos aires but flies in by helicopter to work in the pink house!
We drove on avenida de libertador which is apparently 35km long. Also drove on avenida 9de julio, which is the main road. The government decided years ago to knock down a whole row of buildings and they made this road which is supposed to be the widest avenue in the world- it has 18 lanes of traffic!! There are four sets of pedestrian crossings to cross the road!! They left one building at the end and there's a picture of evita at the end of that. We also saw a monument in memory of evita. There were lots of monuments around, and lots of embassies- saw the Brazilian and the French. There's also lots of traffic. Apparently 3 million people live in Buenos Aires, 13 million people live in the surrounding areas and 4 million of them travel in to the city every day to work- which leaves 7 million people in the city during the day- crazy!!! It seems to be huge- the central area is only one tiny corner!
We went to the camonito area then. That was where the first port was and where the port workers lived, mostly Italian immigrants. They were very poor. There were 10-15 rooms in a house and a family lived in a room each, with only one toilet for the whole building!! Now noone lives in them, they are just for tourists to look at because they are all really colourful- red, blue, green, yellow- lots of colour! In that area there were restaurants and cafes with tango dancers and people dressed as tango dancers to pose for photos with. There wa lots of music aswell. There was a guy playing tango music on an instrument that sounded like an accordion. It was about the same size as an accordion aswell, but it was plate like a concertina with buttons on both sides. It was cool- will have to look up that instrument!
Then we went to la boca football stadium. It looked cool. It holds 60,000 apparently and the other stadium, home of the rivals 'river plate' can hold 80,000. La boca are blue and yellow, quite like a Tipperary jersey! Maradonna seemed to have played for them. It looks like they have won a lot- there were a good few trophies around. But I know nothing about south American football so they could be junior c for all I know!! There are coca cola advertisements in the stadium but they ate black and white instead of red and white. It seems river plate are red and white so they won't allow the rivals colours in their stadium!! The seats and everything are all blue and yellow. We were only allowed look at th stadium and weren't allowed look in the other areas which had lots of information about the club.
After that we drove through puerto madero which is the most expensive area of the city. There's a nice bridge there and lots of pubs and restaurants. It looked like a nice place so I might go there tomorrow if I have time. In general, Buenos Aires seems to be a place you could come back to! Might need to learn Spanish though!!
We were dropped back at the obelisk then and I went back to the hotel for a few hours. Then I went to the cemetery in recoletta. It was a good half hour walk away and then I walked around the whole cemetery before I found the entrance! We were told on the tour that it was done in the french style, which must mean big massive monuments for tombs!! Some of the monuments were really impressive- better than most of the monuments in cities round Ireland. Some of the monuments were like churches and had windows- you could see coffins and urns in them- it was really weird. There were some famous people buried there- lots of generals and people ive never heard of! You could tell by their tomb though if they were rich and famous! Evitas tomb was there which was kinda cool- I must Wikipedia her though and find out why she's so important!! I know from the tour that she died at 33 from cancer an I know madonna played her in the film- that's about it!! Most of the tombs/monuments were really cool and everyone wa walking around taking photos- you would forget that you were actually in a cemetery!! There's no way I would take a photo of graves in Ireland! Actually, most of the tombs had a family name but didn't tell you who wa in there and when they died- not loose out graces which list everyone. Even though, a lot of the tombs had dates in the 1800s. I don't think you'd be able to read any of our headstones from the 1800s!!
I went back to the hotel then and got ready for the tango show. I was collected from the hotel with a few others from the hotel. We got on a big bus and once again they were all Spanish speaking! We got to the show and people were seated with their own group, which meant I got to sit on my own! Luckily the people on the door spoke English so I could figure out whereto go! We got dinner. The waittress didn't speak English so there was a bit of confusion when I tried to ask what something was on the menu. She thought I wanted it but I don't know what it was so I got chicken instead!! The room is cool- its like a theatre with a balcony all around, but it's all tables like a restaurant rather than seats. There's a group of 10 people opposite me from my hotel and they took pity on me and asked if I wanted to join them, but there was no room and only one of them spoke any english. They all seemed well on it anyway!! We got a three course meal and the drink was included and you could have all you wanted!! So I ate and drank wine and wrote all this while waiting for the show to start!
The show was really good. It was about 90 minutes long. There were musicians on the stage most of the time- a pianist, a guy on a double bass, 2 on the violin and 2 playing that accordion/concertina thing, it seems to be the main instrument! Sometimes they played on their own, sometimes there were singers and sometimes dancers. There were eight dancers. They all danced together a few time but mostly just a couple at a time. There's a lot of matching around the stage, kicking their legs in between each others legs and stretching and kicking legs in the air! Its all quite aggressive! The singers were good, although its nearly an opera style, which is hard to listen to a lot of! They also had a guy on panpipes who played a few tunes like you would hear in Peru. Then they had gauchos aswell- they played drums, danced around with a blanket (more impressive than you would think) and dances with the ball thing things you swing around. One guy was purposely hitting them off his hair but he still didnt lose rhythm! They had a montage to evita aswell and the female singer sang that song from a balcony! A lot of the crowd actually seemed to know a few of the songs and tunes- they were getting excited now and again!! Maybe that was the free wine!! Anyway, really enjoyed the show but was raging that you couldn't take photos! There was a shop of course where they tried to get you to buy CDs and DVDs at the end. I didn't bother. Id go to see it live again but I couldn't see myself sitting down to watch it or listen to it at home!
Lots of buses outside to bring us all back to our hotels. The crowd that had been sitting opposite me were locked and roaring he whole way back. You could see a lot of the people on the bus werent impressed with them!! They were well into their forties- it wasn't like they were a crowd of teenagers!! Anyway, got home grand!
- comments
padraig dont mock the Junior C Lorraine.. i always thought i had a maradona-esque style of hurlin