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Buenos Aires - what a city!! We arrived to BA after a night bus from Iguazu Falls, it was a pretty impressive bus ride- a hot meal, wine, champagne.... nice! We got to our hostel at lunchtime on Friday and I´ll be honest we were a little weary. Our hostel PAX was almost hidden - just a small little sign on the side of the building but what a find!! We were in the mood for major celebration as you can imagine and this was the perfect spot for it. The staff and fellow travellers at PAX made us feel at home straight away (Kaleigh, Rich and Kate) and the bar in the basement was the perfect place to start the celebrating. Friday evening was spent in the bar of the hostel hanging out with fellow travellers and swopping stories.BA has a lot to offer by way of scenic areas, muesums, gardens and it had been our plan to see all of it but unfortunately each morning we were a bit worse for wear and so we basically missed most of it. I know I know but a return trip will rectify all of that. On Saturday one of our first things to do was to ring home and tell the parents our news. We'd had a couple of days with our news to ourselves and figured it was about time to let our family in on the excitement. Both my mam, Stu and David and Carol were delighted for us. We would have loved to tell them in person but we"ll make up for it with celebrations when we get home. After speaking to our families we took a wander into San Talermo and wondered upon some street performers and markets. We could hear some beautiful singing floating over a church we had found so we followed the voices and found a stage that had been set up on a back street for choirs to preform. In front of the stage rows of seats had been set up with street vendors at the other end of the street. People were buying lunch at one end and bringing their food to the stage to sit and listen to the choirs sing. I fell in love on the spot. One of the main things weve been enjoying from this trip is the bliss of finding something that would be just as special at home. It just has the added pizazz that South America offers.It reminded us of Dun-Laoire on a Sunday with the added benefit of music. When we eventually pulled ourselves away we made our way to Evita´s house which was pretty spectacular. We spent the rest of the day wondering around taking a stroll back by the docks on the way back to the hostel. It had a strong resemblance to the IFSC oddly. On Saturday night it came up in the conversation that we had just gotten engaged. One of the owners who had finished her shift heard this and made an announcement to the bar, she insisted on buying us a drink, and made a toast to us which the whole bar joined in with. It was so lovely they couldnt have been nicer to us. Many more drinks followed from our new PAX buddies. At about 2ish we decided a club would be a good idea so pretty much everyone staying in the hostel hit the town- great craic. I think we made our way home for about 7ish. Even with that i still managed to pull myself out of bed for breckie and pulled Rob with me :) it takes more then a banging head to keep me away from breakfast after all it was one of the few places we've come across that served cereal and milk (well almost milk). Our plan had been to geek it up on Monday 9th - my birthday, Argentina´s national day of independance. We were expecting the equivilant of a Paddys day with loads to do and take part in but everywhere was closed. Everyone gets the day off to spend with family. So that day was written off for activities, Sunday afternoon had also been allocated for sight seeing but we got scammed. The famous scam of throwing some horrendous crap on your back so you think its bird poo, a lady or guy passes conveniently having some tissue to offer so that you can wipe it off then when their helping you wipe off your clothes someone else runs by and swipes your bag. Dont worry we were totally on it and nothing got stolen but the stuff smelt so bad we had to write off the afternoon and go back to the hostel to wash our clothes. Smellovision would be required to get just how bad it smelt. At first we were kind of giggling cause we thought it was actually bird poo. Going by the amount of crap we had gotten on us we were planning to hit the casino (if quantity of crap equals the amount of good luck your supposed to have we'd have been quids in) but when we told the staff at the hostel they told us that it was actually the scam, which we kind of knew but were trying to be positive. The drama of that was soon forgotten though as we had booked to go to a Tango show that night. We got collected from the hostel and brought to one of the best shows in Argentina. We also got to have a tango class which was pretty cool. After the class we were served a three course meal before the show started. We werent expecting anything too special from the dinner when it was included in the price but it was absolutely delicious - yum! The beer and wine was also included in the price and when Rob asked for a glass of wine they plonked a bottle on the table. Happy days!!The argentinians know how to tango. The show was immense. It was a small stage but the dancers totally worked it. There was an older singer who appeared through the show and sang his heart out frank sanatra argentina style. On Monday night we put our names down for a pub crawl, well sure why not, seeing as how I got to go free because it was my birthday. The company that ran the crawl gave everyone free shots at each place but when its your birthday you get significantly more than that - it was a hairy night but great craic plenty of drinking and plenty of dancing. Some of the lads on the crawl were from Colombia and they were giving us a master class in salsa in one of the bars. All in all a great night - the down side was that we had to check out the next day and spent most of the day being stinky hungover from the night before before making our way for our next bus. We were sad to leave PAX as we really did feel like we were leaving friends. Music expectional tango tunes and salsa tunes, Taste sensations: Beer (a lot of it) our first kick ass parillia (a mixture of bbq'd meat cooked in a way that Irish people just cant do) other than that its much the same tonnes of meat where ever you go. The 20 quid dinner place amything and everything on a plate for 20 quid or near to it. Buenos Aires was amazing and we'll definately be back if anything to have more meat!!!!!
- comments
Craig Hey guys, Buenos Aires sounded amazing. Happy belated Birthday Leia. Sorry to hear about what happened during that scam but thank God both of you are ok, the main thing. Nothing can stop the adventure...x