Sleep. A commodity hard to come by in these humid days, especially if you are Sarah, and sharing a room with two guys who get up at 8am to spray a full tin of Lynx on themselves, choking everyone in the process. Hostels. They can have a quare mix of folk.
Breakfast, however, is much better than we have had for a long time; personal table service of four patisserie and a flask of freshly made coffee. Our entertainment comes from, variously, ESPN in Spanish (lots of South American football players in Europe, not much else), Channel 5 News (all about the weather and the dollar blue, what else?) and sometimes a random channel showing Friends or Mom (Alison Janney, poor career move). You can learn a lot with subtitles, especially that single expressions in Spanish can cover a multitude of cases.
Lesson 1 : In Spain, vale means OK. In South America, use muy bien.
That's it for now. The Rioplatenese accent takes some getting used to.
By the time showers and whatnot are completed, its lunchtime. Back to our little Peruvian cafe, where our waiter from Tuesday is delighted to see us, and we get better service, plus our free tray of bread, sadly absent from the day before. This time I tackle vacio con guarnicions, fairly self explanatory, and Sarah once again has a sausage bap. My steak is just delightful, pure and simple, and worth every one of the $40 I pay for it.
I cannot deny the beauty of Buenos Aires. It is grand in the way the great cities of the world are grand. It is, however, monochrome in the same way, and I pine for the low key charm and subversion colour of Montevideo. There is a clear weighting towards historical important here that the unassuming Uruguayans took somewhat for granted in everything they did. Obvious European comparisons apply, up to a point, by they are valid. I look forward to travelling across the Andes to see if the differences between Europe and Latin America are more pronounced.
The National Congress. Like all formal buildings in BA, this is simply beautiful whilst beautifully un-simple.
The anti-Monsanto movement is well established here.
I love this building, an abandoned shell of an old confiteria.
I feel silly now wondering if this is the Thinker, now that I know there are dozens out there. It should have remained as The Poet and done everyone a favour.
After a meander we come across this place, a glass cube of those lost at the Islands in 1982.
Not everything is BA is about the Islands, however. There are many plaques dedicated to the
detenidos desaparecidos, the detained and disappeared, or to those killed by the police at any point recently. The streets near banks, near headquarters, tiny shops, all have a little notice of someone who worked there who is now gone, as yet unfound.
A rare splash of colour on BA's streets.
The most important thing around here.
Finally find a nice, clean branch of Tienda Del Coffee and we stretch out over excellent coffee to congratulate ourselves. Don't ignore that red-fruits cheesecake, people. It was immense.
Irish Pubs. Everywhere. The porteños love their Irish bars.
Colossal buildings down around Puerto Madero.
The Kilkenny. An Thai-themed pub. No, only joking. Didn't go in here, but when we walked past an hour later it was rammed with the post-work crowd enjoying their 2 x 1 beers. I don't think it actually sold Kilkenny though (or Guinness, for that matter).
Opposite the Kilkenny, this pirate-themed pub was also a hot spot. The whole area is right beside all the office blocks, so by 7pm its a bit busy.
Colourful horse outside bank.
For a long time now Sarah has said "You should open a pub called 'The Pub'". Damn.
We came across a place that seemed to be called Bar Bar, and went in to take a look. We stayed long enough to learn that it was called BarBaro, and that it was old, that it was very popular, that it had some horrid and brazen pigeons outside, and that they had a collection of beermats on the wall that I was envious of (my own collection only totally 300 or so)
The toilet door to the gents (definitely not ladies).
A fine drinking establishment, extra points of little bowls of nuts and chip-sticks with our chopps of Quilmes.
Back into the heat we go, and wander into Shopping Palacio which, imagine, is really rather nice.
Hard to imagine the guys who built Victoria Square would have the stones to put up this sort of art for the public's edification.
We headed back to the hostel, winding our way through the main roads. On Avenida de Mayo a taxi honks loudly outside Bar Iberia. It's the London girls we met in Montevideo, back from shopping. Typical of our luck to run into people we know in a city of 13 million. Back at the hostel we get a little more blog written, and get excited when A Few Good Men comes on the tv. Not much to do but get pizza from our local La Continental, sit back, relax, and let Thursday roll in.
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