another day in b.a.

<hello again from buenos aires.

this morning team condron took a guided city tour. it was scheduled to be from 9 a.m. to noon but it took until 1030 am to pick up everyone at their respective hotels and we didnt get back to our hotel until nearly 3 pm. we are getting better at adapting malayas schedule. malaya had a very short nap in my arms on the bus and since there was no lunch stop i had nuts from a street vendor. holding malaya in my arms on a full bus for 6 hours gave me flashbacks to the flight yesterday. it was a challenge and i do not forsee anymore friggin bus tours.

on a less negative note ' the tour was interesting. <we drove around the neighbourhoods of buenos aires and our guide gave us lots of information about the history of the city-country. i took latin american history at carleton and its all coming back to me now. we stopped at a university law school, which is free and open to all citizens. very nice. we also stopped at a park and saw a 6 million dollar us monument of a flower made of steel. it is solar powered and opens up in the morning and closes at night.

we drove up plaza july 9 which represents the day argentina got her independance. there is an oblisk there to represent this as well. the oblisk is a popular spot to celebrate soccer match wins and for protestors. in the last 24 hours i have seen no less than 3 major protests. they are very common here. the only one i could understand was greenpeace protesting the melting of the glaciers in the south....

we went to plaza de mayo and the ´rosa´ pink government building. fyi argentina has a female president right now. we saw many important statues in the city including one for the 30 000 men who went missing or were killed during the last military dictatorship, evita, the headless man <to represent the typical argentinian man lol< ....we went to an open air museum in la boca district and saw how people lived back in the day. we went to a market full of hand crafts and art.

<also on the tour of the city we stopped at la boca soccer stadium where they charge admission for a 15 minute entrance pass where you can sit in the stadium and take pictures of the soccer field. people were freaking out like it is a cathedral at this place. i checked it out. they painted it blue and yellow in honour of the sweedish boat that sailed the stadium creators here. it basically looks like ikea in there.

we also drove past the most poluted river in the country and a bridge that is designed to be a womans legs dancing the tango.

we will not be catching a popular tango and dinner show or going to a soccer match due to the late timings and our decision to travel with malaya. no worries though. iḿ also getting too old to pub crawl and still be able to get up in the morning and go touring around.

<mark officially has the flu. i have no idea what his temperature is. i felt his forehead with the back of my hand and i nearly got a burn from touching him. its very very bad. he didnt make it through the bus tour today. he stayed on the bus and tried to nap as best he could. he has been sleeping since 3 pm when we got back from the tour. i feel bad for the guy. he is so weak and tired. he doesnt have the energy to get out of bed for anything....nothing at all. his head aches, his entire body aches, he is coughing and a complete mess. tomorrow he plans to stay back in the room for the entire day to sleep...unless he gets better in the night. i got to practice my three spanish words at the pharmacy today when i went to get him some medicine. that was fun.

breakfast was good here at the hostel. everyone puts yop on their cereal instead of milk and many put cocoa powder in the mix as well. everyone has dulce de luce <caramal spread< on a baguette. its good. malaya likes it. i have mostly been eating sandwiches from corner stores. they are quite good. i just havent seen a lot of restaurants other than fast food. i think it is the street we are staying on.

after 3 p.m. malaya and i ventured out on our own and just walked around for a few hours. i kept coming back to check in on mark. nothing exciting to report there.

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