buenos noches

<today malaya and i ventured out again just the two of us while mark rested in bed. his fever broke in the night and he is feeling a bit better. he slept most of the morning, part of the afternoon and after being up for a few hours he is back in bed by 730 p.m. what a trooper.

<i decided to go to the famous recoleta cemetary. it is far from my hotel so i asked the hostel staff directions on how to get there by public transit. you cannot take a stroller on a bus so i had my hands full getting malaya out of the stroller, ensuring she did not run into street while at the same time folding up the stroller and getting the diaper bag, water bottle and camera together...oh and getting out my money for the bus too. it sounds hectic but it was really fun. it felt like a mini adventure. taking a bus is a fantastic and dirt cheap way to see the heart of any city.

on the bus i came to found out you must pay by coins and guess what....i didnt have any change. i decided to just park my bum and hope nobody cared. the wierd thing is that after 2 or 3 stops the bus driver starts talking to me and i didnt understand anything but ´monai, monai´ i showed him a bill and told him i didnt speak spanish. then the guy totally freaked out at me and motioned for me to get off the bus. all sorts of passengers were speaking to me in spanish. i have no clue what they were saying. i had to get off the bus. as luck would have it, i got off only 2 blocks from the cemetary. i would have never realized that was my stop so that was a really lucky moment for me.

walking around the cemetary was pretty cool. itś all huge mausoleums. malaya kept pointing to all the statues in there. i have no idea who anyone in there was but iḿ told there are many many very famous people there. i decided not to pack a travel book on this trip to lighten my load and the down side is iḿ walking around the cemetary curious about everything.

after the cemetary and lunch she fell asleep in the stroller and i began my journey to the botnical gardens. some asshole starting screaming at his group of school kids right next to me and malaya woke up after only 30 minutes. she normally naps for 2 hours and 30 minutes <maybe less'< this is now 4 days this poor child hasnt slept on schedule. of course she wouldnt go back to sleep after that. she was pretty good though...for being tired all afternoon.

my second attempt at the bus failed. i was prepared that time with change but i got on the wrong bus and ended up who knows where. i didnt see any tourists. that was cool but being lost wasnt so great. i did eventually find my way. the bus drove right off my tourist map so i had to walk for a while to find my place on the map. when i finally found my place i saw a subway entrance and decided to go for it. what a joy that was. i went up and down a massive amount of stairs with malaya in her stroller to get down to the subway and then to transfer and then to transfer again and then to get out of the subway. a stroller doesnt fit through turnstyles either. by that point i decided to go back to the room and skip the gardens.

i found mark napping and then after i convinced him to come outside for an hour or two the rain started. he was happy about that. eventually after a few hours of loungin we did go back out. we took the subway to the botanical gardens and walked for a bit. the poor guy was so tired that he had to stop and rest a few times on the benches in the gardens. malaya had an empanada for dinner and made a good mess on herself.

after the gardens mark and malaya went back to the hotel and i walked to the laundry to pick up our wash. there is no self wash laundry here so i had to pay someone to wash for me. itś about 7 dollars per small load and we accumulate a load per day. i told mark today that we are going to have to start hand washing becuase iḿ too cheap. i dont know if he is going to go for that.

iḿ starting to get on local time. im trying to hold out for dinner. no one eats here until 9 or 10 p.m. im down in the lobby writing on my blog and people are cooking up dinner. i saw someone today mixing up rice, corn, peas, tomatoes and some sauce. interesting.

the locals here seem really nice and very polite. i think tomorrow when we leave buenos aires we may start to notice things are different around us. <i hear buenos aires is really a big city with very cosmotolian citizens and sights. my mom says the city looks european but iḿ not sure about that. maybe in some parts it looks french and spanish but others look straight out of eastern europe or yugoslavia.

saturday we fly to san carlos de bariloche. we will go from a youth hostel to a very nice time share. i cannot wait for the luxury. all i know about bariloche is that it is a resort town famous for skiing and other outdoor activities. it is in the lake district and has nice scenery. it is also famous for chocolate. omg i cannot wait.

buenos noches

<andrea

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