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Published: December 27th 2009
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We write this following a wonderful and relaxing first week in Buenos Aires.
We stayed in a hotel suite right in downtown for 4 nights as our apartment wasn't available until the 23rd December. It gave us a chance to explore downtown at leisure.
Our first day was a Sunday so everything downtown was closed. The place to go was San Telmo and to get there we took a grotty train from a grotty subway station - it made London's underground look clean & modern.
San Telmo is an historic area with the most amazing and huge antiques and crafts Sunday Market. While we weren't there to buy anything it was a great place to walk around and get an introduction to Buenos Aires culture. There were loads of buskers, from Tango dancers & traditional bands to guitar strummers and puppeteers. The sweetest buskers by far were two young boys, one of them could only have been 3 years old, playing on their accordions (badly I have to say, but they were sooooo cute). We finished off the day with a cold beer in a tango bar and for the price of a beer we got tango dancers,
flamenco dancers and a band.
We did a "BA Free Tour" on day 2 so we could get to know the city a bit better. Basically the guided tour was free and you were asked to give a tip at the end of it. The tour was interesting, all on foot, for a couple of hours. We were given a brief history of numerous historical buildings dotted along the way. One particularly strange building was an old factory maybe 20 stories high and atop it was a house - a normal 2 up 2 down type house perched on the roof. Apparently the owner of the factory built himself a house on top of his factory to save himself commuting time. Then there was a beautiful building that was built as a memorial to Dante the great Italian writer, however Dante had never even been to Buenos Aires. There was the Casa Rosada which was was were Eva Peron did her famous address to the nation from the balcony. It is now a government building. Finally we went to the square where the Mothers of the Disappeared still meet every Thursday to demonstrate against their loved ones who "went
Tango Dancers
A more "mature" couple missing" during the military dictatorship of 1976 - 1983.
While we headed down Avenida de Mayo there was a protest which closed the road and apparently there are two or three protests down that road every single day.
Downtown Buenos Aires is a city like many others in Europe - we could have been in Italy, France or Germany. The architecture was European and the general feel of the city was too. People dressed nicely and we hardly felt like we were in South America.
Another day and we took to a vast shopping mall which had a Museum de los Ninos (Children's Museum). It wasn't really a museum, but more of a themed play centre with different areas dedicated to different aspects of everyday life so the children could do role playing. For example, there was a child sized McDonalds restaurant where the children put on aprons and prepared burgers and fries for us. Then there was a construction site where they used foam bricks to construct walls with wheelbarrows, buckets, etc - everything was just the right size for a 5 year old. Then there were film studios, a maternity hospital (with baby dolls), football
pitch and much much more. As you can imagine Amy had an absolute ball and we promised to bring her back one day. There's nothing like it in the UK.
That evening we all went to the Luna Park theatre for a production of The Nutcracker Ballet. The costumes were beautiful and couldn't have been better. The dancing was exquisite and induced cries of "bravo" from the audience. It went on till quite late and Amy fell asleep in the last 30 minutes, but what she did see she loved, especially the dancing soldiers.
As we left the theatre and walked back to the hotel we saw dozens of people (cartoneros) going through the rubbish bags put out by the shops. They were ripping open the bags and throwing it all over while they searched for anything of value. Perhaps they were homeless, but undoubtedly very poor. There were some families setting up their cardboard boxes to sleep on for the night, some with lots of young children. Why wasn't someone looking after them? How could society let these little children sleep rough?
So we walked on and returned to the safety and comfort of our hotel
room...
Next day it was time to go to our Apartment in Palermo Viejo. It was in a great spot, right near dozens, if not hundreds, of corner restaurants and great individual shops. Palermo is filled with attractive terraced houses, apartment buildings and really great shops (oh how I wish I had some space in our backpacks for a bit of retail therapy!) The apartment has two bedrooms so for the first time in ages we have a room to ourselves and Amy gets to go to bed early. Hoorah!!
Christmas Eve we headed off to a farmers market to buy our shopping for our Christmas day feast. The quality was really good and we managed to pick up a great joint of beef for very little money. In fact the veggies and fruit cost a great deal more than the meat.
That night we put Amy to bed early and we watched as the people from the building partied downstairs in the garden. They all get together for their Christmas celebration (everyone celebrates on Christmas Eve here rather than Christmas Day) with a feast and music and lots of children playing. At midnight, Father Christmas appeared
with a massive sack of toys for all the children and they were so excited as he handed them out. (He must have snuck up to Amy's bed then as he left her a present at the end of her bed). They all partied until about 4am that morning, including the young children, while we tried to get some sleep.
Christmas morning was nice. First we had a video skype with the family in Adelaide. Then Amy opened her presents (yes she got a Barbie doll which is what she desperately wanted). We then spoke with the family in England while preparing our Christmas dinner. Bit of trauma over the oven which we couldn't get working until a neighbour came to the rescue but it worked out in the end.
It was great to have skype so that we didn't feel quite so far removed from our families.
Boxing day and we spent it relaxing, calling friends and Amy playing with her new toys. We managed to get out of a short walk and had a nice refreshing swim later in the day.
Today, well, nothing in particular planned. Just chilling, swimming and enjoying the fact
that we don't need to go anywhere.
This is our holiday from our holiday time while we recharge the batteries.
We'll write again in a week or so after we've seen a bit more of what BA has to offer.
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Jane Parkinson
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Catch Up
Just spent a lovely 1/2 hour breezing through your blog - beautiful photos and what an amazing adventure. Being in Miami we are a real mix of the cultures you have been visiting and it was so interesting to see where they come from in a different light. If you get the opportunity or need a stop over then please pop in