An Eastern European Madrid

This morning we had a great breakfast at the Hotel BoBo.

Buenos Aires is a city of over 12 million people - it sprawls with large office buildings and apartment towers mile after mile. The architecture and feel of the city reminded us a lot of Madrid. Because nearly every building needs a fresh coat of paint, J likens it more to an Eastern European version of Madrid.

Today we took the subway down to Plaza de Mayo (say Masho - y is pronounced as sh here!). The Casa Rosada at one end of the square houses the Parliament (but you can't go inside). We also checked out the Cathedral which looks very modern on the outside, but just like any cathedral in Europe on the inside.

We ended up wandering to Manzana de las Luces, the site of the first university in the city. It was here that we were mobbed by a huge school group of 15 year olds from Cordoba! They all wanted to practice their English and asked us lots of questions about how we liked Argentina, what kind of music we like, etc. When we suggested taking a group photo, they started clapping and singing "Photo, photo, photo!" We later learned that this was from a cell phone commercial on TV here. It was great fun visiting with such enthusiastic students.

On the way back to the subway, we came across some type of protest. There were several news vans around so we approached a lady standing near one eating her lunch to ask what the story was. Turns out, she is Gabrielle, a "woman on the street" reporter for the C5N network here from 1-10 PM each day. She explained that the protesters were employees of the government accounting office protesting the firing of some of their collegues for blowing the whistle on the true government spending figures.

Tonight we decided we just had to take a tango lesson! The hotel set us up at L'Ideal from 9-10:30 PM. There were about 7 couples in our class and a male and female instructor. It was great fun; we learned some basic steps and got a nice little workout in the process. The dance hall then opened up to locals to come in and practice, there were some amazing dancers among them. By this time we were hungry and headed over to La Brigada for some Argentinian steaks! We arrived at 11:45 and had to wait for a table!! The food was excellent and the atmosphere made it fun.

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