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Published: September 17th 2007
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Congress Building
Modelled upon the Congress Building in Washington. Hola!
After what felt like days of travelling, we finally arrived in Buenos Aires last Saturday. Needless to say, after minimal sleep and a 36 hour journey, we were exhausted upon arrival...
Our trip started at 3:00am in Brisbane with a flight to Sydney and a connecting flight to Aukland.
However, in Aukland a mechanical malfunction saw us sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours followed by 3 more hours waiting in the terminal for an update. Finally, we were informed that our flight had been cancelled and we were to spend the night in Aukland.
Happily, Lan Chile booked us into the Langham Hotel and we were treated with a buffet dinner at midnight and breakfast the following morning. Even better, after 24 hours without sleep, one of the largest and most comfortable beds ever experience...
Our first week in Buenos Aires was spent reviewing our trusty map and deciding in which direction we would walk that day. We have seen some beautiful buildings, theatres and monuments on our walks... quite often by accident given directional mastery is not our strong suit.
Buenos Aires has some amazing architecture and has a certain Euopean feel
Julien´s first breakfast
Ordered in Spanish... check me out to it. In certain areas you could be mistaken for thinking you were wandering along the laneways of Paris... including obligatory dog mess everywhere...
Unfortunately, a population of over 13 million people seems content to litter everywhere and many public buildings are covered in graffiti. Pollution also seems to be a significant blight on the city, which is not surprising given the traffic which is consistently heavy all day and night.
The apartment we are renting for our time in BA is on the fringe of Palermo. It is about an hour´s walk to the microcentro which is the downtown, touristy part of the city. The contrast between where we´re staying and the part of town that most tourists probably see is remarkable.
It seems that crime is or was a real threat here in BA. When shops are closed, they´re really closed... Each shop is barred and chained and a roller door comes down in front so that the streets really have no unprotected glass at street level. We´ve never seen anything like it before.
Interestingly, fewer people than expected seem to speak english here so our spanish phrase book has been getting quite a
work out! We´ve also booked into a language course which we hope will help.
Despite our difficulties, everyone we have dealt with has been very patient so that has made things quite easy. If all else fails, our skills at charades has been very handy.
Some first impressions:
1. All the streets are one-way. Most of the avenues have about five lanes, however, there is no lane markings: everyone just goes with the flow... merging and turning at will! It´s absolutely terrifying to watch, however, we have not seen one accident since we´ve been here.
2. Every intersection has a zebra crossing for pedestrians. However, a person on a zebra crossing does not have right of way to cross the road - even a "green man" still does not mean that the person crossing the street is safe. Basically, you have to hold your breath every time you step on to the street and run for it!
3. The city is enormous and the pollution makes the buildings quite dirty. It seems that almost all the buildings are the same dirty grey colour. A big bath of soap and water would make a huge difference
to how pretty this place looks.
4. Walking the streets has been a very interesting experience... imagine Melbourne´s Bourke Street Mall, on school holidays, at 1:00pm on a Monday and you´ll get an impression of what the sidewalks are like ALL THE TIME!
We took a tour of an area known as La Boca which is one of the poorer suburbs of BA. Many of the houses are made of corrugated iron due to lack of money, so traditionally the houses were painted bright colours to overcome the poor quality of materials. We also toured La Boca stadium which is famously known as being the local club of Maradonna... hopefully we will be back on the weekend to see a match which is meant to be a great experience, complete with riot police and water cannons.
We were warned not to wander from the tourist path in La Boca and the suburb certainly had a fairly sinister feel to it... as well as a hideous smell due to industrial pollution in the waterways... Luckily I had Lynsey to look after me though...
On Saturday night we decided it was time to play so we headed to
Pasha nightclub which is associated with Ministry of Sound and has a sister club in Ibizia. In typical latino style, the night didnt kick off until 2:00am so it was a very late night and groggy day on Sunday. Lots of fun and dodgy dancing I assure you although thankfully there was no podium involved...
Next stop: Iguazu Falls.
We´ll update this blog when we get a chance and when we´ve got something new to say! Hope everyone at home is well.
Love Lynsey and Jules.
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Harry and Carnie
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usted es muy caliente ahora!!!!!!
Hey beautiful peoples, hope all is well - love the blog! see you both in London soon. T + C ps. the title is "you are so hot right now" in spanish!!!!!!