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Published: July 21st 2008
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Buenos Airies June 08
First of all, massive thanks to Bro and Hollers for coming over to visit us. I had a superb 30th birthday , cheers.
The two weeks with the above two didn't start as smoothly as we would have liked ! We had arranged a flightfrom Rio to Buenos Airies the night before Bro and Hollers'arrival, we landed around midnight, got into a hotel near the airport knowing that we wouldn't be getting much sleep. In bed around 2am , we were then back in the arrivals at 7.45am. We prepared our 'welcome signs'and then the long wait began.........8.45...........9..........9.30..........10........10.30 .....still no sign. I went to the Iberia desk to be informed that 'Mr McCabe and Mr Hollingsworth have missed their flight'. I won't put in print my initial thoughts ! ( Their flight from Heathrow to Madrid had been delayed causing them to miss the connection ) . But, said Mr Iberia, they are on the next flight which will land at 8pm. I walked back to Gill ,who was still holding the signs up, and explained what had happened. We couldn't be bothered to do the one hour journey into central BA only to come
The long wait starts......
.... and the welcome signs go up. Honey Monster and Fish eyes were a long way away though back a few hours later, so we had a day in arrivals instead !
When they eventually turned up ( only12 hours late ) and explained what had happened, we had a laugh about it, got a taxi ( with a crazy driver ) and headed into central BA and the hostel we had booked. We dumped our bags and went out for a steak. Going for a steak combined with plenty of beer was to prove a popular option for the next 2 weeks and Gill was bored to death with football talk from day one.
The next day started with Gill feeling a bit unwell, we left her to get better for the evening and went and got out of the way the things that she wouldn´t be interested in doing ........i.e. tours of football stadiums and Hooters ! The tour was of La Bombanera ( Boca Juniors stadium ) , we did the usual dressing rooms/trophy rooms/ pitch ....etc Our guide made it for us ! His broken english explanations were funny and the passion with which he said the name of a certain Diego Armando Maradona can´t be described ! When we arrived later
Gill was feeling better and we probably went out for another steak.
My birthday arrived and we were all feeling pretty rough after the night before, i woke up surrounded by balloons to celebrate being 30 ( thanks again Mum x and Bro for blowing them up ! ) .We decided to head to La boca for a few afternoon drinks. La Boca is a very touristy area filled with market stalls, colourful buildings and tango dancers. Unfortunately the dancers are not showing off their skills but grabbing tourists for photos as you will see above ! It was a quality afternoon in the sun with a few beers. Because of our mistakes on the nights before, we decided to have a little siesta between 8 and 11. This looked like it had backfired, we all got ready and headed to the McDonalds on the corner for some quick food, nothing was said between the 4 of us fror at least 20 mins and the 30th birthday celebrations were not looking lively to say the least ! I think if it had been any other night, all of us would have just gone back to bed. But in the
taxi ( to the lively Palermo area ) it was decided that we needed to liven up ....and quick. 4 large Vodka´s and Speed ( Argentina´s red bull equivalent ) were ordered, we asked for large and my god did we get large ! You have never seen measures like it. 3 or 4 of these and we were all back on form ! It was a great night, we ended up in a 24 hour restaurant around half 7 and still had time for another beer before the taxi home. An unbelieveable effort given the earlier scenes in McDonalds.
The steak in Argentina on the whole is amazing, but we managed to find two places that took it to the next level. The first was called El Establo in Central Buenos ( thanks to Claire and Toby for the recomendation ) , the steaks were huge and cooked to perfection, we loved it. Our waiter was a nice fella, he gave Me and Gill our best laugh of the night by managing to pour sauce all over Bro and Hollers ! It was also quite strange at the end to be given calenders with naked women on (
The Obelisco
central Buenos Airies, always were our taxi headed to as we never remembered the street names of our hostels. a special man one was produced for Gill ! ). We didn´t think we could out do El Establo, but La Cabrera was steak heaven. First of all the free champagne was a winner as we waited to be seated. We all made the mistake of ordering side dishes, these wouldn´t be needed at all ! The steaks were huge and not one of us got anywhere near finishing one.
We booked some rugby tickets for the middle weekend, it was Argentina v Scotland in Rosario ( about 4 hours north of BA ) . On the morning of us leaving i felt absolutely awful and ended up not being able to go. Bro and Hollers made the trip and enjoyed it, they then spent a couple of days in Rosario and Cordoba ( this had been the plan for all of us ) before returning to BA. On their return i was a lot better after 5 days in bed, i think Gill was even more pleased to see them after putting up with my whingeing for days !
On another day we went to Recoleta, home to the grave of Evita. We joined 500 tourists wandering
around a cemetry, a very nice cemetry it has to be said, looking for Evitas grave. It did feel a little strange taking a photo of someones grave though. Around the cemetry was a quality market selling all kinds, we had a good wander around for a couple of hours.Hungover shopping must be a favourite in the McCabe family, i did well in Thailand with a terrible photo album. Bro outdid me in Recoleta though, with the worst collection of tourist tat ever seen ! I won´t embarrass him with his list of purchases.
On the sporting front along with the rugby we also went to the world cup qualifier between Argentina and Equador. The hostel had run out of tickets but were charging a lot for literally a ticket and bus ride, we decided to get to the ground early and speak to the touts ! This was to prove difficult in Spanish. It has to be said the experience was far better than the game itself ! We all ended up feeling sorry for Equador, they scored first, silencing the crowd after about 60 mins. Argentina got a lucky equaliser with literally the last kick of the
Press conference - Boca sign 3 new players
The Argentian press couldn't believe the 'bulk' of the new signings game. On another evening we went for a competitive game of ten pin bowling, the first game was won by Gill, who seemed to enjoy beating the lads a bit too much ! We all ending winning a game each, but the arguments continued into the night as to who was the best bowler.
The lads left and we were a bit sad. We soon got over it though ! Before we left Buenos Airies we went to a tango lesson and show ! In the first hour or so we learnt the steps ...etc This was followed buy some dinner and then the show itself. The dancing was amazing to watch , i think we may need a bit more practice.
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