On the ground in BA

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I’ve done a bad thing, I’ve been in Buenos airs only an hour and I’ve feel into the temptation of the golden arches, I am in the country that cooks red meat better then any other in the world and I settle for THAT. I had no saying in the matter, once you see the golden arches, smell the sweet scent of reheated frozen hamburger patties and witness the grinning welcoming smile of that fucking clown Ronald you just can’t say no. The hidden crack or whatever drug Mackey d´s puts in its chips guides you in like a fat bird to the Ben and J counter and you just have to accept you eating it and will inevitably feel awful after the first bite. NEVER AGAIN.

Aside from my food mishap, we did a pop down to Qantas and adjusted the dates of the trip slightly, Niamh has to head home a bit earlier so we decided to head to Asia a month early in mid march rather then April which gives us more time for Elephant trekking, machine gun shooting, malaria and Niamh can see these really exciting ping pong exhibitions I’ve told her to check out.

BA is a fantastic place, we are staying in the Ritz, or at least what used to be the Ritz, the building has been converted into a hostel but it still retains the high ceilings and old fashioned lift you’d find on older buildings. The people seem lovely, I suppose living in such a nice warm city and holidaying in Zagama Beach gives them little cause for discontent.

The ceiling in our room is so high that one of my latest Blondie windups is impossible to carry out. This particular activity was discovered during our downtime in Corrientes. I was bored, without reading material and the Nintendo DS was out of volts so once Niamh went for a shower I naturally decided to take all of her clothes and hang them from the fan on the ceiling, set the fan to fast setting and await Niamhs emergence from the bathroom and subsequent hilarious uttering of disapproving "ANDREWWWWW"s.

The hostel itself is located right beside the Avenida 9 De Julio, a massive road that traverses through the centre of the city, the designers of which must be compensating for something. The De Julio is huge, not only is it miles in length but its got girth too at 130 meters wide, if our own O Connell Street had to share the urinals with De Julio it would no doubt feel inadequate and get traffic stopping stage fright. I know what you’re thinking, O Connell Street has a spire well De Julio has a big fuck off obelisk in the centre that’s far grander and allows me to make even more infantile penis related jokes when comparing it to our equivalent street at home.

The far side of the Julio from us is where all the shopping and the museums are and we intend to explore them tomorrow. On our own side is the Argentinean congress building which just dominates all it surveys. An extremely imposing building, when the zombie apocalypse comes the Argentinean government can just lock themselves inside, sip on the Quilmes and just wait for it all to blow over. If you could put the white house, the four courts and Us Congress building into Mary Harneys dessert blender, set to full power, add self raising sculpting flour and left in the 42 degree Buenos aires heat to raise then you have the Argentinean capital building. I’ve added a few pictures below, if they can do it justice.

Friday night we decided to go clubbing, this took an interesting turn as I purchased two hostel subbed entry tickets to Crobar only to find out that it being ladies night Blondie would be given free entry. As the hostel bar was dead we decided to be cheeky and fire in the cans of cheap Quilmes up in the room, a practice forbidden by the hostel we are staying in. I had the great idea of filling the sink with cold water to act as a fridge but the hostel seemed to foreseen this ploy and ensured the private bathroom sink has no plug hole. As a child of the 80´s however Saturday mornings of MacGyver and the A team coupled with plenty of alcohol at dinner lead me to attempt to fashion my own plug hole using a combination of bubblegum and sticky candy. Despite my careful combination of one part chewing gum to 2 parts chewy sweets my efforts were unsuccessful and we simply had to chug the beers while they were cold.

It was during this time that Miss Power, whose natural carefulness was exacerbated by copious consumption of Quilmes, began to speculate on the origins of the rash that has appeared near her knee, Niamh naturally thinking she has caught some sort of nefarious southern hemisphere ailment and I can tell you there was much panic in room 211. On her assistance we went through the topical medical book and were able to comprehensively rule out Dengue Fever, Malaria, meningitis, yellow fever and rabies.

Crobar was interesting, a big barn of a place like Crawdaddy with some cool lighting. I did the dance floor clearing Andy Shuffles and Niamh took some photos, in which the two of us look a right state. Niamh attempted to persuade me to have some tequila but thankfully I stood firm and stuck to the beer so that moving from our room to a dorm in a few hours time would be made considerably easier, wishful thinking considering we were both wrecks the next morning.

Up and breathing alcohol fumes we packed to head from our private room to the dorms, we carried out this task with all the efficiency and grace of a pair of greased pigs climbing up a waterslide.

Then...we set off to see Dinosaurs!

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Photos

Blondie at Congress
Bear in mind that building is miles behind her!

National Congress Building
Keeping your goverment safe in anything up to a class 4 zombie plague

Phallic- the Obelisk on de JULIO
dare O Connell Street to use the adjoining urinal.

Casa Rosa
Where the President chills out