Advertisement
Photovoltaic Flower
A slightly scaled down version will do me just fine (of the flower that is). Arriving in Sao Paulo was a strange feeling. Although we have only been away from Australia for five weeks (and in Argentina for the last one) walking through the airport on Brasilian soil there was a sense of ‘coming home’. Especially strange given ‘home’ is currently a hotel room. At least there are a lot more clothes here than in the one small suitcase we took to Buenos Aires with the intention of staying for the weekend.
We left Buenos Aires on Saturday evening after collecting our new visas on Friday afternoon. You have got to love bureaucracy, we applied for our visa on Tuesday, effectively had them approved on the spot, they are actually stamped with Tuesdays date, but we couldn’t collect them until 4pm on Friday because they take three working days to be issued, hmmmm. Interestingly, when entering Brasil the guy at the immigration counter was more interested in having a chat than looking at our visas and even stamped Brett’s apparently ‘non valid’ visa and asked me if I’d ever been to Brasil before.
The upside to all of this is Buenos Aires is a great place and we had more time to explore. I
A quiet beer
Didn't want to be outdone by Daniel (a beer in every holiday snap!) look forward to going back to Argentina and seeing some more of the country. A visit to the Mendoza region definitely wouldn’t go astray!
On Wednesday night we decided to visit a bar where people go to dance tango (and observe). After going to Milion for a cocktail we headed to La Catedral, which we had read in several sources was the place to be. The closed front door and boarded up nature of the establishment didn’t look so promising. There were three people standing at the door talking on the intercom to someone (presumably up the stairs we could see). It seems that in the week this place opens “to friends”, but this night it wasn’t to be. Upon hearing this news one of the guys left for home, but the other two (seemingly a couple that had not long been together) were keen to dance, so they invited us to join them. We were keen, so off we walked. I would suggest we covered approximately half of the city (well, almost). It was a good 30 minutes at a cracking pace. There was concern we would be too early as it was only midnight, but we pursued
The Obelisk
Mine's bigger than yours!! (and it's in the middle of a gazilion (16) lane road that is apparently in the guiness book of records) this option anyway. We finally arrived and you could be forgiven for thinking you had walked into an RSL. Downstairs where the dancing was going on was essentially a large hall with some tables around the edge. Luckily beer was available (7 pesos or A$3.50 for a 1litre bottle), so we sat down to observe. There were plenty of people of all ages and varying abilities there practicing and/or strutting their stuff. It’s a long time since we did our whole 8 lessons of tango, but we could have been out there having a go and not looked too out of place compared to some (and that’s saying something!) Personally I particularly liked the four songs when the music changed to rock and roll and we had some good sixties tunes pumping and the jiving started. It seemed a little odd to me, but who am I to judge?
My favourite thing in Buenos Aires was the big flower that operated on photovoltaic cells, opening in the daytime and closing at night (or whenever there isn’t enough light, but I guess you could probably figure out that bit for yourself). It was apparently a gift from England (presumably an
Violin, violin, violin......
At the Teatro Colon, I don't think the Avalanches played there though. “ooops sorry, we really didn’t mean to do that mean, nasty stuff before” kind of present.) So now I want one, not that big of course. As you can probably guess Brett thinks it’s a ‘particularly good idea’ and is already insisting I enlist ‘professional assistance’, he probably has visions of that halfish finished reindeer……
The other place we visited that was pretty impressive was the Teatro Colon. My initial attraction was due to the theatre’s name. I later found out that it is classed as one of the top five opera houses in the world and the attraction increased. It is testament to patience, construction started in 1890 and finished in 1908, three architects later (apparently being an architect and working on this project wasn’t good for your health). A lot of the materials of construction (particularly the marble) was shipped from Italy and there are many other features (chandeliers, statues, carvings) that also came from Europe. During the tour we sat briefly inside the theatre itself and were lucky enough to hear a section of the orchestra rehearsing. The acoustics truly were fantastic, it would be great to see a show there sometime. The other interesting part of the building was during the sixties they expanded - downwards. There are three or four basement levels built under the theatre and underneath the roads running either side of the theatre. It is in here that all of the costumes, shoes, wigs, jewellery, sets are made and the rehearsal rooms are located, everything is made in house! The warren of corridors in the basement was the section of the theatre that most reminded me of its name….
That all means that it’s back to work tomorrow after a week of unexpected holidays. I do however have another highlight, today discovered the ability subscribe to access AFL match television coverage (along with press conferences etc) and watched the final quarter of West Coast vs Geelong. You don’t get access to the coverage until 24hrs after the match is played, but I am still pretty happy about it! My lowlight was being late to get my tips in and only getting 7 instead of 8…..oh well, them’s the breaks!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0463s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
martin hoffer
non-member comment
mahoffer@hotmail.com
I am argentinian...where did you read that the flower was a british present?!. I live in front of the flower....nobody told me that. I guess no major would receive a present from England. In fact, the flower is to pretty to come from those tasteless fellows...