Monday, February 02, 2009

Crossed wires

Another day in Buenos Aires, another underwhelming breakfast, enlivened more by conversation than anything else (and to be honest, a lot of that in Milhouse focused more on the "bloody hell, what did I drink last night?" avenue than anything more serious), in this case with Danyel, an Aussie girl who I think I must have bumped into at breakfast every day there. My plan for the day was to try and meet up with Ana, my Argentine friend from Floripa, for lunch before her work in the afternoon. Here, unfortunately, we had a case of crossed wires, largely my fault I think, such that I ended up down at Puerto Madero, the district we'd been talking about going to for lunch, and she came to the hostel to find me. D'Oh! So I had to content myself with having an ice-cream and looking around the newest district of Buenos Aires. It was originally built as Buenos Aires' harbour at the end of the 19th century, but this was done just before the innovations in shipbuilding which resulted in much larger ships and meant that it had become obsolete less than 20 years after it was finished. The area sat fallow until the late 1980s at which point, in a story familiar to many residents of former industrial cities in the UK, it was converted into restaurants, bars and new housing, becoming the newest residential district of the capital.

After this, I walked back up towards the hostel, going past the Casa Rosada and Plaza de Mayo along the way, where (surprise, surprise) there was a demonstration in progress. Ana reckons the Argentines have got so used to people always protesting about something that the police don't bother to respond now most of the time, such that the city hall (at the other end of the Plaza from the Pink House) had its ground floor liberally spattered with red and blue paint stains, and apparently it has to be repainted every month or so to stop it getting totally pebble-dashed.

Much of the rest of the afternoon was spent aimlessly wandering around the city centre, catching up on the internet, buying myself a watch (my nice one stays at home, and I lost my last cheap one in China, so I had to get one here in South America) and some sunglasses (again, I have my prescription ones with me, but prefer not to wear them all the time, especially on boat trips and the like, to avoid scratching and potential loss - and I didn't get any in Brasil as most of those there are just coloured plastic, being intended more as a fashion statement than as sun protection for the eyes...), and managing to add to my collection of flag patches. Buenos Aires seems pretty well stocked with places selling them, so I now have the appropriate ones for Uruguay and Paraguay, as well as for Cuba (I could not find one while out there for love nor money) and, surprisingly, Slovenia (I had been looking for one of these for over 2 years with no luck and I find one over here!). A mammoth sewing session beckons.

That evening, I was feeling relatively tired after my perambulations about town, so I ended up doing what I despaired of some of the Milhouse inmates for doing, and just staying in having a few drinks at the hostel bar rather than going out at all. In this we were joined by a German lass named Tina, another of those studying in South America. It all started off relatively well, but as per usual the hostel bar resorted to the usual tactics of playing loud Hip-Hop music as the night went on, and my enthusiasm for anything other than my bunk just withered and died.