Impressions & Impersonations Of Buenos!

Some graffiti around the streets.

Myself & Ric aren’t doing to badly! Even though we were tired & it was nearly 1am, we decided to head out to see if we could find a beer. We were both of the mind that you can’t just arrive in a new place & go to bed!! We were armed with the Lonely Planet’s BA guide and set out in search of our first Argentine cervesa! We found one & upon trying to enter, found that the door was locked!! The barman came over & opened the door & let us in!! What a great guy!! He didn’t really speak any English but we managed to procure ourselves a couple of beers. It appeared as if we were getting locked in with the Staff for their knock offs!! Was a great way to welcomed to Buenos! Also a great & basic training ground for Ric & I to test our basic Spanish!! We ended up having a few rounds & wandered back home.

The following day, mainly due to jetlag (!), we woke up early afternoon!! (Which was to be standard for most of our stay!!) My first bit of business for the day was to fashion a very sexy & stylish set of shorts from one of my pairs of jeans that had developed holes in both knees over the course of Tour!! We wandered out & found our local café. I ordered a café con crème - which is basically an double expresso with cream added. Man did it taste good - especially after the American “this was filtered around 12hrs ago but because it’s on a warmer, it’s still good!” crap that has become the norm after 2 or so months. It was actually damn fine coffee & rates up there with Polish coffee & also Egyptian coffee - which is pretty much of Turkish style.

Giz has a refreshing cervesa after walking around in the heat for the first time in months!!

The menu was all in Spanish & pretty much no English was spoken by the wait staff. This kind of situation I love. I’ve eaten many times by way of “The Point” - be it from a street vendor or off a menu. It takes you out of your comfort zone & forces you to adapt & not necessarily take risks, but at least have a small gamble!! I have had some of my best meals whilst travelling this way. Also a couple of crazy dishes as well but that’s half the fun!!

In this situation we both had a rough idea of how to ask basic things & this combined with my very basic knowledge of food in Spanish - picked up during Tango when the Company was bought dinner on each 2 show day put us in good stead. We were also armed with a Lonely Planet Spanish Guide which I’d first seen way back @ The Peacock in London & had managed to obtain @ Melb Airport. So in fact, the whole “Point” meal wasn’t as true to “The Point” as it should have been! Regardless, I ended up with a chicken & rice salad which was pretty tasty!! Granted, I had no idea it was a salad or that it would be served cold or contain rice but I did know it had chicken (pollo but pronounced posh-o) in it & that there were tomatoes!! Even with Ric’s fussy eating he still managed out point out a meal that was acceptable to his dietary ways!! I hate to think what he would have done when travelling a couple of years ago - especially with a language barrier!!

A familiar street name with memories of my old place in St Kilda!

The Manger came out & spoke with us briefly. It was a funny little situation, we were both trying out our newly learnt Spanish & Stephan was trying out his quite good English on us!! He was a cool guy & the next time we visited the café he came out & proudly showed us a boomerang key ring he owned. We had the feeling that he’d rummaged around at this house to show his new found Aussies something. He sat with us (he actually stood the whole time!) for around an hour and we spoke of the Faulklands, Patagonia (way south of BA) and a motorcycle trip he’d done a few years before, complete with photos. Stephan was a great guy & it was nice to make another friend along the way.

The first bar Ric & I stopped at on our 1st day. Didn't notice the name til way after we'd sat down! Quite fitting really!!

The rest of the day, well more like evening & night seeing as we got up so late, was spent just walking around the town & exploring. Ric became “Map Man” and guided us through and around the crazy intertwining streets that make up Buenos. Ric was “MM” for the rest of our time in Buenos so when I return (& I plan too), I will have no idea of where to go as I didn’t even look at the map - except for when we were sitting down and Ric would go “We’re here & we could go here or here?”!!

Map Man @ work!

That’s been one of the joys about travelling with Ric, neither of us discuss it but one of us takes the lead in any given situation, be it big or small. There hasn’t been a heated moment or anything remotely like that. Just nice & easy going for the entire time. A few people asked when they knew of the trip if they thought it would work…? I’m guessing that they don’t have an actual friendship with their siblings..? Neither of us had any hesitation that it wouldn’t work, or I know I didn’t & there was nothing visible from Ric’s end. This is also the most time we’ve spent together since Ric spent two weeks up in Ballarat during his Winter holidays in my 2nd Year of Uni - a good 11 years ago!! Before that would have been the last of the big driving holidays Dad, he & I used to take. Due to my crazy theatre hours, now compounded by the Tour & Ric’s Police roster, we don’t get to hang out as much as I reckon we’d both like too. We’ve already discussed Adventure II…

A ye olde building.

The architecture around Buenos is quite amazing. Nothing like Melbourne at all. It has echo’s of Paris in regards to the grandeur but the residential apartment blocks are very similar to Cairo, Egypt. Tall & narrow with air conditioners hanging off every window sill!! The one, truly beautiful thing about BA is that it’s so green. Not just in regards to the brownness of water restricted Australia but they have so many trees growing along the streets & the main city centre has numerous park areas. It’s nice to see that despite the large population, there has still been enough foresight to keep pockets of green everywhere.

I sent out emails to the Tango kids before we left San Fran and have received one back from Pablo & Mariella about the football. So far, no other response from the others… They better make contact or there’ll be trouble!!

A tree lined street.