Buenos Aires

We have been in Buenos Aires about a week maybe... can't really keep track of time anymore. It is full of suits and trendy people in black half-running all over, not unlike New York. Because of the excellent exchange rate, we decided to upgrade from a hostel to a fabulous two star hotel with our very own bathroom, shower, and a maid that even brings us shampoo everyday (I have been squirreling it away for future use).

We have seen ALL the city sites- San Telmo and a street tango, La Boca (sucked and too far), La Casa Rosada, Congress building (which is modelled after our very own and I'm sure is very lovely if you can actually glimpse it through the cloud of nasty pigeons), Teatro Colon, Obelisk thingy, the Plaza de Mayo, Recoleta to see the cemetary, the Fine Art Museum blah blah. We also spent a day in Tigre and the river delta, where we walked a bit and saw all the little houses along the banks. We have even seen a street demonstration with thousands of out of work piqueteros who yelled and played drums and spent the night a few blocks from us in the Plaza de Mayo.

We have encountered many interesting characters in our stay here. A crazy guy in the Quicksilver store insisted on telling all his co- workers that we were American, and then just HAD to kiss us before we left. We spent most of our day in Tigre listening to a diatribe from a restaurant owner. We learned: he has black friends in the States (lots of people have talked to us about black people for some unknown reason), Argentina has a terrible government and the past president is not a gentleman, his meat prices have gone up from $3pesos to $5pesos in one week, and lots of other great things. Lots of people have commented we are pigs because we eat big dinners, while the people here prefer a large lunch. We are just doing both, I think. The taxi drivers have also been full of interesting info- one showed us counterfeit money, another told us where to hear good tango music. Twice now we have almost started fights amoung them, however, because we apparently do not know the protocol on how to choose them.

Besides that, I have made bad food decisions, and ended up once with tripe, which looks so incredibly disgusting, but tasted ok after I finally tried it. I also got some weird jello chick stuff. Also not too bad if you ignore the apperance.

Tomorrow we are off to La Plata, highly recommended by our taxi driver today and the crazy Quicksilver employee, then to Uruguay, where we can hopefully still get money from the banks and all that jazz. We'll keep you all posted.

PATTY and ALISON