This morning we went down to explore the breakfast buffet and arrived at the dining room at the same time as the tour of teenagers. So we had to wait a while for our coffee and croissants.
Our tour guide for the City tour was waiting at the reception and surprisingly pronounced our names correct. We jumped on the bus and snagged the front row seats for best visibility as the bus lumbered through the Monday morning traffic to collect the other tour attendees from their hotels.
A small aside on Traffic in Buenos Aires. There is a lot of pedastrian traffic on the pavements. Inevitably the people behind you are walking fast and the people in front of you are walking slow. It is close on impossible to walk side by side with some one. And quite easy to get separated from your beloved by a crowd of other people moving at the same pace as you. Driving on the other hand, is worse and only to be attempted by the locals and the completely hyperactive insane.
But back to the city tour... The rest of the people on the tour were south american and mostly from Brasilia and so we were the only non-Spanish speakers. The tour guide spoke mostly in Spanish and then repeated the summarised version in English. We drove past a whole Bunch of gardens and monuments and statues and outdoor sculptures in northern BA. Finally we stopped at the government houses - where the presidents office is. It is called the Pink Palace because of the mix of red and white stone used to plaster the building long ago. i thought it was a rather amusing coincidence that the current president is Female and her office building is called the Pink Palace... The tour guide, alas, did not.
In the same area we also wandered through the Cathedral Metropolitan - which is the biggest in the city and took photos of the old city hall.
Then we jumped back on the bus (it was surprisingly very cold today) and drove onwards to La Boca which had many touristy photo opportunities and finally to the local soccer stadium. As you can see these two places made no impression on me and hence I write little of it. We stopped of in La Boca and bought two coffees and a bottle of water and were charged 50 Pesos for our patronage which amounts to about R100 so I am a little jaded on the whole tourist area thing.
After the tour we were dropped off back near the hotel and decided to go look for a bite of lunch to eat. We walked to a place called The Coffee Shop and had A cup of very strong brasilian coffee and a quiche. (MrHusband had a sandwich kinda thing). We picked up a vibe that the locals aren't too keen on British people and so we usually talk to the waitresses in Afrikaans until they ask for English please. Lots of pointing and gesturing usually works too. however, talking as often as possible in Afrikaans is helping me improve a lot. A Win for the New Bosman Family I think.
After lunch we returned to the hotel to meet our travel agents representitive who exchanged our USD's into Pesos and gave us our updated itinerary and vouchers. Since we have a mostly free day tomorrow, He also offered to escort us to the opera house to book for a show. (tomorrow is the ballet instead but eh, here's some culture none the less) while we were out, striding across the city, he gave us a walking tour of the area including Florida road which is a long pedastrian street and a mall with a beautiful ceiling painting and some recommendations of resturants to eat Argentine Beef and find good quality curios. Finally he showed us how to use the underground and we took a train back to the hotel.
We emerged from the steps from our stations stop feeling very empowered and independent and ready to take on the city... And promptly got lost. Fortunately we traced back our steps and figured out where we were supposed to go to get to our hotel.
This afternoon on our second impromtu city tour we walked a pretty long long way at quick pace and so MrT and I are pretty tired out again. We feel all old and cold and grumpy. We had a short nap and then caved and went to Burger King for dinner. (i can hear all the tourism experts weeping "they went all the way to Argentina to eat Burger King!!! Disgraceful!!") but at least it was close by.
Now we are taking our tired old legs to bed and ready to face our free day tomorrow where we will be visiting (by that I mean walking and walking and walking) some museums, the Gallileo planetarium, the Japanese gardens and perhaps the old Port. And hopefully Hopefully kick my new sniffle - sneezing - blocked nose by morning.
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